Supernaturalearth.myfreeforum.org

Taliajack · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 20 Location: USA

What to do if You Have Seen a UFO

If you think you have seen a UFO the first thing to do is to think long and hard about it. Are you sure it was something out of the ordinary? On investigation, the vast majority of reported UFO sightings turn out to be something else – something much simpler. Think of all the mundane explanations there might possibly be for what you saw: birds, conventional aircraft, meteors, balloons, astronomical bodies.

If, after careful assessment, you are absolutely certain that you witnessed something beyond the realm of the ordinary, you should make a written record of it while the events are still fresh in your mind. Get anyone else who witnessed it with you to do the same. If some of the witnesses are strangers, try and get their names and telephone numbers in case you need to confer with them in future. It’s best if written records from multiple witnesses are prepared separately. When the details tally, it bolsters the credibility of the claim.

Your written record should include the time and place, a detailed visual description of what you saw; a note of any military bases or airports nearby; and some words about the weather. You may also find it helpful to prepare a sketch or two.

Reporting a Sighting
Once you have made your written record, you should think about how and if you want to take it further. Do you want to go public with the claim that you have seen an alien spacecraft? Polls show that around one quarter of Britons believe in UFOs but there is still some degree of stigma attached to it. You may find yourself the object of ridicule in your local community. This may be something you can shrug your shoulders at but, particularly if you are a professional person who depends on your ability to be taken seriously, you may find it has real effects on your life and career.

If, after pondering this, you decide that you want to go public with what you have seen, you should probably contact the local police as a first step. The police will no doubt have a good smirk at you for reporting a UFO, and may be limited in their capacity or willingness to investigate it, but contacting them will at least leave some kind of official record.

If others in the area have seen the same thing, and reported it too, it will create an impressive weight of testimony in favour of something real having occurred. And not all policemen are close-minded. If, for example, the object is still visible and the police can witness it for themselves, their credibility as officers of the law will help bolster the case for further investigation. There is in fact a website dedicated to UFO sightings made by British police officers. You can visit it at The PRUFOS (Police Reporting UFO Sightings) Database.

As a next step, you may want to contact dedicated UFO research organisations who will have expertise in this area. They will have the experience to elicit the most useful description of what you saw, perhaps offering you guidance if there is a simple explanation, and will have the resources to undertake further investigation if they think it is warranted. Most UFO organisations will be able to guarantee anonymity to you, so this may well be the best option if you decide not to go public with your claim, but would still like to see it followed up in some way.

There are many local UFO societies around the UK. You may feel more comfortable speaking with people from your own area. Most now have websites. With a simple web search, you should be able to find the closest one to you.

There are also associations which cover the whole of the UK. One example is the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA). On their website you will find a form which you can download and use to report a sighting. Another option is the Anomalous Phenomena Research Agency.

As well as the police and dedicated UFO interest organisations, local newspapers and television stations may well be interested in hearing from you. Be aware that they often treat the subject humorously, however, and you may have to face some mockery.

Conclusion
If you do believe you have seen a UFO, there are many associations out there who would be interested in hearing your story. UFO research organisations will be able to guarantee confidentiality to you if that is important to you; if not, local media organisations may well be interested too!

Grenuychik · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 19 Location: USA

UFO News - Current Sightings -
Saturday, January 05, 2008

Mystery ‘arrowhead’ UFO spotted

A mysterious “flying Dorito-shaped” object which was seen by dozens of people just before Christmas has been spotted again – this time in the skies above Lower Gornal.

The strange unexplained flying object was seen by residents in Wallows Wood, off The Straits, at around 6.15pm on Tuesday.

Householders described the object as looking like an “arrowhead” with three orange lights arranged in the shape of an isosceles triangle.

Residents watched it move slowly across the sky before it disappeared from view in the direction of Wolverhampton.

It is the second time the triangular object has been spotted flying over the Black Country in recent weeks.

Scores of people contacted the Express & Star after seeing a UFO in the skies above Wednesfield and Dudley in December and Stourbridge-based UFO Research Midlands was deluged with calls and emails from onlookers who witnessed the object.

Lower Gornal resident Peter Wasdell, aged 57, said he could not believe his eyes when he saw the object.

“The dog started barking and when my wife went outside to find out what was going on she saw the object in the sky and called me out to have a look,” he said.

“There were three orangey lights in a triangle formation. They weren’t shaped like an equilateral triangle, more like an isosceles triangle, and shaped like an old fashioned arrow head. I don’t think it was a plane because we didn’t hear any noise.

“My daughter and her boyfriend and the next door neighbours all saw them and we watched them for about 15 minutes before they disappeared behind the trees.”

Birmingham International Airport spokesman John Morris said the airport took all reports of UFOs seriously. “We had a couple of inquiries before Christmas following the first sightings over Halesowen,” he revealed.

More people report seeing 'UFOs' flying over county

Unexplained lights seen in the sky over Flintshire on Christmas Day have prompted reports from other people of similar sightings.

Harry Hughes, of Mynydd Isa, reported seeing five round orange lights in the sky above his house in Grays Road on Christmas Day at about 7.20pm.

He said: "I looked up and saw what looked like five bright orangey-red fireballs flying through the sky, coming from the Bodfari direction.

"They were travelling quite fast, about 10-12 seconds apart and were revolving. They were travelling too fast to be aircraft and were completely silent."

Harry called to his wife Pam to look at the objects before they disappeared and as she followed him out to the garden, they began to change direction.

Harry's description of the unexplained objects matched that of Leigh and Lynn Williams, of Borras, Wrexham, who caught sight of several strange orange orbs in the sky in July. The couple managed to take pictures and these were posted on the Evening Leader website.

The latest report prompted two more Flintshire residents to speak out about their own strange sightings, both of which match the descriptions of the infamous orange orbs.

Mike Jones, of Sychdyn, was sitting outside his house in the early hours of New Year's Day, when he caught sight of two lights in the sky.

He said: "It was about 1.10am and I saw two orange lights in the sky, both travelling at the same speed, with no sound at all. Then they just disappeared.

"They definitely weren't planes or helicopters. They were something very strange."

Jenny May, from Sandycroft, also reported seeing strange objects in the sky above her home in July.

She added: "We were sitting out in the back garden in July with our next door neighbours and at about 11pm we saw four bright orange lights that came from the west and shot up into the sky, then shot off in different directions towards the north.

"They danced before they shot off and even my neighbour, who doesn't believe in that sort of thing, saw them. He was gobsmacked and didn't talk for the rest of the night.

"About two months later my brother, who is another non-believer, saw three bright orange lights in the sky. They then formed a line and shot off. They seemed to be above Airbus in Broughton. We don't know if they are from there."

There have been reports of sightings posted on the Evening Leader website from as far afield as San Diego, California, where a couple claimed they saw four similar glowing orange lights.

The truth is out: X-Files go public: UK

British UFO 'sightings' investigated by a secret branch of the MoD are soon to be revealed and officials are braced for a torrent of inquiries

Without warning, the orange UFO swooped toward them. The crew of the RAF Vulcan bomber banked hard and radioed they were being chased across the Atlantic by a large mysterious object. The incident was classified as a UFO sighting and the details were immediately locked away.

Now, 30 years later, the extraordinary encounter is among thousands of previously secret cases contained in the government's 'X-Files' that officials are to release in their entirety.

The cases, many from a little-known defence intelligence branch tasked with investigating UFO claims, will be published by the Ministry of Defence to counter what officials say is 'the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation' surrounding Whitehall and its alleged involvement with Unidentifed Flying Objects.

The public opening of the MoD archive will expose the once highly classified work of the intelligence branch DI55, whose mission was to investigate UFO reports and whose existence was denied by the government until recently. Reports into about 7,000 UFO sightings investigated by defence officials - every single claim lodged over the past 30 years - are included in the files, whose staged release will begin in spring.

The decision to release Whitehall's full back-catalogue of UFO investigations was taken last month after the Directorate of Air Space Policy, the government agency responsible for filtering sensitive reports, gave its permission to publish the biggest single release of documents in MoD history. Now the government fears a repeat of the unprecedented demand and the website crash experienced by the French national space agency in March when it released its own UFO files. Government IT experts are believed to have drawn up contingency plans to avoid a repeat scenario when Britain's dossiers are finally made public.

Among the first tranche of UK cases will be the official government files into the famous Rendlesham incident, dubbed 'Britain's Roswell' after the US incident when a flying saucer is said to have crash-landed in the New Mexico desert 60 years ago. On a foggy night in 1980 several witnesses reported a UFO apparently landing in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. Statements claimed the craft was covered in markings similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics and aliens emerged from it.

Another case reported to the intelligence branch DI55 - Britain's version of the 'Men In Black' - chronicles a series of reports sent to RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, by the crew of a Vulcan bomber on exercise over the Bay of Biscay early on 26 May 1977. According to documents seen by The Observer, five crewmen, including the captain, co-pilot and navigators, watched 'an object' approach their aircraft at 43,000ft above the Atlantic. The mysterious craft then appeared to turn and follow their precise course from a distance of four miles.

Initially, the crew said the object resembled landing lights 'with a long pencil beam of light ahead' but as it turned towards them the lights suddenly went out leaving a diffuse orange glow with a bright fluorescent green spot in its bottom right-hand corner. Then, according to signals sent back to Scampton, the crew noted a mystery object 'leaving from the middle of the glow on a westerly track... climbing at very high speed at an angle of 45 degrees'.

The Vulcan's navigator recorded interference on his radar screen from the direction of the UFO which continued for 45 minutes as the plane headed back to Britain. On return to the UK, the camera film from the aircraft's radar was examined by RAF intelligence. They found a 'strong response' from the direction of the sighting. The UFO was captured as 'an elongated shadow' of a 'large-sized' object travelling at a similar height to the Vulcan. An intelligence report sent to the MoD the same day says the crew 'were unable to offer a logical explanation for the sighting'.

Although hailed as the complete disclosure of the UK's UFO files, questions are likely to remain over whether all available information will be made public. Despite the Vulcan sighting being investigated by DI55, no details remain in the file indicating what they found or what became of the radar film.

The disclosures are more likely, claim some experts, to lend credence to the theory that such UFO incidents were, rather than alien visitations, military activities such as missile launches, testing of prototype aircraft and other activities during the Cold War.

David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and author of Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy, said: 'Something was definitely going on, but really these files show that the government did not know either. This release will be a source of disappointment or vindication for some, and embarrassment for others.

Clarke, who has lodged hundreds of FoI requests, recently discovered that the government was considering destroying the 24 files created by DI55 because they were contaminated by asbestos. Not only were the UFO records polluted, but a total of 63,000 files estimated at between six to 12 million pages - most of them classified as secret - were facing the same fate. Having admitted the existence of the problem to Clarke, the MoD opted to instigate a £3m project digitally to scan the files before they were destroyed. Scanning of the 24 contaminated UFO files owned by DI55 was completed last year, although it is understood that names of officials in the reports will be removed.

Although the government remains reticent to discuss its intelligence work on UFOs, it is known that DI55 has been hot on the trail of flying saucers since the Sixties. Experts admit that they work closely with the security services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to collect and assess evidence of potential threats to Britain.

The decision by the UK to open its files could lead to the US government following suit. A group of former pilots and government officials recently urged the Pentagon to reopen investigations into claims of UFO sightings.

UFO claims

1980 Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. US servicemen claim to have seen an alien craft and its landing site.

1984 Minsk, USSR. Aeroflot pilots say they are pursued by a glowing shape.

1989 Bonnybridge, Scotland. Fire crew report objects rushing towards them before veering away at the last moment.

1990 Brussels, Belgium. Two F-16 fighter pilots recount being engaged in 75-minute mid-air chase with a UFO.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Japan defense chief mulling action in event of UFO attack

As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defense minister has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth.

Shigeru Ishiba became the second member of the Cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was looking at how Japan's military could respond to aliens under the pacifist Constitution.

"There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects [UFOs] and some life-form that controls them," Ishiba told reporters, saying it was his personal view and not that of the defense ministry.

Ishiba, nicknamed a "security geek" for his wonkish knowledge of defense affairs, noted that Japan deployed its military against Godzilla in the classic monster movie.

"Few discussions have been made on what the legal grounds were for that," the minister said with a slight grin, drawing laughter from reporters.

Ishiba said he was examining different scenarios for an alien invasion.

"If they descended, saying `People of the Earth, let's make friends,' it would not be considered an urgent, unjust attack on our country," Ishiba said.

"And there is another issue of how can we convey our intentions if we don't understand what they are saying," he said.

"We should consider various possibilities," he said. "There is no need at all to do this as the defense ministry, but I want to consider what to do by myself."

Ishiba's remarks came after the Tokyo government this week said it had no knowledge of UFOs, prompting a surprise rebuttal from the top government spokesman.

"Personally, I absolutely believe they exist," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said on Tuesday.

UFOs exist, says Japan official

Japan's chief government spokesman has announced that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) exist.

Earlier, in response to a question from an opposition lawmaker, the Japanese government issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of UFOs.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters he believed they were "definitely" real.

It is the sort of question politicians dread but, under Japanese rules, are unable to ignore.

A member of the opposition asked the government what its policy was to deal with UFOs.

He said work should begin urgently to try to confirm whether or not they exist because of what he called "incessant" reports of sightings.