As you can see in the above video a Fighter Pilot is seen to be flying along side a UFO. This video has been considered as the real deal, but yet there is still talk of it being a new aircraft that was filmed during a test at Area 51. This has not halted the talk across the planet that there is a government cover-up of this alien craft…

The craft looks to be flying along side the fighter so does this mean we are working along side aliens?

The reasons ranged from thousands of sightings of star-like lights manoeuvring oddly in the night sky, to hundreds of sightings of “fireballs” in the sky, to one where dozens of people saw a huge, lantern-shaped object flying slowly over a lake in the Yukon.

Most of the 8,601 UFO sightings reviewed by Winnipeg-based Ufology Research had two witnesses, involved a white object — even triangles were much more common than your stereotypical saucer or cigar shape — and lasted an average of 17 minutes.

And we’re not just talking about folks who just stumbled out of a bar or those who like to wear tin foil hats here: Reports were filed by witnesses with government and military agencies, police, civilian UFO groups and online UFO websites, says the study’s co-author. And report they did. The number of UFO sightings has increased from 141 (in 1989) to more than 1,000 per year.

“It’s a persistent phenomena,” says Winnipeg ufologist Chris Rutkowski, who co-authored the study with Geoff Dittman. “People are witnessing something in the sky. Whether it’s aliens or not is a matter for further study, but there’s a small but significant percentage (of sightings) every year that we simply can’t explain.”

Out of those 8,500-plus UFO cases, only about 14 per cent were labelled as unexplained after review by investigators. And less than four per cent were classified as “close encounters” — meaning someone claimed to have seen something (or some being) up close.

But Rutkowski, who has degrees in astronomy and education and describes himself as an “open-minded skeptic,” says even if one report proves to be valid, it’ll be a very important scientific discovery. After the United States Air Force ended its Project Blue Book study of 12,000 UFO cases in 1969 and concluded that UFOs were not a threat to national security, many people assumed the “fad” had passed, he said.

“Here we are 40 years later and not only is the phenomenon not going away, the numbers are increasing. This is hard scientific data and there isn’t a comparable study anywhere,” said Rutkowski, who presented the 20-year study to UFO researchers, many of whom are scientists, across North America during the recent Mutual UFO Network in Dallas, Texas. “But we’re no closer to the truth, in some ways.”

Rutkowski currently receives around six UFO reports each week. The most recent and noteworthy, he says, came last Friday from six people who reported seeing a large orange light moving along the shoreline of Dauphin Lake, 15 kilometres east of Dauphin.

“It stopped and then moved away from them. They said it ‘moved at a speed we’ve never seen a plane move at,’ and there was no sound at all,” Rutkowski recalled.

Source: winnipegfreepress

Michael Rowley says ever since NBC2 aired his story about alien sightings near his North Port home, his property has been attracting curious visitors from this world and beyond.

Rowley told NBC2 that since the full moon began on August 6th, he and his 16-year old son Shane have seen an increase in noises, lights, and sightings in the woods behind their home.

Rowley describes the aliens they’ve seen as ‘greys.’

His claims of alien activity have surfaced on numerous web sites across the country, and it’s been a topic of debate on local radio in Southwest Florida. B103’s morning show, ‘Big Mama & The Wild Bunch’ tested the family’s bizarre claims.

One member of the morning show spent 4-hours at the home Tuesday night. She reported seeing a mysterious green light in the woods behind Michael Rowley’s house.

The Rowleys moved to North Port in April. They previously lived in Washington state and admit to seeing similar alien sightings there as well.

NBC2 went inside the Rowley home. There are very few furnishings – with sheets used as make-shift curtains to cover the windows.

Both Mike and Shane Rowley say they rarely go outside their home at night anymore.

The Rowleys hope the Mutual UFO Network of Florida will continue their investigation.

MUFON’s report at the end of May came back inconclusive and in need of further investigation and tests.

Source: nbc2

RAND’s hidden history of UFO involvement has been discovered to include work in policy analysis; evaluation of evidence and in advising on the potential technological advantages achieved from UFO study. Telling connections have also been found between RAND and the Roswell crash event of 1947.

WHO IS RAND?

RAND Corporation was established in 1946 by the U.S Army Air Force as Project RAND ( for Research ANd Development) and is today registered as a nonprofit organization. It is funded through government contracts, university collaborators and by “private donors.” RAND’s primary agency clients include the CIA and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)

Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA the think tank maintains branches worldwide. RAND’s stated mission is to “help to improve policy and decision making through objective research and analysis.” Its work is officially conducted “for the public welfare and security of the United States of America.”

Over 30 Nobel Prize winners have been employed by RAND. From physics to economics, the 2000 person think tank provides high-level information and evaluation to the U.S. government. Deeper review shows that RAND has conducted studies in such areas as weapons development, intelligence gathering and analysis and the design of sensitive underground installations for the USAF.

Far more concealed is RAND’s intimate involvement in highly classified UFO study for the U.S. government:

RAND’S FOUNDERS HELD THE SECRET OF THE SAUCERS

From its very inception, the men of RAND knew much about saucers.

RAND was conceived by Donald Douglas, CEO of Douglas Aircraft (and a protege of Dr. Jerome Hunsaker at MIT) along with two military officer luminaries. These officers carried with them significant “UFO histories.” The officers behind RAND were Major General Curtis LeMay (the US Air Force’s Chief of Development) and General Hap Arnold (considered the “father” of the modern U.S. Air Force.)

In May of 1948 RAND was separated from Douglas Aircraft and became its own operating entity. Among RAND’s earliest government reports was the release of the enigmatically titled, “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship.”

LeMay expressed deep interest and concern about the flying saucer phenomena. More than this, LeMay himself was a keeper of the purported 1947 Roswell UFO crash debris.

This was revealed in a stunningly candid interview with the late U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater (a former U.S. Presidential Candidate, Major General and Command Pilot) was General LeMay’s professional associate and close friend. LeMay’s UFO involvement was related by Goldwater in a live worldwide broadcast with CNN’s Larry King in 1994. The USAF had just issued its report that debunked the Roswell crash of 1947 as a Mogul balloon. Goldwater (who died just a few years later) informed King that he knew the truth to be far different.

He knew this, he explained, because in the 1960’s he had approached LeMay about the crashed UFO issue. Goldwater -who no doubt himself held the highest security clearances- told Larry King:

“I think at Wright-Patterson, if you could get into certain places, you’ll find what the Air Force and the government knows about UFOs. Reportedly, a spaceship landed. It was all hushed up. I called Curtis LeMay and I said, ‘General, I know we have a room at Wright Patterson where you put all of this secret stuff. Could I go in there? I’ve never heard General LeMay get mad, but he got madder than hell at me, cussed me out and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me that question again!” Goldwater never did.

LeMay was very well-acquainted with Roswell Army Air Field Base Commander Butch Blanchard. Blanchard oversaw the base at the time of the Roswell crash event in 1947. It is believed that Blanchard helped issue the original press release on the crash- which prompted the famous resulting headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” Blanchard’s former wife and daughter Dale say that he was highly affected and visibly upset by the event. He repeated only, “those Russians have some amazing things.” Roswell mayor William Brainerd says that Blanchard told him, “What I saw was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen!” To Art McQuiddy -editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch in 1947- Blanchard said when questioned, “I’ll tell you this and nothing more- the stuff I saw I’d never seen anyplace else in my life.”

Pilot Ben Games related in interviews (with this author and to reporter Billy Cox) that he had flown General Laurence Craigie (Director of the Air Force’s R&D) to Roswell Army Air Field after the Roswell crash. Games said that General Curtis LeMay (the Air Force’s Chief of Development) was well aware of Craigie’s flight- and that LeMay and Craigie were in close contact about the event.

In LeMay’s 1965 biography “Mission with LeMay” he speaks sparingly about the UFO subject. LeMay of course discounts that there is a government coverup about UFOs. But he belies this with a brief and telling statement found later in the biography, “There is not a question about it: these were things which we could not tie in with any natural phenomena known to our investigators.”

As early as 1943 this fabled Five Star General of two units of military service was investigating unidentified flying objects.

Found in Box 166 of General Arnold’s papers (at AFHRC, Maxwell AFB) is detailed analysis from 1943 that assessed a number of sightings of “small, luminous, silvery discs” reported by B-17 pilots. “Foo fighters” were an anomalous aerial “ball-of-light” phenomena reported and photographed by pilots during combat in Europe in the 1940s. Hap Arnold was intimately involved in the study of the baffling phenomena.

In November of 1945, an Adjutant from Hap Arnold’s office delivered a packet of sealed documents that related to analysis of the mysterious “foo fighters” to Arnold’s friend, Jo Chamberlin of the American Legion Magazine. In a 1991 interview with researcher Jeffrey A. Lindell (of the Indiana Folklore Institute and a USAF retired Electronic Warfare Systems Analyst) Chamberlin said that he retained these foo fighter documents from Arnold and had never opened them after he first read them in 1945. At the time of the interview, Chamberlin said he still had them but that he had promised Arnold he would never circulate them. Though Chamberlin wrote a generalized article on foo fighters for the magazine, he never circulated the papers Arnold had given him- and never revealed their contents on the General’s analysis.

General Arnold established the 509th and (like General LeMay) he was closely associated with Colonel William “Butch” Blanchard- the Commanding Officer of the 509th bombing wing and the Roswell Base Commander at the time of the 1947 crash.

On July 7, 1947 (just days after the Roswell crash) Arnold is quoted in a UP story that stated, “General H.H. (Hap) Arnold, head of the army air forces during WWII, said today the discs could be a development of United States scientists not yet perfected.” Of course during the period immediately following the Roswell crash, U.S. military were obfuscating by giving the public various explanations on the nature of the discs. But Arnold had known many years prior that U.S. scientists could not be the reason for them. He knew that they were seen by his own pilots operating in the European theater, as he had earlier reported.

RAND’S EARLY UFO INVOLVEMENT CONFIRMED

An official Air Force document written on October 12, 1948 has been located by the historical research group Project 1947. Project 1947 is operated by respected researcher Jan Aldrich, supported by the civilian UFO research organization CUFOS and is known for its expertise in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

This 1948 document is very instructive about RAND and the early study of the troubling UFO phenomena.

The subject header of this document is “Request for Study by Rand Project” and is directed to the US Air Force Chief of Staff. The author of the document is Col. W.R. Clingerman, the Acting Chief of Intelligence. Clingerman was associated with Project Sign, the USAF official early study of the UFO phenomena. Clingerman seeks the approval of the USAF Chief of Staff: “It is requested that the special study, described in the inclosure be approved and that the Rand Corporation be authorized to establish a study of priority, consistent in scope and degree of treatment with the described requirements.”

In a later paragraph of the document, Clingerman explains that he wishes RAND to: “Assist in the collection of information relating to unidentified aerial objects that may possibly represent spaceships or spaceship test craft and the technical information that includes the distinguishing design and performance parameters for spaceships is considered necessary.” He adds “It would be valuable to this Command” to have RAND provide “further scientific clues that may assist in their detection and identification by RAND scientific personnel.”

Clingerman cautions, “It is further requested that Air Materiel Command be assigned to monitor the project in conformance with Air Corps Letter 80-10, 21, July, 1948, Section 3, Paragraph 3.”

We learn that RAND is held in high regard by the uppermost levels of government. It is an organization considered ideal for initiation of work on the UFO phenomena. It is felt that the “spaceships” had “distinguishing characteristics” that RAND personnel would be uniquely suited to provide technical information about- and that they could find “further scientific clues” about the “unidentified aerial objects.” We also learn that RAND is to be “monitored” on this UFO work by AMC, in conformance with an “Air Corps Letter” dated one year after the Roswell crash. The document can be accessed at www.project1947.com

RAND AND UFO PHOTO ANALYSIS

Brief mention in extant literature notes that in 1966 RAND Corporation coordinated the photographic analysis of an alleged UFO photo. The “Zanesville, OH UFO” photos of November 13, 1966 were taken by local barber Ralph Ditter. Widely circulated at the time, the two photos appear to show a large saucer above the Ditter home. The RAND photo analysis determined that the object was a model only 3-4 inches in diameter and only 3-4 feet from the camera. The analysis was correct and Ditter later confessed the hoax as a way to please his curious daughter. Interestingly, most such analysis is officially conducted by the National GeoSpatial Intelligence Agency (formerly the National Photographic Interpretation Center.) RAND apparently has such capability as well- and has applied this capability to the UFO phenomena.

RAND AND UFO SIGHTINGS ANALYSIS

While working for RAND, senior analyst Dr. James E. Lipp wrote one of two scientific reports for the USAF’s official UFO study, Project Sign. It was completed in February of 1949 and was classified. In the report Lipp makes an extraordinarily astute observation.

Lipp notes that by the Spring of the previous year there had been a total of five atomic bomb explosions. Lipp believed that these explosions could have served as interstellar ’smoke signals’ – and that they would be a potential source of extraterrestrial interest. Of this RAND report even skeptic Curtis Peebles notes that Lipp’s evaluation may represent, “the first U.S. government sponsored study of non-human life in the universe.”

Lipp continues that “visits from outer space are believed possible.” Ultimately though, Lipp seemed to cautiously conclude that he did not consider most reported UFO events as described to be evidence of such visits because they made “no logical sense.”

RAND’S ET STATEMENTS

Stephen H. Doyle, scientist at the RAND Corporation, authored the intriguingly titled “Habital Planets for Man” in 1964. Dole -based on his analysis while at RAND- believed that the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence was extremely high, even probable. In other reports he estimated the number of life-bearing planets (based on available information at the time) at 640 million!

It appears that RAND not only analyzed the UFO problem, but also evaluated the larger cosmological issues of our place in the universe, the likelihood of ET and how to determine and quantify the extent of off-earth life.

THE RAND UFO REPORT THEY DIDN’T WANT US TO SEE

RAND analyst George Kocher authored an assessment report entitled, “UFOs: What to Do?” dated November 27, 1968. Kocher’s paper was stamped “For RAND Use Only.” It further instructs on its cover page: “Do not quote or cite in external publications or correspondence.” Though known of by the UFO research community for some years, it was only in 2000 that RAND was forced to officially acknowledge the paper’s existence and authenticity. Today RAND counters that it was an “internal draft” that was never formally considered. It is easy to understand why RAND would want us to think this is the case.

From a summary of this report we learn the author’s conclusions about the phenomena: “Since WWII there seems to have been a drastic increase in sightings. We have enough data to know that the phenomena is unambiguously extraordinary and clearly inexplicable in modern terms.” Chapters in the previously restricted document include, “UFOs: Historical Aspects” “UFOs: Astronomical Aspects” “Phenomenological Aspects” and its conclusion, “UFOs: How to Proceed and Why.” The document is available for review in PDF at www.nicap.org

We know based on the above-mentioned 1948 Air Force document that RAND was engaged in official research. In 1968, two decades on, RAND was still engaged in such analysis. And they likely continue this work today.

RAND & UFOS TODAY – KEEPING IT ALL IN THE FAMILY

Rand’s Executive Vice President is Michael D Rich. Mr. Rich is also Director of RAND National Security Research. A family man, Mr. Rich’s own family history is very telling. His father was aviation genius Benjamin Rich. Ben helped to lead aerospace giant Lockheed Martin as President of Lockheed Advanced Aeronautics. He oversaw the ultra-secret Lockheed “Skunk Works” division where he spearheaded the development of the Stealth bomber. Rich Sr. is universally acknowledged as “the father of Stealth technology.”

Ben Rich stated some extremely revealing things about the reality and nature of UFOs before he passed. In a letter to his friend and associate John Andrews he replies to Andrew’s observations about the UFO phenomena. Andrews had written a letter to Rich in which Andrews says, “I believe with certainty in manmade UFOs. I am tending to believe there are also extraterrestrial UFOs.”

Rich -in a handwritten letter- replies to Andrews, “Yes, I am a believer in both categories.” Andrews was a forensic illustrator and aviation model-maker. Before his own death, Andrews related that Rich went further in privately explaining that, “there are two types of UFOs, the ones we build and the ones ‘they’ build.” Rich told Andrews of his concern that the public should not be told. But Rich told Andrews he had recently changed his mind on this and that those “involved in dealing with the ’subject’ could represent a bigger problem to citizens than knowledge of the visitors themselves.” Just before he died, Andrews says that Rich confirmed to him that “items” were recovered at the crash at Roswell in 1947. Rich also told associate John Goodall, “we have things at Area 51 that you and the best minds in the world won’t even be able to conceive for the next 30-40 years.” In fact Rich gave numerous clues and hints about the alien reality to several before he passed.

The father of Stealth -who is also the father of RAND’s current Director- gave his gift to truth and history before he died. He confirmed official government study of the UFO reality and the crash of an extraterrestrial vehicle to earth.

THE RAND-BATTELLE CONNECTION AND UFOS

Prior articles by this author (available on the UFO Iconoclasts website and in the book Witness to Roswell) have shown that -like RAND- Battelle Memorial Institute was heavily engaged by government to study UFOs.

It now appears that Battelle metallurgists likely analyzed the Roswell memory metal retrieved from the 1947 crash. That conclusion was drawn from a “reverse engineering of information” of the literature on shape recovery metal; by the revealing statements of two U.S. Generals; through the confession of analysis by a senior Battelle scientist and by establishing other connections.

But perhaps the most interesting of these telling connections is this: The Director of Battelle at the time of the Roswell crash -Clyde E. Williams- simultaneously sat on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation!

Williams directed RAND and Battelle’s activities at a time when both organizations were highly engaged in UFO study. Clyde Williams was installed as Trustee of RAND in 1948 (the year after Roswell) and remained a RAND trustee until 1963. Battelle is also known to have supported analysis of UFO sightings for the Air Force’s Project Blue Book during William’s tenure.

A PRESIDENT’S WARNING

The line between “public” and “private” sectors is blurred when it comes to “things UFO.” Such fuzzy, “quasi-public” organizations were of grave concern to a wise President and military icon. Dwight Eisenhower was instructive in his farewell to the nation. He warned that we should beware of the unchecked powers of the “military-industrial complex.” And the Five Star General was right. For it is in complexes like Battelle and RAND that the alien truth resides, unchecked. Until now.

Source: ufocon

Former Deputy Base Commander Col Charles Halt claimed that even though the incident was later covered up, ?extra-terrestrials? had been the cause of the close encounter in Suffolk.

Halt had led a group of airmen who reported seeing a triangular UFO taking off into the air, leaving traces of radiation behind.

?The UFOs I saw were structured machines moving under intelligent control and operating beyond the realm of anything I have ever seen before or since,? the Daily Star quoted Col Halt, now retired, as telling investigator Gary Heseltine.

?I believe the objects that I saw at close quarters were extra-terrestrial in origin,? he said.

He added that the Air Force later issued ?dis-information? to

throw the public off the scent.

His comments were hailed as ?sensational? by former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator Nick Pope.

?This may help us to finally solve Britain?s biggest UFO mystery,? Pope said.

?It blows the MoD?s line that these events had ?no defence significance? out of the water,? he added.

Source: thaindian

But what sets it apart from other seaside hamlets (other than its frequent inclusion on lists of funny place names) are the little green men.

There is a little green man standing guard outside the post office named Alvin. And there is a three-foot-tall green man at the side of the highway — a plywood cut-out that beckons travellers to stop in at the Shag Harbour Incident Museum and Research Centre.

“The Incident” as it is referred to in these parts, is the strange occurrence of Oct. 4, 1967, when locals witnessed strange lights hovering in the sky before a dark object appeared to plunge into the ocean.

Shag Harbour residents were convinced a plane had crashed and they jumped into their fishing boats to search for survivors.

But all the fishermen found was a strange fluorescent foam floating on the water that evaporated when they tried to collect it.

The navy, air force, Coast Guard and RCMP continued the search in the morning and for days to come before calling it off, saying they came up empty-handed.

“At least that was their story,” said Cindy Nickerson, chairwoman of Shag Harbour Incident Society, chuckling.

Today the mystery of the Unidentified Flying Object endures — in both the literal and mythological sense — as Canada’s Roswell.

With the dwindling fishing industry, some Shag Harbour residents are eager to trade on the currency of that legacy to attract visitors to their hamlet and boost tourism.

Museum and Research Centre is a fancy title for the kitschy display set up in the backyard shed of a director of the Incident Society.

There are laminated newspaper articles dating from the strange event, copies of original government, police and Coast Guard documents, television screens broadcasting interviews with witnesses, but also an array of alien-themed

For more in our Best of Summer series, including previous instalments, highlights from last year and cartoons by Gary Clement, visit nationalpost.com/bestofsummer

memorabilia, from key chains with little green Martian heads to artistic paintings imagining what happened.

Courtney Banks, a university student hired to staff the museum for the summer, rattled off the yarn to a pair of intrigued passersby on a sunny summer day, but said many visitors know far more about UFO sighting than she does.

“They tell me the story,” she said.

The Incident Society has grand plans to erect a facility dedicated to the infamous event on the crest overlooking the watery crash site.

Ms. Nickerson said the group is hoping to raise at least $150,000 for the new building.

In the meantime they hosted the first Shag Harbour Incident Festival on Aug. 8 and 9, with help from a $2,000 grant from the federal Department of Heritage that will feature such renowned ufology speakers as Stanton Friedman and Carl Feindt from the United States.

Don Ledger, a Nova Scotia writer who co-authored a book about The Incident a number of years ago, said two things set the Shag Harbour event apart from many other UFO reports.

“First, it was the RCAF [Royal Canadian Air Force] documents that had margin notes designating the incident as a UFO sighting — underlined three times. In other words, it was a reversal of the normal process of the civilian witnesses reporting a UFO and the authorities claiming a prosaic explanation,” Mr. Ledger said. “Secondly, unlike all other UFO cases I’ve come in contact with, this case was heavily government documented.”

Among locals — both those who saw the lights in the sky that night and those who have heard the tale, Ms. Nickerson said opinion about the incident varies. But perhaps all the little green men about town offer a hint.

“I guess it’s kind of something that you have to make your own mind up about,” she said.

Source: canada.com

The world?s first-ever scientific work dedicated to strange objects in the sky was penned by Carl Yung, a renowned Swiss psychologist. He equated the phenomenon of the UFO with Maya myths and the symbols of unconscious collective. He returned to the subject in 50 years in his article ?UFOs as Rumors.?

US professor Joseph Allen Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1974. Several other scientists dedicated their works to the mysterious phenomenon afterwards, but no one dared to do it in the Soviet Union.

?That was a tabooed subject in the USSR. Any piece of information about the flying saucers was treasured. Any public jokes about the UFO were strictly forbidden,? Mr. Stolyarov said.

The situation changed drastically in the beginning of the 1980s. Everyone in the country started speaking about the phenomenon. Newspaper articles, TV and radio programs about the UFO became plentiful. Many respectable scientists even lost their interest in the mystery because of the national boom.

The UFO Day is celebrated on July 2 in honor of the so-called Roswell incident. An unidentified aircraft, which many consider to be of extraterrestrial origin, crashed on the outskirts of Roswell on July 2, 1947.

On July 8, 1947, many US newspapers wrote that the US Air Force found the debris of the unknown aircraft on the crash site in Roswell. General Roger Ramey rejected the information several hours later. The official explained that it was not an alien spacecraft, but a top secret space probe that crashed near the town. The probe, Ramey said, was launched within the scope of the program to observe the nuclear tests of the USSR.

Major Jesse Marcel, a former intelligence officer, said in1947 that the story with the probe was not true. The major said that the debris found on the crash site was of extraterrestrial origin indeed.

There is no evidence to prove the fact that it was a UFO that crashed in Roswell. However, over 200,000 people visit the town every year in the beginning of July to take part in seminars, lectures and the alien parade.

The UFO industry brings $5.2 million of profit to the town every year.

Source: pravda

Incredibly, translations of hieroglyphic records reveal that Thutmose III, who reigned 15 centuries before the birth of Christ, first saw a UFO one winter morning around the year 1482 B.C.

?The hieroglyphics describe the UFO as ?a circle of fire,?? said renowned author and UFO expert Brad Steiger. ?The object emitted no sound, as indicated by the inscription ?it had no voice.?

?The hieroglyphic records go on to say, ?After some days had passed, these things became more numerous in the skies than ever.?

?The UFOs in this fleet were extremely bright or more than the brightness of the sun,? and were relatively small, about 16 feet in diameter.

?They were probably spacecraft from a mother ship.?

Incredibly, Thutmose III was taken aboard one of the alien spacecraft, said UFO expert and biblical scholar Zecharia Sitchin, author of the book The Stairway to Heaven.

The ancient records reveal that Thutmose ?flew up to the sky? and learned the ?mysterious ways in heaven,? Sitchin wrote.

?Without a doubt, that passage describes a trip into space.

?Thutmose III was transported by space shuttle to a space station in orbit above the Earth.

?The report of Thutmose proves that ancient astronauts visited Earth long ago.?

Source: weeklyworldnews

There is a lunar quality to the landscape of New Mexico which seems somehow appropriate for a state which is our portal to the heavens.

It is here on a dried-up lake bed high above sea level that the radio telescopes of the US government’s Very Large Array (VLA) receive signals from the outer edges of our expanding universe, chasing the very moment of the Big Bang through the trackless void of time and space.

And of course it is also here – perhaps – that 62 years ago a flying-saucer crashed to earth on a ranch outside the town of Roswell, killing its alien crew and prompting one of the most elaborate and protracted cover-ups in history.

The power of that possibility and the darkness of the nights here so far from the light pollution of the big cities are what draw scientists and curious tourists alike to this entrancing place.

And it is what motivates watchers of the skies to keep, well, watching the skies, obviously.

Alien ambiguity

If UFO true-believers are right, then nothing much that has happened on our tiny, fragile planet in the years since that stormy summer’s night really matters very much.

What, after all, would Watergate, or Vietnam or Iraq amount to if we could establish that the US government knew for sure that we are not alone in the universe?

Most of the big questions about alien life and UFOs can be traced back to Roswell – not least the issue of how life-forms from another civilisation have such an uncanny sense of when the tourist industry in a small US town could use a shot in the arm.

Are we really alone in the heavens, for example, and if we are not, do the civilisations with which we share the heavens mean us any harm?

Is it just a coincidence that aliens have never managed to find an earth-dweller who knows how to operate his own camera properly?

And why, if you have journeyed light years across the unknowable vastness of the heavens, would you confine yourself to a fleeting and ambiguous appearance before a handful of New Mexican ranchers?

Why not go the extra mile and find a research institute of some kind – unless our visitors have a sense of humour, of course.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Let us return to that stormy summer New Mexican night in 1947 when the story of the UFO landing first broke.

It was a world of tension and uncertainty.

The United States had detonated the first atom bombs – they were developed just up the road at Los Alamos, New Mexico – and was uneasily aware that the Soviet Union, its increasingly hostile former ally, had nuclear ambitions of its own. The Cold War was just beginning.

‘Switcheroo’

Roswell was in those days the home base of the 509th Bombardment Group of the US Eighth Army Air Force.

Most of the boys in the 509th were combat veterans and when they were tasked to investigate reports of some kind of landing on a ranch a short distance away it seems reasonable to assume they were not too excited at first. That soon changed.

When they got the material back to base, they quickly concluded they were onto something historic.

Their first press release talked of the recovery of a flying saucer – it was only when the suits descended from Washington that the tone of the official communiques changed.

The base intelligence officer who was tasked with taking the wreckage to another base reports leaving it in an office there and returning a few minutes later to find that the space debris he had brought had been replaced with parts of a weather balloon.

The fix was in. Faced with evidence of one of the most significant events in human history the American authorities had responded by pulling the old switcheroo.

One account of those days comes from Julie Shuster, whose father was the press officer at the Roswell base.

She now runs the museum in the town which is the focal point for the local UFO industry (it is on a street where the street lights have been decorated so that they look like alien heads).

For Julie there is a simple issue in all of this which goes back to the version of events her father passed on to her.

“My daddy didn’t lie. My father saw the bodies, my father saw the craft,” she says.

“He saw bodies – large heads, almond shaped eyes… and material that couldn’t be burnt, ripped, cut – anything.”

‘Majestic 12′

It is not quite so personal for the other true believers in the incident.

Dennis Balthaser, for example, is a retired civil engineer who is perhaps the most meticulous researcher of the Roswell incident.

He has spent years (and thousands of dollars of his own money) tracing every witness and every player from that night in 1947 and is convinced that there was a landing.

But he is at his most compelling when talking about the cover-up which follows.

Dennis lives in a rather frightening world where the US government would be perfectly happy to murder anyone (including him) who got too close to the truth.

He believes the US is really governed by a kind of secret committee of senior military and intelligence officials with the president serving as a kind of hired hand to deal with the public.

“Basically he can’t be trusted with information like this” says Dennis.

“Back in Truman’s time, we’re looking at a thing called ‘majestic 12′, which was a group of some of the highest military people, some of the highest dignitary people we had. I believe today we still have a group similar to that that calls the shots.”

Even before I met Dennis, I knew he believed that space travellers helped build the pyramids – where I, for example, am more inclined to the view that they are probably the work of Egyptians.

I expected to find him hopelessly naive – but the funny thing is he is so lucid and convincing that I left feeling rather naive myself.

(And in case you were wondering – if anyone ever lifts a quote from this article to promote a book or a DVD it will be that previous sentence.)

Missing balloon?

But here is the problem.

I mentioned before that New Mexico is a place where real science and Roswell science-lite co-exist.

And it is in that proximity that our explanation probably lies.

At the VLA (that centre of government radio telescopy) they will tell you that around the time of the crash, the US government was sending up special high-altitude weather balloons made of a then-classified material.

They were looking for atmospheric evidence that the Russians were testing their own nuclear bomb.

On the night of the Roswell incident, one of those balloons went missing.

Until, perhaps, it was found by the boys of the 509th.

And all that stuff about alien bodies being recovered and autopsies being performed? Well I leave you to speculate about that for yourselves.

If you find all that a little disappointing then you can always employ the debating technique favoured by UFO true believers – the deployment of questions designed to expose the lack of absolute certainty in almost all human affairs.

How do you know, for example, that there really is not a government department 27 layers above top secret tasked with keeping an eye on these things?

Perhaps they insist that articles like this are submitted to them for screening before publication.

And maybe this is not the script I originally wrote and submitted – just the script they sent back.

You could hardly blame me for giving in – I am sure you would not want to find my bleached bones left out in the desert, would you?

All I am saying is – keep watching the skies.

Source: news.bbc.uk