UFOs Sink Mir into the Ocean while the Alien Choir Sings On
Robert Sheaffer
Finally someone has figured out the real reason that the Russians have ditched space station Mir into the ocean: to help keep the lid on the Great UFO Cover-up. UFOlogist Andy Lloyd explains that “NASA and the U.S. Government want to steer clear of space tourism in a very, very big way” (www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicmir.html). Therefore, the U.S. government pressured the Russians into sinking Mir because “Space tourists are far more likely to honestly describe what they’re seeing and experiencing in orbit. In other words, their presence in orbit would bring unauthorized and uncontrolled civilians into direct contact with what many of us believe is happening up there. They will tell the world about the anomalous activity that routinely seems to ‘buzz’ our space platforms in orbit. Perhaps they will return with photos and camcorder images. Such access to the events fleeting glimpsed on secret NASA transmission would become a major tourist attraction, and blow the lid off the whole UFO phenomenon.” Aha, now we un derstand!
As if this were not exciting enough, a photographer has captured on film an entire “alien choir,” looking for all the world as if they were singing Christmas carols. Accordiing to Alien Abduction Experience and Research, “This photograph shows a group of six aliens standing on a garage roof in Alabama. The aliens are facing in one direction towards a hovering ball of light, from which another alien appears to be descending (see www.abduct.com/photos/pn007.htm). This September 29, 2000, photograph was taken after the witness saw a movement and heard a sound like ‘hummiing electric lines.’ Having seen and heard UFOs before, the witness knew to take a picture,” which is very fortunate-had the photographer not had such keen UFO knowledge, he might have concluded that alien choirs were an everyday occurrence. The “choir” looks like a blurry photo of someone’s lighted outdoor display of Christmas carolers. Unfortunately for science, “the name and address of [the] photographer are being withheld.”
Joseph Trainor’s UFO Roundup relays a Reptoid sighting from a Mexican UFO group. Two policemen were reportedly on patrol near the thermoelectric plant in Rosarito, Baja California, at 3:17 one morning when “they saw what appeared to be a reptilian creature walking on the beach with a black suit on and with glaring red eyes.” That would bring the creature quite close to the U.S. border, and it will be interesting to see if the glowing creatures being sighted throughout the Baja can pass through U.S. Customs. Unfortunately, the incident is reported to have taken place on February 29, 2001, which causes us to have some doubts about it. Trainor also tells us of some strange goings-on at Concordia College in rural Moorehead, Minnesota: “Hoyum Hall, one of the girls’ dorms at Concordia, appears to be home to a colony of Reptoids.” Supposedly it has been nicknamed “Reptoid Hall” because of the many creatures allegedly reported there, dating back to the 1980s, although the name “Hokum Hall” might seem more appropria te. Unlike the Mexican ETs, these creatures apparently do not glow, but they have reptilian skin, only three fingers, and like to play pranks on women in varying states of undress.
Back on Mars, the most recent “anomaly” to be reported in the Mars Online Gazette is a supposed “Manta-Wing Aircraft” that seems to have gotten itself snared in a Martian sand dune. See www.electricwarrior.com/mol/Mars OnlineGazett.htm for more information. But on Earth, Malin Space Science Systems, which operates the cameras on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, has released a new set of high-resolution images of the Cydonia region, which represent all images taken thus far (see www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/01_31_01_release s/cydonia/index.html). The “Face on Mars” doesn’t look anything like a face in the latest images, but that won’t stop anyone from trotting out the same tired old claims.
In San Leandro, California (near Oakland), the Wizard Brewery has come up with an out-of-this-world brew–Crop Sector Ale, “the highly unusual beer made from crop circle barley.” It is harvested from the fields of Alton Barnes, East Field, England, where allegedly extraterrestrial crop circles are said to turn up all the time. According to the advertising flyer, the brewer found that this malted barley possessed some remarkable properties, so he sent it off for analysis to the Malting Science Division at the University of California–Davis. Supposedly they found it was high in selenium, which when mixed with the chromium in brewer’s yeast created a mix that was too strong to ferment correctly. The proportions of the mix have now been adjusted correctly to account for extraterrestrial influences, and the result is said to be that “with all the energy from the beginning of the grain through the brewing process, we know this new style ale is sure to please even the most skeptical amongst us!” I’ll drink to that .
Unfortunately, knowledgeable sources are now warning that this year’s tourist season for crop circle watchers may be hampered, if not eliminated, by the farmers’ very legitimate concerns over foot-and-mouth disease. With this highly communicable livestock virus, capable of being carried on the shoes or clothing of unsuspecting persons, many farmers are understandably unwilling to have hordes of strangers tramping through their fields, even if they do pay a couple pounds apiece for the privilege of gawking at circles trampled out by hoaxers the night before. If this year the British economy suffers the loss of income not only from raising cattle, but from crop circle tourism as well, it will be a serious blow indeed.
In Scotland, the town of Bonnybridge is a local UFO hotspot, claiming more UFO sightings than anywhere else in the world (a claim that many other localities would no doubt contest). Local councilman Billy Buchanan knows a good thing when he sees it, and the BBC has reported on his plans to set up Bonnybridge as a sister city to Roswell, New Mexico (see http://news.bbc.co. uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1022 000/1022712.stm). “We in Bonnybridge have an affinity with Roswell, and the common denominator is UFOs,” he said. “The cultural, tourist, social and economic advantages would be tremendous for the area.” He also said that an AngloAmerican company was planning to visit the area to present plans for a [pound]20 million UFO-related theme park. Apparently dear old Nessie hasn’t been bringing in enough tourists of late, and Mr. Buchanan has great hopes that UFOs may reverse Scotland’s tourist decline: “There has been a lot of discussion lately about the tourism situation in Scotland and how it is diminishing with the established tourist sights that we have. We have got to move forward and regenerate and I think this could be the way forward for a theme scenario in the central belt of Scotland.”
Meanwhile, UFOlogist Karl Pflock has an article in the January 2001 Fortean Times noting how certain descriptive elements in Travis Walton’s “classic” UFO abduction story from 1975 (made famous by the movie Fire in the Sky) appear to have been borrowed heavily from Robert Heinlein’s equally “classic” science fiction novelette Universe, first published in 1941 and widely reprinted since then. In The Travis Walton Experience, the celebrated abductee tells of breaking free from his captors after his examination and exploring the saucer. Walton claims to have found “a round room” that appeared to be the ship’s control room, in which he sat down at a high-backed chair with controls built into its arms. Then he saw the ship’s walls seem to fade away, and found himself apparently sitting out in the middle of space. In Heinlein’s description, a “spherical room” contained chairs with “high supporting sides, or arms” having controls built into them. When the protagonist sat in them, “the mirrored stars looked down on him…he hung alone in the center of the stellar universe.” Pflock lists quite a number of parallels between the two accounts, which seems to quite definitely show that Walton “borrowed” at least part of his spaceship narrative from Heinlein. The primary difference in these two accounts would seem to be that Heinlein freely admitted that his story was fiction. Pflock corresponded with Walton on a number of issues, and found him more than willing to answer questions about other aspects of his supposed “abduction,” but Walton refused all comment on the Heinlein similarities.
UFOlogists have long cited Officer Lonnie Zamora’s report of a landed vehicle and occupants in Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964, as among the very strongest pieces of UFO evidence. The local police officer was chasing a speeder when he reports that he heard a loud roar, then saw a flame in the sky, which was difficult to see because he was looking toward the Sun. Catching a glimpse of the landed object in the gaps between some small hills, Zamora claims to have seen two beings in garb resembling white coveralls who presumably scampered back into their vehicle, which he observed taking off. The object reportedly left behind some irregularly-spaced indentations in the ground, and scorched shrubbery. Skeptics have long suggested that the incident was a hoax, intended to bring tourists into town, a suggestion bolstered by the way that the New Mexican towns of Roswell and Aztec are today successfully milking dubious UFO tales. Now UFO skeptic Larry Robinson, Systems/Applications Programmer at Indiana Univers ity, has suggested the intriguing possibility that what Zamora saw, and reported more-or-less accurately, was a brief landing of a propane-powered hot air balloon, commonplace today but new and quite rare in 1964 (see http://php.indiana.edu/[sim]lrobins/howisoco.htm).
Zamora compared the landed object’s shape to an ellipse with a long horizontal axis, suggesting a balloon that was starting to collapse. In the excitement, Zamora ducked behind his cruiser, and lost his glasses. The object’s shape when airborne looked like a teardrop. In fact, it has been established that the government was carrying out then-classified experiments using exactly such balloons in New Mexico in 1963 and 1964 (apparently the CIA was interested in using balloons for, among other things, quietly getting agents into, and out of, exotic locations). However, nobody has yet been able to tie a classified balloon experiment to the sighting’s location and time. Zamora’s statement that the object rose slowly, barely clearing the ground, and in taking off generated heat but “not nearly as much” as a rocket exhaust, sounds very much like a balloon ascending. Also, Zamora’s observation that the flame seemed to strangely have little if any effect upon the ground might be explained if the flame were directed up ward into the balloon (which is how hot air balloons are constructed), rather than thrusting downward toward the ground. The object took several seconds to rise to a height of about twenty feet, then suddenly the “propulsion system” was turned off, and the object flew off in total silence. Watching the object depart, Zamora radioed to the police station, “it looks like a balloon.” While Robinson’s explanation is still being analyzed and debated in skeptical UFO circles (see www.ufoworld.co.uk/v07.txt), it makes a lot more sense than Little Green Men.
Robert Sheaffer’s World Wide Web page for UFOs and other skeptical subjects is at www.debunker.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
