Videographers are denying everything in an effort to get to the bottom of the eternal question - are we alone? The X-Filers are posting several videos on YouTube of recent UFOs in Perth's skies. But is this reality or just a bunch of Fox Mulders munching on too many sunflower seeds? One at 5am is shot from a busy freeway and shows a dark shadow hovering before scattering across the sky. Another during sunset seems to be a bird flying - before it inexplicably drops and darts across the sky at superman-like speed.
Swedish scientists plan to explore a mystery ripped straight from the “The X-Files.” Rather than Mulder and Scully, this adventure features Swedish researchers Peter Lindberg and Dennis Asberg. They too know the truth is out there -- and in mere days plan to visit what they call the “Baltic Anomaly.” Last summer, while on a treasure hunt between Sweden and Finland, the pair and their research associates made headlines worldwide with the discovery of a 200-foot wide unidentified object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Now a team of oceanographers, engineers and deep sea divers will return to the site Friday, June 1, for a 6 to 10 day trip. They want to find out once and for all what it really is. “We don’t know whether it is a natural phenomenon, or an object,” Lindberg, captain of the Ocean Explorer, told FoxNews.com. “We saw it on sonar when we were searching for a wreck from World War I. This circular object just turned up on the monitor.” The discovery was a worldwide news event, covered in the popular press, the scientific press and in the blogosphere. Many speculated that the discovery was of a long-lost unidentified flying object (UFO), that crashed into the sea -- evoking Duchovny’s alien-hunting character on the TV show. Lindberg is clearly aware of the connection: The logo for his “OceanX Team” is clearly meant to evoke the X-Files logo. But is the truth out there this time? He aims to find out. “We’ll be searching the area in a number of ways,” Lindberg explained. “We’ll use sonar to make 3D images of the bottom, the clay bottom, of that part of the sea. We’ll send down deep-sea divers too. And a camera robot. We’ll also take samples from the sea bed and measure them for toxicities and radiation.”
At this point, Lindberg said, he and his colleagues “don’t know more than anyone else what it is” down there for certain. But he’s willing to speculate as to the possibilities. The crash debris could be from a meteor, he told FoxNews.com. It could a naturally occurring gas well discovery -- located interestingly enough in international waters, he added. Or, he muses, it could be the remains of a Russian warship from the late 19th century. “I don’t think it’s an ordinary stone formation, or cargo dropped from a ship,” Lindberg said. “But it can be a lot of things. If it’s not manmade, and was made by another form of intelligent life, it would be very lucky. I’ve never won the lottery before!” His colleague, Dennis Asberg, agreed. “If this were a UFO, that would indeed be a strange thing.” He too speculates that it could be a gas well finding, or the remains of a meteor. “I’m just not sure,” he said. “But we’ll see soon.” Others claim that the object, located 300 feet beneath the surface of the Baltic Sea, may be a natural formation, or even an emerging volcano. Earlier this year, Lindberg told the media he thought this discovery might be a “new Stonehenge.” The Ocean Explorer crew includes 13 researchers, including a sonar expert, and a camera crew from Swedish TV that will document the event. Lindberg said he is in negotiations with Microsoft to see if the event can be carried live on the Internet, from the remote location in international waters via video streaming. “We’re working with Microsoft on that, but nothing is final yet. Tell them we want to do a deal,” he joked. The exploration is funded by private investors and bank notes that Ocean Explorer has secured, said Lindberg. The initial discovery of the unidentified sea object was made during a trek to find Swedish commercial ships sunk by the German Navy during World War I last summer.
Scientists Use Genetics To Try And Track Down Bigfoot
Scientists are turning to genetics to see if they can prove the existence of the elusive hairy humanoid known across the world as bigfoot, yeti and sasquatch. A joint project between Oxford University and Switzerland’s Lausanne Museum of Zoology will examine organic remains that some say belong to the creature that has been spotted in remote areas for decades. “It’s an area that any serious academic ventures into with a deal of trepidation ... It’s full of eccentric and downright misleading reports,” said Bryan Sykes at Oxford’s Wolfson College. But the team would take a systematic approach and use the latest advances in genetic testing, he added. “There have been DNA tests done on alleged yetis and other such things but since then the testing techniques, particularly on hair, have improved a lot due to advances in forensic science,” he told Reuters. Modern testing could get valid results from a fragment of a shaft of hair said Sykes, who is leading the project with Michel Sartori, director of the Lausanne museum. Ever since a 1951 expedition to Mount Everest returned with photographs of giant footprints in the snow, there has been speculation about giant Himalayan creatures, unknown to science. There have been eyewitness reports of the ‘yeti’ or ‘migoi’ in the Himalayas, ‘bigfoot’ or ‘sasquatch’ in America, ‘almasty’ in the Caucasus mountains and ‘orang pendek’ in Sumatra. Tests up to now have usually concluded that alleged yeti remains were actually human, he said.
But that could have been the result of contamination. “There has been no systematic review of this material.” The project will focus on Lausanne’s archive of remains assembled by Bernard Heuvelmans, who investigated reported yeti sightings from 1950 up to his death in 2001. Other institutions and individuals will also be asked to send in details of any possible yeti material. Samples will be subjected to “rigorous genetic analysis”, and the results published in peer-reviewed science journals. Aside from the yeti question, Sykes said he hoped the project would add to the growing body of knowledge on the interaction between humanity’s ancestors. “In the last two years it has become clear that there was considerable inter-breeding between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals ... about 2 to 4 per cent of the DNA of each individual European is Neanderthal,” he said. One hypothesis is that yetis are surviving Neanderthals. The joint project will take DNA samples from areas where there have been alleged sightings to see whether the Neanderthal DNA traces are stronger in the local population. As for the project’s chances of success? “The answer is, of course, I don’t know,” said Sykes. “It’s unlikely but on the other hand if we don’t examine it we won’t know.”
While some call it hogwash, others are fascinated by unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. If aliens wanted to land somewhere on this planet it seems the Lone Star state would make the short list. With well-known cases like the Stephenville sightings in 2008, and even those bizarre blinking lights in Texas City last month, the only state that reports more UFO’s than Texas is California. Chuck Stansburge is a UFO investigator. He said he works for MUFON, or the Mutual UFO Network. “There are going to be some people who watch this and say maybe that man is a little crazy, possibility, I’ve been told that many times,” he said. Long before tackling the paranormal Standburge carried a badge. He said he spent years in law enforcement in Colorado and Oklahoma.
Then a disability forced Chuck into early retirement. That left him with plenty of time to explore his passion of strange sightings that are reported in a 14-county area in Southeast Texas. He said trading in a uniform for UFOs wasn’t exactly a household decision. His wife Sandra just didn’t get her husband’s fascination. “I had never seen anything, or heard anything from friends relatives, or anyone I ever worked with, so UFOs, no,” she said. But an experience with her own eyes would eventually make her a believer too, she said. What she saw that night will remain a mystery. But there are a handful of cases that her husband works each week. He looked into the lights in Texas City—and it seems that case is now closed. MUFON did a mock up and it turned out to be lanterns. MUFON said that 90 percent of cases are eventually solved, but that doesn’t stop him. “There’s stuff out here definitely all over the state of Texas,” he said.
