From our new writer at Alieneight: Ben Worthen

I remember when I was younger (9-10 years old) just starting to form my opinions of things like Alien existence.  Oddly drawn to all things which were unknown and unproven, yet, fearful, as though I knew it was real.

Watching shows like “Unsolved Mysteries”, and then later the “X-files”, and as I moved into adulthood, seeing documentaries of Roswell, reading books which included the Christopher Columbus Unidentified Submerged Object account during his voyage to the Americas. These experiences ignited within me a desire to know the truth.

As life followed, I found it increasingly difficult to spend time reading about aliens, and connecting the dots so to speak.  I fell into crowds where believing in aliens might well alienate me from my “friends”. I became heavily involved in discussions which felt taboo, but only every once in a long while.  The fanaticism with which Alien believers portrayed their beliefs was off-putting to me. My religious upbringing kept me from going too far away from the accepted beliefs of my church.  I still had a desire to find out the truth, but my belief was trending towards that of a non-believer.  After all, the only fascinating stories of alien encounters were unsubstantiated frenzied stories from uneducated hillbillies in back country areas of poor regions around the world.  The descriptions of “aliens” were so varied and different that it was hard to take them seriously.  Yes there were nagging bits of information that left the imagination to run wild, but nothing was concrete enough to prove anything.

The brain is a powerful thing.  It can perhaps dream up ideas of what we want to see, and “make” us see those things.  We could be fooled perhaps by our views of what was interesting, or of what we fear.  Did I just see a ghost? Did I just feel something behind me in this dark house?  Was that light in the sky that just disappeared, a UFO?  Why can’t I remember what happened on that long stretch of highway?  Does all the military secrecy mean that there are UFO’s at Area 51?  What about the stories I hear?

I dismissed the idea as something too farfetched to be reality.

And then it happened.  Over the course of four months time, I had what I believe to be, at minimum 12 separate alien encounters between myself and several other friends.  I had seen what all those uneducated, back woods “liars” had seen.  The “fire in the sky”, the “Greys”, the “reptilians”, and I KNEW that what I was seeing was not fake.  It was not staged.  It was NOT a figment of my imagination. I was not the only person involved.  I was from an upper middle class neighborhood in Southern California, I didn’t even know any rednecks, and I couldn’t possibly be convinced that what had happened to me was not real.

I was no longer a skeptic.  In fact, the only thing to this day that I am skeptical about is whether or not to share my experiences.  Would people believe me? Would I continue to believe myself when faced with retelling of these events?  Would I be able to maintain my position in my career, my life, and also tell people with the conviction that I have, that Aliens exist?  Would I alienate myself from the other parts of my life and lifestyle?

With regards to Aliens, the fear I have is more of respect than anything.  I cannot say I am not scared of the things I have seen or experienced, but I don’t feel helpless.  I have seen enough to never question it, but only enough to pique my interest.  I have experienced enough to scare me, but only enough to make me want to find out more.

I don’t have an abduction story.  I have never been probed.  I have never been violated by an alien life form on a ship somewhere. I don’t think I have at least, but somewhere inside me, I know that there is hidden within my defense mechanisms and the deep crevasses of my mind and memory, more than what I now know. Somewhere inside me, part of my stories that I do decide to tell, aren’t complete.  Like I can’t remember, or it’s too tough to talk about.

I have experienced time loss (dramatically so, provable by timestamps, travel records, gas receipts, and mileage readings), I have seen things I cannot explain like shape shifting, and I have come face to face with multiple types of aliens. Or at least that’s what I believe.

I want to share these experiences with you so you can take from it, what truth you want to believe, and leave behind those things you may feel are too fantastical to believe…

North Americans by no means have a monopoly on UFO encounters, nor do land dwellers. In 2009 the Russian Navy declassified a vast amount of documents on encounters they have experienced with UFO activity. These encounters have been so prevalent that reports as far back as the Soviet era have been made on a weekly basis to Naval High Command. The department in charge of these reports was headed up by Deputy Commander Admiral Nikolai Smirnov.

According to Captain Vladimir Azhazha, former Deputy Section Chief of Exploration for the Oceanographic Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, "50 percent of meetings with UFO related with the ocean, 15 percent - from lakes. So the UFO apparently gravitate to the water element. Therefore, the naval collection of data on UFOs has special value." While the first reported encounter with a UFO took place in the Atlantic Ocean, 44% of the Russian sightings have been in the Pacific, 16% in the Atlantic, 10% in the Mediterranean Sea, and the remaining 30% in various other bodies of water, including 15% in lakes, especially Lake Baikal in Siberia.

One report that stands out in the Russian Navy's UFO encounters involves a submarine of the Pacific Fleet. It had made sonar contact with six unknown objects that shadowed the vessel. Being unable to lose the pursuit the submarine's Commander ordered his ship to surface, a gross violation of standard combat rules of conduct. Upon reaching the surface, he reported the six objects not only surfaced with his vessel but also then launched themselves into the sky and disappeared.

Rear Admiral Yuri Beketov, a former nuclear submarine commander, also reported repeated encounters while stationed in the Bermuda Triangle. He said that often they recorded material (solid) objects traveling underwater at "unimaginable" speeds, sometimes reaching speeds of 230 knots (ca 400 KM per hour), which given the pressure resistance of water, he said was contrary to any known laws of physics. With the large number of objects detected, along with the depth (8,742 meters) of the Atlantic-Puerto Rican Rift, he stated that the possibility of an unknown, advanced civilization residing deep under the ocean was a distinct possibility which should be further examined. Veteran Intelligence Navy Captain Igor Barclay stated that such UFO activity often congregated around areas where the NATO fleets would be in operation.

Russia's Lake Baikal is the oldest and deepest lake on the planet at 25-30 million years old, and the second largest following the Caspian Sea. It has had its own share of water based UFO encounters. In 1982 Russian military divers were on a training mission in the Lake when they were confronted with a group of other beings. The alien divers were described as being humanoid but about nine feet (3 meters) tall, encased in tight silvery body suits with no apparent diving equipment other than spherical helmets. This was at the depth of 50 meters (over 160 feet). The Russian divers attempted to pursue the strange beings but ultimately gave up the attempt after three of their numbers were killed and the other four injured.

A few of their reports concerning unidentifiable craft were taken from clandestine surveillance reports of US Navy Fleet activities. During a training exercise off the coast of Puerto Rico, involving an aircraft carrier and five escort ships and submarines, one of the subs broke ranks to pursue an underwater sonar contact. It was traveling at 150 knots, nearly three times the greatest possible speed for a terrestrial submarine, the fastest of which have a top speed closer to 45 knots.

People have been spotting UFO's diving into and out of the oceans for centuries. Even the modern navies of this world can attest that one does not have to just keep their eyes to the sky to see strange and inexplicable craft moving about planet Earth, behaving as nothing we are capable of building can do.

Primary source material: Svobodnaya Pressa, http://svpressa.ru/issue/news.php?id=11385

With a government and military mindset that seems too often to treasure "secrets" over the rights of the people they supposedly serve, it is hard sometimes to know just what is going on in relation to some UFO sightings. One such event occurred in the Piney Woods area of Texas not far from the town of Huffman on December 29th, 1980.

It was about 9:00 p.m. when Betty Cash and her friend, Vickie Landrum, were driving back towards their homes in Dayton, Texas along the Farm to Market Road 1485. Accompanying the women was also Vickie Landrum's seven-year-old grandson, Colby Landrum. Along this isolated stretch of road the women saw lights in the distance. At first they figured it was an airplane heading towards the Houston International Airport about thirty-five miles distant. However minutes later they found out differently.

Coming around one of the curves in the winding road they came upon a frightening sight. It was, as they described it, a mysterious craft moving slowly along the road just above tree level. They described the object as about the size of a water tower, diamond shaped with the top and bottom truncated. They said there were blue lights ringing the center of the craft and that it was of a dull, metallic color. It was spewing out reddish orange flames from the bottom and producing an extreme amount of heat. Betty stopped her car to keep from running underneath the craft but the heat from its down-shooting flames quickly heated the interior to a very uncomfortable level. They exited the vehicle to get a better look at the object.

They said the object was emitting a steady roar from the flames and a beeping sound. Colby became frightened of the sight and his grandmother took him back into the vehicle despite the heat. Betty continued to watch the object from outside, mesmerized by the sight. It was then that a greater mystery began. She saw a fleet of what appeared to be military helicopters, some of them the well-known Chinook CH-47 helicopters (large twin-rotored transport craft) and other smaller, faster craft thought to be Bell-Huey's. She counted twenty-three of them as they attempted to fly around the diamond shaped UFO. As the flames grew stronger, the craft slowly moved off away from the road, surrounded by the large group of helicopters in escort. The encounter lasted a total of about twenty minutes.

Now we pause to investigate some of the irregularities in this case so far. The diamond shaped craft the women described does not match any of the classic UFO types. UFO's are also generally described as not showing any particular conventional type of propulsion systems. They usually manage to outclass anything known in both speed and maneuverability. As the two women stated, the craft would rise as the flames increased and lose altitude when they diminished.

It is a well-documented fact that militaries worldwide generally tend to send their fastest aircraft to intercept and investigate UFO's. A fleet of heavy workhorse Chinooks is an extremely unlikely choice for intercept duty but very good at being able to haul away the pieces of a crashed experimental craft if things go terribly wrong.

With the disappearance of the flotilla of aircraft, Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum resumed their journey home. As they sped away, they still caught occasional glimpses of the aircraft in the distance. They sincerely prayed their close encounter with the unknown was over. Regrettably their troubles regarding the event were just beginning.

NEXT: The Betty Cash Encounter - The Tragedy and the Coverup

Official and government agencies of UFO study have run the gambit from absolute denial to releasing sighting reports to finally disbanding their study groups. You would think that with such powerful militaries studying the phenomena of unidentified craft in our skies they would have actually found something out but according to their own conclusions they are still clueless. There is a movement growing to turn over the study, if not full investigations, to a new set of seekers.

College students are for the most part, young, bright, and able to see without the constraint society has put on people as they grow accustomed to the status quo. The Niagara County Community College of New York, a state run school, has suggested that since their area of the country averages over fifty sighting reports a month (that's nearly two per day) that the subject should be allowed as a serious elective study course at the college. Philip Haseley, an anthropology professor at the school, feels it is a "serious area of study" and should be included as a mainstream topic. "(A sighting) happens to millions of people (around the world)," he said. "It's about time we looked into this as a worthy area of study. It's important that the whole subject be brought out in the open and investigated."

Just because Professor Haseley is also the head of the Western New York Mutual UFO Network does not diminish the validity of his call for serious study of the phenomena of UFO's by college students. His group of investigators already use the best possible scientific manner in their field investigations, including radar, meteorology, and astronomy to gather their evidence of aerial anomalies. Who better than the intelligent, knowledge seeking students of the College to analyze this data and use their fresh new insights into attempting to piece this puzzle into a scholarly conclusion.

More colleges and universities might lend their support to gaining the extra resources and minds of their young people to examine their own area's sightings. There were over four hundred sighting reports taken by the British Ministry of Defense last year alone, before they decided to quit bothering themselves with unknown objects intruding into their airspace. If the world governments and military already know what these objects are, they should come clean with that knowledge rather than try to sweep it under the rug. If they are still stumped for an explanation, why not let the youth that will make up the next generation of leaders get involved in research that has the collegiate oversight to assure good, useable data in dealing with what has become a worldwide epidemic of UFO sightings and encounters.

With the topic becoming a serious collegiate course, the era of offhand ridicule of witnesses can come to an end. By allowing serious study and investigation at the university level, there should be less hesitation on the part of witnesses to share their experience. With luck, this more serious approach should improve the process of winnowing out hoaxes and give greater credence to those events that can be labeled as real even if they are as yet unexplained.

Share your paranormal experiences here you might not be the only one. Write down your sayings in the comment box below:

This strange event happened recently, on 16th February 2009 in Nequen, Argentina. Three unidentified flying objects or UFO’s as they are commonly referred to as, entered the atmosphere creating a dazzling flash in the sky and emitting very bright colors. According to witnesses, these UFO kept hovering in the sky for few minutes and were mainly seen in the Alto Valle to the Cordilleran Lake region. The Nequen Astronomical Observatory and the Bariloche Naval Prefecture confirmed that this strange event happened on Saturday i.e. 16th February night between 2300 hours to 2330 hours.

Mr. Roberto Figueroa who is the directory of the NAO told media persons that “I was inside the observatory having a chat with my colleagues and when I looked outside of the window I saw that the entire part of the west Nequen is illuminated by bright lights. We all saw three UFO’s entering our atmosphere at tremendous speeds which soon exploded creating bright flash lights and emitted some sort of colored smoke.”

He clarified that the objects were indeed UFO’s, measuring some 5 to 8 meter in diameter. These may be few of many that cross Earth’s path as collision point. These UFO’s heat up upon entering Earth and expand in such an unstable way that they finally dismantles and burns emitting bright lights and smoke.

The event was also witnessed by residents of Bariloche. They claimed that they saw UFO crashing in Lake Nahuel Huapi. The news channels also claimed that the Bariloche Naval Prefecture received many calls from the residents and tourists present at the lake who told they saw flashing lights near the lake. The Prefecture thought that maybe that was a flare and sent a vessel to search for it, however after extensive search nothing was found at or near the lake. The Prefecture later rubbished the UFO claim and told that it was a shooting star; however they said that they don’t have any proof to prove it.

A group of fishermen witnessed this event from a very close distance. According to them the flying object was a greenish blue is color and it appeared that it was made up of some metal.

This strange sighting occurred within few days of the first collisions in space due to heavy cosmic traffic. The collision was believed to be between two satellites, one American and the other Russian, which impacted some 800 km over Siberia.

Today most of the UFO sightings in actual are the case of mistaken identity or misinterpretation of some natural phenomenon maybe planet, stars or meteors or man made object such as weather balloons, hot air balloons, satellites or airplanes. All these flying objects are referred to as identified flying objects, better known as IFO’s and not UFO’s. Many individual reports on such sightings cannot be studied properly due to lack of evidence or detail .In any given set of reports related to UFO’s there remains a small residue which is truly puzzling, not only to witnesses but also to the expert people who study these reports.

While the reports on such sightings differ in detail, there are many such similarities in shapes, maneuverability, color and sound.

The number of UFO sightings till date must be in millions, but it is not possible to study all of them. The UFOCAT or the unidentified flying object catalog which is specially created for this purpose has around 105000 entries.

The encounters with the UFO’s or aliens are classified into four categories namely, CE-1, CE-2, CE-3 and CE-4.

In close encounters of the first kind or CE-1, the person observes an UFO nearby but does not make any physical contact with the UFO.

In close encounter of second kind or CE-2, there is reported interaction between the environment and the UFO which may vary from interference to burns on the ground or any physical effect on any living being.

In close encounters of third kind or CE-3, the entities which look more or less humanlike appearance are reported in along with the UFO. There is no direct contact with the UFO or alien. These are however very rare occurrences.

In close encounters of fourth kind or CE-4, the witnesses have a very close contact physical contact with the UFO’s or aliens. Sometimes the alien takes place.

Scientists actually believe that if all these reporting and so called alien abductions are carefully studied and analyzed then one would conclude that of all the UFO sightings reported till date, only 10% were UFO’s and rest 90 IFO’s. Regarding the video and photo evidences , scientist confirm that these are the work of some highly skilled person who are masters in their field, according to them it is difficult to fake the videos and photos but it is not impossible to fake them or to manipulate them.

One of the best cases of physical trace evidence is the infamous Falcon Lake Encounter which took place on 19th May 1967. The lone participant in this infamous incident was Stephen Michalak, who worked as a mechanic, but his hobby included prospecting for silver. He was enjoying his hobby near Falcon Lake where he encountered two flying saucers and even touched one of them.

Stephen was a resident of Canada, but had gone for a short vacation in Whiteshell Provincial Park. He had prospected that area a number of times so he was quite familiar with the area. He was told by somebody that there are veins of quartz present near Falcon Lake. He went to Lake Falcon on 19th May 1967, and after couple of hours of digging, he found the precious metal, he then took his lunch and then resumed his work.

Shortly after noon, he heard the sound of geese, when he looked towards the sky he saw two elongated disc shape objects descending towards the ground. Brilliant red lights were coming out from these objects. While he was watching in amazement, one of the UFO hovered in mid air.

He saw that the other UFO landed on rocks just 150 feet away from him. The hovering UFO changed its lights and then finally disappeared. The UFO which was on the ground too seems to change its color in the same fashion. He hid in a bush and watched the space ship, he saw gate of the space ship opening and purple lights coming out of it, he was wearing protective glass and they helped him to shield his eyes. He also heard a hissing and loud sound from the spaceship.

He stood there for about half an hour but when nothing happened, he decided to have a close look of the UFO. He slowly moved forward, when he reached at the door of the craft, he peeped in and saw control panels having different colored lights he went inside but did not find any one.

He was frightened and decided to get out of it. He then examined the exterior of the craft, the moment he touched it his gloves melted due to excessive heat. As soon as he touched the craft, it moved and a vent opened, and gave out heat, the heat coming out from the vent caught Stephen’s cloths afire. The UFO then rose to the sky and disappeared, before leaving the area Stephen made certain landmarks like piling debris, making signs etc. He eventually made his way to hospital and was treated for severe burns.

Was he telling the truth? But there is no reason to believe that he is making a story. He was known as an honest and reliable man.