Best UFO Info and Research Resources

Please visit the NEW page about UFOs at http://www.hyper.net/ufo/summary.html

This page had grown too big for a monolithic document and as of 1-May-2007 it has been split into over 30 pages. It is no longer updated and some of its 488 external links have become obsolete.

About:
This page is a collection of selected UFO resources: real UFO picture and video galleries, video documentaries, technical data, scientific studies, books, portals, newsfeeds, blogs and forums. In short, by combining info from many diverse sources, our goal is to offer a "starting point" for in-depth info and gems of real value in a labyrinth of (often false) information published on the fascinating subject of UFOs.
Disclosure: The opinion of the author (who started as an agnostic in Aug-2006) can best be described as "the core hypothesis", i.e. there is a core of authentic anomalous UFO events, for which the most likely hypothesis is that they indicate presence on Earth of technically advanced visitors, origin (extraterrestrial, interdimensional, etc) and motives unknown. This cannot be stated as absolute fact, but the evidence is profound.
PS: This page is strictly non-commercial, its sole purpose is informational.

Executive Summary on UFOs

RCAF pilot Childerhose 1956 UFO Photo

RCAF pilot Childerhose Canada 1956 UFO Photo over the Canadian Rockies near Ft. MacCleod, Alberta, by Canadian Air Force pilot R. J. Childerhose

A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot while flying in a 4 plane formation at an altitude of about 11 km on 27-Aug-1958, saw and photographed a bright disc, that was remaining stationary between the clouds.

From a letter to Philip Klass: "I had the object in good view for upwards of 45 seconds. It was stationary, with sharply defined edges. Looked like a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal. The light emitted was much brighter than the existing sunlight and overexposed the film causing blurred edges in the picture... It neither moved nor changed shape while I had it in sight."

From a letter to Dr. James McDonald: "...the photo of the bright object doesn't represent quite what appeared to the naked eye. When I first saw the object it appeared as a very bright, clearly defined discoid, like a silver dollar lying on its side. The photo makes it look like a blob of light, the result of light intensity. It appeared much brighter than that (sic) of the sun which, of course, was setting behind the clouds up ahead. What appears in the Kodachrome slide is a disappointment, really." "It was in good view for some minutes because I looked at it trying to figure out what I was seeing and I called the attention of the formation to it before remembering that I had a camera in my leg pocket."

Related: There are many reports of brightly luminous UFOs in flight appearing as "blobs of light" in photos, due to camera film over-exposure, e.g. USCG 1952, Zurich Airport and San Jacinto 1988. Also, the World War II "foo fighters" more were luminous objects that would pace aircraft over battle-zones. Considering this, one can imagine why the vast majority of UFO reports are of strange "lights in the sky", moving erratically zig-zagging etc.

Trindade Island Brazil 1958 UFO photo

The 1958 Trindade Island Brazil UFO was photographed while seen by more qualified observers than any other sighting.

When ufologists and skeptics can't find strings, shadows or signs that a UFO photo is faked, they question the credibility of the photographer and witnesses. Trained observers -including pilots, ship captains etc- are generally considered good witnesses. It is the credibility of the 47 crew members on the deck of the Brazilian Navy ship "Almirante Saldanha" that makes the Trindade, Brazil UFO photos so interesting.

As part of its contribution to the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, the Brazilian Navy set up a weather station on the small rocky island of Trindade, in the south Atlantic Ocean. Observers began spotting unusual aerial activity visually and on radar. At noon on 16-Jan-1958, the UFO shown here appeared for a few seconds within view of the ship's company. The incident was not isolated, but at least five other sightings had occurred in the island or near the water during the end of 1957 and in January 1958.

The crew onboard saw a grey object approach the island, fly behind a mountain peak and then do a acute-angle turn around and head back the way it came, disappearing at high speed over the horizon. Among those present was civilian photographer Almiro Barauna, who snapped a series of 6 photos in intervals of 14 seconds, of which 4 showed the UFO. After the ship returned to port, the photos, which had been developed on board in a makeshift darkroom, were turned over to the Brazilian Navy Ministry. Analysts determined the photos to be authentic and concluded they showed a diskoid object moving at 900-1000Km/hr.

According to Capt. Viegas, the object was like a flattened sphere encircled at the equator by a large ring or platform. In Barauna's words, "...it made no noise, although with the shouting of the people on the deck and the noise of the sea, I cannot be certain. It had a metallic look, of an ash color, and has like a condensation of a green vapor around the perimeter, particularly in the advancing edge. Its motion was undulating, like the flight of a bat."

Today it is thought that the glowing "halo" around UFOs -which is also why they often appear as a "blob"/ball of light at night with changing neon-like colors white / blue / yellow / red and "blurred" / fuzzy in photos- is due to the ionised air "plasma sheath" related to the flying saucers' flight mechanism. The absorption characteristics of the plasma can also partly account for the daytime hazy or smoky appearance of the atmosphere around the UFO. When the surrounding illumination is brighter than the plasma, the plasma absorption may be greater than its emission, making it look darker or hazy. Read info on UFO illumination and performance.

The photos were later released to the Press by the President of Brazil, Mr Joscelino Kubitschek. [full story, all 4 Trindade UFO photos, more, more2, more3]

Note: These photos are poor quality, overexposed and BW; there are many photos of multi-witness and well documented sighting stories over the past ~60 years. But I present this as a classic case, because it has 3 attributes: multiple witnesses, authenticity verified by Brazilian authorities and photos taken at a time when we can in retrospect be reasonably sure that no government had anything remotely similar. [Collections of UFO cases]

Definition of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects):

"A UFO is the reported sighting of an object or light seen in the sky or on land, whose appearance, trajectory, motions, lights and colors do not have an obvious conventional or natural explanation, and which cannot be explained, not only by the original witness, but by scientists or technical experts who try to make a common sense identification after examining the evidence." -- Center for UFO Studies
In popular culture the terms UFO and "flying saucer" are used alternatively and are both synonymous with extra-terrestrial (alien) craft.

If the only strange things seen in the sky were a few oddly moving lights at night, or some specks glinting in the sun, there would be no UFO issue. But there have been many close range observations of these strange objects. Often by multiple witnesses and sometimes with radar confirmation. In addition, physical traces of various kinds have been left behind, and witnesses have experienced physical and medical effects.

"The type of UFO reports that are most intriguing are close-range sightings of machine-like objects of unconventional nature and unconventional performance characteristics, seen at low altitudes, and sometimes even on the ground. The general public is entirely unaware of the large number of such reports that are coming from credible witnesses... When one starts searching for such cases, their number are quite astonishing. Also, such sightings appear to be occurring all over the globe."
-- Prof. James E. McDonald (past head of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona), "Are UFOs Extraterrestrial Surveillance Craft?", talk given at AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics), 1968.

According to multiple surveys over the last several decades and from different countries: ~7% of people have seen a UFO. Over 150.000 UFO sightings have been documented in the last 60 years and recorded in various databases, but the total number of UFO sightings is estimated to be in the millions. There are several thousand sightings reported each year, yet surveys show that only a small percentage (~10%) of those who see a UFO report the sighting.

Of all of the reported sightings, a "core" between 5% and 25% (depending on the sample) remain unidentifiable to expert examination. These are the real UFOs i.e. inexplicable "high quality and strangeness" cases (the rest probably being misinterpreted astronomic or meteorological phenomena, optical illusions, balloons, aircraft, birds etc). Deliberate fraudulent reports / hoaxes are relatively few, under 5%.

Although the term "flying saucer" infers a disk-like craft (which is a common type seen near the ground, thought to be "earth excursion vehicles"), most UFOs observed in daylight, when the shape and details can be seen, are described as having simple symmetrical geometric shapes: disk/saucer, sphere/round, egg/oval/elliptical, cigar/cylinder, conical/ice-cream cone, triangular/pyramid, fireball/"orbs" and variety of sizes (more info later).

Dr. J. Allen Hynek (past Chairman of the Astronomy Department of Northwestern University) served as the scientific consultant to US Air Force's official (public?) UFO investigation Project "Blue Book". He did field-investigations and talked to claimed UFO eye-witnesses for 21 years (between 1948-1969). Initially a skeptic who tried to "explain away" the phenomenon, later became convinced of the UFO reality. He presented his views at the United Nations, on 27-Nov-1978:

"Mr. Chairman (of the United Nations), we are dealing here with an unexplained phenomenon which has been reported so far from 133 nations, and which has aroused the concern, and often the fear, of significant fractions of their population.
[snip]
Mr. Chairman, I have not always held the opinion that UFOs were worthy of serious scientific study. I began my work as Scientific Consultant to the U.S. Air Force as an open skeptic, in the firm belief that we were dealing with a mental aberration and a public nuisance. Only in the face of stubborn facts and data similar to those studied by the French commission... have I been forced to change my opinion.
[snip]
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me once again clearly state that it is my considered opinion, as a scientist who has devoted many years to its study, that the UFO phenomenon is real and not the creation of disturbed minds, and that it has both grave and important implications for science and for the political and social well-being of the peoples of this Earth."
[full text of speech] -- Dr. J Allen Hynek

The UFO subject is huge, there is a lot of good stuff, but also a lot of nonsense out there, as well as deliberate disinformation. If you are new to the subject and have very little time (~20hrs) to devote to it, a few classic items you want to read/view (you need fast Internet to watch the videos online) are:

  1. Out Of The Blue: The definitive investigation of the UFO phenomenon (watch online GoogleVideo or YouTube) video documentary (2003), 1hr30min 353MB (GoogleVideo). Best "general background" UFO documentary I've seen sofar (and I've watched quite a few). Interviews with former astronauts and military pilots (Gordon Cooper and Dr Edgar Mitchell from USA and Popovich from Russia), radar operators and scientists. UFO initiatives by former US presidents Carter, Ford and Clinton etc. Briefly covers classic UFO incidents in US, Russia, Britain, France, Iran etc and studies like the French COMETA Report. (can't purchase directly, or from Amazon.com original stock of it has been sold-out!)
  2. Prof. James E. McDonald's presentation about the UFO issue, before the Committee on Science and Astronautics of US Congress July-1968 (alternate source) The hypotheses of UFOs issue. Why don't pilots see UFOs? Why are UFOs only seen by lone individuals? Why no multiple-witness sightings? Why don't astronomers ever see UFOs? Why aren't UFOs ever tracked by radar? Why aren't there numerous photos of UFOs if they really exist? Shouldn't they produce physical effects? etc debunking popular UFO myths with examples from personally investigated cases. A bit more technical, his paper at the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Astronautics Symposium, Montreal, Canada, 12-Mar-1968.
  3. The Disclosure Project Witness Testimony (2001) Googlevideo (2hrs), part 1 of 2 (59min 230MB) and part 2 of 2 (1hr 240MB). Two hours long video distillation from 400hrs of raw video footage of dozens of retired USA intelligence, government and military persons testimonies on the subject of UFO and US government coverup. Quick text summary (.html) of such testimonies given in 1999-2000.
  4. UFO Briefing Document - The best available evidence by Don Berliner (1995). Financed by Laurance Rockefeller, roughly 1,000 copies of this 168-page document were delivered in 1995 to President Clinton, U.S. Congress, Heads of State and other potentially influencial people around the world (also available as mass paperback edition from Amazon)
  5. French COMETA Report "UFOs and Defense: What should we prepare for?" (1999) originally 90pages, translated into English without the images Part 1 (.pdf 750KB) and Part 2 (.pdf 2MB). A study by top French military officers and scientists/engineers. The report is prefaced by General Bernard Norlain of the Air Force, former Director of IHEDN, and it begins with a preamble by Andre Lebeau, former President of the National Center for Space Studies (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales), or CNES, the French equivalent of NASA. It is well known that France created an official organization for the study of UFOs under CNES, first called GEPAN in 1977 and later SEPRA in 1988 -see From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO studies in France (.PDF 105K)-. In Mar-2007, at http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/geipan/, CNES published parts of the French UFO sighting database with more than 100,000 pages of witness testimony, photographs, film footage and audiotapes of officially investigated cases, collected since 1954.
  6. The 1955 book "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" (full text e-book, ISBN: 096653123X) by Edward J. Ruppelt (head of the United States Air Force's Project Blue Book between 1951-1953 and later research engineer at Northrop Aircraft Company). Until you have read at least the last 2 chapters (Ch.16: The Hierarchy Ponders, Ch.17: What Are UFO's?), stop talking about UFOs.
  7. Paul R. Hill's (aeronautical engineer and Chief Scientist-Manager at NASA's Langley Research Center who privately acted as an informal citizens' clearinghouse of UFO-related data for over 2 decades) excellent book "Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis" Amazon src (written in the 1970s, published 1995) explains many things about the probable science/physics behind UFOs. If you only buy ONE book about UFOs, this should be it. Book reviews by Dr.Hal Puthoff and H.Ellis Ensle. It attempts to explain the apparently reactionless propulsion, lack of sonic boom, lack of overheating at high velocities, high accelerations, lack of stress under high acceleration, etc. His book is not pseudo-science. The speculation that he does make is minimal, but required, to conform to the observations.
  8. Hypothesising that UFOs are ET vehicles, the next obvious question is "If extraterrestrials have already come to Earth, why don't they make themselves known?" (i.e. the famous "UFOs Land on White House lawn" scenario). Jim Deardorff (professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University) offered the "leaky embargo" hypothesis in 1997, which argues that the aliens in charge are more ethical than we and wish to let us gradually know of their existence and presence, while providing "deniability" to those who can't yet handle that fact. A gradual acclimation will avoid threatening the governmental, financial, cultural and religious foundations on which we depend.
    In contrast to the "benevolent alien" approach, other researchers, particularly those studying the "alien abductions" phenomenon such as Dr. David M Jacobs (history professor), describe a rather disturbing situation where we humans are "victims of a widespread program of physiological exploitation, with breeding and hybridization programs".
  9. Symposium on UFOs (1968) Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics of US Congress 29-Jul-1968, with all the "heavy-weight" scientists (Hynek, McDonald, Carl Sagan, Menzel etc) of that time expressing their views.
  10. Stanton T. Friedman's (nuclear physicist and veteran UFO researcher / lecturer / ETH evangelist for the past 30+yr) paper The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Flying Saucers (.PDF 57KB) (1995), his statement before the Committee on Science and Astronautics of US Congress July-1968.
  11. From a "conspiratorial" viewpoint, read the (disputed authenticity, leaked anonymously in 1985 and 1994) Majestic-12 docs 1948-1959. For those who don't know the background, it's claimed that in the aftermath of the crash of an extraterrestrial craft in 1947, near Roswell in New Mexico, USA, a small group known as Majestic-12 (or MJ-12) was set up to study the craft and the alien bodies. Stanton Friedman has published a book on the subject. The investigation team includes Robert M. Wood, Ph.D. (BS in Aeronautical Engineering from Colorado and a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell, a 43-year career at McDonnell Douglas managing research and development projects and over thirty years of investigation into UFOs) who began reconstructing the (MAJIC) Special Operations Manual SOM1-01 (see extra-terrestrial UFO-nauts section later in this page) in 1995.

    Daytime photos of various types of discoid UFOs from around the world: Japan, Peru, France and last 2 from USA

  12. A lot of what appears about UFOs on "big" media is misinformation. On the subject of media (TV, newspapers etc) coverage of the UFO subject, a good perspective is offered in journalist's Terry Hansen's The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up and Dolan's Getting Inside Your Head: Media, Mind Control, and Marginalization of UFOs. Furthermore, astrophysicist R.Haisch's Review of "SEEING IS BELIEVING: THE TRUTH ABOUT UFOs" by Peter Jennings, ABC-TV, 24-Feb-2005 by R.Haisch (.pdf 84KB) explains how, in the desire to appear "balanced", substantive witness reports are often countered by unsubstantiated pronouncements of "experts" who sound authoritative but do not necessarily know a great deal about the subject.
  13. If you enjoy shifting through "raw data" and scientific analysis you can read: USAF's Project Blue Book - Special Report 14 (1955) (PDF 9.6MB) a quantitative cross-analysis of 3201 UFO sightings recorded between 1947 and 1953 performed by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract to USAF. Skipping over the initial misleading one-page summary and reading the actual data, reveals that 21.5% of the cases were "unknowns" (i.e. inexplicable, despite good data), that these unknowns shared no similarities with the identified cases (so that one could presume they were misidentifications of mundane objects) and that the better the quality (more and better qualified witnesses) the more probable for a case to classify as unknown! Also note General Bollender's 1969 memo that "reports of UFOs which could affect national security are not part of the Blue Book system" and Hynek felt "used and abused" when even after having consulted for USAF for so many years, "all the hardcore UFO cases, with pilot-UFO close encounters so close they could read writing on them, were going upstairs". And all Hynek was left with were reports of nocturnal lights.
    It was speculated for years that there was a secret UFO investigation that wasn't part of Blue Book. Now it's fact. In 1953 US Air Force issued Regulation 200-2, which instructed Air Force officers not to discuss UFO reports that were unsolved, and to classify the reports at restricted level. By December 1953, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a Navy-Air Force publication 146 (JANAP 146) which made the unauthorized release of UFO reports a crime under the Espionage Act, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Thereafter, UFO sighting reports would be investigated by the 4602 AISS. When they completed their investigation, the results were forwarded to ATIC at Wright-Patterson and BlueBook didn't receive those reports. So after 1953, US Air Force's Project Blue Book, ostensibly engaged in studying UFO reports, was in fact a public relations scheme whose main purpose was to convince the public that UFOs were all misidentifications of conventional objects. Finally, the "Condon Report" in 1969 was the excuse to close down BlueBook.

There have also been many notable persons -usually in advanced years, after retirement- to have publicly stated that UFO evidence is being suppressed. These have included Senator Barry Goldwater (US Senator and Republican candidate for President in 1964, US Air Force Brig.General, who was denied access the "Blue Room" at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base -where UFO/ET info is allegedly stored-), Admiral Lord Hill-Norton (former NATO head and chief of the British Defence Staff), Brigadier-General Arthur Exon (former commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB), Vice-Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (first CIA director), astronauts Gordon Cooper and Dr.Edgar Mitchell, US General Curtis E. LeMay (head of the Strategic Air Command in the 1960's), former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer, the authors of the 1999 French COMETA Report (top French Generals and scientists), the 2001 Disclosure Project top-secret military/intelligence/government witnesses testifying on the subject of UFO/ET and many others.

To quote Dr. James MacDonald, past head of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, "If you are not interested or concerned about the UFO matter, you are simply uninformed." General Arthur Exon stated: "Everyone from the White House on down knew that what we had found was not of this world within 24 hours of our finding it". On 25-Sep-2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada's Defence Minister from 1963-67, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." "We are in the curious situation today that our best modern physics and astrophysics theories predict that we should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation, yet any possible evidence of such lurking in the UFO phenomenon is scoffed at within our scientific community," contends astrophysicist Dr.Haisch. "You simply cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these UFO sightings are actually sightings from some object created by an advanced civilization, a civilization far out in space, a civilization perhaps millions of years ahead of us in technology. You simply cannot discount that possibility." Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku (NYU Professor and one of the String Theory originators).

Introductory and General background (start here)

Info and links to sites/articles which I think will be helpful to any serious student of the subject (of UFOs), basically the UFO-sites I've bookmarked for myself. Bold means "highly recommended" reading.

Scientific in-depth coverage

Abduction phenomenon

I really am an agnostic about this issue, probably because I really don't want to believe it wrt the supposed genetic experiments. I find it very hard to believe theories of aliens needing our DNA or a program such as described in David Jacobs book "The Threat: Secret Alien Agenda" as a sufficiently developed civilization will have conquered biochemistry. But then again the number of "alien abduction" reports is so high and the independent descriptions of the experience so similar, that it makes it difficult to ignore as a psychological issue. Skeptical psychologists quoted in the media attribute it to sleep disorders and questionable use of hypnosis, but apparently they haven't done their homework. Do an Internet search on the work of the following people:

And on the following cases of multi-witness, abductions (none of which were abducted while asleep btw):

In Biological Evidence Of An Alien Entity and DNA Technique For Assessing Claims Of Alien Abduction alleged alien biological evidence is analyzed. A more complete version of the story here. A relevant case of human-alien interaction was of Antonio Villas Boa in Brazil.

Crop circles / glyphs

Again I'm an agnostic about crop-circles/glyphs. Although many have probably been man-made, there is a variety of them where the combination of glyph sophistication and effects to the soil suggest they were created by something else than "sticks and ropes". But not necessarily ET-made, read Vallee on crop-circles.

  • Crop circles - A beginner's guide
  • BLT Research Team
  • Notes on Crabwood 2002 crop formation by Vojtech Petracek Univ. Heidelberg, Germany
  • Crabwood Farm House crop circle by Martin Noakes There is still no good evidence to link UFOs with the modern deluge of crop circles.

    Probable or confirmed fakes / hoaxes / myths / misconceptions which gained wide publicity

  • Ray Santilli fake "Roswell Alien Autopsy film" and "Roswell crash wreckage" videos aired in 1995, are a confirmed hoax (see Eamonn investigates "Alien Autopsy" 2002 TV documentary or quick summary of Eamonn on Santilli hoax and comments by Philip Mantle). Note that the "Roswell UFO crash" incident in 1947 was almost certainly NOT a "Mogul baloon" as claimed by officialdom, but the Santilli autopsy film hoax was an attempt to "exploit", to capitalise on the public's interest in it. Only "consolation" would be, as Stanton Friedman -who correctly refused to accept it as authentic from the beginning- put it: "Because of that footage that has been shown in 32 countries there has been a great deal of public discussions about UFOs that would otherwise not have occurred."
  • Bob Lazar (see discussions at Lazar corner) discs at S4/Area51, Ununpentium-115 superheavy element, gravity waves type A and type B. IMHO I could believe that Lazar has worked at S4/Area51 and even has seen flying saucers, but his "flying saucer physics" with gravitational waves I find impossible to believe. Bob Lazar critiqued by David Morgan and Friedman which IMO are right on. Either Lazar is 1/ a very skilled salesman or 2/ part in US gov disinformation campaign or 3/ he had his mind manipulated in some manner and false memories have been implanted (Lazar remembers having had to drink liquids and to submit to sessions of hypnosis when he was working at Groom Lake). A newer, less lame IMHO video of Bob Lazar.
  • Some of LtCol. Philip J. Corso's claims in his book "The Day after Roswell", although SOME of it could possibly be true. I am inclined to think he overstated his role. Read Friedman's opinion of Corso. On the other hand, former Canadian Minister of Defense (1963-1967) Paul Hellyer endorses the validity of Corso's statements, having verified them with a US General who told him "everything (Corso said) is true and then some".
  • "The secret KGB UFO Files" TV documentary by TNT with Roger Moore (James Bond 007) hosting, is a confirmed hoax Shurinov critique, Alex Hefman on TNT KGB UFO Files hoax
  • SERPO Project about a supposed Zeta-Reticuli exchange program
  • NAZI flying saucers (and NAZI bases in Antarctica and on the Moon)
  • Video footage of UFO "buzzing" helicopter near WTC (*not* the case on 9/11), it was simply a computer-graphics clip for Sci-Fi channel!
  • Avrocar and its descendants "military flying saucers" or "real world flying saucers" being responsible for UFO sightings, see fake flying saucers There are many more "stories"/hoaxes/etc by the fringe element in UFOlogy, which unfortunately serves to murky the waters and possibly discredit the entire subject in the mind of the general public who can't easily tell between fact and fiction.

    Skeptics and Prozac explanations

    "Don't believe believers, and be skeptical of skeptics." In many cases of "UFO skeptics" (i.e. people who dismiss the phenomenon, not just refute specific cases), I've concluded that they have never bothered to check the data and/or have an axe to grind (the classic dilemma "your soul or your job"). Many of the "prosaic explanations" seem to be Prozac induced. Anyway, there are a handful of dedicated skeptical researchers who are knowledgeable and occasionally provide a contribution to the field. In the U.S., skeptics have their own publishing house called Prometheus Press (as a Greek, I find their use of Prometheus name in such context ironic) that publishes anti-UFO books, controlled by the same people who put out the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine.

    Purported extraterrestrial / alien UFO-nauts / UFO occupants - entities / greys anatomy details (with photos)

    Probably the most intriguing aspect of UFOnaut reports is that many are reported as humanoid or even human in appearance! Occupant Sightings by Richard Hall, Humanoid Sighting Reports by Albert Rosales and The humanoids (forget about the "metaphysical" points in Humphrey's preface IMHO) by Charles Bowen, cover the subject of landed UFOs and their occupants. Jacques Vallee presents 200 cases, all from 1954, mostly from France. Gordon Creighton describes 65 cases in detail, all from South America, ranging in time from 1947 to 1965. Coral Lorenzen has 28 cases, mostly from the 1960s and the United States.

    Examples of stories of human-looking UFO aviators: Canada 1970 (notice the "head encased in close-fitting dark material" comment), now look at the Templeton, Solway Firth "spaceman" photo, England 1964, Reverand Gill, Papua New Guinea 1959, Wisconsin, USA 1961, etc.

    According to Robert Dean, retired Army master sergeant (extract from OMNI mag Apr-1994 article) a 3yr investigation of UFOs/ETs by NATO between 1961-1964 resulted in a "COSMIC TOP SECRET"-classified Report "Assessment: An Evaluation of a Possible Military Threat to Allied Forces in Europe" stated that

    "the planet Earth and human race had been the subject of a detailed survey of some kind by several different extra-terrestrial civilizations, four of which they had identified visually. One race looked almost indistinguishable from us (also referred to as "Nordics", because they resemble northern Europeans, blonde hair, blue eyes etc). Another resembled humans in height, stature, and structure, but with a very gray, pasty skin tone. The third race is now popularly known as the greys (see EBE-Type-II below), and the fourth was described as reptilian, with vertical pupils and lizard-like skin (see EBE-Type-I below)" more
    If UFOnauts are indeed basically human or humanoid as some assert, then this raises all sorts of questions about "panspermia" or "Cosmic Ancestry", "paleocontact" or "ancient astronaut" hypothesis (i.e. we are the descendants of "their" colonists on this planet, have played a role in genetically engineering the human race, or even their creation i.e. they seeded life on Earth).

    Another hypothesis that could explain human-looking UFOnauts, is of "lost/ancient Earth civilizations", i.e. an earlier human civilization arose, leapt into space to escape the Earthly upheavals of their time (or found some better refuge on Earth itself), and all previous signs of their presence on our planet were afterwards erased and forgotten.

    Pictures and descriptions of extraterrestrials - aliens: reptilians and greys anatomy

    The MAJ12 SOM1-01 document doesn't seem convincing to me (unlike some other MAJ12 documents). On the other hand, Dr.Wood has studied this one extensively and his site rates it with their highest rating of confidence for authenticity.


    I started to prepare the current document as a list of Links, as a "UFO Primer" to help members of local group here in Greece find their way in a field which contains a lot of disinformation. But I've only looked into the UFO subject for a few months, since Aug-2006. So, although the data presented here have been checked to the best of my ability, there might still be errors or inaccuracies. I know the "recommended books" section is minimal and needs to be expanded (although my focus was on free material readily available over the Internet, just a click away). I'd welcome any corrections or suggestions you have to offer. This is still work in progress.

    Personally, although I've never seen one myself (but know of 2 people who each saw a UFO in very close range of a few meters), I am convinced that UFOs are just as real and tangible as e.g. the B2 stealth bomber (although neither one's pieces are available for study). Thousands of people have seen UFOs, many under circumstances which virtually preclude misinterpretation and some of these sightings have been coordinated with radar fixes. Photographs have been taken and physical evidence has been accumulated.

    Don't fall for the propaganda, portraying UFO facts as "conspiracy theories".

    Sometimes naive people ask "If this UFO subject were for real, wouldn't you expect all the scientists to jump all over it?", meaning the public scientific research by ACADEMIC scientists. The answer is a loud NO; there already are thousands of scientists WORKING UNDER SECURITY to do it (e.g. just in the 3 nuclear weapon labs in USA there are over 25,000 employees of which 10,000 are scientists, with budgets higher than the entire NSF and some of them undoubtedly work on UFOs).

    Anyway IMHO academics have failed the public (with notable exceptions such as James MacDonald, Hynek, Sturrock), in that preciously few had the courage to publicly advocate the study of UFOs, fearing it'll jeopardize their funding and careers. For most people, it's "your soul or your job" and we've all witnessed what most academics answer to that. But it's hardly surprising, if one studies the history and sociology of science.

    Even if the best evidence (UFO wreckage and bodies) have been secreted away by the governments as many believe, Science is more than examination of an artifact that one can touch and performing reproducible controllable experiments. The evaluation of sudden unexpected events cannot exclude science even if they can't be rerun again, e.g. the Columbia accident. There are over 3000 physical trace cases in 70 countries, of UFOs landing and affecting soil and flora. The observations of color and changes in color with velocity, the analysis of photographs, triangulation of multiple observations from different directions (see Martin Jasek's excellent work on huge UFOs), frame by frame analysis of motion picture footage, review of EM signals, evaluation of stealth characteristics, evaluation of effects on vehicles and aircraft instrumentation. All this and a host more provide plenty of opportunity for the use of chemistry and physics.

    As a closing remark, to paraphrase the Introduction to the Condon Report: "Anyone who honestly studies the UFO phenomenon as a healthy agnostic will, I believe, come out with a new perspective on human values and limitations." Or read Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The emperor's new clothes".

    I hope this document will be useful to you.

    Dimitris Hatzopoulos
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