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As an enthusiast, no doubt you have spent countless hours reading about abductions, and sightings and have formed an opinion.  There are so many similarities, and with such a wide variety of variables, and such a different cross section of abductees and cultures and people.  There are far too many similar reports, and while information travels easily now, for many years, it did not, and sighting records remain in many instances, untouched for many hundreds of years.  It’s impossible to say that hoaxes could not have been perpetrated throughout the years, but the vast majority of records prove that it would have been nearly impossible to hoax on such a wide spread basis.

If five people reported seeing potential terrorists near airplane terminals, the Government of that country would raise their terrorist alert status to the highest levels, but if five people reported seeing glowing oscillating discs in the sky above a major metropolitan area, it would be reported as an oncoming bout of dementia for an entire city. Mainstream media seems to have a running joke about “lunatics who see fire in the sky”, yet, it would be interesting to see their reaction should they ever come in close contact.

So many reasons to deny or excuse sightings, but few have any real basis:

Some say it is lenticular cloud formations, some say military test flights, but what of the USO’s that Christopher Columbus and his entire crew saw? Surely that was glowing fast moving algae in the middle of the ocean, or a submerged military test submarine, right?  It’s an interesting, and at times entertaining scenario played out for viewers of television and news reports.  The historical records of the earth show almost irrefutable evidence of at minimum, some interaction with extraterrestrials, but yet, it isn’t quite sufficient to guarantee anything.

In 2700 BC Tanzanian cave drawings depict a set of flying discs, and show the emergence of this concept as a one off event.  The drawing was repeated in the same fashion only in reference to the original.

Earlier, in 10,000 BC In Italy a cave picture shows what seems to be modern day space travelers, even astronauts of sorts, in protective suits handling unexplained objects.

Around 7,000 BC in Nepal another rendition of an extraterrestrial is made, and given credence through the other period art showing that accepted drawings of humans are significantly different.  The picture in question? A small alien-like creature next to a floating cigar shaped item.

4,000 BC netted the world a picture of an awkward out of place suited creature in the Ukraine.

In 1538 tapestries in Bruges show cigar shaped floating objects which seemed out of place in relation to the period.

1600’s in France also brought about some interesting things, like coins minted with UFO’s on them.

Later in that same century, a German account talks of hovering craft.

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In Russia in the early 1800’s suddenly metal started raining from the sky onto a cathedral roof, and when examined closely, the material seems to have been machined in some way as the materials were of a specific size and shape.

Even if we stop there, and no other accounts come into play, one could make a case aliens have existed on this planet long before people had the means to reliably hoax others.  But take into account, the secretive nature of many governing bodies throughout the civilize world, incidents which have been mishandled like the infamous Roswell case, and the many thousands of sighting occurring each year, and it’s nearly impossible to dispute the reality-that at minimum, something is being seen, and it is unable to be identified, and that there are visits by “others” which disrupt normal daily interactions.

Just last year in an area near you, maybe it’s Southern California, or Central Arizona, or the North of France-sightings occurred.  People from  unaffiliated channels agreed that things happened a certain way, and looked a certain way, and miraculously, without the help of Area 51 or Groom Lake, the sightings matched up, the pictures resembled each other, and the situation was passed off as impossible, implausible, or worse.

And so I ask you, if it looks like a UFO and moves like a UFO, and 100 people see it---?

From the Earth, to the Moon and beyond, people have been documenting and reporting strange sightings and unexplained phenomenon for centuries. It is only in the last half century or so that the UFO craze has really gripped us. From mysterious lights in the sky and crop circles, to the Loch Ness monster and Sasquatch, to the “Eye of God” the list of strange sightings is a long one. Let’s explore some of these.

Many have witnessed the lake monster from Loch Ness in the Scotland Highlands, though few were actually spry enough to get the elusive beast on film. And what film and picture evidence there is lacking to say the least. Descriptions of “Nessy” vary from person to person, and are hazy at best. This creature’s popularity has waxed and waned over the years since first brought into the public eye back in 1933. Cryptozoologists really have their work cut out for them with this one.

Sasquatch has a number of names; Big Foot, Abominable Snowman and Yeti are a few of the more notable. Sasquatch, or Big Foot, is a large ape-like creature that inhabits the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. A famous somewhat grainy film has placed the image of what Big Foot looks like into the minds of many people. Accounts and eye-witness reports, along with strange foot prints and other findings make this creature almost seem plausible. Its cousin the Abominable snowman, or Yeti, inhabits the Himalayan region of Tibet and Nepal. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury tells of his experience with the Yeti in his book Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. He found tracks in the snow that he took to be those of a loping wolf, creating the elongated double-footprint. The Sherpa guide mentioned the “man-bear,” and the legend soon spread.

The “Eye of God” is gaining in popularity as the proof of the existence of God in the universe. The Helix Nebula bears a striking resemblance to the structure of an eye. Although scientists can explain its appearance, images of the Helix Nebula have struck a chord in the human imagination and have made people start to question their beliefs.

There have also been accounts of a secret Alien base on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were said to have witnessed it first-hand. In fact, the Apollo mission and any subsequent Missions to the Moon are believed to have been cancelled to do the Alien presence. Crop circles and crash reports, stories of abduction and visitation are perhaps the most famous and numerous of the strange sightings. From flying saucers, discs and cigar-shaped objects to pilots reporting close encounters with spacecraft, we get the sense that we are not alone in the universe. Jimmy Carter was known as the “UFO President due to his fascination with them and as a result of a sighting he and a few others witnessed.

Perhaps we will one day uncover the truth behind these strange sightings. Or perhaps it’s true that we would rather leave the mysteries alone so that we can happily imagine the possibilities.

While UFO debunkers often fall back on expunging the credibility of witnesses to disprove sightings of strange craft in the sky, one thing remains constant. Members of the military or the police are generally considered to be reliable witnesses that are trained to observe and accurately report what they have seen. It does not sit well with skeptics when law enforcement officers are the ones who witness and report such otherworldly events.

In the small hours of the morning of March 14, two Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department officers reported seeing a number of disc-shaped craft. These mysterious craft were witnessed not only by Deputies Bushroe and Foster but other law enforcement officers in neighboring counties. The objects were in sight for over two hours, at some points travelling at excessively high speeds, hovering, turning sharply in different directions and both climbing for altitude and diving rapidly toward the ground.

Within twenty minutes, patrolmen from the Ypsilanti Police Department and the Monroe County Sheriffs Office had also tracked and spotted the craft. Soon more of the craft were spotted. A call was made to Colonel Miller of the Civil Defense. He told them to keep an eye on the objects and to check with the Willow Run Airport. Within an hour of the first sighting, a call to the Selfridge Air Base confirmed they had some objects on radar over Lake Erie but were unable to get an identification on them.

Three days later, on March 17, Sgt. Nuel Schneider and Deputy David Fitzpatrick of the Milan. Michigan Police Department reported seeing two top-shaped objects in their airspace making radical movements and flying off at jet-like speeds. Three more days and the Dexter Police Department had to investigate a possible landing in a wooded area nearby. While two officers searched on the ground with civilian witnesses to see if they could locate the cause of the bright lights going on and off in the woods Officer Robert Hartwell had a glowing object buzz over his patrol car. The Chief of Police, Robert Taylor also spotted a red, pulsating object hovering over a local residence. He end managed to view the object through binoculars and stated it had lights on each end.

Despite the number of qualified and credible witnesses to these events, all within the space of a week, there was never any determination as to what could have been flying in such un-aircraft-like ways over Southeast Michigan. To this day no one knows, but they cannot claim the witnesses were drunken crackpots.

While the subject of UFO's is very popular in the United States, it is in fact a worldwide phenomenon. Many times those who insist on debunking any reported sighting of an unidentifiable aircraft will pour over any photographs or video, constantly on the lookout for trace evidence of wires or out-of-place shadows that can be used to show a photograph as being faked.

Regrettably, when all else fails to show the reality of an object, these skeptics and debunkers will fall back to attempts at destroying the credibility of the witnesses. They put forth the theory that only professionals like policemen, pilots, or military officers are capable of credibly reporting a UFO sighting. So it was with utter disgust that they could not whisper a word of calumny against the forty-seven member crew of the Brazilian Navy's "Almirante Saldanha" when they reported a UFO sighting off the island of Trindade.

During 1957 the Brazilian Navy had set up a weather station on this small, rocky island in the South Atlantic. By January of 1958 there had been many reports by observers of unusual and very fast-moving aircraft over the island. These reports took on a much more meaningful turn on January 16th of that year. On board the "Almirante Saldanha" was the civilian photographer Almiro Barauna. During the time the unidentifiable was seen by the crew, he managed to snap six pictures of the object.

The craft was saucer shaped, looking much like what you would get if the planet Saturn could be squashed down to an oval egg shape. There was a distinctive equatorial "ring" around the craft. The photographs show a distinct rounded solid body to the craft that tapered toward the edges and was round when viewed from below. Barauna turned the negatives over to the Brazilian Naval Ministry which carefully studied them and declared that they showed an unknown object about 50 foot across. Time indicators and triangulation formula were used to extract the estimate that the object was travelling at about 600 miles per hour.

Second-guessing the photographs and witnesses, the Harvard University astronomy professor, Donald Menzel, put forth that it was merely an airplane flying through fog. More intense study in 1978 by an independent film laboratory using the most current digital analysis ruled out any possible evidence of tampering. The debunkers were once more shown to be inventing their information while the sightings by an entire navy crew continues to be continue to be beyond earthly explanation.