1952 Washington D.C. Sightings

1952 Washington D.C. Sightings

During the dawn of Ufology in the United States, unidentified flying objects made themselves known to the leaders of the free world in 1952, buzzing over the White House, the Capitol building, and the Pentagon. Seemingly the unknown objects were defying the very governmental agencies sworn to protect the United States from foreign powers.

Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base picked up a number of UFOs on their radar screens on July 19, 1952, beginning a wave of sightings still unexplained to this day.

These blips were objects traveling at about 100 m.p.h. but with the ability to accelerate to the unbelievable speed of 7,200 m.p.h. The Washington National sighting was confirmed by other local radar, and then Andrews Air Force Base was contacted.

Washington Tower:

Andrews Tower, do you read? Did you have an airplane in sight west-northwest or east of your airport moving east-bound?

Andrews: No, but we just got a call from the center. We're looking for it.

Washington: We've got a big target showing up on our scope. He's just coming in on the west edge of your airport-the northwest edge of it eastbound. He'll be passing right through the northern portion of your field on an east heading. He's about a quarter of a mile from the northwest runway-right over the edge of your northwest runway now.

Andrews: What happened to your target now?

Washington: He's still eastbound. He went directly over Andrews Fields and is now five miles east.

Andrews: Where did he come from?

Washington: We picked him up ourselves at about seven miles east, slightly southeast, and we have been tracking him ever since then. The Center has been tracking him farther than that.

Andrews: Was he waving his course?

Washington: Holding steady course, due east heading.

Andrews: This is Andrews. Our radar tracking says he's got a big fat target out here northeast of Andrews. He says he's got two more south of the field.

Washington: Yes, well the center has about four or five around the Andrews Range station. The Center is working a National Airlines - the center is working him and vectoring him around his target. He went around Andrews. He saw one of them - looks like a meteor. (Garbled)..Went by him..or something.

He said he's got one about three miles off his right wing right now. There are so many targets around here it is hard to tell as they are not moving very fast.

Andrews: What about his altitude?

Washington: Well, must be over 8,000 feet as we don't have him in radar any more.

Andrews Air Force Base notified the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command. A couple of F-94 night fighters were ordered to the skies, but runway repairs held their mission up for several hours. By the time they were airborne, the mysterious objects were gone.

The fighters returned home, but soon the objects again showed up on the radar screens. For the next several hours, the fighters chased the illusive targets, but to no avail.

They were able to sight the UFOs, but lights of the unknown objects would darken as they were approached. Constant communication was kept with ground radar, and as the pilots lost sight of the UFOs, they also disappeared from ground radar. The UFOs were also separately witnessed by the crew of a B-29, and other commercial flights.

After a quiet week, the objects reappeared on July 26. After multiple radar operators confirmed the objects, the F-94s again began their search for the enigmatic lights over Washington. The results of their pursuit were identical to the week before. They could see the lights, but when they drew near, the lights would black out.

After their fruitless journey, the planes returned home, only to hear that the objects again were being tracked by radar. One of the pilots stated his fear and frustration by air to ground radio. "They've surrounded my plane, what should I do?" The phenomenal sights would bring about an Air Force press conference on July 29, with Major General John A. Samford in charge.

The official explanation was "temperature inversions," which supposedly caused ground lights to bounce off of clouds, giving the appearance of lighted craft in the skies. The naive and trusting press accepted this explanation at first, in lieu of any other "reasonable" one.

This explanation was scoffed at, however, by Ufologists, knowing that it just did not explain what was seen by pilots and radar operators. Even Project Bluebook would also dismiss the "temperature inversion" explanation, as it later labeled the Washington sightings as "unknown."

The radar operators offered their own reason for the rejecting the Air Force explanation. Radar controller Barnes would state, "Inversion blips are always recognized by experts, we are familiar with what weather conditions, flying birds, and [other] such things can cause on radar.

Temperature inversions on radar are typically weak returns and move at a slow ground speed. These blips were distinctly clear, reported as a very good return, solid and often traveled at unbelievable speeds."

The Washington D. C. sightings are a solid case of UFO activity. Literally hundreds of eyewitnesses saw the objects, and photographed them. Many of these were Air Force personnel, considered as reliable. Many of them made comment of the sightings, one was a Sergeant Harrison: "I saw the ... light moving from the Northeast toward the range station.

These lights did not have the characteristics of shooting stars. There was no trails and seemed to go out rather than disappear, and traveled faster than any shooting star I have ever seen." The sightings continued throughout the month of July.

(B J Booth)

See transcipt of article below

July 28, 1952

"Saucer" outran jet, pilot reveals

Investigation on in secret after chase over capital

Radar spot blips like aircraft for nearly six hours - only 1.700 feet up

By Paul Sampson, Post Reporter

Military secrecy veils an investigation of the mysterious, glowing aerial objects that showed up on radar screens in the Washington area Saturday night for the second consecutive week.

A jet pilot sent up by the Air Defense Command to investigate the objects reported he was unable to overtake the glowing lights moving near Andrews Air Force Base.

The CAA reported reported the objects traveled at "predominantly lower levels"-about 1700 feet. July 19.

Air Force spokesmen said yesterday only that an investigation was being made into the sighting of the objects on the radar screen in the CAA Air Route Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport, and on two other radar screens . Methods of the investigations were classified as secret, a spoken said.

"We have no evidence they are flying saucers; conversely we have no evidence they are not flying saucers. We don't know what they are," a spokesman added.

The same source reported an expert from the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton Ohio, was here last week investigating the objects sighted July 19.

The expert has been identified as Capt. E. J. Ruppelt. Reached by telephone at his home in Dayton yesterday, Ruppelt said he could make no comment on his activity in Washington.

Capt. Ruppelt confirmed he was in Washington last week but said he had not come here to investigate the mysterious objects. He recalled he did make an investigation after hearing of the objects, but could not say what he investigated.

Another Air Force spokesman said here yesterday the Air Force is taking all steps necessary to evaluate the sightings. "The intelligence people," this spokesman explained, "sent someone over to the control center at the time of the sightings and did whatever necessary to make the proper evaluation.

Asked whether the radar equipment might have been mis-functioning, the spokesman said, "radar, like the compass is not a perfect instrument and is subject to error." He thought, however, the investigation would be made by persons acquainted with the problems of radar.

Two other radar screens in the area picked up the objects.An employee of the National Airport control tower said the radar scope there picked up very weak "blips" of the objects. The tower radar's for "short range" and is not so powerful as that at the center. Radar at Andrews Air Force Base also registered the objects from about seven miles south of the base.

A traffic control center spokesman said the nature of the signals on the radar screen ruled out any possibility they were from clouds or any other "weather" disturbance.

"The returns we received from the unidentified objects were similar and analagous to targets representing aircraft in flight," he said.

The objects, "flying saucer or what have you, appeared on the radar scope at the airport center at 9:08 PM. Varying from 4 to 12 in number,the objects appeared on the screen until 3:00 AM., when they diappeared.

At 11:25 PM., two F-94 jet fighters fro Air Defense Command squadron, at New CAstle Delaware, capable of 600 hundred mph speeds, took off to investigate the objects.

Airline, civil and military pilots described the objects as looking like the lit end of a cigarette or a cluster of orange and red lights.

One jet pilot observed 4 lights in the vicinity of Andrews Air Force Base, but was not able to over-take them, and they disappeared in about two minutes.

The same pilot observed a steady white light in the vicinity of Mt Vernon at 11:49 PM. The light, about 5 miles from him, faded in a minute. The lights were also observed in the Beltsville, MD., vicinity. At 1:40 AM two-other F-94 jet fighters took off and scanned the area until 2:20 AM., but did not make any sightings.

Visible two days

Although "unidentified objects" have been picked up on radar before, the incidents of the last two saturdays are believed to be the first time the objects have been picked up on radar-while visible to the human eye.

Besides the pilots, who last saturday saw the lights, a woman living on Mississippi Ave., told the Post she saw a very "bright light streaking across the sky towards Andrews Air Force Base about 11:45 PM. Then a second object with a tail like a comet whizzed by, and a few seconds later, a third passed in a different direction toward Suntland, she said.

Radar operators plotted the speed of "saturday night's visitors" at from 38 to 90 mph, but one jet pilot reported faster speeds for the light he saw.

The jet pilot reported he had no apparent "closing speed" when he attempted to reach the lights he saw near Andrews Air Force Base. That means the lights were moving atleast as fast as his top speed-a maximum of 600 mph.

One person who saw the lights when they first appeared in this area did not see them last night. He is E.W. Chambers, an engineer at Radio Station WRC, who spotted the lights while working early the morning of July 20 at station's Hyattsville tower.

Chamber's said he was sorry he had seen the lights because he had been skeptical about "flying saucers" before. Now he said, he sort of "wonders" and worrys about the whole thing.

Leon Davidson, 804 South Irving St. Arlington, a chemical engineer who made an exhaustive study of "flying saucers" as a hobby, said yesterday reports of saucers in the East, have been relatively rare.

Davidson has studied the official report on the saucers, including some of the secret portions never made public, and analyzed all the data in the report.

Davidson, whose study of saucers is impressively detailed and scientific, said he believes the lights are American "aviation products"-probably "circular flying wings," using new type jet engines that permit rapid acceleration and relatively low speeds. He believes, they are either "new fighter," guided missiles, or piloted guided missiles.

He cited some of the recent jet fighters, including the Navy's new "F-4-D, which has a radical "bat-wing," as examples of what the objects might resemble.

Davidson thinks the fact that the lights have been seen in this area indicates the authorities may be ready to disclose the "new aircraft" in the near future. Previously, most of the "verified saucers" have been seen over sparsely inhabited areas, Davidson explained, and now, when they appear here, it may indicate that "secrecy" is not so important any more.

Modern Science VS Darwin

by Babu G. Ranganathan

Darwin convinced the intellectual elite of society in his day of no need to believe in God because his explanation of "natural selection" in Nature solved all naturalistic problems for explaining design and complexity in life, so he thought. Actually, other individuals wrote and published on the subject of natural selection well before Darwin but that is another subject.

The problem that many didn't realize right away in Darwin's time is that "natural selection" has limits. Natural selection is not a creative force. Natural selection can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and that have survival value. Natural selection itself does not produce biological traits or variations. Biological traits and variations are produced by the DNA or genetic code of species. If the genetic information or capability for a particular trait doesn't exist in the DNA of a species then there's nothing that natural selection can do to put it there. Natural selection can only work with the genetic information available in DNA and nothing more.

When it eventually dawned on followers of Darwin that natural selection has limits, they resorted to the belief that genetic mutations would provide natural selection with entirely new genetic information and, thus, evolution from amoeba to man would become possible if given just enough time.

Mutations are accidents (random changes) in the sequential structure of the genetic code and they are caused by various random environmental forces such as radiation. The problem with mutations is that they are almost always harmful since they are accidents in the genetic code. Even if a good mutation occurred for every good one there would be thousands of harmful ones with the net effect over time being disastrous for any species.

At the very best mutations can only produce variations or modifications of already existing traits, but not entirely new traits. For example, mutations in the genes for human hair may change those genes so that another type of human hair develops but the mutations won't change the genes so that feathers or wings develop! Most biological variations, however, are the result of new combinations of already existing genes and not mutations which are rare in nature. Combinations of genes can occur by chance but that doesn't mean that the genes themselves can come into existence by chance!

Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics. It would require genetic engineering to turn an amoeba into a human being. Nature does not have the ability to perform such genetic engineering.

But, didn't we all start off from a single cell in our mother's womb? Yes, but that single cell from which we developed had all of the genetic information to develop into a full human being. Other single cells, such as bacteria and amoeba don't.

Evolutionists will argue that the genetic and biological similarity between all species is evidence of a common biological ancestry. That, however, is only one interpretation of the evidence. Another possibility is that the comparative genetic and biological similarities are due to a common Designer who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all the various forms of life. Neither position can be scientifically proved.

A major problem for evolutionists is how could partially-evolved plant and animal species survive over, supposedly, millions of years if their vital organs and tissues were still in the process of evolving? How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still incomplete and evolving? How were species fighting off possibly life-killing germs if their immune system hadn't fully evolved yet?

The evidence from genetics supports only the possibility for limited, or horizontal, evolution within biological "kinds" such as the varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc., but not vertical evolution (variation across biological "kinds"), especially from simpler kinds to more complex ones such as from fish to human. Even if a new species develops but there are no new genes or traits then there still is no real macro-evolution (variation across biological kinds) and the new species would remain within the same biological "kind" even though it would no longer have the ability to inter-breed back with the original stock. Unless Nature has the ability to perform genetic engineering vertical evolution will not be possible.

The early grooves in the human embryo that appear to look like gills are really the early stages in the formation of the face, throat, and neck regions. The so-called "tailbone" is the early formation of the coccyx and spinal column which, because of the rate of growth being faster than the rest of the body at this stage, appears to look like a tail. The coccyx has already been proven to be useful in providing support for the pelvic muscles.

Abortion clinics have been known to tell many young pregnant women that what they are carrying inside has not become a humanbeing yet but, instead, is only a tadpole like creature and that there is nothing to feel guilty about in terminating their pregnancy.

Variations across biological kinds such as humans evolving from ape-like creatures and apes, in turn, evolving from dog-like creatures and so on, as Darwinian evolutionary theory teaches, are not genetically possible. Although the chemicals to make entirely new genes exist in all varieties of plant and animal kinds, the DNA or genetic program that exists in each plant or animal kind will only direct those chemicals into making more of the same plant or animal kind.

Millions of people are taught in schools and textbooks all over the world that the fossil record furnishes scientific proof of evolution. But, where are there fossils of half-evolved dinosaurs or other creatures?

The fossil record contains fossils of only complete and fully-formed species. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species to indicate that a gradual process of evolution ever occurred. Even among evolutionists there are diametrically different interpretations and reconstructions of the fossils used to support human evolution from a supposed ape-like ancestry. In fact, all of the fossils used to support human evolution have been found to be either hoaxes, non-human, or human. Evolutionists once reconstructed an image of a half-ape and half-man creature (known as The Nebraska Man) from a single tooth! Later they discovered that the tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig! The "Nebraska Man" was used as a major piece of evidence in the famous Scopes Trial in support of Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Even if evolution takes millions and millions of years, we should still be able to see some stages of its process. But, we simply don't observe any partially-evolved fish, frogs, lizards, birds, dogs, cats among us. Every species of plant and animal is complete and fully-formed.

Scientist Dr. Walt Brown, in his fantastic book "In The Beginning", makes this point by saying, "All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing."

A lizard with half-evolved legs and wings can't run or fly away from its predators. How would it survive? Why would it be preserved by natural selection? Imagine such a species surviving in such a miserable state over many millions of years waiting for fully-formed wings to evolve!

Some evolutionists cite the fossil of an ancient bird known to have claws as an example of a transitional link. However, there are two species of birds living today in South America that have claws on their wings, but even evolutionists today do not claim that these birds are transitional links from a reptilian ancestry. These claws are complete, as everything else on the birds.

What about all those spectacular and popular claims reported in the mass media of evolutionists having discovered certain transitional forms in the fossil record? Such claims have not been accepted by all evolutionists and, after much investigation and analysis, these claims have been found to have no hard basis in science. This has been the case of every so-called "missing link" and "transitional" form discovered since Darwin.

Recently it was thought they had discovered fossils of dinosaurs with feathers until they found out that the so-called feathers were really scales, which only had the appearance of feathers. Scientists theorize the scales took upon a feather-like appreance during some brief stage of decomposition before being fossilized. Even if they were feathers, this still wouldn't be any kind of evidence to support macro-evolution unless they can show a series of fossils having part-scale/part-feather structures as evidence that the scales had really evolved into feathers.

Many times, evolutionists use similarities of traits shared by different forms of life as a basis for claiming a transitional link. But, the problem for evolutionists is that all the traits which they cite are complete and fully-formed.

Not only are there no true transitional links in the fossil record, but the fossils themselves are not in the supposed geological sequence or order as evolutionists claim in their textbooks. Of course, evolutionists have their circular and unsupported arguments and reasons for why this is so.

If evolution across biological kinds (known as macro-evolution) really occurred then we should find millions of indisputable transitional forms in the fossil record instead of a few disputable transitional forms that even evolutionists cannot all agree upon. And, again, the point needs to be emphasized that species cannot wait millions of years for their vital (or necessary) organs and biological systems to evolve.

In fact, it is precisely because of these problems that more and more modern evolutionists are adopting a new theory known as Punctuated Equilibrium which says that plant and animal species evolved suddenly from one kind to another and that is why we don't see evidence of partially-evolved species in the fossil record. Of course, we have to accept their word on blind faith because there is no way to prove or disprove what they are saying. These evolutionists claim that something like massive bombardment of radiation resulted in mega mutations in species, which produced "instantaneous" changes from one life form to another.

The fact that animal and plant species are found fully formed and complete in the fossil record is powerful evidence (although not proof) for creation because it is evidence that they came into existence as fully formed and complete which is possible only by creation.

Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties and races of people could come from the same human ancestors. Well, in principle, that's no different than asking how children with different color hair ( i.e., blond, brunette, brown, red ) can come from the same parents who both have black hair.

Just as some individuals today carry genes to produce descendants with different color hair and eyes, humanity's first parents possessed genes to produce all the variety and races of men. You and I today may not carry the genes to produce every variety or race of humans, but humanity's first parents did possess such genes.

All varieties of humans carry genes for the same basic traits, but not all humans carry every possible variation of those genes. For example, one person may be carrying several variations of the gene for eye color ( i.e., brown, green, blue ) , but someone else may be carrying only one variation of the gene for eye color ( i.e., brown ). Thus, both will have different abilities to affect the eye color of their offspring.

In the midst of all the arguments over evolution and intelligent design, it is amazing how many in society, including the very educated, believe that scientists had already created life in the laboratory. No such thing has ever happened.

All that scientists have done is genetically engineer already existing forms of life in the laboratory, and by doing this scientists have been able to produce new forms of life, but they did not produce these new life forms from non-living matter. Even if scientists ever do produce life from non-living matter it will only be through intelligent design or planning so it still wouldn't help support any theory of life originating by chance or evolution.

If the cell had evolved it would have had to be all at once. A partially evolved cell cannot wait millions of years to become complete because it would be highly unstable and quickly disintegrate in the open environment, especially without the protection of a complete and fully functioning cell membrane.

Although it has been shown that the basic building blocks of life, amino acids, can come into existence by chance, it has never been shown that the various amino acids can come together into a sequence by chance to form protein molecules. Even the simplest cell is composed of millions of protein molecules.

Without DNA there cannot be RNA, and without RNA there cannot be DNA. And without either DNA or RNA there cannot be proteins, and without proteins there cannot be DNA or RNA. They're all mutually dependent upon each other for existence! The cell is irreducibly complex. It could not have gradually evolved! Evolutionists generally believe that it took one billion years for the first life form or cell to have evolved. That belief, although still taught as gospel in many elementary and secondary schools, cannot be sustained by modern science.

The great British scientist Sir Frederick Hoyle has said that the probability of the sequence of molecules in the simplest cell coming into existence by chance is equivalent to a tornado going through a junk yard of airplane parts and assembling a 747 Jumbo Jet!

Once there is a complete and living cell then, of course, the genetic program and various biological mechanisms exist to direct the formation of more cells with their own genetic programs and biological mechanisms. The question is how could the life or the cell have come about naturally on Earth when there were no directing mechanisms.

If humans must use intelligence to perform genetic engineering, to meaningfully manipulate the genetic code, then what does that say about the origin of the genetic code itself!

We tend to judge something as being simple or complex by its size. So many of us assume that because the cell is microscopic in size that it must be simple. Not so! Size is relative, but not complexity. If you were as big as the Empire State building you would probably think that the tiny cars and automobiles on the street were simple and could easily happen by a chance combination of parts. However, we know that is not so.

Science cannot prove we're here by creation, but neither can science prove we're here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.

If some astronauts from Earth discovered figures of persons similar to Mt. Rushmore on an uninhabited planet there would be no way to scientifically prove the carved figures originated by design or by chance processes of erosion. Neither position is science,but scientific arguments may be made to support one or the other.

What we believe about life's origins does influence our philosophy and value of life as well as our view of ourselves and others. This is no small issue! Evolutionary theory is popular because it gives everyone the freedom to do their own thing! Much of our moral and social ills in society are the result of generations of teaching that man and all life came into existence by chance and random processes. Therefore, there is no absolute truth, especially not any absolute moral and spiritual truth.

Just because the laws of science can explain how life and the universe operate and work doesn't mean there is no Maker. Would it be rational to believe that there's no designer behind airplanes because the laws of science can explain how airplanes operate and work?

Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected natural laws can never fully explain the origin of such order.

We know from the law of entropy in science that the universe does not have the ability to have sustained itself from all eternity. It requires a beginning. But, we also know from science that natural laws could not have brought the universe into being from nothing. The beginning of the universe, therefore, points to a supernatural origin!

UFO phenomenon was strictly tabooed in USSR

The world celebrates the International UFO Day on July 2. Oleg Stolyarov became the first person in Russia who chose the UFO subject for his doctoral dissertation.

The world’s first-ever scientific work dedicated to strange objects in the sky was penned by Carl Yung, a renowned Swiss psychologist. He equated the phenomenon of the UFO with Maya myths and the symbols of unconscious collective. He returned to the subject in 50 years in his article “UFOs as Rumors.”

US professor Joseph Allen Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1974. Several other scientists dedicated their works to the mysterious phenomenon afterwards, but no one dared to do it in the Soviet Union.

“That was a tabooed subject in the USSR. Any piece of information about the flying saucers was treasured. Any public jokes about the UFO were strictly forbidden,” Mr. Stolyarov said.

The situation changed drastically in the beginning of the 1980s. Everyone in the country started speaking about the phenomenon. Newspaper articles, TV and radio programs about the UFO became plentiful. Many respectable scientists even lost their interest in the mystery because of the national boom.

The UFO Day is celebrated on July 2 in honor of the so-called Roswell incident. An unidentified aircraft, which many consider to be of extraterrestrial origin, crashed on the outskirts of Roswell on July 2, 1947.

On July 8, 1947, many US newspapers wrote that the US Air Force found the debris of the unknown aircraft on the crash site in Roswell. General Roger Ramey rejected the information several hours later. The official explained that it was not an alien spacecraft, but a top secret space probe that crashed near the town. The probe, Ramey said, was launched within the scope of the program to observe the nuclear tests of the USSR.

Major Jesse Marcel, a former intelligence officer, said in1947 that the story with the probe was not true. The major said that the debris found on the crash site was of extraterrestrial origin indeed.

There is no evidence to prove the fact that it was a UFO that crashed in Roswell. However, over 200,000 people visit the town every year in the beginning of July to take part in seminars, lectures and the alien parade.

The UFO industry brings $5.2 million of profit to the town every year.

Дмитрий Судаков

Will SETI Find Any Aliens Ever?

Californian Institute SETI might someday host a conference dedicated to discovery of other civilization. Each year, the likelihood of this event decreases along with the loss of trust to the project designed to search for extraterrestrial life. Pravda.ru interviewed Alexander Uvarov, a radio-astronomer, to find out why.

In 1609, Galileo Galilei saw the starry sky through a telescope he invented for the first time. A year later, the famous astronomer was swamped with orders from scientists, kings and nobility who also wanted to look at the Universe through a telescope.

It has been 400 since that moment. Astronomer had a chance to peep into the farthest corners of space, but never managed to discover signs of alien intelligence. Over the last 50 years, project SETI has been listening to the radio of the Universe trying to catch signals of a developed extraterrestrial civilization, but to no avail.

Now scientists say increasingly more that project SETU was initially based on a wrong, excessively refined image of space. There can be numerous explanations as to why there is no evidence of other life. One such explanation suggests that we simply do not have any “neighbors.”

Astronomers do not rule out that the very principal of the quest is erroneous. There are no guarantees that other civilizations would use the same frequency as SETI. The radio that was considered to be cutting edge 50 years ago does not necessarily represent a standard for inter-galaxy communication.

Project SETI was based on sheer enthusiasm of people who were sure that they would achieve results in the first years of its existence. Yet, there is no single scientific hypothesis that would confirm that the method is the right one. The management of the project is not concerned about it and continues to insist that listening to space cannot be stopped, and that soon the long wait will pay for itself.

Are these expectations justified? Pravda.ru asked Alexander Uvarov, a radio-astronomer an employee of the Institute for Radio and Electronics, to share his opinion.

"The latest research reveals that theoretical signs of other civilizations should be very apparent. The fact that SETI’s search was not successful most likely speaks of wrong methods.

Currently, there are many other technologies that may help find extraterrestrial life. For instance, a marker of specific substances contained in exoplanets that can only appear as a result of complex industrial processes. I think that future research must be complex and involve consecutive application of all methods in the chosen range of space.

I would like to hope that SETI project can bring sensational discoveries in its current form. The latest technologies designed to eliminate interruptions could play a significant role in it. These technologies are now being implemented, and it is not ruled out that they will allow us to hear voices of other civilizations.”

Pavel Urushev
Pravda.Ru

Half-human creatures: What is going on?

20.02.2012 23:10

Now, Nigeria. Another half-human creature is born to a sheep. Thousands of onlookers flocked to see the creature at the Fakon Idi Veterinary Clinic...but what is going on? This is but the latest in a series of half-human creatures born across the globe. Some have suspicions that alien experimentation is at work...

The picture is from Nigeria's Daily Sun and it is clear that the creature is some kind of a mysterious mutant. The large crowd that gathered was demanding that the owner of the beast explained what had happened, suspicious that he had been having relations with the animal and that a half man-child had been born.

So furious did the crowd become that the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps had to be called, to protect the owner, who some of the crowd wanted to summarily execute. Some were shouting: "Who did do that there?" One bystander commented to the Nigerian newspaper: "This is an abomination in our land. To see a sheep give birth to a half human being is a mystery and that shows how terrible some people are. It is unimaginable that some people will be having intercourse with animals".

Experts claim that there is a perfectly logical reason for the aspect of this creature, namely that the sheep had been in labour for two days and that the lamb had become deformed. But what about the other similar cases that have happened recently? In 2010 in Turkey, a dead lamb was born with a half-human face, near Izmir. And if a sheep is in labour for two days, its lamb assumes human features? Such a notion defies logic.

Are these genetically modified organisms being let out into the wild? Are they experiments by military researchers? Is this a new form of medical exploration, trying to find donors for organs? Or is alien experimentation at work?

What is going on?

Olga Selyanina

Pravda.Ru
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Sheep Gives Birth to Human-Faced Lamb in Turkey

12.01.2010 08:36

By Pravda.Ru writer Dmitry Sudakov

A sheep gave birth to a dead lamb with a human-like face. The calf was born in a village not far from the city of Izmir, Turkey.

Erhan Elibol, a vet, performed Cesarean section on the animal to take the calf out, but was horrified to see that the features of the calf’s snout bore a striking resemblance to a human face.

“I’ve seen mutations with cows and sheep before. I’ve seen a one-eyed calf, a two-headed calf, a five-legged calf. But when I saw this youngster I could not believe my eyes. His mother could not deliver him so I had to help the animal,” the 29-year-old veterinary said.

The lamb’s head had human features on – the eyes, the nose and the mouth – only the ears were those of a sheep.

Veterinaries said that the rare mutation most likely occurred as a result of improper nutrition since the fodder for the lamb’s mother was abundant with vitamin A, CNNTurk.com reports.

In Zimbabwe, a goat gave birth to a similar youngster in September 2009. The mutant baby born with a human-like head stayed alive for several hours until the frightened village residents killed him.

The governor of the province where the ugly goat was born said that the little goat was the fruit of unnatural relationship between the female goat and a man.

"This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing," he reportedly said. "The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control. We often hear cases of human beings who commit bestiality but this is the first time for such an act to produce a product with human features," he added.

The mutant creature was hairless. Local residents said that even dogs were afraid to approach the bizarre animal.

The locals burnt the body of the little goat, and biologists had no chance to study the rare mutation.

Ekaterina BogdanovaKomsomolskaya Pravda

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IMPORTANT -The United States and its Dark Passenger

The United States and its Dark Passenger

John Grant

February 19, 2012 I could have been a vicious raving monster who killed and killed and left towers of rotting flesh in my wake. Instead, here I was on the side of truth, justice and the American way. Still a monster, of course, but I cleaned up nicely afterward, and I was OUR monster, dressed in red, white and blue 100 percent synthetic virtue. -Jeff Lindsay Dearly Devoted Dexter I teach creative writing in a maximum security prison in Philadelphia. During the week I scour two thrift shops for 35-cent paperbacks that I haul in to stock a small lending library I created for inmates. Amazingly, the prison had no library. In the process of collecting used books, I've surveyed the crime, mystery and noir genre of popular fiction. I collect some books for myself and have read many in part or end to end. The range of quality in such a genre runs from garbage to genius. I'm a Vietnam veteran and a veteran anti-war activist who follows the US war news closely. The psychological and mythic forces of Eros and Thanatos (Death) interest me and how they play out in popular culture. Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents writes about "the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction." Eros is the force that brings humans together and Thanatos is the force that drives us apart. "This struggle is what all life essentially consists of," Freud writes. Chris Hedges also writes of this split in his great book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. The other day I picked up Jeff Lindsay's second book in the Dexter series -- Dearly Devoted Dexter -- about a Miami police department forensic expert by day and psychopathic killer by night. Lindsay's Dexter novels have spun off into a popular Showtime TV series. The Miami Herald called the book about a lovable serial killer "A macabre work of art." Personally, I wouldn't pay the full cover price for this book. Still, Lindsay is a fine prose writer whose characters are well drawn and set within a fast-paced plot that ping-pongs from the sweet, personal and mundane to the truly horrific blood feast. Dexter as first-person narrator speaks in a tone of light, ironic gallows humor with the reader assumed as a friendly confidant. His day job is as a blood-spatter expert with the Miami-Dade Police Homicide Department. Dexter author Jeff Lindsay, actor Michael C. Hall and a John Hoagland shot of a body dump in El Salvador circa 1985 In this book, Dexter has a relationship with a woman named Rita who has two kids, a boy and a girl, Cody and Astor. All three are wounded from abuse by her ex-husband. Interestingly, Dexter makes it clear he doesn't care so much about Rita and is not interested in sex. At one point, this disciple of Thanatos is drinking beer and finds himself in bed snuggling with Rita and succumbing to the Erotic. "She was just so nice and smelled so good and felt so warm and comfortable that -- Well. Beer really is amazing stuff, isn't it?" What Dexter really cares about is Rita's kids, especially the boy Cody. On a fishing trip, he notices Cody taking pleasure in plunging a knife into a flopping blue runner. He learns from Astor that little Cody killed the neighbor dog for pooping in their yard. "I had a son. Someone just like me," Dexter says. "I wanted him to grow up to be like me -- mostly, I realized, because I wanted to shape him and place his tiny feet onto the Harry path." Harry was Dexter's "wise foster father," the man who recognized in the teenager a psychopathic need to kill and channeled that destructive impulse onto the noble path of killing only those who deserve to be killed. This is pure genre writing so, predictably, Dexter's "Dark Passenger" (that's his Mr. Hyde killer persona) is faced right away with the need to kill a hideous pederast who duct tapes young boys, then rapes and kills them on his boat, finally dropping them into the Gulf Stream to never be seen again. It's clear this man deserves to die. The formula is that Dexter never kills anyone mourn-able; his prey is always someone demonized beyond any degree of human sympathy. I don't want to make a case for the immorality of the Dexter series, although I think one could easily make that case. Devotees of Dexter glibly toss off any questions of immorality, saying, hey, it's fiction. Lindsay says he's like Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan; his character has grown into an icon that now belongs to the greater culture. He puts the Dexter attraction this way: "It's having the bully on your side to finish your battles for you. People love that. If someone bothers you, you can say that's all right, Dexter will take care of this, and the people like that." What's interesting to me is looking at the Dexter phenomenon as a component of mass pop psychology and national myth that deals with the use of lethal violence as a more and more acceptable solution to problems. In that sense, it's disturbing how much Dexter's motivations and self-justifications as a necessary killer mirror the current US military doctrine centered on Special Operations hunter-killer teams. The New York Times reported this week that Admiral William McRaven, a former Navy Seal and now commander of US Special Operations Command, is lobbying that his hunter-killer Special Ops units be given a larger role in US military strategy. He wants greater authority to employ these sophisticated hunter-killer "cells" outside of normal Pentagon deployment channels -- that is, increasing secrecy and diminishing accountability vis-a-vis the American tax-paying, voting public. US Special Operators and Admiral William McRaven speaking recently to the National Defense Industrial Association This is the super secret world of military and intelligence operatives that has evolved out of the paranoid, post-911 Bush-Cheney years. It is the legacy of Vice President Dick Cheney's famous statement that the times required that the nation not shrink from going to "the dark side." The pop culture Dexter novel really gets interesting when its major plot element opens up. It seems a homicidal torturer from the 1980s US war in El Salvador -- Dr. Danco -- has gone rogue and is operating in South Florida to get revenge on those who betrayed him. Back in the 1980s, the evil Danco had worked in Salvador with Miami-Dade Police Sergeant Doakes, then in US Special Forces on loan to the Salvadorans, and with federal operative Kyle Chutsky. Dexter refers to the 1980s as "a homicidal carnival" in El Salvador, a time when death squads flourished and bodies were common in the streets. Dexter points out that Sergeant Doakes, now his partner in the hunt for Dr. Danco, "would have been one of the ringmasters." The plot twist is that Danco was sold out to the communist rebels, who turned him over to the insidious Cubans. In the Isle of Pines prison in Cuba he was tortured to the point he joined forces with Fidel. The beast is now loose in South Florida in a white van seeking revenge on those who sold him out, to include Doakes and Chutsky. Danco specializes in surgically severing all a person's limbs and parts, leaving a hideous living head and torso tied to a table doomed to look at what's left of himself in a wall size mirror. "Once you go over to the dark side, it's forever. You can't go back." That's what Chutsky tells Dexter, referring to Danco. The Salvadoran Option I was raised in rural South Dade County as a kid, so many of the streets and locales of this novel are familiar. My South Florida was living, fecund and wonderful and not the moral holocaust of this novel. As a photographer, I traveled quite a bit in El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s. So I heard many first-hand stories of the horrors Lindsay dredges up for his narrative. One example: A woman told me about finding her daughter's body skinned in a body dump. I had a terrible time absorbing that image. The fact is, the genre nonsense of this Dexter novel aside, the people tortured and killed by death squads in El Salvador were not monsters themselves; they were generally peasants and reformers hoping for a fair shake and the lifting of years of violent repression -- all supported, of course, by US policy under Ronald Reagan. I was also in Iraq in 2003 and early 2004 as a journalist when the US military invasion force began to realize the mission had not been "accomplished" and it faced a powerful and growing, internally-generated insurgency that wanted the US to leave -- especially in Falluja and the Sunni area of Anbar Province, which I traveled through four times in a fast-moving GMC truck. The US counter to that insurgency became known as "the surge." General Stanley McChrystal ran the counter-insurgency operation. Insider reporters like Bob Woodward called it "the secret weapon." Others called it "the Salvadoran option," as in war by death squad. So it wasn't a "surge" of troops that turned back the insurgency; it was the establishment of special operations assassin teams. It was "the dark side." All the rest was public relations to clean things up for home consumption. No one really wanted to think of our boys working as common assassins. The critical factor was the use of both highly sophisticated and crude methods of intelligence gathering (to include torture) to identify the leaders of the insurgency and then to send out hunter-killer units supported by air power, satellite communications and whatever else would help the mission. And the mission was to kill or capture leaders and other people critical to the insurgent effort. As counter insurgency expert William Polk has made clear, the most successful counter insurgency campaigns in history have relied on scorched earth tactics focused on the troublesome population. That, of course, is impossible in today's world. So, the next best thing is to focus on systematically eliminating the leaders of an insurgent movement. General MyChrystal's tactics were successful in at least slowing down the insurgency enough so US military public relations could claim it controlled the area. No matter whether one holds onto the notion of "the surge" or what one chooses to call it, the tactic was focused on identifying and killing key people in Anbar who simply wanted US soldiers out of their neighborhoods. Since sovereignty means not having to answer to anyone, especially in a "war," such killing was not characterized as "murder" and soldiers were praised and got medals. This isn't to question the toughness or bravery of these soldiers. The issue is the mission and, on a disturbing level, how the justifications for these killings are not unlike Dexter's pop culture "red, white and blue 100 percent synthetic virtue."  From the "granular level" of Anbar Province circa 2005, the so-called Salvadoran option advocated by Vice President Joe Biden and others is fast becoming national military doctrine. Admiral McRaven wants to base hunter-killer "cells" in Asia, Africa and Latin America. While the traditional big unit military is being squeezed, special ops budgets are rising. The nation is in the midst of a major shift. Recently, very competent and trained Special Ops teams have been used in well publicized rescue missions of people held captive by Somali pirates, and of course the killing of Osama bin Laden. These missions are public relations gold dished out to the media as gourmet feasts of positive imagery. The problem is, only military insiders know what's going on in the huge and growing secret, unaccountable realm of the US military. As with any new tool or weapon, people tend to find uses for it. All thats required in this instance is the establishment of an "enemy" -- someone demonized or inconvenient to the point of warranting assassination. The challenge is to keep the action secret and anonymous -- like the virtually certain recent Israeli murders of five Iranian scientists.  The United States government and its lethal military operate vis-a-vis its citizens in two distinct modes: Public Relations or Secrecy. Trust us, it says. We have your best interests at heart. And, besides, opposition is futile. So enjoy your bread & circus and don't ask any questions.   Meanwhile, US imperial prestige is ebbing in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. Latin America, led by a booming Brazil, is no longer intimidated by the United States. Globalization is breaking everything down. Despite Clint Eastwood's half-time riff at the Super Bowl that America is ready to roar back for "its second half," decline is real. The struggle is between the exceptionalist expectations pandered to by American politicians and the harsh realities of the coming world. The financial and human resources spent out of fear on Thanatos and the forces of destruction only further erode the life-giving forces of Eros that, tragically, are so weakened but needed in a time of national crisis like we're living through. US war makers are completely in synch with Dexter's rules. Because, in a way, a sovereign government in fear of the future is not unlike a psychopath. As long as it can keep things quiet and under the radar and project a clean image, it can do anything and not have to answer to anyone. The challenge is to work the dark side and get away with it "dressed in red, white and blue 100 percent synthetic virtue." When Dexter's psychopathic mentor Harry "squared away" his foster child, he told him, "There are rules, Dexter. There have to be. That's what separates you from the other ones." Harry said to "blend in" and "clean up, don't take chances." Finally, what's most important for Dexter's stable future as a psychopathic killer, "You have to be sure before you start that this person really deserves it. ... Get some proof. -------------------------------------------------------