Alien encounters of the absurd kind?

Alien encounters of all kinds have been experienced by humans through the ages; but just-released files released by the UK's National Archives on a defunct UFO-watching department give for the first time some indication of the vast number of 'flying saucer' sightings every year, and how many of them are in the spotter's mind. For more than half a century till it was closed down in December 2009, a unit of the Royal Air Force has been keeping tabs of UFO or unidentified flying object sightings, including scanning radio waves. The defence ministry closed its UFO desk because it served "no defence purpose" and was taking staff away from "more valuable defence-related activities", the files show. The unit was shut down in a year that showed its second highest number of sightings on record. By November, when it closed, it had had 643 reports, treble the number of the previous year (208), and far higher than over the first seven years of the decade, when annual sightings were a relatively stable 150. It was beaten only by 1978, when the release of the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind led to a surge in interest - and 750 sightings. The latest tranche of 25 declassified files covers the final two years of work carried out by the UFO desk, from 2007 to November 2009. They show UFOs were reported at several UK landmarks, including Stonehenge, the Houses of Parliament, and Blackpool Pier. But the files show that the unit was inundated by reports from the public about 'Chinese lanterns', the flying lights that have become popular at weddings and parties. This made a strong case for civil servants arguing for the unit's closure. Such sightings are unlikely in India, where loud and garish 'rockets' are preferred to quietly floating Chinese Lanterns on all occasions - apart from the fact that one can hardly see a star in the sky due to the all-pervasive atmospheric pollution. Nonetheless, there are sightings – for example, what can one say about mountaineers atop Kanchenjunga – the world's third-highest peak – sighting a coffin-shaped object in the sky that hovers high above them for a couple of seconds and then zips away? If just one climber, or even two, had seen it one could dismiss it as an oxygen-deprived hallucination. But how does one dismiss several climbers from at least two different expeditions seeing the same phenomenon? One might perhaps conclude with Hamlet that ''There are more things in earth and heaven, Horatio, than meet the eye.'' Source: Article

Read More........→November 17, 2016

1973: Pascagoula Abduction

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Charlie Hickson has died, and Pascagoula will likely never again receive the sort of fame infused by his story. His was the account to make us say, hmm, maybe Charles Fort was right -- maybe we are"property." The evening -- that unique evening -- was growing later and darker on that strange night in October of 1973. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, having been brought to the sheriff's office, began telling their bizarre story of alien abduction, an encounter that transformed their hopes for a few tranquil hours of fishing on the banks of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi to clock-stopping moments of horror. Hickson did his best to remain rational as he recounted, frankly, details of an unbelievable incident. Parker, however, was simply hysterical, apparently affected emotionally by something terrifying, a seemingly illogical confrontation with some nameless fear. Nor did a tape recording (the audio, several minutes in length, may still be available on the Internet at no charge) made in secret after the sheriff left the two alone for a few minutes help to dispel their incredible account, for their apprehension and confusion remained alarmingly intact, with no vocal evidence of a hoax. Ultimately, even Dr. J. Allen Hynek would be impressed with the fishermen's harrowing story. Another 28 years would go by before journalist Natalie Chambers wrote an astonishing update, distributed via the Associated Press, on October 21, 2001. It seems that Hickson and Parker had witnesses that night so long ago -- a car full of Navy servicemen who may have seen a peculiar airliner-size craft glide and descend into the fishing area. Chambers' article should have shocked the world out of its negative complacency toward the UFO abduction issue -- and maybe it would have, had the country and the world not been consumed with other terrors, those of a very human nature, just weeks before. During the years following the Pascagoula incident, Charlie Hickson never tired of relating the pair's story, and even made a few bucks speaking and writing about it. Calvin Parker, on the other hand, reportedly remained devastated, wanted nothing to do with publicity and left the area, taking unfathomable memories of the abduction incident with him. These are the kind of people to whom one wishes to express profound sympathy -- but then we pause, oblivious to knowing what to say, or what to do. We cannot relate. Relate to what? Source: http://robert-barrow.blogspot.in

Read More........→June 08, 2016