Flight MH370 - 5 days on and still a mystery...

Update 15 March 2014

An image of a Malaysia Airlines 777

This is looking more and more like a hijack/terrorist scenario given that communications on the plane may have been deliberately disabled and that the authorities are now looking at the crew/passenger manifest in more detail.

BBC Breakfast interviewed an 'expert' in the last hour who referred to the 'point of maximum confusion' during the plane's journey.

This would be the point at which communications with the plane would be handed over from one country or region's airspace control to another and during which a hostile takeover might possibly have taken place.

This may offer the hope (however faint) that the passengers and crew are still alive and that they - and the aircraft itself - are being held for a ransom at a secret location...

Main article

By now you may have heard about the 'disappearance' of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 five days ago.

Rather than repeat the story here, this BBC article covers developments so far in full.

The BBC have also posted an article about other mysterious airline incidents - some not resolved until many years later.

It remains to be seen what category of incident flight MH370 falls into. It would clearly be premature to even speculate at this stage about what might have happened but, of course, conspiracy theories - including those relating to UFOs - are already viral on the net.

What this most likely tragic story highlights however, is how the world's air travel infrastructure is still vulnerable in the 21st century, nearly a hundred years after the start of the first 'fixed wing' airline. It also shows that, despite all our modern technology which includes radar and satellite tracking systems, finding a large passenger aircraft (or potential wreckage thereof) with 239 people on board, in a search area recently expanded to 92,000 sq km, is an extremely challenging task.

Assuming the plane never made it to dry land, the ocean is a very big and very deep place to be looking through.

My thoughts go out to those relatives of the people on flight MH370 waiting for any news at this time.

A UFO flying across Kent’s skies?

Update 

This story also features in Newsshopper as well as Open Minds.

Main article

An article in the Kent News today features a UFO sighting by father and son - Les Burlington, 68 and son Andrew 38 - in the area of South London/Kent. This article also refers to the website UFO World sightings which they originally reported their sighting to.

Unfortunately, the picture in the article (also shown here) is only apparently a computer generated image created by son Andrew of what they believe the unidentified 'craft' looked like - a classic triangular UFO.

Nonetheless the description of their sighting is interesting. They rule out both the sceptics' recurring choice of Chinese lanterns and helicopters as an explanation.

'Digital representation' of the UFO in Kent News

I know exactly what they're talking about with their reference to helicopter sightings, as I regularly see police helicopters circling in the South London/Kent area. You always know they're around as they're very noisy - unlike the 'craft' in this apparent sighting. And if what they witnessed was at relatively close range - to prevent too much sound distortion - then one could also rule out a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) or vector thrust aircraft given the noise that is made by such vehicles.

I have seen Chinese lanterns in this area too. Whilst these are silent, they're readily easy to identify (at close range - less so at a distance) and rarely last for any significant duration.

If the timing of the sighting was at 8:45pm as suggested, then this also rules out
sun-dogs - and whilst most familiar celestial bodies slowly move across the sky (no idea whether it was a clear sky or not that night) - what they claimed to witness apparently 'circled' as well...

It is conceivable however, that what they saw might possibly have been an airship or blimp, or a remote-controlled drone/aircraft.

Message to Les/Andrew

 

If you're reading this post - especially given that this has apparently taken place not far from where I live - I would very much like you to get in touch about your sighting.

You can reach me at ufoscrutiny@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Jonathan aka MIB.

The (Hoax) Alien Invasion is coming...

Ok Folks,

I admit I've been a bit remiss with my postings again - especially as my last post has been out of date for some time (as the Open Minds website is now up and running fine again).
My apologies - it was down to another run of (tiring and tedious) Govt contract work which finishes at the end of March and which has been taking up quite a bit of my time.

So this post offers three relatively hot news items for one. Enjoy.

Hoax 'Alien Invasion'

A typical camera drone

Anyway, be warned that according to these OpenMinds and Yahoo News articles there is a hoax 'alien invasion' on the horizon.

No it's nothing to do with the laughable 'Project Blue Beam', this appears to be a planned large-scale prank orchestrated by supposed UFO fans who will fly large numbers of remote controlled drones, complete with eerie flashing lights, into the skies on 5th April. Apparently 1st April would be too obvious a date hence the 5th to catch the uninformed unawares.

It will be interesting to see whether this generates any flurry of activity on the web or whether - given some the event's thunder might have been stolen by these articles and others - it just ends up being another '...and finally' item on local news networks. All a bit of fun I guess. And who knows? Maybe the news of the 'fake invasion' is itself just as fake - a social experiment in media manipulation. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Are We Alone? - This coming week

It's good to see some elements of the mainstream media giving some extended and sober coverage to one of the great mysteries as the American Science Channel launches it's Are We Alone themed week from tomorrow. Full details on the Science Channel Website

Bruce Dickinson and the 'flying bum'!

Now what have the former Iron Maiden front-man and a 'flying bum' got in common?

Daily Mail picture of the Hybrid Air Vehicle

Well the recent BBC News article and other articles such as this one in the Daily Mail will show you.

Bruce Dickinson - now a successful businessman and pilot, has - along with other investors - re-acquired (from the US military) an advanced 'airship' designed in Britain which, according to the Daily Mail resembles nothing less than a 'flying bum'.

It's a rather crass description for a huge and elegant piece of British hybrid airplane/airship engineering called the HAV (Hybrid Air Vehicle) 304, which I'm sure might get mistaken by some unobservant people for a 'UFO'. Anyway check out the articles for more details.