SAN JOSE, California: Ruben Uriarte was a young boy growing up in northern California in the 1950s when he saw something strange up in the sky.

“I thought it was a balloon, but it was so perfectly round, and it just remained motionless,” he recalled Saturday at the Bay Area UFO Expo, where the 56-year-old hospital management consultant was hardly the only one who believes the truth is out there.

Organizers billed the annual two-day event as the largest gathering of UFO buffs in the country. For “experiencers” like conference co-host Uriarte, along with more than 1,000 other attendees, this weekend’s expo offered a rare chance to meet fellow flying-saucer fans far away from the “ridicule factor” that follows them through a skeptical world.

“By coming, they’re meeting a lot of other people who’ve had a similar experience,” Uriarte said.

Hundreds packed hotel ballrooms to hear speakers hold forth on a range of topics from the scientific fringe.

Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., a practicing ear, nose and throat specialist from Montana, told a rapt audience of the day in 1947 when his father, an Army intelligence officer, purportedly returned to the family home in Roswell, New Mexico. His dad, Marcel said, was first on the scene of history’s most famous flying saucer crash, and he brought some of the wreckage home to show his son.

Not long after, the U.S. government forced his father to assist in a cover-up, Marcel said, and continues to demand silence from witnesses today.

“I wish they’d come out and shout to the hills what they saw,” Marcel said.

Suppression by the government — or anyone else — was far from evident Saturday, as vendors hawked shelves of books and DVDs exposing the alleged details of “secret” conspiracies through the ages. Straight-faced accounts of telepathic communication with Bigfoot and the surgical removal of suspected extraterrestrial implants shared table space with kitschy soaps and candles shaped like the iconic little green man.

Sheila Smith, 64, a hospital lab technician from Petaluma, has been coming to the event since it began nine years ago. She believes that stories of encounters with UFOs are likely true, but doubts the saucers themselves were built by aliens.

Instead, Smith said, the spacecraft probably use technology developed by an advanced North American civilization more than 13,000 years ago before a giant meteor or comet wiped out nearly every trace.

Her friends laugh at her, Smith said, but she enjoys the UFO expo because she always digs up more evidence to support her theories.

“I find proof for everything I stand for,” she said.

According to organizers, the Internet has had much the same effect on UFO research as it has on mainstream scientific inquiry. The medium has brought like-minded thinkers together and enabled the sharing of information with unprecedented efficiency, Uriarte said.

And he denied that the Web has also helped create a false sense of consistency among descriptions of UFO encounters by making it easier to falsely rehash the widely distributed stories of others.

“We try to weed that out,” he said.

Proof did not matter so much to Stefanie Johnson, 33, of Napa, who said she came to the expo out of curiosity and a feeling that UFOs are “a possibility.” A “clear-thinking” friend saw a UFO while on his paper route as a teenager, Johnson said before heading into a ballroom for a psychic reading.

“Some of it sounds like it really could be happening,” she said.

Not so, said Johnson’s boyfriend, who was too embarrassed to give his name, calling UFO believers “total wackos.”

Johnson said she brought him hoping to broaden his “narrow mind.”

“I’m not narrow-minded,” he said. “But I’m skeptical of things that can’t be proven — and that includes religion and UFOs.”

The Bay Area UFO Expo continues through Sunday.

Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/26/america/NA-GEN-US-UFO-Expo.php

DAYTON — The boys were out playing when they saw it. Inside the dark building, a shadowy figure.

Zachary Willis went to tell his mother, Shea, immediately.

“Hey, there’s something weird going on in there,” she recalls him saying.

Then, the 11-year-old went back into the family’s café and let his mother go into the building across the street.

Willis wasn’t just being nosey. She had just gotten the keys to the triangular building nudged into the three-sided intersection of Main and College streets in Dayton.

Willis and her husband, Matt, plan to merge their two businesses, Ravenwood Café and Ravenwood Gallery, and move them into The Triangle Building at 233 Main St., which they are renting.

Shea Willis, a paranormal investigator with the Shenandoah Valley Paranormal Society, says the building is a hotbed of spectral activity but that’s no reason not to move in.

It is, she says, a prime location — haunted or not.

“They call it the epicenter of town,” she said. “I’ve heard more than one person refer to it as that.”

Dayton Mayor Judy Way shares that enthusiasm.

“It’s exciting for the town of Dayton,” she said. “That’s a great building, a historic building, and it’s been sitting there, going to waste, for a number of years.”

More Room, But Cozy

The Willis family opened Ravenwood Gallery, which features the work of a variety of local artists and artisans, in February.

In March, Shea says she found out the coffee shop down the block, run by her new friend Ann-Marie Alford, was going out of business, so they took that over too.

They’d been running two shops about 100 yards from each other for the past three months but hope to move to their new building by the beginning of October.

They need the space, said Shea Willis. The Ravenwood Café, which sells sandwiches, smoothies, soup, ice cream and organic, shade-grown fair trade coffee, only has room for a handful of customers.

“We’re packed in there,” she said. “We don’t have room for people to sit.”

The new building will have room not only for more customers, but also for an art gallery. It will not, however, have a pool table.

“My kids were clamoring for me to put a pool table in there,” she said. “I said, ‘No, you all can go down the street to Jim’s Drive-In.’

“It’s going to be cozy.”

A Lot Of Paint

The idea of having a cozy coffee shop in the middle of Dayton has been embraced by townsfolk, Willis said.

Greg Riddle, president of the BB&T Bank across the street, and the treasurer of the Dayton Community Development Association, has offered to help renovate.

He’s not much of a construction worker, so Riddle has offered to take up a brush in his efforts to assist in the ambitious goal of opening the building by October.

“It’s absolutely a beautiful building with those 14-foot ceilings,” he said. “It’s going to need a lot of paint.”

Way, the mayor, says everyone in town is looking forward to when the building is being used again. For the last eight years it’s been storage, she said, but the Willis family should change all that.

“They’re very creative, they’re very artistic and I think they’re going to do great things in there.”

Willis thinks so, too, and she’s not at all worried about the ghosts she says her son saw.

“I really think it’s got such a great feeling to it,” she said. “It has such potential.”

Link: http://www.rocktownweekly.com/news_details.php?AID=11620&CHID=2

Black Vault owner John Greenewald Jr. has been digging for the truth about extraterrestrials since he was a child. His online site the “Black Vault” may be the largest UFO information base in the world.
Motivated by his curiosity and empowered by the Freedom of Information Act, John Greenewald Jr. has assembled what may very well be the most comprehensive collection of UFO documents ever.

Over the past decade, John Greenewald Jr. has gathered half a million UFO-related government documents. And it’s all online for anyone to see.

The Black Vault is currently down, however. Presumably, the Black Vault is down due to a massive influx of traffic generated from the notoriety, or maybe it was simply aliens, or a government conspiracy to hide the truth.

“I’ve learned specifically that the U.S. government and military cover up a lot,” says Greenewald, according to Yahoo news. “It doesn’t matter what subject you’re dealing with, it doesn’t matter what time frame you’re dealing with.”

The biggest cover-up of all, Greenewald says, is Area 51 in Nevada - the center of many UFO conspiracy theories. For years the government denied its very existence. It still doesn’t appear on any maps. But Greenewald has a letter in his Black Vault from the Department of Energy acknowledging that Area 51 was annexed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1958, and that the area is currently part of Nellis Air Force Base.

As far as America’s most famous UFO legend, the alleged crash of a flying saucer in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, Greenewald says the government has changed its story many times.

Link: http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21296439.shtml 

Details revealed under the Freedom of Information Act show that 11 sightings have been reported in the area in the past decade.

They range from bright lights to dome-shaped objects, according to the Ministry of Defence log books that list times, dates, places and descriptions.

The busiest year for possible ’space invader’ activity in the province was 1999, with five incidents recorded, including two in Co Antrim within 48 hours.

Other reports include 18 lights moving across the sky and an object the size of a bowling ball with red lines on it that “moved fast, then vanished” .

Describing one incident, a witness told the MoD they saw “two egg shaped objects, with red, blue and green coloured lights”, adding it was dome shaped at the top but was flat at the bottom.

Every year in the UK, more than 100 UFO sightings are reported to the MoD.

Although the Ministry does not have any expertise in respect of UFOs, it is required to investigate every sighting in order to establish whether or not the UK’s airspace has been infringed upon.

An MoD spokesman said: “The MoD examines reports solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity.

“If required, sighting reports are examined with the assistance of the department’s air defence experts.

“Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported.”

However, correspondence between the MoD and members of the public reveals that Whitehall officials remain “totally open- minded” about the existence of UFOs.

Giving details of the MoD’s policy on UFOs, the Director of Air Staff said in a lengthy response to a Freedom of Information request: “The Ministry of Defence does not have any expertise or role in respect of ‘UFO (or) flying saucer’ matters or to the question of the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life forms, about which it remains totally open-minded.

“To date the MoD knows of no evidence which substantiates the existence of these alleged phenomena.

“The MoD examines any ‘UFO’ reports it receives solely to establish whether what was seen might have some defence significance; namely, whether there is any evidence that the United Kingdom’s airspace might have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised air activity.

“Unless there is evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom from an external source, and to date no ‘UFO’ report has revealed such evidence, we do not attempt to identify the precise nature of each sighting reported to us.”

He added: “We believe that rational explanations, such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena, could be found for them if resources were diverted for this purpose, but it is not the function of the MoD to provide this kind of aerial identification service.

“It would be an inappropriate use of defence resources if we were to do so.”

Details of the UFO sightings by members of the public were released in response to a series of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD confirmed.

Original article: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2826498.ece

I’ve always considered myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of haunted houses. I love them and take every opportunity during the month of October to tour them, laughing hysterically at the half-hearted attempts people make at scaring other people.

And I always leave disappointed.

After all, it’s just people dressed up in costumes. They can’t touch you, and a simple jump from the shadows is always thwarted by my overly curious and skeptical nature. The “mad scientist” or “chainsaw-wielding murderers” never chase after me because I never scream and more often than not I leave the spectacle laughing.

Let’s face it — I am somewhat hard to frighten.

That, teamed with my own fascination toward the unknown, led me to jump at the opportunity to hunt ghosts in Mitchell. If there are ghosts out there, I have to see them. That’s the only way I am going to believe they exist.

But I’ll be the first to admit that ghost hunting isn’t as glamorous as one might expect.

I spent 12 hours last Thursday with the Louisville Ghost Hunters Society as they inspected a home in Mitchell for spooks. OK, not really. I spent nine hours with three ghost hunters as they tried to prove — using the library, cemetery and museum — that the child who supposedly haunts the house ever existed. Then, we spent a few hours trying to get her to come out for a little visit.

I don’t think she ever did.

I’ll admit that a few weird things happened.

I heard knocking when no one was knocking, and insulation was hurled at the camera man in an attic devoid of humans. I might have heard some whispering, and the lights flickered several times. A toy appeared on a coffee table with no one claiming responsibility for moving it, and the others in the group claimed to have heard a child crying.

Am I convinced there’s a ghost haunting this abode?

Not yet.

I wanted (and honestly expected) a little more concrete proof to this haunting experience.

I joked with the cameraman about how I would’ve liked to have seen something other than insulation hurled at him — perhaps the lamp sitting a few feet away — because then I might actually believe the house was haunted. I wanted a clichéd image of a girl to come waltzing through the parlor or a strong, clear voice to bellow out of the walls. I couldn’t be satisfied with fuzzy images of what might be the image of a girl standing in a window or second-hand stories of other peoples’ experiences.

But, then again, I am not sure what I would’ve done had I gotten the proof I needed.

You see, I am scared of real life. I am more likely to be frightened by “Cold Case Files” than by watching “Most Haunted” on the Travel Channel. I’d likely wager a bet that my chances of getting hurt by a criminal are a little better than getting injured by a ghost. Call it reality.

Yet — although the invitation to stay the night in the house fascinated me — I wasn’t convinced it was something I could altogether handle (at least not without plastic sheets on the bed). Saying I am not afraid of ghosts when I’ve never seen a ghost is pretty easy. Saying I am not afraid of ghosts when there is one standing over the bed I am sleeping in is an altogether different experience.

In all honesty, I would like to believe there is another side to life. I’d like to know I might have the chance to come back and haunt my husband, or that when the hair stands up on the back of my neck, that might mean my beloved grandmother or lost friends are in the room with me.

It would be a cool thing to know, but I am not sure we’re supposed to know.

They say curiosity killed the cat.

Then again, perhaps those who believe or are willing to believe can see more than we ever expected we would.

Read full article at: http://www.tmnews.com/stories/2007/08/02/entertainment.nw-080290.tms

Scientific Proof of UFOs as Concluded by University of Colorado Scientists on Display at Denver UFO Conference

2007-08-02 21:51:32 - For the first time, UFO researchers will publicly display scientific proof of UFOs as concluded by Colorado scientists. Colorado artist Armand Guerrero will display a large accurate sculpture of the UFO and copies of the original photo negatives will be on display. This free display will be open to the public from August 10 - 12, 2007 at the Denver Tech Center Marriott in conjunction with MUFON’s annual Symposium on UFOs.

The Mutual UFO Network, Inc. (MUFON) is a nonprofit scientific research organization that has been investigating the UFO mystery for 38 years. For the first time, MUFON will publicly display scientific proof of UFOs as concluded by Colorado scientists. Colorado artist Armand Guerrero will display a large accurate sculpture of the UFO and copies of the original photo negatives will be on display. This free display will be open to the public from August 10 - 12, 2007 at the Denver Tech Center Marriott in conjunction with MUFON’s annual Symposium on UFOs.

Known as the 1950 McMinnville Oregon photos, this photographic evidence was studied by scientists at the University of Colorado. They were commissioned by the U.S. Government to scientifically study UFOs and concluded these photos to be ‘one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses.-

It was May 11, 1950 at about 7:45 PM. Evelyn Trent was out feeding the rabbits on her family farm in Dayton, Oregon, 11 miles south of McMinnville, when she saw a strange metallic object in the sky. “It was like a good-sized parachute canopy without the strings, only silvery bright mixed with bronze,” she said at the time. “It was as pretty as anything I ever saw.” She yelled for her husband, and he quickly grabbed a camera on his way out the door and was able to take a couple of pictures of the object. A friend of the Trent’s then hung the pictures up in his bank’s window. A reporter from McMinnville saw the pictures and printed them, and from there they hit newswires all over the country. They were even featured in a Life magazine story in June of 1950. The photographs were then analyzed 17 years later in a study of UFOs funded by the Air Force and conducted at the university of Colorado in Boulder called ‘The Condon Report-.

A press conference on the scientific proof will be held on August 10, 2007 at 11:00 AM in the Bluebell Room at the Denver Tech Center Marriott. For more information please contact Barry Roth at b.roth@comcast.net or Alejandro Rojas at 888-817-2220, Option 4, then Option 3.

Kontaktinformation:
Mutual UFO Network, Inc.

Kontakt-Person:
Alejandro Rojas
Director of Public Education
Phone: 888-817-2220
E-mail: e-mail

Web: http://www.MUFON.com
Link: http://www.pr-inside.com/scientific-proof-of-ufos-as-concluded-r193411.htm