Sunday, July 27, 2008

We Are Not Alone

I was always terrified of UFOs and aliens as a boy. My mother would try to calm my fears by saying if they landed, she'd want to be the first one aboard because it would be such an adventure.

Mmm-hmmm.

As a teen, I did see something that cannot be explained and a group of my friends from the neighborhood saw the same thing (more below). At night, we would lay on the lawn and look at the dark sky, trying to identify constellations or spot a shooting star to make a wish upon. We'd see lots of air traffic moving along among the stars. Albany Airport lies in the air traffic corridor from Boston to out West so the planes are already high at cruising altitude by the time they pass by. (You can see them during the day, too, sometimes leaving convection currents in their wake.) Albany is also a couple of hours south of Plattsburgh Air Force Base and who knows what training missions they were on. We'd watch lights miles above chase each other, sometimes catching up (training to refuel in flight?), and then darting away.

Films and television shows like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Project UFO, and In Search Of... served to launch my imagination into hyperdrive.

As an adult, I read the book Communion by Whitley Strieber, and that completely freaked me out. There were times when I'd make my ex (my first ex, that is) go into our apartment to inspect for aliens before I'd go in. Silly, really, in hindsight. But I was truly afraid. It didn't help that the setting of the book was primarily in the woods of upstate NY.

Which leads me to the event of which I hinted about above. It involved a light that initially appeared to look like a star. It started high in the sky and was on a 45˚ trajectory toward the horizon. It was small, like you'd imagine a shooting star, but it looked closer. It was moving very fast and my friends and I watched intently as someone mentioned it looked like a plane and it was going to crash.

As it neared the tops of our tree line in the distance, it began to move at incredible speed in alternating 90˚ directions...kinda like a heart monitor with all points exactly even. After about eight of these up and down movements, it sped across the sky on an even path parallel to the horizon and disappeared from sight.

I wasn't the only one who saw it. I wasn't the only one freaked out. It wasn't a shooting star. It wasn't a weather balloon. It wasn't a plane. It wasn't a helicopter. It wasn't Superman. It WAS an Unidentified Flying Object.

Now, if you don't believe me, read on to see what Dr. Mitchell, the sixth man ever to have set foot on the moon via the Apollo 14 mission, said in a radio interview this week. (Kerrang Radio is a rock music station in Birmingham, England.)

July 24, 2008 11:30am

Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — has stunningly claimed aliens do exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions — but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr. Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

Dr. Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

"I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real," Dr. Mitchell said.

"It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit."

Dr. Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed Roswell was real and similar alien visits continue to be investigated.

He told the astonished Kerrang! radio host Nick Margerrison: "This is really starting to open up. I think we're headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction."

Mr. Margerrison said: "I thought I'd stumbled on some sort of astronaut humour but he was absolutely serious that aliens are definitely out there and there's no debating it."

Officials from NASA, however, were quick to play the comments down. In a statement, a spokesman said: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. Dr. Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue."
The cynical side of me questions why this revelation happened the week that the new X Files movie debuted in the U.S. Did they pay him? Note the parsing of words in the NASA statement. "NASA is not involved" which doesn't deny the U.S. military is involved.

Are we alone? I'm agnostic on the matter. Just as I don't believe in God and Christ because there is no proof, I must be consistent and say that I need to have more data before I can be sure that humans are being visited.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am hoping that there is something out there but Like you it would be great to have some proof.

Gavin said...

romach---I noted the radio station was in your neck of the wood. maybe not down the street, but closer that most of us. Was there much talk in your area (or were you still on vacation)?

michael sean morris said...

One anal probe coming up!