Close encounters of the presidential kind…
Tag: close encounters
US state that’s ‘overrun’ by UFOs with more than 16,000 sightings
Unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings aren’t uncommon across America — the recent congressional hearing on the fascinating objects has proven their prevalence and brought them back into the spotlight. One state in particular, however, seems to be seeing a lot more UFOs than other states.
With the earliest reported sighting in 1928 and the most recent this past September, California has over 16,000 reported UFO sightings, according to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). UFOs are also commonly referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), their technical name.
Most of the reports detail a string of lights in the sky or several balls of light, many of which were reportedly orange. A large chunk of the sightings were reported by individuals who were out camping or on Navy ships docked in nearby harbors — places with clear views of the sky. That’s why many initially thought the lights they saw were shooting stars.
But many also reported seeing UFOs in broad daylight as they walked to work, drove their kids to school or simply went about their days. Several sightings fall between the hours of 10am and noon. A lot were also reported on airplane radars and from pilots looking out as they flew across the sky.
One particularly intriguing entry from 1953 detailed the experience a camp worker had with the kids she had been supervising at a summer camp near a lake. As the group chatted, a strange flying object came and landed near them to observe them.
The woman who reported it wrote: “It was silver, and looked like two saucers glued together with windows where they joined. It was so close, we could see figures at the windows that surrounded the middle seam. This was 1953, and none of us had ever seen anything move like this craft did.”
Zimbabwe alien encounter: How 62 kids ‘saw UFO land outside school’ in staggering mass-sighting featured in Netflix doc
Many consider the 1994 “encounter” to be the most significant of the 20th century, especially due to the high number of witnesses.
And almost 30 years on, many of the now-grown students stand by their extraordinary claims.
Sceptics have slammed the alleged sighting as a prank, mass hysteria, or simply suggested the children misinterpreted what they saw.
But others, including experts in the documentary, highlight the unique nature of this case.
The new Netflix series explores the events of September 16, 1994, and investigates whether the children can be considered as reliable witnesses.
It also digs deeper into four other eerily similar stories of people who claim to have had encounters with non-human life forms.
The show has hit screens just as two so-called “alien corpses” have been put on public display in Mexico City.
UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan presented them at a congressional hearing after they were found in Peru and tests confirmed they were not manufactured by humans.
15 Years Ago, UFO Sightings Rocked a Small Texas Town. The Mystery Remains.
Stephenville is often referred to by locals as the “milk capital of the world.” But after the events of January 2008, the Texas town of Stephenville became known for something otherworldly.
In “Messengers”, the first episode of VICE Studios and Netflix’s new series Encounters, residents of Stephenville and the surrounding area recount seeing something strange in the sky. One witness called it an orb, another referred to it as a flying Dorito—yes, as in the three-sided tortilla chip.
But even with such wild descriptions, the so-called Stephenville Lights is considered one of the most credible UFO sightings in modern times.
It began when Steve Allen and a couple friends were enjoying a few beers by a campfire one night and something caught their eye.
“All of a sudden I see some real bright, high intensity light off to the east, headed our way at a high velocity of speed. The lights was so bright it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was almost blinding to look at them,” said Allen. “Then what amazed me is there was no wind noise, no engine noise. There was silence. When it came past us, I developed the most peaceful, easy feeling I think I’ve ever had in my life. It was almost like a religious experience, like I was at one with whatever it was. Something I’ve never had before or since then. It was unreal.”
Then just as quickly as it arrived, it disappeared. A few seconds later, Allen claimed that two F-16 jets “came in hot pursuit.”
“And in my head I’m wondering, is it War of the Worlds? What was going on?” Allen said.
A few miles west, local police constable Lee Roy Gaitan was on his way to rent a movie for his wife’s birthday when “something caught my attention,” he said.
“I saw what appeared, I call it a bubble, or an orb, it was a reddish orange, fiery looking color, really big,” said Gaitan. “It was these bright lights, flashing, like a pulsating thing, like that. They had spread out. There was 11 or 12 lights that I was able to count. All of a sudden, these things just shoot off at a blazing speed.”
Shortly after, he too saw fighter jets, he said. “They were flying in the same direction, the same path, as these lights.“
The sightings in Stephenville quickly became the talk of the town, and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a U.S.-based non-profit dedicated to the research of UFOs around the world, came to investigate the sighting. The group invited people who had seen something to come and tell them their stories, expecting a handful of people. Instead, dozens of other witnesses appeared, claiming to have also seen odd things in the sky around Stephenville. Soon, TV crews from Japan to Brazil were descending on the town.
“Why have they kept it a secret? It’s Earth-shattering!”: 10 musicians who claim to have encountered extraterrestrial activity in real life
In the summer of 2023, a US Congressional hearing on national security was convened to discuss evidence relating to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). A parade of highly-credible men from the intelligence and military communities delivered jaw-dropping testimony regarding evidence of aliens.
Unquestionably, the most stunning takeaway was the nearly wholesale disinterest of the public at large. What should have commanded gigantic, bold-faced, block letter headlines and bug-eyed doomsday proclamations from frantic news readers barely registered a blip in the global consciousness.
Within the music industry however, one man found soaring vindication. For others, it confirmed long-held beliefs that aliens are indeed real – and pop by Earth for visits regularly.
ALONE IN THE WORLD?
The recordings captured from US Air Force planes last a mere 1.17 minutes — just long enough to spark mass international reaction. In the first video, against a backdrop of cloud contours, a bright white oval figure streaks across the sky.
“Oh, my gosh!” exclaims one of the pilots.
“They are going against the wind!” chimes in the second, “and the wind is 120 knots to the west!”
“Look at that thing, dude!” insists the first one.
Suddenly, the object starts to rotate. The pilot can’t contain his amazement.
“Look at that thing! It’s rotating!” Cut.
In the second video, the camera is pointed downward, with the sea as the backdrop. The radar pinpoints an object moving at such astonishing speed that it eludes tracking. The first two attempts are unsuccessful. On the third try, the radar locks onto it.
“Whoa! We got it!” exclaims the pilot.
The military personnel are all excitement: “Woo-hoo!” one cheers.
“Oh, my gosh, dude!” exclaims the first.
“Wow! Look at it fly!” Cut.
In the third video, a small object picked up by the radar remains static for a few moments before vanishing abruptly. Cut.
These images were never meant to go public. In fact, they gathered dust in the Pentagon’s archives for several years until Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and later for Security and Information Operations, leaked them to the press. Since 2017, Mellon has been working to discover the truth about unidentified aerial phenomena, or what are commonly known as UFOs, or what the US government now calls UAPs — unidentified anomalous phenomenon.
The Empty Cockpit Mystery
In September 1970 Captain William Schaffner, a young USAF pilot serving with the RAF, took off in a Lightning fighter aircraft from RAF Binbrook in North Lincolnshire to intercept an unknown radar contact. He was never seen again. One month later his aircraft was recovered from the North Sea, but although the cockpit was closed and the ejector seat was in place, there was no sign of Captain Schaffner.
The RAF enquiry into the disappearance of Captain Schaffner was conducted in secret, leading some people to suppose that this was part of an attempt to cover up the fact that the radar contact he had been sent to intercept was a UFO and that this had somehow spirited him out of the cockpit. This speculation was given further impetus when in 1992 newspapers published articles which included a transcript of radio calls from Schaffner which seemed to confirm that he had approached a UFO before his disappearance.
Almost fifty years later, it’s much easier to separate fact from conjecture and downright hoax. Something certainly happened to Captain William Schaffner out in the darkness over the North Sea in 1970, but is it possible to deduce precisely what? Let’s have a try.
Mystery of ‘Alaska Triangle’ where 20,000 people have vanished and UFOs appear
A mysterious triangle of land in sparsely-populated Alaska offers more sightings of paranormal phenomena than almost any similarly-sized area on Earth.
As well as supposed sightings of triangle UFOs, ghosts and “aggressive” Bigfoot-type creatures, the “Alaska Triangle” is also known for a remarkable number of unexplained disappearances.
In fact, the History Channel says there are more unsolved missing persons cases in the region than anywhere else on Earth. A new Discovery Channel documentary interviews eyewitnesses of some of the most mysterious and compelling UFO sightings. One, Wes Smith, says the “very strange” triangular objects he saw didn’t move like any known aircraft.
The low-flying mystery craft were totally silent and did not even emitting the tell-tale hum of a drone. “It’s like everything you’ve ever been taught has gone out of the window, because how is that possible?” he asked.
Just over 11 miles from where Wes made his amazing sighting, another Alaska resident, Michael Dillon, caught his own mystery aircraft on camera. A light suddenly popped into existence in the night sky, moving from west to east, before shooting straight up – like the so called Nimitz UFOs – at incredible speed.
“It was very obvious to me that we were not witnessing a natural phenomenon,” Michael added. “For something to change direction at that speed… a human body would be liquified.”
But the mysteries of the Alaska Triangle are not confined to the skies. Since 1970, over 20,000 unexplained disappearances have been recorded in the sparsely-populated patch of land between Anchorage and Juneau in the south to Utqiagvik on the northern coast.
Revisiting the Ball Lightning Explanation for UFOs
Several years ago I began researching the phenomenon of ball lightning since it comes up so frequently in discussions of the UFO phenomenon. (Or unidentified anomalous phenomena, UAP, as the U.S. government insists we say these days.) In recent months I have gone back to investigate some of the more current research material and reports available on this topic and I’ll provide some updates on both the historical and newer information that has become available here.
It’s worth noting that “ball-shaped” UFOs (as ball lightning is typically described) are among the most common sightings reported. This is no longer just an anecdotal assumption. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) website confirms this in a recently published morphology chart. They even provide a verified and still unidentified video of one of them filmed by a drone over the Middle East. Those “orbs” are frequently described as being silver or metallic in appearance, but recently advanced theories suggest that in some cases, particularly at night, they might exhibit some sort of field around their surface, giving them the appearance of fire or even electrical “lightning.”
People have been reporting sightings of such objects for quite some time. Rather than being a recent phenomenon, something fitting the description of ball lightning was first reported in the 12th century, written by Benedictine monk Gervase of Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury in 1195. Suggesting that the phenomenon has an affinity for religious institutions (or just that churches had most of the people who were literate back then), ball lightning reportedly struck the church of St. Pancras in Widecombe-on-the-Moor, England during a severe thunderstorm in 1638. Church records indicate that the fireball came through a window, knocked the minister off of his feet, and singed his clothing. While it melted metal around him, it left the wood of the church untouched. The event was considered to be potentially miraculous.
NASA publishes findings of a long-awaited study on UFOs today
NASA released the findings of its highly-anticipated study today, scrutinizing more than 800 sightings of UFOs across three decades — with ‘inconclusive’ results for those who ‘want to believe.’
‘To date, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP,’ NASA’s panel of experts wrote in their new report which was, in part, designed to recommend future investigative avenues.
The US space agency announced last year that it would review evidence regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs), with the goal of advising how NASA tools could aid the search.
The panel defined UAP as sightings ‘that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective.’
But NASA’s team elaborated their scientific view that the bar for proof of extraterrestrial visitors to Earth must be kept high.
‘In the search for life beyond Earth, extraterrestrial life itself must be the hypothesis of last resort,’ the panel wrote, ‘the answer we turn to only after ruling out all other possibilities.’
‘As Sherlock Holmes said, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Hellbound and Down 
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