UFOs Disclosed - Awful Truth or Cash Cow?

You may have noticed that a new conspiracy website has popped up recently.

'UFOs Disclosed' website logo

The website in question is called
UFOs Disclosed with the (rather cliched) slogan
"Revealed: The truth about UFOs"

Now that's the end of the free advertising they get from me.

In my opinion, it reveals nothing new about the UFO/UAP phenomenon as yet.

In an extremely drawn out video introduction with the video's script on the website landing page, some of the better known events are fleetingly referred to here from the start of the modern phenomenon in 1940s, to saucers over Washington in the 50s, to UFO triangles over Belgium, to the Phoenix Lights incident.

What's interesting is the presentation employed by the site. It has a definite feel of an American news network production about it - and I'm basing this on the numerous U.S. documentaries and news items I've seen over the years - although it is claimed that the site is independent of the mainstream media.

Upon watching the video and reading the introductory page, it ends up feeling (to me at least) like just another of the millions of American advertisements or commercials out there pushing yet another product that you could probably happily survive without. In this case what is being 'sold' is some professionally finished books and CDs with a 60-day 'money-back guarantee' at a 'limited time' price offer.

It would be disappointing if this were all that was on offer. The anonymous source behind the site (a supposed reporter) makes the oft-repeated claim about having put their life at risk to reveal 'the truth' about UFOs and ET but not a single piece of earth-shattering evidence is put in the public domain for free by this source.

I would like to think that if I came into possession of any such 'smoking gun' concerning UFO/ET evidence that I would reveal at least some of it - totally gratis - to the public.

The site regurgitates surface material already accessible from other sources on the net, with a promise of access to 'classified material' or 'undeniable proof' should you choose to first part with your hard earned cash...

...Don't hold your breath though, as it's reported in the San Francisco Chronicle that this 'classified material' and 'undeniable proof' is (and I quote): "...a compilation of notable UFO sightings and cases throughout history". So just a collation of material that you could find elsewhere then!

Interestingly, the same article suggests this site is rapidly attracting interest in terms of thousands of members joining the site's community in a matter of weeks.

I would never knock any serious effort to find or even reveal the truth (or truths) about UFOs, UAP, ET etc. but it seems to me this latest site has nothing new to bring to the table for now...

Yet another school 'visited' by aliens

Remember my earlier articles about the rather strange choice of events to stage which are apparently in use in the English school curriculum?

If you don't, then here are the links:-


Why are schools running 'UFO crash drills'?

Another school running a 'UFO crash drill'?

It appears that the practice of our schools staging 'alien contact' or a 'UFO crash' is still going on as evidenced by last Friday's article in the Whitby Gazette...

Buzz Aldrin - Interesting choice of words...

Thanks to our friends at Open Minds I saw an article in the Alaska Dispatch about Buzz Aldrin visiting a university in Alaska. The only line of interest to me in the article was in connection with one of the questions allegedly asked by students:- "Did he see a UFO? Probably not."

Now this line is arguably easy to dismiss to most people (especially those with no interest in UFOs!). Except that:-

• first the headline of the article is the strangely worded "Astronaut Buzz Aldrin mum on whether he saw a UFO" (shouldn't it have been "Astronaut Buzz Aldrin keeps mum on whether he saw a UFO"?) A cynical attempt to get more web-clicks? Bit of a con if you ask me as there is almost nothing on the subject in the article except the above two sentences;

• Buzz Aldrin has been quite outspoken in the past about seeing 'UFOs' - why be reluctant to discuss them now? I suppose if I were in Mr Aldrin's shoes, I would be getting fed up with all the UFO questions but these were students asking in this case. They can be forgiven for asking such a question and be more deserving of a (perhaps less vague) response. Perhaps he had to be on his 'best behaviour' in order to 'inspire' the students; and

• there's the annoying misuse of the initials 'U.F.O.' The question - if indeed it is quoted verbatim, and is not just lazy reportage - should have been "Did he see aliens/alien craft?" Technically if Mr Aldrin had seen objects in space that neither he (nor anyone else) could identify then these would have been UFOs. If he was saying that 'he didn't see a UFO' does that mean he saw nothing at all, or that whatever he did see was clearly identifiable?

Of course, only those present in the room with him know what Buzz Aldrin did and didn't say on the day. For those of us who weren't there, we are reliant upon unexceptional journalism  to report the event - and as is almost always the case with the media - this means things are either inaccurately reported or taken out of context.

Or maybe I'm just being over-analytical and there was nothing of note to report anyway!

2012 - A retrospective

So - here's my short retrospective of 2012, mostly centred on the phenomenon of UFOs or UAP.

I really hadn't planned on starting 2013 with a post about my broadband problems but such is life.

At least I had planned on starting 2013 period.

The 2012 phenomenon

Many doom-mongers - and arguably those perhaps with a cabbage short of an allotment - didn't plan on starting 2013 at all because of ...yes you guessed it ... the supposed Mayan apocalypse.

No - the world didn't end on 21 December 2012 and there are likely to be many - bizarrely - crestfallen or hang-dog faced people out there who were disappointed that it didn't!
There wasn't even a world-wide spiritual awakening or 'rapture' as suggested by ranks of religious or new age nut-cases.

I remember that when the question about the world ending on 21 December 2012 did crop up at the BUFORA 50th anniversary conference, one of the BUFORA representatives said (and I'm paraphrasing) 'We'll get back to you on 22 December', which was a reasonable response in my view.

One thing is clear however. Hollywood did well out of it, as did many authors, cranks and posters on Youtube - and the net was flooded with nonsense on it for at least two years in the run-up to the infamous date.

But I digress, the following - with links to the relevant blog articles - are what I consider to be some of the key moments of 2012 followed by the damp squibs.

BUFORA's 50th Anniversary conference

The UFO panel at the National Atomic Testing Museum

The public release of the final set of (the UK's) M.O.D. files

Questions to the White House concerning the UFO phenomenon (the first petition being late 2011 running into 2012, the latter early 2012 - no link)

I mention these because - although both petitions 1 and 2 were unsuccessful - in that insufficient numbers of signatures were received to meet the required threshold (quickly raised incidentally from the original 5000 to 25000 shortly after launch and now again to 100,000 this year) - it was another milestone in engaging the U.S. Government on the subject. Continued pressure may force the U.S. Government to be more responsive - if not proactive - on this issue (but don't hold your breath) and that's provided 100,000 US citizens can be found to sign up...

And the damp squibs were:-

The 2012 Olympics alleged UFO sighting
Still a 'blimp' in my view

The Baltic undersea objects 
Concrete something-or-others. Who is not past caring?

The 'Anonymous to leak secret UFO data?' story
No such luck.

Life confirmed on Mars
Water? Is that the best NASA can do after the Moon Landings over forty years ago?
 

In addition, the downright embarassing were the alleged discovery of a faster-than-light particle (which proved not to be the case) and the dreadful TV debacle that was
Conspiracy Road Trip: UFOs.

Otherwise, a personal high for me in 2012 was having a brief email exchange with Douglas Trumbull - Hollywood visual effects expert - about his (still sadly shelved) UFOTOG project.

SO - All in all, 2012 was still a busy - and significant - year in terms of UFOs/UAP - and don't let the doubters or the media tell you otherwise. The UFO/UAP phenomenon is very much alive and kicking and has yet to be satisfactorily resolved!

I'm back!

After some months of frustration with my current BT service giving me a download speed as slow as 287kbs and upload 444kbs(!!!); learning more than I wanted (or cared to know) about BT's dynamic line management system and IP profiles; followed by having to admit defeat and upgrade to BT infinity (fibre optic), I am now connected with something like a decent broadband speed once again.

Even surfing the net was painfully slow compared to what I have now. Theoretically my current max download speed will be 160 times faster than what I've recently had to put up with.

And if it stays that way (the line is still in the process of settling down) blogging - and all my other net activity will be a pleasure once more.

As I have been away from my blog for some time, I plan to give a retrospective of 2012 in my next post which will follow shortly.

I'm still here but broadband still really poor!

Again - Apologies to all out there who follow my posts. I've had a frankly very frustrating and baffling time trying to get my BT broadband speed up to something vaguely usable. This means I'm lucky to be able to reliably access my posts let alone compose one.

As of today, my download speed is still a very meagre 287kbs - which is roughly a 60th of what it could potentially be with the deal I'm on!

I'm still waiting for a stable line so that I can demonstrate to my suppliers (BT) that the speed needs to be re-adjusted upwards.

It's times like these that make me think the vast majority of us are still 'children playing in the dark' when it comes to the technology now available to us and the increasing reliance we place on others - particularly large multinational corporate technology giants - that are allegedly 'in the know' about that technology.

It reminds me of an Armstrong and Miller TV sketch where a time-traveller - Alexander Armstrong - is sent back in time to tell Faraday - played by Ben Miller - about the technological wonders the future had in store. Only problem was that Armstrong's character was a last-minute (and uninformed) replacement for the boffin who was supposed to have been sent back - but who was 'Too fat to fit in the [time travel] pod'.

This led to (in my view) a funny and embarrassing exchange where Armstrong's character quickly revealed his absolute lack of (even basic) knowledge on the physics (and history) front when questioned by Faraday.

Anyway - here it is:-

Okay - so it's not likely to make everyone laugh, But I could see the point behind the sketch.
I expect a good 90 per cent (at least) of humanity today won't know how the everyday technology they use works, at least to the point that they could successfully build it themselves (and this includes myself!).

Makes me wonder what E.T. would think about that if they were observing us. Don't expect they'd be too impressed!