UFO sighting over Lafeyette, Colorado March 2011



Lafeyette, Colorado UFO Sighting March 2011

 Last week, three red lights hovering in a triangular formation appeared over Lafeyette, Colorado and spooked residents and sparked rumors of aliens - as to be expected. The UFOs made no noise at all as bystanders caught the incident on tape. Lester Valdez, a witness and local, said "I've never witnessed anything like that... they all just kind of got into a pattern..." The objects in the sky eventually flew off in a northeast direction.

Witnesses seem to agree that the formation was not made up of airplanes, helicoptors or satellites. The FAA declined to comment. Without any answers, the possibility remains that the whole thing was staged as a hoax.

The real battle of Los Angeles, The Great Los Angeles Air Raid

Until now I had no idea that Battle:Los Angeles was based on an actual event. Yikes. Shame on me. Books, tv shows and other movies stemmed from the same real-life event that occured in 1942, several months after the United States entered into World War II following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Where have I been?

The difference between the movie and the event that took place on February 24th/early February 25th 1942, is a big one -- no aliens touched down and took over Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, the government actually called what is termed The Great Los Angeles Air Raid a "false alarm".

Los Angeles Times Feb. 26th 1942

Here's what happened. The night of Feb. 24th, air raid alarms signaled citizens all throughout Los Angeles county, followed by a complete blackout. At 3:16 a.m., the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade fired 12.8 pound anti-aircraft shells into the sky at reported unidentified aircraft. Fourteen-hundred shells were fired.

AT WHAT!?!? No one knew. But plenty of witnesses saw something in the sky.

Air fire continued until 4:14 a.m. and then the "All Clear" was given and the blackout lifted around 7:20 a.m. Three citizens died of heart attacks due to stress, three other civilians were killed by friendly fire.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference shorlty after and announced that the whole ordeal was the result of war nerves and there was never an attempted attack by any nation against the United States that night. Representative Leland Ford of Santa Monica called for a Congressional investigation, stating, "...none of the explanations so far offered removed the episode from the category of 'complete mystification' ... this was either a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to lay a political foundation to take away Southern California's war industries."

As usually happens following a loosely-explainable situation involving the military, many people suspected a cover-up. Therein lies the basis for the alien invasion theories, books and other media involving Los Angeles, and the recent film Battle: Los Angeles, which takes place in modern times.

Why the alien theory? An unidentified object did appear in the sky for up to an hour that night. The photo and video above shows a mysterious object in the sky, converged on by search lights. Later explanations included a possible weather balloon and an atmospheric illusion.

Scott Harrison of the LA Times commented on the original photo as well as a more recently discovered retouched photo found in the LA Times archives. “In the retouched version, many light beams were lightened and widened with white paint, while other beams were eliminated. In earlier years, it was common for newspapers to use artists to retouch images due to poor reproduction — basically 10 shades of gray if you were lucky. Thus my conclusion:  the retouching was needed to reproduce the image. But man, I wish the retouching had been more faithful to the original. With our current standards, this image would not be published.” (Visit the above link to see a looped version of the original photo and the retouched photo).

Movie Review: Battle Los Angeles, Oorah!

Well, I have to say. I love alien invasion movies. Some are plain hilarious and poorly done (recent example: Skyline) while others scare me so bad I can't sleep. Then there's Independence Day, which is just friggen awesome because it's fun and the aliens are fantastic. And who doesn't wish Bill Pullman would run for President?

Battle: Los Angeles Screenshot

Regardless, Battle: Los Angeles is a whole new kind of alien movie for me. There was an actual plot that was incredibly believable. There weren't any crazy one-liners or ridiculous personalities. The movie dealt with families and the military, more specifically the United States Marine Corps. It's the story of survival, a small group of Marines and cilvilians working together to escape a dangerous and seemingly impossible situation, taking risks, feeling afraid and helpless, sacrificing and so forth. It was a war movie, that's what it was - with aliens.

For once, the aliens were not at the forefront of the movie - they were a problem, yes, but the human characters were so much more prominent and I honestly worried for them. The aliens were almost a sidenote. I even cried at one point! Alien movies do not make me cry. Can't say that anymore.

It was Hurt Locker meets War of the Worlds. The flow of the movie was compelling, swift-moving and engaged my emotions more than I ever expected. The acting was pretty good, too. No silliness from the likes of Will Smith here. What the heck, I loved it. Skyline can sit on a pin, Battle: Los Angeles is just too cool.

Southern Malaysia's civil court ghosts

Menara CyberPort

The huge Menara Cyberport building in the capital city of Southern Malaysia, Johor Baru, has caused a flurry of ghost busting talk this week, after policemen and a medium came in to invstigate the city's eight civic court rooms for alleged demonic spirit activity.

While countries worldwide have different interpetations of what "demonic activity" actually means, there seems to be no harm done, just people in hysterics. Perhaps for good reason, as employees and a chairman have claimed to "brush into" ghosts on several occasions.

Senior court officials immediately sought help after a court employee went bonkers after claiming to have witnessed a ghost in one of the rooms. Other employees have complained of doors opening and closing by themselves. Court judges have expressed a lot of uneasiness toward the activity.

Ever since a medium came to assist in getting rid of the spirits, reports of apparitions manifesting have stopped completely and apparently the doors have returned to normal as well.

Former Johor Bar chairman K. Balarajah admitted he heard the stories of not-so-normal things going on in the courtrooms, “I received at least three complaints from lawyers about strange occurrences and sightings at the building... I have been there a few times but have not experienced anything personally."

NASA distances itself from meteorite fossil story

Say it ain't so. NASA has officially backed off the fossils in meteorites story, citing that the study was not thoroughly peer reviewed as required before going public. Leading scientists in various disciplines claimed the study, a newly published examination of three rare meteorites, was riddled with pitfalls. Published last Friday morning, NASA and its top scientists disavowed the work by noon Monday.



Earthly Contamination or Alien Life?

 Apparently the meteorites fell to Earth between 100 to 200 years ago, therefore any study conducted now can most certainly be contaminated with earthly bacteria. According to a scientist who has studied these same meteorites in the past, more specifically the one that fell to France in 1864. He stated the rock was in "atrocious" condition at a Paris Museum with obvious contamination. A vein in the rock that hadn't been there in old photographs provided proof of slowly spreading moisture.

The Associated Press interviewed up to a dozen scientists, and none of them agreed with the findings. Back in 1996, NASA announced similar findings with great zeal and was forced to back away from later. In that case, a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica showed evidence of alien life - and then... apparently not.

"There's a lot of stuff there, but not a lot of science," said Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, regarding this most recent claim. She publicly scutinized the study over the weekend. "I looked at it and shuddered."

"There has been no one in the scientific community, certainly no one in the meteorite analysis community, that has supported these conclusions," NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher said Monday of the latest work (No, not the guy from Ricky Gervais... although that would be fabulous, yes?) ... and what the heck is a meteorite annalysis community - I want in!

Somehow Mr. Hoover, who originally claimed he was ready for the controversy and open to other ideas, has managed to elude all phone calls and interviews.

So why would such a journal publish a story like this without the appropriate verification first? Rudy Schild, a Harvard astronomer and editor-in-chief of the journal, said the study was reviewed by scientists, but he wouldn't identify them. Schild said the idea was to garner attention and generate debate, which happened after it was first reported over the weekend by FoxNews.com. The journal was apparently looking for a buyer or risk going under. So the answer is, money.


Shame on you, "DR" Hoover!

 And the story gets worse. While Hoover's paper in the journal lists him as a "Ph.D.," NASA's solar physics website mentions nothing of the sort. A colleague of Hoover's acknowledged that he doesn't have a Ph.D. Schild said someone at the journal, he doesn't know who, may have accidentally published Hoover with the doctorate title.

Direct from NASA - fossil life forms found on meteorite

If the following findings are true, then guess what everyone -- we're not alone in the universe! And Charlie Sheen can finally shut up and stop distracting me, because this is actually more fascinating than him.

Richard B. Hoover: Fossils of cyanobacteria found in meteorites

(Credit: Journal of Cosmology)

In the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology, a NASA scientist unveiled his recent findings involving a meteorite that made its way through to space to land here on Earth - carrying with it, *DRUM ROLL *, fossilized life forms!

NASA Astrobiologist Dr. Richard B. Hoover of Marshall Space Flight Center, has traveled to remote areas in Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska, and others, for his decade long career, gathering and studying meteorites. Hoover writes that the latest findings in his study focus on a very rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. Only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth.

Though the study is likely to upset people, cause excitement and controversy all over the place, Hoover is convinced that his findings reveal true fossil evidence of bacterial life within these meteorites. Fossils, the remains of living organisms from their parent comets, moons and other astral bodies, were discovered inside the meteorites once they were taken apart. Based on these findings, Hoover believes that life is broadly distributed throughout the universe. So if these are really fossils, then what kind of life forms are they?



Similar in size and overall structure to the giant bacterium Titanospirillum velox



Actually, some of the fossils are very similar to our bacterial life forms while others are completly strange and unrecognizable. Hoover told FOXNEWS.com, “The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth. There are some that are just very strange and don’t look like anything that I’ve been able to identify, and I’ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stumped.”

Dr. David Marais, an astrobiologist with NASA’s AMES Research Center says he’s not ready to jump onto the bandwagon just yet. Evidence like this has come up before and was proven false. One hundred experts and over five thousand scientists have scrutinize the study and commented on the findings alongside the article. 

Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, says there is a lot of caution toward believing in the claims. If found to be true, the implications would be change science and astronomy on a huge, huge scale.

Shostak guessed that, “Maybe life was seeded on earth -- it developed on comets for example, and just landed here when these things were hitting the very early Earth. It would suggest, well, life didn’t really begin on the Earth, it began as the solar system was forming.”

Hoover is hardly worried about the quick-coming controversy but welcomes other explanations. He says, “If someone can explain how it is possible to have a biological remain that has no nitrogen, or nitrogen below the detect ability limits that I have, in a time period as short as 150 years, then I would be very interested in hearing that."

Is that Humming Bird spying on me?

Yes. Yes, that humming bird is spying on you.

Four million dollars have been spent by the US Pentagon on tiny drones mimicking small animals such as the humming bird and various insects - even leaves. AeroVironment, a California based company and leader in the drone-creation business, was hired for the job of creating the pocket-sized crafts. The drones, equipped with audio and video survellience equipment, are just the beginning. Researchers are also trying to figure out ways to implant video and sound recording devices into actual insects undergoing metamorphosis. Kind of makes everyone's favorite Chinese magician's magnet-implanted fish looks like small chickens.

Humming Bird Spy Drone, AP

The spy humming bird prototype unveiled this week has a wingspan of 6.5 inches and weighs less than one AA batteries. It can fly at a speed of up to 11 mph by flapping those wings. The camera is in his cute little belly. It can sit on a surface as thin as a window ledge.

Who will use these drones and spy insects? Apparently, the police and fire fighters. For one thing, they'll be able to use the drones to locate people under collapsed buildings, in fires, etc. Also, soldiers will put them to use to survey buildings or combat areas.

Nothing's made it out of the lab yet. YET.

Two things.
1. Although I do see the value of spy birds and insects (Really? Millions and millions of dollars? Really?), it raises some privacy issues with me - as I'm sure once these things are in the hands of the police force, it will not always be put to good use.
2. Implanting sound and video devices into real, living things is cruel. I already wrote that story - and if people are unhappy with living fish magnets, they'll get upset about this, too.

Wait, 3. I knew that humming bird/bee buzzy thing hovering in my yard was not a real animal!! Does anyone know what the heck that thing is!?

... it's a humming bird moth. Darn.