Orange UFOs Swoop on Bispham

The last couple of weeks have seen a spate of UFO sightings around the Fylde coast. Sightings of orange lights have been reported in Bispham, Out Rawcliffe and Fleetwood. Local resident Nicola Ormerod managed to capture footage on a video camera.


http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/More-UFO-sightings-over-the.5499246.jp

Turkish UFOs

Interesting report in the Turkish media by Fazile Zahir...

"The sighting of a UFO this week has excited the Turkish media with pictures appearing in both tabloid style and more serious broadsheet papers this week. The flying object was spotted in the Karaköprü area of Şanlıurfa province towards 4am on Wednesday morning. Filmed by an amateur videographer the strangely glowing hexagonal ball of light hovered in the sky emitting red, green and white lights and moved both fast and erratically. After fifteen minutes it disappeared without a trace. As of yet no official explanation has been offered as to what it might be although internet comments vary between lauding a genuine sighting of a ‘Green Fireball’ phenomenon, non believers claiming the object is just a star filmed under magnification and the more cynical believing that these are American spy planes monitoring Turkey’s border with Syria.

This is not the first instance of a UFO sighting in Turkey. They occur regularly with recent ones in Konya in March 2007 in the early evening which lasted on and off for a week and İstanbul on January 4th when people in the Yenibosna area of İstanbul saw a spinning circle with glowing white lights in the sky. The head of the Turkish Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Centre Haktan Akdoğan claimed in August that in the last few months the number of sightings in Turkey, as in many other countries, has been increasing.

The largest concentration of sightings in Turkey and perhaps the best documented occurred between 2001 and 2002. This spate of sightings seem to have been triggered by the extraordinary events of June 7th 2001. Ten rural guardsmen from the village of Dondurmaz in Adıyaman province were watchmen for the night. All of them claimed to have seen a bright light in the shape of a large circular ‘tray’ the size of a house glowing in the sky. They watched as it flew off in the direction of Ulubaş mountain and then winked out of existence.

When the men reported to their commander their statements were taken seriously and the governor of Adıyaman province, Halil Işık, had them seperated and individually questioned. Not only did their accounts tally up but when asked to draw pictures of what they had seen all the sketches were uncannily similar. Mr. Işık felt the event was serious enough to send a report with the details to the Ministry of İnternal Affairs and also informed Haktan Akdoğan at the Sirius organisation. By the 13th of June in the same year Sabah newspaper was leading with the headline ‘Everyone searching for UFO’s’ in a story that detailed how in Uşak locals had stoned an alien, in Gaziantep the police had videoed a UFO and that people all over the country were phoning in reports of strange occurrences to their local jandarma.

The reports continued in a slightly hysterical atmosphere well into 2002 and included an event in Gebze on the 31st of May 2002 where a UFO was visible and circling with projecting lights for over an hour. This was followed by Akşam newspaper printing the story on 1st June 2002 of Saffet Şap, an electronic technician from Beykoz, who managed to video a flying object like a black bug with seven or eight legs. Later in the year on the 9th of November Hürriyet newspaper ran the account of four commercial pilots from different planes who had all seen UFO’s in the same patch of sky on the same day at the same time.

Haktan Akdoğan of Sirius seems to be a recurring figure in Turkish UFO lore commenting freely on each event and insisting on the importance of Turkey to alien life. His motives however may not just be scientific, he is also the owner of the İstanbul UFO museum that opened in 2002 (riding on the back of these multiple UFO events) and any extra interest in aliens will also encourage punters through the door of his museum. He also runs the museum as a fairly successful franchise, of the six UFO museums in the world three are in Turkey (İstanbul, Denizli and Göreme in Cappadocia) and his website www.siriusufo.org advertises for further partners to open other UFO branch museums. İt is his clearly stated intention to open UFO museums all over Turkey to ‘further the knowledge of the Turkish people and to attract tourists’. His organisation provide all the necessary materials and installations so each museum is a de facto copy of the first. Whether they are lucrative or not is not mentioned but when the Göreme museum opened in 2006 Hürriyet newspaper reported that they had 5000 visitors in one month alone. Apparently it was especially popular with the Japanese.

Whether extra terrestials exist or not is much debated but recent advances in science make the chances seem more likely. Animals known as extremophiles thrive in earth environments previously thought not to have been able to sustain life. From microbes found living without oxygen in volcanic fissures two miles down in deep ocean trenches to water bears (aka tardigrades) that can survive temperatures from nearly absolute zero to 303ºF and even live in a vacuum like that found in space. These minute living things have upended the understanding of what is needed for the survival of life.

Previously scientists has worked on the assumption that both oxygen and liquid water were key factors in sustaining life but now it sems that these are only important to some types of life. The ‘rare earth’ theory is falling out of favour to be replaced with the idea that life is adaptable and that the question that needs to be asked is what kind of environment other than our own might sustain living things. The chances of intelligent life with the technology to communicate is slimmer, it is possible that such worlds have been and gone. İf life of this sort exists now they, like us would have the technology to recognise that earth is an ‘interesting’ planet and worth investigating. So why aren’t they here? Some would say they are and the report of flying objects above Karaköprü on Tuesday was a clear indication of just that."

MOD Opened A File On The Archway Lanterns

Original story from www.islingtongazette.co.uk

THE Ministry of Defence opened a file on the Archway UFO spottings [seen above from lapisufo's YouTube channel] - but decided against further inquiries as it did not deem the sighting a threat to national security.

Just over a year ago Archway ground to a halt as dozens of glowing lights were seen in the sky, causing widespread panic among residents.

Now the Islington Gazette can reveal that top level government agencies looked into the phenomenon - which many believe was nothing more than floating Chinese lanterns.

The Islington Gazette sent a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry demanding to see every document relating to the Archway incident, as well as a total cost of the investigation.

The MoD did not disclose the cost of its inquiries, but did release what it said was the only document relating to the phenomena they hold on file.

It is from an organisation called Contact International which reports seeing "12 to 15 orange balls of light that moved quickly, stopped, faded away or moved upwards". Names and contact details have been blanked out by the Ministry.

In response to our inquiries, a government official wrote: "The Ministry of Defence examines any reports of 'unidentified flying objects' to establish whether what was seen might have defence significance - namely whether the United Kingdom's airspace might have been compromised. To date no report has revealed such evidence. We believe that rational explanations such as aircraft lights could be found."

James Zafar, 40, a designer from Crouch End, saw the lights when collecting his daughter from Archway. He said: "It was worth them investigating because it was really weird. I know in my gut whatever we saw was not balloons. It just seems crazy they are not looking into it further. It could have been a potential threat from another country or anywhere."

And Paul Southcott, of the Islington-based UFO and Supernatural Studies Group, said: "I am not surprised they looked into it - it is their job to investigate these things.

"They have probably looked into it more deeply but the likes of us will never know. I think it is a load of rubbish that they only have one document on it, there would definitely be more than that."

He added: "We come up against brick walls like this the whole time when investigating UFOs - it is very frustrating."

But not all were so convinced. Writer and UFO sceptic Ian Ridpath said: "It seems to me fairly obvious they were balloons. Last summer I saw some of these balloons drift across the sky and I recognised them immediately from all the Archway videos.

"It is quite remarkable that even though someone admitted they had set them off from a party people who saw it still believe it was something else. They won't accept it because it would make them feel a bit silly.

Judge orders NASA to hand over Kecksburg Files

A federal ruling requires NASA to turn over any files it might have relating to the 1965 Kecksburg incident.

The Kecksburg UFO incident of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA occurred on December 9, 1965. A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in at least six states and Ontario, Canada. It streaked over the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario area, dropped reported metal debris over Michigan and northern Ohio, and caused sonic booms in western Pennsylvania. It was generally assumed and reported by the press to be a meteor.

However, eyewitnesses in the small village of Kecksburg, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, claimed something crashed in the woods. A boy said he saw the object land; his mother saw a wisp of blue smoke arising from the woods and alerted authorities. Others from Kecksburg, including local volunteer fire department members, reported finding an object in the shape of an acorn and about as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. Writing resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics was also said to be in a band around the base of the object. Witnesses further reported that intense military presence, most notably Army, secured the area, ordered civilians out, and then removed the object on a flatbed truck. At the time, however, the military claimed they searched the woods and found "absolutely nothing."

The nearby Greensburg Tribune-Review had a reporter at the scene; the headline in the newspaper the next day was "Unidentified Flying Object Falls near Kecksburg — Army Ropes off Area."

The official explanation of the widely-seen fireball was a mid-sized meteor, however, speculation as to what the Kecksburg object had been (if there was one — reports vary) also range from it being an alien craft to the remains of an unmanned Soviet Venera 4 atmospheric probe, also known as Kosmos-96, originally destined for Venus. (However, see below where this was recently ruled out by NASA's chief in charge of tracking orbital debris.)

Similarities have been drawn between Kecksburg and the Roswell UFO incident, and as such, is known as "Pennsylvania's Roswell".

The following is a recent report from the Chicago Tribune:

By Sean D. Hamill Special to the Tribune

December 10, 2007-KECKSBURG, Pa. — The U.S. government says nothing of note happened in this small town in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania at 4:47 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1965. A meteor may have passed by, but no alien ship or Russian space probe fell to Earth, as many here believe. Still, Bill Bulebush, 82, says he knows what he saw, heard and smelled, despite the doubts of the government and others in this community 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

"I looked up and saw it flying overhead and it was sizzling," said Bulebush, a retired truck driver. "I found it in the woods down there [in a valley] and I got to it 15 to 20 minutes after it landed. I saw it 10 to 15 feet away from behind a big tree—because I was worried it might blow up—and it smelled like sulfur or rotten eggs and was shaped like a huge acorn, about the size of a VW."

Other people said that shortly afterward, dozens of Army soldiers and three members of the Air Force showed up; later that night a flatbed military truck took the object away.

Despite such accounts, the government has been "trying to make it out like we're a bunch of liars," Bulebush said. But now he and his fellow believers may have their best chance yet to prove their case.

A recent settlement in a 4-year-long Freedom of Information Act court battle requires NASA to meticulously comb its files for documents about the Kecksburg incident.

The lawsuit was filed in December 2003 in the District of Columbia by Leslie Kean, a freelance journalist, with financial support from the SciFi Channel, which ran a show that year titled "The New Roswell: Kecksburg Exposed."

Searching for answers

Kean was asked by SciFi in 2002 to find a UFO case with credible witnesses and possible physical evidence. She created the Coalition for Freedom of Information to support the effort and to look into other "unexplained aerial phenomena."

Part of Kean's own criteria, despite SciFi's title for the Kecksburg show, was to pick a case as far removed as possible from the 1947 incident in Roswell, N.M.—thought by many to be a crashed alien spaceship but later revealed to be a top-secret research balloon.

"The types that go to Roswell and parade in the street in costumes, we try to stay far, far away from that," she said.

Kean pressed the case after she filed a Freedom of Information Act request earlier in 2003 and NASA said it couldn't find any documents related to Kecksburg. But Kean already knew the space agency, which had a program in the 1960s to recover and analyze space debris, had some documents. Stan Gordon, a UFO and Bigfoot researcher with whom Kean was working, had information he got in response to a request he sent NASA in the 1990s.

"In the beginning, they probably saw Leslie's request and thought, 'Oh, she's after UFOs,' " said her attorney, Lee Helfrich of Washington. "Maybe they just didn't treat it seriously at first."

They do now.

From frustration, action

After NASA turned over about 1,000 pages of documents that failed to adequately address Kean's request, the case boiled over on March 20 for federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who had tried to move NASA along for more than three years.

According to a transcript, the judge angrily referred to NASA's search efforts as a "ball of yarn" that never fully answers the request, adding: "I can sense the plaintiff's frustration because I'm frustrated."

A settlement was reached Oct. 17 specifying how NASA will make a new records search and that both sides must report to Sullivan periodically, starting Dec. 17. NASA also agreed to pay Kean $50,000 in attorneys' fees and costs.

In a statement, NASA would say only that it was "conducting another records search."

This past week Kean and her attorney received the first batch of documents: 689 pages of Form 135s, which are inventory sheets that indicate what is in boxes and files in NASA's archives.

Based on a first read of the documents—from which Kean will select files for NASA to review for any documents related to Kecksburg— Kean said she's "cautiously optimistic" that they'll turn up something.

"I asked my attorney if she found the 'Kecksburg UFO Explained' file," Kean said with a laugh. "She said, 'Not yet.' But I'm still hopeful."

Many people in Kecksburg believe Kean's effort is just another frivolous step down the rabbit hole of fantasy.

"I wouldn't go along with the stories because it didn't happen," said Ed Myers, 81, who was chief of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department in 1965 and said he didn't see the dozens of soldiers or the blue lights some people swear they saw.

Myers no longer helps his hometown fire department, a decision that began when the department encouraged UFO speculation by displaying a mock-up of the craft that Bulebush and others said they saw.

The mock-up was created in 1990 for a documentary and now sits prominently on a hillside behind the fire hall.

After years of rejecting efforts to make money off the story, the fire department hosted a wildly popular Kecksburg UFO gathering two years ago on the 40th anniversary, and began selling T-shirts, mugs, plates and hats with a picture of the flaming acorn hurtling across the sky, along with the date, Dec. 9, 1965.

Sales continue today at the Kecksburg UFO Store in the basement of the Rescue EMS headquarters house near the fire hall.

"We've made about $10,000, mostly from shirts, so far," said Ron Strueble, 64, a fire department volunteer. "We're at the point now where we can start buying some additional equipment for the trucks."

For Bulebush, the UFO store is good for the town, but it's the lawsuit that he hopes will be his validation.

"I don't have too much time in this world. I'd like to be here to see this through," he said. "I want to find out what they're holding back on us."

source and references:

Chicago Tribune