No sperm needed

Parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops to maturity, has been found in 70 species of vertebrates, including captive snakes and a monitor lizard species. In most of these reptile cases, this process is their only method of reproduction.

In some whiptail lizards, males have become somewhat of an accessory, and all individuals are female. The type of asexual reproduction in whiptail lizards generates all-female offspring.

The Komodo dragon, turns out, can do both: they can reproduce sexually or asexually depending on their environmental conditions. At most zoos, females live alone and are kept separate from other dragons.

Magic dragon

In May of this year, Flora laid 25 eggs, of which 11 were viable. The zookeepers knew Flora had played both mom and pop as soon as they confirmed her eggs were fertile. That's because Flora had never come into contact with a male dragon while at the zoo.

Three of the developing eggs collapsed during incubation, providing embryonic material for testing this theory. The zoo staff worked with Phillip Watts of Liverpool University to carry out genetic analysis of the collapsed eggs.

"This paternity test confirmed that all the genetic material in the eggs had come from Flora and that she was indeed both the mother and the father of the developing eggs," Buley told LiveScience.

Egg-cellent

Both males and females carry out meiosis in which cells divide to form the respective sex cells, sperm or egg. In females, meiosis produces four egg-progenitor cells, one of which becomes the egg while the other three typically get reabsorbed by the female's body. For Flora, one of the extra cells acted like a surrogate sperm and fertilized the egg cell, explained Buley.

The one-parent event resulted in offspring containing the same genetic material as their mother. Flora's infant dragons will not be her clones, however, because there is genetic shuffling going on during the egg production stage, Buley said.

For instance, not all copies of genes are identical and each gene has an alternate form. If a person has two "alleles" for blond hair she would show a head of sunny hair, but if one allele was for blond and the other for dark brown, the person could show up a brunette. The same shuffling process occurred in the Komodo dragon babies.

Family affairs

With the ability to reproduce without male mates, Komodo females could potentially found an entirely new colony on their own. "Theoretically, a female Komodo dragon in the wild could swim to a new island and then lay a fertile clutch of eggs," Buley said.

The downside is that all hatchlings resulting from this type of parthenogenesis are males. "These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island," Buley explained.

In the long-term this Oedipus-like practice could lead to health problems associated with inbreeding, as the entire colony would have such low genetic diversity.

The results also have implications for captive-breeding programs that have sprouted to ensure the survival of the threatened lizards. Fewer than 4,000 Komodo dragons are thought to remain in the wild, residing on just three islands in Indonesia.

Scientists wonder if the act of keeping males and females separate could cause them to switch from sexual to asexual reproduction, which could lead to decreased genetic diversity.

The discovery is detailed in the Dec. 21 issue of the journal Nature.

"Often they are made to the Gendarmerie, which provides an official witness statement ... and some come from airline pilots," he said by telephone.

Given the success of films about visitations from outer space like "E.T.", "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" and "Independence Day", the CNES archive is likely to prove a hit.

It consists of around 6,000 reports, many relating to the same incident, filed by the public and airline professionals. Their names would not be published to protect their privacy, Anould said.

Advances in technology over the past three decades had prompted the decision to put the archive online, he said, adding it would likely be available via the CNES website www.cnes.fr.

For those unaquainted with this one-time ufological stalwart, the mother-ships were almost a permanent fixture of the halcyon days of ufology (and by that I mean the 1950s and 1960s), and became so-named as a result of their huge size. Usually described as being hundreds of feet in length, and very often cigar-shaped, the mother-ships were seen by many as being the outer-space equivalent of a modern-day aircraft carrier - the purpose of which was to carry smaller, flying saucer-style vehicles across vast stretches of space before dropping them onto our planet to undertake whatever dark and nefarious activities they deemed fit.

But the problem with the mother-ships wasn't so much the fact that people saw them, or that the scenario of having one huge craft carrying a whole "family" of smaller ones defied logic. Nope: the problem was that the mother-ships became inextricably linked with the so-called "Contactee" controversy.

In the early 1950s, numerous characters - including George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Truman Bethurum (who, had his wife agreed, might have engineered the first intergalactic three-way - with the help of beautiful, shapely "space captain-ette" Aura Rhanes), and George Hunt Williamson (funny how the aliens seem to like earth people named George), reported close encounters, and direct contact, with eerily human-looking aliens who - among other things - loftily insisted we disarm our nuclear arsenals and live in harmony with one another (there's zero chance of that happening anytime soon!). And thus was born the cult of the Contactee - for a cult is certainly what it was and still is.

Moreover, many of the contactees - and particularly Adamski - claimed that their visitors were arriving in gigantic mother-ships. And, as a result of the fact that many of the more down-to-earth researchers of that era poured scorn on the accounts of the Contactees, so the tales of the mother-ships came to be viewed with growing suspicion.

Incredibly, even the FBI got in on the act: FBI memoranda of 1954 refers to a source who had advised the Bureau that "5,000 mother ships...150 to 200 feet in length" were at that time surrounding our planet. Their purpose: to "repair fault-lines in the Pacific Ocean." Well, that was nice of them - although I see no evidence of such repairs having ever occurred.

However, we might not want to dismiss the mother-ships completely out of hand. Consider the following report, found in the files of the British Government's National Archive by UFO researchers Andy Roberts and David Clarke.

Dating from December 2, 1942 and with the long and yawn-inspiring title of "Report by the crew of 61 Sqdn. A/c 'J,' Captain W/O Lever, of object seen during raid on TURIN, night of November 28/29th, 1942," the report reads as follows:

"The object...was seen by the entire crew of the above aircraft. They believe it to have been 200-300 feet in length and its width is estimated at 1/5th or 1/6th of its length. The speed was estimated at 500 m.p.h., and it had four pairs of red lights spaced at equal distances along its body. These lights did not appear in any way like exhaust flames; no trace was seen. The object kept a level course. The crew saw the object twice during the raid and brief details are given below."

The author of the report continued:

"After bombing, time 2240 hours, a/c height 11,000 feet. The aircraft at this time was some 10/15 miles South-West of Turin travelling in a northwesterly direction. The object was travelling South-East at the same height or slightly below the aircraft. After bombing, time 2245 hours, a/c height 14,000 feet. The aircraft was approaching the Alps when the object was seen again travelling West-South-West up a valley in the Alps below the level of the peaks. The lights appeared to go out and the object disappeared from view."

The document concluded:

"The captain of the aircraft also reports that he has seen a similar object about three months ago North of Amsterdam. In this instance it appeared to be on the ground and later travelling at high speed at a lower level than the heights given above along the coast for about two seconds; the lights then went out for the same period of time and came on again, and the object was still seen to be travelling in the same direction."

Now, seeing strange things when in the vicinity of Amsterdam is practically par for the course; but it's worth noting that a covering letter attached to this report that had been prepared by the Air Vice Marshal, Commanding, No. 5 Group of the British Royal Air Force stated: "The crew refuses to be shaken in their story in the face of the usual banter and ridicule."

And, of course, no nation on earth - to the best of our knowledge, at least - was flying aircraft 200-300 feet in length and at speeds of 500 mph, 55 years ago.

If the late Steve Irwin had investigated UFOs, at this stage he would probably be shouting at the top of his voice "Crikey!" And perhaps so we should, too. Maybe George, George, George and Co. were right all along. And so, with that final, astonishing thought in our collective minds, altogether now: "CRIKEY!"

Soon other missiles started going off-line as well. Within seconds, the other nine missiles were down.

About 20 miles southeast at the Oscar flight, a topside airman reported to his below-ground crew commander that strange, nonaircraft lights were zigzagging around the sky.

The commander didn't take the report seriously and told the airman to call back if anything more significant happened.

After a few minutes, the airman called again, clearly frightened and shouting: "Sir, there's one hovering outside the front gate!"

"One what?"

"A UFO. It's just sitting there. We're all looking at it. What do you want us to do?"

Moments later, several other Oscar missiles were down as well.

***

This report and others like it have made northcentral Montana a UFO hot spot dating back to the 1950s.

"It's been a pretty active area, and there are a lot of world-documented sightings going way back," said Jeff Goodrich, state director of the Montana chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

A video recording of two bright, silvery objects zipping around the sky on Aug. 15, 1950, brought national attention to the Electric City.

Nick Mariana, general manager of the Great Falls Electrics baseball team, noticed the objects and quickly scrambled to record the incident on the 16-mm camera he kept in his glove box. The "Montana Movie," as it came to be known, is considered one of the best UFO films of all time.

More recently, a series of mysterious cow mutilations has locals baffled and questioning whether space aliens have perhaps paid us another visit.
UFOs are for real

It's a fact: UFOs are out there. Astronomers, scientists, government officials and ufologists all agree on that. The dispute is whether little green or gray or purple men are piloting these aircraft, if that's even what the objects are.

Ray Kelly, owner of Kelly Signs, always has been a believer and even has a few sightings to boot.

"I've always felt this universe is just too vast for us to be the only people or living creatures," he said.

Kelly's first sighting came in the 1990s. As he pulled into his alley after work one night, a bright star caught his attention. Then, suddenly, it shot straight up.

Some years later, Kelly took direction from the popular 1990s television series "Sightings" and propped his Zenith camcorder on a tripod in his backyard and focused it on the sun's corona, or surrounding halo of light. If you block out the main part of the sun you'll catch bustling UFO activity in the outer rim, the theory suggests.

"These objects are kind of invisible to the naked eye until they fly into the corona," Kelly said.

Sure enough, Kelly captured glowing objects of all shapes and sizes moving at different speeds and directions in and out of the corona. He also recorded what he believes to be two UFOs traveling across the sky. One moves on a straight west-to-east plane. The other flies the same direction but instantly changes directions at two different intervals.
UFO mania

The UFO era began in June 1947 when a Boise businessman and pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported nine mysterious objects flying around Mount Rainier in Washington. He described them as flying close together, saying their movement reminded him of a rock or saucer skipping across the top of water. He is credited for coining the term "flying saucers."

Following Arnold's sighting and the alleged crash at Roswell, N.M., where ufologists believe an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants were recovered in July 1947, flying saucer mania began. The interest and curiosity in UFOs paired with the looming threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union had people nationwide and across Montana looking toward the heavens.

While the government opened an official investigation of UFOs, more reports trickled in from all over Big Sky Country. A couple weeks after Mariana's sighting, two Great Falls men reportedly saw a silvery mass over the eastern horizon near Geyser. They said the large, oblong object had a long tail and flew extremely high. It vanished over the western horizon in about eight seconds. The following week two Air Force veterans reported six amber-colored objects flying over Great Falls, passing each other at alternate intervals.

In November 1957, a Great Falls woman reported seeing an oblong, illuminated object that was twice as large as the moon and had a flashing light on one end. Later that month a Sidney resident reported a white ball of fire with towering red columns rising up and green lights projecting from the base moving slowly across the sky.

Several UFO reports have come from MAFB and its missile sites.

The investigation that followed the 1967 missile incidents turned up no reasonable cause for the missile shutdowns, though a number of airmen as well as the deputy launch controller from that day have come forward to credit UFOs. However, the Air Force reportedly maintains that no UFO incident ever has affected national security.

Public affairs officials at Malmstrom say the base doesn't have any records related to UFOs.

The hodgepodge of reports over the years indicate that UFOs come in all shapes, sizes and colors and travel at various speeds. Some are described as balls of light that explode in the sky. Others resemble flying cars.

Of course, there also are curious reports of what "visitors" leave behind.
Alien forensics?

The first Montana report of a mutilated cow came from the Sand Coulee area in August 1974. In the few years that followed, sheriff's deputies investigated more than 65 mutilation reports from Cascade, Judith Basin, Chouteau, Teton and Pondera counties.

The most recent reported mutilation occurred on Oct. 9 of this year on a ranch in Valier. There are similarities to the mutilations of three decades ago.

What's left behind has raised doubt that the killings were caused by humans or predators.

Often the tongue, an eye and all or part of the ear are removed along with a portion of the udder, the genitals and the anus. Facial skin is scraped off with great precision, and the exposed bones are squeaky-clean. Many of the animals are drained of blood. There is no mess, no footprints and no one hears a sound.

What's even more bizarre, hungry predators steer clear of the carcasses for weeks.

The early cases from around the nation prompted a federally funded investigation that resulted in a 300-page report concluding the cows were killed by natural predators. Even still, ideas swarm about the mysteries, some pointing fingers at satanic cults, government or military conspiracies and, of course, space aliens.
Local UFO group

Various groups have formed over the years to investigate UFO sightings, of which a majority are re-classified as IFOs, or identified flying objects.

"The vast majority of them are misidentified known objects, some probably classified aircraft," said Goodrich, who's retired from the military and works for a civilian contractor at MAFB. "I think a small number of them would very well be alien spacecraft."

Goodrich has been involved with MUFON, a national organization dedicated to finding scientific explanations for UFOs, for 25 years. As state director he assigns field investigators to Montana sightings. But with a dwindling statewide membership (currently eight members), Goodrich said it's impossible to investigate every report.

"The ones that are more worthy of investigation are daylight sightings of metallic objects," he said. "They are much fewer in number."

Goodrich said that when folks see a UFO they either should fill out the sighting report form online at www.mufon.org or call the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) telephone hotline, 206-722-3000, in Davenport, Wash.

Goodrich said local law enforcement officers and public relations officers at Malmstrom usually direct UFO-related calls to MUFON or NUFORC. The NUFORC hotline is staffed 24/7, so it may be the better route, he said.

And while Great Falls has a reputation for some of the more credible UFO reports, Goodrich said folks aren't going to get much attention without a photograph or other physical evidence.

"Anecdotal evidence doesn't really go very far as far as reaching a firm scientific conclusion," he said.
Hogwash!

Arthur Alt, the author of the Tribune's daily Skywatch column who has a doctorate in science education and nine other degrees, doesn't believe aliens from outer space are visiting planet Earth, abducting its inhabitants and flying away with cow teat souvenirs.

"Everybody on this planet sees UFOs - unidentified flying objects," said Alt, a science professor at the University of Great Falls. "That does not translate into little green men flying spaceships. There is not one single solid thread of evidence that they exist."

Alt doesn't think the people who report UFOs are gullible or are telling tall tales. Rather they just have a hard time identifying what they see. Some of the explanations he offered for the misidentified objects in the sky include weather balloons, planets, meteors, iridescent goose wings, and lenticular clouds, which actually resemble flying saucers.

He added that hallucinations and optical illusions also play tricks on the brain.

"Our brain works in a linear fashion," he said, adding he teaches his UGF students to think in a nonlinear fashion and manages to change most of their minds regarding flying saucers by the end of the semester.

Though Alt doesn't believe space aliens are visiting the Earth, he believes they exist.

"I'm absolutely convinced there is intelligent life in the universe outside the Earth," he said.

However, Alt theorizes that the amount of energy, time and food it would take to visit the Earth would not be worth it to any species. He said the nearest star system is about 4 1/2 light years away, which would mean a 10-years roundtrip for a vehicle traveling at the speed of light.

And for what purpose? Ten years is a lot of time just to satisfy curiosity, he said.

Alt added there's no good reason why aliens would collect samples of unintelligent animals like cows, noting the missing cow pieces wouldn't provide much information about reproducing the animal. He believes people, perhaps cult members, are responsible.
Just another Montana Movie

Kelly doesn't have a theory on the cattle mutilations, but he does believe his video shows something of an extraterrestrial nature.

Relaxing in his lawn chair while barbecuing one afternoon, Kelly captured footage of an illuminated object moving across the sky. His video shows a UFO passing behind limbs of a tree and then eventually getting lost in the garble.

"I got pretty excited about it," Kelly said. "I showed my wife right away."

He reported the incident to MUFON and the "Coast to Coast" radio program, but it didn't amount to anything. He didn't pursue the effort further because he was satisfied enough.

"I finally saw one," he said. "I'm happy."

Kelly believes humans are being observed by other life forms from other planets or even dimensions.

"A lot of these could be government secret propulsion programs, too," he said.

And he doesn't believe UFOs pose any threat to himself, his family or mankind in general.

"I'm not afraid ... as long as I'm not a cow," he said.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Stacy Haslem at 791-1490, 800-438-6600 or at shaslem@greatfal.gannett.com.

The daily Le Figaro described the woman, identified only as Safiatou, as vulnerable because she had "problems of confusion." It said she was found dehydrated but alive on Dec. 22.

According to newspaper and television accounts, Safiatou's father had contacted the building concierge Dec. 19 to say his daughter could be stuck in a broken elevator. No alarm went off and the concierge and a repairman found no one when they checked, Le Figaro reported, citing a source close to the investigation.

The technician began repair work the following day. On Dec. 22, the repairman returned to complete the job and heard a soft cry, Le Figaro reported.

On Wednesday, the girl's father, who had advised police of his daughter's disappearance, filed a complaint for non-assistance to a person in danger -- a crime in France -- according to Le Figaro.

Several elevators in the housing project had recently been renovated but not the one in question, according to the news reports. They said that it was unclear why Safiatou did not cry out for help.

Bee abundance data were collected using pan traps and standardized sweep netting, and pollination deficit was assessed by comparing the number of seeds per fruit from open-pollinated and supplementally pollinated flowers. There was no pollination deficit in organic fields, a moderate pollination deficit in conventional fields, and the greatest pollination deficit in GM fields. Bee abundance was greatest in organic fields, followed by conventional fields, and lowest in GM fields. Overall, there was a strong, positive relationship between bee abundance at sampling locations and reduced pollination deficits. Seed set in B. napus increased with greater bee abundance. Because B. rapa is an obligate outcrossing species, the lack of pollination deficit in the organic (B. rapa) fields likely was due to the high bee abundance rather than a lower dependence of B. rapa on pollinators than B. napus canola. Our study illustrates the importance of wild bees to agricultural production and suggests that some agroecosystems may better sustain wild bee abundance, resulting in greater seed production.

Further research on why some cropping systems, such as genetically modified, herbicide-resistant canola, have low wild bee abundance would be useful for management of agroecosystems to promote sustainability of food production. Key words: agriculture; bees; Brassica rapa; Brassica napus; canola; conventional; genetically modified; organic; pollination; sustainable development.