Out of this world: A scene from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and (below) Allen Ilynek

NOBODY knew more about the truth behind flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, than Josef Allen Hynek, a pioneer of scientific investigation into the unexplained sightings that still intrigue the world.

The astronomy professor and ufologist was born in Chicago 100 years ago today. Hynek led an extraordinary life analysing many.of the thousands of reports made every year of extra-terrestrials, spaceships, mysterious "crop circles", alleged UFO attacks, alien visitors, abduction claims and inexplicable sightings usually in remote places.

At first he was a sceptic about the existence of UFOs but his opinions, along with his knowledge, slowly swung around. He became concerned that not all the reliable witnesses who reported sightings could be dismissed as wrong, even if the sights could not be scientifically explained.

He was technical adviser to Columbia Pictures and Steven Spielberg on the 1977 classic film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, the story based loosely on his own life. He was seen stepping forward silently, pipe in mouth, to view the aliens disembark from the "mother ship".

1111936 Hynek, with a doctorate in astrophysics, joined the department of physics and astronomy at Ohio State University. During World War II, at the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, he helped develop the US Navy's radio proximity fuse (automatic explosive device) which contributed to the Allied victory in the war.

By 1948, Hynek, as a full professor, was invited by the US Air Force to act as technical consultant in Project Sign, set up to examine the flood of UFO reports causing rising public concern. This became Project Grudge 1949-52 and Project Blue Book 1952-69, with Hynek as chief scientific consultant_

At first he debunked any idea that flying saucers did exist. He believed his main task for the air force was to educate the public on scientific matters of astronomy and atmospheric phenomena. His opinions began to shift as he realised that not all UFO sightings could be explained away as mis-identification of known natural occurrences. He found some reports "deeply puzzling". He was troubled by the small but persistent percentage of reports from competent observers

astronomers, pilots, police and military personnel containing physical data which could not be explained away. Hynek decided many of these must be genuine observations.

He concluded "that the UFO phenomenon is a real physical phenomenon and represents an aspect of the natural world not yet explored by science".

By the 1960s his turnaround and disagreement with the attitudes of Blue Book, where he was expected to "explain away" as many UFO reports as possible, was an open secret. He became distressed at the "arrogant" or "superficial" attitude of most mainstream scientists towards UFOs.

For decades, after the USAF terminated Project Blue Book, Hynek conducted his own research. He was founder and head of the Chicago-based civilian Centre for UFO Studies, opened in 1973. That year, Hynek said he doubted UFOs were spacecraft from other planets. "It seems to me ridiculous that super intelligences would travel great distances to do relatively stupid things like stop cars, collect soil samples and frighten people. We must look closer to home," he said. -

In a final hypothesis he

suggested there are stars millions of years older than the sun. "There may be a civilisation millions of years more advanced than man's," he said. "[They] may know something that we don't

"The psychic realms, so mysterious to us today, may be an ordinary part of an advanced technology."

In 1978, Hynek addressed the UN general assembly, in an attempt to initiate a centralised UN authority on UFOs.

Still probing for the elusive answers, Hynek died in 1986 of a malignant brain tumor in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ann Beveridge

Online..

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PERHAPS we need to ;seat any alien visitors as illegal immigrants and get them first to land on Christmas Island for processing. If they fail to meet the criteria, send them back to outer space, or tell them they can have Afghanistan.

Pete Bateau UFOs certainly exist, there has been too much Bay

evidence not to believe otherwise. I find it hard not to believe, as in this vast universe surely we are not the only life that exists.

Jual Russell SOUNDS like some people may have had one too many Darwin stubbies. Please leave these stories for the April 1 edition,

arry Central HOW does one become a qualified UFOlogist?

Coast Can one become an Easter bunny expert?

Carl Wollongong IT'S Rudd and his cronies looking for their own mine., . nothing to fear my friends.

Terry

IT IS Hans Solo coming to find spare parts from Autobarn for the Millennium:Falcon:

UFO tax coming soon.

The Opinion Sydney

Sqidda Boy I BLAME the NSW State Government Sydney

ABDUCT me, abduct me!

Dave Gosford

The Papp Five Dock GRAB the shotguns and don your alfoil hats . THIS ames IS article was just so funn . well do Sydney done I enjoyed reading it.

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Min Sydney SPACE Food Sticks are delicious, I say welcome.

Jono Carroll THEY are here for one purpose only, toSurry remove

hills

the entire state of Queensland and their State of Origin team to a planet far, far away .. may the force be with them,

Greg Mietherill Park

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Real or fake? Send us your UFO pictures

tipaff@sundaytelegraph.com.au '

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a

Rocket, so forget the aliens

Blast off: The SpaceX rocket takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida yesterday

By RICHARD CLUNE

THE sightings began just before the break of dawn a strange swirling light, spinning across the sky that stopped early risers in their tracks.

It was definitely not a bird and moved too quickly to be a plane.

From Melbourne to Caboolture, they gazed upwards wondering the same thing: Could this be the UFO to end the debate about whether UFOs exist?

It took only two hours for that question to be settled.

The unidentified flying object was identified as a private rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"Sadly for many, it's not aliens," said Sydney Observatory curator Dr Andrew Jacob. "We believe it to be the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

"lt launched at 4.45am Australian Eastern Standard Time and that puts it over Sydney and the eastern seaboard about an hour later.

"They always launch eastward and a little south from Canaveral."

Developed by a California firm and subsidised by NASA, the rocket was on its maiden test flight. Its supporters hope it will be a cheaper way to launch satellites into space and will take over from the space shuttle as a supply vehicle for the international space

shuttle. The SpaceX company was set up by millionaire Elon Musk in 2002.

Hundreds of Australians along the eastern seaboard reported seeing the craft as it made its way across the sky.

Tamworth fireman Andrew Coe said it was a sight to behold.

"I was getting the paper when I looked up and saw the light. I thought it was the moon but then realised it was moving, swirling. I grabbed the boss and we observed it for a couple of minutes. It was really interesting to see it"

Kevin Watson, of Shellharbour, reported a similar sight. He said: "I couldn't believe my own eyes."

The rocket was also seen by workers on an oil rig in the Cooper Basin, in far west Queensland.

"My mate spotted it first and said, 'Have a look at that!' At first I thought it was the moon," Garth Marks said. "It moved slowly, then disappeared."

Dr Jacob said the craft's high altitude explained the multiple sightings.

But some remain to be convinced. UFO Research NSW spokesman Doug Moffett labelled the rocket claims a "convenient explanation".

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Outback UFO an illusion A MYSTERIOUS object seen in film footage of British miss-ile testing in the Australian desert in 1964 set off decades of conspiracy theories about a UFO in the Outback.

When UK television viewers in the 1960s watched BBC footage of an abandoned test of the Blue Streak missile at Woomera in South Australia, they were shocked by what appeared to be a flying saucer near the rocket launch pad.

The plot thickened in 1996 when documentary-maker Jenny Randles went to investi-gate the footage. only to find the one canister containing the evidence was missing from the National Archives.

Newly released files from the MOD reveal, far from being a UFO, the flying saucer was just a trick of the light.

UFO tale banned BRITISH prime minister Winston Churchill banned for 50 years the reporting of an alleged UFO incident during WWII because it could create mass panic.

Documents released yester-day claimed that a wartime reconnaissance aircraft photo-graphed a UFO as it crossed the British coast, with the crew saying the mystery craft "hovered noiselessly" near them before moving off.

The documents claimed Mr Churchill "made a declaration to the effect, 'This event should be immediately classi-fied since it would create mass panic among the population'."

Full report page 25

Space junk or UFO WINDHOEK: A hollow metallic ball which fell out of the sky on remote grassland in Namibia has baffled authorities, prompting them to contact NASA and the European space agency for answers.

The ball, urn in circumference, was found near a village in the north of the country. Locals heard several small explosions a few days before it appeared.

With a 35cm diameter, it has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together". Made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighing 6kg, it made a crater 33cm deep and 3.8m wide. Several such balls have fallen on southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years.

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UFOs a war secret Churchill feared mass panic if air encounter revealed

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LONDON: Sir Winston Churchill was accused of covering up a close encounter between an RAF aircraft and a UFO during World War II, newly released files reveal.

The former British prime minis-ter allegedly ordered the incident over England's east coast be kept secret for at least 50 years because it would provoke "mass panic".

The claim, made by a scientist Who said his grandfather was one of Mr Churchill's bodyguards, is re-. counted in declassified Ministry of Defence UFO files made available online by the National Archives.

Allegations of the cover-up emerged when the scientist wrote to the government in 1999 seeking

to learn more about the incident. He described how his grand-

father, who served with the RAF in the war, was present when Mr Churchill and ps General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.

The man, who is not named in the files, said Mr Churchill was repor-ted to have exclaimed: "This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general population and destroy one's be-lief in the church."

The incident alleg- edly involved an RAF reconnaiss-

ance plane returning from a miss-ion in France or Germany towards the end of the war.

It was over or near the English coastline when it was intercepted by a strange metallic object which matched the aircraft's course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing.

Mr Churchill and General Eisen-hower "agreed to cover up the RAF plane's UFO encounter during WWII", the files reveal.

"During the discussion with Mr Churchill, a consultant dismissed any possibility that the object had been a missile, since a missile could not suddenly match its speed with a slower aircraft and then accelerate again. He declared that the event was totally beyond any imagined capabilities of the time.

"Another person at the meeting raised the possibility of an unidenti-fied flying object, at which point. Mr Churchill declared that the incident should be immediately classified for at least 50 years."

The files also revealed UFOs were once taken seriously enough to be discussed by intelligence chiefs in 1957.

The latest batch of UFO files from the National Archives in-cludes details of a memorandum on "aerial phenomena" prepared for a meeting of the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee in April 1957. And the files show that modern reports of UFO sightings reached a peak in 1996. Cover up: Documents about a UFO sighting were allegedly made secret by Sir Winston Churchill

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Unidentified flying Nazis: A flying saucer allegedly developed by Hitler's scientists and (inset) an artist's impression of the craft

cuagjs.mBLS_ Nazi UFO flew over UK in '44 LONDON: As Hitler's armies began to crumble he turned in increasing desperation to his scientists to create a war-winning super-weapon.

Some, like the V2 rockets and the first jet fighters, saw action but came too late to halt defeat.

Others were so outrageously ambitious that they never got past the drawing board.

The idea of building flying saucers to bomb London and even New York could have been just such a scheme.

Now it is claimed Hitler's scientists were so far advanced with the project a prototype may have flown up the Thames.

The program, under the com-mand of SS officer Hans Kamm-Ier, was said to have made breakthroughs in anti-gravity, according to a report in the German science magazine PM.

It quotes witnesses who saw a flying saucer marked with the Iron Cross flying low over the Thames in 1944.

"The Americans also treated the existence of the weapons seriously," it said.

The magazine said the Ger-mans destroyed much of the paperwork on their activities but in 1960, Canadian UFO experts managed to recreate the device which, to their amazement, "did

onthestreet Do you believe in the existence of UFOs? BELIEVE in all possibilities

including UFOs. I'm very comforted by the fact there's intelligent life out there. Alison Marshall Waterloo

YES. I saw one on my balcony with a friend five months ago. There was a beam of light and it was there for three hours. Alexis Al(ache Padstow YES. With how big the universe is and how small Earth is, it is statistically probable. Craig Anderson Engadtne

I HAVEN'T seen any but I saw .a documentary on the History Channel which swayed me. Kayo Shoji Ryde

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UFO? No, Iranians TEHRAN: It's not clear how far or how high it can fly, or even how big it is and what

... makes it take off. But Iranian scientists claim

to have built the world's first flying saucer.

The unmanned machine is apparently designed for aerial photography and is called the Zohal Saturn.

"It is equipped with auto-pilot, image stabiliser and GPS and has a separate system for aerial recording with FULL HD quality," Iran declared, keen to show it is at the cutting edge of science.

Pine Gap UFO files released Lucy Came in London

UNIDENTIFIED flying discs above Pine Gap space station and an Australian sent by 'the lights" to unify the human race are among thousands of alien claims made public by the UK Ministry of Defence.

The files, released for the first time this week, contain more than 8500 pages reveal-ing UFO sightings and alien abductions discussed by sev-eral governments. They in-clude accounts of UF0s- acitiss Britain, Norway and Australia.

One UK citizen in 2001 demanded the Ministry of Defence investigate an alleged cover-up of flying objects seen from the space shuttle Dis-covery over Pine Gap, near Alice Springs.

.NASA said it was debris illuniinated by the sun, but the MOD admitted it could only offer a "disappointing" reply because "there are some aspects which, for reasons of national security, are just not

I open for discussion". _ In another . file, a London

mother claimed aliens chose her second husband.

"He is Australian [white] and I am Barbadian [black]," she wrote. "We were being brought together to represent the Unity between the Op-posite Forces -- the positive and negative forces."

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Shirley IVIacLaine: my wild affairs and hunting UFOs with Andrew

SAMANTHA MAIDEN NATIONAL POLITICAL EDITOR

SCREEN legend Shirley Mac-LaMe has unlocked her Ex-Files, revealing how she took Andrew Peacock LIFO spotting on a date at. a remote Mexican volcano white he was foreign miniSter.

In a new tell-all book about her string of prominent lovers, Ms MacLaine discloses how the future Liberal leader nearly "climbed the sky" when they thought they saw a flying saucer and hinted that he had secret government information about their existence.

The Oscar-winning actress is a lifelong believer in UFOs, spiritu-ality and reincarnation and claims she slept with King Char-lemagne when she was a Moorish peaSant girl in a past fife.

In this life, her affair with Mr Peacock began when she was touring Australia and later, as both travelled the world, they enjoyed assignations in Canada, France, Cambodia, Thailand, England, the US and Mexico.

In the book, entitled I'm Over All That And Other Confessions, she writes: "I thought as long as 'he's the Minister for Ftireign Affairs, I might as well give him one he'll never forget."

She claims her Australian lover, with his access to govern-ment files, knew more about UFOs than he was willing to reveal to her.

"Whenever I discussed my spiritual and metaphysical ideas with him, he listened, nodded and more or less said: 'It could be, Who knows?'

"On a UFO stakeout in Mex-ico near Mt Popocatepetl, at one moment we thought we saw a craft and Andrew nearly 'climbed the sky' to see if it was real.

"As foreign minister he con-

trolled all the information com-ing out of Alice Springs (suppos-edly the underground UFO research facility in Australia). Because he was sworn to secrecy, he 'never told me outright that UFOs were extraterrestrial in origin and were present.

"When I told him I had gone to see Jimmy Carter to discuss UFOs, he just smiled again. He was a trained diplomat."

Mt Popocatepetl is a repor ted hot-spot for UFO ac-tivity where' enthusiasts claim the craft are regularly captured by Mexican Gov-ernment disaster cameras.

in the book, the 76-year-old reveals her various "sex-capades," including bedding three lovers in one day. She writes about affairs with actor Robert Mitchum, singer Yves Montand and Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau (Canada) and OW Palme (Sweden).

The book reveals Mr Peacock, who was single, threatened to have the "secret service follow me if I was ever caught with anyone else" but he didn't realise she was also bedding Mr Palme.

"Once after leaving Palme in Stockholm, I went directly to Paris to meet Andrew. The pa-parazzi were all over me when I landed. Andrew thought it was because of him, but it was actually about both [Mr] Palme and him," she writes.

She describes Mr Peacock as "charming, funny and a conserva-tive". "He used his voice like a snake oil salesman, which always made me laugh because, as I told him, I was also in the business of professional seduction through voice manipulation."

The Sunday Telegraph contacted Mr Peacock but he did not wish to comment on the book.

We thought we saw a craft andAndrew nearly "climbed

the sky" to see if it was real

n Shirley Maclaine with Andrew Peacock dancing at a hall in Washington in MB

APPIL

lers stuns police By UGEL ADLANI

POLICE are convinced that Territorians go a little bit mad during the full moon.

They were shocked -- and delighted that most people behaved themselves during Tuesday night's full moon.

Superintendent John Ginnane said: "There were a few incidents but generally it was a quiet night"

He said emergency service workers police, fire fighters and ambulance officers firmly believed that full moon had a strange effect on people.

And the policeman said other workers who dealt with the public at night such as taxi drivers and nightclub bouncers were also con-vinced of it.

"For some reason, a full

moon inspires behaviour over and above what is expected," Supt Ginnane said.

Full moon madness doesn't occur only in troppo season.

"It happens regardless of the tune of year," Supt Ginnane said yesterday.

Man has long believed in full moon madness -- the word lunacy conies from lunar.

AccordMg to Wildpedia, pay-

chologists have found there is no strong evidence for weird effects on human behavior around the time of a full. moon.

However, some studies have been inconsistent.

A survey of dog bites hi Britain showed they were much more common during a full moon.

But a similar study in Aust-ralia found the opposite.

irs Timo Partonen of the Finnish National. Public Health Institute carried out a study of 1400 suicides and found that people were more likely to make an attempt on their life when there was a new moon.

A full moon occurs when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun.

It occurs every 29.53 days. n

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TRUE RELIEVER: Territory UFO-spotter Alan Ferguson, of Acacia -1111s, who said he saw a "bright white light" flashing past his house.

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Ruin Page It phenomena" since the first sight-ing last week. n,

Almost all of the sightings have been in Darwin's rural area.

The At sighting was reported by a woman who wanted to be identified only as Shirel on April 21.

She said she saw the strange lights from her Humpty Doo home hovering over Howard Springs.

"The lights were really low in the sky, really bright, with flash-battgli24414said.

"Three of them formed a semi-circle and they hovered over ,the area for at least half an hour."

There were three separate sightings on Friday night Includ-ing British backpacker Eylie Myers who said she had "never believed in anything like UFOs" before her strange encounter.

The 27-year-old tourist said she turned. into a "believer".

Ms Myers said she stopped her car on the side of the road to grab her camera from the glovebox, but the light disappeared.

"It was prettAwatiwdko

There were more sightings at Coolalinga on Saturday, Acacia Hills on Sunday andgain in Howard Springs on Tuesday.

But astronomer. Geoff Carr ;yes-terday told the Northern Terri.t-cry News he was "far from .believ-ing any of this UFO stuff".

"Unless aliens have found a way to travel faster than light speed, it's a doubtful thing to believe they came to visit us," he said.

Mr Carr said he believed 99.9 per cent of all the ITFO sightings could be explained as simple weathe:phenomena. *.

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'Gerrys' help to rate UFO sightings THE following UFO sightings have been reported to the NT News in the past week. We've given each sighting a credibility rating on the Gerrymeter scale, named in honour of the Territory's most powerful man, independent MLA Gerry Wood, who has seen UFOs flying over his electorate in Darwin's rural area.

THE GERRYMETER 5 Gerrys As credible as the Territory's most honest politician, Gerry Wood

ksz.,/ 4 Gerrys Definite alien potential. Time to break out your anti-abduction helmet

3 Gerrys Was it a shooting star? Or could it be something more sinister?

2 Gerrys No wonder your friends call you All

..A. .1 'k 1 ?"

'Gerry Is that a UFO I can see through the wacky weed haze?

ck ?"--) qttoi

April 21, night-time, Humpty Doo/Howard Springs

Thirty eight-year-old Shirel and her family see "strange lights" from their Humpty Coo home. The lights seem to hover over Howard Springs.

"The lights were really low in the sky, really bright, with flashing dots.

"Three of them formed a semi-circle and they hovered over the area for at least half an hour." 3 GERRYS

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7e1 APRIL 2.011

April 23, 8pm, Howard Springs Susan Clarke and her family

spot a "huge spherical object that was moving horizontally across the night sky very slowly".

"It was amazing and unnerving at the same time

"It was glowing red, orange and gold none of us had ever seen anything like it before."

A 48-year-old woman of Woodroffe later confirms the sighting and compares it to a similar UFO sighting in Howard Springs in September last year.

"It was sitting there, maybe 40 metres above the house I first thought it was a huge full moon.

"When I looked around I saw that there was a partial moon further to the left, and I thought 'Oh my God, I'm not hanging around here' and took off.

"It was unnerving, it was a dark, very quiet night, and really, it scared me to bits.

"It was an enormous orb, just sitting there, as if it was waiting for something." 4 GERRYS

Vp April 23, night-time, Stuart Highway, south of Howard Springs

British backpacker Kylie Myers is on the way to Adelaide River, when she suddenly sees this big light" in front of her, a few metres above the road.

"It slowly moved to the right, then to the left ... and then it slowly flew to the left.

"A second later somebody must have switched the light off it was gone as suddenly as it appeared.

"i never believed in anything like that, I always thought people would make it all up or see strange things when they are drunk, but this really happened to me and it was pretty spooky."

4 GERRYS

April 24,10pm, Coolalinga Twenty seven-year-old Renee Miller

sees a huge yellow light over the road. "It was just there, it wasn't the moon

or anything. "It was bright yellow and suddenly

it was gone. I have no idea what it was." 3 GERRYS

April 25, 8pm, Acacia Hilts UFO-spotter Alan Ferguson sees a

"bright white light" flashing past his house. "It just looked like the

By ANNIE SANSON A MASS of UFO sightings has Terr-itorians wondering if we are on the brink of an alien invasion.

There have been seven separate Top End UFO sightings reported in the

in a semi-circle. "It was a crystal clear night and we

all saw it. We watched it for half an hour and the things changed their shape a few times.

"It looked like a long piece with lights on the side, but every now and again it just looked like a star.

"We weren't worried as it was too far away, but it's a bit of a worry to hear more and more people report strange things happening."

3 GERRYS

international Space Station a big white light," he said.

"When it moves across it looks like a satellite, except it's huge.

"It's exactly the same thing that I saw at this time last year." 5 GERRYS

April 27,10.30pm, Humpty Doo/ Howard Springs

Humpty Doe-resident Shirei again spots mysterious lights over Howard Springs, together with her husband and her two grown-up children.

"We saw the same thing again there were three of them (bright lights)

past week. Hardly a night has passed without a sight- ing of some "unexplained

Continued Page 9

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San Francisco

Las Vegas

Conspiracy theories ;.- 1 That in 1947 a UFO crashed near the town of Roswell and the US government seized the craft and the bodies of several aliens

ill That the 1969 Moon landing never happened - it was filmed at Area 51

1111 That the latest revelations about Area 51 are the biggest cover-up of all

Shrouded in mystery: The US military says the A-12 spy plane (main picture) was often mistaken for a UFO and (bottom left to right) testing the A-12, a pilot ejects, a top secret transport approaches Area 51 and an aerial view of the base

Pictures: National Geographic/Area 51's Secrets

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Joe Hildebrand

AMERICANS have always liked to believe in something, whether it be God, the flag or spindly bug-eyed aliens who look like an albino version of Spiderman.

But after today they might have to strike this last one from the list, with extraordinary new pictures of Area 51 confirming every conspir-acy theorist's worst fear. There is

no conspiracy. The legendary top secret military base in Nevada

and officially not anywhere has captured the imagination of UFO-spotters for half a century.

It was 1963 when a futuristic-looking craft crashed in the nearby desert. The US Government quickly recovered it and covered it up, which sparked suspicions they had found an alien spaceship.

But phenomenal pictures un-

earthed by National Geographic and to feature in its documentary Area 51's Secrets reveal it was an A -12 spyplane, pictures of which have been released for the first time by the CIA. The incredibly stream-lined titanium vessel would have looked at home in a Star Wars movie but was in fact developed by the US Government in the 1950s.

"Nearly undetectable to radar, the A-I2 could fly at 2200 miles an

hour (3540km/h), fast enough to cross the continental US in 70 minutes," the National Geographic website reveals.

"From 90,000 feet (27,400m), the plane's cameras could capture foot-long (0,3m) objects on the ground below."

Area 51 workers even built fake cardboard planes and lit decoy fires so as to fool Soviet satellites spying from overhead.

The ruse was so elaborate that even the fake planes themselves were not intended to be seen but, rather, to cast misleading shadows that would keep the Russians chasing red herrings.

The fires were used to simulate aircraft landings. It was an extra-ordinarily elaborate ruse and in-credibly effective at deceiving the Russians. The only catch was it deceived a few Americans too.

1 . .T t I

A DEE Why man is convinced he saw two UFOs flying over the northern beaches at dawn on Sunday, despite aviation experts rejecting the claim. Xavier Figarella believes he saw two UFOs travelling across the sky about

6am as he was waiting to watch the sun rise from his balcony. He said the objects were travelling in a straight line but appeared to be chang-ing shape as they moved. By the time he was able to grab his camera, only one remained.

"It was really weird," he said. "I cannot understand what it was." Mr Figarella said he did not believe in UFOs until he witnessed the two objects in the sky on Sunday.

Continued Page 2

Circled:above is one of the two objects which sparked a Dee Why man's UFO sighting.

Picture: Xavier Figarella

*MYSTERY MUM.

ive on station UFO A UK radio station known for its lively discussions on world affairs became rather more other-wordly yesterday when it broadcast a live account of a close brush with a UFO from one of itssports reporters.

"Freaked out sports journal-ist. Mike Sewell said he was left gobsmacked when he saw a huge "disc-shaped" aircraft hov-ering above the Hertfordshire

countryside on his way to catch a flight in the early hours of the morning.

Sewell said he was driving to Stansted airport when he saw the UFO over the village of Coffered, near Buntingford.

He called his Radio 5 Live employers and his interview with presenter Nicky Campbell was broadcast to millions of listeners.

Sewell told how about 25km from Stanated at 4.15arn he saw a "big bright light in the sky descending towards the road" and how when it banked to the left he could see underneath it.

"It wasn't an aeroplane, and it wasnt a helicopter. Certainly of a kind of - and I dread saying this - disc shape. It had several tights flashing all around it." he said.

He said the craft "just sat or circled a certain area above the field for a few mom_ents" when he lost sight of it.

"Certainly for two or three minutes I saw what, I think, was not a normal aeroplane," said the well-respected reporter, who was on his way to Sweden to cover a soccer match.

"I was wide awake and I'm of sound mind. I was completely

freaked out by it" Sewell said. UFO expert Timothy Good

told the station that what Sewell had seen was "clearly not a con-ventional aircraft of any type".

"It might be extra terrestrial. it might well be one of ours. Top secret aircraft and spacecraft have been flown by the US mili-tar},

and by the British military for quite some time now." Good said.

AUGUST 201i_

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How about a time and space portal from a UFO? THIS week a Northern Territory driver said he was freaked out by an encounter with what he claims was a UFO, somewhere south of Tennant Creek.

Which of course had me won-dering how come aliens only make themselves known in remote areas of Australia? Most often to people towing caravans to Perth.

Now there's a report of what may have been two UFO's hover-ing over Sydney's northern beaches, so perhaps aliens are becoming emboldened. On some sort of inter-galactic meet and greet. I'll be one of the first out there to shake er whatever they use for hands.

I'm fascinated by the possi-bility of life on another planet and sometimes wonder if I were invited on board an alien craft, would I go? Yes. I'd always regret not going, if only to answer the

question: How come everything alien is white, silver, translucent or iridescent green?

I'd also like to be the first to describe some piece of alien tech-nology unknown to the human

race. When abductees return to Earth after being probed, they always describe a sick bay that sounds uncannily like the one on the Starship Enterprise and medical equipment similar to stuff your dentist uses.

No one abducted by super-intelligent beings has been able to describe one item of alien technology that has advanced Earth one jot - not even a new ; design for a paper clip or a new way to grate cheese - so I'd like to bring back the actual blueprints 4 for a time and space portal and then build one. If I could ever get a DA from the council. (Which seems unlikely, given the prog-ress on next door's carport.)

A flying saucer literally in action. Picture. NICK AN DR EAN

Aliens could be avoiding us THERE'S an argument raging in scientific circles about our ap-proach to finding life on other planets.

Since 1984, the not-for-profit or-ganisation, SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been patiently sifting through radio signals from deep space in the hope of finding a message from another world. Now, millions of home computers, are linked across the globe via SETI@Home to join in the listening.

However, just a few years ago, a band of SCI-FI aficionados from Argentina and Russia -

declared that after decades, of being put on hold and hearing nothing, zilch, nada, (a bit like ringing QANTAS), they were going to get active and blast messages from earth into space. Something like: "Hey! You with the pointy-head! We're over here!"

Some scientists fear we may be inviting obliteration from ruth-less Alien exterminators. What will happen when we humans, the "most ignorant technological race in the universe" begin advertising the fact? Not all E.T.'s can be immobilised in under two hours by the wily . Tom Cruise.

SETI founder, the late dad: Sagan, said that as "the newest children" in a strange and uncer-

-lain cosmos, we should listen quietly and learn patiently.

There's now a SETI project that asks: "If we discover intelligent life beyond earth should we reply and what should we say?"

One of hundreds of suggestions is: "Come now! MAYDAY. HELP!" Here's another: "If you are related to E.T. We welcome you.

If you are related to the War of World people. We are not receiv-ing calls today. Maybe tomorrow. Have to pack."

I'd go with: "Wow! You look amazing. Have you lost weight?" (Everyone loves that one.)

Strangely, no one's considered the idea that Aliens have known for years that we're here and are

studiously avoiding us. Our ozone layer spells "HAZOHEM" and visiting earth is the intergalactic equivalent of taking the kids to Fukushima. They'd love to visit, but haven't the got the technology in gumboots, block-out and long-handled tongs.

As for those UFO's hovering over Dee Why?

They won't be touching down any time soon. They whizzed back beyond Betelgeuse after failing to find a place to park.

op Wendy Harmer is the co-editor of TheHoopla.coni.au , an online news and opinion site.that keeps Australian women In the loop".