I was wondering- has your newspaper in your area run articles very recently regarding the impact that contact with aliens would have on organized regligon, or protocols that have been set up to deal with any alien contact??

this is a serious question- if you don't read the paper, obviously this doesn't apply to you...

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), October 31, 1999

Answers

oops- sorry- make that "religion"- can't type for @#$%^

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), October 31, 1999.

I have not noticed that, farmer. Even if they were, I would chalk it up more to bored, shallow, mindless young journalists looking to fill space with eye-grabbing sensation (mainstream journalism can't help but envy the financial success and easy story creation of the tabloids) than to surreptitious govt-sponsored softening or preparation propaganda for the big "announcement". Keep farming, we need that.

-- Count Vronsky (vronsky@anna.lit), October 31, 1999.

No, I haven't. Which newspapers are doing this? I'd like to read this for myself.

-- Uncle Nutsy (Zx@cv.bn), October 31, 1999.

The Burlington Free Press ran these- but it's via the Gannett Newswire- so was wondering if this is being diseminated thru other papers as well

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), October 31, 1999.

Yes, I have noticed several stories or references to this in recent weeks. The madia has almost completed the conditioning of the population to accept the reality of alien visitors. When the time is right, the powers-that-be will arrange for a number of spectacular appearances of these man-made craft, perhaps even going so far as arranging a pitched "battle" between several of these craft and the military. Events will culminate by landing one of these craft in a special, highly visible place (the White House lawn, perhaps?). Something created through bioengineering and gene splicing will then exit this craft, with the media present and cameras rolling, and at that point your world view will change forever unless you have been able to see through the hoax.

My opinion, formed after decades of following the UFO phenomenon.

-- PKM (.@...), October 31, 1999.

I brought this question, "What would it do to your faith if aliens landed in Dallas?" to several years ago. "Would it mean that your God is not whom he claims to be?" Now I am talking about real aliens and what I believe to be a real God. My kids asked my why I thought God only created men and only on this earth? I said, "Well suppose they came along and said, by the way, your religions are all totally screwed up as well?" My kids answered me, "Well what if God shows himself to us one way and to aliens, another way?" Those Texas children sure have a lot of common sense.

It would play Hell with organized 'religions'. It would not make one damn bit of difference to me. But then I am probably just a zealot.

-- (...@.......), October 31, 1999.

...@....., I would think 'zealot' to be an inaccurate term . In a gentler era, you would have "had the courage of your convictions".

There is another possible reality behind UFO's other than a government - make that 'shadow governemt' - hoax. I'll not mention it here as it is will likely draw trolls, but any Christian will know what I'm referring to.

-- PKM (.@...), October 31, 1999.

Strange sightings in central Maine Visitors 'from away'?

By ROD LABBE, Special to Sunday Copyright ) 1999 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend

Related story: Local sightings

My car sped north along I-95, headlights slicing through descending autumnal darkness. Black, leafless trees lined the horizon. Along the highway, bales of hay, bathed in moonlight, dotted the fields. It was a clear, star-studded night.

Seven miles from the Waterville/ Oakland exit, I happened to glance out my passenger-side window. A ring of lights blinked in the sky. Since I was approaching LeFleur Airport, I didn't give it a second thought. . . not until I had noticed several cars stopped in the breakdown lane and people observing this phenomenon.

I pulled over, got out and looked. Approximately 1,000 feet above me was a pulsing ring of colored lights  green, red, blue,and yellow. They surrounded a circular object, apparently metallic. The object itself did not move but seemed to be suspended, as if dangling from an invisible string. There were no sounds except an occasional car passing behind me. My mind raced. Was I actually seeing an unidentified flying object?

For several minutes, I stood mesmerized, trying to make out even the slightest shift in movement. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, the lights grew brighter, flared and disappeared, leaving nothing but a carpet of stars.

I drove home, gripping the steering wheel. Breathlessly, I told my parents and siblings about the experience. Uneasy glances and bemused smiles were not-so-subtly exchanged. "There are no such things as Strange sightings in central Maine," my older sister snickered.

UFOLOGY TAKES OFF

"Keep watching the skies," warned a character in Howard Hawk's, '50s alien classic, "The Thing." And, since 1947, that's what millions worldwide have been doing. Watching. Waiting. Hoping for a glimpse of a UFO.

Hundreds of sightings are reported daily to the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). (See information box.)

Glowing saucers moving at incredible speeds. Fireballs resembling shooting stars. Elongated ships the size of football fields. Massacred livestock, their carcasses drained of blood and cauterized by searing heat. Mysterious crop circles. Abduction stories.

Aliens? Science fiction? Or, are Strange sightings in central Maine explainable natural phenomena, like marsh gas, lenticular clouds, sun dogs, ball lightning, ground lights, or weather balloons? Uncanny photographs of Strange sightings in central Maine have been taken, but rare is the UFO photo that holds up under scientific scrutiny; many have been proven to be outright fakes  deceptions using strings, mirrors and trick photography.

Still, isn't it reasonable to ask: Are we really alone in a vast universe where other solar systems similar to Earth are highly probable? Isn't it possible there is intelligent life out there, living in another sector of the universe? Are we routinely visited by extra-terrestrials?

The first UFO sighting was reported by Kenneth Arnold, of Boise, Idaho, on June, 24, 1947. Arnold, a 32-year-old businessman, had been flying his single-engine plane at 9,200 feet near Washington's Mount Rainier, when he witnessed nine, silver-colored, discus-shaped objects.

Suddenly, just before 3 p.m. on that perfectly clear, sunny day, he saw a brilliant blue-white flash. He waited to hear an explosion. Nothing. Then, another flash lit up the cockpit. Then, he made out a formation of dazzling objects skimming the mountaintops at incredible speed. He thought they might be a squadron of new, Air Force fighter jets.

The objects would dip and bank at incredible speed with blazing sunlight reflecting from their mirrorlike surfaces. Arnold estimated the wingspan to be 45 to 50 feet. He roughly calculated their speed by checking the time the objects took to zip from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams  peaks 47 miles apart. The elapsed time was 1 minute, 42 seconds. That meant the objects were flying at 1,656 miles per hour, three times faster than any jet known.

"They flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water," he told reporters. Some reporters questioned his calculations, made without a stop watch or sighting device. Even so, the lowest estimation of speed was 1,350 miles per hour. And, they didn't fly like missiles or jets.

Later, scientists questioned the human eye's ability to distinguish objects 45 to 50 feet across at 20 miles; the objects must have been closer  perhaps military jets flying at subsonic speed. Or, they argued, with the use of mountain ranges as fixed reference points, the objects must have been much bigger than he judged  perhaps bombers. The Air Force would not say if they had any jets flying near the Cascades at that time.

Arnold's experience made the front page of almost every major newspaper in America. As a result, people began coming forward with UFO stories of their own, ranging from the believable to truly outrageous. Science Fiction writers such as H.G. Wells ("War of the Worlds"), had years earlier hypothesized about alien visitation, intervention and domination. Suddenly, it didn't seem so much like a fantasy.

ROSWELL

By far, the most infamous incident involving a UFO occurred in Roswell, N.M. Several weeks after the Arnold sighting, at around 9:50 p.m., on July 2, there were reports of a large, glowing object flying at high speed. Later that night, sheep rancher W.W. "Mac" Brazel, who farmed northwest of Roswell, heard a tremendous explosion in the atmosphere, much louder than thunderstorms sweeping the area. In the morning, he woke to find a 100-foot-long trench marking one of his sheep fields.

Brazel reputedly found foil-like fragments scattered over a quarter-mile of ground. In another account, Brazel found a disc-shaped object. He reported his discovery to Sheriff George Wilcox, who in turn, contacted Major Jesse Marcel, Intelligence Officer of the 509 Bomber Group, US Army Air Force.

The area was cordoned off as military personnel went about retrieving data and debris.

At a press conference, photographers complained that they were not allowed them to photograph wreckage close up. At a second press conference, photographers claimed the wreckage was not the same; the fragments had been switched.

The Roswell Daily Record quoted Lieut. Warren Haught, public relations officer: "The many rumors regarding the flying disk became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disk through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the Sheriff's office of Chaves County."

The report caused a sensation. Later, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey went on the radio to call it a mistake. What was found was the wreckage of a weather balloon, he said.

The Roswell story has still not died from public imagination, and in 1987, documents surfaced which allegedly showed that a space craft and bodies of four alien crewmen had been recovered and kept from public knowledge.

CENTRAL MAINE SIGHTINGS

Numerous UFO sightings  but no abduction accounts  have been reported in central Maine in both the Kennebec Journal and Central Maine Morning Sentinel.

For previously unpublished anecdotal sightings reported by local residents in response to a recent request for UFO sightings, see the sidebar accompanying this story.

Oct. 30, 1973

"I was never so scared in my life. My heart was in my mouth," reported Sharon Hurd, of Freedom, then 23. She and her husband, David, watched a moving light in the sky which was not on the usual course of air traffic. The blinking light changed course, slowed and appeared to descend as it came closer to the house.

"It suddenly brightened until it looked like a gigantic ball of fire. It was steady, and not blinking any more. It hovered, probably about 100 or 150 yards from my house," Hurd said.

The object slowly revolved, she said, showing an upper and lower row of lighted "windows" and a central, rim-type structure which appeared not to revolve. A downward flow of light flooded the ground below.

Sharon Hurd opened the window and head a "woo-woo-woo" type of humming, like a child's top, she said. Suddenly, the noise rose to a scream and the object was gone. The motion was so fast, the Hurds could not tell what direction it went, nor could they locate it in the sky.

July 13, 1978

Shortly before 10 p.m., Tuesday, July 11, 1978, more than a dozen Gardiner residents, including three policemen, saw a brilliant white light, thought at first to be a helicopter using a high-intensity spotlight. Patrolman Michael Pulire took pictures of the sharp, clear, oval-shaped object about 50,000 feet high and three-to-five miles away. It changed from an oval to a round circle that seemed to decrease in size.

The object made darting movements in a small area of the sky and would return to its point of origin. It pulsated, and began a slow movement downward. The object changed to red and left the area at high speed. Patrolman William Smith said it was a matter of seconds before it became a pinpoint in the sky.

On Aug. 25, 1978, the newspaper reported that a preliminary investigation from the National Investigative Center on Aerial Phenomenon, a citizen agency, said that there was "a strong possibility" that the UFO sighting was the planet Venus. The Brunswick Naval Air Station reported no radar contact with any object in that sector. When Venus is setting, said a NICAP spokesperson, it appears to change color and "bounce around" because of the gasses surrounding it. Once the planet disappears over the horizon, it gives the illusion of suddenly disappearing.

April 4, 1998

Another Gardiner sighting: According to an eyewitness: ". . . around 11:30 p.m., I'd gone into our kitchen for a glass of milk. Through the window, I saw an amazingly bright yellow circle, hovering about 1,000 feet above the tree tops. My mother and I watched it together for five or so minutes. The circle shot straight up and down, hovered, seemed to rotate, then shot down below the trees. It came back up in an arc, about 15,000 feet and disappeared.

Local UFO sightings are an ongoing phenomena:

On Oct. 3, 1999, this Anson, Maine account, was sent to the UFO Reporting Center:

"I've just seen an illuminated sphere, very intense and bluish, moving overhead in a straight line. It was unusually close, much closer than any star or planet  more like an airplane. But I didn't hear any mechanical noises, just silence. It scared the hell out of me."

Rod Labbe lives and writes in Waterville

To top of page

Copyright ) 1999 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

-- Darlene (boomer@tdstelme.net), November 01, 1999.

That was a couple of Mocklamer's new LED lights attached to a hang glider, you ninnies!!!

-- Jay Urban (Jayho99@aol.com), November 01, 1999.