Vatican: It's OK to Believe in Aliens

waltky · 05-13-2008, 10:29 PM

Pope Benny endorses UFO's...

Tuesday, May. 13, 2008 — Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

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The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones. "How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said. The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.

Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy. The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

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U.K. releases batch UFO sightings files
13 May,`08 — The men were air traffic controllers. Experienced, calm professionals. Nobody was drinking. But they were so worried about losing their jobs that they demanded their names be kept off the official report.

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No one, they knew, would believe their claim an unidentified flying object landed at the airport they were overseeing in the east of England, touched down briefly, then took off again at tremendous speed. Yet that's what they reported happened at 4 p.m. on April 19, 1984. The incident is one of hundreds of reported sightings contained in more than 1,000 pages of formerly secret UFO documents being released Wednesday by Britain's National Archives. It is one of the few that was never explained. The air traffic controllers' "Report of Unusual Aerial Phenomenon" was filed from an unspecified small airport near the eastern coast of England.

The men, each with more than eight years on the job, described how they were helping guide a small plane to a landing on runway 22 when they were distracted by a brightly lit object approaching a different runway without clearance. "Everyone became aware that the object was unidentified," their report said. "SATCO (code name for a controller with 14 years experience) reports that the object came in 'at speed,' made a touch and go on runway 27, then departed at 'terrific speed' in a 'near vertical' climb."

The incident is one of the more credible in the newly public files because it was reported by air traffic controllers, said David Clarke, a UFO expert who worked with the National Archives on the document release. "They were absolutely astonished," he said. "It was a bright, circular object, flashing different colors, and after it touched down it disappeared at fantastic speed. The report comes from very qualified people, and it's one of the few that remained unexplained."

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waltky · 05-15-2008, 09:41 PM

Solving a UFO riddle...

How to crack a case from the UFO files
Thurs., May. 15, 2008 : 1984 Minsk sighting serves as case study for flying-saucer sleuthing

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The highly publicized releases of "UFO files" from France and Britain provide more puzzling tales about anomalous aerial objects over the years. But the stories behind some of the most spectacular sightings in UFO history will come to light only when the Russian Ministry of Defense opens up its files. Consider one of the most sensational UFO stories in Soviet history — a story that has been enshrined in world "ufology" as a classic that cannot be explained in any prosaic terms. The tale of the Minsk UFO sighting can teach a lesson about the vigor of unidentified flying objects as a cultural phenomenon.

A passenger jet is flying north on Sept. 7, 1984, near Minsk, in present-day Belarus. Suddenly, at 4:10 a.m., the flight crew notices a glowing object out their forward right window. In the 10 minutes that follow, the object changes shape, zooms in on the aircraft, plays searchlights on the ground beneath it, and envelops the airliner in a mysterious ray of light that fatally injures one of the pilots. Other aircraft in the area, alerted by air traffic control operators who are watching the UFO on radar, also see it.

The incident figures prominently in "UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union," a 1992 book by Jacques Vallee, who was the real-life inspiration for the fictional ufologist in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." “No natural explanation [is] possible, given the evidence,” Vallee wrote. A leading Russian UFO expert, Vladimir Azhazha, reported that as a result of the encounter the co-pilot “had a serious mental derangement — the encephalogram of his brain was not of an ‘earthly’ character, as he lost memory for long periods of time.”

More How to crack a case from the UFO files - Space - MSNBC.com

Icorigin · 05-15-2008, 10:55 PM

Explore

FANTASYLESSONS

Remember, who did what crime, how, and when
can be seen by racing ahead of the speed
of light showing the crime, setting up a
powerful telescrope on a distant planet,
and watching the whole thing in real time.

waltky · 06-03-2008, 09:52 PM

Uncle Ferd says they prob'ly couldn't afford the high price of gas, ran out an' crashed to the ground...

Vietnamese island showered with UFO remains?
May 29,`08 : Aliens from outer space might not be a thing of science fiction anymore, especially after a small Vietnamese island was showered with metal-like debris, courtesy a UFO explosion.

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According to reports, the unidentified flying object is not believed to be a plane as none have been reported missing in the area. Investigators are working on the theory the explosion happened five miles above the ground. A search of Phu Quoc island off southern Vietnam uncovered shards of grey "metal" up to four feet long.

On May 29, soldiers examined the area for clues as airlines in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand insisted none of their aircraft were missing in the area. Villagers in the nearby Cambodian province of Kampot said on May 27 that they had heard a loud explosion. A day later they found chunks of material near the coastline.

After the explosion Kung Mony, of Cambodia's Air Force, claimed it could have been a foreign plane but he later backed down from the theory. One explanation could be that the plane was a military one - but none of the nearby countries has admitted to losing any aircraft.

Vietnamese island showered with UFO remains?

waltky · 06-18-2008, 12:51 AM

Chinese develope UFO...

Chinese company develops UFO - report
June 17, 2008 - A CHINESE company has developed a prototype flying saucer that can hover in the air and be controlled remotely from afar, state press said today.

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The aircraft is 1.2 metres in diameter and is able to take off and land vertically and hover at an altitude of up to 1000 metres, Xinhua news agency said.

The unmanned disc is driven by a propeller and can be controlled remotely or sent on a preset flight path, it said. Its top speed is 80km/h, it added.

It took the Harbin Smart Special Aerocraft Co Ltd 12 years and 28 million yuan ($4.36 million) to develop the prototype craft, which is designed for aerial photography, geological surveys and emergency lighting, the report said.

Chinese company develops UFO - report | NEWS.com.au

waltky · 10-20-2008, 05:54 AM

Granny says she always knowed dey was real...

Declassified 'X-files' reveal UFOs
October 20, 2008 * US pilot ordered to shoot down UFO * Was told never to tell anyone * Incident revealed in declassified files

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A FORMER fighter pilot has told how he was ordered to shoot down a UFO the size of an aircraft carrier over England 50 years ago. The encounter over Norwich is detailed in one of 19 files declassified by Britain's Ministry of Defence and released by the National Archives yesterday. RAF controllers told US pilot Milton Torres to "lock on" and launch all 24 of his rockets over the city, The Sun reports. As the 26-year-old US Air Force lieutenant came within seconds of firing at the alien intruder - the size of an aircraft carrier on his radar - it vanished at 16,000km/h.

Mr Torres, then based at RAF Manston in Kent, told The Sun: "It was some kind of alien snooping over England. I guess we’ll never know what it was". Speaking publicly about the incident for the first time, he said he was ordered late one night in 1957 to scramble in his F-86D Sabre fighter to attack a "bogey" hovering above Norfolk. "I was told I would be firing a complete salvo, all 24 rockets. I was pumped up - this was the sort of thing that happened before a war," he told the paper.

He had the UFO on his radar and closed in at almost 1125km/h before the shape disappeared off his screen in a flash. Mr Torres, now 77, said: "I was smoking, as fast as I could go. This thing had a different propulsion system. It was not an airplane." He said he was visited afterwards by a sinister security official and warned not to tell anyone.

The files also reveal an incident in which a commercial jet almost collided with a UFO as it began its descent into London's Heathrow airport in 1991. The captain of Alitalia Flight AZ 284 saw something alarming overhead before the missile-shaped object suddenly veered across the airliner's path. He shouted "look out!" as he attempted to avert a mid-air collision 22,000ft above the Kent countryside, the Daily Mail newspaper reports. The object then disappeared.

US pilot ordered to shoot down UFO over Norwich | NEWS.com.au

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UFO sightings become public after release of files
Monday 20th October, 2008 - Dozens of UFO sightings in UK Defence Ministry files have recently been released by the National Archives in London.

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As a result of the release, The Times newspaper has reported that two US fighter planes, based in Britain during the Cold War in the 1950's, were ordered to shoot down a UFO over the English countryside. Previously secret files which have been made public show that one pilot had locked his rockets onto the object, which the pilot said was moving erratically and was similar to "a flying aircraft carrier."

The pilot, Milton Torres, who is now 77 and living in the US, said the UFO spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 12,000 kph. Mr Torres said that after the incident, he was told by government officials never to talk about the incident.

In his account to the Times, Mr Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet over Manston, Kent in May 1957. "The order came to fire rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets. I had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier; the larger the aeroplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself."

At the last moment, the object disappeared from the radar screen and Mr Torres returned his plane to base. UFO experts have suggested the sighting may have been part of a secret US project to create phantom aircraft on radar screens to test Soviet air defences.

UFO sightings become public after release of files