Tag: ufo

Is the truth about aliens in this SLC archive? A Utah group is putting UFO docs online

“The truth,” as the tagline from “The X-Files” goes, “is out there.”

But part of the truth — or at least the search for it — is coming to your fingertips.

The Salt Lake City-based Expanding Frontiers Research has launched a UFO archive, making accessible a trove of documents — from Air Force and CIA reports to interviews with researchers and reports of paranormal sightings — spanning more than seven decades.

The entire archive is a sort of passion project for Erica Lukes, a Pilates instructor and executive director of Expanding Frontiers Research, and Jack Brewer, who is on the nonprofit’s board of directors.

Like most of us, Lukes grew up on a diet of “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” and reading books about little green men. One night in 2013, she said, sitting with a friend on her patio in Millcreek overlooking the valley, she spotted something.

“I could see this bright object that appeared to hover in place for several minutes and then, it appeared to me, another one came out of that object and started moving around in a circle,” Lukes told me. She got her binoculars for a closer look and was convinced she had spotted a UFO.

So she dug in and started researching, checking airline flight paths, interviewing pilots, and studying how the eye processes reflected light. She also became, she said, an investigator and state director for the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, which investigates reported UFO sightings.

The result of that work was that Lukes is now convinced that what she saw back in 2013 was not a UFO.

In fact, she said, she has seen no convincing evidence that aliens have visited Earth. She became disenchanted with the lack of scientific rigor in the field of UFO studies. Still, she said she remains fascinated with them as historical and cultural phenomena.

Over the years, Lukes also acquired a mountain of records on the subject.

“I have 140,000 pages in the archive and maybe a handful of people have seen them,” she said. “You’d be surprised by the dynamics behind the scenes and the attempts to steer a specific narrative. I totally love it, as nerdy as it sounds.”

Books, magazines and documents have piled up in her Pilates studio. There are letters and memos sent by government officials, like the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, a believer in aliens, and case files containing drawings of reported sightings obtained through public records requests. Lukes also has collected and curated the work and notes of other prominent UFO researchers. UFO researcher Barry Greenwood, for example, sent Lukes’ group a terabyte of information.

“Even if I’ve changed my opinion on this, to me it’s one of the most fascinating subjects I’ve ever looked into,” she said.

Lukes is convinced that curiosity about UFOs has been used — by governments, or people looking to make a buck — to manipulate people.

“You can go into the archive and see how the government can use the UFO narrative to obfuscate things or push people in a different direction,” she said. “And also you have the cultural impact of how things like ‘The X-Files’ impact a generation.”

The timing of the archive launch couldn’t be much better, with interest in space visitors piqued by a U.S. House of Representatives hearing in July on the unexplained phenomenon and, just last week, a bizarre legislative hearing in Mexico where the purported mummified remains of two alien bodies were put on display.

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UAP Documents and Videos Surface from U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In a new development concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), a batch of documents and videos has emerged from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The unexpected find came to light thanks to X user “Dr.Disclosure89 (@Docneuroeo)”, who alerted The Black Vault about this discovery.

As of now, the origins of this release remain a mystery. There are two main possibilities: either CBP took the initiative to proactively disclose these materials to the public, or they were released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Black Vault currently has multiple FOIA cases with CBP. Some of these requests were transferred to other agencies, while others remain open with CBP.

To get to the bottom of this, The Black Vault reached out to CBP for clarification. But after navigating an intricate phone menu system, no representatives were available to provide a comment or an explanation about the nature of the release.

While the actual context and background of the released documents and videos remain unclear, they offer a glimpse at some new cases, though much of the resolution seems to be on the low side. The Black Vault will also be seeking higher resolution versions of the videos, along with higher resolution scans of the documents.

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‘Alien corpse’ row deepens as Peru launches criminal probe into how ‘non-human’ bodies left the country as expert who revealed them in Mexican congress insists he has done ‘nothing illegal’

An investigator who presented ‘non-human’ bodies to Mexico‘s congress has insisted he did ‘absolutely nothing illegal’ as Peru has launched a criminal probe into how the alleged ‘aliens’ left the country.

Journalist and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan unveiled two corpses alongside forensic scientists last week in what he described as a ‘watershed’ moment.

He has suggested the mummified bodies – which he claims to be 1,000 years old – are one of the most important discoveries in human history.

But most in the scientific community aren’t so sure – suggesting that they are part of an already-debunked, perhaps criminal stunt.

Maussan, 70, claims they were found around 2017 in Peru, near the pre-Columbian Nazca Lines – a mysterious set of ancient geoglyphs.

But now Peruvian officials have furiously questioned how the specimens, which they insist are earthly objects, left the country and came into Maussan’s possession.

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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.

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Alleged Alien Body X-rayed & CT Scanned

The latest twist in the saga of the alleged alien remains unveiled in Mexico last week saw one of the bodies subjected to an x-ray as well as a CT scan in an attempt to get a better understanding of their nature. The pair of peculiar specimens caused something of a sensation when they were presented to the Mexican Congress by journalist and ufologist Jaime Maussan at a hearing last Tuesday evening. Spawning headlines around the world and all manner of amusing memes on social media, the purported non-human entities were largely dismissed by skeptical scientists, who understandably called for further testing on the bodies in order to confirm the fantastic claims surrounding them.

In response to these critics, Maussan reportedly took to YouTube on Monday evening to conduct a proverbial ‘alien autopsy’ in the form of an examination of one of the specimens, dubbed ‘Clara,’ using an x-ray as well as a CT scan. Conducting the studies and offering his analysis along the ufologist was Dr Jose Zalce Benitez, who serves as the director of the Health Sciences Research Institute of the Secretary of the Navy. Perhaps the most compelling insight to come from the examination was that the various scans would seem to suggest that the remains were not cobbled together in a fashion akin to the Fiji mermaid.

“It could not have been the union of a skull of another species attached to this body because the residues of the manipulation of that skull would be seen,” Benitez explained, “the engravings, the fractures, the unions and here they are not observed.” This assessment appeared to be strengthened by an examination of the body’s abdomen which similarly showed no signs of manipulation. “We are once again faced with a body that if it had been modified postmortem, would have a series of alterations that would be visible in these studies,” he observed, “not having found any of these postmortem characteristics, we are determining that it is an organism that was alive, was intact, was biological and was in gestation.”

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A researcher calls to explore deep waters to hunt for UFOs

For decades, unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have been the subject of high interest and investigation by government agencies, military organizations, and researchers in various countries.

The purpose of detecting UFOs is to comprehend these phenomena better and identify whether they pose any national security threat or are of scientific interest. 

Brian Helmuth, a professor specializing in marine and environmental science at Northeastern University, has suggested that the search for UFOs should extend beyond the skies to the elusive underwater environments of the planet.

Earth’s vast oceans represent some of our planet’s most intriguing and least explored parts.

“If I were investigating an alien planet like Earth, the ocean would definitely be the place to start. Not only does it comprise the vast majority of living space and living organisms on Earth, but it also is comparatively unpopulated by the one species, humans, that seems intent on destroying the planet,” Helmuth said in an official report released by the university. “It would be a great place from which to observe,” he added. 

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NASA wants to take UFOs seriously — and scientifically

On Sept. 14, 2023, NASA announced plans to take a more prominent role in investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — better known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. The agency will appoint a team of experts to collect data and develop scientific explanations of UAP. The team will be led by Mark McInerney, who had previously been NASA’s liaison to the Department of Defense on UAP.

The action comes in response to a report, also released Sept. 14, that was authored by an independent panel that NASA convened. The report’s purpose was not to conduct a comprehensive review or analysis of UAP, but to issue recommendations to NASA on how the agency can leverage its expertise to shed light on the nature of UAP with scientific methods.

At a press conference, members of the independent panel were adamant that they found no evidence for an extraterrestrial origin of UAP. Many sightings of UAP, they noted, have mundane explanations, like weather balloons or camera artifacts. However, there are still many incidents involving objects that remain unidentified due to a lack of data.

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The Real Story of the Men in Black: A History of Horror

Make mention of the Men in Black to most people and doing so will likely provoke images of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. After all the trilogy of Men in Black movies were phenomenally successful and brought the subject to a huge, worldwide audience. Outside of Ufology, most people assume that the Men in Black were the creations of Hollywood. This, however, is very wide of the mark: in reality, the movies were based upon a short-lived comic book series that was created by Lowell Cunningham in 1990. Most important of all, the comic-books were based on real-life encounters with the MIB – which date back decades. In fact, in the movies, the characters portrayed by Jones and Smith are known as J and K. There is a good reason for that: they are the initials of the late John Keel, who wrote the acclaimed book, The Mothman Prophecies and who spent a lot of time pursuing MIB encounters, and particularly so in the 1960s and 1970s. In that sense, the producers of the Men in Black movies and comic-books were paying homage to Keel. Now let’s get to the heart of the matter, namely, the real Men in Black; not those of Hollywood. Who are they? Where do they come from? What is their agenda? If there is one thing we can say for sure when it comes to the matter of the MIB, it’s that they are the ultimate Controllers – they threaten, intimidate and terrify those into silence who they visit. Let’s see how the mystery all began.

It was in the early 1950s that a man named Albert Bender created a UFO research group called the International Flying Saucer Bureau. The group was based out of Bender’s home town of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bender was someone who quickly became enthused by the UFO phenomenon when it kicked off in earnest in the summer of 1947, with Kenneth Arnold’s acclaimed and now-legendary sighting of a squadron of UFOs over the Cascade Mountains. The world was changed and so was Albert Bender. As a result of the establishment of the IFSB, Albert Bender found himself inundated with letters, phone calls and inquiries from people wanting information on the UFO enigma. Bender was pleased to oblige and he created his very own newsletter – Space Review. It was a publication which was regularly filled with worldwide accounts of UFO activity, alien encounters, and sightings of flying saucers. And on the worldwide issue, it’s worth noting that so popular was Bender’s group and magazine, he found himself inundated with letters from all around the planet: communications poured in from the U.K., from Australia, from South America, and even a few from Russia. Bender was on a definitive high: the little journal that he typed up from his attic room in the old house in which he lived, was suddenly a major part of Ufology. It’s most curious, then, that in the latter part of 1953, Bender quickly shot down the International Flying Saucer Bureau, and he ceased the publication of Space Review. Many of Bender’s followers suspected that something was wrong, as in very wrong. They were right on the money, as it happens.

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‘Alien Bodies’ Ufologist Dismisses Analysis, Legal Threat—’I’m Not Worried’

Controversial UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan dismissed claims made in a criminal complaint after two small, mummified specimens were unveiled to Mexican lawmakers during an event on extraterrestrial life.

Maussan, 70, a Mexican sports journalist-turned UFO enthusiast, presented the bodies in display cases earlier this week at the Mexican Congress and claimed they were not related to any life on Earth.

The congressional hearing, which was the first of its kind in Mexico, ignited curiosity in addition to condemnation by scientists.

Maussan claimed the bodies were recovered close to the ancient Nazca Lines in southern Peru and were carbon-dated by Mexico’s National Autonomous University to be about 1,000 years old.

He was also involved in the spread of the Nazca mummy story in 2017, although a 2021 paper published in the International Journal of Biology and Biomedicine that analyzed the remains and said, “the head of the small body is largely made of a deteriorated llama braincase and other unidentified bones.”

Elsa Tomasto, a Peruvian bioanthropologist, was frustrated that Maussan’s claims were given a large platform and cited several other apparent finds that were later found to be fraudulent.

He told Reuters: “What we said before still stands, they are presenting the same rehash as always and if there are people that keep believing, what can we do? It is so crass and so simple that there is nothing more to add.”

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NASA Report: UFOs Are a Threat to US Airspace, Administrator Nelson Says Aliens ‘Out There’

According to a recent NASA report, there are still unidentified objects in our skies that might pose a threat to US airspace. NASA has also named a new head for UFO research to investigate further, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

NASA’s Search for Life, Report States UFOs Threat to US Airspace, NASA Administrator Nelson Remains Hopeful

NASA is actively searching for indications of life, whether it existed in the past or exists currently, according to Sky News. Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, is optimistic that they will identify another planet suitable for life within the vast universe.

“The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence the UAPs have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don’t know what these UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) are,” Nelson said. “The mission of NASA is to find out the unknown. We don’t know what the UAP is, but we are going to try to find out.”

The US Space Agency revealed findings from a 15-month investigation into UAPs. However, the report cautions that the available data doesn’t allow for “definitive scientific conclusions.”

An independent team of 16 researchers shared their early findings in May, News 18 reported. They stated that most UFOs can be attributed to natural occurrences. These include common things like airplanes, balloons, drones, weather patterns, or even problems with the recording equipment.

The report dismissed the 2015 “Go Fast” video captured by a Navy fighter jet pilot aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. In this video, the pilot described an object zipping across the ocean at great speed. The investigative team determined that there was no evidence of a propulsion system. It suggested that the object was likely drifting with the wind rather than exhibiting extraordinary propulsion capabilities.

However, the report’s authors cautioned that certain UFOs still defy explanation. They emphasized the need to leverage satellite data and crowd participation to delve deeper into these enigmatic occurrences.

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