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ISCNI*Flash is the twice-monthly electronic newsletter of ISCNI.
The subject matter of the ISCNI*Flash is inherently controversial, and the views and opinions reported herein are not necessarily those of ISCNI or its staff.
Highlights in this edition are:
ASTRONAUT GORDON COOPER SAYS ALIENS ARE HERE
By Michael Lindemann
To many UFO enthusiasts, Gordon Cooper is a legend. An original Mercury astronaut, he was one of those clear-eyed, ambitious, optimistic, straight-arrow Americans with "the right stuff," as Tom Wolfe put it -- men who made the U.S. space program synonymous with success and national pride. But unlike most of his fellow astronauts, Gordon Cooper has said for decades that he believes at least some UFOs are alien spacecraft.
With the assistance of a mutual friend, I met Gordon Cooper at his office in Van Nuys, California on February 8.
He isn't as big as I expected, neither in height nor build. (In retrospect, it occurs to me that large size would be no asset in the space program.) At 68, he is balding. He still has the signature grin, toothy and slightly cock-eyed. He has sharp blue eyes. He speaks quietly, clearly and concisely. We simply pulled up a few chairs around his desk and started talking.
I said I had enjoyed Dennis Quaid's film portrayal of Cooper in "The Right Stuff," and asked how he had liked it. "I liked it. He did a pretty good job," he said. "So did you think of yourself as a hotdog back then?" I asked. "Yes, I guess so."
We talked about the space program. He had gone up in Mercury 9 in May, 1963 and completed 22 orbits, an American record at the time.
Then in August, 1965, he went up again in Gemini 5 with Charles "Pete" Conrad and stayed aloft eight days, going 122 orbits, a world record. They had purposely set out to get ahead of the Soviets in at least a symbolic way. It was a turning point in the space race. We were already headed for the moon. We got there. The Soviets never did.
Cooper was going to go to the moon, but Alan Shepherd went instead, and then the Apollo program was cancelled. Cooper was going to go to Mars, too. Few Americans even know that NASA was well along on plans for a manned Mars mission, with a landing projected for 1981. Cooper was in line for commander of the mission. It would have been a nuclear powered spacecraft, assembled in earth orbit after parts were sent aloft on a series of Saturn 1-Bs. The nuclear engines were ready, Cooper said. A lot of the spacecraft was ready. They were still working on the lander, he said... and then that program was cancelled, too. "By Senator Proxmire. The worst enemy America ever had," Cooper said.
I asked him about his famous UFO sighting. It was in 1951 over Germany. He and several other pilots were flying F-86 jets -- "We were super-sonic, barely," he said -- when they looked up and saw what appeared to be a large group of "double lenticular shaped" aircraft, classic flying saucers, flying in formation. He said these craft were much higher than his plane could go, though he couldn't tell how high. They were going faster too, though he couldn't tell how much faster. Over the next two or three days, he and other pilots saw "several hundred" of these craft. Cooper said they flew formation maneuvers very much like his own squadron would fly. He and the other witnesses were uniformly convinced they were seeing a technology that wasn't human.
Cooper and his fellow pilots reported the sightings to their superiors. In due course, the official explanation was relayed back down. "High flying seed pods."
Though the UFO subject frequently must endure strange episodes of official denial and obfuscation, this offering of "seed pods" in answer to Cooper's sighting struck me as one of the wackiest I've heard. "You knew this was crazy," I said to him. "How could you put up with it?"
His answer was simple. "I was in the Air Force. I wanted to fly."
But Cooper had already made up his own mind that UFOs represented visitations from elsewhere, and in time he made his position clear. He wrote a letter to the United Nations in 1978. It said, in part, "I do believe UFOs exist and that the truly unexplained ones are from some other technically advanced civilization... I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which are obviously a little more advanced than we are here on earth... I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion."
Cooper was convinced by 1978 that these visitors, most of them at least, were friendly. He holds to that view today.
I asked him if he ever saw anything other-worldly while he was in space. "Nothing," he said. Did the other astronauts, any of them, see anything? "I don't think so," he said. How about on the moon? Anything at all? "Nothing on the moon," he said. I was surprised.
I said that most researchers in this field are sure that someone in government knows a lot more than they're saying. He agreed. "So how can we get the truth to come out?" I asked. "I think that's pretty much up to THEM -- the aliens," he said. "They seem to show themselves when and where and to whom they want. I wish they would pick some people who really want to meet them, instead of a couple of fishermen in Pascagoula, Mississippi" -- referring to the famous 1973 abduction of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker.
"Would you want to meet them, Gordon?" I asked. "Heck yes," he said. "I'd give them a good welcome."
I told him I didn't think we had to wait for the aliens to begin discussing the truth about what is known. Didn't the government already have a lot of information? What about Roswell, for example?
"Well, I'm pretty sure something was picked up at Roswell."
What about bodies?
"Maybe, yes. But I think there were better ones than Roswell," he said. "We got some live ones."
Live ones? Live aliens? Of course one hears all the rumors and wild tales. Did Gordon know for sure that there were some live aliens?
"I knew a guy who brought one in," he said.
What? Brought one in? What did that mean, exactly?
It was back in the mid-1950s, at White Sands Proving Ground in the middle of the New Mexico desert. His friend -- Gordon called him Moser, and said that Moser had passed away just a few years ago -- was a rocket scientist. He was working by himself on a rocket engine test bed, getting ready for a test the next day. Suddenly, without warning, he heard a voice say his name. He didn't know where it came from. He looked around, saw no one. The voice said his name again. "Then the voice said, 'Don't worry, I'm above you in a craft a few miles up.'"
Gordon said the voice belonged to a person who wanted Moser to provide lots of basic information about earth and humans, so that this visitor could begin to adjust to living here. An arrangement was struck whereby Moser would bring the visitor library books, the visitor would read them at incredible speed, then Moser would go get some more. On more than one occasion, Moser went aboard the visitor's craft. The visitor looked human enough to pass on the street, but he was not used to earth gravity and had a hard time breathing our air. It took him five years to acclimate to earth conditions. Then he started living on the surface. Moser stayed in close touch with him.
I asked Gordon if he ever met the visitor. "No. I hinted around again and again, but Moser never introduced us."
Where is the visitor now? Gordon said he doesn't know. The visitor learned to blend into human society and became a businessman, Moser said.
Why was the visitor here? Gordon said Moser told him the visitor's people had been in space a long time. They were a very old race, and their planet had died when their sun died. They didn't want to invade or change our society. They just wanted to live on solid ground. Earth took some getting used to, but Moser's visitor friend had adjusted well. Presumably there were many others, but Gordon didn't claim to know about that.
There had been another opportunity for him to meet aliens, but it fell through, he said. It was in 1972 or 1973, just after he left the space program. He was in touch with a group of people who were making contacts at Giant Rock in the Mojave Desert of California. There was to be an arrangment whereby Gordon and a small group of others could attend one of these contact events and even record it on film. The day before the scheduled event, there was a preliminary meeting where something went wrong. Gordon said he wasn't there and doesn't know exactly what happened; but it resulted in cancelling the next day's event. He had assumed he would see one or more craft and alien occupants up close, in daylight. He says he never saw any such thing.
But he speaks as one who knows -- to his own satisfaction, at least -- that a variety of alien types are visiting the earth. He says he's convinced that most of them are benevolent, although some may be unfriendly or even dangerous. He didn't seem too concerned about the negative types.
I asked him if he thought there had been any technology transfer. He said it was quite possible that the story told by Bob Lazar about saucers at a secret base in Nevada was true; and that wreckage had probably been recovered at Roswell and elsewhere. I asked him if he thought the rumors about a landing at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico were true, and he said he thought perhaps they were.
Having previously learned of Gordon's friendly relations with the "Black" world of super-secrecy -- one of his business partners was formerly a top official in the Lockheed Skunk Works, and Gordon has worked from time to time with various intelligence agencies, including the CIA -- I have to assume that he knows far more than he would ever divulge to me, particularly in this kind of get-acquainted conversation.
Nonetheless, I found him remarkably open and willing to make quite amazing assertions. I'm convinced he really believes that aliens are here. That being the case, I'm glad he also seems convinced that most of our alien visitors are friendly.
LIFE ON MARS: MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, SCIENTISTS SAY
[As reported in the Feb 1 issue of the Flash, Professor Stanley V. McDaniel, author of "The McDaniel Report," is currently urging NASA to give high priority to studying the Cydonia region of Mars during the next Mars exploratory mission, due to arrive in 1997. Cydonia contains the famous "Face on Mars," which some researchers regard as evidence of an ancient intelligent race on Mars. Meanwhile, a new book titled "Cosmic Voyage: A Scientific Discovery of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth" by Courtney Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at Emory University, claims that the author and others have used "scientific remote viewing" to verify that Mars was and is still inhabited by an advanced humanoid race. While Brown's claims are considered absurd by most scientists, and NASA officially denies that "the Face" could be artificial, it is nonetheless true that mainstream science now considers some form of life on Mars to be highly likely. ISCNI*Flash thanks Martin Adamson for sending the following story, which appeared in the Electronic Telegraph on January 30.]
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Scientists now believe that it is likely that life once thrived on Mars and may still exist under its surface, a seminar was told [on Jan 29].
Earlier this month, a meeting of the American Astronomical Society stirred debate about possible extraterrestrial life with the discovery of new planets outside the Solar system. Now, however, it seems increasingly likely that alien life might be on our doorstep.
"Most of us here believe that there is a significant probability that there was life on Mars," Prof. Malcolm Walter of Macquarie University, Australia, told an international meeting organised by the charitable Ciba Foundation in London. "If we didn't believe it, we would not be doing what we are doing."
This year sees the 20th anniversary of the Viking mission to Mars. It failed to find evidence of life and subsequent meetings of "exobiologists" came to the disappointing conclusion that conditions on the surface of the Red Planet are not conducive to life -- certainly not life as we know it.
Now, however, NASA is planning Mars missions that will hunt for fossil evidence. One issue already under discussion is the risk of contaminating Earth if one of these missions returned with samples containing spores or microbes.
The belief that life might exist on Mars has been supported by studies of microbes thriving in extreme conditions on Earth. Last October, the Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland found primitive bacteria tough enough to survive on the Red Planet.
Called hyperthermophiles, these organisms can live without oxygen or light in temperatures between 85 deg C and 113 deg C, said Professor Karl Stetter of the University of Regensburg.
The microbes derive their nutrition from water and rock.
Mars-like conditions have been found deep under north Alaska, said Professor Stetter. Although the soil is frozen to a depth of 400 metres, it is sufficiently warm at even greater depths to support huge communities of hyperthermophiles.
Scientists believe that conditions for life could have emerged on Mars between three billion and four billion years ago, when the planet was warmer and wetter.
When the atmosphere of the planet was lost, more than two billion years ago, Mars cooled and its surface dried to leave valleys, channels and polar ice caps.
"The idea is that life would have taken a dive under the surface, tracking the habitable zone of liquid water," said Dr. Jack Farmer, of NASA's Ames Research Centre.
To test this theory, in December the first in a series of missions will be launched to study a site where rapid mineral precipitation could have entombed Martian organisms.
In July 1997 a probe will enter the thin Martian atmosphere and land on the planet's cold surface, which is below freezing point. The lander will release a tethered robot which will roam around and analyse the composition of the terrain. However, conclusive evidence of traces of life might have to wait until 2005, when a mission will attempt to return samples to Earth.
Professor Paul Davies, of the University of Adelaide, proposes a further theory. He says the impact of comets could have splashed dust and rock into space, transferring life forms from Earth to Mars -- or vice versa. "We estimate that 500 tons a year of Martian material lands on Earth... this obviously complicates the issue of life on Mars," he said. In 1911, for example, an Egyptian dog was struck and killed by "a chunk of Mars."
"The discovery of life beyond Earth would transform not only our science but also religions and our entire world view," Davies said.
CORRECTION: The January 16 edition of the ISCNI*Flash carried information about the Ukraine-based Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP) and its English-language RIAP Bulletin. Please note that starting February 1, the new address for RIAP Bulletin subscriptions in the United States is:
Mr. Gary Burgansky, RIAP-US
711-A Seagirt Ave., Suite 25-K
Far Rockaway, NY 11691, USA
Phone (718) 471-6609; Email: B1936@aol.com
ORANGE FIREBALLS REPEATEDLY SIGHTED OVER AUSTRALIA
[The following report was sent to ISCNI*Flash on Feb 6 by Greg Speare and Ross Dowe of the National UFO Reports and Sightings Hotline of Australia. Greg Speare can be contacted by email at oxen@pyromania.apana.org.au]
On Saturday Feb 3 at approximately 10:45 PM local time near Townsville, Queensland, callers reported sighting two spinning orange fire lights in the southwest sky. They watched for some 20 minutes before the objects headed to the northeast of Townsville, then shot off into the west. The objects looked like "spinning flying fire in the sky."
Also on Saturday Feb. 3 at approximately 10:20 PM local time, in the Northern Territory, two carloads of people unknown to each other reported seeing a fast moving orange soundless fireball light that came out of the northern sky. The fireball light suddenly stopped and remained still for some time, low in the horizon. Then another similar fireball met up with the first. They then both headed south slowly together.
Again on Saturday, Feb. 3 at approximately 11:58 PM local time, in the Emerald-Cockatoo Area of Victoria, an amateur astronomer reported to have sighted two fireballs which appeared or arose over the Telecom tower at Mt. Burnett near Cockatoo. The witnesses apparently were viewing the moon through a telescope, when a startling fizzing sound was heard. Turning to look, "That's when we saw two large round fire balls. They just appeared from nowhere. They were ball-shaped with an almost transparent appearance. The colours were what seemed like a fiery glaze, orange was the predominant colour or light source." The witnesses said that they "have never seen anything like this in 26 year of sky watching and we have no idea what they were."
On Sunday, Feb 4 at approximately 12.20 AM local time near Ferntree Gully, Victoria, callers reported sighting two bright orange lights heading in unison towards the Melbourne city area. The witnesses claimed that the objects seemed to be swirling around in a controlled fashion. One respondent claimed seeing a similar thing last Thursday over the Ferntree Gully area.
On Monday Feb. 5 at approximately 10:50 PM local time near Ringwood, Melbourne, witnesses reported sighting two orange lights travelling over the Ringwood district. The objects were low in height, travelling about 50-80 knots on a west northwest heading, arising out of the southern Dandenongs district. As reported, one object stopped over the Orchard Park area whilst the other object continued. A short time later, the stopped object moved off as if to catch up to other. No sound was heard.
To date there is no explanation given for these numerous sightings of orange glowing balls sighted all over the Australian continent in the span of a few days.
RADIO SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE DRAWS A BLANK
Scientists Remain Optimistic SETI Will Pay Off
[ISCNI*Flash thanks Brian Zeiler for sending this story, which appeared in the Financial Times on February 12.]
By Clive Cookson
BALTIMORE -- We are still alone. The recent discovery of three planets orbiting distant stars has given new impetus to the scientific search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, known as Seti to its devotees, but no clear signals have yet been detected.
The leaders of the world's four main SETI projects, all based in the US, met at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Baltimore [Feb 11] to review progress -- or the lack of it. All the participants said they remained optimistic that their strategy -- to search the sky systematically for microwave radio signals from alien civilisations -- would pay off eventually.
And they hoped that publicity over the discovery of new planetary systems would bring in private research funds to support SETI.
The US Congress cut off public funding through the space agency NASA in 1993 as some politicians portrayed the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence as being little different from the unscientific investigations of UFOs and alien abductions.
In fact, said Prof. Lori Marino of Emory University, one of the conference organisers, "SETI is pursued using the scientific method. It is as different from the pseudoscience of UFOs as any college course in physics or chemistry would be."
None of the four groups has found clear evidence of intelligent signals from outer space, despite occasional claims to the contrary in the media. Hundreds of stars, including those recently discovered to have planets, have been scanned without success.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of extra- terrestrial civilisations," said Prof. Dan Werthimer, head of the Serendip search at the University of California, Berkeley. "Our civilisation is just beginning to develop the techniques, and our capabilities for search are doubling every year."
Meanwhile, radio signals from Earth radiate out through the cosmos. "Early television broadcasts such as 'I Love Lucy' have gone past several thousand stars so far," said Prof. Werthimer. "Perhaps we will one day intercept another civilisation's unintentional leakage or even an intentional message beamed our way."
AREA 51 RESEARCHER REVEALS NEW WITNESS TO SAUCER TECH
[The following story has been adapted, with permission, from a longer article written by Geoff Olson of Vancouver, British Columbia. Olson interviewed Area 51 researcher Glenn Campbell at the Science Museum of Minnesota's second annual conference on The Science and Politics of UFO Research in St. Paul last November. Olson can be reached by email at: geoffolson@dafbbs.com]
Glenn Campbell -- known on the Internet as Psychospy -- is a balding 36 year old former software developer who makes his home in Las Vegas, ninety miles due south of the top-secret military test facility known to the locals as Dreamland, Area 51, or Groom Lake.
In 1992, Campbell sold his shares in the Boston-based software firm he worked for and headed out west to investigate the strange rumors buzzing around the mysterious area. Campbell has been a civilian fly in the official ointment ever since. The result has been that both he and Area 51 have received coverage in everything from tabloid TV to the New York Times.
Stories from the Nevada desert are legion of craft performing impossible aeronautical maneuvers, and technology that's literally "out of this world." Campbell's heard it all. A sardonic observer of human folly, he has long taken the UFO folklore that has accreted around Area 51 with a grain of salt. So I found it surprising to find him entertaining "extreme possibilities" when I met with him.
Sitting cross-legged on his hotel bed, Campbell soberly told me, and a few others, a tale that would test the credulity of any reporter.
Campbell has published the testimony of a man who he will only identify as "Jarod 2" -- a retired 70-year old mechanical engineer who claims to have worked at an unidentified facility from the 1950's into the 1980's. According to Campbell, Jarod claims to have spent at least a decade working on a top secret project involving flight simulators, which he later learned were based on recovered alien technology. He came forth with his story, says Campbell, only after checking with his old supervisor, who gave Jarod the go ahead to relate some, but not all, aspects of his work.
Not only was alien technology recovered decades ago in New Mexico -- in 1953, according to this particular tale -- but alien bodies as well. Some of which, according to Jarod, were alive.
"Do you believe his story?" I asked Campbell.
"I don't know whether to believe it or not," he replied. "All I know is that it's a story from an old guy I'd trust with my life." Campbell adds that he is satisfied by interviewing Jarod's family members that he is genuine.
Not a story that particularly satisfies all the protocols of who, what, when, where. Campbell won't identify Jarod as yet -- citing the unwanted attentions of the fringe element. Only one person has gone on record with a tale similar to Jarod's: the legendary Bob Lazar, who really began the whole Area 51 craze.
On the face of it, the Jarod story sounds ridiculous. Campbell would be the first to agree, and simply shrugs and says his role is simply that of a "collector of stories," a sort of postmodern folklorist. He remains resolutely agnostic about the tales of crashed saucers. "If this civilization is so advanced," he writes in his online newsletter, the Groom Lake Desert Rat, "why can't they keep their craft in the air? It would be just our luck that the aliens visiting earth are the drunk drivers of the universe, sent here to complete a 12-step program but taking the wheel again while still in denial."
Another collector of stories is George Knapp, a burly, bearded investigative journalist and Las Vegas television reporter. Knapp has said he has found greater fear in current and retired military personnel with UFO information than any Nevada residents with information on organized crime. I asked Knapp if anyone with a military background has told him anything similar to the Jarod tale. "About twelve people," said Knapp, adding that none of them are willing to go on record.
Campbell has provided a detailed accounting of Jarod's story in several issues of the Desert Rat posted on his Web site. Those with Web access are encouraged to examine Desert Rat issues #24, 27 and 33 at URL http://www.cris.com/~psyspy/area51/desert_rat.
NEW COMET COULD BRIGHTEN SKY IN MARCH
[The following story by Maggie Fox ran on the Reuter newswire on Feb 7. A newly discovered comet, along with the impending fall of a Chinese satellite [see next story], suggests that the night sky could produce some dazzling phenomena this spring. These phenomena will no doubt spawn a rash of UFO reports among uninformed viewers.]
LONDON (Reuter) -- An amateur Japanese astronomer using binoculars has discovered a bright new comet streaking toward the Earth that could brighten night skies for weeks on end, astronomers said Wednesday.
Astronomers, amateur and professional, have been trying to watch the comet, which they predict will be the brightest in decades.
"Comet Hyakutake will be fairly bright and well placed for observation overhead at about the end of March," said Robin Scagell of Britain's Society for Popular Astronomy. "It's going to be only 10 million miles away from the earth at the time. We hope it will put on a very good show."
Yuji Hyakutake, an amateur astronomer living in Hayato, Kagoshima prefecture [Japan], found the comet on Jan. 30, according to the International Astronomical Union, which announced the discovery. He was using a large pair of binoculars frequently used by amateurs who scrutinize the sky in hopes of discovering a comet and having it named after them.
Astronomers who have looked at it since say it promises to be clearly visible to people watching from the ground. "It's going to be a good one," said Patrick Moore, spokesman for the British Astronomical Association. "It should be almost overhead and will be visible all night. We are hopeful that it will be the brightest one for 25 years."
Moore cautioned that this only applied for people watching from the northern hemisphere. "This time the Australians will miss it," he said.
The Royal Astronomical Society's Jacqueline Mitton was cautious about how dramatic the comet would be. "It should be a bright comet but because it's only been observed for a few days so far it's possible it might not be totally correct," she said.
Brian Marsden, associate director for planetary science at the Harvard-Smithsonian Institution Center for Astrophysics, said astronomers still did not know enough about comets to predict what Comet Hyakutake would do. "It is uncertain just how bright it will be," Marsden said. "It could get quite large because it is relatively close to us."
But he added that it could be like the "infamous" Comet Kohoutek, which disappointed millions in 1973 when it failed to put on the light show that some astronomers predicted.
CHINESE "ROGUE SATELLITE" EXPECTED TO CRASH SOON
[This story appeared in the London Sunday Times of February 4.]
A rogue Chinese spy satellite has careered out of control and will crash to Earth within the next few weeks from an orbit that takes it over the British Isles.
The one-ton satellite, which passes over Britain and Ireland four or five times a day, will turn into a fireball and hurtle to Earth some time in the first two weeks of March, according to the scientists tracking it. They will be unable to predict where it will strike until a few days beforehand.
"It would cause devastation if it landed in a built-up area," said Professor Alan Johnstone of the Mullard Space Science Laboratories at University College London. "They do not know where it is going to land and they cannot do anything to regain control. It could come down anywhere and its orbit takes it over some of the Earth's most populated areas."
Unlike most satellites, FSW1 is designed to withstand the 1,200C of heat generated around its hull by re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere at 18,000 mph. It could still be travelling at well over a 1,000 mph when it hits the surface.
The Chinese launched FSW1 in October 1993. It was due to spend just a few days photographing Earth from space, after which it should have jettisoned a module containing its cameras and other equipment and returned to Earth with the films.
Western space scientists believe the satellite's controllers activated its rockets at the wrong moment, sending the re-entry module into an unstable elliptical orbit. It now swings around the Earth every 100 minutes, dipping into the upper atmosphere at its closest approach at 100 miles above the Earth, then spinning 2,000 miles into outer space before starting its return journey. Dr. Richard Crowther, a senior scientist at the Defence Research Agency, an arm of the Ministry of Defence at Farnborough, Hampshire, said the rogue satellite was being kept under close surveillance. "It spends much more time over areas of high latitude, which includes the UK, northern Europe and north America, so that is probably where it will land," he said.
Andrew Wilson, the editor of Jane's Space Directory, has followed the fate of FSW1 ever since the Chinese lost control of it. "The chances are it will fall in the ocean, simply because it covers 70% of the Earth's surface, but we have to be cautious. Its orbit also takes it over a huge part of the world's population."
Some western space scientists have spent months trying to work out whether FSW1 will survive the impact. They believe that obtaining the films it contains would be an intelligence coup, showing what the Chinese were spying on and how much they were able to see. The chances, however, could be slim; FSW1 is a primitive craft by modern standards, so primitive that, according to Jane's, its heat shield is made from oak planks.
"It may survive the trip through the atmosphere, but the impact with the surface will almost certainly reduce it to fragments," said one scientist..
Most of the tracking has been done by the United States Space Command (UNSC) in Colorado Springs, which follows nearly 9,000 orbiting man-made objects through 11 radar stations around the world. Its main aim is to prevent their re-entry being mistaken for ballistic missile warheads, thus triggering a nuclear alert, but it also provides foreign governments with an early warning service. Its scientists hope to be able to give several days' warning of where FSW1 will crash-land.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jim House, UNSC's chief of space operations, said the satellite's orbit was already deteriorating daily. "Last Monday it came within 99 miles of Earth, but by Friday that had decreased to 96 miles. It is suffering increasing drag from the upper atmosphere, which will pull it down even faster."
Several orbiting objects have plunged to Earth. In 1978 there were worldwide protests when the Soviets' nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite came down over northern Canada, blazing a trail of radioactive debris across the tundra.
In 1979, 20 tons of the American Skylab station smashed into the Australian outback. Large chunks of the Russian Salyut 7 space station also crashed into South American forests, starting several fires. One piece was reported to have fallen into the back garden of a house where an Argentine woman was doing her ironing.
So far, however, there are no known human victims of space debris and the only confirmed casualty was a cow in Cuba that was killed outright by a falling rocket motor in the mid-1960s.
BOOK ALERT: The long-awaited book "Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience" by famed UFO abductee Travis Walton, published by Marlow and Company, is reportedly coming to U.S. bookstores in March. Besides telling Walton's story, the book will correct distortions that appeared in the film "Fire in the Sky" and will also address criticisms of the case that have been raised by skeptics.
SUPER ENERGY BREAKTHROUGH ANNOUNCED
Advocates Hail New Discovery; Skeptics Unimpressed
ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" program on Wednesday, Feb 7 announced a possible breakthrough in clean energy technology. The story was expanded on ABC's "Nightline" Wednesday evening. If true, the new technology employs a so-far mysterious but apparently non-nuclear process to produce an estimated one hundred times more energy than it consumes.
Skeptics were quick to reply that such claims are by definition improbable at best. They pointed to the "cold fusion" claims of Pons and Fleischmann which took the world by storm a few years ago but turned out to be much less promising than first thought. [Pons and Fleischmann continue their work in France and have recently been granted a patent by the European patent office. It remains unclear how well their "cold fusion" technology really works.] Among the several skeptical scientists interviewed by ABC, it appeared that none had yet tried to test the new device.
However, a number of independent, highly reputable scientists and research labs have run tests on the new device and say it appears to work exactly as claimed, although they can't understand how.
The device was invented by James A. Patterson, a chemical engineer who says he's made millions perfecting numerous industrial applications of "little beads." A cannister of tiny metal beads, each one coated with layers of copper, nickel and palladium, is the mystery ingredient in Patterson's device. He calls the cannister a Patterson Power Cell.
When ordinary water is run through the cannister and a small electric charge is added, the cannister produces amazing amounts of heat, which is transferred to the water. According to Patterson, the energy produced is at least 100 times greater than the energy spent.
If Patterson's claim is true, it could have huge implications for the future of power production and consumption. Interest in his device is snowballing rapidly. It is rumored that Motorola Corporation has already offered to by him out for an undisclosed sum. However, Patterson's own company, Clean Energy Technologies Inc. (CETI), has announced plans to develop the technology and has acquired several patents.
CETI is in the process of conducting further research to corroborate its findings with several external research partners, including professor George Miley, editor of Fusion Technology and director of the Fusion Studies Lab at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Quinton Bowles, professor and associate dean of the Coordinated Engineering Programs at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Preliminary testing indicates that this power generation device is environmentally safe, producing no harmful by-products. The company intends to license its technology for commercial use, and believes that commercial applications could be on the market within five to seven years.
Clean Energy Technologies Inc. maintains a site on the World Wide Web at: http://www.onramp.net/~ceti
OF MOON SHOTS AND GHOST ASTRONAUTS
Did Deke Slayton Take His Last Flight AFTER Dying?
[ISCNI*Flash thanks Loyd Auerbach for permission to reprint this extraordinary true ghost story. Auerbach is Director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations in Orinda, California. He can be reached by email at LoydA@aol.com, or by phone at (415) 553-2588.]
By Loyd Auerbach and Martin Caidin
The late, great, world-famed astronaut Deke Slayton co-authored the book MOON SHOT, adapted as a two-part special for TBS July 11th & 13th, 1994. Slayton, during his life, was a crew member of the 1975 US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz mission, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, former test pilot with the USAF, and an avid racing plane pilot. He died at his home in Texas at 3:22 a.m., June 13, 1993. With him was his wife Bobbie, and their daughter, Stacey.
But, as shown at the end of the second part of the TBS adaptation, that was not the last time Deke Slayton made his mark on this planet. Slayton's final flight took place hours after he died.
Later the same day he died, June 13, 1993 at 7:57 a.m. local time, at John Wayne Airport in Southern California, a Formula One Racing Plane with large FAA-required registration letters and numbers on the fuselage, N21X, took off from the airport and performed various flight maneuvers.
With a high-speed propeller the extremely noisy aircraft was seen and heard by many people, who clearly identified the type of aircraft and wrote down the N21X registration. The Federal Aviation Administration determined that a noise level mandated by law had been exceeded, and issued a letter of citation against the registered owner and pilot.
On July 20, Bobbie Slayton received a letter in the mail dated June 28, 1993, from the FAA to Donald K. Slayton, notifying him that he was being cited for violating FAA regulations. The letter had been sent to a condo at which the Slaytons sometimes stayed, and its delivery was delayed until Mrs. Slayton picked up the mail there.
Upon receipt of the letter, Bobbie Slayton telephoned the FAA and inquired if they had all gone crazy -- pointing out that Deke Slayton had been dead for six hours before the reported incident in Orange County.
She further added that this particular racing plane, N21X, had been in an aircraft museum at Sparks, Nevada (located northeast of San Francisco) since March 1993 -- and that before being placed in the museum, the engine had been removed from the aircraft and was still in the museum, next to the plane!
The plane sighted at the airport had taken off on its own. However, to save weight, the plane Slayton flew has no electrical starter, and the engine can be started only by a person outside the plane, who swings the propeller while the pilot works the controls inside.
So how could the plane have been there... hours after Slayton died, with the plane, minus an engine, in an aircraft museum? And how could it have taken off by itself, with no one outside the plane to start it up for the pilot? If it was Slayton himself, why did it take so long after he died for the plane to be sighted?
Bobbie Slayton remarked that the reason for the delay Deke took before getting into the air in his racing plane was that "he probably took six hours to find Gus" [Grissom, his best friend, who died in the Apollo I fire on Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral] "to prop the plane for him."
Witnesses at the airport who were questioned first by the local authorities, and then by pilots talking to other pilots, and then by still more pilots and investigators sent to Santa Ana for further confirmation, all agreed that the airplane taking off the morning of June 13, 1993, was not only clearly identified as N21X, but that this particular airplane, which had flown for years with this federal registration, was an all-red Formula One racing aircraft, that it departed from the airport in Orange County, flew through various maneuvers in the area, and then flew off in a steady gradual climb on a westerly heading -- and was never seen again.
Martin Caidin, world famous author and expert on aviation and manned and unmanned space shots, has quoted Slayton as saying: "No matter what happens, no matter how rough it gets, no matter how impossible it becomes -- always keep the dream alive." Caidin, the Series Advisor for MOON SHOT, also investigates paranormal phenomena and is author of the book NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL?
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