British National Archives release more UFO files

Available online for thirty days only, newly-released files from the Ministry of Defense regarding UFO sightings and investigations. I've only started skimming, and it makes for very interesting reading. Also included with the files is a highlights guide and a video podcast.

UFO news videos on "Authentic UFO's" blog

Hillel Abrahams sent me a link to his blog, Authentic UFO's, where he posts news reports and video clips pertaining to the UFO phenomenon.

MUFON UFO tracking map

The Mutual UFO Network has a live internet feed of reported UFO sightings, including an interactive Google map. The interface is a little weird on my netbook (I have to click reload to close the event details box) but a fun, little tool nonetheless. All the little UFO icons scattered about the United States causes one to imagine an airspace teeming with extraterrestrial visitors.

The feed is also on RSS here.

Morristown, NJ UFOs explained

Newsweek's Lab Notes blog writes about the hoaxers who caused the mysterious red lights pictured above to fly over New Jersey in January.

They cooked up a spaceship hoax “to show everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are, along with investigators of UFOs.” They used five feet of fishing line to tie flares to each of five three-foot helium balloons and launched them from a field on Jan. 5, 2009. “Once all five balloons were ready for takeoff (with our fingers on the verge of frost bite),” they write, “we struck the 15-minute flares and released them into the sky in increments of fifteen seconds,” filming the UFOs as they floated away.

The blog post includes video of a news story from January, as well as a link to segments on Google Video showing exactly how they did it.

Update from New Jersey Star-Ledger: Morris County prosecutor filing disorderly person charges against these two men.

Top UFO hotspots in the U.S.

Popular Mechanics has posted a helpful map showing counties with the greatest number of UFO reports (1947-2005) along with air traffic control boundaries and grey spots that mark "special use airspace". The accompanying article includes tips on how to report a UFO as well as things to consider before you make such a report ("Is it Venus?").

Strange glow over Minnesota

Astronomy Picture of the Day calls our attention to this strange, orange glow photographed by a passenger on an airplane landing in Minneapolis, MN. The photographer's hypothesis is sunset-illuminated raindrops. What do you think?

British military fails to shoot down UFOs

Expert: "I do believe we will bring one down."

Artist's rendering of successful shoot-down of a UFO by the RAF

From The Sun, UK:

Nick Pope — who worked on the Ministry of Defence's UFO desk for three years — revealed the rules of engagement for the first time.

He claimed RAF pilots had fired at UFOs on several occasions — but failed to bring them down.

He added: "We know of cases where the order has been given to shoot down — with little effect to the UFO."

Mr Pope said the rules of engagement were drawn up after dozens of close encounters with suspect craft in British airspace.

. . .

He added: "I do believe we will bring one down. We're developing increasingly sophisticated weapons."

Strange aurora over Saturn's north pole

The Cassini spacecraft - while intrepidly carrying out its mission of pointing a camera at Saturn and its moons from as many angles as possible, like a college-aged drinking enthusiast hosing himself down with a can of Axe body spray before hitting the bars - has found what the Astronomy Picture of the Day blog calls "aurora unlike any other seen previously in our Solar System."
It's fascinating how in this image the aurora in question appears to form a dome over the already mysterious hexagonal cloud formation at Saturn's increasingly mysterious north pole. Insane speculation being par for the course in Ufology, I can't help but imagine all this hubub being caused by some powerful, alien technology beneath those clouds.

Most Americans think we aren't alone in the universe

From Scripps News:

Most Americans say it is very likely or somewhat likely that humans are not alone in the universe and that intelligent life exists on other planets.

Only a third of adults, however, believe it's either very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent aliens from space have visited our planet, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

Will we find ETs within the lifetime of our civilization?

From the New York Times, an article about the progress that has been made - and hasn't been made - toward refining the variables in the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation was created in 1961 in an attempt to get some idea of what chance we have of contacting intelligent life from other worlds.

This articles links to an interactive Drake eqution at MSNBC's website. They don't actually write the Drake Equation out for you after you plug in the numbers, but I suppose it's all just multiplying fractions.

Know Your Neighborhood: The 11 Planets

Salon's Machinist blog notes an interesting mnemonic device for remembering the planets of our solar system, including the dwarf planets Ceres, Pluto, and Eris.

Finding Distant Plantetery Systems

This image from the Astronomy Picture of the Day is an artist's illustration of what BLG-109 - a planetary system recently discovered using the technique of gravitational microlensing - might look like:

Recently a detailed analysis of microlensing system OGLE-2006-BLG-109 has related brightness variations to two planets that are similar to Jupiter and Saturn of our own Solar System. This discovery carries the tantalizing implication that interior planets, possibly including Earth-like planets, might also be common.

Looking for Aliens in the Microscopic World

In a noble attempt to catch up on the backlog of Scientific American magazines building up on my house, I came across an article from the December issue about searching for "alien" life here on Earth. The SciAm website has a slideshow with some beautiful and weird artist's conceptions of how these unusual microbes might look.
The idea is that if life is likely to come into existence given certain conditions, then it's possible it could have happened more than once on Earth. SciAm explores how there could be life that functions in biochemically different ways from our own:

Researchers have hypothesized that in alien organisms arsenic could successfully fill the biochemical role that phosphorus plays for known life-forms. Arsenic is poisonous to us because it mimics phosphorus so well; similarly, phosphorus would be poisonous to an arsenic-based organism.

Also interesting to consider is that if scientists were to discover a form of life on Earth that emerged independently from the rest of life as we know it, this would be a good indication in favor of the possibility of extraterrestrial life, as it would seem to be almost inevitable under certain circumstances.