http://www.physorg.com/news114114533.html

UFOs are no joke, group says (Update)

Stars appear to rotate around Polaris, the north star (C, top), in this time
exposure above a view of the 4-meter telescope dome at Kitt Peak National
Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, in 2006. UFOs may be fodder for comedians
and science fiction but there was no joking Monday when a group of pilots
and officials demanded the US government reopen an investigation into
unidentified flying objects.

UFOs may be fodder for comedians but there was no joking Monday when a group
of former pilots recounted seeing strange phenomena in the sky and demanded
the US government reopen an investigation into unidentified flying objects.
Several pilots offered dramatic accounts of witnessing UFOs -- including a
transparent flying disc and a triangular craft with mysterious markings --
as they insisted their questions needed to be taken seriously more than 30
years after the US file was closed.

"We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can
be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms," said Fife
Symington, former governor of Arizona and air force pilot who says he saw a
UFO in 1997.

"Instead our country needs to reopen its official investigation that it shut
down in 1969," Symington told a news conference.

"We believe that for reasons of both national security and flight safety,
every country should make an effort to identify any object in its airspace,"
said a statement from the 19 former pilots and government officials from
around the world.

The subject of UFOs came up in a recent debate among US presidential
candidates, with Democrat Dennis Kucinich saying he once saw a UFO -- making
him the object of ridicule and jokes by late night television comedians.

Skeptics say UFO sightings are merely aircraft, satellites or meteors
re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

But the retired pilots spoke to a sympathetic audience of UFO "believers"
who heard them recall their encounters with seemingly other-worldly objects
appearing out of the sky.

"Nothing in my training prepared me for what we were witnessing," said James
Penniston, a retired US Air Force pilot, as he described seeing and touching
a UFO when he was stationed at a British air base in Woodbridge.

He said he saw an inexplicable triangular craft in a clearing in the woods
with "blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior."

The UFO was "warm to the touch and felt like metal," Penniston said. One
side of the craft had pictorial symbols and "the largest symbol was a
triangle, which was centered in the middle of the others," he said.

Then after 45 minutes the light from the object "began to intensify" and it
then "shot off at an unbelievable speed" before 80 Air Force personnel, he
said. "In my logbook, I wrote 'speed: impossible.'"

Rodrigo Bravo from Chile's air force said UFOs needed to be studied but
lamented that the media often belittle the sightings.

"Sadly the UFO subject has been contaminated with false information, out of
touch with reality, provided by unqualified people to the media," Bravo
said.

"One of our most important civil aviation cases occurred in 1988, showing
that unidentified flying objects can be a danger for air operations," he
said.

"A Boeing 737 pilot on a final approach to the runway at the Puerto Montt
airport suddenly encountered a large white light surrounded by green and
red."

The pilot took a sharp turn to avoid a collision, according to Bravo.

The panel included a former Iranian fighter pilot, Parviz Jafari, who said
in 1976 he tried in vain to fire from his jet at an "object which was
flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light" over Tehran.

But when he approached, "my weapons jammed and my radio communications
garbled."

A former Air France captain, Jean-Charles Duboc, said in 1994 he and his
crew saw "a huge flying disc" near Paris with a diameter of about 300 meters
(1,000 feet) that left no sign on radar.

The disc "became transparent and disappeared in about 10 to 20 seconds,"
Duboc said.

The former pilot said like other major airlines Air France was mindful of
its image and it was difficult to raise the subject of UFOs.

A former official with the Federal Aviation Administration, John Callahan,
said government agencies discourage inquiries into UFOs.

"'Who believes in UFOs?' is the kind of attitude of the FAA all the time,"
he said.

"However, when I asked the CIA person: 'What do you think it was,' he
responded 'a UFO.'"

When Callahan suggested the government tell Americans about a UFO, the CIA
official allegedly told him: "'No way, if we were to tell the American
public there are UFOs they would panic.'"

© 2007 AFP

-- 

Ken

"Buddhism elucidates why we are sentient."
"Buddhism follows thought throughout the Universe."
"Karma means that you don't get away with anything."