Alien and UFO

Contiguous

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:37:00 +0000

"After reading the story about abduction, I began to think seriously about examining my own childhood, to investigate a little 'blank spot' I run across when I've reviewed my childhood in order to better understand the roots of my beliefs. How can Idescribe it? I sense a small spot in time that I purposely forget when I try to visualize a childhood scene. Sometimes I thought it could be a molestation, completely buried yet affecting my personal attitudes. But never, never until this moment did I associate it with extraterrestrials."

"I underwent hypnosis. The usual commands were given to place me in a deep trance, Bernt suggesting I move to a time in my childhood where something out of the ordinary had happened, to become that child and perceive all clearly, to answer any and all questions..."

"I find myself going back. the picture I get is weaving in and out... I feel small, perhaps five years old. I am playing in the dirt next to the driveway...I can feel the heat on my back and the soft, powdery dirt in my hands...something makes me look up."

"I see two small men standing right in front of me. They are about a head taller than I, very slim with stick-like arms and legs with large, dark eyes and dressed in a mottled green garment. Fear begins to rise, but in that very moment everything becomes completely silent and I can no longer feel the heat."

"The birds aren't singing and my fear is gone. I am in a trance-like state. They must have hypnotized me so I wouldn't scream and run away. They each take a hand and lead me along the driveway. I walk in a daze. As we near the end of the drive, the whole area seems filled with a huge, bulky, silver-gray ship. Its rim is far above my head. They lead me up a 'moving walk' and we enter a large, round area-sort of an entry hall with doors all around and a dome-shaped ceiling. We go through a door and down a short tunnel, enter a room with a row of chairs along one wall. The opposite wall is full of blinking lights and small glowing glass frames."

"The two small men turn me toward a little old man sitting in a very elaborate chair. His eyes are not too different from my own. Perhaps the two who brought me in were wearing sunglasses? That would explain the large, dark and slanted eyes that caught my attention at first."

"The old man takes my hands in his, and as he does, I can hear again. he is pale and full of wrinkles, and has a white beard neatly-trimmed to a thin edge from ear to ear. He looks like a leprechaun! The ears stand out a bit from his head and are slightly pointed. He say something I don't understand and as he does a bunch of small 'cubes' start to tumble into my mind, where they get neatly stacked up...they don't hurt me, but as they enter my mind I become terrified. Instantly a curtain is lowered. I am again blank and standing in a soundless state."

"Our discarnate friend Arthur clarified things later. He said the cubes are related to the mind only, that thee are ways of depositing ideas into the mind. 'Perhaps she can touch them mentally ; and get a slight understanding of what they contain,'he said, 'The ideas contained in the cubes are so overwhelming that there is no way she can encompass the whole message. Butshe is getting the feeling of it and it is a little frightening...Alicia is being prepared for a physical confrontation. It could be very traumatic unless conditioning has taken place over a period of years.

"Her early encounter took place physically at the time and space she described, and even though her recall projects a physical picture, the incident was equally a mental experience. The cubes are implanted in order to condition and encourage a specific person to strive in a specific direction, because a race on its own is very grounded in the planet's vibration is therefore not prepared to confront any alien intrusion.'You are almost suggesting that we are really never alone of this planet of ours, 'I interjected. 'No, you are not. You are being watched, used, manipulated-but that is the nature of things,' Arthur responded. 'There are always interactions, a need and wish to assist others, to make transitions easier..the seeds are planted to help you. Without them, you would not develop or dream.

"We are so used to translating things into purely physical terms. We grant acceptance to the physical props we have around us, but is it all right to accept our visions and beliefs in whatever form we clothe them? And once we stop laughing at it or calling it just imagination-UFO sightings and all the rest-perhaps then we can accept. Perhaps a lot of these things, even more that we are currently willing to accept, are our suddenshifts of awareness and vision.

Alicia Montells ufo contactee experience

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:40:00 +0000

What do ET abductors want? It's been suggested that to insure species survival, they're inbreeding genes of emotional, self-willed, individuated Earth humans into their own excessively
mental, regimented race-but perhaps that's projection. What arewe learning? Self-reflectiveness, perhaps-a keener idea of just who we are? Alicia Montell's testimony implies just such anoutcome.

"Was I ever abducted? I mused over this question as I put down a book I'd been reading, describing a person who through hypnosis discovered having had an encounter with aliens at an
earlier time in his life.

"I've never doubted that extraterrestrials exist. I have always accepted as fact that we are only a small but not-so-forgotten planet out here on the fringes of the Milky Way, and are visited quite often by a variety of travelers. How could anyone possibly ; think that we are the ONLY living, evolving, experiencing creatures?"

"My husband Bernt and I have read with great interest all the stories we could lay our hands on, but at times had to smile-we clearly saw that people's fear often created a lot of problems for them. If instead they had been able to keep cool and cooperate with the aliens, their stories would have been quite different. They could have had encounters filled with awe and understanding of those beings who impinged so forcefully upon their lives."

"Our seeming inability to identify with the fear in abductees was somewhat altered by an explanation from our discarnate friend, 'Arthur." he told us, 'Your race deeply believes anyone entering from outside this planet cannot possibly look like us; they MUST look different, they MUST be feared. You cannot see these beings for what they really are. When confronted, a shield automatically blinds your vision and distorts anything or anybody that does not belong on the planet... they most likely are very much like yourself'

'Arthur' went on to describe my inner travels and how I had met many strange races outside Earth planet's confines. 'Remember what happened when she met reaces similar to her own? She got very upset, could not at first visualize their features, because it was difficult to accept that others existing out there could possibly look like her own race back on earth. Even in that free a mental state, the race concept remained...'

"Now I begin to wonder if I might find fear taking over simply because the body reacts naturally, should I someday stand in front of an alien. Anyway, I think I am ready to put it to the test!"

To be continued..,

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:38:00 +0000

AIRCAT's cases include Blue Book's declassified files as well as some Haines
collected and research personally. Before joining the Space Human Factors
Office, his research included interviewing pilots about what they had seen
peripherally during takeoffs and landings, data that may one day lead to re-
design of airplane cockpits. "I was interviewing pilot anyway," he says, "and
fell naturally into the habit of asking them if they'd ever seen anything
strange."

Haines concentrated on pilot reports for reasons other than convenience. "They
have a unique vantage point simply by being in the air," he says, "if for no
other reason than if the phenomenon is between your eyes and the ground, you
can calculate the slant range, and you're establishing an absolute maximum
distance the object could be away. You can't do that with the object against
the sky background."

"Pilots also have available to them a variety of electromagnetic sensors of
various kinds onboard the aircraft itself, which can possibly record some
manifestations of the phenomenon, such as electromagnetic frequency and even
energy content," he says. "They can control the location of their plane so that
they can maneuver to gain the best vantage point, under some conditions.

"Finally," says Haines, "they represent a very stable personality type with a
high degree of training, motivation, and selection. If a pilot comes forward
with a strange tale, I give him a lot of careful concentration because he's
putting his reputation on the line and maybe his job. He's had to have thought
the details out in his mind already, and perhaps eliminated a number of ex-
planations before going public."

He's also likely to request anonymity. Kenneth Arnold, tired of the publicity
following his sighting, later commented, "If I ever see again a phenomenon of
that sort, even if it's a 10-story building, I won't say a word about it."
The feeling was echoed even in the Air Force. When Blue Book's predecessor,
Project Grudge, conducted an informal survey of Air Force pilots in the late
1940s , one respondent said, "If a spaceship was flying wing-tip to wing-tip
formation with me, I would not report it."

The UFO phenomenon got its tabloid reputation at least in part because of the
saucer-busting of active UFO skeptics. Foremost is the UFO panel of CSICOP,
the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(see "Skeptics R Us," previous page). Led by Philip J. Klass, contributing
avionics editor of "Aviation Week and Space Technology", James Oberg, an
aerospace writer and a manned space operations specialist, and Robert Sheaffer,
a Silicon Valley computer systems analyst, CSICOP exposes hoaxes and uncovers
explanations of UFO sightings.

Sheaffer doesn't agree that pilots are superior UFO observers. "The idea of
pilots as super witnesses just doesn't hold," he says. "The last I heard they
were human like the rest of us, and still subject to all concerns and errors
of human psychology and perception. In fact, they're apt to be less worried
about how bright an object is, or its angular elevation, than in keeping their
plane in the air. Anyone surprised by a very brief and unexpected event is not
likely to report it accurately."

Haines agrees that normal perception isn't infallible. Very bright objects,
for example, can appear to be much nearer than they actually are. Autokinetic
or self-generated, movement of the eyeball can make distant objects like
stars and planets appear to move. "Also when you're flying in a sunny, clear
blue atmosphere," Haines says,"sometimes the eye can focus inaccurately, so
that you're not focusing at infinity anymore, but maybe only one or two meters
in front of the cockpit."

Because the way we see external events depends on the body's perception of it-
self in space, acceleration and inertil forces that disrupt the inner ear's
delicate sense of balance can also lead to optical illusions. Still, Haines
contends that many induced illusions are short-lived and cannot account for
the majority of AIRCAT's cases. "If a pilot describes a disk-shaped airform
with no visible means of propulsion pacing his right wing for 30 minutes,
doing everything he's doing--and I have plenty of cases like that--then that's
not an optical illusion, it's not a bird or balloon or meteor, it's not any of
those prosaic explanations," Haines says. "We don't know what it is necessarily
but we know quite clearly what it isn't."

One sensational pilot-and-UFO case almost certainly had a prosaic explanation.
On the afternoon of January 7, 1948, people near Godman Air Force Base at Fort
Knox, Kentucky, reported an object in the sky that looked like "an ice cream
cone topped with red." Captain Thomas F. Mantell, flying in command of a ferry
flight of four F-51 Mustangs (P-51s had been redesignated F-51s the previous
year), was asked to investigate. None of the fighters were equipped with oxy-
gen, and after three dropped out of the chase Mantell continued alone. "It's
directly ahead and above and still moving at about half my speed," he radioed.
"The thing looks metallic and of tremendous size. I'm going up to 20,000 feet,
and if I'm no closer I'll abandon the chase." A few minutes later Mantell's
airplane crashed, earning him the dubious distinction as the world's first
"UFO martyr."

Project Blue Book proposed that Mantell succumbed to hypoxia, or oxygen
starvation, and crashed while chasing the planet Venus, but later evidence
indicates he was pursuing a top-secret, high-atmosphere Skyhook balloon. The
balloons, designed for upper-atmosphere research, were later used by the CIA
for surveillance. At altitudes of 70,000 feet or more, the translucent plastic
balloons would often be swept rapidly along by the jet stream.

Mantell wasn't the last pilot to die while pursuing, or being pursued by, an
alleged UFO. At 6:19 p.m. on Saturday, October 21, 1978, Frederick Valentich
of Melbourne, Australia, took off from Moorabbin Airport aboard a rented
Cessena 182 bound for nearby King Island. He planned to pick up a load of
crayfish for his fellow officers at the Air Training Corps, where he was a
flight instructor. An experienced daytime pilot with an unrestricted license
and instrument rating, Valentich, 20, was relatively inexperienced at night
flying. He was also a UFO enthusiast who, his father said later, had claimed
a UFO sighting 10 months before his disappearance.

Out of Melbourne, Valentich paralleled Cape Otway before heading over open
water for King Island, where he was scheduled to land at 7:28. At 7:06 he
radioed Melbourne Flight Service, asking, "Is there any known traffic in my
area below 5,000 feet? Seems to be a large aircraft." Ground control asked
what kind. "I cannot confirm," Valentich replied. "It has four bright lights
that appear to be landing lights...[and] has just passed over me about 1,000
feet above... at the speed it's traveling are there any RAAF [Royal Australian
Air Force] aircraft in the vicinity?"

"Negative," answered Melbourne. "Confirm you cannot identify aircraft?"
Valentich replied in the affirmative, adding three minutes later, "It's not
an aircraft, it's ..." At that point there was a brief break in the recorded
transmission that was later released to the Australian press.

"It is flying past," Valentich continued. "It has a long shape. Cannot
identify more than that... coming for me now. It seems to be stationary.
I'm orbiting and the thing is orbiting on top of me. It has a green light
and sort of metallic light on the outside." The pilot then informed air
traffic controllers that the object had vanished. At 7:12 he was back on the
air, reporting his "engine is rough-idling and coughing." Ground control
asked what his intentions were; Valentich said, "Proceeding King Island.
Unknown aircraft now hovering on top of me." His radio transmission ended
in a jarring 17-second metallic noise. Neither pilot nor airplane has been
seen or heard from since. Some have attempted to explain away the incident
as a hoax or a suicide, while others have suggested that the inexperienced
night pilot, overcome by vertigo, may have turned upside down and seen the
reflections of his own lights before the engine of his Cessna failed.

Haines has published a book about the Valentich incident, "Melbourne
Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot," and he is in the midst of another
compiling all of AIRCAT's cases. Most are variations on ufology's two
major themes: daylight disks and noturnal lights. The first involves what
appears to be objects in the shape of disks, spheres, or elliptical forms.
Nocturnal lights normally appear as single, continuously visible white light
sources. Sometimes the lights are also detected by ground or airborne radar
and less frequently, accompanied by radio static and brief engine interruption,
such as that experienced by Valentich. Most sightings involve two or more
witnesses and last slightly more than five minutes, long enough in most cases,
says Haines, to eliminate a number of explanations, such as meteors and
ballons.

One case from the AIRCAT files involved a pilot--call him Captain Gray--who
had logged more than 21,000 hours in a 31-year career. On July 4, 1981, he
was piloting a passenger flight in a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, cruising on
automatic pilot at 37,000 feet. The flight was bound from San Francisco to
New York's Kennedy Airport, approaching the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.
The lake below was obscured by clouds, but ahead and above the sky was clear.

Suddenly, from ahead and to the left of the aircraft, a silvery disk "splashed
into view full size...like the atmosphere opened up," Gray said later. He
leaned forward, blurting out, "What's that?"

Appearing at first like a sombrero viewed from the top, the object rolled as
it approached the airplane along an arc that carried it toward and then
aburptly away from the L-1011. From the side, the disk appeared ten times
wider than it was thick, with six evenly spaced, jet black portholes along its
edge. A bright splash of sunlight flared off the top left end of the object.
As it disappeared, seemingly in a shallow climb, Gray noticed what looked like
the dark smudge of a contrail.

"Did you just see anything?" Gray asked his first officer. "Yes," he replied,
"a very bright light flash." The flight engineer, his view blocked, had seen
nothing.

The overriding question for ufologists is whether a sighting like Captain
Gray's is a natural phenomenon or an object that displays evidence of in-
telligence. "As a scientist I have to be cautious," says Haines. "But when
AIRCAT is made public, I think the technical-minded can read between the
lines."

Skeptics would disagree, "I think there are more than enough ordinary
stimuli floating around to create the UFO phenomena, the UFO social event,
of the past 40 years," says CSICOP's James Oberg. "Because of imperfections
in human memory and perception, coincidences and so on, there'll always be a
small residue of unsolved sightings. A small percent of airplane crashes,
murders, and missing-person cases don't get solved either. But you don't have
to invoke alien airplane saboteurs, murderers, or kidnappers to explain them."

Haines retorts that Captain Gray was a skeptic before his own UFO confront-
ation. But afterwards, "there was no doubt in his mind whatsoever' that what
he had seen was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Captain Terauchi of JAL flight 1628 was equally convinced that he had encount-
ered an extraterrestrial craft in the skies above Alaska. Skeptics are not so
sure, citing the fact that Terauchi had reported seeing UFOs on two previous
occasions--and would report yet another sighting the following January, again
over Alaska. (He would later explain his second Alaskan encounter as city
lights reflecting off ice crystals in the clouds.) CSICOP's Philip Klass
thinks that ice crystals in clouds played a significant role in the November
encounter. He theorizes that moonlight reflecting off the clouds accounts for
the initial sighting, and that when the crew later saw Mars and Jupiter, bright
in the autumn sky, they assumed the planets were lights from the original UFO.
The signal on the onboard radar, Klass believes, could have been reflected by
the same ice crystals (although ice crystals, unlike rain droplets, are very
poor reflectors of radar energy). The FAA analyzed the ground radar and con-
cluded that they had been uncorrelated radar signals, a common phenomenon that
occurs when a radar beam bounced back from an airplane to a ground station
doesn't match up with a separate signal sent by the airplane's transponder.

That pilots, as well as ground observers, have seen something in the skies is
undeniable. The question of what they have senn has yet to be satisfactorily
resolved. Maybe it never will be. It may even be irrelevant. As Jacques Valle,
who has wriiten several books on the subject, once said,"It no longer matters
whether UFOs are real or not, because people BEHAVE as if they were,
anyway."

-- SKEPTICS R US --

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:42:00 +0000

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(CSICOP) was founded in the spring of 1976, during a meeting of the American
Humanist Association in Buffalo, New York. The impetus for the group's form-
ation had been provided a year earlier by the publication of "Objections to
Astrology" by Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy at the State University of
New York at Buffalo. The manifesto had been signed by 186 scientists, in-
cluding 18 Nobel prizewinners, who feared that the public was confusing
astronomy and astrology.

Today Kurtz is chairman of the loosely knit international organization, which
holds annual meetings and publishes a 25,000-circulation quarterly, "The
Skeptical Inquirer." The journal is devoted to articles debunking psychokinesis
telepathy,clairvoyance, and other psychic claims, the Loch Ness Monster, astro-
logy and UFOs. CSICOP Fellows include science writer Isaac Asimov, astronomer
Carl Sagan, Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann, and James Randi, recent recipient
of a "genius grant" awarded by the MacArthur Foundation.

The UFO subcommittee is led by Philip J. Klass ("UFOs--Identified","UFOs Ex-
plained",and "UFOs, the Public Decieved"), James Oberg ("UFOs & Outer Space
Mysteries"),and Robert Sheaffer ("The UFO Verdict"). The subcommittee con-
sists of about two dozen members who operate as an informal network, exchang-
ing articles about UFOs for information and comment. Some members make them-
selves available for local media appearances to counteract what Klass calls
"the popular view of UFOs as extraterrestrial spaceships."

"We prefer to have skeptics, of course," says Klass, "but we don't require
anyone to take an oath of allegiance saying they don't believe in flying
saucers. Basically, we're a mutual education circuit."

When pilots see ufo's

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:49:00 +0000

People have been seeing unidentified flying objects in the skies
for years. But when the eyewitness is up there with the UFO, is the sighting
more difficult to explain?

*** By Dennis Stacy for Air & Space Magazine December 1987/January 1988

In the late afternoon of November 17, 1986, Japan Air Lines flight 1628, a
Boeing 747 with a crew of three, was nearing the end of a trip from Iceland
to Anchorage, Alaska. The jet, carrying a cargo of French wine, was flying
at 35,000 feet through darkening skies, a red glow from the setting sun
lighting one horizon and a full moon rising above the other.

A little after six p.m., pilot Kenju Terauchi noticed white and yellow
lights ahead, below, and to the left of his airplane. He could see no details
in the darkness and assumed the lights were those of military aircraft. But
they continued to pace the 747, prompting first officer Takanori Tamefuji to
radio Anchorage air traffic control and ask if there were other aircraft
nearby. Both Anchorage and a nearby military radar station announced that they
were picking up weak signals from the 747's vicinity. Terauchi switched on the
digital color cockpit weather radar, which is designed to detect weather
systems, not other aircraft. His radar screen displayed a green target, a color
usually associated with light rain, not the red he would have expected from a
reflective solid object.

Because he was sitting in the left-hand seat, Terauchi had the only unob-
structed view when the lights, still in front of and below the airplane, began
moving erratically,"like two bear cubs playing with each other," as the pilot
later wrote in a statement for the Federal Aviation Administration. After
several minutes, the lights suddenly darted in front of the 747,"shooting off
lights" that lit the cockpit with a warm glow.

As the airplane passed over Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks, the
captain said he noticed, looming behind his airplane, the dark silhoutte of a
gigantic "mothership" larger than two aircraft carriers. He asked air traffic
control for permission to take his airplane around in a complete circle and
then descend to 31,000 feet. Terauchi said his shadower followed him through
both maneuvers.

A United Airlines fight and a military C-130 were both in the area and An-
chorage asked the airplanes to change course, intercept the Japanese 747, and
confirm the sighting. Both airplanes flew close enough to see JAL 1628's
navigation lights, alone in the night sky, before Terauchi reported that the
unidentified fyling objects had disappeared. The encounter had lasted nearly
50 minutes.

Because it involved an airline pilot and an unidentified flying object that
had apparently been captured on radar, the JAL 1628 encounter attracted a
great deal of public attention. But UFO reports from pilots--private,military
and airline--are not new to the subject of "ufology." One of the best known
cases was a sighting by Idaho businessman and private pilot Kenneth Arnold.
Flying his single-engine airplane over Washington's Cascade Mountains on June
24,1947, Arnold spotted nine silvery, crescent-shaped objects skimming along
at high speed near Mt. Rainier. They dipped as they flew,"like a saucer would
if you skipped it across water," Arnold told reporters--and thus "flying
saucers" entered the popular vocabulary.

Pilots had reported similar unexplained aerial phenomena before, mainly in
the form of the "Foo Fighters" noted by American bomber crews over Europe
in World War II. But Arnold's sighting, with its accompanying front-page
publicity, struck a jittery, post-Hiroshima nerve in American society and
set off a barrage of similar reports. Skeptics believed that every sighting
had a prosaic explanation, such as misidentification of stars, planets, or
natural atmospheric phenomena. Others thought that there was more to UFOs,
that they could even be visitors from other planets.

Following the Arnold incident, the Air Force was given the responsibility of
investigating UFO reports from the United States, first as Project Sign (also
called Saucer), then Grudge, and finally Blue Book. Usually understaffed and
underfunded, the Air Force program functioned more like a public relations
office than a scientific investigation, according to the late astronomer
J. Allen Hynek. Hynek himself, who served as a consultant to Project Blue Book
from 1948 unitl it was dissolved in December 1969, gradually changed from a
skeptic into a believer.

Not even skeptics can deny the subject's popular appeal. Last March, a Gallup
poll found that 88 percent of its respondents had heard of UFOs. Nearly half
of those polled believed UFOs were real, not figments of the imagination or
misperceived natural phenomena. Nine percent of the adult population claimed
to have seen one.

Of these claims, pilot reports are the ones that interest Richard F. Haines,
a perceptual psychologist who compiles AIRCAT, a computerized catalog that
lists more than 3,000 UFO sightings by aviators over the past 40 years. Chief
of the Space Human Factors Office at NASA's Ames Research Center in California
Haines is the author of "Observing UFOs", a handbook of methodology for
accurate observation, and the editor of "UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral
Scientist", a collection of psychologically oriented essays on the subject.

About parts falling off of airliners

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 12:26:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Standing in their back yard, the minister
and his wife thought it was unusual to see something falling from an
airliner coming in for a landing at the Orlando airport.
"I hope it doesn't hit anyone," were the Rev. Robert De Corah's
first thoughts as the object tumbled down for about two minutes
before disappearing behind a tree line.
Apparently it didn't do much harm. Police and area residents
couldn't find it late Thursday or early today. But the object was
immediately identified by Eastern Airlines as a lightweight UFO --
unimportant fiberglass object.
The 18-by-20-inch panel covers an electrical plug on Boeing 757
jets and is purely cosmetic, said Eastern spokesman Jim Ashlock. Its
loss did not endanger Flight 389 from Atlanta to Orlando. It landed
safely at 4:26 p.m. Thursday. Ashlock didn't know why it came
unlatched.
He said he didn't think the panel "could hurt much of anything.
It's a very light piece. It probably just fluttered down somewhere,
like a leaf."
De Corah said it was "not something you see every day. The door
is probably in somebody's yard and they don't even know it is
sitting
there."

A dialog with a former member of the intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:09:00 +0000

This summer, while on vacation back to my families
residence, I encountered a family friend that I had not seen
since 1973. For obvious reasons I will not identify him, but
for this record will call him "Paul". Paul is retired from
over 30 years of distinguished government service, is a
widower, and is one of the most closed mouthed men I have
ever known. When I first came back from Viet Nam in 1972, I
saw Paul at a family get together, and even though he was
just back from South East Asia, he never mentioned it. I found
out through his brother. When I went back east, I had taken a
number of text files from my records, for my sister, who is
fascinated by the subject of UFO's. It so happened that one
evening, my sister and I and wife and another friend, Bob, were
sitting outside my mothers house, and were discussing several
of the files that I had taken back. Paul stopped out at the
house, as he was going to a function with his sister and my
mother. He sat down on the patio with us, and as usual, did
not say much. My sister was reading the file concerned with
the Majestic 12 papers and making some comments, that if this
file was for real, the implications of alien contact could be
staggering for the world if verified. At this point Paul
leaned forward and asked if he could see the papers. My
sister passed several of the texts to him, and until he
left, he spent the remainder of his time reading them.
Just before he left, he got me off to the side, and asked
how I was involved with UFO's. I told him that I was an
investigator for MUFON, and was involved with a computer
network system with Paranet. This was the first of several
conversations I had with Paul, and I don't ask anyone to
believe it, because, frankly, I have problems with several
things he told me. And you may wonder why Paul would tell me
anything, considering his government service, and the agency
he worked for. To begin with, Paul is very ill, the last time
I spoke with him, he told me that he doesn't expect to be around
for more than 18 months, maximum. Next, he told me that he never
agreed with all the secrecy that surrounded the government and
the subject of UFO's. And lastly, what he hinted at was actually
occuring seemed to haunt him. As he said, there wasn't a hell of
a lot that even the government was able to do about the situation.
I present the following, and you can make up your own mind about
whether to believe or not.

This summer past ( 1988 ) was the 20th reunion of my High School.
This was the reason that I traveled back, and besides, my wife
is in love with the east coast. While back, I became ill, and
ended up spending almost two weeks in the hospital. Paul came
and visited me, and this is how we ended having the several
conversations that we had.

Paul at first ask if I realized what dangers were present in
the subject of UFO's. I said "No", but I had heard rumors
that this could be the case. He said you damned betcha it
could. "If you stumbled over the right information you could
end up among the missing, and Don, this sure as hell wouldn't
be the first time."

I asked him how he came to know so much about the subject, and
he said with the job he held, it was his business to know about
a lot of things. I then said come on Paul, I had dealings with
spooks while in Viet Nam, so don't try that line on me. He
told me then, that this was to his knowledge, still one of the
most highly classified subjects in the intelligence community.
That brought to mind the "Smith Memo" from the 50's, and I
relayed it to Paul. I mentioned that Smith had stated that
the subject of UFO's had been rated higher than the H bomb,
and in perspective, was this still the case? Pauls reply
follows, and for the purposes of this file, I have condensed
into one session our talks.

In the 40's, when the "flying saucer" scare started, the
military and government were concerned that it was possible
that the Soviets had made a breakthrough in technology with
their German scientists, that our German scientists had not
been able to duplicate. It then became evident that this
technology was above and beyond what we were able to achieve,
so the phenomenon had to come from outside. For a while there
was a deadlock as to what to do, but then apparently the
military was able to secure one of the craft. I asked Paul
if he meant Roswell, and he only smiled. He said to read the
MJ 12 stuff again, that there were enough facts to get an idea
of what he was talking about. After that, it was apparent that
the technology was well above what we were capable of. There
were fears among certain people that this could be the prelude
to invasion, or possibly even worse. Others saw this a a
straight shot to technology that we couldn't even dream of,
and to exploit everything we could out of it. Paul stated
that there was a genuine fear that if the Soviets could get
one of these, and exploit it, the United States would be in
deep excrement. There was a "think tank" that was set up, and
the decision for secrecy was understandable in that scenario.
Many of these craft were flying over nuclear installations,
and one thought at the time was that they could be after uranium
among other things, if they were, as believed then, coming from
a "dying" planet. I asked if at that time, were they considered
to be benign, and Paul said yes, they were, but then several
things happened to change that idea. He would not elaborate,
so I mentioned the Mantell incident, and he said that is the most
well known case, but there were others, and some very bizarre.

The think tank that was set up in the 40's were concerned that
some of these cases would become public knowledge, and they
still remembered the "War of the Worlds" scare that Wells
threw into the public in 1938. They did not want a panic
that could affect the nations security, commerce, industry,
financess and so forth. The result was to debunk the whole
damn thing, and hope it would either go away, or they could
solve it in time before it did become public knowledge.

I asked Paul about several cases that I read about in "Clear
Intent", one of them being the Cuban Jet Incident. Paul
said that he had heard about that, he wouldn't say much,
but this is not the only case where one of these objects
had shot down aircraft, "and it didn't all happen outside
the U. S. either".

"Look", he said, "if you were out in a very primitive area,
and were lost, or hungry, or what ever, and came across a
primitive native tribe, and I mean compared to you, really
primitive, would you trade with them, or take what you
needed, food, women, whatever, IF YOU WERE VERY AMORAL?"
"Look, if in this case, you regard these natives as less
than dirt, and the only thing they have in common is that
they have what you NEED." You are familiar with the animal
mutilations aren't you? Many people think that this was a
government sponsored operation, testing chemicals or
something. Well, it wasn't, and farm animals are not the
only thing that has been tested. The guys I know that are
still active have said that right now, is one of the biggest
"UFO flaps" that they have ever heard of, and there is a lot
of concern as to how long it can be kept secret.

I hated to break in on Paul when he was talking this freely,
but had to ask about the reported astronaut sightings. Yes,
there were sightings on damn near all the "shots", and it
was always feared that the news services would pick up on
some of the reports. We did a damn good job of damage
control though. "Well Paul, what about reports that these
things have been seen on the moon?" I asked. "Yes" he said,
"they have been seen there, and some of this has come out, so
I don't think I am breaking any oaths, but , haven't you
asked yourself why after all the billions of dollars that we
had spent to get to the moon, after the early 70's No one,
us or the Russians, have gone near the place." Yes, I
admitted, I had wondered why, and then asked him if he knew
why. Paul just smiled and then pointed to the file that
contained the Lear Text. "You know", he said, "this guy has
hit pretty close on several points, and I wonder if anyone
has approached him?" I asked what he meant, and he looked
at me and said "Don, you know what I mean, and after all,
if a lot of the general public became aware of this, they
would scream like a mashed cat, and demand to know what the
hell the government is doing about it. The problem is,
there are some that still think that they can control events
and keep a lid on this, and others that know we are way in
over our head and are looking for a way out." Alright then,
what are these things, where do they come from, and what DO
they want? I must have looked pretty exasperated then,
and Paul looked at me and gave me kind of what I thought
was a sad smile. "Don" he said, "I don't know where they
come from, as to what they are, they are very different,
and as to what they want, you are gonna sleep a lot better
if I just go." And he did leave then.

I haven't talked to Paul since I got back home, and just
several days ago, I got word that he had a heart attack
and is in very poor condition. I have wondered about a lot
of what he said, and have decided that in lieu of keeping the
whole thing to myself, I would put it on my word processor,
and then make a decision whether to release it or not.

Paul had stated on several occasions that this subject had
the potential to be be very dangerous, and to be careful of
pursuing it. "With access to the right information, if
it became known, people have disappeared." I don't think
he was just trying to scare me, the guy had been a
professional intelligence agent for longer than I have been
alive, and I am sure he knew a hell of a lot more about
this, than I would even want to. He had mentioned several
things, that even now I hesitate to put down, but the thing
that inclines me to accept what he said, was knowing a bit
of what kind of man he was, he seemed haunted and scared.

Well, in light of several things that have occured recently,
with the "New and Improved" BlueBook, which I might add I
distrust wholeheartedly, the meltdown within MUFON, the
continuing "flap" that doesn't show any signs of slowing
down, much less stopping, and the fragmented community of
UFO investigators, I discussed this with my better half,
and have decided to throw it out, and see where it landed.
Take it for what it is worth, and remember, I have just
relayed what I was told, and I did warn you up front that
this was almost beyond belief.

Info about a national campaign to get the real truth

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:28:00 +0000

UFO CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED!

As controversy rages over the recent Alaskan UFO sighting, The Aetherius
Society, whose headquarters is based in Hollywood, CA, has launched a
national campaign calling for the truth on this most vital, contemporary
issue: the UFO phenomenon.

Despite a complete turnabout by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),
who originally confirmed radar tracking of the UFO sighting over Alaska on
November 17th, 1986, but yesteraday claimed it was an error, the following
reported facts remain:

* A veteran Japanese pilot and experienced crew witnessed three UFOs for over
400 miles between Iceland and Alaska, lasting 32 minutes.

* So definite was this sighting, that the pilot took evasive action from the
objects, dropping 4000 feet, under FAA guidance.

* The objects were described as moving with amazing speed and astonishingly
abrupt stops.

* [The pilot turned off all lights on the aircraft], which rules out the
possibility of light reflection causing these sightings.

* The aircraft moved in a 360 degree circle, which rules out the possibility
of the objects being mere weather phenomena.

* The objects were tracked on radar by the aircraft.

* [The objects were sighted from the ground by independent witnesses accord-
ing to reports received by CBS network.]

* FAA investigators concluded the crew were "normal, professional, rational,
(and had) no drug or alcohol involvement."

* The pilot's conclusion was that he saw _something of extra-terrestrial
origin._

Originally, US Government agencies confirmed radar tracking of these objects.
Why have they now withdrawn this confirmation weeks after the event, stating
that it was a computer fault?

What is the likelihood of a radar readout produced by a computer fault
tallying exactly with all the genuine factors specified above?

In short, is there a Government cover-up?

The Aetherius Society demands to know the truth.

The Aetherius Society, led by its Founder/President Sir George King, has
campaigned internationally since 1955 for world governments to release the
truth about UFOs.

1987 sees the launch of a massive nationwide campaign in the United States to
galvanize public interest in this phenomenon and to answer the many questions
which have been left unanswered by government, military, scientific and
educational establishments alike. The Aetherius Society, a registered
non-profit organization, has decided to fulfill this public educational need.

CALIFORNIA SYMPOSIUM ON UFOS

During a special Symposium to be held on February 7th at the fashionable
Hotel Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, attendees will be presented
with:

* The history and evidence of the UFO phenomenon.
* Examples of photographic evidence of UFOs.
* A panel of international experts who will answer questions from the floor.
* Cases where Flying Saucer sightings were forecast in public by Sir George
King and later confirmed -- in some cases, by hundreds of witnesses.
* Details of scientific information regarding the dangers of radioactivity,
received by Sir George King from extraterrestrial sources _and proved correct
over 25 years later_ - even in specific locations, such as the well-known
case in Winscale (Sellafield), England, which received exten- sive world
publicity last year.
* The facts concerning a major Russian nuclear accident which were received
by Sir George King _18 years before the world knew of its occurrence_ - a
fact which has been verified by England's orthodox academic journal, "The New
Scientist", who admit they were "scooped by a UFO."
* _Details of action taken by The Aetherius Society before the Chernobyl
catastrophe in April 1986_.

This and other vitally important material regarding UFOs will be delivered by
internationally established lecturers and broadcasters on the subject.

For further information, photographs and press material, please contact Dr.
Raymond Nielsen, Dr. Richard Lawrence or Dr. Alan Moseley at:

The Aetherius Society Campaign Headquarters (213) 465-9652 or 467-4325

Aerial Anomalies International info

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:26:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION

Since prehistory, man has been observing unusal happenings
in the sky. Those occurences have been given various names
to suit the trends of the times. However, in almost every
instance, the identifying nomenclatures used were either
inaccurate or misleading for the various forms of reported
experiences.

Historically, we have used a variety of names such as angels,
flying shields, mystery airships, phantom planes, ghost
rockets, flying saucers and unidentified flying objects to
describe aerial phenomena. But those terms are both
restrictive and lacking in accuracy. The phenomena that we
study ranges from micro specks in the sky to macro masses
sometimes comparable to unnatural structures.

Observations by witnesses of truly enigmatic occurences in
the sky fall into two broad categories: (1) Natural aerial
phenomena and/or (2) Unknown aerial phenomena (having an
apparent intelligent source). Both categories deserve
serious disciplined study. It is essential that we differen-
tiate between the two categories and classify, when possible.

Because of this crucial need, we do not go beyond the point
of referring to anomalous aerial phenomena by other names
such as spaceships, flying saucers and UFOs. To do so would
be equivalent to stating that we study spaceships, flying
saucers and unidentified flying objects; none of which would
be accurate. We use such terms only as historical and
reported references; not as verified identifiable nomen-
clatures.

We oppose the use of misleading names which help to give
the press, public and scientific community a totally false
impression of actual aerial phenomena. In order to overcome
the stigma attached to this subject, we need the help and
support of the most experienced and knowledgeable people
available.

Investigators, researchers and serious students of aerial
phenomena are encouraged to share their works and findings
with us. We endeavor to make as much factual information
available as possible to both our associates and to the
public at large. Should you wish to participate in our
activities or have a work published and distributed,
please contact us for details.

Info on the "Alternative 3" TV-movie

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:28:00 +0000

-Here's the lowdown on "ALTERNATIVE 3" from a TV-movie compendium.
"ALTERNATIVE 3" (GB 1977; 52m, colour) Amusing spoof
documentary about the diasappearance of various high-IQ
citizens, allegedly to form nucleus of a standby civilization
on Mars against the coming End of the World. Sly parodies of
fashionable breathless TV journalism sweetened the joke, ex-
newscaster Tim Brinton held it all together with po-faced gravity
and needless to say some supernature fanatics refuse to this day to
accept that it was anything but gospel truth, although it was
orignally scheduled for April 1st (1977). Written by David
Ambrose; directed by Chris Miles; for Anglia. -Apparently the
TV-movie was spawned by a book (or assuming the date is accurate,
vice versa) of the same name. Written by Leslie Watkins, it was
published by Sphere Books Ltd. in 1978

UFO Landing and Government Intercept

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Hi there. My name is Ed Sanborn and I'm the MUFON State
Director for Mass. I received the following in the mail from a
member of the LIUFON on Friday Nov. 24, 1989: LONG ISLAND U.F.O.
NETWORK P.O. BOX 232 Center Moriches, New York 11934 HOTLINE
(516) 286-3212 A NON- PROFIT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION.

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE COPY

The Long Island UFO Network, Inc., a non-profit research
organization based on Long Island, announces to the media of the
Metropolitan area and the Nation that we have evidence that on
September 28, 1989 the United States Armed Forces attempted to
recover a disabled, or landed UFO. The incident occured on the
Dune Area of Smith's Point Beach near the entrance to the Moriches
Bay.

Military and Suffolk County Police Helicopters were involved in
an apparent attempt to monitor the craft on the Beach. A second
object estimated to be 574 feet to a thousand feet long was
observed hovering over the Bay. It was composed of six
tremendously large lights.

The helicopters (six involved) were composed of four military
helicopters and two Suffolk County Police Helicopters. These
helicopters surrounded the large object (commonly referred to as a
mother ship) in a circular rotation passing around this object in
a counter clockwise flight, the helicopters would then fly over
the second downed object in the dunes.

As this manuever was completed, the area would be illuminated
by the helicopters searchlights in an attempt to illuminate what
was on the ground.

Long Island UFO Network, Inc. has interviewed the eyewitnesses
to this event. The family lives in Center Noriches Long Island.
The husband, wife, and their adult son observed the large object
from their backyard in response to military helicopter overflights
of their home.

The husband and son drove to the Union Ave. dock and for two
and a half hours observed the operation.

The witnesses described the operation to LIUFON investigators'
under the provision their identities and address be held in the
strictest confidentiality. For their protection they were
interviewed on tape under fictitious identities and addresses. The
husband's taped interview is available to the media for
examination with permission of the witness.

The case is under further investigation by LIUFON
investigators. As more information develops it will be released to
the media. The case will be discussed at our forthcoming
conference on October 29th in Middle Island, NY at the Artist Lake
Condominium Center.

There exists 48 photographs of this occurence taken by the
eyewitnesses. They have been impounded by LIUFON for scientific
evaluation. As soon as tests are finished they will be presented
to the public on the Joel Martin Cable TV Show on cablevision at a
date to be announced.
We call upon the FAA, Suffolk County Police and the United
States Government to comment on this. Did they have UFO's over
Moriches Bay on Sept. 28, 1989 between 8:45 P.M. to 11:30 P.M. and
were they monitoring it? LIUFON demands to know, the public
demands to know and the World demands to know.

Contiguous

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:38:00 +0000

Each successive wave appeared to move approximately 30 degrees east
in longitude.

The absence of a 1962 wave was accounted for by a search of South
American references which revealed a Brazilian and Argentinian UFO
wave in September, and the 1967 wave--which began on the Eastern
seaboard of the United States--actually crested in November of that
year in England.

Saunders was able to make his first prediction that a major UFO wave
would occur in the vicinity of 30 degrees East longitude and peak in
December 1972 over a year prior to its occurrence.

This prediction was borne out by the occurrence of a UFO wave in
South Africa in late November. However, most ufologists lost
interest in the theory when the predicted waves for 1977-78 and 1983
failed to materialize (so far as we can tell).

Both of these waves should have occurred in countries controlled
predominantly by governments unfriendly to the West.

Saunders continues to have faith in the theory and has offered a
consistent, convincing response to critics: that it is unfair to
judge the merits of the theory on what we may or may not hear about
from the Soviet Union.

According to calculations (see table below), the next great UFO wave
should occur between now and the beginning of March, centered at 120
degrees East longitude. The Nullarbor Plain is at approximately 127
degrees East longitude.

The wave should also unfold in the same characteristic manner as the
earlier waves, building slowly in intensity in the number of daily
reports and diminishing rapidly after reaching a peak.

Table 1

The 61-Month Wave Cycle and Corresponding UFO Waves

Predicted Actual Peak Predicted Actual
Date Date Longitude Location

July 1947 July 8, 1947 120o W Northwestern U.S.
Aug. 1952 Aug. 3, 1952 90o W Central & Eastern U.S.
Sep. 1957 Aug. 21, 1957 60o W Central & Eastern U.S.
Oct. 1962 Sep. 1962 30o W Brazil
Nov. 1967 Oct. 24, 1967 0o W Atlantic, England
Dec. 1972 Nov. 1972 30o E South Africa
Jan. 1978 ? 60o E ?
Feb. 1983 ? 90o E ?
Mar. 1988 Feb. 1988(?) 120o E Australia(?)

A corrollary to the Saunders' spatio-temporal wave theory is that
physical evidence cases should occur at approximately the same time
world-wide; thus, if the Australian close encounters continue to
occur during the pre-dawn hours, we should expect U.S. CE-II cases
to occur in the evening hours between 4 and 10 p.m., since the
United States and Australia have a time difference of some 8 to 11
hours.

Page 2

Supposed 61-month cycle of UFO flaps

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:13:00 +0000

The Knowles family CE-II encounter with an ovoid-shaped UFO on the
Nullarbor Plateau in Western Australia January 20th was right on
target in terms of time and place, according to the 61-month wave
cycle first proposed by Dr. David Saunders back in 1971. At least
two other UFO encounters of major importance occurred that same
night in Australia and Tasmania.

If the indications are correct and this is not an isolated incident
but the beginnings of a major UFO wave, we will have to reconsider
the significance of this long-term prediction in terms of our
ability to predict and act upon the occurrence of this and future
UFO waves.

Dr. David Saunders first noticed the regularity in major American
UFO waves (1947, 1952, 1957 and 1967) in the early months of 1971
while working with the UFOCAT computer catalog at the University of
Colorado.

He determined that what distinguished these UFO waves from other,
possibly publicity-generated UFO waves, was the shape of their
distributions.

These were waves of UFO reports in which the frequency of daily
reports began building slowly, built to a crescendo, and then
diminished rapidly. These negatively-skewed UFO waves occurred
with a periodicity of five years, or more accurately 61-months, with
an accuracy in peak prediction to within a day or so (1).

Furthermore, another characteristic of these five-year waves was the
progressively eastward movement of their loci of activity.

The first wave crested in July 1947 and occurred predominantly in
the Pacific and Mountain States. The 1952 wave reached its peak in
late August 1952 with the majority of reports coming from Midwestern
States.

Page 1

Thoughts on 4-dimensional hypotheses for UFOs

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Inter-Dimensionals -- Here is something else I thought you might like to
take a look at. But, remember, it's 1948 speculation -- Inter-Dimensional:
In 1948, Dr. Meade Layne of the Borderland Science Research Associates, San
Diego, California, started collecting data on UFO's and similar phenomena. He
supported the fourth dimensional theory of origin. BSRA literature explained
his concepts: "Aeroforms (saucers) are best understood as 'emergent'; that
is, they emerge into our plane of perception from a space-time frame of
reference which is different from ours. This process may be described as a
conversion of energy and a change of vibratory rates. It appears to be, and
definitely is what we call a solid substance, and so remains until the
vibratory rate is again converted. The 'steel' of a landed disc is 'etheric
steel,' and its copper 'etheric copper.' Just as there is a spectrum of sound
and color so there is also a specturm of tangibility, ending in forms of
matter which are too dense to be touched. The ordinary matter of our plane is
rarefaction; the interspaces between the nucleus and the electrons are
realtively enormous. This extremely dense matter of the theric passes through
earth subsance much as wind or water would flow through a screen with meshes
a mile wide. But if the vibratory rate of an etheric object is slowed down,
it becomes less dense and enters our field of vision."
Final comment -- and again from Vallee "Most witnesses are not primarily reporting an object or
a craft, they are reporting _a_light_, a massive, multicolored, intense,
pulsating light, a playful, fascinating, impressive, hypnotic light that is
accompanied by strange sounds. In other words, UFOs may be unidentified, but
they are not flying, as birds and airplanes fly and they do not always behave
as meterial objects." "How much do we _know_ from the available scientific
literature about the effects of strong, pulsed, colored lights and other
electromagnetic radiations, such as microwaves and gamma rays, on the human
brain and on the major nerves? Pitifully little. Until this area is fully
explored, we will only have a poor understanding of the physics of UFO's."
[Please note: "Starchamber" and "brain buzzers" do use pulsed lights and
electromagnetics to produce various "experiences", including heighthened
awareness and experiences similar to the UFO experience. A note of interest--
Persinger and his helmet (OMNI 12,88) "What surprised Persinger most,
however, was the discovery that his subjects found the experiments so
pleasurable that they kept coming back for more. 'By stimulating the temporal
lobes,' Persinger says, 'we have achieved a widening and deepening of the
emotion they associated with the experimental experience.' In fact, after
several sessions, Persinger found it took little to send them aloft -- subtle
visual clues, background music, even the presence of a cross could trigger
the mystical state of mind." Vallee may have a point -- and, here we have
clinical proof that something as simple as a cross (symbol) can trigger a
reaction. Evolutionary? Could be -- are we subconsciously trying to adapt
to a world that contains higher amounts of artificially induced energies that
could be affecting our minds? Or, is there a true phenomenon and a "false"
phenomenon at work? Speculation is endless.....

Paranormal Issues

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:44:00 +0000

I just received a rather remarkable phone call from Bob Oechsler, MUFON
investigator from Annapolis, MD, who also has his own nationally broadcast UFO
radio talk show. Bob asked me to upload the following information.
On Tuesday March 14, 1989 at 6:42 am the following message was received
by a UFO investigator in Baltimore
through WA3NAN (Goddard) amateur radio transission from the orbiter
Discovery. "Houston, this is Discovery. We still have the alien space craft,
uhh, under observance." The transmission was picked up on a Radio Shack
scanner tuned to 147.45 mhz.
According to Bob, he and his colleagues have found that the transmission
matches up with NASA tapes except that there is a "blank space" in the tape
where the above transmission occurred. (Possibly bleached out?) They are
currently doing voice print analyis in an effort to match the specific voice
with one of the astronauts. They will compare to voices of all of the
astronauts recorded during the Today Show interview. They should know "for
sure" in about a week.
Bob would very much appreciate it if anyone who may be able to
corroborate this transmission would call him at 301-798-1503. About 15
minutes prior to the transmission there was a broadcast about "a fire on
board". There is speculation that this may have been a code to switch
frequencies or to stop feed to the public domain. He would this also like to
hear if anyone can corroborate anything about a "fire."

A letter from the Kumaras of Light

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:29:00 +0000

The ear buzzing you detected while shopping today had nothing to do
with the chair but rather a signal to alert you that the "writing"
of yesterday was not accurate. That is why the power failure and
loss of the material this evening. We sense your saddness at the
loss of that material, as you felt it was worthwhile...but trust
in what we say in this true Transmission. The concepts conveyed
yesterday were valid, but the mode was inappropriate and the
distractions did not allow for clear Transmission of thought. This
is such critical and vital information that it must be correctly
relayed;

Those who Transmit information should not be the focal point of
the work. This applies to past messengers and your modern day
scribes. You are scribes. You chose to come as scribes and
perform the task of relaying the Universal Knowledge. This is
true of the ones you call Buddha and Jesus. They did not ask to
be worshipped. They attempted to share the Universal Knowledge
and convey to all that each of you can access this information.
That was the message. They were teachers and there is a
distinction. You (the personal you as in the form known as
Jamelle) are a scribe. You know this. You chose to be a scribe,
not a teacher. David is both a scribe and a teacher. This is
the role selected for this lifetime. As a scribe, your work can
be facilitated using the best means available. This appears to
be a combination of written form and use of the electronic
Transmission.

(I have a question -- you are transmitting, I am receiving.
Are you to be acknowledge as a Teacher?)

WE are part of you and you are part of US. WE are not to be
the focal point of the work. WE are shifting and comprised of
various entities in what you think of as time. This is not as
critical as the Universal Knowledge. Whether WE include your
father figure, the One Who Rules the Hierarchy as Was called
Sanat Kumara, the Kumaras of Light or the Brotherhood ...
this will not be constant. The Knowledge IS constant. The
work is to convey the futility of arguing over Dharma, Bibles,
Sutras, and such texts. The work is to harmonize and blend
the teachings. To AWAKEN. Once Awakened, the Knowledge
can be conveyed directly and there is no need for concern of
format. This is what is being conveyed to David as the
critical drive path. The critical part is what will Awaken
others. Will the Genesis Gospel awaken a critical mass of
humanity? Is there any one text that will accomplish that
goal? No. But, in the sharing of many texts, many
viewpoints, many Transmissions, there is an increased
opportunity for awakening the critical mass. That is the
need for the 12 parts. 1 viewpoint may not touch the soul
of a person and awaken that person. but in 12 viewpoints,
twelve totally different perspectives on the same subject,
one of those 12 will touch that soul. This is true. This is
why the sharing is the critical drive path. This is why you
were called the Outreach Coordinator. You can bring together
12 diverse viewpoints and share these through your electronic
Transmission. This is why we suggested Master David's text,
the Book of the Lamb, the War in Heaven document, our dear
messenger Norma's work, your own Transmissions, and the
others which will become clear as they are presented. These
will represent 12 perspectives. In the bringing forth of
the 12 will be the Whole. In the Universal Knowledge it
requires 12 components to make a Whole. 12 ego/personalities
make a soul group. 12 soul groups make an Entity. 12 entities
make a Master. Remember the teaching of the Great One Sanat
Kumara WHOM conveyed to you 12 x 12 x 12 this was the lesson.
12 Masters make a Brotherhood. Soon this becomes beyond your
ability to comprehend, but this is what makes the Universe.
The Whole of the Universe is what some call God, the Other
Power, the Energy, the Spark of Creation. The 12 Faces of
God. Perhaps that can be the title of your document, You
still must compile your Transmissions into such a document as
it is needed as one of the 12 perspectives that will awaken
the masses. The work is in the sharing. That is why the
project must go forward. That is why the project WILL go
forward. The play is set in motion. The pieces are coming
together. that is why you experienced such a sense of
Knowing when you spoke with Master David regarding the
project. He too Knows it will happen. Abbe Knows. Tom
Knows. Trece Knows. Marcy Knows. This is because all of
you have awakened. Those who remain asleep can be awakened.
And when a critical mass of humanity is Awake, then the planet
shall be Awake. This is a Universal Law.

This is a much better portrayl of the "Truth" than that which
was eliminated during the power failure. Now you may save this
message and we will say good evening. We are with you always.

THE TEN MOST CREDIBLE UFOLOGISTS

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:19:00 +0000

1. Dr. Michael Swords, Ph.D
Professor of Genetics and Life Sciences, Western Michigan State
University. Editor, Journal of UFO Studies (CUFOS). Areas of
Special Study: Possibilities of ET visitation based on the Drake
Equation; Refutation of Budd Hopkins' Genetic Experimentation
Theory of Abductions.

2. Dr. Thomas E. Bullard, Ph.D
Degrees in Psychology, Folklore. Special contributor, International
UFO Reporter, Journal of UFO Studies. Author, "Abductions: The
Measure of a Mystery," a 600-page study of over 300 abduction cases,
taking into account such possible explanations as folkloric

transmission, hypnotic confabulation, etc. Dr. Bullard started as a
skeptic, but remains unconvinced by the skeptical explanations. Also
compiled definitive collection and analysis of 1890's airship wave.
Recipient, ParaNet's James E. McDonald Key, "For Outstanding
Achievement in the Advancement of Scientific Ufology," 1989.

3. Dr. Richard F. Haines, Ph.D
Retired NASA Psychologist. Areas of Special Study: Pilot Reports,
Photo-analysis, Abduction Regression techniques. Author, "The
Melbourne Episode" about the disappearance of pilot Frederick
Valentich.

4. Dr. James E. McDonald (deceased)
Meteorologist, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of
Arizona. Areas of Special Study: Electromagnetic effects cases. Led
efforts at Congressional Inquiry, scientific analysis.

5. Richard Hall
Science Writer; former Acting Director, NICAP; former Asst.
Director, MUFON. Areas of Special Study: Electromagnetic effects
cases, Radar trace cases. Author, "Uninvited Guests." Resigned
MUFON over Gulf Breeze case, Lear episode. Currently suffering from
Alan Hendry syndrome ("What's the Use?")

6. Donald Schmitt
Director, Special Investigations, CUFOS. Areas of Special Study:
Refutation of Gulf Breeze evidence; First Roswell Archaeological
Expedition.

7. Ronald Story
Science and Technical Writer. Areas of Special Study: Largely
responsible for debunking Ancient Astronaut theory. Author, "UFOs
and the Limits of Science," "The UFO Encyclopedia."

8. Barry Greenwood
Postal worker. Director, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. Editor, Just
Cause. Areas of Special Study: Procurement and analysis of
government documents. Outspoken critic of unscientific UFO
proponents. Performed major debunking of MJ-12.

9. John F. Schuessler
Engineer, Shuttle Project Director, McDonnell-Douglas Corporation.
Asst. Director, MUFON. Areas of Special Study: Cash-Landrum case.

10. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Ph.D (Deceased)
Astronomer, Northwestern University. Scientific Advisor to Project
BlueBook. Founder, Scientific Director, CUFOS. Areas of Special
Study: All areas. First major advocate of the application of
scientific methodology to UFO study. Created sighting categories
such as "Close Encounters." First major skeptic to change sides.
Lost some credibility due to indecisive nature, acceptance of some
questionable cases as valid.

The ten most compelling ufo cases in history

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:04:00 +0000

1. "Hudson Valley," or the Westchester Wing, NY 1984
Thousands of reports, mostly nocturnal, of large, silent, hovering
object with series of rotating lights. Reports came from many highly
credible individuals including meteorologists, news reporters, and
police chiefs. "Planes in formation" theory still in contention;
however, videos taken by area resident of both the object and a
formation of planes shows distinct differences. Intermittent sightings
to this day.

2. "Cash/Landrum", outside Houston, TX 1979
Two ladies and 5-year-old boy report diamond-shaped object belching
fire from beneath, surrounded by CH-47-style helicopters. Soon after
sighting, all three suffered strange maladies which were likened to
radiation poisoning. Klass explains as hoax, saying that the witness'
pre-sighting medical conditions were not released to him for
examination.

3. "Roswell Incident," outside Corona, NM 1947
Object crashed in remote location on a large ranch in early July, 1947.
Debris recovered by AAF, who issued hasty press release saying "Flying
Disk" had been recovered. Press release retracted the next day, and
press conference held at which it was revealed the object was, in fact,
a Rawin sonde (a device used to calibrate radar). 30 years later, AF
intelligence officer Maj. J. Marcel claimed that the object was "not of
this earth", that the press conference was a sham. Interviews with over
150 witnesses reinforce anomalous nature of object.

4. "Army Helicopter", Mansfield, OH 1974
Four National Guardsman aboard Bell UH-1H chopper report sighting
large nocturnal object on collision course. Pilot-in-Command Capt.
Coyne puts chopper in descent mode. Object stops in front of chopper,
then continues westward travel, after which Coyne discovers that
chopper actually rose 2000 ft. Klass' explanation of a bolide is not
supported by testimony, circumstances, or scientific principles.

5. "Bentwaters," Rendlesham Forest, UK 1979
Three separate sightings of anomalous lights near a NORAD base in the
UK. Official report filed by deputy base commander, who also taped the
on-site investigation carried out by Air Police detachment. Occurence
produced many witnesses, some of whom swear a craft was sighted. Invest-
igation hampered by conflicting testimony, Britain's Secrets Act, grand-
standing by one less than credible witness, and possibly the "Control
Group" -- A US Senator began looking into the affair, but abruptly halted
and would not communicate further with UFO researchers.

6. "Washington Invasion," Washington, DC 1952
Several fast-moving objects appear on radarscopes at three separate
installations, including Andrews AFB. Interceptors scrambled, but don't
find anything. Same thing happens the next night, this time objects
confirmed by ground observers. Largest peace-time press conference in
govt. history called to explain to reporters that radar traces were
caused by thermal inversions, despite absence of proper weather
conditions on the nights in question.

7. "Great Falls Film", Great Falls, MN 1954
Little League baseball coach films two objects streaking across sky
near an AFB. Original explanation was that objects were F-100s on
approach to AFB, but photo-analysis shows objects to be travelling much
too fast.

8. "Trent Photo", McMinnville, OR 1950
Actually two photos taken by farmer with Polaroid camera, depict
classic domed saucer. Foreground objects provide good references for
analysis, which shows object to be around 30 ft. diameter, and at least
1/4 mile distant. Shadows on foreground structure may be inconsistent
with time of day provided by photographer; however, that is immaterial
to analysis of the image's size and distance.

9. "Travis Walton," Snowflake, AZ 1974
Five woodcutters allegedly witness abduction of their comrade aboard
UFO. Abductee reappears five days later, fails first lie detector,
after which he and four other witnesses pass, one is inconclusive.
Controversy surrounds suppression of first lie detector results.

10. "My wife's sighting," Fountain Hills, AZ 1989
My wife and another witness, a friend of mine, stood in my backyard
about 1AM and witnessed a large, silent, hovering object with bright,
multi-colored lights that strobed in a diamond-shaped pattern. The
object then took off to the northeast and vanished in less than a
second. (Where was I? ASLEEP, DAMMIT!) Interviewed separately,
witnesses gave basically the same description. Cursory check with area
airports, AFBs yielded no clues.

Bbc report of nasa contacts w/alien species

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:22:00 +0000

I recently heard a Radio One program in the UK that contained
an interview with a leading proponent of the popular "US Government has
aliens locked up and is experimenting with their spaceplanes" conspiracy
theory. However this particular individual sounded very reasonable, did
not make any outrageous claims, and further had some interesting facts
to disclose. In particular he mentioned several verifiable facts which
I would like some followup on:
Rockwell International and NASA were planning a *massive*
joint exhibition of space exploration this year (1991) but it was delayed
inexplicably until 1992. In the *official* prospectus for this exhibition,
one of the exhibits was clearly stated to be "an extraterrestrial space
craft". When asked about this by various individuals, all enquiries
were referred by NASA to the US DoD. An unnamed Pentagon spokesman speaking
off the record is meant to have indicated that they "had a number of such
vehicles to choose from..."
The Pentagon also held a press conference to deal with press
inquiries on this matter - and refused to answer any questions. In fact
reporters later said that the Pentagon had asked most of the questions,
and they all pertained to "what would be the public reaction if...".
The guy on the radio program referred extensively to two NASA
consultant engineers who claimed to have worked on alien spacecraft
studying propulsion systems for NASA - both had high level security
clearance in the States, were verifiably employed by NASA as senior
consultant engineers, and both were phoned in the States by the station
in a followup program (which I missed) the next day. The followup program
incidentally was only scheduled at the last minute due to record phone
calls from the public swamping Radio 1's 64 line switchboard...
He also claimed that a NSA official had told him off the record
that the NSA was in "electronic communication" with at least eight
extraterrestrial sources of intelligent communication...
He claimed that he possessed a recording of a telephone conversation
with an ex deputy director of the CIA (Casey's deputy as I recall), who
said that they (the CIA) had possession of quite a few alien artefacts,
including bodies, spacecraft and other miscellaneous bits and pieces.
He also verified on tape claims that several alien landings at US AFBs had
occured in the past, and in some cases were common knowledge amongst certain
groups of AFB personnel: "Hear what came in this morning, Joe?"...
Various farmers in a certain area of the US (I forget the state
that was mentioned) regularly discovered bloodless (drained) cattle in
various stages of dismemberment in the early morning. These animals had
had certain glands, body parts, or body fluids surgically removed with a
precision beyond the capabilities of all but the most advanced surgical
laboratories. This problem was so bad that in one place a farmer was in
danger of going bust due to loss of cattle. One explanation advanced was that
aliens were using these cattle as a convenient source of various rare
chemicals/tissues.
The technology in the latest black projects that have progressed
to flight hardware - Aurora, Strike, etc. - seems to be well beyond the
capabilities of current commercial (defense/aerospace) technology. In
particular ablative control surfaces and reliable flight control at speeds
in excess of Mach 4 are characteristics of such craft, sightings of which
are widespread in Nevada along with reliable evidence (supersonic boom
disruption?) of such speeds.
Any comments/hard info. on any of these assertions would be
much appreciated - please post as I am sure others are interested too.

UFO Update

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:26:00 +0000

Anonymous low-level informants have for years accused the U.S. government
of hiding crashed UFOs. Since these sources are of uncertain reliability,
the reports have been largely ignored. Now, however, ufologists must
consider the testimony of Robert Sarbacher, whose entry in WHO'S WHO
consists of more than 3 inches of tiny print, including education at
Princeton and Harvard and a stint as dean of the graduate school of the
Georgia Institute of Technology. In the years after WWII, the story goes,
Sarbacher served as a science consultant for the Defense Department's
Joint Research and Development Board. He was in his Washington office on
September 15, 1950, it seems, when he received a visit from Canadian
electrical engineer Wilbert B. Smith. According to information released
by Smith just recently, it was then that Sarbacher revealed the existence
of crashed UFOs, apparently under investigation by Vannevar Bush, the
government's top scientist.

In a recent interview, Sarbacher, now head of the Washington Institute of
Technology, confirmed those remarks. He says that during his period of
government service as one of a number of government scientists who served
largely as volunteers, he was told that the vehicles were composed of an
"extremely light and very tough" material, apparently intended to
withstand tremendous acceleration and deceleration. At one point,
Sarbacher says, he was even invited to a meeting at Wright Patterson Air
Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where officials related their findings to
scientists connected with the Research and Development Board. Sarbacher
had other commitments and did not attend the meeting, but he says that
those who did, including Bush and noted mathematician John von Neumann,
were told that the vehicles appeared to be spaceships from another solar
system.

Asked about his reaction to the episode, Sarbacher seems oddly blase. He
admits he hasn't given much thought to a matter most people would consider
extraordinary -- he considers it simply a curious event in the course of a
long scientific career. "After all," he says, "I had -- and have -- a
great many more pressing scientific responsibilities. I wish I could
refer you to someone who was more directly involved than I was," he adds.
"Unfortunately, they're all long gone."

Writer William Moore, who has been chasing government UFO secrets for
years, considers Sarbacher's testimony significant. "It's the first time
someone with a reputation has come forward to state publicly that the
Pentagon has a recovered UFO," he says. "This isn't proof, of course, but
it fits in with information we have from other sources." Informed of these
claims, Temple University history professor David M. Jacobs, author of
THE UFO CONTROVERSY IN AMERICA, admits Sarbacher's credentials are
impressive but observes, "Until somebody can produce an actual crashed
saucer, this is hearsay evidence. And how can he talk so casually about
something that would have to be the most sensational event in all of
history?"

"Near-Miss" Space Object remains mysterious

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:10:00 +0000

Here is a story I read in our local paper today (Sacramento Bee-
Sacramento,CA): UFO SLIPS BY EARTH,REMAINS A
PUZZLE By David L. Chandler Boston Globe BOSTON -
The unidentified object that hurtled past Earth before dawn on
Thursday remains a mystery, astronomers said Friday, and it
apparently slipped by without them getting a good look at it.
A week ago astronomers had decided that the tiny object, which
passed slightly farther away from Earth than the moon's distance
of 240, 000 miles, was probably an asteroid - a chunk of
interplanetary rock probably less than 30 feet across. But
observations on Monday by European astronomers working in Chile
showed dramatic variations in brightness, which suggest an
irregularly shaped, tumbling object with great variations in its
surface reflectivity, much more so than expected for a natural
object like an asteroid, said astronomer Brian Marsden.
Marsden said Friday that the variation in brightness "means we
are dealing with some very peculiar object. I would say man-made. I
think it would be hard to explain this kind of variation with a
natural object, even a small one."
But Marsden and others are still puzzling over what kind of
man-made object it is.
Marsden said two weeks ago that it was probably the leftover
Centaur rocket used in 1974 to launch a solar satellite called Helios.
But more precise calculations of the object's orbit, based on the
latest observations, show that, traced backward, it never quite meets
Earth as it should if it had been launched from Earth.
There is a possible explanation for that discrepancy, Marsden
said. Centaur rockets sometimes contain leftover hydrogen fuel after
they reach orbit, and this fuel could continue to leak out, perhaps
for years. This could propel the rocket in unpredictable directions.
During its closest approach to Earth on Thursday, the object was
too far south to be visible from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in Chile tried to get
pictures of it shortly after its closest approach in order to get more
precise data on its exact path and to make further measurements of its
brightness varations.
But as of Friday, they were unable to find any sign of the object
in their pictures.
Because of the difficulty of the observation and the faintness of
the object, astronomers Richard West and Oliver Hainaut at the
observatory in the Chilean Andes continued to examine their images
carefully Friday.
These observations are essential to guarantee the success of a
planned radar observation of the object when it returns to visibility
in the Northern Hemisphere next week. A successful radar observation
"would clinch it" as to whether the object is natural or artificial,
Marsden said.
Because of the uncertain movements of a rocket leaking leftover
fuel, however, it may never be possible to identify it as a specific
rocket.
If it is artificial, but not a known rocket, that might explain
the astronomers' inability to locate it in their pictures, Marsden
joked.
"Maybe that's why they couldn't be found last night," he said.
"Maybe they landed."

UFO NEAR SHUTTLE PUZZLES NASA SCIENTISTS

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:08:00 +0000

Neither a bird nor a plane nor even, apparently, Superman, the identity of the
mysterious object that floated beside the shuttle Atlantis earlier in its
mission continues to elude NASA officials. The object, about 5 feet long and
slightly resembling a car bumper, was videotaped by the astronauts Saturday as
it sailed along between the shuttle and Earth.

A NASA spokeswoman said Sunday that the object was no longer visible from the
shuttle. But the mystery remained. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration believes the object was nothing more than debris lost during
the deployment of a communications satellite Friday, but acknowledges it
cannot be certain what was out there.

Nearly identical objects have been seen on previous shuttle flights from which
satellites were deployed, flight director Phil Engelauf said.

He said at a Sunday news briefing at Johnson Space Center in Houston that NASA
engineers are still scratching their heads over the object.

"We looked at the tape again and again last night and compared it to videotape
from another mission", Engelauf said. "Except to say it looks identical to the
debris we saw before, I can't give you anything new."

Whatever it is, he said, it has not interfered with previous missions or
threatened this one.

Regret Is Alien to UFO Abductees

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:47:00 +0000

Harvard University psychology researcher Susan Clancy thinks the chances are good that you know at least one person who claims to have been abducted by aliens. And she has another surprise: The people who tell these stories aren't candidates for the funny farm.

"They're not nuts," said Clancy, a postdoctoral researcher and author of a new book, the first to analyze the psychological underpinnings of abduction stories. "They're normal."

Not that Clancy gives any credence to the countless tales of horny aliens, UFO-borne medical examinations and intrusive probes of nether regions. No one, she said, has actually been kidnapped by extraterrestrials.

Instead, Clancy points to other causes including sleep hallucinations, innate suggestibility and a deeply human desire to explain the world. Pop culture plays a major role, too.

These theories have been around for a while, but Clancy weaves them together in Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens to create a new, overarching explanation for alien-abduction stories, one that draws heavily on her own interviews with about 50 alleged abductees.

And she throws in a new wrinkle: Despite the horrors that many abductees report enduring, including rape, they don't regret the experiences.

In each case, the abduction "transformed their lives, made them feel better about themselves and the world they were living in," said Clancy, a postdoctoral fellow and one of the few American academics who study alien-abduction stories as a way to understand how people develop "unusual beliefs."

It's impossible to know exactly how many Americans think they were abducted by aliens, although polls suggest about a quarter of us think extraterrestrials have dropped by the planet. While it's true that plenty of abductees are happy to tell their stories on the radio and the internet, Clancy said in an interview, others keep their stories to themselves because they fear being written off as crazy.

Regardless of whether they broadcast their stories to the world, "they're not more likely than people who don't believe to be psychiatrically impaired," she said.

In fact, the lives and occupations of abductees are often entirely ordinary. Clancy writes about her interviews with several schoolteachers, a dermatologist, a spa chef and a house cleaner. One was abducted while watching David Letterman's show in order to create "hybrid babies"; another told about aliens who wanted to "buy land in New Hampshire, stay here and breed."

But not all had extensive memories. In fact, only about 10 percent of people who think they were abducted actually have detailed stories of what happened. The rest simply consider bits of evidence -- a mysterious bruise, perhaps, or a vague feeling -- and figure they must have been whisked away by aliens.

Why would they do that, when other explanations would seemingly make more sense? Many people would look at a bruise and assume they innocuously injured themselves without knowing it. And the typical person wouldn't send something that fell out of his rear for analysis to see if it was a remnant of an anal probe. (One abductee did that, according to Clancy, and refused to believe the lab finding that it was actually a hemorrhoid.)

The Infamous Roswell Incident

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:01:00 +0000

I just saw the Roswell film footage, remember year 1947 when an alien craft crashed in the New Mexico desert near Roswell. To be honest I am two minded where one side is thinking, no this cannot be true it looks too human it is like us but has different colour skin and a giant head but to be honest I have seen individuals who has similar physical structure. Ho do we know that the doctors who are dissecting the anonymous body did not select a random dead person and did what they did to fool world. Whereas the other side of me thinks but why will they do this, why would they want to fool world do they have so much spare time on their hands and I personally think at that age in time people were simple thus there was less corruption and conspiracies. Listen to this actual Radio Broadcast made at the time of the alleged Roswell UFO Crash in New Mexico, 1947.

venus

noreply@blogger.com (A Setiawan) — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:17:00 +0000

Why is Venus so bright? It's a cloudy world, only slightly smaller than Earth, and those clouds reflect almost all the sunlight that hits them. The reflection seems especially intense this week because Venus is getting close to Earth: it's only 72 million km away--just a hop, skip and a jump on the vast scale of the solar system.

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Venus' clouds hide the planet's surface. Even the biggest telescopes on Earth can't see what lies below. But if you have a small telescope or binoculars, take a look at Venus anyway. There is something to see: Venus looks like a fat gray banana.

Just like the Moon, Venus has phases. It can be full, gibbous, half or a crescent. These phases occur for the same reason that Moon phases do: geometry. One side of Venus is sunlit (the "dayside"). The other side is dark (the "nightside"). As Venus orbits the Sun it turns one side, then the other, toward Earth. At the moment, Venus is turning its nightside toward us. We can see only a sliver of the dayside--hence the crescent.

In one way Moon-phases and Venus-phases differ: The Moon is bright when it's full, and dim when it's a crescent. Venus is just the opposite. It reaches greatest brilliancy at crescent phase. A full Venus, on the other hand, is dim. Strange but true.

The diagrams below show why. Venus is full when it's on the other side of the Sun. It's dim then because it's far away. Venus is a crescent when it's nearby--big and bright.

Here's something to think about while you're looking at Venus this week: that delicate, beautiful crescent is a hellish world. The planet's bone-dry surface is hot enough to melt lead. Venus' atmosphere, 90 times heavier than Earth's, is almost pure carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps solar heat. The thick blanketing clouds don't help; they trap heat, too, and they're made of sulfuric acid. Robot-spaceships sent to Venus have landed, but they never last long. Russia's Venera 13 lander operated for 127 minutes--the all-time record--before being overwhelmed by the acid, the heat, and the crushing pressure of Venus' atmosphere.

And you thought Venus was scary when it was just a UFO.