DaVinci and UFOs

UFO Examiner posts a highly speculative piece about the possible influence of UFOs upon the work of Leonardo daVinci and other Renaissance thinking fellows. It is already known that a mysterious, alien figure commissioned da Vinci to paint not one but seven Mona Lisas.

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."

Possible UFO hit-and-run at British wind farm

The above is an artist's rendering of the incident as it may have occurred.

From the Daily Telegraph (UK):

One of the turbine's 65-foot blades came off and another was damaged at the site, on the same night that local residents reported seeing orange-yellow spheres in the sky, which some described as trailing octopus-like "tentacles".

Ecotricity, the company that owns the wind farm near Louth, has yet to find an explanation for the damage.

But managers are believed to be concerned UFO enthusiasts will scour the site for debris, so have decided to restrict access.

(Link)

Incredible, flying Christmas tree caught on video over Sacramento, CA

ABC affiliate News10 in Sacramento had their chopper in the air to cover high school football and ended up capturing something far more interesting. (Yes, I suppose if high school football is your basis for comparison, accidentally leaving on the lens cap would yield hair-raising footage.) If you click to watch the video to the right of the story, you'll see a dazzling object that looks like something from Clark Griswald's front yard holiday display whizzing through the air as the news chopper pursues.

Diamond-shaped objects over Austin, TX

The Austin Planetarium is looking into frequent, recent UFO sightings captured on video by local man Carl Lancaster. The Fox 7 news story is available on YouTube, made available by UFO Blog with the uncut UFO footage added to the end of the video.

In other UFO news, British paper The Sunday Mercury reports that a police helicopter had a rather harrowing encounter with a UFO over Birmingham.

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.

Best Pics from UK UFO Archive

Britain's Telegraph.co.uk culled the archive of close encounters released by the Ministry of Defense for the most compelling illustrations and eyewitness testimonies.