As Rick noted in his news, the first eight 'UFO files' (of 160!) from the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) have been released to the public via a specially created website at the National Archives. The files are downloadable PDFs, but also on site you'll find extra information and context from Nick Pope (via a vodcast) and Dr David Clarke (a podcast and introductory PDF guide). Only trouble is that you might find accessing the website (and/or material on it) rather difficult - the server appears to be getting hammered, no doubt a consequence of being a news story across the globe (do a Google News search for 'British UFO' and you'll find around 350 articles from today...who says ufology is dead?).

In this story for the BBC, David Clarke sums up the released material:

As I leafed through hundreds of official UFO report forms it became obvious the vast majority of sightings could easily be explained. For example, staff and customers at a pub in Tunbridge Wells reported seeing a UFO with "red and green flashing lights" moving across the sky. When asked to describe the direction of movement their answer was "Gatwick".

Aircraft, bright stars and planets, satellites and space debris all stand out as the most common explanation for UFO reports. A small number have been revealed as hoaxes or hallucinations.

But a hard-core of 5-10% continues to defy explanation. Despite the mystery that continues to surround those that remain "unidentified", the papers reveal how little time and effort was spent by the MoD to investigate them.

I'll post in a little more detail once these PDFs have inched their way down the Intarweb pipes and onto my computer.

There's a fascinating article at Technology Review, by Nick Bostrom (previously known for his speculation that we are living in a simulation), titled "Where Are They? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing." In the article, Bostrom argues that our failure (thus far) to find life on Mars might just be a good thing - because if life was prevalent throughout the cosmos, then the silence of ET civilisations suggests that the 'Great Filter' which stops civilisations from reaching a highly advanced stage might be ahead of us:

This would mean that some great improbability prevents almost all civilizations at our current stage of technological development from progressing to the point where they engage in large-scale space colonization. For example, it might be that any sufficiently advanced civilization discovers some technology -- perhaps some very powerful weapons technology -- that causes its extinction.

I don't agree with some of the logic in the argument, but all in all it's certainly a piece that gets you thinking - from issues to do with evolution and life's beginnings, through to techniques of space colonisation. And Bostrom's "Great Filter" is such an interesting topic, it may just become a catchphrase heard in many future dialogues about the possibility of alien life.

Saw this story at Science-a-GoGo and wondered why it wasn't being reported more widely:

A new computer model of our solar system's movement relative to the Milky Way indicates that it "bounces" up and down through the plane of the galaxy; a cycle that scientists say is a "beautiful match" with the mass extinction events that occur periodically on Earth.

Writing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology that built the computer model say that during certain periods in the bounce, gravitational forces from surrounding gas and dust clouds could dislodge comets from their paths. These comets could then plunge into our solar system, some of them colliding with the Earth.

Worth noting is that one of the scientists involved, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, is a pioneer of the theory of Panspermia. Just now he's added a bit of "destroying life" to his theory of "seeding life" I guess!

Though the story ends with the apocalyptic hint that we're due for another 'bounce', at least with the 35 million year time frame the phrase "give or take a million" has some serious meaning...

Here's an interesting story about a film-maker revisiting a famous 'alien encounter' incident, the Ariel School sighting, fourteen years later:

American film maker Randall Nickerson is currently visiting southern Africa to make a documentary that follows up an incident that happened at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, in 1994, when 62 children aged between eight and 12 reported seeing a UFO and “strange beings” during their morning break.

Those children are now young adults scattered around the globe. Nickerson is tracking them down and interviewing them about the experience. “Their stories have not changed at all,” he says. “Not what you would expect if they had made it all up.”

The story fills in some details as to the bizarre nature of the incident, but for those interested in learning more I've also posted a short video segment about the sighting, including the involvement of famed 'alien abduction' researcher Dr John Mack. Speaking of the latter, you can also find an article referencing the sighting on the website of the John E. Mack Institute: "Exploring African and Other Alien Encounters", by Dominique Callimanopulos.

Google Video also has footage of African ufologist, the late Cynthia Hind, interviewing some of the children about the details of the sighting. A fascinating case, and a really interesting twist to revisit these witnesses as adults and hear what they have to say now. Thanks Will for the heads up.

The Guardian has an excellent story from Jon Ronson (author of The Men Who Stare At Goats) about pop star Robbie Williams' interest in ufology. After mentions of this story in more 'sensational' form from the British tabloids, it's great to have this detailed account from Ronson, who certainly has credentials in investigating strange topics.

On December 18 2006, Robbie Williams played the last of 59 stadium shows in a row, announced he was going to spend Christmas at his home in Los Angeles, and then basically disappeared. He was hardly seen at all in 2007. He briefly checked into rehab. He spent quite a bit of time hiking and playing football (he owns a football pitch on Mulholland Drive). Then he stopped hiking and playing football. His record company, EMI, announced he had no plans to release an album in 2008. Today he unexpectedly calls me to ask if I want to go with him to the desert in Nevada to meet UFO abductees.

"I've been spending so much time at home on the internet on sites like AboveTopSecret.com," he says. "I want to do something. I want to go out there and meet these people. I want to be a part of this. I want to do something other than sit in my bed and watch the news. And it starts with the UFO conference in Laughlin, Nevada, on Thursday.

Rather than painting Williams as having descended into some sort of madness (although the beard, seemingly unlimited bank account and enthusiastic embrace of a fringe topic do give off a great Howard Hughes vibe), Ronson instead takes time to get inside the former Take That member's head - and shows instead a genuinely inquisitive (if perhaps slightly credulous) soul who wants to understand more about these strange occurrences, not much different to most TDG readers.

Coming on the back of his recent excellent (and unfavourable) profile of Sylvia Browne, and book about the history of the U.S. Army's "psychic spies" The Men Who Stare At Goats (Amazon US and UK) - see also the documentary based on the book - Jon Ronson is certainly developing into perhaps the public face of journalism into the strange topics we like to cover. Someone to keep an eye on.

Now that's a title I've been wanting to write since...oh, at least my teenage years. In an L.A. Times op-ed, biologist (and outspoken atheist) Richard Dawkins comments on a topic I've been wanting to see him discuss for some time: the "advanced-aliens-as-gods meme". His comments come in the wake of him broaching the topic in his interview for the controversial "intelligent design" documentary, Expelled - to his detriment...

Intelligent design "theorists" (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: "For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space." This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.

Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their "space aliens" political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design's best shot...

Creationists...never miss a trick. When I have raised the science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless.

As is usual, Dawkins's article is a mix of the excellent - such as his clarification of evolution being down to luck ("In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process") - and the not-so-good. In this latter group, you have disingenuous qualifications such as in the sentence "The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called 'Directed Panspermia.'" (surely Dawkins knows that Orgel and Crick were deadly serious at the time, though decades later they may have had reservations in light of newer research on the origins of life on Earth).

Once again, also, the 'God' of Richard Dawkins appears to be some long-bearded dude with a flowing white robe. To be fair, that is also the conception of many of those that he is arguing against, so it is understandable to a point. But more intelligent people do have ideas about a 'God' as being more related to consciousness or energy, rather than some simplistic 'mega-man'. And returning to the 'aliens as gods' argument, it may also be completely wrong to consider their development as being related to our own in any way. To say "they still had to have evolved like us" is a fallacious argument, if such creatures actually did create life and evolution itself...it would be arguing from a false premise. Furthermore, contra to Dawkins claims that such creatures would not really be 'gods' because they didn't create the Universe, there is also the 'Universe as a simulation' argument (from people like Nick Bostrom) to consider...which basically does entail a "creator" of some description, however (relatively) 'mundane'.

Anyhow, I'm glad that Richard Dawkins brought the topic up, because I find it fascinating. The commentary above isn't meant as a rebuttal to him, or as support for ID proponents...more just a kicking around of some very interesting ideas. For more reading on the 'aliens as gods' topic, I definitely recommend astrobiologist David Grinspoon's book Lonely Planets, which discusses some possibilities in the later chapters.

Issue 2 of Alien Worlds magazine has been released, and there is some fabulous content within. Paul Devereux details his research into 'earth lights', Nick Redfern offers an update on his 'Saucer Spies' research, and Stuart Miller interviews 'circlemaker' and documentary producer John Lundberg about the making of his UFO-intelligence agency film "Mirage Men". Much more besides, check out the website for details - well worth supporting this mag, which seems to be pushing 'ufology journalism' in some decent directions.

John Greenewald's "The Black Vault" and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) have done us all a great service by putting online the MUFON Archive:

The MUFON Archive is a joint effort between the MUTUAL UFO Network (MUFON) and The Black Vault. In March of 2008, the two parties agreed to enter a powerful relationship on the internet, and offer unprecedented access to MUFON's archives. This includes four decades worth of MUFON Journals, from the year 1967 to the end of 2007, along with other research papers, documents and investigation case files.

This archive offers an important look into the past, present and future of UFO research. Many of these documents and publications are found nowhere else online, anywhere in the world.

That's right, *four decades* of journals, from one of the oldest and most important organisations dedicated to the scientific research of the UFO phenomenon. Each available as a PDF download. Wonderful stuff! (h/t UFO Mystic)

There's been plenty of chatter lately on UFO-related websites and forums, regarding an alleged United Nations meeting at which diplomats were told that the next few years would see 'alien disclosure'. A number of things about the story set off my warning alarms, so I haven't really posted about it here on TDG because I didn't want to add any legitimacy to the story. Instead I thought I would post a more detailed blog entry of my thoughts.

However, Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor appears to have already done what I intended, so I'll just link to his article instead as it gives a good, solid summation for anyone interested in the topic.

Furthermore, Mark also has some input from ufologist Jacques Vallee, author of the seminal Messengers of Deception which looked at alien contact-related psy-ops and UFO cults. According to Vallee:

I would not get too excited yet about this information: In our follow-up in France we could not verify that Gilles Lorant (the alleged original source for the leak MP) worked at the places he claims (CNRS has no record of him) and we cannot get any clear answers to the basic questions about this meeting.

At this point it sounds very suspect: another series of claims with no support behind it, which can only contribute to make it more difficult to get scientists to become seriously involved in this field.

It seems to me this story is falling apart but the structure is very interesting — along the lines of a psywar rumor process...

...All very clever… It is much easier to program human beings than to program computers!

This whole story appears to me as yet another case of wishful thinking overcoming critical thinking in certain areas of the ufological community. Hopefully, when people realise the truth of the matter, they will react by learning from it. Some influential people in the field, such as Whitley Strieber, have already been honest enough to clarify the matter.

By the way, for those interested in Vallee's Messengers of Deception, I may have some good news in the coming weeks.

The fourth annual World Mysteries Forum will be held in Basel, Switzerland on the weekend of 10th and 11th May 2008. The speakers lined up included a number of international scientists and thinkers discussing cutting-edge theory and discoveries. Presenters include panspermia expert Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Biocosm author James N. Gardner, and pre-Inca researcher Renate Patzschke, M.A. Fun topics, in a beautiful setting, at the perfect time of year.