Hallelujah for hell

heaven and UFOs

Alien
are ju
a ba
dream
IF you've been abducted . by aliens,
you're in good company it seems.
First it was Nobel
Graham
Prize winning scienPhillips
tist, Kary Mullis, who
confessed to being
snatched by ET.
Now someone even
In fact Shermer
more sceptical has ad- knows he wasn't taken
mitted to a close en- by aliens, even though
counter: Michael at the time he was
Shermer, the pub- convinced he was. It
lisher of Skeptic maga- turns out he'd just ridzine in America.
den his bike for 83
Shermer was riding hours straight and was
his bike at night when a sleep-deprived.
large spacecraft forced
A lack of shut-eye
him off the road. Aliens can cause vivid hallucigot out, whisked him nations. Indeed, these
off for 90 minutes, then fantasies can seem as
put him back where real as reality itself.
they found him.
The UFO was acKary Mullis, who tually his support vewon the Nobel Prize hicle. And the aliens
for chemistry in 1993, were his support team
was visiting his coun- taking him into the
try house late one van for a sleep.
night when he spotted
Richard McNally
a glowing, talking rac- from Harvard Univercoon on a branch.
sity has shown people
But that's the last who have these hallucithing Mullis remem- nations believe in them
bers. He woke up lying as strongly as if the
in a field, with no expla- events really occurred.
nation for the missing
That's why abductees
hours the night before. often seem convincing.
Surely if two rational
Mind you, Kary Mulmen can swear they lis doesn't believe his
were rushed off by ex- radiant raccoon was an
traterrestrials, they hallucination. He inmust have been.
sists his daughter also
But according to re- had an abduction excent research out of perience at the house.
America, these could phillipsg@sunday
have been completely
realistic hallucinations. telegraph.com.au

_s_tito) tw, n

tigk.
c

$*m hacking attack

in search of -UF.

WASHINGTON: Rock solid

majorities of Americans believe in
God, angels, heaven and hell, and
the survival of the soul after
death, according to a poll.
Big minorities also think ghosts
and UFOs exist, the Harris Interactive poll, out yesterday, found.
Eighty-two per cent of Americans have faith in God, 73 per cent
believe in miracles, and 70 per cent
think there is a heaven and that
Jesus is the son of God.
Sixty-eight per cent believe in
angels, 66 per cent in Christ's resurection, 70 per cent believe the soul
lives after death, and nearly two in
three said hell existed.
The US has long been regarded
as the most religious country in the
western world: a separate poll by
the National Opinion Research
Centre at the University of Chicago
last week found that one in two
Americans had undergone a spiri- .
tual or religious revelation.
The Harris poll found one in
three also believed in UFOs, 25 per
cent in astrology and 21 per cent
believed in reincarnation.

By DAVID STRINGER '

1G EcEMBEA_Zosi,

Theiliirf min
light's just a
Mack truck
13y ROBERT MANCUSO
MOST UFOs are just
et planes while mysterious- min min lights frOm
the Aboriginal dreamtime are nothing more
than: big Mack trucks,-.a
space expert said.
Queensland University
of Technology academic
Stephen Hughes said
most UFO phenomena
can be explained by_logic
after sightings in Queensland in the past week.. .
Dr HugheS, from the
university's School:: of
Physical and Chemical
Sciences, said one sight, ing near Mackay was actually Venus burning
brightly while another in
Brisbane was simply aircraft vapour trails.
He said while many
people did see things in
the sky, they were mostly
aircraft, satellites and
meteors.
Dr. Hughes said other
strange phenomena such
as atmospheric effects of
the sun on clouds and
lightning could easily be
mistaken for UFOs.
So too could the Mystprious Outback phenOniellen known as min min
lights, spoken of in stories
from the Aboriginal
Dreamtime and disturbing Queenslanders for
generations, he said.
"Min min lights are, sort
of d-ChaimellitiOffeet-bf
the different layers of air,
Which actually channel
truck headlights for hundreds of kilOrnetres like a
fibre optic cable_ pffect
but in the air," he -saw;,-,-

LONDON: A British computer

hacker who launched the largestever attack on US government computer networks has told a court
he was just searching for hidden
evidence of UFOs.
Gary McKinnon, 40, is facing extradition to the US on charges of damaging US Army, Air Force, Navy and
NASA computer networks.
A British judge ruled yesterday he
should be sent for trial in the US.
A final decision must be made
within two months by British Home
Secretary John Reid.
McKinnon has been indicted in the
US on charges of illegally accessing
97 computers, causing more than
$1 million damage.
Outside Bow Street Magistrates
Court in London, McKinnon said:
"My intention was never to disrupt
security. The fact that I logged on and
there were no passwords means that
there was no security.
"I was looking for UFOs."
McKinnon, who lives in London,
claimed he was seeking evidence that
the US is concealing its possession of
extraterrestrial technology.
But Judge Nicholas Evans noted he
left messages on one system protesting against US foreign policy.
"US foreign policy is akin to government sponsored terrorism," Evans
quoted one such note as saying.
The unemployed computer system
administrator was arrested in 2002.
He opposed extradition, claiming
he could face prosecution under US
anti-terror laws.
He is accused of hacking into US
government - computers including' a
system at -.the Pentagon between
February, 2001 and March 2002. ,
Court 'records in Virginia say

Extradition ... Gary McKinnon faces extradition to the US for hacking into government computer systems. picturepqp
McKinnon caused $1.16 million in
damage to computers including
private ones in 14 states.
In New Jersey, 1VIcKinnon was
accused of hacking into a network of
300 computers at the Earle Naval
Weapons Station in Colts Neck and
stealing 950 passwords.

The break-in which occurred

immediately after the September 11
attacks shut down the entire system for a week, the judge said.
The station is responsible for
replenishing the Atlantic fleet's
munitions and supplies.
The judge told McKinnon that in

targeting the US he had "run the risk,

of being prosecuted in that country'.'::
Officials in New Jersey and Virginia
must now decide where McKinnon
should stand trial.
If his extradition is approV,ed,
McKinnon will appeal to the High
Court, his lawyer Karen Todner said.

_MAY_ 2.006
LONDON: Britain's
Ministry of Defence
I sought to prevent the
public from knowing
about the work of a unit
that investigated
reported sightings of
UFOs, a published report
said yesterday. -

eti SEeTEMAlig. 2006

ALMARK,A._

UFOs: Unidentified French Objects

By JOHN LEICESTER
HE saucer-shaped object is said to
have touched down in the south of
France and then zoomed off. It left
behind scorch marks and that haunting
age-old question are we alone?
This is just one of the cases from
France's secret "X-Files" 100,000 documents on UFOs and sightings of other
unexplained phenomena that the French
space agency is publishing on the internet.
France is the first country to put its
entire weird sightings archive online.
Its oldest recorded sighting dates from
1937, says Jacques Patenet, who heads the
space agency's UFO cell the Group for
Study and Information on Non-identified
Aerospace Phenomena.
The first batch of archives went up on
the agency's website this month, drawing a
server-busting wave of traffic.

The archive includes police and expert

reports, witness sketches, maps, photos
and video and audio recordings. In all, the
archive has 1650 cases on record and 6000
witness accounts.
The space agency, known by its French
initials ONES, says it is making the records
public to draw the scientific community's
attention to unexplained cases and
because secrecy generated suspicions officials were hiding something.
"There's always this impression of plots,
secrets, wanting to hide things. The great
danger would be to leave the field open to
sects and charlatans," Patenet says.
Only 9 per cent of France's strange
phenomena have been fully explained. The
most baffling were labelled "Class D aerospace phenomena" which the agency
defines as "inexplicable despite precise
testimonies and the [good] quality of material information gathered."

Patenet singled out the January 1981

case of the saucer-shaped object that a
witness saw land in Trans-en-Provence.
Some 2.5m across, the zinc-coIoured
object made a whistling noise as it landed.
The witness later drew a picture it
resembled a wok with a lid and legs.
"The machine stayed a few seconds on
the ground and then left very quickly but it
left marks that were analysed and allowed
us to determine that the ground had been
heated up, that the object must have
weighed several hundred kilos, and that
surrounding plants underwent biological
changes," Patenet says.
"So something really happened. It really
defies analysis."
Most of the time, Patenet says, witnesses
are sincere about what they saw. "Very few
look for publicity because they fear most of
all that they will not be taken seriously."

rench space agency to make

UFO archive available online
The French space. agency is
-tcA publish its archive of UFO
"sightings and other phenomena
online, but will keep the names
of those who reported them off
the site to protect them from
pestering by space fanatics.
.:1JJacques Arnould, an official at
'the National Space Studies Centre
(CNES), said the French database
of around i600 incidents would
.go live in late January or midFebruary.
-He said the CNES had been collecting statements and documents
for almost 30 years to archive and
study them.
"Often they are made to the
Gendarmerie [police], which
pi'ovides an official witness
statement...and some come
from airline pilots," he said by
telephone.
Given the success of films about
visitations from outer space like
'-ET, Close Encounters of The Third
Kind and Independence Day, the
CNES archive should prove a hit.

They came from outer town m

By MARKsiVANS
F you truly believe a UFO and its crew of bugeyed aliens came crashing down in Roswell, New
Mexico, 60 years ago, rest assured: You're not
alone. At least 35,000 people descended on Roswell
at the weekend for the 2007 Amazing Roswell UFO
Festival to commemorate a purported flying saucer
crash on a nearby ranch in July 1947.
UFO believers filled hotel rooms and almost
doubled the town's population for a few days.
The festival, which began on Thursday, is a mixed
bag that includes live concerti. (one headlinedby a
band with a computer-generated "alien" drummer),
costume contests, a Main Street parade and a slew
of lectures that ponder everything from body
snatchers to "What Does NASA Really Know?"
The festival emerged in the 1990s to spark debate
about the purported flying saucer crash, which the
US Government says was a top-secret weather
balloon. Believers in the Roswell Incident say the
Government is conspiring to hide the truth about

Roswell believers

the events of that day and, more

broadly, the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Al Dooley, 59, of Seattle, said he
wasn't sure what happened back
then, but came to the festival to
learn more. He was nestled into a
seat at a convention center auditorium, eager to hear a talk on "UFO
Files from the UK and Government Surveillance of Ufologists."
` His wife Nancy sat nearby, visibly less interested. She was waiting for the festival
to be over so the couple could continue_ holidaying.
"I didn't come for the carnival atmosphere. I
came to listen to the speakers," Dooley said.
Although he's not certain whether an alien craft
crashed in Roswell, he might have seen one himself
in 1968 or 1969, he said.
Michael, who plays guitar in a rock band called
Element 115 and does not use his last name, said he
did not merely believe the crash happened.

"I KNOW it," he said. Michael said he hoped

Element 115 would one day be the house band for a
theme park some are planning on building at
Roswell featuring amusement rides, a concert
hall and a hotel that looks like a flying saucer.
The city's convention center was swarming with
vendors hawking trinkets and dolls, photo opportunities with costumed aliens, psychic readings and
a kit to test whether your neighbour or boss is from
outer space. Many peddled their books, DVDs or
artwork of all things otherworldly.
Actress Chase Masterson was signing autographs for fans who remembered her role as Leeta
on several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The festival was being organised for the first
time by the city of Roswell, after the local UFO
museum hosted it for more than a decade.
Mayor Sam LaGrone said he was happily surprised by the turnout and the economic booSt it
would give the city.
"I've never seen so many cars in town," he said.

301
10 J)_LY 1,1_
Bill Chalker, UFO researcher

Sandy BuffakeriGetty Images

Seen a UFO? The French space agency says it will publish its archive of
around 6000 UFO reports, taken over 30 years, on the Internet,

It consists of around 6000

reports, many relating to the
same incident, filed by the public
and airline professionals. Their
names would not be published to
protect their Privacy, Mr Anould
said.

Advances in technology over the

past three decades had prompted
the decision to put the archive
online, he said, adding it would
likely be available via the CNES
website www.cnes.fr.
Reuters

GU
..00 E

The 1960s, Grafton, NSW - a perfect time and place

for a kid with a scientific yen to develop a passion for
other-worldly mysteries and visitations. That's what
happened to a young Bill Chalker, particularly in 1966
when several UFO sightings were made there and
across Australia. Bill's curiosity weathered university
and the forces of cynicism that come to most with
adult life, and today he works full-time researching,
investigating and lecturing on the subject. Sceptics
who think it's all cameras, hubcaps and washing lines
should check out Bill's book, Nair of the Alien - DNA
& Other Forensic Evidence of Alien Abduction. He
is also author of The OZ Files - The Australian UFO
Story. "All funding is private and non-government,"
Bill says, "which allows me to work without any
restrictions or influence. Governments have always
been less than transparent with subjects like UFOs,
but my research has verified an extensive history
of official involvement over the decades." Check
out www.theogiles.com for more.

Belief in God and UFOs

WASHINGTON: Most Americans believe in God
and significant numbers also think that UFOs, the
devil and ghosts exist, a poll showed yesterday.
The Harris Online survey revealed 82 per cent of
Americans believe in God and 79 per cent in miracles.
More than 70 per cent believe in heaven and angels,
while more than six in 10 believed in hell and the devil.
Seventy per cent of Americans said they were very (21
per cent) or somewhat (49 per cent) religious, while
about one-third of those polled also said they believe in
UFOs, witches and astrology.

tecem6ER_e_oo-L__

Deathbed confession gives

2

of alien bodies: Air Force officer Walter Haut

EXACTLY .60 years ago, a

light aircraft was flying over
the Cascade Mountains in
Washington State, at a height
of around 3000m.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of
light illuminated the aircraft.
Visibility was good and as pilot
Kenneth Arnold scanned the
sky to find the source of the
light, he saw a group of nine
shiny metallic objects flying
in formation.
He estimated their speed as
being around 2600kmsh
nearly three times faster than
the top speed of any jet aircraft at the time.
Soon, similar reports began
to come in from all over America. This wasn't just the world's
first UFO sighting, this was the
birth of a phenomenon, one
that still exercises an extraordinary fascination.
Military authorities issued a

press release, which began:

"The many rumours regarding
the flying disc became a reality
yesterday when the intelligence officer of the 509th
Bomb Group of the Eighth Air
Force, Roswell Army Air Field,
was fortunate enough to gain
possession of a disc",
The headlines screamed:
"Flying Disc captured by Air
Force". Yet, just 24 hours
later, the military changed
their story and claimed the
object they'd first thought
was a "flying disc" was a
weather balloon that had
crashed on a nearby ranch.
The key witness was Major
Jesse Marcel, the intelligence
officer who had gone to the
ranch to recover the wreckage.
He described the metal as being
wafer thin but incredibly
tough. It was as light as balsa
wood, but couldn't be cut or

burned. These and similar accounts of the incident have

largely been dismissed by all
except the most dedicated believers, But last week came anastonishing new twist to the
Roswell mystery.
Lieutenant Walter Haut was
the public relations officer at
the base in 194? and was the
man who issued the original
and subsequent press releases
after the crash on the orders of
the base commander. Colonel
William Blanchard.
Haut died last year but left a
sworn affidavit to be opened
only after his death.
Last week, the text was released and asserts that the
weather balloon claim was a
cover story and that the real
object had been recovered by
the military and stored in a
hangar. He described seeing
not just the craft, but alien

to Roswell
7

meeting, pieces of wreckage

were handed around for participants to touch. with nobody
able to identify the material.
He says the press release
was issued because locals were
already aware of the crash
site. but in fact there hadbeen
a second crash site. where
more debris from the craft
had fallen. The plan was that
an .announcement acknowledging the first site. which
had been discovered by a
farmer, would divert attention
from the second and more
important location.
Haut also spoke about a
clean-up operation, where for
months afterwards military
personnel scoured both crash
sites searching for all
remaining pieces of debris,
removing them and erasing
all signs that anything unusual had occurred.

This ties in with claims

made by locals that debris
collected as souvenirs was
seized by the military.
Haut then tells how Colonel
Blanchard took him to "Building 84" one of the hangars at
Roswell and showed him the
craft itself. He describes a metallic egg-shaped object around
3.6111-4.5111 in length and around
1.8m wide. He said he saw no
windows. wings. tail, landing
gear or any other feature.
He saw two bodies on the
floor, partially covered by a
tarpaulin. They are described
in his statement as about 1.2m
tall, with disproportionately
large heads. Towards the end
of the affidavit, Haut concludes: "I am convinced that
what I personally observed
was some kind of craft and its
crew from outer space".
What's particularly inter-

esting about Walter Haut is

that in the many interviews
he gave before his death, he
played down his role and
made no such claims. Had he
been seeking publicity, he
would surely have spoken
about the craft and the bodies.
Did he fear ridicule,. or was
the affidavit a sort of deathbed confession from someone
who had been part of a coverup. but who had stayed loyal
to the end?
The US government came
under huge pressure on Roswell in the '90s. In July 1994, in
response to an inquiry from
the General Accounting
Office, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force published a report, The Roswell
Report: Fact Versus Fiction
In The New Mexico Desert.
The report concluded that
the Roswell incident had been

attributable to something
called Project Mogul, a top
secret project using highaltitude balloons to carry sensor equipment into the upper
atmosphere, listening for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.
The statements concerning
a crashed weather balloon
had been a cover story, they
admitted, but not to hide the
truth about extraterrestrials.
A second US Air Force report concluded claims bodies
were recovered were generated by people: having seen
crash test dummies that were
dropped from the balloons.
Sceptics, of course, will dismiss the testimony left by
Haut. After all, fascinating
though it is, it's just a story.
There's no proof. But if nothing else.. this latest revelation
shows that, 60 years on, this
mystery endures.

bodies. He wasn't the first

Roswell witness to talk about
alien bodies.
Local undertaker Glenn
Dennis had long claimed that
he was contacted by authorities at Roswell shortly after the
crash and asked to provide a
number of child-sized coffins.
When he arrived at tile.
base, he was apparently told
by a nurse (who later disappeared) that a UFO had
crashed and that small humanoid extraterrestrials had
been recovered. But Haut is
the only one of the original
participants to claim to have
seen alien bodies.
Haut's affidavit talks about a
high-level meeting he attended
with base commander Col William Blanchard and the Commander of the Eighth Army
Air Force, General Roger Ramey. Haut states that at this

theory

Farm: Tourists tour the alleged crash site

UFOs: Unidentified French Objects

By JOHN LEICESTER

HE. saucer-shaped object is said to

have touched down in the south of
France and then zoomed off. It left
' behind scorch marks and that haunting
gage-old question are we alone?
This is just one of the cases from
France's secret "X-Files" 100,000 documents on UFOs and sightings of other
unexplained phenomena that the French
space agency is publishing on the Internet.
France is the first country to put its
entire weird sightings archive online.
Its oldest recorded sighting dates from
1937, says Jacques Patenet, who heads the
space agency's UFO cell the Group for
Study and Information on Non-identified
Aerospace Phenomena.
The first batch of archives went up on
the agency's website this month, drawing a
server-busting wave of traffic.

2.1 bnaRctd

The archive includes police and expert

reports, witness sketches, maps, photos
and video and audio recordings. In all, the
archive has 1650 cases on record and 6000
witness accounts.
The space agency, known by its French
initials ONES, says it is making the records
public to draw the scientific community's
attention to unexplained cases and
because secrecy generated suspicions officials were hiding something.
"There's always this impression of plots,
secrets, wanting to hide things. The great
danger would be to leave the field open to
sects and charlatans," Patenet says.
Only 9 per cent of France's strange
phenomena have been fully explained. The
most baffling were labelled "Class D aerospace phenomena" which the agency
defines as "inexplicable despite precise
testimonies and the [good) quality of material information gathered."

Fatenet singled out the January 1981

case of the saucer-shaped object that a
witness saw land in Trans-en-Provence.
Some 2.5m across, the zinc-coloured
object made a whistling noise as it landed.
The witness later drew a picture it
resembled a wok with a lid and legs.
"The machine stayed a few seconds on
the ground and then left very quickly but it
left marks that were analysed and allowed
us to determine that the ground had been
heated up, that the object must have
weighed several hundred kilos, and -that
surrounding plants underwent biological
changes," Patenet says.
"So something really happened. It really
defies analysis."
Most of the time, Patenet says, witnesses
are sincere about what they saw. "Very few
look for publicity because they fear most of
all that they will not be taken seriously."

mom

Be prepared for the alien invasion

By SCOTT HILLIS

HEN the aliens finally invade Earth,

you may wish you had listened to
Travis Taylor and Bob Boan.
And if the invasion follows the plot of a
typical Hollywood blockbuster, they might
also be the guys called in at the last minute
to save the day.
After all, they have written An Introduction to Planetary Defence, a primer on how
humanity can defend itself if little green
men wielding death rays show up at our ,
cosmic doorstep. And, yes, they're serious.
"The probability is there that aliens exist
and are old enough to have technology to
enable them to come here," Taylor said.
Taylor and Boan are hardly basementdwelling paranoiacs obsessed with tinfoil
hats and Area 51.
Taylor holds advanced degrees in astronomy and physics. He and Boan have done

consulting work for the Defence Department and the US space agency NASA.
Taylor acknowledges alien invasion is
hardly a mainstream concern but says it is
naive to assume that any beings advanced
enough to master star travel will have
evolved beyond war.
"It's a wonderful idea that has no basis in
reality," Taylor said.
Taylor and Boan plugged in what they
felt were conservative estimates, such as
that aliens cannot travel faster than 10 per
cent of the speed of light.
After crunching the numbers, they say it
is possible that our Milky Way galaxy
harbours thousands of intelligent alien
species and that there is a "high probability" that one or two of them visit Earth
every century.
But if there are so many aliens out there,
why haven't we heard from them already?
That is the question famously posed by

the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950 to

dismiss speculation by his colleagues that
intelligent life should be routine.
Taylor and Boan are convinced Fermi
got it wrong. Even if aliens used god-like
technology to jump across thousands of
light years in a single day, they would still
need millions of years to explore all the star
systems in the galaxy.
They simply may not have stumbled
across our neck of the woods yet.
Taylor and Boan started thinking about
how to respond to an aggressive extraterrestrial attack during a 2001 discussion
about defending against terrorist attacks.
Failure to prepare may mean mankind
will have to dig in and fight with improvised
weapons and hit-and-run tactics, much the
same way Islamic extremists have battled
the US military in Iraq, Taylor says.
"You'd have to create an insurgency, a
mujahideen-type resistance," Taylor said.

rie=,1:4-Tr:T.tr.rmumnaismagwompamessiggaerossysgow
THE ORMSH UFO FILES
History Channel, 9.30pm
It's hard to believe, but'with
top-ranking British military
personnel testifying, it's a slight
possibility that there have been
true UFO sightings. Delve into
the history of British alien
investigations and find out if
there is any truth to the bizarre
theories of what is really "out
there".

This alien drivel

I CAN'T believe your paper gives credence
to another lunatic supporting the Roswell
conspiracy theory (ST, 1 /7).
Even with its outstanding record of
cover-ups and conspiracies, why would
the US Government try to hide the most
important event in our history: first
contact with an alien civilisation?
Why would they send up a satellite in
the hope of extraterrestrial contact, and
still deny it had already happened?
It's time all these crazies acknowledged
that little grey aliens with big heads is an
insanely ludicrous idea, and admit that
the concept of a bearded old man on a
golden throne called God, who created the
universe and punishes and rewards His
creation at His pleasure, makes far more
sense than this alien drivel.
A. O'HARA, Ocean Shores

7.1_
.) LY 1001_

8 per)pj

64

Otherworldly ocus
rtist Vernon
Treweeke with some of his paintings
based on UFOs to be exhibited at
Penrith Regional Gallery.
Picture: JOHN FOTIADIS

Alien adventure
A LIVELY PROGRAM OF GALACTIC EVENTS TEMPTS THE TRUE
BELIEVER AND SCEPTIC ALIKE, WRITES ELIZABETH FORTESCUE
THE VISITORS: THE
AUSTRALIAN RESPONSE
TO UFOs AND ALIENS
Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers
Bequest, 86 River Rd, Emu Plains
Opens today until February 17
* Free admission
*4735 1100
0 penrithregionalgallery.org

rtist Vernon Treweeke was painting

a wall mural at Katoomba railway
station about seven years ago when
a lady approached him with a strange
tale. The woman told Treweeke that
she and her husband had once been at the
nearby locality of Kurrajong Heights when a
UFO had appeared to them. It was, the lady said,
shaped like a donut with three rows of portholes.
Intrigued by the woman's story, Treweeke
added several UFOs to the landscape he was
depicting on his mural. Then, as Treweeke
continued with the work on his mural,
something even odder happened. As people
got on and off the trains at Katoomba station

and noticed the UFOs Treweeke had painted,

more and more of them began to reveal to him
that they, too, had experienced "contestable
reality", louse the parlance of ufology.
"I'd get descriptions," Treweeke says.
"One chap gave me an endless List."
Perhaps the spookiest first-hand story
Treweeke heard was from a couple of local
lads who were camping out with mates near
Faulconbridge about 14 years ago.
As they watched in terror, a large, spherical
ship with portholes around the side passed
over the camp site at high altitude.
"There was some sort of insignia
underneath it," Treweeke says.
Treweeke says an endless variety of
stories has been divulged to him, but
common themes have emerged.
"Spherical forms are quite common spheres that hover and move in
extraordinary ways," he says.
Treweeke is clearly a man with an open
mind and a respect for what people tell him.
His theory is that UFO sightings are evidence
of other life forms exploring space with
robots, just as we earthlings send probes into
the unknown. Alternatively, he believes that
other life forms may be travelling back from
the future to check us out.
Treweeke seems a little disappointed that,
although he lives in the Blue Mountains where
alleged UFO sightings are abundant, he has
not yet had his moment of contestable reality.
Come to think of it, perhaps it's best that way.
"I don't know how I would handle it,"
Treweeke admits. "Hearing it second-hand
is probably better."
His closest brush with creepiness came one
night when he camped out with companions in
a cave in the Blue Mountains, and the group
spent the night listening to the sounds of large
branches being snapped nearby. The campers
emerged next day to find the cave surrounded
by a ring of broken saplings.
"Whatever it was, it was strong to do what it
did," Treweeke says, adding that Blue Mountains
mythology is rich with supposed sightings of
the large, hairy hominid known as the Yowie.
Treweeke's paintings of extraterrestrials
and UFOs are on display, along with the work
of 14 other artists, in an exhibition that opens
in Penrith today. Titled The Visitors: The
Australian Response To UFOs And Aliens, the
show was curated by the gallery'Sdirector
Anne Loxley and artist Regina Walter, with

direction from Australian UFO specialist Bill

Chalker, who advised the curators about what
to include in the exhibition's "evidence room".
Walter is a UFO believer, having observed
unexplained lights in the sky. In a defining
experience for Walter, at the age of 12, she
found in a paddock a blob of silicone-like
matter containing small black balls. Walter
said that ufologists believe such matter "is
possibly dropped from above".
"I was always sceptical too. But when I meet
people and find out how much there is out
there, you can't ignore it," Walter says.
Loxley readily admits she throws up her
emotional defences against the hair-raising
possibility of UFOs, but respects Walter's
intelligence and accepts the possibility of
other. life forms being out there.
Another artist in the exhibition is Adam
Norton, who has created a timeline of events
that have occurred in the famous ufology site
of Roswell, New Mexico, from 10,000BC to the
present day. Norton says he is fascinated by
the connection between ufology and locations of
"big science" such as Roswell and Maralinga.
Documentary screenings accompany the
exhibition along with a public meeting at the
gallery hosted by the UFO & Paranormal
Research Society of Australia.

Aliens: If anyone
really knows the
truth it's this guy
By NEIL KEENE
A FORMER US astronaut's claims
that governments covered up alien visits
to Earth has reignited debate over
whether we are alone in the universe.
Dr Edgar Mitchell, a veteran of the Apollo
14 mission, who, along with with commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the
longest-ever moon walk during the 1971
mission, told radio in the UK yesterday that
extra-terrestrials had paid repeated visits to
our planet but the encounters had been
kept secret by government agencies.
NASA officials were quick to dismiss the
suggestion of any cover-up.
Dr Mitchell has made similar claims
previously and is a self-proclaimed devotee
of paranormal phenomena.
"I happen to have been privileged enough
to be in on the fact that we've been visited
on this planet and the UFO phenomena is
real," Dr Mitchell said. "It's been well
covered up by all our governments for the
last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out
and some of us have been privileged to have
been briefed on some of it.
"I've been in military and intelligence
circles, who know that beneath the surface
of what has been public knowledge, yes
we have been visited."
His words drew the support of thousands
of believers yesterday, including many from
Australia who say they have seen UFOs and
the aliens inside them.
Yesterday, a Daily Telegraph website poll
revealed that 69 per cent of voters, more than
1200 people, believe Dr Mitchell was right and
contact with aliens had been covered up.
Yesterday, UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug Moffett said that a growing
number of people either believed in alien
life or at least its possibility.
Mr Moffett, 48, who has spent more than
15 years speaking to Australians who have
claimed to have had a close encounter with
aliens, said belief in extraterrestrial life was
one of society's last taboos.
"To say you have seen a UFO is almost
tantamount to saying you've lost your
marbles for a lot of people," he said.
Mr Moffett, who says he has never had an
encounter himself, said it was impossible for
sceptics to say with total certainty that
there was no such thing as alien life.
An online database of UFO and extraterrestrial life research groups lists no less
than 16 organisations based in NSW and
more than 30 in other parts of Australia.
The UFO and Paranormal Research
Society of Australia catalogues 'dozens of
alleged close encounters in NSW, with the
most recent sightings just weeks ago.
On June 30, an unnamed UFO spotter at
Nowra on the South Coast reported seeing a
military helicopter following a UFO that
had been flying over the local golf course.
"The craft was a rounded triangle shape,
about the size of the helicopter without tail
or rotor blades," the spotter claimed.

Dilly Telegraph

ao,

Do aliens exist? Join our poll

hear the doctor's incredible h-mervtew
dad eie.ra .kcona.au
arr5r

Tut.\te

2_008.

raz

Democrat
candidate
saw UFO
WASHINGTON: In the United
States election campaign's most
startling revelation yet, a Democratic congressman running for
president said he once saw a
UFO over the home of the actor
Shirley MacLaine.
Dennis Kucinich was asked
during a Democratic presidential
debate in Philadelphia on
Tuesday about the claim in a
book by MacLaine, quoted in US
media in advance of publication.
"I did," Mr Kucinich said, to
laughter from the audience.
. Left unclear were details of
the alleged sighting in Washington state, during which
MacLaine says the politician saw
a silent, triangular craft and "felt
a connection in his heart and
heard directions in his mind".
"It was an unidentified flying
object, OK? It's, like, it's unidentified. I saw something," Mr Kucinich said during the debate by
seven Democrats hoping to win
the party's nomination to run for
president next year.
Not missing a beat, the
congressman from Ohio claimed
that "more people in this country
have seen UFOs than I think ap. prove of George Bush's presidency". But the debate's co-host,
Tim Russert of NBC television,
cited data that only 14 per cent of
Americans say they have seen a
UFO. Mr Bush's approval ratings
are in the mid-30 per cent range.
As for Mr Kucinich, polls show
1 per cent of likely Democratic
voters want to see the fornaer
Cleveland mayor and fervent opponent of the Iraq war run for
president. His campaign slogan:
Strength through Peace.
The debate, held at Drexel University, offered by far the liveliest
exchanges among the Democratic
candidates so far. Hillary Clinton
was the butt of most criticism.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur

UFOs more feasible than principled pollies

G
Brendan
Shanahan
ERRY Wood, independent candidate
in the recent Northern Territory
elections, has been the subject of
much recent attention partly because he
may hold the balance of power in the new
Territory government, but mainly because
he claims to have once seen a UFO.
In the last few days, this latter fact has
drawn many sniggers from our nation's
southern regions and done little for the
reputation of the IQ levels in the Top End.
What scoffers fail to see, however, is that
Wood's belief in UFOs represents not a
damning indictment of democracy, but
strong evidence that UFOs are going
mainstream. Currently, announcing
you've seen a UFO still marks you as
anything on a continuum from "mildly
eccentric" to "Belinda Neal".
History teaches us, however, that values
shift with remarkable speed; only 15 years

ago, for instance, to suggest that someone

was gay was a defamatory "accusation".

These days unless you're, say, a US marine

or Anglican minister, nobody cares.
I, for one, welcome the change why

people should be reluctant to believe those

who claim to have seen UFOs is beyond
me. After all, why would they lie?
As an attention-seeking device, UFOspotting has only disadvantages: people
immediately assume you're a nut job
redneck and/or borderline psychotic who
spends all day sitting in a room with the
curtains drawn, alphabetising your Star
Trek DVD collection and fantasising
about being probed by Agent Scully.
If you wanted to draw attention to
yourself with a lie, you'd be better off
promising to either lower petrol prices or
build a high-speed train link to Peririth.
Belief in UFOs is not, contrary to
popular opinion, limited to the mullet-androad-kill regions of our nation. True, our

would travel billions of ,kilometres to investigate our wheat industry or excretory

systems seems to me slightly less likely, but
not outside the realm of possibility.
After all, in a world where the globe's most
powerful politicians can sit through a lipsynched song of peace at a party hosted by
one of the world's most repressive regimes
before flying home to declare war on a
neighbour, a belief in UFOs seems like the
least difficult stretch of the imagination.

GET FRIENDLY WITH SPACE BEINGS DURING

A UFO LOVE-IN. DAN KAUFMAN REPORTS.

UFO flies
in for the
summer
. Brett McKeehan

THE truth isn't only out there

apparently it's hovering right
over Sydney.
Shocked Daily Telegraph redder
Steve Jolliffe spotted what appears
to be a flying saucer above Millers
Point while using Google Maps.
"I live in the street on the corner
and it has a beautiful view of the
Harbour. I was just trying to get a
look on Google when I saw it," Mr
Jolliffe said. "I thought it was a
UFO straight away."
Photographic experts who examined the shot said it could be a
distortion but a Google spokesman
joked: "The interplanetary internet
project is clearly gaining momentum quicker than we thought.
"As with human-owned vehicles
in Google street view, the licence
plates are not identifiable."
Recently Apollo 14 astronaut
Edgar Mitchell co-holder of the
record for longest-ever moon walk
caused a storm when he insisted
extra-terrestrials had paid repeated
visits to Earth but they were kept
secret by government agencies.

UFO images

IthAzXsIpAL-

large proportion of the population.

The notion that any such creatures

KISS ME, E.T.

NovEmBE.R 2.001

FANTASTIC, now we
ask the aliens to save
us from our stupid
politicians who have
broucjht us terrorism
and the depression.
Mike Sydney

friends in certain areas of rural Queensland and the Northern Territory are
statistically more likely to report UFO
sightings than anywhere else, but this
seems to me less indicative of their supposed stupidity than their immunity to
social ridicule. Trust me: People -in the
Eastern Suburbs see UFOs; they just
wouldn't have the guts to tell you.
Knowing as we do the sheer vastness of
the universe, the assumption that we are
the only intelligent life in it seems to me
arrogant, a view I suspect I share with a

ti-r4P

;en

Double take: Has Google Maps captured a tiro hoVering over Millers Point in inner Sydney?

DE,cemBuR 2.008

Have you seen a UFO?

Share your experience
dailyteiegraph.com.au

ITS NOT every day an

Under The Stars, where Jaimie
exhibition lets you kiss an
and Aspasia Leonarder present
alien, watch a vintage UFO
two UFO documentaries: the
documentary fronted by the
1960s American UFOs Do You
newsreader Roger Climpson,
Believe and Roger Climpson's
sift through real government
1972 UFO Fact Or Fiction.
UFO files and look at alienThe Leonarders are behind
related art (examples above).
the Mu-Meson Archives,
Yet all this is included in
which show cult movies every
The Visitors: The Australian
week at the Annandale Hotel
Response to UFOs and Aliens.
(see www.mumeson.org for
"les a feelgood exhibition,
coming flicks).
which sounds odd considering
The Visitors came about
when Loxley and co-creator
it's about aliens, but it puts
a real smile on everyone's
Regina Walter realised
dial," says Anne Loxley, the
that Penrith and the Blue
Mountains form one of
exhibition's co-curator.
Part of the exhibition is a free Sydney's three UFO sighting
night-time event called Saucers hotspots - the other two being

70A0AKY2,008

the Northern Beaches and

south-western Sydney - and
artists such as Soda Jerk,
James de Bias and David
Haines, all of whom are
exhibited in The Visitors, are
inspired by aliens..
"Aliens and UFOs are a
really resident part of popular
culture," says Loxley, who
adds that she doesn't believe
in UFOs herself. "They haven't
converted me - although they
have frightened me, as the
evidence really is compelling."
Some of this can be found
in the gallery's interactive
evidence room. "We have TV
and documentary footage that
is extraordinary and we have
files so that, for example, you
as an audience member can
go and look up Parramatta,
1868, and read the file on that
event," Loxley says.
At the Alien Love Twilight
Markets on February 9 from
5-10pm, you'll find stalls and
an alien-kissing booth, where
you can smooch with people
in alien suits.
The Visitors: The
Australian Response
to UFOs and Aliens,
is on now imtil
February 17,
Penrith Regional
Gallery & The
Lewers Bequest,
86 River Road,
Emu Plains. See
www.penrithregional
gal lery.org.

UFOs over Sydney

14_61aLcv 20

Sunday evening, the intergalactic neighbours drop by

Rocket ships or space cadets: The mysterious photo of what may be UFOs (circled) taken by Fiona Hartigan at sunset in Chipping Norton
Neil Keene

THEY emerged from a blazing light

in the clouds, descending on a busy
Sydney street before zipping off
silently into the sunset.
Just what or who propelled
the strange flying discs across the sky
may never be known.
But while the close encounter was
over in seconds, it was enough to
convince mother-of-two Fiona Hartigan that she'd just seen a UFO.
And she has the photos to prove it.
Ms Hartigan yesterday said she
had just got out of her car on Sunday
evening to snap a:few sunset photos
when the amazing events began.
"As I was about to take the picture
this black object appeared and then it
started to move," she said.

Research NSW spokesman Doug

Moffett: "It could be some electric;
anomaly that no one has ever seen,
Visit our space and science
could be an extra-terrestrial craft,
could be something else."
section for more sightings and
"There does appear to be a bit
video and send us your photos
around the image, which could just
the way it's shaped, or and this
pure speculation it could be due t'
dailytelegraph.com.au
Shot: Hartigan
its propulsion system.
"Whatever the case, it's an oppor
"It started off about 800m away with the smaller UFOs zipping away tunity to learn something new."
Mr Moffett said there were be.
but it came closer to about 400m in the opposite direction.
"I don't know how to explain it tween 1000 and 1500 UFO sighting
and then two other little round
things appeared from this bright Pm still totally bewildered," she said. in Australia every year, "but that
To the sceptic, Ms Hartigan's just the tip of the iceberg".
orange light above.
. "There was no noise. It was calm photo might show a speck of dust on . "Why would anyone make the:
and peaceful but it was very weird."
the lens or something small floating stories up? They are setting then
Ms Hartigan said the main UFO in the air close to the camera.
selves up for ridicule," he said.
But close encounters like Ms Harthen "shot off" above Governor
Editorial page 2
Macquarie Drive at Chipping Norton, tigap's came as no surprise to UFO

They're really out there

ovEmBER 2001

Fears of an alien
invasion created
greater alarm in the
US than the threat of
a Soviet nuclear
attack, writes
Philippe Mora.

Weekend nsight

Popular imagining ... an image by the

photo-satirist Alfred Gescheldt. Photo: AFP

n January 1979, The New York

Tinies reported that despite
repeated, feverish denials,
the CIA had indeed investigated the UFO phenomenon:
"CIA Papers Detail UFO
Surveillance" screamed the headline.
The report is said to have so upset the
then CIA director, Stanfield Turner,
Top spook ... Walter Bedell Smith,
that he reportedly asked his staff:
I.
creator of the ONE panel. Photo: AP
"Are we in UFOs?"
The answer was yes - since the late
1940s, apparently. But exactly how,
enri
what, when, why and who remained
layered in mystery, leaving grist for the
conspiracy mill.
ilgma_pur.es Ft in
But this year a raft of newly
Flying Saucers 'Are
C"I'
unclassified CIA documents revealed
Coads Vratiia1O n
h'
that the remote possibility of alien
o Waifs of tka
lai;ssei4Parari.62
invasion elicited greater fear than the
Tax Slash
threat of a Soviet nuclear attack.
More interesting still, the CIA documents show that despite decades of
Hard-pressed a 1947 Roswell Daily Record article triggered a flood of UFO sichthqs, and a controversial 1979 New York
repeated public denials, behind the
scenes there raged a series of interTimes report. Right: Kenneth Arnold (centre) and two fellow pilots examine a photo of a UFO seen in 1947. Photo: 1304nahn/Corbls
agency feuds that involved the highest
levels of the US government.
The subject of UFOs - and dabbling
in psychological warfare techniquesnot only focused the attention of the US
government elite for 50 years, but of
some of the greatest scientific and military minds of the era.
Throughout the 1950s CIA files
clearly document an explosion of
! activity by US intelligence and milltarybodies concerned with studying
every possible implication for the US,
and other Western democracies, of
UFOs. The phenomenon, so adored by
the cinematic world, was reflected in
the CIA's fixations. Indeed, while
highly educated CIA employees experimented by giving eachother surprise
r
LSD.trips in 1953, there were others, in
othet parts of the agency, dealing with
a flood of UFO repress
--'- tut significantly, after a burst of
travelling at an estimated 1600 kmh.
of unclassified documents reveals that
documents a. hoax, but the story intense scrutiny in the early '50s, the
Haines did not mention that days later, persists to this day.
the CIA at the highest level, far from
available documents effectively go
on July 8, 1947, the koswellDaily
being incompetent, displayed good
Intriguingly, the unclassified docucold. Why? The Kafkaesque explaobjects appear to have implications for
Wh61is the truth?" The minister's
Reiord reported a US Army press
ments show that within the CIA, there
faith in its efforts to examine the
nation provided is that few files were
psychological warfare asvVell as for
response on August 9,1952, provided
releasebelow the headline "RAAF
was an uber-intelligence group called
mystery of 'UFOs over a period of
kept because these would Only
intelligence and operations. I suggest
captures flying saucer on ranch in
ONE, created by a CIA director, General decades. These investigations covered tie glound rules for most official
confirm that the CIA was investigatthat we discuss at an earlyboard meetresponses that continue until today.
ing UFOs. A 1995 CIA review stated:
Roswell region".
William Bedell Smith. His tenure
a gamut of inquiries: scientific,
Thesweredint a 1951 study had found ing the possible offensive and defensive
spanned the pedoclbetween October
"There was no formal or official UPIii T-15:-P. The rport notedthatfhpt contror
political, cultural and military.
utilisation of these phenomena for
thatall reports could be explained by
versv, colOtiredWith Bylaritine
'
1950 and January 1953. These docuproject within the agency in the '80s,
And although the air force was the
psychological warfare purposes."
astronomical or meteorological
Merits confirin that ONE was
and agency officials purposelykept I
agency given the task of investigating
denfals;:d404Ih'e CIA and UFO,
Searching for this "proposal"; I
eper:, concerned with ITIps.
phenomena, mistakerriclentific.,ation of
ildfiS for decades.
nv '
files on UPOs to minimum to avoid
UFOs froni.1948 onwards, the CIA
' - fOtErid versions addreSsed aiso to the
atin, gia.ineSillke-Project trio Book;
aircraft, balloaas, bids; optical'
creating-records that might mislead
Ia 1978 th'eaktamerilider strong
remaineadeeplyinVolvecl. This is best
secretary Of defence. Some of their
Story, Grudge; Sign, Saucer, Moon
iliusions and psychological delusions,
pressure from a series of freedom of
reflected in a memo to the agency's
? the public if released."
highlights, quoting directly from the
But the wildly eclectic UFO files
Dust and Twinkle, the US Air Force
,orwere deliberate hoaxes.
information requests about UFOs and
deputy director for scientific intellidocuments, include "[Since] 1947 there
diver everything from "flying saucers
and'other entities always looked into
But in the CIA at the time, two other
reluctantly released about 800 docugence, titled Flying Saucers and dated
have been about 1500 official reports of
over Belgian Congo uranium mines" to UFO sightings with the CIA peering
responses were countenanced: the
ments. The reasonable claim by The
August1 3, 1952: "It is recommended
Nazi "flying saucers".
over their shoulders.
need forVigilance and caution because sightings and [of these] the air force
A 1953 memo shows that the physiThe tIS Army, of course, promptly
extraterrestrial life could exist, and the carries 20 per cent as unexplained."
. And: "Operational problems are of
retracted the Roswell story but it and
cist John Wheeler, While critically
potential for
UFO focused the attention of some including fears that popularWarfare',
primaryimportance and should be
hysteria
the "flying saucers" spotted by Arnold
involved with Edward Teller in the
attacked at once [iincluding] determicould be exploited by an enemy.
triggered a flnrryof 'sightings and
creation of the hydrogen bomb, was
nutiop of what [use could] be made of
of the greatest minds of the era.
The sceptics are best represented in
conspiracy theories that continue to
available to the "CIA attack on the
a memo in March 1949 from a Dr Stone these phenomena by US psychological
this day.
flying saucer" problem. The urgency
warfare planners and what... defences
in the CIA Office of Scientific Intelli
The US Air Force finally admitted in
of the H-bomb race was his priority,
shbuld be planned in anticipation of
that CIA surveillance of subject matter
gence to a Di Machle that states: "A
1994 that there had been a cover-up at New York Times at the time was that
but he "would be pleased at any time
Soviet attempts to utilise them."
(flying saucers), in co-ordination with
rapid perusal of your [flying saucer]
the files confirmed intensive governRoswell- of a secret project known as
to discuss the issue briefly", the
This znemo suggested a plot that
proper authorities of primary operdocuments leaves one confused and
ment concern about UFOs.
Mogul, created to monitor Soviet
memo said.
transcends Stanley Kubrick'sDr
inclined to supineness."
This was branded by the CIA as the
ational concern at the Air Technical
nuclear tests using high-flying
Wheeler recommended two
"foreign nationals" who could help
Intelligence Centre (ATIC), be
Yet with a deluge of UFO reports over Strangelove: the CIA, in the face of
press being sensationalist. According to
balloons - and that the "aliens" were
unknown phenomena or even an
continued. It is strongly urged,
the next four years, the matter
the CIA's self-critique on the issue,
crash-test dummies.
with' the "problem", inchiding the
attack from outer space - was seemhowever, that that no indication of CIA suddenly assumed a modicum of
bureaucratic clumsiness, charges that
"Ufologists", naturally, were scepti"mysterious problems of ion paths
ingly more concerned about what the
interest or concern reach the press or
gravitas, reflected in manytop-secret
cal of this belated explanation. For 50
witnesses were being asked to keep
and magnetic focusing" and "cosmodocuments. General Smith said: "There Russians might do with UFOs than with
years now, right across the globe,
sightings secret, and CIA officers talking public, in view of their probable alarmlogical electrodynamics":
the objects themselves. The QM
ist tendencies to accept such interest as was one chance in 10,000 that the
A secret 1995 report was tided: CIA's people have been reporting sightings of to civilians about UFOs while wearing
interest in the Soviet and Chinese study
`confirmatory' of the soundness of
giant, luminous flying saucers, cigars,
phenomenon posed a threat to the
air force uniforms, had added "fuel to
role in the study of UFOs 1947-90: a
of UFOs continued for decades. But on
security of the country, but evenihat
diehard issue. Collated and written by globes, triangles and doughnuts. Aliens the growing mysterysurrounding UFOs `unpublished facts' in the hands of the
October 2,1952, General Smith
chance could not be taken." 0 'July 1,
have allegedly abducted, probed and
and the CIA's role hi their investigation". US government."
I Gerald Haines, the CIA's National
Although most reports were
1952, there was an about-turnfGeneral received this ominous note from his
impregnated scores of hapless earthThe 1995 Haines report concluded: "The
I leconnaissance Office historian, its
Office of Scientific Intelligence: "Flying
I 7detailed summary of CIA involvement lings. Some believe that a top-secret
Smith wrote to the director /the
"phoney" or explainable, it said,
belief that we are not alone in the
saucers pose two elements of danger
Psychological StrategyBo estals.
"caution requires that intelligence
entity, called Majestic-12, was formed
universe is too emotionally appealing
'advertently undermined its "UF0swhich have national security implicontinue coverage of the subject".
lished by Truman the pre us year: "I
and the distrust of our government is
lift-exist" conclusion. The docuin 1947 by the then president, Harry
cations. The first involves mass
On July 28, 1952, Winston Churchill
am today transmitting to ie National
Truman, in an attempt to deal with the too pervasive to make the issue amen'ilt begins with a June 24,1947,
psychological considerations and the
wrote to his secretary of state for air:
Security Council a prousal in which it
Roswell event. It was supposedly estab- able to traditional scientific studies of
rt from the pilot Kenneth Arnold,
second concerns the vulnerability of
"What does all this stuff about flying
is concluded that the woblems
spotted nine unidentified objects
lished to aid interaction with aliens.
rational explanation and evidence."
the US to air attack." In January 1953
associated with unidentified flying
Mount Rainier, Washington state, The FBI labelled the Majestic-12
My painstaking review of hundreds saucers amount to? What can it mean?

actoutett ;03111,11)
. :straw
rg..
. :..;
::;!
A czyonsaSReecsreeat rScthuGdireostpCoTnh:itnce
swag

RosweligReaguion

Rear

the Office of Scientific Intelligence

convened a committee to review the
UFO "problem". Its members
reviewed "75 case histories of sightings", taking intense interest in a
Tremonton, Utah, sighting that
included a Kodachrome movie of
"1600 frames".
At the air force's request, the US
Photo Interpretation Laboratory
spent 1000 hours making "graph
plots" of the film frames, concluding
that the objects were not birds,
balloons, aircraft or reflections and
that they were "self-luniinous". In a
tone of reasonable seen -Yicism, it
suggested that the puhlic be
educated to avoid hysteria.
But the Office of Scientific Intelligence panel dismissed the military
conclusions, suggesting instead that
the mysterious objects were seagulls
reflecting sunlight.
On January 21,1953, another memo
concluded that the panel had found no
evidence of "physical threat to the
security of the US". The convoluted
memo stated: "The subject UFO is not
of direct intelligence interest. It is of
indirect intelligence interest only
insofar as any knowledge about
innumerable unsolved mysteries of the
universe are of intelligence interest."
But it also noted the potential for
"interference with air
defence by intentional
enemyjazzing", the possibility of interference by
"overloading communication lines", or the
possibility of "psychological
offensive by the enemy
timed with respect to an
actual attack".
This report and the original Tremonton "seagull"
film were then made part of
an Office of Scientific Investigation briefing on January
29,1953, to the entity known
as ONE. The air force briefed
ONE on UFOs the next day
and its 11 members included
"Dr Edgar Hoover [sic],
William Bundy General H.
Pull and Admiral B. Bieri
[Eisenhower's chief of staff)".
These documents reveal
that ONE was an elite think
tank within the CIA and that
General Smith created the Office of National Estimates
on the issue.
But it was said its "ultimate
approval should rest on the
collective judgment of the highest officials in various intelligence
agencies". This was to give it the prestige of the best available and most
authoritative advice from the govern-
ment.
General Smith created the Office of
National Estimates under the auspices
of the NatiOnal Security Act of 1947. His
opinion was that ONE would form the
"heart of the CIA and of the national
intelligence machinery".
William Lange; a Harvard
historian, was its chairman, and while
there is no record of whether ONE
thought the Tremonton film showed
seagulls or UFOs - or of what the air
force told them-the next morningONE is as close as we get to a documented version of the rumoured
Majestic-12 group.
With the Cold War in full swing, the
CIA was also watching for UFO activity
behind the Iron Curtain. Field stations
were to be alerted to any mention of
flying saucers by Iron Curtain countries
and the CIA discovered that the Soviet
establishment mirrored its own
ambiguity about UFOs.
The files spotlight Soviet articles in
1968 that show some scientists thought
they were real, while others ridiculed
the sightings as US propaganda.
One Soviet sceptic noted, with
tongue firmly in cheek "The number of
saucers always grows sharply on the
eve of presidential elections. This is
difficult to explain.
"Maybe people on other planets lay
bets on who will win in the next
elections - the Republicans or
the Democrats."

2010 A Space Oddity

Something is out there

Neil Keene

Truth or fiction?: UFO researcher Bill Chalker in his West Pennant Hills home yesterday

Picture: James Elsby

Multiple sightings: Photographs of suspected UFO activity in (from left) Baulkham Hills, Tasmania, Queensland and Kempsey

I am waiting for the light solution

x:-

hting.
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MEET the Aussie Agent Mulder a

man whose job it is to investigate
Australia's X-Files and work out
whether aliens exist.
Bill Chalker, who has spent 35
years investigating UFO sightings
and alien abductions, believes Fiona
Hartigan's sighting reported
yesterday is almost certainly
genuine. He's not the only one.
Almost 60 per cent of readers
who voted online said they believed
in UFOs, while others told of
multiple sightings in the Blue
Mountains or strange lights
hovering over rural NSW.
Mother-of-two Anne Hamnett
said she witnessed a bizarre
incident at her isolated property
near Gloucester on Sunday night.
She and her children were out the
front of the house just hours after
Ms Hartigan's sighting when two
brightly lit objects appeared.
They stayed in the area for about
30 minutes before disappearing.
"I've never believed UFO stuff
before but I haven't ever seen
anything like this," she said.
"They were orange-red in colour
and perfectly in line with each other
I just can't explain it."
Mr Chalker will add Ms Hamnett's
experience to a giant dossier
cataloguing hundreds of sightings
dating back to the 1800s.
A secret backer funds the fulltime investigations, some of which
take months to complete.
Mr Chalker, a scientist, visits the
scene of reported sightings,
interviews witnesses and takes soil
samples from landing sites.
"The best are often those where
physical traces are left behind
marks on the ground and that kind
of thing," he said. "I'm only
interested in the hard evidence
cases, the ones that aren't readily
explainable. Most sightings tend to
be explainable but some of them
just don't seem to make any sense
or fit into anything obvious."

webphoto
daifytelegraph.com.au

Steve Gee

WHEN it comes to UFOs and aliens,

my care factor and belief started and
finished with ET in the '80s. .
Pollution, electricity, aircraft lights;
there has to be a rational explanation.
But after what I saw on Sunday
night, and Fiona Hartigan's amazing
pictures in yesterday's paper, I'm

waiting for some answers of my own.

About 8pm my wife called me outside
to check out four strange lights visible
over Wollongong's northern beaches.
My five-year-old son thought they
were Chinese lanterns or maybe they
were hot air balloons.
We watched them rise from ground
level to several hundred metres. They
floated southeast and then, like a

candle, appeared to burn out. The

"lights" weren't emergency flares or
anything else that I could easily or
comfortably explain.
Now I am just waiting for the
rational explanation.

RI

Did you see the lights near

Wollongong on Sunday?
dallyteregraph.com.au

UFOs over Sydney

Sunday evenIng,the Interplacto nelgliquis drop by

hottopic

Online
ip

AFIFWOLuess

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,Cavils
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LOOK it's Malcolm Turnbull docking into

Parliament House.
Steve Canberra
EVERYWHERE a US base exists there are
reports about UFOs. This has been going on for
decades. Alan, why don't you go near Pine Gap
with your cameras under the cover of night and
watch what is going on. There's more going on
there beneath the surface than they would have
us believe.
Kathryn Penrith
I JUST wish they would have a clear photo so
we could actually see what it is that is flying but
no, they are always blurry.
Tracey Sydney
LOOKS like a pie pan. If he is truly being
stalked, then why isn't there a better pic?
Citymum Sydney
IN A world of 10 and 12-megapixel digital
cameras with zoom lenses, why is every single
photo of a UFO blurry and pixellated? If

they're there (and I highly doubt it) then

somebody is surely going to have to catch them
in high-definition soon enough.

Marty Sydney
THERE are definitely UFOs out there
somewhere.When you think about it, our eight
planet solar system is one of billions of solar
systems in space.To think that on all of the
planets outside our solar system that we are the
only living beings is to me crazy.
Michael Wood Glenmore Park
THERE are billions of life forms on Earth yet
only one is intelligent enough to develop
language, industry and culture. Even if there is
life on some planet out there the chances of
it being intelligent are slim.
CM Hornsby
THEY are definitely here. I saw one in North
Sydney one night. I wasn't the only one to see it
either, the person I was with saw it, too.
Shannon Jones Newcastle

_ft

Lost in space: Singer Olivia Newton-John

UFOs and me:

Olivia tells all
OLIVIA Newton-John has revealed that
she is fascinated by UFOs, after a close
encounter with one as a teenager.
The Grease star says she saw a
mysterious object shoot across the sky at
"amazing speeds" when she was 15.
"I have seen one, when I was very young.
It was unidentified and it was flying," she
told London's The Sun newspaper.
"It's true I'm intrigued by them."
The Australian singer, 61 yesterday, said
she had observed a growing interest in
UFOs. "I have seen so many shifts in belief
systems over the years," she said.
"In England. most people now think
UFOs are possible. Twenty years ago, how
many people would have thought that?"
Newton-John also spoke of her happiness
with second husband John Easterling,
whose firm uses Amazon herbs to make a
range of health products.

115 EelicAS Eft

_AO 0

AOGiuST 2.0ock

hottopic

ufosighting

Online.

tivf.51 plats

SIga up today f ar

UFOs Mr Sydney -theintergalactic neighbours drop by_

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nt4

Alien invasion
LOOKS about as
convincing as the UFO
photograph I took
outside my window of a
bottle top suspended on
a piece'of string,
Eligius Sydney

zs

ANYONE who's seen one believes, that's a

heck of a lot of us, but you're made to feel silly if
you speak of it. If you've seen a craft at speed
making right-angle turns then you'll believe.
Jo Cowan Sydney
YEP it's a UFO. If anyone can identify it,
then it's not one.
Key Umina
WHY is it that no one can ever produce a good
in-focus photo of UFOs or any other such
strange happenings.
Pete Bateau Bay
YOU are kidding? I used to fly these regularly
on scout weekends. A jiffy, some wire and a
garbage bag. Up, up and away.
Bluey Avalon Beach
IF THERE are aliens from other worlds, why
don't they ever land and come and say G'day?
Sally King Canberra
GREW up in Five Dock and saw a UFO glide
over one night when I was in the backyard with

my dad a little over 20 years ago. Came over

very slowly but was gone in seconds. Just
because it's a UFO doesn't mean that it's from
outer space. I can say that it was like nothing
we'd seen before. Which I guess is quite obvious
when it's described as a UFO.
Benno Sydney
I WAS taking fake UFO photos when I was 10
with a Kodak Instamatic and a saucer hung on
a string. Why are all supposed UFO photos out
of focus and blurry especially in these days of
digital images?
John Sydney Olympic Park
I GUESS if you have a sighting, you start to
question your own existence and what part
these UFOs play in our game of life.
Luke Sydney
IT IS dirt spots on the camera lens if it was a
UFO they would have stopped for a cup of tea, a
chat and to refilltheir petrol tanks, I'm sure.
Woody Old

YESTERDAY'S RESULT > 964 HITS

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TRI

PROFILE

2oto

Close encounters
ill Chalker may be older than
the television FBI agent but it
is a cosmic inevitabilitythat he
inspires Fox Mulder
comparisons.
The 57-year-old veteran
SydneyUF0 researcher and
nithor dismisses th e idea but, on the surface at
east, he appears to have more than a few things
n common with the brooding X-Files linchpin
-in particular, his passionate belief in
nvestigating unexplained phenomena.
"The subject of UFOs is one that has impacted
it quite an extraordinary level on the public
;onsciousness, yet there's a big disconnect
)etween the public consciousness and belief in
JFOs," Chalker says. "I've always been driven by
he fact that there is something here that seems
o be real and seems to be amenable, if given
ufficient resources, to a scientific investigation."
It was a spate of UFO activity in his home
own of Grafton in northern NSW during the
nid-1960s that first sparked Chalker's interest.
le has spent the subsequent four decades
lainstalcingly investigating reports of
ightings, close encounters and even claims of
lien abduction.
While there's certainlyno shortage of UFO
nthusiasts dotting the landscape, Chalker is
eadily distinguishable. Armed with a degree in
aathematics and chemistry, as well as 25 years
the field oflab oratory management, he's
Ways opted forthe scientific approach,
aampioning a reliance on logic and impartial
rialysis over blind acceptance.
"This is a phenomenon that's worldwide," he
tys. "It's been going on for an awfully long
eriod of time, certainly longer than since 1947,
hick is the modern popularised start date.
"It's definitely real and has very real physical
mensions to it. But it is also one of the most
eglected and misrepresented.
"To me this is a subject that screams out for
rious scientific investigation."
Australiahas long been regarded as a hotbed
'UFO activity among those in the know,
.oviding no shortage of material to provide a
isis for his work.
However, in 2009, the focus of UFO activity
emed to inexplicably shift to China. The
;htings are characterised by identifiable
ittems and trends, he says, but discerning their
act nature these days has become more
Eficult due to the internet and the vast plethora
online UFO discussion sites. The little green
en are now at risk of being hidden by the noise
out them.

Has evidence of UFOs been covered up

by the authorities? oWEN THOMSON spoke
to a researcher who wants to believe.
"There's always been waves or flaps of UFO
sightings through the '70s and '80s there
was almost like a three-year pattern but it's
more difficult to define those patterns now
simply because there are more and more
available channels forpeople to report
sightings to," he says. "There's no shortage of
information. It's actually investigating these
sightings that's the problem."
Chalker had his first UFO encounter while
studying at the University of NewEngland in
1972. "I witnessed an eggshaped object passing over
the university campus that
was also witnessed by
others," he says. "That to me
was pretty unusual because
it occurred under
circumstances that allowed
me to eliminate balloons,
aircraft and all sorts of other
different possibilities."
Chalker's work hasn't just
been restricted to the
investigation of civilian
UFO reports. Between 1982 and 1984, he was
granted access to Australian Department of
Defence files about UFOs. He says the tome of
documents revealed an organisation beset by
reports of sightings and close encounters.
"It showed me they Were dealing with more
or less exactly the same thing that civilian
researchers were dealing with and that was a
very broad cross-section of lights in the sky,
daylight discs, the odd close encounter-type
report, even abduction reports," Chalker says.
He says one of the most compelling instances
was a radar-visual case from 1954 involving the
pilot of a navy S ea Fury b as ed at HMAS
Albatross in Nowra. Records from the time
indicate the case was the subject of much
investigation by b oth. the military and
intelligence communities.

"The pilot in question had an encounter with

two objects that took up positions either side of
his aircraft and stayed there fora couple of
minutes," Chalkersays. "It was confirmed by
ground radar and there were also ground
witnesses. When the objects departed, his [the
pilot's] comment to me was that this made him
look as though he was standing still, even though
he was flying an aircraftwhich at the time was
the fastest plane in Australian sides."
Like many other examples never aired in a
public forum, it raises the
tantalising question: is there, or has
there ever been, a UFO conspiracy
or cover-up undertaken by
Australian authorities?

`This is a
subject that
screams out
for serious
scientific
investigation.

X factor... Bill Chalker (top) Investigates

UFOs, drawing inevitable comparisons with Fox
Mulder, as played by David Duchovny, pictured,
with Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson).
Main photo: Jacky Ghossein

"I would be more surprised if there was no

governmental intelligence, military kind of
response to the UFO subject," Chalkersays.
"But like anything that's not fully understood,
most organisations will tend to contain the
problem and seek to:minimise the nature of it,
atleast in the public domain, and hence you get
what is perceived as a cover-up."
Of all the aspects of the UFO phenomenon,
it's the subject of alien abduction that remains
the most controversial and maligned. Indeed,
Chalker says it's even the subject of conjecture
within the UFO research community; vivid
reports are often attributed to human
eccentricities and overactive imaginations.
He had reached the very same conclusion
himself by the early 1990s but Chalker says that
several cases prompted a radical rethink.
One such instance involved the late-night
encounter by a woman and her husband while
driving in the Dandenongs in Victoria in 1993.
"She had an awareness.that there was another
car; three other people further down the road
were also witnessingthe same thingan object
in a paddock with what appeared to be beings
or creatures coming out of it," Chalker explains.
"Not only did the case have abduction
components to it, like missing [or unaccounted
for] time, it also had very physical impacts,
particularly for the women involved. One had
what appeared to be ligature marks around her
ankles, while triangular marks were also left on
their abdomens. There were also gynaecological
issues. Coming from a scientific point of view,
that argued very powerfully that there was a
strong reality to the nature of this experience."
Chalker is now privately funded and engaged
in UFO research on a full-lime basis. He says he
is optimistic that answers will be forthcoming.
But while concrete explanations have so far
proven elusive, he has formulated his own
theories regarding the possible intentions of
visiting extraterrestrials.
"To me, part of it seems to be something about
an intrusion within our culture where maybe in
fact they've been tinkering with our own DNA,"
he says. "That sounds like a pretty outrageous
suggestion but even [physicist, author and chair
of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
taslcgro up at th e International Acad emy of
Astronautics] Professor Paul Davies has
suggested that we should be looking at our own
DNA for evidence of possible alien intrusion.
Just as we tinker with human and animal life
forms, to argue that intelligent life that might be
visiting is not doing the same thing with us, to
me, would be surprising."

ES

Glowing light: Joann Kanda at Long Jetty

Picture: Gary Graham

Is Et a
summer
surf nut?
Neil Keene

Spaced out

THERE'S something strange happenShare your UFO

ing in the skies over a little patch of our
stories and photos at
pristine holiday coast.
dailytelegraph.com.au
The suburbs around Gosford, on the
Central Coast, are the state's biggest
hot spot when it comes to UFO are people around to spot UFOs, but
sightings, with dozens of seemingly still isolated enough for them to be
authentic cases reported every year.
visible in the night sky.
Each month, as many as 30 people
"What UFOs do is, largely speaking,
turn up to meetings to share their covert in nature. They're obviously not
UFO experiences.
landing at the steps of the Opera House
UFO Research NSW secretary Joann and saying, 'Take me to your leader',"
Kanda, who helps organise the meet- ...1Mr Moffett said.
ings, saw what she believed was a UFO "'". The UFO and Paranormal Research
near her home at The Entrance in the Society of NSW said the Blue Mounmid-1990s.
tains also figured heavily in UFO
"It was just a sort of a glowing light sighting reports.
in the middle of the night," she said.
A group of enthusiasts spent the
"The dogs made a strange noise and' weekend in the mountains searching
I got up. There was something up in the - for UFOs they say visit the area each
sky with a greenish glow."
year in the last week of March.
One of the group, who declined to be
The region was the scene for one of
Australia's most baffling UFO cases named, said that in past years the craft
a series of sightings in 1995 and 1996 had appeared above the Burragorang
that were reported by police and many Valley, beyond JenoIan Caves, and were
seen to hover for some time.
other credible witnesses.
Several readers have reported seeing
Residents have told of seeing shiny,
spherical, illuminated UFOs that often UFOs near Wollongong a week ago.
hovered above water.
One said that about 8.15pin last
UFO Research NSW's Doug Moffett Sunday, a trio of orange lights appeared
said UFOs were commonly spotted overhead grouped in a triangular
over water or near power plants and the formation and moved silently through
the air.
Central Coast had plenty of both.
"There were probably another four
The geography of the Central Coast
may also play a part. It is heavily in a straight line from Stanwell Park
populated in parts, which means there directly over our place," he said.

19 !ARCM 'Low _

about: Life on other planets

Unidentified. Flying Opinion

Sightings of strange objects in the skies over Chipping Norton had Sydney chattering about the existence of life on other planets. Reporter
Megan Tran and photographer Brad Hunter took to the streets to ask people whether they believed there was something out there.

Woollahra
resident
Lynette
Balcombe
said while
man is
the dominate race
on earth, he is not
responsible for all
beings on earth.
NE It's arrogant
to think we are
the only ones in
the universe.
Man is taking
credit for things
he shouldn't be.

Amanda Finch
journalist from
Kensington has
witnessed a
UFO first hand.

I have
seen one myself. I was
driving across Australia
and there was this light
hovering beside the road
-

For some like

Geoff Leven from
Thornleigh, it's
their religion
which shapes
their thinking.

I am a Christian, we believe
in God, it runs in the family
my whole family is like that.

Bondi. Junction man

Arnaud BaudrU imagines
UFOs are expanding
their colony. .

1They would invade

the earth and take advantage of the
resources totake to their homeland
and use for.their planet. :.;,

Sceptic Stephanie

Glennie finds it hard

to separate her head
from her heart.

Logically I don't
believe it, but there's a
part of me that thinks otherwise.
My opinion would change if there
was more evidence.

Anthony

Scarcella from
Earlwood does
not believe the
myth but would be interested if
he met one.
11 don't think it's true, I
will start believing it when
more evidence comes up. I
would ask them questions
about their life.

Andy, a golf
lover from
the Dagobah
system:
it I think this

whole debate
is bunkum. I need proof,
there is so much talk
about UFOs and yet no
evidence, I mean really?
It's ridiculous.
Software
professional
Dhiren
Chandvania's
decision will
be based
on what he
encounters.
4" I don't

I have a general
impression they don't
exist, this might change
if more things were
discovered.

RE you one of
those people
whoops a daisy, I
almost said crazy
people just then,
that would've been rude
who have always felt rorted
that Australia doesn't have its
own spooky Roswell conspiracy? That none of us has never
been abducted and anally
probed by aliens? Or maybe
you're reading this and going,
speak for yourself ...
Maybe you were one of the

schoolchildren at Westall
High in Melbourne on that
day in 1966 when flying
saucers hovered over the oval
and then flew off into the sky,
never to be heard of again.
Shane Ryan, described here
as an amateur investigator, has
assembled quite a few eyewitnesses for his documentary,
including several people unrelated to Westall High.
It's a lot of fun. He also goes
to the Channel 9 archives to
dig out the old tape of the

interviews that were done on

the day and to the Dandenong
Journal library, which appear
to be the only two media
outlets that reported the yam.
It was April 6,1966. Graham
Simmonds was inside doing
something with crystals, looking out the window, directly
south. Terry Clarke was on the
oval playing sport. Marilyn
Eastwood says a student came
in, hysterical, leaned up against a sliding door and screamed.
They all said more or less

noeuvre it was a flying

saucer. The biggest mass UFO
sighting in Australia, and ,it
',seems to have been
pressed, he says.
Now, I'm not saying I don't
think they saw flying metal
objects, but I see something in
the sky, during the Cold War,
during Vietnam, during the
space race, during any time, 1
see the United States.

Eye-witnesses: Wis it a UFO?

the same thing: there's a

flying saucer in the oval. The
teacher on yard duty was
inside at the time, having a
fag and a cup of tea.
The headmaster had assembly later and told them to
all shut up about it, but that's
pretty normal behaviour from
a school principal, I would've
thought. The police were called, but again, schools tend to
overreact about everything.
These kids that day were
crying, carrying on ... So what
was it? Shane Ryan doesn't
leave a lot of room to ma-

Vet science
student
Swithun
Tegjeu,
14, 19, from
Baulktiam Hills
needs hard facts to turn
him into a believer.
/There is no evidence

believe it until
I see one for if
myself. I think
they look
like aliens
and are not.
human.

Smita
Chandvania
does not
contemplate
the
presence of
extraterrestrial beings.

R. OUT OF THE BOX

to prove their existence;

I would need photos and
DNA as evidence. They
would look different to
humans with different
skin to us.
Como
contract
manager John
Shearsby is
not one to
be worried
about the may-bes and
could-bes.
.011'm Christian

and it's
irrelevant to me. It's not
a part of the big picture.
We shouldn't be worried
about UFOs but more
important things.

Finnish
student Tia
Heinonen
believes
supernatural
beings are
not like the ones we
see in sci-fl movies.

They are not like

green aliens that come
out of spaceships.
They won't appear in
the close future.
.

Kendra
Stenger from
New York
thinks we will
have to wait
a long time
before we see anything.
ff 1 believe they are
just like us and went
through the same
evolution like we did.
But we won't see them
in our lifetime.

Melte Mercier,
16, from
Germany
believes there
is life out
there but they
won't come out of
space ships.

French
student
Valentin
Mercier, 18,
said while
there is something out there,
they are no different
from humans.

Au There's life outside

our galaxy. It's.a very
complex form of life
which is too hard for us-to understand.

a They are like us, not

something you see in
the movies. They go to
work and school, they
are friendly.

Buddhist
student
Jackie Zou
from Penrith
said her
! religion does
not limit her beliefs.

I believe there's
another world out there
in the universe. We see
them already but they
are not like us. They
travel to Earth.

eauwe

20t0

Westall 66; A Suburban

UFO Mystery

SCI Fl Channel, 8.30prn

****14-

NOBODY knew more about

the truth behind flying saucers
and other unidentified flying
objects, or UFOs, than Josef
Allen Hynek, a pioneer of
scientific investigation into the
unexplained sightings that still
intrigue the world.
The astronomy professor
and ufologist was born in
Chicago 100 years ago today.
Hynek led an extraordinary
life analysing many.of the
thousands of reports made
every year of extra-terrestrials,
spaceships, mysterious "crop
circles", alleged UFO attacks,
alien visitors, abduction claims
and inexplicable sightings
usually in remote places.
At first he was a sceptic
about the existence of UFOs
but his opinions, along with
his knowledge, slowly swung
around. He became concerned
that not all the reliable
witnesses who reported
sightings could be dismissed as
wrong, even if the sights could
not be scientifically explained.
He was technical adviser to
Columbia Pictures and Steven
Spielberg on the 1977 classic
film Close Encounters Of The
Third Kind, the story based
loosely on his own life. He was
seen stepping forward silently,
pipe in mouth, to view the
aliens disembark from the
"mother ship".

1111936 Hynek, with a

doctorate in astrophysics,
joined the department of
physics and astronomy at
Ohio State University. During
World War II, at the John
Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory, he helped develop
the US Navy's radio proximity
fuse (automatic explosive
device) which contributed to
the Allied victory in the war.
By 1948, Hynek, as a full
professor, was invited by the
US Air Force to act as
technical consultant in Project
Sign, set up to examine the
flood of UFO reports causing
rising public concern. This
became Project Grudge
1949-52 and Project Blue Book
1952-69, with Hynek as chief
scientific consultant_
At first he debunked any
idea that flying saucers did
exist. He believed his main task
for the air force was to educate
the public on scientific matters
of astronomy and atmospheric
phenomena. His opinions
began to shift as he realised
that not all UFO sightings
could be explained away as
mis-identification of known
natural occurrences. He found
some reports "deeply
puzzling". He was troubled
by the small but persistent
percentage of reports from
competent observers

astronomers, pilots, police

and military personnel
containing physical data which
could not be explained away.
Hynek decided many of these
must be genuine observations.
He concluded "that the
UFO phenomenon is a real
physical phenomenon and
represents an aspect of the
natural world not yet explored
by science".
By the 1960s his turnaround
and disagreement with the
attitudes of Blue Book, where
he was expected to "explain
away" as many UFO reports
as possible, was an open secret.
He became distressed at the
"arrogant" or "superficial"
attitude of most mainstream
scientists towards UFOs.
For decades, after the USAF
terminated Project Blue Book,
Hynek conducted his own
research. He was founder and
head of the Chicago-based
civilian Centre for UFO
Studies, opened in 1973. That
year, Hynek said he doubted
UFOs were spacecraft from
other planets. "It seems to me
ridiculous that super
intelligences would travel great
distances to do relatively
stupid things like stop cars,
collect soil samples and
frighten people. We must look
closer to home," he said.
In a final hypothesis he

Out of this
world: A
scene from
Close
Encounters
Of The Third
Kind and
(below)
Allen Ilynek

suggested there are stars

millions of years older than
the sun. "There may be a
civilisation millions of years
more advanced than man's,"
he said. "[They] may know
something that we don't
"The psychic realms, so
mysterious to us today, may
be an ordinary part of an
advanced technology."
In 1978, Hynek addressed
the UN general assembly, in an
attempt to initiate a centralised
UN authority on UFOs.
Still probing for the elusive
answers, Hynek died in 1986 of
a malignant brain tumor in
Scottsdale, Arizona.
Ann Beveridge

Online..
$A

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011441."

UFO experts fear IONA

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n invasion

PERHAPS we need to treat any alien visitors as

illegal immigrants and get them first to land on
Christmas Island for processing. If they fail to
meet the criteria, send them back to outer
space, or tell them they can have Afghanistan.
Pete Bateau Bay
UFOs certainly exist, there has been too much
evidence not to believe otherwise. I find it hard
not to believe, as in this vast universe surely we
are not the only life that exists.
Jual Russell
SOUNDS like some people may have had one
too many Darwin stubbies. Please leave these
stories for the April 1 edition,
arry Central Coast
HOW does one become a qualified UFOlogist?
Can one become an Easter bunny expert?
Carl Wollongong
IT'S Rudd and his cronies looking for their own
mine . . . nothing to fear my friends.
Terry

IT IS Hans Solo coming to find spare parts from

Autobarn for the Millennium:Falcon:
The Opinion Sydney
UFO tax coming soon.
Sqidda Boy Sydney
I BLAME the NSW State Government
Dave Gosford
ABDUCT me, abduct me!
The Papp Five Dock
GRAB the shotguns and don your alfoil hats .
James
THIS article was just so funny. well do Sydney
done I
enjoyed reading it.
Min Sydney
SPACE Food Sticks are delicious, I say welcome.
Jono Carroll Surry hills
THEY are here for one purpose only, to remove
the entire state of Queensland and their State of
Origin team to a planet far, far away . . may the
force be with them,
OregMietilerill Park

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a...

M,
.

w X. *v.0.

Rocket,
so forget
the aliens
By RICHARD CLUNE

Blast off: The SpacaX rocket takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida yesterday

THE sightings began just before the

break of dawn a strange swirling
light, spinning across the sky that
stopped early risers in their tracks.
It was definitely not a bird and
moved too quickly to be a plane.
From Melbourne to Caboolture, they
gazed upwards wondering the same
thing: Could this be the UFO to end the
debate about whether UFOs exist?
It took only two hours for that
question to be settled.
The unidentified flying object was
identified as a private rocket launched
from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
"Sadly for many, it's not aliens," said
Sydney Observatory curator Dr Andrew
Jacob. "We believe it to be the SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket that was launched from
Cape Canaveral in Florida.
"lt launched at 4.45am Australian
Eastern Standard Time and that
puts it over Sydney and the eastern
seaboard about an hour later.
"They always launch eastward and a
little south from Canaveral."
Developed by a California firm and
subsidised by NASA, the rocket was on
its maiden test flight. Its supporters
hope it will be a cheaper way to launch
satellites into space and will take over
from the space shuttle as a supply
vehicle for the international space

A N ELI,L
3L0,_

shuttle. The SpaceX company was set

up by millionaire Elon Musk in 2002.
Hundreds of Australians along the
eastern seaboard reported seeing the
craft as it made its way across the sky.
Tamworth fireman Andrew Coe said
it was a sight to behold.
"I was getting the paper when I
looked up and saw the light. I thought it
was the moon but then realised it was
moving, swirling. I grabbed the boss and
we observed it for a couple of minutes. It
was really interesting to see it"
Kevin Watson, of Shellharbour,
reported a similar sight. He said: "I
couldn't believe my own eyes."
The rocket was also seen by workers
on an oil rig in the Cooper Basin, in far
west Queensland.
"My mate spotted it first and said,
'Have a look at that!' At first I thought it
was the moon," Garth Marks said. "It
moved slowly, then disappeared."
Dr Jacob said the craft's high altitude
explained the multiple sightings.
But some remain to be convinced.
UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug
Moffett labelled the rocket claims a
"convenient explanation".

Real or fake? Send

us your UFO pictures
tipaff@sundaytelegraph.com.au'

Outback
UFO an
illusion
A MYSTERIOUS object seen
in film footage of British missile testing in the Australian
desert in 1964 set off decades
of conspiracy theories about a
UFO in the Outback.
When UK television viewers
in the 1960s watched BBC
footage of an abandoned test
of the Blue Streak missile at
Woomera in South Australia,
they were shocked by what
appeared to be a flying saucer
near the rocket launch pad.
The plot thickened in 1996
documentary-maker
when
Jenny Randles went to investigate the footage. only to find
the one canister containing the
evidence was missing from the
National Archives.
Newly released files from
the MOD reveal, far from
being a UFO, the flying saucer
was just a trick of the light.

PLQCLU50-

2.01. Q,

UFO tale
banned
BRITISH prime minister
Winston Churchill banned for
50 years the reporting of an
alleged UFO incident during
WWII because it could create
mass panic.
Documents released yesterday claimed that a wartime
reconnaissance aircraft photographed a UFO as it crossed
the British coast, with the crew
saying the mystery craft
"hovered noiselessly" near
them before moving off.
The documents claimed Mr
Churchill "made a declaration
to the effect, 'This event
should be immediately classified since it would create mass
panic among the population'."
Full report page 25

Space junk or UFO

WINDHOEK: A hollow metallic ball which fell out of
the sky on remote grassland in Namibia has baffled
authorities, prompting them to contact NASA and
the European space agency for answers.
The ball, urn in circumference, was found near a
village in the north of the country. Locals heard
several small explosions a few days before it appeared.
With a 35cm diameter, it has a rough surface and
appears to consist of "two halves welded together".
Made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighing
6kg, it made a crater 33cm deep and 3.8m wide.
Several such balls have fallen on southern Africa,
Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years.

UFOs a war secret

Churchill feared mass panic if air encounter revealed

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LONDON: Sir Winston Churchill

was accused of covering up a close
encounter between an RAF aircraft
and a UFO during World War II,
newly released files reveal.
The former British prime minister allegedly ordered the incident
over England's east coast be kept
secret for at least 50 years because it
would provoke "mass panic".
The claim, made by a scientist
Who said his grandfather was one of
Mr Churchill's bodyguards, is re-.
counted in declassified Ministry of
Defence UFO files made available
online by the National Archives.
Allegations of the cover-up
emerged when the scientist wrote
to the government in 1999 seeking
to learn more about the incident.
He described how his grandfather, who served with the
RAF in the war, was present
when Mr Churchill and ps
General Dwight Eisenhower
discussed how to deal with
the UFO encounter.
The man, who is not
named in the files, said
Mr Churchill was reported to have exclaimed:
"This event should be
immediately classified
since it would create
mass panic amongst
the general population
and destroy one's belief in the church."
The incident allegedly involved an
Cover up: Documents about a UFO sighting were allegedly made secret by Sir Winston Churchill
RAF reconnaiss-

Vollkt a SSS'

1$44 E 34104

ance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany towards

the end of the war.
It was over or near the English
coastline when it was intercepted by
a strange metallic object which
matched the aircraft's course and
speed for a time before accelerating
away and disappearing.
Mr Churchill and General Eisenhower "agreed to cover up the RAF
plane's UFO encounter during
WWII", the files reveal.
"During the discussion with Mr
Churchill, a consultant dismissed
any possibility that. the object had
been a missile, since a missile could
not suddenly match its speed with a
slower aircraft and then accelerate
again. He declared that the event
was totally beyond any imagined
capabilities of the time.
"Another person at the meeting
raised the possibility of an unidentified flying object, at which point. Mr
Churchill declared that the incident
should be immediately classified for
at least 50 years."
The files -also revealed UFOs
were once taken seriously enough
to be discussed by intelligence
chiefs in 1957.
The latest batch of UFO files
from the National Archives includes details of a memorandum on
"aerial phenomena" prepared for a
meeting of the Cabinet Office's
Joint Intelligence Committee in
April 1957. And the files show that
modern reports of UFO sightings
reached a peak in 1996.

Jc)

.114 10m_a_E_EL

Unidentified flying Nazis: A flying saucer

allegedly developed by Hitler's scientists and
(inset) an artist's impression of the craft

Rg\I EM

Nazi UFO
flew over
UK in '44
LONDON: As Hitler's armies
began to crumble he turned in
increasing desperation to his
scientists to create a warwinning super-weapon.
Some, like the V2 rockets and
the first jet fighters, saw action
but came too late to halt defeat.
Others were so outrageously
ambitious that they never got
past the drawing board.
The idea of building flying
saucers to bomb London and
even New York could have been
just such a scheme.
Now it is claimed Hitler's
scientists were so far advanced
with the project a prototype may
have flown up the Thames.
The program, under the command of SS officer Hans KammIer, was said to have made
breakthroughs in anti-gravity,
according to a report in the
German science magazine PM.
It quotes witnesses who saw a
flying saucer marked with the
Iron Cross flying low over the
Thames in 1944.
"The Americans also treated
the existence of the weapons
seriously," it said.
The magazine said the Germans destroyed much of the
paperwork on their activities but
in 1960, Canadian UFO experts
managed to recreate the device
which, to their amazement, "did
f7x,

onthestreet

Pine Gap
UFO files
released

Do you Delieve in the

existence of UFOs?
BELIEVE in all possibilities
including UFOs. I'm very
comforted by the fact there's
intelligent life out there.
Alison Marshall Waterloo

Lucy Came
in London

YES. I saw one on my balcony

with a friend five months ago.
There was a beam of light and
it was there for three hours.
Alexis Al(ache Padstow
YES. With how big the
universe is and how small
Earth is, it is statistically
probable.
Craig Anderson Engadsne
I HAVEN'T seen any but
I saw .a documentary on
the History Channel which
swayed me.
Kayo Shoji Ryde

DEcEMSER 2.o to

UFO? No,
Iranians
TEHRAN: It's not clear how
far or how high it can fly, or
even how big it is and what
... makes it take off.
But Iranian scientists claim
to have built the world's first
flying saucer.
The unmanned machine is
apparently designed for aerial
photography and is called the
Zolial Saturn.
"It is equipped with autopilot, image stabiliser and GPS
and has a separate system for
aerial recording with FULL
HD quality," Iran declared,
keen to show it is at the cutting
edge of science.

RGEd 2 0.x_

UNIDENTIFIED flying discs

above Pine Gap space station
and an Australian sent by 'the
lights" to unify the human
race are among thousands of
alien claims made public by
the UK Ministry of Defence.
The files, released for the
first time this week, contain
more than 8500 pages revealing UFO sightings and alien
abductions discussed by several governments. They include accounts of UF0s-acitiss
Britain, Norway and Australia.
One UK citizen in 2001
demanded the Ministry of
Defence investigate an alleged
cover-up of flying objects seen
from the space shuttle Discovery over Pine Gap, near
Alice Springs.
.NASA said it was debris
illunainated by the sun, but the
MOD admitted it could only
offer a "disappointing" reply
because "there are some
aspects which, for reasons of
national security, are just not
open for discussion".
In another . file, a London
mother claimed aliens chose
her second husband.
"He is Australian [white]
and I am Barbadian [black],"
she wrote. "We were being
brought together to represent
the Unity between the Opposite Forces -- the positive
and negative forces."

Shirley IVIacLaine: my wild affairs and

hunting UFOs with Andrew

SAMANTHA MAIDEN
NATIONAL POLITICAL EDITOR
SCREEN legend Shirley MacLaMe has unlocked her Ex-Files,
revealing how she took Andrew
Peacock LIFO spotting on a date
at. a remote Mexican volcano
white he was foreign miniSter.
In a new tell-all book about her
string of prominent lovers, Ms
MacLaine discloses bow the
future Liberal leader nearly
"climbed the sky" when they
thought they saw a flying saucer
and hinted that he had secret
government information about
their existence.
The Oscar-winning actress is a
lifelong believer in UFOs, spirituality and reincarnation and
claims she slept with King Charlemagne when she was a Moorish
peaSant girl in a past fife.

In this life, her affair with Mr

Peacock began when she was
touring Australia and later, as
both travelled the world, they
enjoyed assignations in Canada,
France, Cambodia, Thailand,
England, the US and Mexico.
In the book, entitled I'm Over
All That And Other Confessions,
she; writes: "I thought as long as
'he's the Minister for Ftireign
Affairs, I might as well give him
one he'll never forget."
She claims her Australian
lover, with his access to government files, knew more about
UFOs than he was willing to
reveal to her.
"Whenever I discussed my
spiritual arid metaphysical ideas
with him, he listened, nodded and
more or less said: 'It could be,
Who knows?'
"On a UFO stakeout in Mexico near Mt Popocatepetl, at one
moment we thought we saw a
craft and Andrew nearly 'climbed
the sky' to see if it was real.
"As foreign minister he con-

trolled all the information coming out of Alice Springs (supposedly the underground UFO
research facility in Australia).
Because he was sworn to secrecy,
he 'never told me outright that
UFOs were extraterrestrial in
origin and were present.
"When I told him I had gone
to see Jimmy Carter to discuss
UFOs, he just smiled again. He
was a trained diplomat."
Mt Popocatepetl is a reported hot-spot for UFO activity where' enthusiasts
claim the craft are regularly
captured by Mexican Government disaster cameras.
in the book, the 76-yearold reveals her various "sexcapades," including bedding
three lovers in one day. She
writes about affairs with
actor Robert Mitchum,
singer Yves Montand and
Prime Ministers Pierre
Trudeau (Canada) and OW
Palme (Sweden).
The book reveals Mr Peacock,
who was single, threatened to
have the "secret service follow
me if I was ever caught with
anyone else" but he didn't realise
she was also bedding Mr Palme.
"Once after leaving Palme in
Stockholm, I went directly to
Paris to meet Andrew. The paparazzi were all over me when I
landed. Andrew thought it was
because of him, but it was actually
about both [Mr] Palme and him,"
she writes.
She describes Mr Peacock as
"charming, funny and a conservative". "He used his voice like a
snake oil salesman, which always
made me laugh because, as I told
him, I was also in the business of
professional seduction through
voice manipulation."
The Sunday Telegraph contacted
Mr Peacock but he did not wish to
comment on the book.

APPIL

We thought we saw a craft

andAndrew nearly "climbed
the sky" to see if it was real

Shirley Maclaine with Andrew Peacock dancing at a hall in Washington in MB

lers stuns police

By KC EL AD LAM
POLICE are convinced that
Territorians go a little bit
mad during the full moon.
They were shocked -- and
delighted that most people
behaved themselves during
Tuesday night's full moon.
Superintendent _John
Ginnane said: "There were a
few incidents but generally it
was a quiet night"

He said emergency service

workers police, fire fighters
and ambulance officers
firmly believed that full moon
had a strange effect on people.
And the policeman said
other workers who dealt with
the public at night such as
taxi drivers and nightclub
bouncers were also convinced of it.
"For some reason, a full

ash o

phe

moon inspires behaviour over

and above what is expected,"
Supt Ginnane said.
Full moon madness doesn't
occur only in troppo season.
"It happens regardless of the
tune of year," Supt Ginnane
said yesterday.
Man has long believed in full
moon madness -- the word
lunacy conies from lunar.
AccorciMg to Wiliipedia, pay-

Arta spar

chologists have found there is

no strong evidence for weird
effects on human behavior
around the time of a full. moon.
However, some studies have
been inconsistent.
A survey of dog bites hi
Britain showed they were
much more common during a
full moon.
But a similar study in Australia found .t-ne, opposite.

-1' lea

?'

Dr Time Partonen of the

Finnish National. Public
Health Institute carried out a
study of 1400 suicides and
found that people were more
likely to make an attempt on
their life when there was a
new moon.
A full moon occurs when the
moon is on the opposite side of
the earth from the sun.
It occurs every 29.53 days.

alien invasion

.
Ruin Page It
phenomena" since the first sighting last week..e.,
Almost all of the sightings have
been in Darwin's rural area.
The At sighting was reported
by a woman who wanted to
be identified only as Shirel on
April 21.
She said she saw the strange
lights from her Humpty
Doe home hovering over
Howard Springs.
"The lights were really low in
the sky, really bright, with flashnattglqtliolawaid.

"Three of them formed a semicircle and they hovered over ,the

area for at least half an hour."
There were three separate
sightings on Friday night lncluding British backpacker Eylie
Myers who said she. had "never
believed in anything like UFOs"
before her strange encounter.
The 27-year-old tourist said she
turned. into a "believer".
Ms Myers said she stopped her
car on the side of the road to grab
her camera from the glovebox,
but the light disappeared.
"It was prettawatiwdko

There were more sightings at TRUE RELIEVER: Territory UFO-spotter Alan

Coolalinga on Saturday, Acacia Ferguson, of Acacia -1111s, who said he saw a
Hills on Sunday and again in "bright white light" flashing past his house.
Howard Springs on Tuesday.
But astronomer. Geoff Carr yesterday told the Northern Tei-ri.t4r.r.
cry News he was "far from believ
ing any of this -UFO staff".
"Unless aliens have found a way
to travel faster than light speed,
it's a doubtful thing to believe they
came to visit us," he said.
Mr Carr said he believed
99.9 per cent of all the UFO
sightings could be explained as
simple weather,phenomena. *.

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VA

'Gerrys'
help to
rate UFO
sightings
THE following UFO sightings have
been reported to the NT News in
the past week. We've given each
sighting a credibility rating on the
Gerrymeter scale, named in
honour of the Territory's most
powerful man, independent MLA
Gerry Wood, who has seen UFOs
flying over his electorate in
Darwin's rural area.
THE GERRYMETER

April 23, 8pm, Howard Springs

Susan Clarke and her family
spot a "huge spherical object
that was moving horizontally
across the night sky very slowly".
"It was amazing and unnerving
at the same time

4 Gerrys Definite alien

potential. Time to break out your
anti-abduction helmet

Z9 APRIL 2011

"It was glowing red, orange

and gold none of us had ever
seen anything like it before."
A 48-year-old woman of
Woodroffe later confirms the
sighting and compares it to a
similar UFO sighting in Howard
Springs in September last year.
"lt was sitting there, maybe 40
metres above the house I first
thought it was a huge full moon.
"When I looked around I saw
that there was a partial moon
further to the left, and I thought
'Oh my God, I'm not hanging
around here' and took off.
"it was unnerving, it was a
dark, very quiet night, and really,
it scared me to bits.
"It was an enormous orb, just
sitting there, as if it was waiting
for something."

4 GERRYS

3 Gerrys Was it a shooting

star? Or could it be something
more sinister?

2 Gerrys No wonder your

friends call you Alf

'Gerry Is that a UFO l can see

through the wacky weed haze?

April 21, night-time, Humpty

Doo/Howard Springs
Thirty eight-year-old Shirel
and her family see "strange
lights" from their Humpty Doo
home. The lights seem to hover
over Howard Springs.
"The lights were really low in
the sky, really bright, with
flashing dots.
"Three of them formed a semicircle and they hovered over the
area for at least half an hour."

3 GERRYS

7ei APRIL 2.011

April 23, night-time,

Stuart Highway, south of
Howard Springs
British backpacker Kylie Myers
is on the way to Adelaide River,
when she suddenly sees "this big
light" in front of her, a few
metres above the road.
"It slowly moved to the right,
then to the left ... and then it
slowly flew to the left.
"A second later somebody
must have switched the light off
it was gone as suddenly as
it appeared.
"i never believed in anything
like that, I always thought people
would make it all up or see strange
things when they are drunk, but
this really happened to me and
it was pretty spooky."

4 GERRYS

April 24,10pm, Coolalinga

Twenty seven-year-old Renee Miller
sees a huge yellow light over the road.
"It was just there, it wasn't the moon
or anything.
"It was bright yellow and suddenly
it was gone. I have no idea what it was."

3 GERRYS

April 25, 8pm, Acacia Hilts

UFO-spotter Alan Ferguson sees a
"bright white light" flashing past his
house. "It just looked like the

_2.9 APRIL 2.01)

International Space Station a big
white light," he said.
"When it moves across it looks like
a satellite, except it's huge.
"It's exactly the same thing that I
saw at this time last year."
5 GERRYS
' --

hifilasi

By ANNIE SANSON
A MASS of UFO
sightings has Territorians wondering if we
are on the brink of an past week. Hardly a night
alien invasion.
has passed without a sightThere have been seven ing of some "unexplained
separate Top End UFO
sightings reported in the
Continued Page 9

5 Gerrys As credible as the

Territory's most honest
politician, Gerry Wood

iffisory

April 27,10.30pm, Humpty Doo/

Howard Springs
Humpty Doe-resident Shirei again
spots mysterious lights over Howard
Springs, together with her husband
and her two grown-up children.
"We saw the same thing again
there were three of them (bright lights)

in a semi-circle.
"It was a crystal clear night and we
all saw it. We watched it for half an
hour and the things changed their
shape a few times.
"It looked like a long piece with
lights on the side, but every now and
again it just looked like a star.
"We weren't worried as it was too far
away, but it's a bit of a worry to hear
more and more people report strange
things happening."
3 GERRYS

a Sacramento

'Area 5i

San Francisco

Las Vegas

Conspiracy
theories
E.-1 That in
1947 a UFO
crashed near
the town
of Roswell
and the US
government
seized the craft
and the bodies of
several aliens
R That the 1969 Moon
landing never happened - it
was filmed at Area 51
1111 That the latest revelations
about Area 51 are the
biggest cover-up of all

Shrouded in mystery: The US military says the A-12 spy plane (main picture) was often mistaken for a UFO and (bottom left to right) testing
the A-12, a pilot ejects, a top secret transport approaches Area 51 and an aerial view of the base
Pictures: National Geographic/Area 51's Secrets

eceleo114,1 Mob,. ArttilcIa.

.04.4
-<, rkFaew..

Joe Hildebrand
AMERICANS have always liked to
believe in something, whether it be
God, the flag or spindly bug-eyed
aliens who look like an albino
version of Spiderman.
But after today they might have
to strike this last one from the list,
with extraordinary new pictures of
Area 51 confirming every conspiracy theorist's worst fear. There is

no conspiracy. The legendary top

secret military base in Nevada
and officially not anywhere has
captured the imagination of UFOspotters for half a century.
It was 1963 when a futuristiclooking craft crashed in the nearby
desert. The US Government
quickly recovered it and covered it
up, which sparked suspicions they
had found an alien spaceship.
But phenomenal pictures un-

1.

tI

earthed by National Geographic and

to feature in its documentary Area
51's Secrets reveal it was an A-12
spyplane, pictures of which have
been released for the first time by
the CIA. The incredibly streamlined titanium vessel would have
looked at home in a Star Wars
movie but was in fact developed by
the US Government in the 1950s.
"Nearly undetectable to radar,
the A-12 could fly at 2200 miles an

hour (3540km/h), fast enough to

cross the continental US in 70
minutes," the National Geographic
website reveals.
"From 90,000 feet (27,400m),
the plane's cameras could capture
foot-long (0,3m) objects on the
ground below."
Area 51 workers even built fake
cardboard planes and lit decoy fires
so as to fool Soviet satellites spying
from overhead.

The ruse was so elaborate that

even the fake planes themselves
were not intended to be seen but,
rather, to cast misleading shadows
that would keep the Russians
chasing red herrings.
The fires were used to simulate
aircraft landings. It was an extraordinarily elaborate ruse and incredibly effective at deceiving the
Russians. The only catch was it
deceived a few Americans too.

*MYSTERY MUM.

ive on station UFO

A UK radio station known for its
lively discussions on world
affairs became rather more
other-wordly yesterday when it
broadcast a live account of a
close brush with a UFO from
one of itssports reporters.
"Freaked out" sports journalist. Mike Sewell said he was left
gobsmacked when he saw a
huge "disc-shaped" aircraft hovering above the Hertfordshire

countryside on his way to catch

a flight in the early hours of the
morning.
Sewell said he was driving to
Stansted airport when he saw
the UFO over the village of
Coffered, near Buntingford.
He called his Radio 5 Live
employers and his interview
with presenter Nicky Campbell
was broadcast to millions of
listeners.

Sewell told how about 25km

from Stanated at 4.15arn he
saw a "big bright light in the sky
descending towards the road"
and how when it banked to the
left he could see underneath it.
"It wasn't an aeroplane, and
it wasnt a helicopter. Certainly
of a kind of - and I dread saying
this - disc shape. It had several
tights flashing all around it." he
said.

He said the craft "just sat or

circled a certain area above the
field for a few moments" when
he lost sight of it.
"Certainly for two or three
minutes I saw what, I think, was
not a normal aeroplane," said
the well-respected reporter, who
was on his way to Sweden to
cover a soccer match.
"I was wide awake and I'm of
sound mind. I was completely

freaked out by it" Sewell said.

UFO expert Timothy Good
told the station that what Sewell
had seen was "clearly not a conventional aircraft of any type".
"It might be extra terrestrial.
it might well be one of ours. Top
secret aircraft and spacecraft
have been flown by the US militar}, and by the British military
for quite some time now." Good
said.

AUGUST 201i_

Carleen Frost
A DEE Why man is convinced he saw
two UFOs flying over the northern
beaches at dawn on Sunday, despite
aviation experts rejecting the claim.
Xavier Figarella believes he saw two
UFOs travelling across the sky about

al

SE ?I gJA13...EIL

6am as he was waiting to watch the

sun rise from his balcony.
He said the objects were travelling in a
straight line but appeared to be changing shape as they moved.

"It was really weird," he said.

"I cannot understand what it was."
Mr Figarella said he did lot believe in
UFOs until he witnessed the two
objects in the sky on Sunday.

By the time he was able to grab his

camera, only one remained.

Contnued Page 2

Circled:above is one of the

two objects which sparked
a Dee Why man's UFO
sighting.
Picture: Xavier Figarella

Aliens could be avoiding us

THERE'S an argument raging in
scientific circles about our approach to finding life on other
planets.
Since 1984, the not-for-profit organisation, SETI Institute (Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
has been patiently sifting through
radio signals from deep space in
the hope of finding a message from
another world. Now, millions of
home computers, are linked across
the globe via SETI@Home to join
in the listening.
However, just a few years ago, a
band of SCI-Fl aficionados from
Argentina and Russia - declared
that after decades, of being put on
hold and hearing nothing, zilch,
nada, (a bit like ringing QANTAS),
they were going to get active and
blast messages from earth into
space. Something like: "Hey! You
with the pointy-head! We're over
here!"
Some scientists fear we may be
inviting obliteration from ruthless Alien exterminators. What
will happen when we humans, the
"most ignorant technological race
in the universe" begin advertising
the fact? Not all E.T.'s can be
immobilised in under two hours
by the wily.Tom Cruise.
SETI founder, the late Carl:
Sagan, said that :as "the newest
children" in a strange and uncer-

How about a time and space portal from a UFO?

THIS week a Northern Territory
driver said he was freaked out by
an encounter with what he
claims was a UFO, somewhere
south of Tennant Creek.
Which of course had me wondering how come aliens only
make themselves known in
remote areas of Australia? Most
often to people towing caravans
to Perth.
Now there's a report of what
may have been two UFO's hovering over Sydney's northern
beaches, so perhaps aliens are
becoming emboldened. On some
sort of inter-galactic meet and
greet. I'll be one of the first out
there to shake er whatever they
use for hands.
-lain

cosmos, we should listen

quietly and learn patiently.
There's now a SETI project that
asks: "If we discover intelligent
life beyond earth should we reply
and what should we say?"
One of hundreds of suggestions
is: "Come now! MAYDAY. HELP!"
Here's another: "If you are related
to E.T. We welcome you.

A flying
saucer
literally in
action.
Picture.
NICK AN DR EAN

I'm fascinated by the possibility of life on another planet

and sometimes wonder if I were
invited on board an alien craft,
would I go? Yes. I'd always regret
not going, if only to answer the

question: How come everything

alien is white, silver, translucent
or iridescent green?
I'd also like to be the first to
describe some piece of alien technology unknown to the human

If you are related to the War of

World people. We are not receiving calls today. Maybe tomorrow.
Have to pack."
I'd go with: "Wow! You look
amazing. Have you lost weight?"
(Everyone loves that one.)
Strangely, no one's considered
the idea that Aliens have known
for years that we're here and are

studiously avoiding us. Our ozone

layer spells "HAZOHEM" and
visiting earth is the intergalactic
equivalent of taking the kids to
Fukushima. They'd love to visit,
but haven't the got the technology
in gumboots, block-out and longhandled tongs.
As for those UFO's hovering
over Dee Why?

race. When abductees return to

Earth after being probed, they
always describe a sick bay that
sounds uncannily like the one on
the Starship Enterprise and
medical equipment similar to
stuff your dentist uses.
No one abducted by superintelligent beings has been able
to describe one item of alien
technology that has advanced
Earth one jot - not even a new ;
design for a paper clip or a new
way to grate cheese - so I'd like to
bring back the actual blueprints 4
for a time and space portal and
then build one. If I could ever get
a DA from the council. (Which
seems unlikely, given the progress on next door's carport.)
They won't be touching down
any time soon. They whizzed back
beyond Betelgeuse after failing to
find a place to park.
op
Wendy Harmer is the co-editor of
TheHoopla.coni.au, an online news
and opinion site.that keeps
Australian women "in the loop".