UFO Sightings

EXPLAINING LIFE’S MYSTERIES Feb.28, 2009
By Stephen Ellis

Nobody asked me, but…

Have you noticed the tremendous increase in the number of UFO reports? It’s kind of hard to ignore with genuine appearing photos like the one taken at Kidder Dam, Wahpeton, North Dakota where the UFO was not the subject. It was a photo of a giant catfish statue at Kidder Dam, but in the extreme right hand corner of the photo was what clearly appeared to be a UFO.

It’s also kind of hard to ignore when the UFO Congress meeting in Laughlin, Nevada has posed their biggest question as to whether or not President Obama will be opening the secret files on UFOs to the public.

Or when Paul Hellyer, the former Minister of Defense for Canada, states publicly that he believes the existence of the UFOs is “irrefutable”. Hellyer's "irrefutable" evidence received a bit of pumping this past week. A Winnipeg group that tracks UFO sightings across Canada says 2008 produced a record number of sightings - 1,004 - a 25 per cent increase from the year before. Ontario and British Columbia were the hot spots, reporting 334 and 272, respectively, while Prince Edward Island had only two mysterious objects flying about, Nunavut one and Northwest Territories none.

The U.S. Astronomical Society got into the debate this month by claiming that they had a scientific explanation for the mysterious lights in the sky. That they were natural electrical impulses outside of our atmosphere which created flashes of light called “sprites”.

I think it’s time we all took a “reality” pill.

The most impressive thing about the photograph taken near Kidder Dam is the fact that the UFO was not the object being photographed. When people come up with close-by shots of UFOs, there’s an excellent chance that the photos are faked. UFO’s do not, normally, slow down to have their picture taken. The Kidder Dam photo could also be a fake, but the fact that the appearance of the UFO was incidental to the photo being taken gives it more credence.

I will never refute the existence of UFOs. It would take someone far more arrogant than I to call the millions of people who alleged to have seen them “liars” or “frauds”. Among the UFO sighters are some of the most prestigious political leaders in the world, including the President of Brazil.

UFO groups and fan clubs lose me when they start talking about “crashed” UFOs and/or captured or killed aliens…or about people being kidnapped by aliens. I mean no disrespect to the many people who make their living going around on lecture tours and talking about secret US bases where alien prisoners are kept…or about having killed one at a U.S. military airbase. It helps them sell their books and earns them a living.

The United States has the most inquisitive and investigative reporting system in the world. And, anything that is discoverable will be discovered by them. We couldn’t keep secret the number of “secret” CIA prisons around the world or that, under George W. Bush, the US military resorted to the use of torture as we have condemned for everyone else. Do you really believe that any government …especially one that changes every four to eight years...could keep secret the discovery of alien life? Here on Earth?

To me, it is the height of human ego to believe that we are the only intelligent life that exists among the billions of trillions of stars. Of course other intelligent life must exist even if only by chance. The problem is that the distances are so unimaginably vast that contact…no less a visit…from another galaxy will probably remain the property of Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock during our lifetimes.
One thing that bothers me, however, is why a conservative organization such as the U.S. Astronomical Society would try to pass-off UFO sightings as “sprites”…those occasional electrical sparks in outer space. Do they feel they need publicity? There are more than a million sightings that allege the lights in the sky flew in formation. There are even millions more that say the mysterious lights in the sky shot-off in different directions…and then came back into a formation. And how about the so-called invasion of UFOs in northern Brazil where the sky was flooded with them at heights of no more than two or three miles before they all, suddenly, disappeared?

Sprites? Please don’t take us for fools.

As I said, nobody asked me.