Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division. [...]

Governments and international organizations around the world have taken notice of the changing odds. No governmental official has gone on record claiming that UFOs are real, let alone a threat. Yet with little public fanfare, they have begun preparing for the single most important event in human history: first contact. That is, the moment earthlings discover incontrovertible proof that they are not alone.

Whatever. Regular readers, and those who have done their homework know that such interactions have been going on for years, and not for our benefit.

[...] Unless ET materializes from another dimension in the middle of the Super Bowl, humans most likely will have some advance warning of its arrival. How much time we get to straighten up for extraterrestrial company depends upon who spots ET first. [...]

A side bar on this article mentions that, "The International Academy of Astronautics in Paris maintains a list of volunteers willing to help world governments if ET arrives," and then proceeds to give us the names on the list!

The broad-brush outline for Earth's response to the first alien encounter is set out in an international agreement called the "Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Written by a committee of scientists organized by the SETI Institute, the declaration spells out what astronomers should do, and what they should avoid doing, immediately after first contact.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the agreement is that astronomers who sign on to the declaration agree to keep the news of an imminent contact under their hat until the astronomy community and authorities have been notified. [...]

The rest of the article goes on about their "secret" plans, including poking and prodding on Plum Island. Just yesterday we posted an interesting article with the following commentary:

US and Russian space officials say the crew on board the International Space Station has reported an unidentified object outside the orbiting craft.

A NASA representative in Russia says American astronaut Michael Foale and his Russian colleague, Alexander Kaleri, last week observed what they described as a 20 centimetre long strip of soft material which was floating in space.

The representative says it is still unclear what the object was.

He says US and Russian experts are studying photos sent by the crew to determine its origin but insist it posed no danger to the station.

Russian experts say it could have been a piece of the station's insulation, or a strip used to attach some technical equipment to the outside of the station. [...]

Strange things have been happening lately. Global warming is about to cause a massive new Ice Age, George Bush is looking more and more like a one-term president and al Qaeda says it now has nuclear capability.

While we have all the money in the world to spend on the military and on security, the United States can't spend one dime to implement the Kyoto protocols, which would at least give us a chance at stemming the upcoming disasters.

At the same time, UFOs are being sighted at all-time levels, our Mars rovers keep sending back strange images and alien abductions appear to be on the rise as well.

It may well be time to break out the tinfoil hats and start stocking up on food and water, as the Apocalypse appears to be nigh.

In Canada, the environmental minister is warning that global warming is a bigger long-term threat than terrorism because climate changes will cause the relocation of millions of people and leave North American agriculture in ruins.

"Terrorism is unlikely to give us the strong possibility of 500 million refugees," said the minister, David Anderson. "Climate change is likely to give us that if it goes unchecked."

While we have all the money in the world to spend on the military and on security, the United States can't spend one dime to implement the Kyoto protocols, which would at least give us a chance at stemming the upcoming disasters.

It's a bizarre time to be alive. While every generation likes to boast that the end is near, in this case the predictions may actually be true. We may just be a year or two away from a near-total economic collapse in America, resulting in massive rioting in our cities.

And the reason the UFOs appear to be showing up in record numbers is because aliens apparently like to watch the action, in the same way I used to watch the goings-on in my ant farm.

My eyes have been opened to all of these possibilities thanks to the great Art Bell, the radio talk-show host who explores these things on Saturday and Sunday nights.

In fact, the other night, I called into his show after a very bizarre event happened in my own life.

I'd come home from work on a Monday feeling dog-tired. I got home, took a shower, shaved, gave food and water to my cats and laid down for a nap around 5:30 p.m. I slept for what felt like hours, having very vivid dreams.

When I woke up, most of the cats' food and water had been consumed. When I walked into the bathroom, I had the beginning of a 5 o'clock shadow. I felt totally refreshed from my nap.

But when I looked down at my watch, it was only 6:30 p.m. Obviously, there'd been some sort of time manipulation at work.

So when I asked Bell about my situation, he told me that I'd been the victim of what is called a "time slip." It apparently happens pretty frequently and its cause is unknown. Some have said that it is connected with the abduction phenomena, while others see it as only a time-space anomaly.

Either way, it was bizarre. [...]

Now, do I really believe in alien abductions, UFOs and the forthcoming apocalypse? Not necessarily. What I do know is that there are many things which science cannot adequately explain and which the U.S. government has been covering up for decades.

If there are no UFOs, then why haven't the records from the 1947 Roswell crash ever been released? Why have a succession of presidential candidates promised to open up all the UFO-related files and then reneged?

I remember enough from my physics class that any extraterrestrial pilot would have to be traveling at faster than light speed to even come close to bridging the considerable distance between earth and any other life-bearing entity.

The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is about four light years away from us. That's approximately 24 trillion miles. It would take tens of thousands of years for us to get there if we traveled at the fastest rate possible today. So the possibility of these abductions all being real seems small.

But, as I said above, these are bizarre times. I'm not ready to completely discount anything in this realm.

There are individuals who've claimed to be the victims of alien implants. Doctors have removed objects from them that appear to be comprised of materials previously unknown to us.

If there are indeed extraterrestrials roaming around our planet, I wouldn't be so sure their intentions are good. If they've expended all this effort to reach us, I'm relatively sure that they want something more than just to observe us.

And, according to some who've studied the issue, a very high percentage of humans today are actually a hybrid of human and alien. Maybe the level is as high as 40 percent.

Who am I to say none of this is true? While it's pretty ridiculous on its face to believe in any of this, I'm keeping an open mind.

And I'm keeping my tinfoil hat at the ready.

On January 14, Lindsay [...] noticed something odd. A security camera trained on a couple of the plant's boiler stacks happened to capture an object moving across the sky .

"I saw a long, black object, and I could see flames starting at its nose and going up both sides of it," Lindsay tells the Strip.
Lindsay wasn't sure what he was seeing, so the 52-year-old did what he figured was the responsible thing -- he made a videotape of the flight and alerted the media .

He had better luck with KMBC Channel 9 , which aired Lindsay's tape and called NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command), only to find that the U.S. military claimed not to know anything about a re-entering piece of space junk over Kansas City. The ABC station also consulted an astronomer, who said the object was probably a large meteor. [...]

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Vancouver and Toronto topped the list of Canadian cities with sightings of unidentified flying objects, according to an annual report.

According to the 2003 Canadian UFO Survey released Tuesday by Ufology Research of Manitoba, there were 673 UFO sightings across Canada last year, 39 percent more than in 2002. Of the sightings reported last year, 41 were in Vancouver and 34 in Toronto.

"It's still puzzling why we're seeing an increase," survey author Chris Rutkowski said. "It could be that more people are willing to admit they've seen a UFO because they see other people admitting it. The ridicule barrier is almost completely eliminated."

Of the total sightings, 17 percent remain unexplained.

"We have enough information to judge that the other objects were a star or an aircraft," Rutkowski said.

John Stewart doesn't believe in aliens but he would like an explanation for the saucer-like object he saw in the sky last summer. The Stony Mountain resident, along with his wife and 11-year-old son, reported seeing the unidentified flying object on Aug. 23 while driving into Winnipeg.

"It was the freakiest thing I've ever seen in my life," said Stewart, who works for a local recording company. "It was absolutely amazing to see and the more I think about it, the more I wish I could see it again."

Stewart's sighting was one of 25 reported in the province last year, according to the 2003 Canadian UFO Survey. The survey was released yesterday by an independent research group led by Winnipegger Chris Rutkowski.

Stewart said the saucer caught his eye while driving past a farmer's field on Highway 7 about 6:45 p.m. that day. He initially assumed it was a small airplane or helicopter, hovering 30 to 40 metres above the ground, but he realized it was much more than that after the object flew over the highway median and turned sideways as it passed cars at speeds of up to 140 km/h.

"Me and my wife looked at each other and said 'What the hell is that?' " Stewart recalled yesterday. "It wasn't aerodynamic at all, so it shouldn't have been able to have been flying, let alone flying while going that fast."

The object was pewter in colour and had a diameter of about three metres, he said, with black and symmetrical, ball-like windows along the side. After it flew over Stewart's truck, the family lost sight of the UFO only 90 seconds after first spotting it.

"I have no idea what it was," he said. "If I believed in aliens I'd have thought it was a probe of some sort but I don't know about that."

DRAWINGS SIMILAR

At Rutkowski's urging, all three family members drew a picture of what they saw. All three drawings were strikingly similar, said Stewart.

He said he wouldn't have come forward if he had spotted the object while alone, saying there is a stigma attached to people who report such sightings. Even his friends were skeptical when he told them about it.

"Nobody believed me until my wife said she saw it, too," he said. "So they now believe we saw something."

Stewart's sighting was one of 115 in Canada last year that have no apparent explanation, said Rutkowski. [...]

A CITY pensioner is hoping someone can shed light on a gigantic flash across the sky over his house which caused his radio to lose its channels.

John Reynolds, who lives in St John's with his wife Margaret, said he was stunned by the phenomenon, which happened at around 10pm on Wednesday evening.

"I was putting milk bottles out for the next morning, and I saw the whole sky light up like a gigantic explosion," said the 63-year-old.

"I thought it was a bomb because it was so vivid, I've never seen anything like it before.

"It lit up into a yellow colour like a sheet of lightning, but it was so white that I thought it wasn't lightning.

"When I came back in the house my CD and radio player was going berserk, and we have now lost every channel on the radio."

Mr Reynolds, who works as a printing agent, said he saw a friend the following day who had a similar experience at his St John's home.

"He was in the shower at 10pm the same night and the water went off for a few seconds," said the father of two.

"This man's central heating had a clock, which has now gone wrong."

Thunder

Worcester police said they had not had any calls reporting unusual lights over St John's.

Evening News weatherman, Paul Damari said there was no thunder and lightning in the area at the time.

"No-one has reported anything unusual to me," he said.

Michael Soper, spokesman for Contact International, which collects and analyses data on UFO and crop circle reports, said he had no idea what could have caused the gigantic flash, and did not class the incident as a UFO sighting.

"If there had been several flashes I would have wondered if it was a covert signalling system," he said.

[...] I saw a low flying Florescent tube, about 1⁄2 to 1 mile away from me in northern California, in a little town called Middletown which is approximately 100 miles north of San Francisco. I have a degree in EE and am definitely not a nut or prone to hallucinations! It was very brightly glowing mostly white/with a slight tinge of lime.

It appeared to be approx 60 to 80 ft long and about 20 ft. wide. I have never seen a UFO before, but this was definitely a strange sight. No noise at all, but there was a very thin almost an invisible vapor trail behind it and it was moving about 60 mph. I observed it for about 30 seconds when I looked down for 5 seconds to move my car completely off the road, all that remained was the thin vapor like trail which actually stopped at the last place I saw this light. I would surmise that it just disappeared or stopped leaving a trail.[...]

[...] Roswell, New Mexico, is considered by many to be the "mothership" of alien adventure; one of the most famous UFO "crashes" occurred here in 1947. Since then a whole culture of alien-awareness has grown. But the city hardly holds a monopoly on extraterrestrial excitement. In fact, there are several alternatives to this mainstream alien hot spot.

One of them is Dreamy Draw, a recreation area near Phoenix, Arizona. As the story goes, a UFO crashed there in 1947, just three months after the Roswell incident. The remains of two 4-1/2-foot passengers were reportedly taken from the crash site and kept in a local's freezer until the military took them away. True believers say that shortly after the crash, the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam at the site to cover up the evidence. According to the city of Phoenix, the dam wasn't built until 1973. Decide for yourself.

If you'd like the opportunity to see a UFO, head out to the "UFO Watchtower" in Hooper, Colorado. Judy Messoline, a former cattle rancher, opened the observatory in 2000. Since then, she has played host to thousands of visitors and claims to have documented numerous sightings.

A cemetery in Aurora, Texas, supposedly features an alien pilot's burial site. A nearby state historical marker tells the legend of a spacecraft that crashed there in 1897. However, the exact location of the pilot's grave is unknown. If you can't make it out to the cemetery, rent "Aurora Encounter," about the alien's visit.

Aliens must like Wisconsin. It's home to three UFO "Capitals of the World." First there's Dundee, where every summer believers and nonbelievers alike gather to celebrate extraterrestrial visitations. They call it UFO Daze. Coincidentally, several UFOs have been reportedly sighted on nearby Highway 67.

Wisconsin's second "UFO Capital of the World" is Elmwood. UFOs allegedly started visiting the area in the mid-70s. Since then, residents claim to have seen anywhere from 30 to 50 strange-looking objects in the sky. Every year the town holds a festival that includes a group "UFO Watch."

And then there's Belleville, which holds its annual UFO celebration the last Saturday in October. [...]

Blimey they don't half sell some old rubbish on eBay, eh? The latest extraordinary item to come to our attention is a close encounter video apparently shot in 1998 by someone called "Sargel18". [...]

This amazing photograph snapped over Plymouth is being called one of the best pictures of a UFO ever taken.

A city-based amateur photographer captured this image when he was trying out his new hi-tech digital camera at night. It shows what can only be described as an 'unidentified flying object' hovering above St Budeaux.

Another, equally stunning, snap shows the same brightly-illuminated object tilted at a different angle.

UFO experts are highly excited by the pictures and the Royal Navy today asked the Herald to supply them with the photos - because they want to study them.

Plymouth-based UFOlogist Bob Boyd has called the snaps among the 'best five' pictures of a UFO he has ever seen - in 25 years of spotting the phenomena. Mr Boyd, chairman of the Plymouth UFO Research Group, said: "It's the real thing."
He claimed the picture had been examined by a photographic expert who confirmed it was genuine.

The man who took the photograph, a dockyard worker living in St Budeaux, didn't realise what he had snapped until he got home and inspected his pictures.

A Plymouth City Airport spokesman said it was 'highly unlikely' it was a commercial flight. Mr Boyd does not know of anybody else reporting the UFO, but said: "That doesn't mean nobody saw it."

These startling images of a UFO hovering above the streets of St Budeaux were captured by an amateur photographer. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, was trying a new digital camera by taking shots at night. It wasn't until he got home and inspected his pictures that he spotted the illuminated object. [...]

The Royal Navy has asked the Herald to send it the pictures - so they can be studied by experts.

A spokesman said the navy had Lynx and Sea King helicopters in the air that night, but could not reveal their whereabouts. [...]

[...] He was a total sceptic before this but he's now a firm believer. He was really shocked by what happened.'

The photographs were taken on January 28, just before 6pm, at St Budeaux Square in the Devon city.

Daily Record Picture Editor Stuart Nicol was more sceptical. He said: 'It could be a number of things.

'What concerns me most is that the images of the UFO are sharp but there is a degree of movement in the landscape.'

Alien abductees and university professors who specialize in extraterrestrial research gathered last night at University Medical Center to share their out-of-this-world experiences.

UA professor Gary Schwartz emceed a free lecture titled "Evidence for Extraterrestrial Life?"

More than 50 people attended the event, which featured two documentaries and a question-and-answer session with two doctors who believe that extraterrestrial life exists in some form.

Schwartz, the director of the UA's Human Energy Systems Lab, said, "Our lab works in controversial areas, but the topic tonight is extremely controversial."

Dr. Lynne Kitei, a cardiologist from Phoenix, recounted her numerous UFO sightings and showed the audience a documentary featuring her home video of the phenomena, titled "The Phoenix Lights."

Kitei had her first UFO sighting in 1995. She was taking a bath when her husband started screaming to her from their bedroom to come see the unusual lights that were "hovering" outside the window.

Kitei described the lights as "three amber orbs, each about 3 to 6 feet in diameter, about 50 to 75 feet above us, hovering in a triangular formation."

She took video and still photos of the lights as they "dimmed away."

Two years later, on March 13, 1997, Kitei said a mass UFO sighting occurred in Phoenix and throughout Arizona. Up to 10,000 people saw the orbs of light that Kitei described as they waited to see the Hale-Bopp comet.

Panic ensued as people called the police departments and fire departments. No one knew what caused the unusual lights that some described as being attached to some sort of ship that was said to be more than a mile long, she said.

Kitei called Luke Air Force base and could not obtain any information. She contacted the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, where one air traffic controller and one commercial pilot reported seeing the lights. Nothing showed up on the radar.

The mystery went unsolved until 2000, when the National Guard staged an air show to prove to the public that an Air Force maneuver was behind the mysterious "Phoenix lights." They flew planes with flares attached to them over the city to "re-enact" the event.

But the people who had witnessed the real Phoenix lights, including Kitei, were still skeptical.

Kitei contacted Schwartz, who was reluctant to take on the subject.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't really want to see her," he said.

But Schwartz found Kitei's evidence very convincing and said that she was "alarmingly sane."

[...] Schwartz said we as a culture need to stop denying reliable data on controversial subjects.

"Shakespeare said, ‘To be or not to be; that is the question.' But for us, it's, ‘To see or not to see; that is the question," he said.

ST. PETERSBURG - The aliens have landed.

Thus declared Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell on Saturday to more than 200 admirers.

"A few insiders know the truth . . . and are studying the bodies that have been discovered," said Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the moon.

Mitchell, who landed on the moon with Alan B. Shepard, said a "cabal" of insiders stopped briefing presidents about extraterrestrials after President Kennedy.

For those who might consider his statements farfetched, Mitchell, who has a doctorate in science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that 30 years ago it was accepted that man was alone in the universe. Few people believe that now, he said.

Small, unidentified low-flying, slow-moving aircraft have been reported in the area north of the Scioto County line in the A-plant area. Several ideas about the purpose of the aircraft have been offered.

Are the aircraft small patrol planes from Homeland Security watching for Al-Quaida intrusions at the A-plant? Or perhaps the craft are alien space ships that are flying close to the nuclear plant to recharge their batteries before zooming off to Mars, Pluto, Uranus, or other strange and unusual places such as Cleveland, San Francisco or DisneyWorld.

One sighting was in the area of the Southbound Flea Market on U.S. 23. Pike County residents said the craft was moving silently from the direction of the A-plant just at dusk with lights flashing. Are these aircraft something more sinister than mere interplanetary cruise ships? Could these aircraft be attack planes carrying weapons of mass deception? Or are they possibly reconnaisance craft from an earthly nation? Or, are they merely tourists gathering, practicing and preparing for a flying visit to busy, vibrant, downtown Portsmouth?

In another sighting it was reported that an aircraft was seen flying from the direction of Frasure's Lake. Are the craft secretly harbored in the hills of the wilderness of western Scioto County? We don't yet have the answers. If sightings continue to be reported we will ask Doug Deepe to investigate. He is an Air Force flying veteran; he will find the answer.

Several members of our staff think they have the answer. One unsteady fellow even offered up the demented idea that the aircraft are only silent hang-gliders powered by electricity. What do you think? [...]

[...] Did you ever notice how oddly UFOs are said to behave by some witnesses? They seem to act almost... playful. They seem to enjoy playing hide-and-seek or cat-and-mouse games with people.

Foo fighters , objects seen in the skies over Europe during World War Two, were said to fly along for a time at the wingtips of allied aircraft, then turn away and vanish into the sky, much like dolphins will follow a boat for a time before going off to do dolphin things. They never showed any aggression.

More recently, UFOs seem to acknowledge the presence of aircraft, to follow them or to fly alongside them, even seeming to dare aircraft to chase them at times. A good example is the RB-47 case of 1957. According to some reports, UFOs seem to sense the presence of people on the ground and to interact with them at times, to follow cars, to show themselves and then dart away, even to signal with light in a few cases.

Are these behaviors what we would expect from an extraterrestrial craft containing intelligent alien beings? At times it seems to me that some UFOs might be living beings in themselves, rather than alien spacecraft.

Some types of UFOs, such as Jose Escamilla's rods , are certainly presented as living creatures of some kind. "Orbs" and "spooklights", if they aren't merely a physical phenomenon, seem more to be living creatures than to be craft containing aliens.

The idea that UFOs might be some sort of living creatures inhabiting earth's atmosphere rather than nuts-and-bolts craft is not a new one. Charles Fort seemed to believe something of the sort about some of the reports that he collected. Kenneth Arnold, the first "modern" UFO witness, believed later in his life that UFOs were living creatures. Trevor James Constable is the author of several books, including The Cosmic Pulse of Life and Sky Creatures, in which he proposes that UFOs are "Plasmatic inhabitants of our atmosphere."

A GROUP of children playing in Littleborough reckon they have had a close encounter with a UFO.

So vivid was their experience at about 7pm on Thursday they have started to draw what they saw.

They say the spacecraft hovered slowly just over the rooftops for several minutes and then shot off at hyper speed.

Lindsey Stansfield, of Timbercliffe, Summit, said her sons, Louis, aged eight, and Cameron, aged five, were playing with friends on a trampoline outside their home when they spotted the ‘extra terrestrial'.

She said: "The children saw the object flying slowly above the houses. Some of the children thought it was triangular in shape and others square, but it could have been to do with what angle they saw it."

"It had red lights around the edge and yellow lights in the middle. They rushed in to tell us about it, but the time we got out it had gone. The children say the object had stopped above the house behind us and then shot off in hyper drive. Later that evening they started drawing pictures of what they had seen."

"I would like to know if anyone else in Littleborough saw the object."

Louis said: "I looked up and saw some lights flashing in the sky. I went in the house to get my mother, but when we went out it had gone."

A spokesman for the National Air Traffic service said: "There was no reported alien activity in controlled airspace that we are aware of."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: "I am not aware of any other reported sightings. We do have a UFO report line telephone number so that people can report things which they cannot explain." [...]

[...] "There are people who say you shouldn't be teaching this kind of thing in your classrooms," says Alan G. Hill, a Delta associate professor of sociology who has dealt with unexplained phenomenon such as Jeff's close encounters for decades now. "Some just think it's a waste of money." [...]

At its peak, tens of thousands would await the latest lurid tales of alien autopsies and flying saucers spying on sleepy market towns.

Yet the publication that took UFOs from the sci-fi hinterland to the mainstream has now enjoyed its final print run. After almost 25 years, UFO Magazine was quietly shut down last week. Suggestions of paranormal interference or alien involvement have been ruled out. The reason is more down-to-earth: not enough people care these days.

Sources said its closure had been inevitable since the death of editor and world UFO expert Graham Birdsall last September. Birdsall along with younger brother Mark founded the Leeds-based magazine in 1981. Soon it became the world's top UFO publication, selling up to 35,000 copies at its height. Subscribers still talk about the puncture marks on sheep carcasses which offered proof that extra-terrestrial visitors had arrived to suck the juices of livestock.

Andy Roberts, author of UFO books and former magazine contributor, said the public's fascination with mysterious flying objects had faded. [...]

How standoff left 2 dead, 1 injured, countless in shock

[...] Pat Hutchinson was always talking of Martians, clones and UFOs. After he shot his wife and the two firefighters and was still inside the house, Pat told a reporter: "There's only 735 true humans left in Lexington. Less than 3 million left worldwide." [...]

[...] "Let's go back in time just a bit," he said, before introducing some television clips as a way of reminding the audience the story of the Phoenix Lights.

A lot of people were watching the skies that night to see the Hale-Bopp comet. Instead, dozens reported seeing a V-shaped formation fly over Phoenix around 8 p.m., roughly following Interstate 17 north to south through town, before disappearing in the southern sky. Some said the craft was a mile long. Others said they could see through it and that the lights seemed to move independently of each other. [...]

Kitei herself didn't see the big "V" fly over Phoenix. But for years, she had seen a series of lights appear in the southwestern sky, somewhere in the area of the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range. Military pilots routinely drop flares there, and documents showed they dropped an unusually large number on the night of March 13, 1997. [...]

Kitei described her first sighting, in 1995, of three amber orbs close to her mountainside home. She placed them in the sky with her hands as she described how they disappeared in place. "I didn't put this in the book, because the publisher thought it would be too much," she said, "but I felt there was an intelligent presence watching."

The orbs appeared again, more frequently, in 1997. By March of that year, Kitei said she was videotaping them every night. She said the lights do appear to act like flares, "but the video does not do it justice." [...]

Her book mentions that most people who experience an unexplained phenomenon, like a near-death experience, or an alien abduction, come away with a sense of tranquility and peace.

"Maybe these phenomenon are touching one person at a time," she said. "Whatever it takes to wake a person up to the spiritual beings we are and the goodness we can put forth during this short time we're on Earth."

One month after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Kitei said she began to meditate, trying to communicate with whatever was creating the orbs near the Estrella and South mountains. "Have you forgotten about us? Do you know what happened down here?" she asked quietly. It had been awhile since the orbs appeared. But a few minutes later, she looked out her picture window, and there they were.

"And it did give me comfort," she said. "For whatever reason, it did."

Astronomer Philip Plait is tired of radio personality Richard Hoagland's claims. He's had enough of Hoagland's assertions that NASA is covering up evidence of extraterrestrial life, that the infamous Face on Mars was built by sentient aliens and, of late, that otherworldly machine parts are embedded in the red planet's dirt. [...]

AZTEC - Fifty-six years ago on a small, dirt road north of Aztec, something unexplainable happened.

A saucer-shaped ship, 100-feet in diameter, was said to have crash-landed leaving small charred bodies inside. There were eyewitnesses - military, locals and police officers. There are Air Force documents one man is working to declassify.

Scott Ramsey of Charlotte, N.C., has spent the past 14 years of his life researching the purported Aztec UFO crash of 1948. He has traveled to 28 states, visited numerous military bases and talked to alleged eyewitnesses of the event.

"We want to be extremely careful to make sure people are reliable witnesses," Ramsey said of his research. "We really try not to open our mouth until a lot of research has been done."

Ramsey will present his findings at the 7th annual Aztec UFO Symposium Friday through Sunday at Koogler Middle School. His talk, which he says is "no smoking gun," will be presented at 11 a.m. Saturday.

The alleged Aztec crash occurred only months after the more famous 1947 Roswell crash of another alleged UFO. It was two years before the March 17, 1950, Farmington UFO Armada, which celebrates its 54th anniversary today. [...]

AZTEC - A man, who said there is no Jesus - only alien creators - will speak at the 7th annual Aztec UFO Symposium Saturday.

George Green claims religion is "the biggest problem on the planet," blinding mankind, so people can no longer think.

"His being here may cause controversy, and I think it will be good for the symposium," said coordinator Dave Albright, who invited Green to speak during the Aztec Library's event. "I don't think he's involved in any cults."

Green claims his contact with UFOs and extraterrestrials began when he was 19 years old and serving in the Air Force. He said he saw a silver disc in a hangar at Edward's Air Force Base and was later shown photos of two dead aliens.

"When the government is ready to tell the story about UFOs and ETs, it will," Green said.

From his stint in the military, Green went to college and became involved in real estate development. But his life changed 26 years ago, when he attended a secret meeting in Aspen, Colo., where he was asked to be the financier for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. During this meeting, he said he discovered there are 300 families who control the planet.

Some members of these families, who look like humans, are actually of a "reptilian race," Green said.

Albright said Green is not alone in his thinking about reptilian aliens controlling the planet. This will just be the first time this type of thinking