Astronaut Edgar Mitchell on UFOs

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell on UFOs. I think the interviewer does a poor job of extracting specifics during the interview on British radio, but nonetheless another piece info for consideration.

Out of Pattern

When I was in college a classmate was doing an experiment to determine "g", the force of gravity. The experiment attached one end of a yardstick to a tiny electric motor, with the yardstick able to swing like a pendulum from the pivot point where it is attached to the motor. (click to enlarge)



I don't remember the details, but by knowing factors like friction, the mass of the yardstick, height above sea level, the internal resistance of the motor, etc - "g" could be determined by looking at the electrical current that was generated by the motor (recorded by a computer). The resulting signal from the motor behaved as a damped oscillator, producing a damped sin-wave type signal like that shown (sorry for the poor drawing) when the ruler was raised and let fall.

A very accurate value for "g" was determined (very close to expected value for "g"), and for the most part the recorded observations fit very well with the expected damped oscillation curve. What was very interesting to me though, was that at the very beginning of the observations the curve didn't fit the expectation very well at all.

When I asked the professor why the curve fit so well except at the beginning he said something like "It takes it a little while for it to figure out what it's supposed to do."

I mention this example because I find the out-of-pattern observations like in this experiment as one of the more interesting parts of the experiment. The experiment mostly performed as expected, except the odd data when it yardstick was first released.

I think that's why I'm intrigued by alot of the things that don't make sense - that are a tad out of pattern - and probably why I get interested in some of the more "fringey" things I occasionally post about here, including UFO accounts and videos, near death experiences, and the odd behavior of the stock market. There's enough there to make me think there's something to some of these, even if it's something I can't know for sure. Makes for a more interesting world in any event.

National Press Club UFO Nov 12 followup

Here's a first hand blog post by Bijan Bayne, apparently a reporter who attended the National Press Club panel discussion. (I have no reason to believe this is anything other than a first hand account).

Here are brief clips of various speakers - unsure of network source.


Here is a pretty good CNN report


Here's another CNN report from the National Press Club UFO panel. The reporters can't seem to get past the "little green men jokes" used to discredit folks who see something incredible.

Here is a seperate interview with John Callahan, one of the speakers on the panel, regarding an incident in Alaska.

Overall it's been difficult to find information on the panel. I'm hoping C-Span shows the entire discussion in the near future as they often replqy National Press Club talks.

National Press Club UFO panel discussion Nov 12

I find this interesting. The National Press Club is hosting a press conference revealing some apparently new data on Monday Nov 12. The conference includes a governor and many military officials, both American and international. Here's the press release.

It's interesting that a UFO sighted by many ground-crew at Ohare airport in Chicago is prominently mentioned in the press release. I'd heard of the report at Ohare and wonder if there's new data. Here's the report from the Chicago Tribune. Here's a video of the reporter for the Tribune talking about the story.

FOLLOWUP/POSTSCRIPT: Here's a link to some clips following the panel.

Space Tether video

I find this video very interesting.

Based on some web searches I guess it's possible that there's some video artifacts going on here given the shape of some of the objects seen here, kindof like maybe seeing reflections of stuff in your own eye sometimes when looking in a microscope, but I was engrossed when I saw this. Note how many of the objects appear to move behind the severed tether in the video. Here's an in-depth video analysis.

It's incredible footage and too easily dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders in my opinion. Very cool stuff. Way more interesting than a lot of stuff that's treated seriously. Doesn't it remind you of looking at pond water under a microscope?

France's UFO archives made available to public

The possibility of UFOs has fascinated me - particulalry claims involving extraterrestrial intelligence. Confirmation of such claims would be one of the most perspective-altering findings I can imagine, and the notion of other intelligent life "out there" has always carried a strange, even romantic, appeal.

In short, I wonder if there's somebody out there wondering if I'm here.

On that note, the French government reported that it's making it's UFO archives available to the public on the web. The French website http://www.cnes.fr is currently overwelmed with traffic and I can't get through to see, but it's a good first step in opening up material from official investigations to the public.

According to the article there are over 1600 cases and 6000 witness accounts included in the archive although "'Only 20 to 30' could be classified as "Objet Volant Non Identifie" — UFOs that appeared to be physical objects, leaving 'marks on the ground, radar images'."

Kudos to the French for making this move.