Picture this; the internet is a vast tripod and its three points of contact are porn, UFO conspiracies and government/police/military conspiracies. Leaving aside the first tripod, because The Inquisition is a family show, we are going to lightly skim the surface of the other two and delve shallowly into their murky depths.
This is one of the greatest statements ever made:
“Dr. Michael E. Salla, initiator of ‘exopolitics’ and author of a book entitled EXPOSING U.S. GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE expressed his belief that there is a joint US/alien underground bio-lab beneath the Archuleta Mesa and that this must be addressed as a serious human rights abuse issue.” (from Phantoms and Monsters)
There are so many loonies out there it is nearly impossible, not to mention hugely tedious, to sift through all the reports of UFOs. But the possibility of alien lifeforms somewhere in the universe is almost certain. That said, why would they come here in sneaky mode? Whoever heard of tourists that aren’t loud, brash braggarts? And which are the best – read; most entertaining – claims anyway?
Here are very quick synopses of the top five (kind of), except for Roswell, because, well, why bother?
The most recent of the big ones. This is is some Area 51 x-files themed madness. Basically, the gist of it is that a local radio owner ( a retired Superintendent of Operations and Police Chief) and a redneck saw a turqoise glowing oval crashing in California. Later, helicopters were seen taking some debris away, men in black-style agents appeared in the area and the redneck disappeared. A year later a large triangular craft was reportedly followed by US air force jets across the sky here.
Verdict: Considering the military already has triangular shaped planes and presumably the ability to change the colour of its lights to a lightish blue this is not hugely surprising.
This happened in Chicago on the 7th of November 2006 and according to the absolutely infallible and un-impeachable Wikipedia: “federal authorities at Chicago O’Hare International Airport received a report that a group of twelve airport employees were witnessing a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering over gate C-17″. It was reported to have also been witnessed by the cockpit crew of a United Airlines plane. This received widespread media coverage, in the US at least. 2009 saw hoax videos and images released of the event, which would make reasonable people a bit suspicious.
Verdict: Not certain either way, but it was offically reported by airport staff, who presumably know what is a human-style aircraft and what is not. But to be safe, maybe consider avoiding United Airlines for a while.
There were a few few pre-world war II reports of unidentified aerial objects but none captured the same attention as the so-called foo-fighters witnessed by fighter pilots during the Second World war. These were even photographed by both sides and are also believed to have been the cause of The Battle of Los Angeles (link). All these early accounts describe shiny discs or lights moving at great speed. The pilots reported these objects flying with them and seemingly playing chasing with the pilots.
Verdict: One would imagine there is a lot to take in when flying around the skies engaging in dogfights. Coincidentally these sightings began around the time the Nazis began firing unmanned V1 and V2 rockets. These rockets were frighteningly new technology at the time.
In May 1967 Stefan Michalak went out into the Canadian wilderness into an area he was very familiar with. Although it sounds a bit weird, he was spending the day digging at exposed seams of quartz. At mid-day his lunch plans were severely compromised when two bright red cigar shaped objects came throught the sky towards him. They made noises like geese and became more oval in shape as they got closer. Yes, that’s right they sounded like geese. The objects put on a little lightshow for him before one departed. The remaining one opened its hatch after half an hour and some voices carried out on the wind. The stone that the ship had been on had melted to glass. When Michalak touched it with his lucky quartz digging glove, it too melted. The ship then opened an exhaust pipe and sprayed him with gas so hot it burned his clothes. Fuck, now you just look like a weirdo naked and burnt in a forest with melted mining equipment on your hands.
Michalak had difficulty getting back to his accommodation and claimed his body was emanating crazy smells. His physician did see a regular pattern of burn marks across his chest.
Verdict: The Canadian Mounties found that he had drunk quite an amount of beer before the incident. They also found some radioactive materials after they located the site. It’s amazing flashers ever since have not used similar excuses; “no, I’m not wandering around exposing myself – I was digging for smegonium and a big spaceship came down and burnt off my clothes”
Milton Torres was told to empty hi entire payload of rockets into a radar anomaly. He was an american pilot stationed in Britain in the 50s and was ordered to scramble when something big appeared on radar. He did not see it with his eyes, only his radar and his equipemnt put its speed at mach 10. That is quite fast.
Verdict: Sceptics said he was fooled by his own forces as they tested a weapon to make phantom planes appear on enemy radar. The Inquisition doesn’t know, and doesn’t really care because this one is frankly a bit crap.
Also try these out:
Vietnam (link) & (link)- not very convincing in an area full of drug trafficking
Cardiff helicopter (link)- police helicopter in Britain takes up the chase
Are UFOs just a twentieth and twenty-first century version of Godly or Marian visions? Will we visit Roswell instead of Lourdes? The Inquisition hopes not. The question of the reality of UFOs has bothered Stanford’s Professor Peter A Sturrock so in 1998 he organized a scientific panel to review actual evidence of UFOs. The panel felt that any evidence was inconclusive, but also deemed extremely puzzling UFO cases worthy of further scientific study. Sturrock wrote about the findings of the panel in a book The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence. You could read it if you want. You don’t have to to, just if you want.
Bibliography
The Daily Mail
The Examiner
Needles on About.com
O’Hare on Wikipedia
UFOs on Wikipedia
UFO Evidence
Phantoms and Monsters
This article was posted on
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at
04:55.
It is archived in Mysterious, Wild Places and tagged Add new tag, anomaly, oooooohhh!, ufo.
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