Aliens might not exist at all anywhere in the universe. A very prominent astronomer presented a new theory at a conference this week that might confirm that life might not exist on other planets.

Charles Cockell, the director of the U.K. Center for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh, claimed in a statement that, “The pervasive nature of life on Earth is leading us to make this assumption. On our planet, carbon leaches into most habitat space and provides energy for microorganisms to live. There are only a few vacant habitats that may persist for any length of time on Earth, but we cannot assume that this is the case on other planets.”

Cockell said that, although there might be many habitable planets in the universe but that does not justify that they had Earth-like-life. “It is dangerous to assume life is common across the universe. It encourages people to think that not finding signs of life is a ‘failure,’ when in fact it would tell us a lot about the origins of life,” he added.

A large number of “extrasolar” planets orbiting stars beyond Sun have been discovered since the 1990’s and with the new and advanced techniques in the recent time, astronomers are able to identify smaller, rocky planets within the “habitable” or “Goldilocks” zones of their parent stars.

Prof Cockell also justified the possibility that scientist may not be able to find any signs of alien life, even if it exist. He further said that life might differ from planet to planet, and that astronomers on Earth may be looking for some other signs of life similar to Earth which is leading in disappointments.

“Professor Cockell explains that in coming decades, increasingly powerful telescopes and developments in spectroscopy may allow us to look for the signals of life on planets beyond our solar system,” the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science officials, claimed in a statement.”However, regardless of this, our view is still going to be heavily influenced by our knowledge of life on Earth.”

Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe from the University of Buckingham said in January that algae found inside a meteorite in Sri Lanka confirmed that aliens do exist.

“These finds are crushing evidence that human life started outside Earth,” Prof Chandra said.”The algae organisms are similar to ones found in Earth fossils but the rock also has other organisms we have not identified. “We are all aliens – we share a cosmic ancestry. Each time a new planetary system forms, a few surviving microbes find their way into comets. These then multiply and seed other planets,” he added.

“These latest finds are just more evidence to point to the overwhelming fact that life on Earth began on other worlds.”

Jamie Wallis, team leader of the investigation of the Sri Lankan algae and highly respected astrobiologists at the UK’s Cardiff University, said that their study “provides clear and convincing evidence that these obviously ancient remains of extinct marine algae found embedded in the Polonnaruwa meteorite are indigenous to the stones and not the result of post-arrival microbial contaminants.”

Many ufologists are obsessed with the idea that elements of the British Government are involved in a conspiracy of silence about UFOs, and are actively suppressing the truth about this phenomenon. Such claims have persisted for years, but are often taken on faith rather than evidence. As is often the case when one examines such allegations critically, the real situation is not quite as people suppose.

As far as we know, the earliest official British involvement in the UFO mystery was an intelligence study carried out in 1951. This study was mentioned in a 9 August 1952 letter from the Air Ministry to the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who had asked for a report on UFOs. The study concluded that all UFOs could be explained in conventional terms, and was clearly based heavily on the data that had been amassed by the United States Air Force, who had been conducting their own official studies since 1947, under the Project names Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. Edward J Ruppelt headed Project Grudge and then Blue Book from 1951 to 1953. He made reference to British interest in UFOs in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. He told of a visit by two RAF intelligence officers who arrived at Blue Book headquarters with six sheets of questions. The answers they took back clearly influenced the reply given to Winston Churchill, and indeed the intelligence study referred to may have been based in part or in whole upon this data.

What lay behind the British interest in UFOs was actually concern that some of them might be an unknown type of Soviet aircraft testing the air defences of the United Kingdom. The Cold War was serious business, and the Air Ministry was more concerned with Russians than Martians. There was no corporate interest or belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial craft. It was simply the standard military philosophy that you need to keep a watchful eye on your airspace, and ensure that, to the best of your ability, you are able to identify any craft operating within your air defence region.

Government, the civil service and the military are naturally conservative organisations, and this mindset made it difficult for the Establishment to respond in any meaningful way to emerging speculation from ufologists, some of whom were arguing that UFOs were extraterrestrial in origin. Naturally conservative desk officers found such speculation difficult, and tended to ignore anything they couldn’t explain. To illustrate this point it is interesting to note that the aforementioned Air Ministry letter to Winston Churchill failed to even make mention of Foo Fighters — strange balls of light that had been seen by Allied and Axis pilots during the Second World War. Had Churchill been deliberately kept in the dark, or was the omission indicative of nothing more sinister than the closed minded attitude of the Air Ministry?

A letter dated 24 June 1965 gave a further insight into the true attitude of the British Government. In a reply to the US Department of the Air Force the Ministry of Defence explained that their policy was “ … to play down the subject of UFOs and to avoid attaching undue attention or publicity to it.”. The whole tone of the letter betrayed the fact that the Ministry clearly regarded the subject as a waste of time.

Files now available for viewing at the Public Record Office in Kew shed further light on the British Government’s policy and opinions on UFOs. On the one hand, it is clear that there have been some quite extraordinary UFO incidents in British airspace. The files detail numerous incidents where UFOs were seen by military witnesses and detected on radar. They tell of several incidents where RAF jets were scrambled in unsuccessful attempts to intercept UFOs. The Ministry have acknowledged for decades that UFO reports such as these defy explanation. Some 10% of sightings remain unexplained, even after a rigorous investigation. The problem is that these same files — some of which were previously classified Secret — strongly suggest that no further action is taken once an investigation has been completed. This applies even to cases of attempted interception. All this points to an attitude of indifference or incompetence, as opposed to anything more sinister.

Of course, the Ministry is in a no-win situation, and die-hard conspiracy theorists will always interpret the facts in ways that support their own viewpoint. In this way, entirely innocent events are twisted into something that fits in with what seems to be an almost psychological need to believe in a cover-up: UFO documents withheld under the standard thirty year rule that applies to all Government papers are described as being “suppressed”; the media’s refusal to give airtime to various crackpot UFO stories is attributed to the use of a D-Notice, and Air Ministry officials who in years gone by paid the occasional visit to UFO witnesses in order to elicit further information about particularly interesting cases are portrayed as sinister Men in Black!

But let us return to the incident discussed in the opening paragraph. What happened to the report submitted by the pilots whose Tornado fast jets were casually overtaken by a UFO? The answer is that the signal was simply placed on file in Secretariat (Air Staff)2a — the MoD division charged with investigating UFO reports. Object unexplained — case closed. This lack of follow-up action was exactly what happened in the aftermath of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident in December 1980. Lt Col Charles Halt submitted a report to the Ministry about UFO activity near the two military bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. The report (dated 13 January 1981) told of how abnormally high radiation readings were taken from a site where a small, metallic UFO was seen to land. The Ministry of Defence never even acknowledged Halt’s memorandum!

The official Ministry of Defence policy on UFO sightings is to examine them for evidence of any threat to the United Kingdom. It seems clear that if such examinations occur at all, they are cursory affairs, carried out with extreme reluctance. Many ufologists believe the Ministry of Defence should be taken to task for its stance on the subject, but increasingly, the complaint is not one of conspiracy. Some ufologists are concerned not that the Ministry knows too much, but that it knows too little. A cover-up would be deplorable, they say; but having your head in the sand because of the ignorance or prejudice of a few officials is far worse.

The Ministry of Defence has produced a form on which people should record the details of their sighting. The information requested includes the date, time and location of the encounter, together with a description of the object, and observations about the meteorological conditions at the time of the incident. These forms should be held by every RAF base, police station and civil airport in the country, as these are the sorts of places that receive UFO reports from the public.

The completed forms are then sent to Secretariat (Air Staff)2a at Ministry of Defence Main Building in Whitehall. They should investigate each sighting, in the first instance by trying to correlate it with aircraft activity, astronomical events or other conventional objects or phenomena. Sec(AS)2a are assisted in these investigations by specialist divisions who offer help and advice on matters such as radar evidence or satellite activity. Out of the several hundred reports received each year, 95% can be explained.

There are several ways that people can get hold of official information about UFOs. The simplest way is to write to Sec(AS)2a at the MoD, and put your questions to them. A general enquiry about UFOs will elicit a standard reply, but under rules about Open Government specific questions should receive specific answers, where the information is available.

Another option is to pay a visit to the Public Record Office at Kew. Under the Public Record Acts files where the most recent paper is more than thirty years old are opened to the public. There are currently around a dozen UFO files which can be inspected, and these detail some interesting sightings from the Fifties and Sixties. They also give an invaluable insight into the way in which these cases were handled at the time.

Some ufologists are forging links with their local Members of Parliament, and asking them to table formal, written Parliamentary Questions about UFOs. There have been over thirty such questions tabled in the last year or so, and MPs do seem to be becoming increasingly aware of the serious defence and national security issues at stake.

The final piece in the puzzle may be provided by the introduction of a Freedom of Information Act. The Government has a commitment to introduce this legislation, and although this will take at least two years, it should mean that the public can gain access to much more UFO information than is currently the case.

Conspiracy theorists are obsessed with the idea that a number of military installations in the United kingdom are involved in secret UFO research. The base most frequently associated with such stories is RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire. This was first drawn to the attention of ufologists in Timothy Good’s book Above Top Secret, which explained how he was picked up by the MoD police whilst walking around the perimeter of the base. Later, he encouraged Ralph Noyes, former Head of DS8 — the forerunner of Sec(AS)2a — to telephone details of a UFO report to the base, to see if they would accept it. They did.

Sceptics have pointed out that in view of the fact that military bases have frequently been targeted by terrorists, there is nothing unusual about the police taking a close interest in anybody with a camera who is loitering suspiciously around an RAF base. They also point out that as all military bases should have the MoD’s standard UFO reporting form, there is nothing unusual in the fact that staff at Rudloe Manor were prepared to take details of a sighting.

While RAF Rudloe Manor have now confirmed that they had previously been involved in the subject, they state that this was only in a co-ordinating role. The reports were simply forwarded to Sec(AS)2a, and no further action was taken.

Among the documents to be published is the «Rendlesham File,» which deals with one of the country’s best known sightings of an unidentified flying object.

Until now, only about 20 members of the public have seen the file, which relates to a sighting in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, eastern England, in 1980.

According to some UFO enthusiasts, eyewitnesses including U.S. officers at a nearby military base saw a brilliantly lit spaceship land in the forest on two consecutive nights.

Skeptics say the witnesses were fooled by the beam from a lighthouse on the nearby coast.

The Rendlesham file has been available to the public for some time but only at the discretion of the Ministry of Defense.

Now, the government says it will publish it on the Internet before the end of this week, along with other files on reported UFO sightings.

«These first steps mark important progress toward changing the culture of government and extending the public’s right to know what is being done in their name,» Freedom of Information Minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement.

The government says it intends to repeal or amend up to 100 pieces of legislation which currently prohibit disclosure of information. It aims to replace them with provisions of a new Freedom of Information Act, passed in 2000.

Timothy Good
author’s bio
IT’S THE most outlandish alien theory yet. Beings from outer space establishing secret bases on Earth, and travelling in ships that are just as much at home beneath the sea as they are in the skies. Beyond belief? Perhaps. But a new book expounding the idea is written by one of the world’s most respected authorities on UFOs, Timothy Good, and his findings are supported by one of Britain’s most senior military men, retired Admiral of the Fleet Lord Hill-Norton. Here, in the first of two articles, Good sets out his case. Read it, and make up your own mind…

On the morning of September 4, 1971, four members of the National Geographic Institute of Costa Rica were flying in a twin-engined aircraft 10,000ft above Lake Cote, near the Central American state’s forbidding Arenal volcano.

A special map-making camera was slung underneath their plane. It was automatic and large-format, and every 20 seconds it took another photograph of the lake beneath.

When the photographs were developed, one of the frames showed what seemed to be a metallic disc about 160ft in diameter, which had just left, or was on the point of entering, the lake. It was giving off light, and had made a sudden manoeuvre at the instant the photo was taken.

The object showed up on neither the previous frame of film nor the one afterwards. Checks on the negative eliminated tricks of the light as an explanation.

What the geographers had seen was an extraordinary but little-known phenomenon — a USO. Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, have been reported for centuries. What few people realise is that USOs-Unidentified Submergible Objects — have been reported for almost as long.

Sometimes, as in the mysterious incident at Lake Cote, a UFO can be seen transforming itself into a USO, or vice versa.

Lake Cote is extremely deep, and there have been numerous other reports of unknown submergible craft entering and leaving it. Local fishermen, out on the lake in the small hours, have seen various objects below them, giving off coloured lights.

Sometimes the movement of these objects has caused the men to lose their balance and risk plunging into the water. They have also been blamed for a reduction in the fish population.

One morning, around 9am, two men heard a metallic noise coming from the lake and saw an object emerge that was shaped like a submarine with three ‘domes’ on its top. It hung there for a few seconds, then shot off towards the mountains to the north.

Other USOs have been seen in lakes and open seas around the world, sometimes giving out light, sometimes deeply submerged, sometimes just below the surface, sometimes skimming across it — and sometimes, as at Lake Cote, entering or leaving.

Evidently, many of the objects we are accustomed to call UFOs can just as easily travel in water as in the air.

On the night of November 6, 1973, a unique encounter with a USO occurred off the coast of America. Fishermen in Pascagoula, Mississippi, reported it, coastguards confirmed it. There were nine witnesses.

The object was circular or elliptical in shape, about 12ft long, and gave out a beam of amber light. The two fishermen who raised the alarm said it looked like ‘a mini-submarine’ and hovered about 4ft below them in the water. It was so close that they tried to hit it with their paddles.

HOWEVER, each time they tried to make contact, the light would go out and reappear in another position. When coastguard officers were summoned, they, too, tried to hit the USO. They succeeded, and reported that the object, whatever it was, felt metallic.

The coastguards made detailed notes. The object, they said, had a parachute-like shape and moved at a speed of six to eight knots, making steadily for deeper water.

The intensity of its light varied from nothing to a glare that was sometimes too bright to look at. When a torch was shone at it, the light ‘turned off’ until the beam was removed. ‘The phenomena observed were not consistent with any known fish, other marine life or known light source,’ concluded the coastguard report.

So what was in the water- and why was it there?

THERE is one place in the world where reports of Unidentified Submergible Objects are particularly frequent, and particularly strange.

Puerto Rico, the Caribbean’s so called Island of Enchantment, lies in one corner of the area that has become known as the Bermuda Triangle, renowned for the disappearances of ships and boats, and for sightings of ‘flying saucers’. It is here, in this former US. colony, whose politics and defence are still inextricably bound up with America, that much of my research into the USO phenomenon has focused.

A great deal of the strange activity around the island has centred on the 28,000 acres of mountainous rainforest known as El Yunque, on the north-eastern coast.

Jose Orlando Golis, who works for the Puerto Rican government, lives close to El Yunque. ‘Many people have seen UFOs flying over the water close to the surface,’ he told me. ‘Once, at 1am, we saw one with many coloured lights flying next to the sea just over the surface.

‘At first we thought it was a boat. It seemed to be dark underneath and had lights — mostly red and blue at another, upper level. Then it angled and moved upwards. It made a humming sound, and seemed to head in the direction of El Yunque.’

Felix Rivera is a diver with an underwater salvage company based near the American Naval Air Station which adjoins El Yunque, one of many U.S. bases on the island. He confirmed to me that UFOs and USOs have frequently been observed often by American military personnel.

‘Navy Seals — America’s elite special forces — have seen USOs here,’ he revealed. ‘Some have told me that these things will often come up close to boats, then shoot off. They move too fast underwater to be ours.’

Another hotspot of activity is off the south-west coast. In an area known as Cayo Margarita, 15 miles out in the Atlantic, many fishermen, as well as commercial and private pilots, claim to have seen USOs entering or emerging from the sea. Fisherman Aristides Medina said: ‘Once, I was fishing late at night and two of them passed under my boat, radiating a blue light. On other occasions, I have seen them when they emerge from the water and fly away at great speed.’

He has also seen them plunge into the water — and always in the same area of the sea. It would seem these objects have definite preferences as to which part of the ocean they choose to emerge from and enter.

REMARKABLY vivid sighting was reported by a diver called Inocencia Cataquet. He was in the water off Pena Blancas in the north-east of the island when he came across what appeared to be a disc-shaped submersible craft, lying on the seabed.

The craft seemed to be camouflaged with a sand-like material in order to blend in with its surroundings. Next to it lay a rectangular object, with a transparent cable, which was moving around in the water.

As if in reaction to the divers presence, the cable was suddenly retracted. Unnerved, Cataquet raced for the surface — in time to see the disc emerge from the water with a loud buzzing sound and fly away.

WHAT is going on here? If strange metallic craft are emerging from the waters around Puerto Rico on anything like a regular basis, it is inconceivable that the military authorities could be unaware of it. Some of the American bases in the area have exactly the sort of equipment that would be needed to track an object from the unknown.

For example, there is the huge aerostat, or tethered balloon, that flies 15,OOOft above the island’s south-west coast, with radar installations slung beneath it to monitor air traffic. A number of witnesses claim to have seen strange flying objects in the vicinity.

Puerto Rico is also host to the unique radio-telescope at Arecibo, a natural crater turned into the parabolic bowl of a gigantic receiving antenna — the largest and most sensitive radiotelescope in the world.

ONE of the acknowledged roles of Arecibo is as a listening post for alien lifeforms broadcasting from outer space. The project is known as SETI — the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Yet, ironically, unusual craft and beings have been reported around the radio observatory itself. A large boomerang-shaped object was seen `hanging’ above the telescope. One night, witnesses saw a huge disc in the sky, followed by three triangular shaped objects.

Is the paradoxical truth that, while SETI looks for extraterrestrial beings light years away, they are operating on its own doorstep?

On a visit to the site in January 1999, I interviewed the observatory’s Dr Jost, Alonso. He told me that many local people believe the observatory is a focus for UFO activity.

`This is a complicated issue,’ he said. `Sometimes I think military experiments are responsible for what people are seeing. There are people who say this is a US. government cover-up.

‘As to aliens, statistically, there has to be something. There are between 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and 10 pc of them are of the same type as our sun.

`If other life forms exist, it’s only a matter of time and technology before contact is made.’

Certainly, the Arecibo site is a focus for strange phenomena. One of the strangest came in March 1993, when a former British Airways pilot, Graham Sheppard, experienced a mysterious `lateral displacement’, throwing him miles off course, as he was flying his Cessna 172 light aircraft close to the telescope.

Sheppard, an expert navigator whose experience in the air spans four decades, and includes flying 747s, describes it as the most bewildering moment of his career.

After passing over the telescope, a feeling of unease and growing confusion came over me,’ he says. `Minutes went by with no idea of my position, but I was confident the west coast would soon appear at right angles to my course.

`I recall the shock of seeing the coastline, not at right angles to my course, but parallel. It became alarmingly clear that I was flying along the south coast. The navigation error here is enormous and should be impossible.’

An on-board video camera confirms that Sheppard’s gyro compass was set to the correct bearing for his original course. It also confirms that he was flying at 2,200ft — yet somehow he had passed over hills up to 3,900ft high.

THE aircraft’s instruments had appeared normal, and later weather checks ruled out a freak wind having blown him off course. None of the pilots to whom I have sent records of this flight can rationalise the displacement.

Sir Mark Thomson, a former Royal Navy Jet pilot who has taken a close interest in the strange events around Puerto Rico, is as baffled as he is impressed.

‘It is one of the most important pieces of evidence I’ve seen,’ he told me. `There is no explanation in our laws of physics.’

Could such aerial displacement be linked to the disappearances that have made the whole area of the Bermuda Triangle so notorious — such as the flight of Grumman Avenger torpedo-bombers that vanished off the Florida coast just after World War II?

In Puerto Rico, there are those who report incidents that are equally sinister and inexplicable. I interviewed two groups of witnesses who, on two separate occasions in 1988, claim to have watched as U.S. Navy Grumman F-14 jets were apparently `captured or otherwise absorbed’ mid-flight by large, unknown aerial craft they were pursuing.

Perhaps it sounds like fantasy. But on one occasion, at least, it seems that the object which had caused such a disappearance may even have been captured on U.S. radar.

`MAYDAY, Mayday. We can see a strange object in our course. We are lost. Mayday. Mayday’

The distress-call came at 8pm local time on June 28, 1980. Jose Luis Maldonado Torres, a 31-year old pilot, was flying an Ercoupe 415-D aeroplane, together with a 22-year-old student pilot, from Santo Domingo to San Juan, Puerto Rico’s main airport.

I have listened to a tape of some of the Mayday transmissions from the Ercoupe, leaked by a Federal Aviation Administration source, and the pilots’ anxiety is clear.

`A weird object in our course made us change course about three different times . . . we have something weird in front of us . . . We are right again in the same stuff, sir. . .’

After these words, the pilots were not heard of again. A sea and air search revealed no trace. However, a tantalising clue lies in the official report on the incident.

During the Mayday alert, the American Naval Air Station at Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico was in contact with air traffic controllers at San Juan. At 8.16pm, 11 minutes after the Ercoupe’s s last communication, the Americans made an intriguing comment: `It looks like we may see a few of them out there…’

What did this cryptic message mean? It suggests that the air station had made several radar contacts in the area where the plane disappeared. One of them, of course, was the Ercoupe. But what were the others? Might one of them have been the `weird object’, the disorienting `stuff’ that aparently engulfed the doomed plane?

One possibility is that the US. Navy had been monitoring whatever weird phenomenon caused the plane’s disappearance.

Jorge Martin, the island’s leading UFO investigator, has an important contact within the military, a high-ranking officer connected to the U.S. Navy.

From this source, we learn that the American authorities grew alarmed after a number of military aircraft, as well as private planes, disappeared in an area to the north-west of Puerto Rico known as the San Juan Trench.

A steep undersea cleft in the ocean floor, the lowest point this great chasm lies 30,000ft deep, further below sea level than Mount Everest is above it.

HERE is the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean. The pressures of sea-water there would crush any surface creature, and any but the most specially-constructed man-made submarines.

According to Martin’s source, the Navy and Air Force found that, on a regular basis, a huge disc-shape craft would come out of the sea in the Trench, sometimes ‘hanging stationary in the air on a great column of water before vanishing or submerging again’.

If this were not outlandish enough, there is more. Pilots were reportedly ordered to approach the object, only for their jets to ‘explode silently, to vanish into thin air’.

Can these astonishing claims be true? And if so, what is the terrible secret lurking beneath the ocean?

A STRETCH of 100 miles of open water divides Puerto Rico from it neighbouring island, the Dominican Republic. That stretch is known as the Mona Passage.

Almost half-way across it, some 45 miles to the west of the last cape of Puerto Rico, lies the small roughly circular, uninhabite Mona Island. At the time of its last communication, the lost Ercoupa aircraft was just to the east of Mona Island.

Other crews crossing the area have reported anomalies affecting their positioning. One pilot in a light aircraft noted an `an uncontrollable spin’ of his compass.

Jorge Martin’s U.S. Naval office offers a remarkable explanation’ His revelations about Mona Island are bizarre, extraordinary, and almost beyond belief.

But when I showed my dossier of evidence was shown to Admiral of the Fleet Lord Hill-Norton, one of Britain’s most respected ilitary figures, he had no hesitation in endorsing my findings

Aleksandr Plaksin is a military geophysicist. He is an
interesting individual in Soviet UFO history; he played a
prominent role in the secret research conducted by the Soviet
military.

The new book about Russian Ufology, I co-authored with Philip
Mantle, contains more information about Plaksin and the Soviet
UFO research programs.

In his article Plaksin «reveals» several interesting
developments:

1. Many recent achievements of the American military-industrial
complex have been generated in the labs dedicated to the
research of paranormal phenomena.

2. ‘Aliens’ have nothing to do with American advanced technology
(i.e., Stealth).

3. In his 15 years of UFO research A. Plaksin had never obtained
direct proof that there are alien civilizations active on our
planet.

4. Americans have researched UFOs since 1954 (U.S. Air Force),
and since 1974 they have operated a secret scientific research
center to study anomalous phenomena and UFOs through the use of
a special Earth-based station. Hence, they (the Americans) were
able to create a superweapon. (A. Plaksin goes into scary
detaisl, but basically his aim is to denigrate American HAARP,
future U.S. policies, etc.)

5. A. Plaksin describes the creation of the Soviet program(s) to
study the anomalous phenomena from 1978 on. Good stuff; we have
gone into great detail in our book to describe such programs,
and have more information. But A. Plaksin was definitely one of
the key people, albeit, not the top brass.

6. A. Plaksin goes into fascinating details; the information
after all, came from Soviet military branches, the Navy, the
border guards, tanti-aircraft units, etc. Some of such cases I
described in The Soviet UFO Files (1998).

I was glad to find in his interview in Komsomol’skaya Pravda
fascinating details of a sighting from the Borisoglebsk airfield
(the immobile black cloud). The area itelf is very interesting,
and in our book, we dedicated some pages to the strane goings-on
there; the «cloud», too, is of great interest; there have been
other very strange «clouds» over the former USSR and Russia.

7. A. Plaksin mentions the infamous and very dangerous 1982 case
(and gives the correct date; Mr. Sokolov who has changed his
story repeatedly, ought to be ashamed. It was the 4th of
Octiber, not the 5th; and nothing but UFO almost triggerred a
nuclear war).

8. A. Plaksin states that there were no UFO crash in Kazakhstan
in 1978; no secret storage for UFO fragments in Mitische (Moscow
area), no supersecret storage in Novaya Zemlya..

Again, we should listen to him, and compare his information to
that provided by such respectable former Soviet military
officers as Gherman Kolchin, Lev Ovsicher, and others. Messers
Gershtein, Subbotin, Chernobrov should also be heard, for their
research skills are diverse and vast.

9. A. Plaksin is of the opinion that the unidentified objects
(«20 percent», acc. to him) are of physical origin that is still
inknown to us. Our laws of physics cannot explain such objects.
He mentions two fascinating episodes (1977 and 1981).

10. Although A. Plaksin states that most likely there are no
aliens on Earth, he also mentions that because of military
secrecy he cannot reveal everything he knows.

I recently discussed A. Plaksin in a TV interview. Obviously, he
is revealing more information, piecemeal. There is more to be
learned from him, I hope, in the future. But again, he was but
one of the players.

A report of alien sightings prompted floods of letters to the
MoD, reports Alan Hamilton. New laws have made these public,
explains Frances Gibb.

While British and American defence chiefs were supposed to be
keeping a watchful eye on the Soviet threat in Europe during the
1980s, they were spending an undue amount of energy dealing with
little green men.

The so-called Rendlesham File, now available for public
inspection, is a fat catalogue of increasingly despairing
correspondence between the Ministry of Defence and members of
the public after the sighting of unexplained lights in
Rendlesham Forest, near the RAF base at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in
December 1980.

The story was given wing by its detailed disclosure in the News
of the World in 1983.

Soon after the alleged incident, reported by the USAF deputy
base commander at nearby Bentwaters, the MoD drew up an internal
memo: «No evidence was found of any threat to the defence of the
United Kingdom, and no further investigations were carried out.

«No further information has come to light which alters our view
that the sightings of these lights was of no defence
significance.»

Nothing was picked up on radar that night, officials added, and
they concluded that the airmen had confused the lights with the
beam of Orford Ness lighthouse, distorted by trees, or a natural
fireball.

But the Ministry and the RAF were bombarded with inquiries from
the public.Officials suggested that besieged officers at
Bentwaters should take the line that «there was no question of
any contact with alien beings.»

They should also dismiss rumours that the UFO story was a cover-
up for the crash of an aircraft carrying nuclear material.

Still the letters poured in. Two years later an increasingly
short- tempered MoD was writing to one correspondent demanding a
full investigation: «There is no organisation in MoD appointed
soleyl for the purpose of studying reports of such objects, and
no staff are employed on the subject full-time.»

It added: «We have to recognise that there are many strange
things to be seen in the sky, but we believe there are adequate
explanations for them.»

Things got worse as forged letters purporting to come from MoD
officials began to circulate. One, apparently on Ministry
notepaper, claimed that a craft of unknown origin and «crewed by
several entities» had landed near Bentwaters.

The entities, it went on, were about one and a half metres tall
and wore nylon-coated pressure suits but no helmets. They had
claw-like hands with three digits and an opposable thumb. One
self-styled researcher into «cosmic conspiracy», having seen the
letter, wrote to the MoD requesting further information on the
craft which had landed for several hours to carry out repairs,
during which time the USAF base commander had conversed with its
crew.

An MoD official replied tersely: «I am afraid that it is a
forgery… I have no idea where it came from or why it was
written and can only conclude that it was intended by someone as
a joke.»

MPs forwarded letters from worried constituents convinced of a
cover-up. One passed on by David Alton, MP, said in part: «There
is clear evidence that British airspace and territory were
intruded upon by an unidentified vehicle on two occasions in
late December 1980, and that no authority was able to prevent
this.»

Some correspondents continued to harry MoD until officials were
driven to reply: «I suggest that there is little point in
continuing this correspondence.»

The final letter in the fiel is dated July 1992, in which an MoD
official writes to the RAF liaison officer at Bentwaters asking
if the original USAF report of the sightings was genuine, «as a
number of hoaxes have been circulating for years.»

Squadron Leader P. Rooney at Bentwaters had the last word: «I
have no records on this subject and the file to which you refer
has long been destroyed.»

WHAT AIRMEN FOUND IN THE WOODS

A GRAPHIC description of the «unusual lights» that were
suspected of being a UFO is described in the Rendlesham file.

The lights were spotted by two USAF security police patrolmen,
according to a report dated January 1981 headed «unexplained
lights,» written by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, deputy base
commander at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk.

He states: «Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been
forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gates
and investigate.

«The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the
forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance
and triangular in shape, approximately two to three metres
across the base and approximately two metres high. It
illuminated the entire forest with a white light.

«The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of
blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. The
object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the
object, it manoeuvred through the trees and disappeared. At this
time, the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The
object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the
back gate.»

The report goes on to describe the depressions found in the
ground and in a tree the next day. «Later in the night, a red
sun-light light was seen through the trees. It moved about and
pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles
and then broke into five separate white objects and then
disappeared.

«Immediately thereafter, three star-like objects were noticed in
the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of
which were about ten degrees off the horizon.»

The MoD made further inquiries. No unidentified flying object
had been seen on radar at the times in question nor was there
any evidence of anything having intruded into British airspace.

One theory, it concluded, was that what was seen was the beam of
Orford Ness lighthouse, with distortions caused by its being
seen through trees. But «in the absence of any hard evidence»
the MoD remains open-minded about these sightings.

PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW EXTENDED

DETAILS about UFO sightings, clinical trials, accident
investigations and Whitehall meetings will be released to the
public under plans to open up government.

Public access to information from government bodies is to be
extended by the scrapping and amending of up to 100 pieces of
legislation, the Lord Chancellor’s Department announced
yesterday.

The changes are being made under the Freedom of Information Act
which is being phased in over the next three years.

>From Sunday the first tranche of hitherto secret information is
released when government departments publish their own schemes
of legislation which they plan to release to the public. The
material will be made available immediately on departmental
websites or through application by post.

The Ministry of Defence achives will include information on
UFOs, including the Rendlesham File about a UFO report in
Suffolk in 1980. The Lord Chancellor’s Department is to publish
the guidance given to lawyers applying to be Queen’s Counsel or
judges.

A Hebei Daily report — carried in the news digest Baokan Wenzhai — gave a detailed pilot’s account of an aerial cat-and-mouse game played between the object and a jet fighter ordered to intercept it.

At least 140 people on the ground also saw the object, it said.

An editor with the Hebei Daily said the events took place on Oct. 19 and were still being investigated by local government departments.

The newspaper’s report and military sources quoted show an openness that contrast sharply with Washington’s notorious secrecy on the topic of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

It said the encounter began when four different radar stations in northern Hebei province picked up an unknown moving target in airspace directly above a military flight training base near Changzhou city.

To observers at the base, the UFO first appeared like «a small star,» and then grew larger and larger, perhaps as it descended to a lower altitude, the report said.

They described an object with a mushroom-shaped dome on top and a flat bottom covered with bright, continually rotating lights.

A base commander surnamed Li reported to his superiors, who ordered a Jianjiao-6 armed interceptor airborne to pursue the object once checks showed no other civilian or military aircraft in the area.

The two pilots aboard said the object closely resembled depictions they had seen in foreign science fiction films.

When they got within 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) of the UFO over Qing county, it abruptly shot upward, easily evading subsequent attempts to get closer.

It appeared to be toying with the fighter by repeatedly outdistancing it and then reappearing just above it, the pilots said.

The report said a request for permission to fire on the UFO with an onboard cannon was denied by ground command at one point.

The interceptor was eventually forced to return to base after it ran out of fuel at an altitude of 12,000 meters (39,600 feet). The UFO then disappeared before two newer-model planes could get airborne, the article said.

While China’s racy tabloids often run stories of strange phenomena alongside celebrity-gossip and crime stories, UFO reports are seldom carried by more official papers like the Hebei Daily. ( (c) 1998 Agence France Presse)

Submarines

Mr. Krapiva attended lectures given by veteran officers of Soviet nuclear-powered submarines. They had served in the Soviet North, in secret naval installations and bases. The lectures sometimes veered off the planned presentations, and many spellbinding tales were told. For instance, episodes when Soviet sonar-operators (military hydroacoustics technicians) were «hearing» (at great depths) strange «targets». Their submarines were actually being chased by other «submarines». The pursuers changed their speed at will — speeds that were much faster than any other similar vessel in the world at that time Lieutenant-Commander Oleg Sokolov confidentially informed the students that while he was on duty during his submarine’s navigation, he had observed through a periscope an ascent of some strange object through the water. He was not able to identify it, because he viewed it through the optical system of the periscope. This underwater «take off» took place in the early 1960′s.

Sevastopol

A few years ago V.V. Krapiva met with Professor Korsakov of the Odessa University. Professor Korsakov told him of a conversation he had with a friend of his, a Soviet Navy officer who had served at the Sevastopol Naval base. Back in the 1950′s this officer personally sighted a UFO. The object moved upward from behind a battle cruiser. The officer was under the impression that the object surfaced from the depths of the Black Sea. Professor Korsakov has a photograph of the object.

Eyewitness reports

In August 1965, a crew of the steamship RADUGA, while navigating in the Red Sea, observed an unusual phenomenon. At about two miles away, a fiery sphere dashed out from under the water and hovered over the surface of the sea, illuminating it. The sphere was sixty meters in diameter, and it hovered above the sea at an altitude of 150 meters. A gigantic pillar of water rose as the sphere emerged from the sea and collapsed some moments later.

In December 1977, not far from the Novy Georgy Island, the crew of the fishing trawler VASILY KISELEV also observed something quite extraordinary. Rising vertically from under the water was a doughnut-shaped object. Its diameter was between 300 and 500 meters. It hovered at the altitude of four to five kilometers. The trawler’s radar station was immediately rendered inoperative. The object hovered over the area for three hours, and then disappeared instantly. The testimony of Alexander G. Globa, a seaman from GORI, a Soviet tanker, was published in Zagadki Sfinksa magazine (Issue # 3, 1992) Odessa,. In June 1984, GORI was in the Mediterranean, twenty nautical miles from the Straight of Gibraltar. At 16:00, Globa was on duty. With him was Second-in-Command S. Bolotov. They were standing watch at the left bridge extension wing when both men observed a strange polychromatic object. When the object was astern, it stopped suddenly.

S. Bolotov was agog, shaking his binoculars and shouting: «It is a flying saucer, a real saucer, my God, hurry, hurry, look!» Globa looked through his own binoculars and saw, at a distance over the stern, a flattened out looking object (it did remind him of an upside-down frying pan). The UFO was gleaming with a grayish metallic shine. The lower portion of the craft had a precise round shape, its diameter no more than twenty meters. Around the lower portion of it Globa also observed «waves» of protuberances on the outside plating.

The base of the object’s body consisted of two semi-discs, the smaller being on top; they slowly revolved in opposing directions. At the circumference of the lower disc Globa saw numerous shining, bright, bead-like lights. The seaman’s attention was centered on the bottom portion of the UFO. It looked as if it was completely even and smooth, its color that of a yolk, and in the middle of it Globa discerned a round, nucleus-like stain. At the edge of the UFO’s bottom, which was easily visible, was something that looked like a pipe. It glowed with an unnaturally bright rosy color, like a neon lamp. The top of the middle disc was crowned by a triangular-shaped something. It seemed that it moved in the same direction as the lower disc, but at a much slower pace.

Suddenly, the UFO jumped up several times, as if moved by an invisible wave. Many lights illuminated its bottom portion. The crew of GORI tried to attract the object’s attention using a signal projector. By that time Captain Sokolovky was on the desk with his men. He and his Second-in-Command were watching the object intensely. However, the UFO’s attention was distracted by another ship, approaching at the port side. It was an Arab dry cargo ship, on its way to Greece. The Arabs confirmed that the object hovered over their ship. A minute and a half later the object changed its flight’s trajectory, listed to the right, gained speed and ascended rapidly. The Soviet seamen observed that when it rose through the clouds, appearing and disappearing again, it would occasional shine in the sun’s rays. The craft then flared up, like a spark, and was gone instantly.

Some history

The earliest mention of giant beings goes back to early 1900′s. Several boys in Georgia (Russian Empire) discovered a cave inside a mountain, full of human-like skeletons. Each skeleton was three meters in height. To get to the cave, the boys had to dive into a lake. George Papashvili and his wife recall the incident a book published in New York in 1925, St. Martin’s Press (Anything can happen).

Vladimir Georgiyevich Ajaja, nowadays is a prominent personality in the Russian Ufological Association. But he was not always a ufologist, and when he became one, he earned the ire of the Communist Party’s dislike of those who study forbidden topics. With the help of his highly placed Navy buddies, he was able to write a piece about the Bermuda Triangle for Nauka I Zhizhn, a respected Soviet scientific magazine. After all, he was a marine researcher, who, on numerous occasions, studied the depths of the Atlantic Ocean from aboard a Soviet submarine (with many features designed by him). Other mainstream Soviet oceanologists would not touch such a «questionable» subject. In his search for the information, two sources helped him: Charles Berlitz’s The Bermuda Triangle book that mentioned UFOs (he could find no other books in the libraries), and Vice-Admiral Y.V. Ivanov, head of the Naval Intelligence Directorate. Ajaja found out that the Naval Intelligence had long considered UFOs to be a subject of serious investigation. But his newly

found conviction put him on thin ice. Ajaja’s efforts to study and promote ufology made him a target of the science officialdom, and the Party functionaries. His name was smeared in the Soviet media. Ajaja’s works were blacklisted. His lectures were outlawed. He was fired from several jobs, and prevented from speaking publicly.

Again, his Navy buddies helped him land a job, and write about UFOs for their practical use. In his brochure ATTENTION: UFOS he stated that the UFO wave of 1989, still in progress in 1991 when it was published, had swept away ideological and censorship barriers which were placed against ufology in the USSR. But because of the years of silence, the country has been rendered totally unprepared for UFO phenomena. So he helped organize the SOYUZUFOTSENTR to promote scientific study of UFO phenomena. It broke away from its cradle, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, because as did many others, Ajaja was convinced that those responsible for the UFO research within the Academy actually prevented true and unbiased research.

A.Gorbovsky, a Soviet historian published a book titled «Enigmas of Ancient History» in the early 1970′s. For many people in the Soviet Union this book was an introduction to the forbidden world of ufology, of paleocontact (A Russian term for the ancient astronaut hypothesis), and mysteries of our ancient history. Gorbovsky mentions an incident that took place in the ancient Mediterranean where people observed a strange underwater vehicle surfacing at high speed. The object ejected itself from the water, and shortly thereafter disappeared.

B. Borovikov hunted Black Sea sharks for many years. Then something happened that put an end to his hobby. Diving in the Anapa area, he descended to the depth of eight meters. He saw giant beings rising up from below. They were milky-white, but with humanoid faces, and something like fish tails. The being ahead of its companions noticed Borovikov , and stopped. It had giant bulging eyes, as if in some vague glasses. The other two joined it. The firs one waved her hand-it was definitely a hand with membranes-towards the diver. All of them approached the diver , and stopped at a short distance. Then they turned around, and swam away. Borovikov’s experience was published in XX vek: khronika neobjasnimogo (Moscow, 1996).

D. Povaliyayev was handgliding over Kavgolov (Leningrad area) in the early 1990′s. There are lakes, and in one of them the skydiver noticed three giant «fish». He descended, and was able to discern «swimmers» in silvery costumes. He mentioned the episode in his book Letuchi Gollandets (1995). There have been many UFO sightings in the ar _____

According to a Chinese pilot, he noticed a flickering white and blue object, which hovered right beside the aircraft just as he was about to land. The pilot observed how an oval-shaped flying object was escorting the airplane. Then suddenly, the object made a rapid turn and disappeared behind the clouds.

This story could sound rather nonsensical. However, other two pilots from other Chinese aircrafts reported the exact same phenomenon to the control center. One of them was piloting at 120 km to the North, while the other was flying at 300km to the South, reports «Izvestia».

A considerable amount of such strange encounters with «feidi» (this is how a UFO is referred to in China) has been recorded in China for the past few years. In some cases, people saw fluorescent orange light, above which hovered a rather strangely-shaped object. In other instances, people witnessed an object no bigger than a basket ball which had been divided in half right before their eyes. The two balls started circling the area and then disappeared completely. One time, people witnessed an object similar to a whipping top. Its trail was marked by a stripe of light. The object was also held responsible for shutting off electricity in several houses, since no malfunction had been reported at the electric power station.

One Chinese newspaper «South China Monitoring Post» reported the most fascinating case. One hundred Chinese witnessed a double-seated fighter-interceptor of the Chinese Air Force «playing cat-and-mouse» with a hypothetical UFO not far away from a military base in the town of Chinjou.

A mushroom-shaped object with rotating brightly lit bottom was spotted by four radar stations. When approaching the interceptor (in about 4,000 meters), the object instantly moved upwards. None of the ground-based control services ordered to open fire.

«Izvestia» reports that China has a record number of special clubs of UFO lovers. There are many who attempt to establish some sort of a connection with the extraterrestrial. Their actions are protected by the National Society of the extraterrestrial studies, which was founded 25 years ago. The Society is financed by the government. Only professional scientists and engineers are allowed in the Society. A person also required to have PhD in science and have several published works about UFOs. About a third of all members of the society are also experienced members of the communist party.

One of Chinese most famous experts in ufology, 66-year-old Sun Shili, who is also a former diplomat and a translator of Mao Zedong, has told us about his first encounter with an unidentified object. It happened in 1971 during the «cultural revolution» when Sun Shili had been undergoing physical labor at a correctional facility high up in the mountains of the Tsyansi province. One day, while working in the rice fields, he spotted a strange object in the sky. He momentarily thought it was a real UFO.

Experts from the National Society claim that half of Chinese residents believe in such phenomenon. Sun Shili explains such interest in UFOs in China (every fifth UFO appears in this country) in the following way. He says that China appeals to aliens the most, due to the country’s recent breakthroughs and its aspiration to become the world’s leader.

Aliens used to be interested in the US up until recently. According to Sun Shili (and his opinion is shared by many in the National Society) some of the aliens live among us, by turning into humans.

«We’re not sure (why),» said researcher Chris Rutkowski, one of the authors of the annual Canadian survey of UFO reports.

«We’re thinking that perhaps more people are seeing something that’s really there or perhaps more people are aware of how or whether they should report things.»

The trend started well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 in the U.S., so that has been ruled out as a factor.

For the first time, researchers also tied reports to cities and found that Vancouver and Ottawa topped the list with 17 and 15 reports respectively.

Once again, British Columbia was the best place to be in Canada to spot a UFO. The province accounted for 123 of the 374 reported sightings and has led the country consistently since 1999.

Ontario was next with 87 sightings and Alberta was third with 40 reports.

«All of the cases got some degree of investigation by researchers in various parts of the country,» said Rutkowski, who works at the University of Manitoba.

«About 15 per cent were left unexplained. The rest either had explanations or we didn’t have enough information to make an evaluation.»

Included on the list of the unexplained was the fire funnel that left a crater more than 30 metres wide in a field near Etzikom, Alta.

«Some astronomers and experts in meteorites investigated and decided that it wasn’t (a meteorite).»

A number of sightings were reported in the sparsely populated North.

«There was a cigar-shaped object that hopped as it flew, rather than flew regularly, over Whitehorse,» said Rutkowski.

It was seen at 10:30 a.m. and left a vapour trail as it moved across the sky, disappeared behind a mountain and then returned.

«Pilots flying a supply plane in Nunavut saw a stationary light (hovering) over the ground in an area that’s uninhabited and they couldn’t explain it.»
Other sightings included:

-Six orange objects spotted flying in V formation over Portage la Prairie, Man.

-A luminous object that hung in the sky over Hull, Que., for two consecutive nights before appearing to explode.

-Airline pilots flying over Craik, Sask., who saw what they thought were the lights of another aircraft until they were told by air traffic controllers that there was no other plane on radar.

-Three dots of white light that «played tag» with each other over Richmond, B.C.
«There were a number of odd cases,» said Rutkowski

«There’s a mixture of things that we’re seeing from one end of the country to another.»

There were 15 so-called close encounters with UFOs or their alleged occupants reported in 2001, but none of them made the short list of the best unexplained cases.

They range from a close encounter of the first kind, which is a sighting within 200 metres, to close encounters of the fourth kind, which involve actual contact with or abduction by aliens.

«For a case to make the list of the best cases, it’s not just the unusual quality of the report but also how well investigated it was and how reliable the source was,» said Rutkowski.