HiddenMysteries: Man not alone in universe

Earth Day may fall later this week, but as far as former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and other UFO enthusiasts are concerned, the real story is happening elsewhere.

Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.

He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.

Mankind has long wondered if we're "alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we're not alone," Mitchell said.

"Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. ... We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there."

Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents of his hometown "had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities." They had been warned of "dire consequences" if they did so.

But, he claimed, they "didn't want to go to the grave with their story. They wanted to tell somebody reliable. And being a local boy and having been to the moon, they considered me reliable enough to whisper in my ear their particular story."

Roughly 10 years ago, Mitchell claimed, he was finally given an appointment at Pentagon to discuss what he had been told.

An unnamed admiral working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff promised to uncover the truth behind the Roswell story, Mitchell said. The stories of a UFO crash "were confirmed," but the admiral was then denied access when he "tried to get into the inner workings of that process."

The same admiral, Mitchell claimed, now denies the story.

"I urge those who are doubtful: Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on. Because there really is no doubt we are being visited," he said.

"The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far-reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time."

A NASA spokesman denied any cover-up.

"NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere else -- period," Michael Cabbage said Monday.

Debates have continued about what happened at Roswell. The U.S. Air Force said in 1994 that wreckage recovered there in 1947 was most likely from a balloon-launched classified government project.

Stephen Bassett, head of the Paradigm Research Group (PRG), which hosted the X-Conference, said that the truth about extraterrestrial life is being suppressed because it is politically explosive.

"There is a third rail [in American politics], and that is the UFO question. It is many magnitudes more radioactive than Social Security ever dreamed to be," Bassett said.

cnn.com

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Hundreds of 'alien' aircraft sightings

By Glen Scanlon
CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's accident prone "Octopus UFO" is just one of hundreds of unexplained sightings in the same area where a wind turbine was wrecked over the weekend, according to the latest reports.

Britain's tabloid Sun newspaper Thursday proclaimed from its front page that a wind turbine was ruined after a UFO hit one of its 20 meter-long blades in Conisholme, Lincolnshire.

It quoted residents who saw strange balls of lights in the sky and heard a loud bang.

However, another British national newspaper said the lights were just fireworks from a staff member's dad's birthday celebration.

Turbine experts suggested it was a simple mechanical failure.

The plot thickened further Friday, with The Sun saying it had been "bombarded" with reports of UFO sightings from hundreds of witnesses in the area where the turbine was destroyed.

"There have been reports of flying saucers for more than six months," the newspaper said.

Local John Harrison, 32, told The Sun he looked out of his window and saw "a massive ball of light with tentacles going right down to the ground."

The newspaper said "other respected witnesses, such as local council chairman Robert Palmer and GP Jenny Watson, described seeing 'streaking white lights'."

Quoting unnamed Ministry of Defence "insiders," The Sun said the UFO sightings may be an unmanned stealth bomber on test flights.

It said the Taranis "black delta-wing craft" was being developed nearby to deliver bombs undetected in war zones; back to the testing board then?

However, initial reports when the Taranis contract was let last year said it would take at least four years to develop with flight testing due 2010... in Australia.

CNN has also been "bombarded" with messages, but mainly from people less than convinced.

J. Kale believed there was a very simple explanation.

"The octopus thing obviously thought the wind turbine was a female doing a mating dance and tried to mate with it."

Trevor Brown was worried the aliens did not "know how to drive a flying octopus."

Mono was worried what the aliens might think about the fuss.

"Well, let's hope there is intelligent life watching us. It would at least prove there is intelligence somewhere."

Maxim, who lives near the turbines, had a simple explanation for the lights.

"On Sunday there was a very spectacular meteor shower, like fireworks on the horizontal."

Lilia was unimpressed with some of the explanations -- and your writer.

"Listen, just report the story and follow through. Think you can do that? Without screwing up? The plausible explanations are absurd. You are going to tell me that the residents of the area are not going to recognize fireworks? This is a ridiculous and insulting explanation and it sounds exactly like that, offensive and ridiculous. I don't know if there was a UFO or not, but it is all rather odd. What I do know is that the arrogant tone has got to stop."

Is it life Jim but not as we know it? Beam us up your thoughts

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Dog walker 'met man from another planet'

LONDON, England (CNN) -- British military investigators interviewed a woman who claimed to have met a man from another planet while she was walking her dog, newly released Ministry of Defence files have revealed.

The woman said she had been approached by a man with a "Scandinavian-type accent" dressed in a flying suit-style outfit while out walking on a sports field near Norwich, eastern England, in 1989.

She claimed to have been "completely terrified" during the 10-minute encounter. Running home, she said she had then seen a large glowing object rising vertically from behind some nearby trees.

The woman called a local military base to report the encounter the following day. A cover note on the file of the incident describes it as "one of our more unusual UFO reports."

The incident is just one of around 1,200 sightings recorded by investigators between 1987 and 1993, according to the files released by the National Archives on Sunday.

On another occasion, military officials took the unusual step of briefing ministers about an unidentified flying object photographed in the sky over Scotland alongside an RAF fighter jet.

Witnesses claimed to have seen the large diamond-shaped object hanging in the air for about 10 minutes before it ascended vertically at high speed. Fearing intense media interest, investigators also commissioned detailed drawings of the object.

The files also reveal that the Ministry of Defence abandoned plans to build a computer database of sightings out of fears of a public relations disaster should details of its existence ever be revealed.

"I personally doubt that the the MoD would lose much if we filed UFO reports in 'WPD' (the waste paper basket)," one unnamed official wrote of the project.

Man not alone in universe

Tuesday, April 21 2009 @ 08:18 AM CDT