UFO 'zig zags' across downtown Erie, PA
Erie, PA - I have been a police officer for ten years, and I served active duty in the United States Army in a reconnaissance unit. One of my duties in the military was to observe and be able to identify aircraft from many countries, primarily those from the United States and the former Soviet Union. I am also a huge fan of helicopter aviation.
I was working patrol on the night of 7/16/11 on the 2230 – 0630 shift. I was in uniform and in a marked patrol car. While patrolling on a main street in town, I was driving southeast away from the lake and toward the downtown area. At approximately 2352 hrs., I noticed a single, white light in the sky moving northwest. The light appeared to be at an altitude of approximately 1,000-2,000 feet over the downtown area. I first thought the object was a helicopter. Just up the street from me was a large hospital which averages probably 4-5 medical helicopter transports a week. I am very familiar with the medical helicopters which frequent my area, and after a few seconds I realized that what I was seeing was not a helicopter.
As the light came toward me, I realized that it had no navigational or hazard lights (the green and red lights which flash on an aircraft). It had a single, white light. It was very bright at first. As it got closer to being directly overhead, I noticed that the light appeared to be cigar shaped. But as it got even closer to being overhead, the light seemed to dim. By the time it was overhead (approximately one minute since I first saw it), it was as dim as most of the stars in the sky. In fact, if it hadn't been moving, I probably would have thought that it was a star.
I actually stopped my patrol car in the middle of the street and had to stick my head out of my driver's side window to look up at the object because it was directly overhead. The object continued to move northwest, but it was dim and appeared to be much higher than when I first saw it. In fact, it appeared then that it was 10,000 feet or higher.
Then I was amazed when the object stopped dead in it's tracks and began to zig and zag, back and forth! It went in all directions. I would estimate that if it was 10,000 high it was probably moving maybe 200 feet in each direction around the point where it had stopped.
It became difficult for me to watch the object with my head sticking out the car window and looking over the roof of the car to my west, so I made a u-turn and parked along the curb. I could now see the object by looking out of my window toward the west. Shortly after I parked, I phoned my wife to tell her what I was seeing. My cell phone indicated that I called my wife at 2353 hrs. on 7/16/11.
Just after I started talking to my wife, the object stopped zigging and zagging and it began to move toward the east. Just then, another police unit with two officers pulled up and asked what I was doing. I ended the phone call with my wife and I informed the officers about the object that I was watching. We then exited our respective vehicles while we watched the object. Both officers saw what I was seeing. One of them believed it to be an aircraft. The other officer said she wasn't sure what it was.
As we watched the object continue east, we noticed an aircraft far out in front of it, also flying east. The object and the aircraft appeared to be around the same altitude, but the object had become so dim that it was hard to determine how high it was. In fact, several times the object's light appeared to fade out completely and then quickly fade back in. However, at no time did the light of the object appear to flash or blink.
All three of us watched the object move east and, once again, it stopped in mid flight and began to zig and zag around the point it stopped. The one officer continued to believe that the object was an aircraft, and the other officer said she didn't know what it was. Then the other officers had to move their vehicle because they had stopped in the travel lane and they were blocking traffic. I got back into my vehicle and drove east and parked in a parking lot one block east of my original location where I continued to watch the object. It continued east and its light faded in and out a few more times. I lost track of where the aircraft, which I had seen in front of it, had flown. Then I received a call for service from my dispatcher and I had to leave the area. The total time I watched the object was approximately 15 minutes.
Later that night I looked to the sky in the direction I last saw the object but I didn't see it again. Through the course of the night I did see two meteorites, one to the north of town over the lake and one to the south. However, I am familiar with what meteorites look like and the object I watched was NOT a meteorite.
Later in my shift I tried to call the local international airport to see if they had any aircraft or any other contacts on radar at that time. But I only got an automated system and was never able to get through to anyone there. - MUFON CMS
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| A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park. |
Lost city of Atlantis believed found off Spain
A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago, in mud flats in southern Spain.
"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher Richard Freund told Reuters.
"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, a professor at the University of Hartford who led an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis.
To solve the age-old mystery, the team analyzed satellite imagery of a suspected submerged city just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multiringed dominion known as Atlantis.
The team of archaeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping and underwater technology to survey the site.
Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of "memorial cities," built in Atlantis' image by its refugees after the city's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said.
Atlantean residents who did not die in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.
The team's conclusions are detailed in "Finding Atlantis," a National Geographic Channel special.
While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain is Atlantis, Freund said the "twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats.
"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archaeology, that makes a lot more sense," Freund said.
A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park.
Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis 2,600 years ago, describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity.
Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city. Researchers have previously proposed that Atlantis was located on the Greek island of Santorini, the Italian island of Sardinia or on Cyprus .
Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says. One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November 1755.
Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis "in a single day and night ... disappeared into the depths of the sea."
Experts plan further excavations at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in central Spain 150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts. - MSNBC
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Dragons in Spain
Spain isn’t often associated with dragons – beyond the dragons of heraldry on the shields of Castilian nobles – but Catalonia also has a tradition of dragons that forms part of not only its own folklore, but the Christian tradition as a whole: who hasn’t heard of St. Jordi (St. George) and his dragon? George of Cappadocia, a Roman soldier in the retinue of the Diocletian, was invoked on numerous occasions by the royalty of Aragon to tilt the balance of battle. He bestowed his help upon the King Pedro of Aragon during the siege of Huesca, and during the conquest of Valencia by James the Conqueror, St. George appeared “with many knights of paradise who turned the tide of battle, in which not one Christian was slain.”
St. George became a dragonslayer in medieval myth when a winged drake took up residence near a vital water source, advising locals that a human sacrifice was needed on a daily basis in order to access the spring. Villagers were sacrificed at random until the time came for a local princess to be offered up; her father pleaded for her life to no avail. Just as the reptile was about to make short work of the princess, George appeared on horseback, slaying the beast and rescuing the royal maiden. In gratitude, the villagers renounced their pagan worship and embraced Christianity.
Our friend and colleague Javier Resines has just posted an article at criptozoologos.blogspot.com about another singular creature: La Potra del Pino, a dragonlike entity that carried out its depredations in earlier ages. The beast’s fatness was Mount Birset outside Tortosa. “This terrible dragon,” writes Resines, “had its lair along the Ebro River, and could walk, swim and fly, according to eyewitness reports.”
The locals had a hard time of it, as one can imagine, with such a terrifying neighbor. As in all epic tales, a knight slew the dragon and covered its carcass under a huge pile of rocks. Over the years, travelers would place more rocks on the cairn to insure that the dreaded beast remained pinned down, for some believed that the dragon was not dead, and could return if circumstances allowed.
Resines tells us that the story of the Potra del Pino became widespread through the work of ethnologist Joan Amades. But the dragon spreads its wings again thanks to an e-book lovingly put together by the young students of the ZER Riu Avail during the 2010-2011 term (http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=83646)
In Spain’s northwestern corner, Galicia also has a dragon occupying an important mythological niche: The Codex Calixtinus gives us the story of Queen Lupa, an ally of the Romans. When disciples of the Apostle James asked her to provide oxen and a cart with which to convey his remains to campus stelae – the field of stars – the queen consented, but directed them to the mountain known as Pico Sacro, to be devoured by a dragon.
Thus betrayed, the disciples had to face not only the dreaded basilisk but wild bulls as well. Dropping to their knees in prayer, they were able to kill the dragon and tame the wild kine. Hearing of this miracle, the queen set her pagan ways aside and converted. - Thanks to Scott Corrales - Inexplicata
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Scientists warn of 'Planet of the Apes' scenario
Their report calls for a new rules to supervise sensitive research that involves humanising animals.
One area of concern is "Category Three" experiments which may raise "very strong ethical concerns" and should be banned.
An example given is the creation of primates with distinctly human characteristics, such as speech.
Exactly the same scenario is portrayed in the new movie Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which scientists searching for an Alzheimer's cure create a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence.
The report also acknowledges the "Frankenstein fear" that humanising animals might lead to the creation of "monsters".
Currently research involving great apes, such as chimpanzees, is outlawed in the UK. But it continues in many other countries including the US, and British scientists are permitted to experiment on monkeys.
Professor Thomas Baldwin, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences working group that produced the report, said the possibility of humanised apes should be taken seriously.
"The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human.. speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us," he told a news briefing in London.
"These possibilities that are at the moment largely explored in fiction we need to start thinking about now."
Prof Baldwin, professor of philosophy at the University of York, recommended applying the "Great Ape Test". If modified monkeys began to acquire abilities similar to those of chimpanzees, it was time to "hold off".
"If it's heading in that direction, red lights start flashing," said Prof Baldwin. "You really do not want to go down that road."
In the US, scientists have already implanted human embryonic stem cells - which can develop into any part of the human body - into mouse embryos.
The mouse cells rapidly outgrew the human stem cells, so that only a tiny proportion of the embryos ended up "human".
Working group member Dr Robin Lovell-Badge, a leading geneticist from the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, said this was not surprising given the differences between mice and humans. - telegraph
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'Sea Aliens' found living in Russian Arctic
The transparent life-forms with tentacles and pulsing orbs live 40m (130ft) under the ice sheets of the White Sea in the Russian Arctic.
They are able to survive in temperatures only a little above freezing.
‘The White Sea shows you another world with its own aliens, and some of them are really amazing creatures,’ said Alexander Semanov, a biologist and diver from Moscow, who took the pictures.
‘Most of these types of organisms are translucent. They live in the water column and need to be invisible to predators or, if they are predators, they use this invisibility to surprise their food.’
Mr Semanov, 25, used strobe back-lighting to illuminate the creatures
‘You can see all of the food inside them. Sometimes, I see that there are creatures still living and moving inside the predator,’ he added.
