[...] Mathews faced significant scrutiny shortly before the 1999 election, when he recounted for a newspaper reporter his recollections of what he believes was a UFO visit to his Varina farm several decades ago.

In an article, Mathews said he believed the UFO was responsible for the subsequent death of his dog.

Wade said that those comments further damaged the reputation of the Sheriff's Office.

"To me, it's embarrassing to go out in public and have someone say, 'Hey Sheriff, have you ever seen a UFO' That's happened to me a number of times." [...]

A MAN spotted two jellyfish like objects which he could only describe as UFOs flying over his Daventry home. On the same day an hour before a cameraman recorded footage of similar colour and shape vessels in the night sky in Worcestershire.

Adrian Dalton, 32, of Hemans Road, Daventry was standing in his back garden with his son on Tuesday, July 22 between 10pm and 10.30pm.

He first became aware of them when he saw two black objects in the distance which he thought were birds. Next thing, they were above his home.

He said: "They were like two brown jellyfish in the sky, they looked like they were swimming and I had not taken any drugs." [...]

[...]Gloucester men Andy Lloyd, a charge nurse at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, and his friends Dave and Martin Cosnette are all nationally recognised experts on UFOs. The three stargazers are reaching out to the public and setting up a hotline to report UFO sightings in Gloucestershire. [...]

"This year's bright appearance of Mars will be an added incentive and the increase in stargazers may turn up more reports of Unidentified Flying Objects."

Cameras will be rolling in Kecksburg today as the Sci Fi Channel continues production of its two-hour investigative documentary, "The New Roswell: Kecksburg Exposed." [...]

In an effort to shed light on the uncertain events of Dec. 9, 1965 -- when some people claim an unidentified flying object came to Earth in the Mt. Pleasant Township community -- the cable channel will sponsor what it bills as a "town meeting" at 10 a.m. in the Kecksburg fire hall. [...]

[...] On that serene and surreal evening, the forces of nature (and perhaps some other forces, depending on whom you ask) converged with our national pastime on the corner of the Bermuda Triangle, crafting a moment that, in terms of sheer oddity, may have no peer in baseball lore.

Some eyewitnesses have told the story hundreds of times to thousands of people. Most listeners refuse to believe it. Reporters and baseball historians have never taken it seriously enough to run with it -- perhaps in part because one of those present doesn't recall it even happening.

Can't really blame any of them. The tale is, in a word, unbelievable. And it's been buried among baseball's most obscure X-Files for nearly 29 years. [...]

Judy Messoline got tired of waking up with strangers, if not aliens, in her yard.

So four years ago she asked the Saguache County commissioners to allow her to build a UFO watchtower and campground. Then she could make some money on people who were already using her land to camp as they tried to spot aliens.

The San Luis Valley has long been considered a fertile ground for such searches, especially after claims of alien abductions, UFO landings and a wave of cattle mutilations. [...]

A RETIRED policeman who now spends his time chasing UFOs is looking for help from Swindonians to complete his research.
John Hanson, 57, retired from the police force in 1995 after nearly 30 years of service.

[...] Mr Hanson, who lives in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, is appealing to the people of Swindon to help him solve a piece in the jigsaw.

The incident happened on the afternoon of November 24 1970 at Ridgeway Comprehensive School in Wroughton.

Mr Hanson - who is a consultant for the Flying Saucer Review - says hundreds of pupils and staff - witnessed a black metallic disc shoot across the sky, apparently chased by RAF fighters.

"This incident forms just a tiny fraction of multi UFO phe- nomenon that I have studied over the past decade. "I am very keen to hear from anyone who was at the school on that day." [...]

IN the mid-1960s a sleepy Wiltshire town became the unlikely epicentre of a UFO phenomenon.

Warminster, in West Wiltshire, became known globally for what was enigmatically called " The Thing ". The Thing took many forms by those who claimed to have observed it between 1965 and 1977. [...]

The latest report of a UFO over Hemel Hempstead was made today. There have been over 20 reports over the past two weeks of unexplained bright objects in the sky.

Today's report came from Deaconsfield Road where Ray Tomlin saw two strange objects giving off a bright orange light shortly before 1am.

He's mystified as they made no noise, but moved too fast to have been any sort of hot air balloon.

As submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics at July 29, 1968, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Rayburn Bldg., Washington, D.C., by James E. McDonald.

"Then there are scattered instances in which substantial power distribution systems have failed at or very near the time of observation of aerial phenomena similar, broadly speaking, to one or another UFO phenomenon. I have personally checked on several such instances and am satisfied that the coincidence of UFO observation and power outage did at least occur. Whether there is a causal connection here, and in which direction it may run, remains quite uncertain.

Even during the large Northeast blackout, November 9, 1965, there were many UFO observations, several of which I have personally checked. I have inquired at the Federal Power Commission to secure data that might illuminate the basic question of whether these are merely fortuitous, but the data available are inadequate to permit any definite conclusions. In other parts of the world, there have also been reports of system outages coincident with UFO sightings. Again, the evidence is quite unclear as to causal relations."

The largest wave of UFO sightings occurred in 1965. From coast to coast strange low flying objects were reported almost nightly by people of all ages and walks of life. These sketches compiled by a NICAP researcher represent a small sample of hundreds of investigated cases in which truly unknown objects were judged to have been involved.

As the year progressed the number of reports rose dramatically. On the night of August 2 thousands of people in 4 midwestern states witnessed spectacular aerial displays by large formations of UFOs. That same night a multicolored disc was photographed in Tulsa Oklahoma while several persons watched it perform low altitude maneuvers. This picture was extensively analyzed, pronounced authentic, and later published by Life magazine and many newspapers.

But the year's most incredible development was yet to come. On the evening of November 9 hundreds of UFO sightings were reported throughout the northeast. In New York State luminous objects were seen hovering over 3 very significant locations.

A Niagara Falls power plant
A [Syracuse] relay station
and the heart of New York City

Within moments of the Syracuse sighting 9 northeastern states and parts of Canada experienced the largest power failure in history. Media accounts including those by NBC news, The Associated Press, and some local papers openly reported the UFO sightings and in a few cases suggested that they be investigated as a possible cause of the blackout. However, before this speculation could gain much momentum the Federal Power Commission announced that the problem had been caused by a broken relay in a Canadian power plant. This answer was accepted by the press and public and the UFO angle was quickly forgotten.

[...] On November 9, 1965 the northeastern region of the United States and Canada was abruptly plunged into blackness. The worst blackout on record came to be known as the 'Big Blackout'.[...]

Mass media coverage naturally focussed on the human aspect of the blackout and to a lesser extent, on the delay in determining the cause of the breakdown.

There was, however, an even more dramatic story.

UFOs had been reported in the vicinity of strategic hydro installations at the time of the blackout. The impressive number of
credible sightings led many researchers to consider the possible role these craft may have played in the power collapse.

The researchers included the late Dr. James E. MacDonald,(3) a physicist at the University of Arizona; former NICAP director Major Donald E. Keyhoe; and astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the current director of the Centre for UFO Studies.

Immediately following the breakdown, the U.S. Federal Power Commission and the Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission launched a full-scale investigation into the cause. At first, it was reported that the trouble originated with a mechanical breakdown in a high voltage line between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

According to the [Toronto] 'Globe and Mail':

The report turned out to be false. Then a sub-station near Syracuse was reported to be the cause of the failure, but repairmen found it in perfect condition.

Finallly, six days after the blackout, Ontario Hydro engineers traced the trouble to the mammoth Sir Adam Beck No.2 Generating Station at Queenston, Ontariom north of Niagra Falls.

It seems that just prior to the blackout, power was flowing from Sir Adam Beck No.2. into Ontario, then across the border via Cornwall into New York State. In graphic terms, power was flowing clockwise in a loop around Lake Ontario.

At 5:16pm, a backup relay on one of the six lines linking Sir Adam Beck tothe rest of the province mysteriously tripped the line's circuit breaker, which acts much like a household fuse.

In quick succession the cut-off power jumped to the other five lines, causing an overload that tripped the circuit breakers on these lines as well.

A veritable tidal wave of electricity - 1.1 million kilowatts - flowed in the opposite direction into New York State. (5) Inexplicably, the relays on the New York lines failed to isolate and contain the overload. Within seconds, the entire grid of thirty-one interconnected power utilities of CANUSE (Canada-United States Eastern Grid) had broken down.

Although experts could pinpoint the origin of the blackout, they were baffled by the cause of the relay malfunction and the failure of the protective systems to contain the overload.

In the words of Ontario Hydro's system supervising engineer, Jim Harris: "It's incredible! I would have said this was impossible if I hadn't seen the evidence." (6)

The mystery deepened when it was discovered that the relay had not in fact malfunctioned, but had merely reacted to a sudden surge of power from an unknown source.

As stated in the final report of the U.S. Federal Power Commission: "The precise cause of the backup relay energization is now known." Where did the unexplained surge of power come from? To this day that question has remained unanswered.

Or has it? [...]

IT COULD have been a case for Mulder and Scully when glowing orbs were spotted in the Hanbury night sky at the end of July.

But several reports of hovering lights in the area and one onlooker managing to film the mysterious objects has now led to a UFO research organisation to launch a full investigation into the sightings.

Tom Hines, a BBC cameraman, was looking for a location to shoot a private film in the area when he spotted the lights at the end of July.

He filmed what he could see, and the eerie record of three lights suspended in the air has convinced Contact UFO Research International to take the sightings seriously. So much so that it is now doing more research to see if the lights could in fact be UFOs. [...]

E.T. might have tried to phone Ohio on Aug. 15, 1977. But nobody was listening at 11:16 p.m., and scientists in the years since haven't been able to figure out what, if anything, the extraterrestrial was saying.

A radio telescope dubbed ''Big Ear'' and operated by Ohio State University was scanning space from Delaware County when a booming 70-second burst was received from a point in the sky that tracked from the middle of the Milky Way. It had all the earmarks of an intelligent transmission. [...]

UFO expert Michael Soper was amazed to capture an object he believes could be an alien spacecraft on his own camera.

Mr Soper, of Ousley Close, Marston, Oxford, spotted the object on a photograph he had taken of a cloud at Middleton Cheney, near Banbury.

He suggested the object could have been an alien sheltering from solar storms which have been linked with the recent scorching weather conditions.

"I took a picture of a cloud which looked like a chicken about to take flight," said Mr Soper, 55, media spokesman for Contact International, a group which monitors UFO sightings across the world.

"When it came out I spotted a small egg shaped object with a bizarre plasma tail." [...]

[...] The blackout 38 years ago was similar to last week's outage in many ways. The "Great Northeast Blackout" of 1965 began at 5:16 p.m., near the end of a normal workday. The power grid broke up four seconds after the initial disturbance. New York, Ontario, most of New England and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania went black within five minutes, leaving 30 million people without electricity for as long as 13 hours.

In his 1979 book, UFO Canada, Yurko Bondarchuk writes some believers went so far as to accuse then-prime minister Lester B. Pearson for covering up alien involvement in the 1965 blackout.

"To shift attention from the UFO explanation, the 'broken relay' story was invented," Mr. Bondarchuk quotes U.S. ufologist Donald Keyhoe as saying. "Since this could be construed as blaming Canada, the prime minister must have been convinced it was best for both countries not to disclose the true situation." [...]

An unusually high number of UFO sightings have been reported across the Midlands due to the hot weather, say a group of alien spotters.

Cigar-shaped ships, beaming lights in the sky and a Tinkerbell-like being have all been reported to UFO society Contact since June.

Michael Soper, Contact's Midlands spokesman, said there had been 30 clear sightings of UFOs in the Birmingham area which could be put down to the temperatures. [...]

A RETIRED aviation enthusiast says he has never seen anything like an unidentified object which flew over his back garden.
Douglas Wragg has been watching the skies for more than 50 years and knows everything there is to know about aircraft and weather balloons.

But on a clear day in Petts Wood, he says he witnessed a cylinder-shaped flying object which was "nothing to do with aviation".

Mr Wragg, 71, asked his wife, Pamela, to verify he was not hallucinating after tracking the object through his binoculars.

Describing it as like "two rolls of carpet covered in black plastic", one on top of the other, he initially thought it was a kite but ruled that out when it climbed to about 20,000ft.

He said: "I know a lot about aircraft but I've never seen anything like this." He contacted Biggin Hill airport to warn them because it appeared to be in the flight path. [...]

As the planet Mars has moved to its closest point to Earth in around 60,000 years, the number of 'UFO sightings' in Germany has soared, a researcher said yesterday.

"I'm hearing some of the most outrageous claims at the moment," said Werner Walter, who heads Germany's CENAP centre tasked with investigating reports about unidentified flying objects. [...]

A UFO was spotted over Whitehaven on Saturday night. [...]

"It was pear shaped and came in from the Solway Firth over the Valley. There were no navigation lights, just white lights all round it and some sort of fabrication linking the thing up. It was very unusual. I had never seen anything like it – and none of us had been drinking." [...]

UFO investigators are targeting Suffolk in their quest to find alien life. [...]

A strange yellow D-shaped object was spotted overhead by a man in his garden at Freston.

He watched in wonder as the UFO changed shape before it altered course and flew off at around 11pm on August 5. [...]

You've been hearing a lot about it.. The planet mars is the closest it's been to earth in nearly 60,000 years.
And people all over the globe have been out star gazing to get a glimpse of it.

But late last week, some in Calcasieu say they saw something else in the sky out of the ordinary, and they were able to capture it on home video. [...]

Strange lights in the North-east night sky have baffled the experts.

Sixteen lights travelling rapidly across clear skies were spotted over two nights by a Fyvie resident.

Air traffic control bosses and aviation experts have ruled out aircraft or satellites, because the lights were travelling too fast to be planes or orbiting objects.

Astronomy experts say the lights could not have been "shooting stars" because they were travelling too slowly and from different directions.

One North-east UFO expert was at a loss to offer a straightforward explanation and said the mysterious sightings should be logged as genuine close encounters with unidentified flying objects. [...]

ROME TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Maybe it is something for the X-Files.

Residents in the Rome Township, Proctorville and Chesapeake areas were not necessarily concerned, but were curious about the source of odd lights in the sky Sunday and Monday nights. Two lights appeared to circle as if chasing one another each night over Rome Township, prompting residents to peer skyward. Occasional blips or flashes also appeared at random, sometimes over Ohio 7 and sometimes over Ohio 243 or to the south, toward the Ohio River.

"They were just kind of circling around," said Roger Lambert, of Rome Township.[...]

[...] The strange object in the picture appears to have an entirely symmetrical structure, with two "broom like" extentions on either end of a classic 'cigar' or cylinder shaped UFO body. There is also a bright 'orb' of light below it.

Almost every conceivable UFO shape has been reported over time -- from cylinders to columns to snake-like or even 'organic' looking structures to the classic saucer or sphere. Could we be seeing yet another remarkable ship design in Mona's photo?

MORE Wishaw residents have come forward after having their own close encounters of the UFO kind.

In last week's Wishaw Press, we reported the sighting of a green light in the sky, above Craigneuk on Monday September 8, around 9.30pm.

The green light had been seen in the sky, at a height of around 400 feet, before shooting off in the Muirhouse direction. [...]

Airdrie Echo - While far from being Alberta's version of Area 51, a Canadian UFO investigator and researcher says Airdrie and area has been a veritable hotspot for reported sightings of late.

Brian Wilke, director of HBCC UFO Research who has appeared on countless radio shows as a UFO expert, says he's received numerous calls on his toll-free UFO hotline reporting sightings of strange flying objects in the immediate area.

"We have started receiving a number of telephone calls and e-mails from (Airdrie) area residents reporting many strange lights and objects in the night skies," Wilke said. [...]

A HOUSEWIFE from Wallasey claims that the area is a hotbed of UFO activity. Nikki Limb is the newly appointed Wirral representative of the Merseyside Anomalies Research Association (MARA), which was set up in 1996 to investigate and research UFOs and other strange incidents.

She says UFO sightings are extremely common in Wirral and many are regularly reported to her. She also claims to have seen UFOs herself.

[...] One of the strangest of MARA's incidents occurred on August 24, 1997, when they say a black sphere appeared to rise out of the river. The group claim that four witnesses in Wallasey saw something odd in the evening sky at about 7.30pm in the evening as they were sat in the garden with friends enjoying the clear weather.

One of the people noticed a black ball in the sky moving at high speed - apparently quicker than an aircraft. They watched this for about a minute and had enough time to get in the house to get binoculars. During the observation the object changed direction a number of times and also seemed also to change shape.

Steve Musson (38) and his wife Caron (36) had a close encounter when they spotted what they believe was a UFO spinning across the sky near the shopping area. They saw what Steve described as "a black shiny disc turning over and over in the sky."

The UFO was in the air above their Bodiam Way, Grimsby, home for several minutes before Steve went inside and grabbed his video camera.

The footage, which he gave to the Telegraph, shows an intriguing black object, which comes in and out of view and catches the light on regular intervals.

It is in view for just over a minute before it completely disappears. On the film Steve can be heard to say: "It's just gone. I can't see it." [...]

Whatever happened to UFOs? Remember when people used to see them all the time, streaking over their houses like flocks of grackles?

I remember as a child stretching out on a blanket in the backyard at night and staring at the heavens, waiting for that telltale UFO. My buddies and I saw one. Not a bullet, not a plane, but an authentic unidentified flying object darting across the heavens into the Milky Way. It sent chills up and down our spines.

In those days, in the '50s, everybody saw flying saucers or knew somebody who did. While the government said there were no such things, we knew differently and waited for the impending invasion of Little Green Men from outer space. Would they come in peace or war? [...]

Maybe we all grew up and realized there is nothing out there in space but the stars and, based on some of the things that are happening in the world today, the aliens landed a long time ago.

GAUTIER, Mississippi-- Charles Hickson has spent the last 30 years living with something most other people couldn't even imagine.

On Oct. 11, 1973, Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing on the Pascagoula River, enjoying the cool fall evening. What seemed to be the beginning of a peaceful night turned to chaos when the pair suddenly found themselves in a close encounter with an alien craft and its occupants.

In 1973, media reports show a rash of UFO sightings across the country, including many reported by law enforcement officials that September and October in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.

In October 1973 alone there were more than 500 sightings reported, said John Schuessler, international director and founding member of Mutual UFO Network, which tracks sightings and contacts with alien vessels and beings. [...]

People from around the country have reported seeing an Unidentified Flying Object in the skies of Bahrain emitting strange lights for about a minute at around 11pm on Friday.

Bahraini Mohammed Jaffer Al Hajer was sitting with six of his friends outside his home in Qurrayah village near Budaiya when they noticed the UFO in the distant skies. Al Hajer 'caught' the strange object on his digital video camera as the lights appeared twice – once when the UFO emitted a bright yellow light and the second time when it split into two before disappearing.

"We first noticed the strange light appear to the left of the Batelco tower in the village," he said. "We saw it again just above the tower when I reached for my camera and began to video tape it." Al Hajer videotaped the object for about 40 seconds before it disappeared. The pictures were not clear because of the high speed of the object and the low resolution of the camera, according to Al Hajer. People in Manama also reported seeing the UFO at the same time and placed it between Manama and Muharraq, in the same vicinity as Al Hajer claimed.

However, sources at Bahrain International Airport tower told the Tribune that the radars there did not register any abnormal activity during that time. [...]

HUNTSBURG, Ohio -- Gaze into the dark sky and you might be surprised at what is there.

The phrase UFO conjures up all kinds of thoughts. For some in Geauga County, it might have been more than a thought when they saw something glowing.

It was in Huntsburg in Geauga County late one August evening when nature's dark ceiling was the backdrop of strange movements in the sky, Bibb reported.

"A light hovering above our woods," said Michele Braun.

Braun and her daughter, Stephanie, recounted the story on Aug. 29. Neighbor kids had a backyard bonfire going. But in the distance away from the rising smoke came unusual movement. Those who saw it could neither judge its distance away nor its size, saying they only know what they saw.

"It would start off like a little ball, like a little white light coming toward us and then it come like a half-circle, a rod," Braun said.

From the backyard gathering, a boy grabbed his video camera. So Bibb offered the tale of his tape. It was an eerie sight unfolding, like a fiery ball which changes its shape, Bibb said. Rven the family dog became unnerved.

"Just like going in circles and then she jumped on my mom; on her shoulder and then on her head. Like it was weird," Stephanie Braun said.

Just off Chardon-Windsor Road in Huntsburg there have been other accounts of mysterious events, Bibb said. Sometimes people say the compass behaves wildly with their needles not always pointing north.

Are the events unexplainable? Bibb said, "Perhaps."

George W. Bush raised a few eyebrows during the 2000 presidential campaign when he responded to a question about releasing government files on unidentified flying objects. "It'll be the first thing he (Dick Cheney) will do," Bush said. "He'll get right on it."

Immediately upon assuming office, however, the Bush administration exhibited an impulse for even tighter controls on government information, long before the 9/11 security clampdown. From Bush's immediate suspension of the 1978 Presidential Records Act to Cheney's refusal to comply with a General Accounting Office request for the names of the Vice President's Energy Task Force members, patterns of concealment are consistent. Just last month, Bush signed Executive Order 12958, which gave the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy the unprecedented authority to declare information "Top Secret." [...]

Soldiers encountered something strange in 'Coyne Incident'

CLEVELAND -- It was about 11 p.m. on Oct. 18, 1973, when an Army Reserve helicopter came perilously close to colliding with an unidentified flying object.

Arrigo "Rick" Jezzi, 56, who now lives in Cincinnati, was flying the Huey helicopter that night. Three decades later, he is still not sure what happened. [...]

Local residents reported an Unidentified Flying Object Friday night while attending a Unioto football game. An unexplainable series of lights lit up the night sky according to Lonnie Caplinger and his son Bruce. [...]

According to Bruce, he just happened to be looking up at the sky when he saw two bright lights that appeared to be moving toward him.

"Then of all of sudden, a third one appeared, then a fourth one, almost like a tear drop dropping out of the other one," he said. "They were in a horizontal line, four bright lights. Then they slowly turned orange and just disappeared." [...]

According to Lonnie, about 20 minutes after he witnessed the third series of lights, which happened in a period of 12 to 13 minutes, he saw what he thought were two fighter planes circling the area.

"Evidently they were from Wright Patterson (Air Force Base)," he said. "They came at a high rate of speed. They circled the area for several minutes and left."

Lonnie said the series of unidentified lights almost looked like a plane with four lights strung across the wing.

"But if it was a plane it was huge, huge, huge," he said. [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The truth is out there, and the Sci Fi Channel is determined to find it, even if that means suing NASA, the Department of Defence, the U.S. Army and Air Force for documents related to unidentified flying objects.

Sci Fi, a U.S. cable channel that airs fictional programming such as Battlestar Galactica, as well as documentaries that explore the line between fact and science fiction, is part of a group pressuring the federal government to de-classify UFO information.

Last year Sci Fi joined forces with an investigative journalist, a Washington, DC law firm, and former President Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, to gain release of documents relating to an incident it calls "the new Roswell," a UFO sighting in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965.

"Now, one year later, despite serious effort to uncover the facts, NASA and the Department of Defence are still maintaining their wall of silence," said Sci Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer. "Whether or not this has anything to do with UFOs the public has the right to know."

Now the Sci FI Channel is supporting what could turn into a series of lawsuits, first against NASA and then against the Department of Defence, the Army and Air Force, to get classified documents released to the public. [...]

NASA has agreed to turn over documents relating to the alleged crash of a UFO in Kecksburg, Pa., in 1965, the SCI FI Channel announced. The news comes a day after SCI FI said it would pursue legal action against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to release its records on the incident.

NASA informed Lee Helfrich, attorney for the Channel-sponsored Coalition for Freedom of Information , that it is releasing 36 pages of documents, the Channel said. [...]

"I think it's fair to say that we have truly entered the realm of science fiction in Washington, D.C., when it's fair game to disclose the identity of a clandestine CIA agent, but not the records of an unexplained crash in Kecksburg, Pa., that occurred 38 years ago," Podesta said at a news conference this week.

On Dec. 9, 1965, witnesses described seeing a fireball in the sky, a controlled landing and the systematic military recovery of an object. The incident is the subject of the original SCI FI Channel documentary The New Rosell: Kecksburg Exposed , hosted by Bryant Gumbel, which premieres Oct. 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Tim Butler doesn't believe in flying saucers. His perception is more sophisticated. It was a flying boomerang that caught his attention. [...]

The boomerang, Butler said, was notable for what it didn't have: It lacked markings, a cockpit, portholes, a tail and dorsal fins, stabilizing equipment, propellers, engines, and rivets.

"It wasn't thermalling and didn't make a sound," he said. "There was no heat distortion behind the end. I thought it had to be a military drone at one point but there was no contrail, no propulsion." [...]

Astronaut Ed Lu returned on Monday from a six-month tour as science officer on the international space station with loads of memories and at least one nagging puzzle: what caused the mysterious flashes of light he saw while studying the Earth's aurora from orbit?

Lu, who was a research astrophysicist before becoming an astronaut in 1994, estimates that he spent 100 hours watching the northern and southern lights during half a year in space. The auroral light show, which takes place well below the station's 380km altitude, shimmers and pulses depending on natural variations in incoming solar particles trapped by the Earth's magnetic field.

On three occasions - July 11, September 24 and October 12 - Lu saw something markedly different: flashes as bright as the brightest stars, which lasted only a second then blinked off again. In one instance, he called crew-mate Yuri Malenchenko over to the window to see the bursts. Lu says they appeared very different from the random but harmless retinal flashes that many astronauts experience when heavy cosmic rays hit their eyeballs. [...]

It was a clear, cold early February morning when Amy Wilbur saw a flying orange orb in the sky.
Now, the only way she can describe it is by what it was not. [...]

Wilbur is not alone. Last year there were 483 reported sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects in Canada, four of those sightings came from New Brunswick, according to the web-based Canadian UFO survey which tallies sightings dating back to 1989. [...]

First came the UFO, a massive, saucer-shaped craft hovering low over the Pacific Northwest in the spring of 1967. Then, two days later, came the beeping a steady, two-beeps-to-the-second sound coming from no discernible source. Locals, some bearing rifles, flocked to the woods to hear, to puzzle, to perhaps solve the mystery.

The nighttime beeping continued for weeks. Police even thought they heard it on their radios. When the beeping began, cows and dogs grew agitated, then quiet. Even the loud-mouthed frogs shut up.

Civil defense experts prowled the woods to no avail. Bird-call experts analyzed poor-quality tapes of the sound and came up blank. Finally, at wit's end, local authorities turned to their last hope: the crack saucer-busters at the University of Colorado.

Within days, physical scientist Roy Craig, an investigator with the university's Air Force-financed Condon Project the nation's largest, most systematic investigation of UFOs to date was dispatched to the scene.

What he found was the stuff of history. [...]

The skies above Japan are alive with extraterrestrial activity, according to the nation's foremost UFO research group and its fearless leader.

Matt Wilce examines the evidence.

Every January more than two million people crowd the grounds of Harajuku's Meiji Jingu to celebrate the New Year, but these revelers aren't the only beings checking out the shrine. On October 11, 1999, roughly 60 transparent rings appeared in the sky over the shrine and were witnessed and photographed by Junichi Kato and his OUR-J UFO group. On other occasions, unidentified shapes and lights have been spotted in the area with remarkable frequency, leading to its reputation as one of Japan's alien hotspots. [...]

[...] There seem to be rather a lot of spaceships hovering in the West's night skies. More than 200 police officers have come forward to say they have seen UFOs flying over the British countryside, a detective revealed yesterday.

And according to the bobbies' X-files experiences, for the past 50 years the West has been a buzzing hotspot for extra-terrestrial activity. [...]

ST.HELENS secured its lasting place in UFO history this week - via its own official entry in a mysterious X-Files style database.

Detective Constable Gary Heseltine, founder of the unique PRUFOS (Police Reporting UFO Sightings) records system, highlighted the almost-forgotten incident in the skies above the town as one of major " Defence Significance."

And - despite its initial logging on police files 25 years ago - Gary insisted that there was STILL NO convincing logical explanation for what happened above Bold Power Station in January 1978.

Then onlookers watched in disbelief as a shining light buzzed the installation, and appeared to dart down to take a closer look. But none were quite as astonished as two patrolling police officers who immediately logged in the spectacular sighting with disbelieving colleagues in the radio room.

DC Heseltine - a serving CID officer with British Transport Police in the South of England - explained last night: " The Ministry Of Defence still maintains that there has never been a case of Defence Significance. As a police officer, I find that position untenable and here is why.

"Having served in the Armed Forces I know that in the event of war in this country, all types of installation throughout Britain have been categorised for importance and vulnerability. For example oil fields, power stations, military installations are all key enemy targets which if hit would affect the infrastructure of Britain."

And he added later: " It follows that any attempt to survey or interfere with these types of installations would by definition have to be of 'Defence Significance.'"

The PRUFOS dossier contains 84 official sightings - reported by a total of 212 policemen and policewoman in the years between 1950 and 2002. And researcher Heseltine highlighted the St.Helens incident as one of the three MOST significant to take place at official installations during the Seventies while the Cold War was still raging.

But the serving sleuth claimed the speed of the craft over Bold indicated other-worldly powers, rather than a top-secret Soviet spy plane! Chronicled as No.44 in the database, the report observed: " Two uniformed officers - PCs Lowe and Roberts - observed a high speed UFO that hovered above Bold Power Station before darting across the landscape and doing likewise overFiddler's Ferry Power Station.

" This occurred during the Cold War and again multiple police witness corroboration was provided. Power Stations would be targeted in the event of war in Britain, and are thus regarded as key installations from a national defence point of view. "

Gary, who believes that Ets may have been monitoring the strategic strengths and weaknesses of various world powers, also highlighted two important instances of St.Helens style incidents.

In August 1976, a craft hovered over Buncefield Oil Terminal nr Hemel Hempstead for several minutes before vanishing.
The report - No.35 in the PRUFOS records - noted: " Checks with Luton Airport ruled out conventional craft."

Some years earlier in October 1967, two policemen spotted a stationary UFO hovering above HMS Dolphin - a submarine base - for several minutes.

UFO expert Heseltine - ones of scores of police officers to go public about strange phenomena - said later that the St.Helens incident indicated an extra-terrestrial visitation. [...]

[A] wave of strange shapes and lights have been seen in the region this year, according to UFO expert Michael Soper.

Contact International, an organisation which records and researches unexplained sightings, has already logged almost 50 separate sightings in the region this year.

A particular busy time came at the end of May, and then in early August when ten "objects" were seen. [...]

SALMON - The truth is out there, according to two longtime Salmon residents who say that unexplained lights have periodically flashed across the sky over the vast and remote Salmon-Challis National Forest.

UFO lore has hovered on Salmon´s horizon for decades, with the majority of sightings occurring in the unpopulated backcountry.

Chester Rackham, 79, who manned half a dozen fire lookouts in the Salmon-Challis for more than three decades, recalls seeing what he described as "fuzzy blue lights." He never received a plausible explanation. [...]