Sightings of unidentified flying objects have soared in the last month, with at least two a week seen by airline pilots in South Wales.
Dancing lights, large craft and mysterious flashes are among dozens of UFOs sighted above Cardiff and the South Wales Valleys in the last few years.
And only four days ago, on the night of Christmas Day, a couple saw spherical orange lights in the sky above their home in the capital.
According to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has looked into 13 reports of UFOs in South Wales in the past three years. Several other sightings have been posted on UFO websites but it is thought that many more go unreported.
Environment Canada and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada can't explain just what it was a Prince Edward Island couple filmed in the Island skies on Wednesday evening.
When Tony Quigley and his wife Marie of North Tryon, just east of the Confederation Bridge, saw a dark spiral in the sky they went for the video camera.
"When we first saw it, it was going so slow. We said, is it a meteorite, or what the heck is it? So when we did start to tape, it was above the cloud and that's the part we missed," said Marie Quigley.
Poland plans to open its first exorcism center, for those who believe they are possessed by the devil, in the town of Poczernin 30 km (18 miles) from the city of Szczeczin, Polish media said Wednesday.
Andrzej Trojanowski, a Catholic priest working in the city says the center will be equipped with a chapel and will have a psychiatrist on hand.
Trojanowski said there was a demand for the service as he deals with up to 20 people a week allegedly possessed by the devil.
The center was the idea of the Catholic Church in Poland, which already has around 50 working exorcists, and the project is expected to provide spiritual help and guidance to the needy.
Opposition lawmakers have joined ruling party members in calling on Cabinet members to stop talking about UFOs.
Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama on Friday told reporters that government officials and lawmakers should avoid getting deeply involved in the UFO discussions, adding his voice to similar comments by some ruling party lawmakers.
"If aliens existed and came to Earth, they would have to be creatures of far greater intellect than human beings, which is just impossible," said Hatoyama, who is often called an "alien" because of his appearance. "Since it's all complete fantasy, it makes no sense to discuss how the Defense Ministry should respond."
Hatoyama's eagerness to close the curtain on the UFO discussion stems partly from the fact that it was a DPJ lawmaker who triggered the discussion by submitting a written question to the Cabinet, which asked whether the government could confirm that UFOs were alien spacecraft, according to sources.
Top-secret details about hundreds of sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects are to be released for public viewing in response to the nation's continuing fascination with the subject.
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| Top-secret details about UFO sightings are to be released to the public
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The Ministry of Defence will release a total of 160 files dating back to that time to the National Archives in Kew.
The first files will be made available in Spring 2008 and the process is expected to take three years.
The MoD has received reports of over 10,000 UFO sightings since the UFO project was set up in 1950.
Agency ordered to meticulously comb for documents about 1965 Pennsylvania incident.
Kecksburg, Pennsylvania - The U.S. government says nothing of note happened in this small town in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania at 4:47 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1965. A meteor may have passed by, but no alien ship or Russian space probe fell to Earth, as many here believe.
Still, Bill Bulebush, 82, says he knows what he saw, heard and smelled, despite the doubts of the government and others in this community 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
"I looked up and saw it flying overhead, and it was sizzling," said Bulebush, a retired truck driver. "I found it in the woods down there (in a valley) and I got to it 15 to 20 minutes after it landed. I saw it 10 to 15 feet away from behind a big tree - because I was worried it might blow up - and it smelled like sulfur or rotten eggs and was shaped like a huge acorn, about the size of a VW."
A motorist who is a high school football coach is seeking more information about a strange object he says he saw in the skies above Camp Pendleton late Tuesday.
Heading south on Interstate 5 at about 10:45 p.m., Tony Paopao said he and his wife saw what appeared to be a large, brightly lit flying vehicle pass overhead and briefly hover in place, before heading toward the mountains of Camp Pendleton and then out of sight.
"It was about 100 yards up. It was too low to be a plane and it was too fast and too quiet to be a helicopter," Paopao said. "I'm just curious if anybody saw what I saw."
Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Thursday that he was troubled over potential legal issues if a UFO arrives in Japan, requiring action by the Self-Defense Forces, Japanese media reports.
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| Japan's Defense Minister: "Nobody ever questioned the legality over mobilizing the Self-Defense Forces in the Godzilla movies."
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The subject was triggered by a question from oppositional lawmaker Ryuji Yamane, who argued the government should attempt to confirm what UFOs are because of "frequent observations" of them in Japan.
"There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and some life-form that controls them," Ishiba said at a news conference. "Various possibilities should be considered."
Lincolnton - George Fawcett, a local author and a veteran UFO investigator and researcher for 67 years has released a revised and enlarged version of his book, UFO Repetitions - A Challenge to Scientific Investigations.
Fawcett has investigated over 1,200 UFO sighting reports and has read over 700 books and 1,000 magazine articles on the subject since 1944. He has had published over 100 UFO investigative and research articles he has written in Flying Saucers Magazine, Search, Fate, Saga, Argosy, True, Flying Saucer Review, National Enquirer, UFO Magazine, UFO Universe Magazine, MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings. In 1975 Fawcett authored the highly illustrated book, Quarter Century of UFOs in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee.
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Tokyo - Yes, UFOs do exist, Japan's top government spokesman said on Tuesday.
The comment by chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters at his regular briefing on government policy.
