ROSWELL & BEYOND...

Controversy: What Really Happened at Roswell?

Behind the rumors of America's most infamous UFO incident
© History Channel https://www.history.com/news/roswell-ufo-aliens-what-happenedAdam JanosUpdated: Jan 8, 2021Original: Dec 17, 2019
In the annals of American UFO history, few incidents have inspired as much fascination—and speculation—as the one in Roswell, New Mexico. It began in the summer of 1947, at the dawn of the Cold War, when the U.S. Army Air Forces sent out a shocker of a press release, announcing they’d recovered a “flying disc” from a ranch near Roswell. More than 70 years later, the incident remains a defining aspect of the area’s identity: The town boasts a UFO museum and research center, a flying saucer-inspired McDonald’s, alien-themed streetlights, even an extraterrestrial “family” stranded in a broken-down UFO on the side of State Route 285, looking for a jump-start. But behind all the UFO mania lies an uneasy truth. The events that transpired that summer are anything but clear-cut, with admitted coverups and conflicting explanations: It was a saucer! It was a spy craft! It was the Soviets! And new ones are still emerging. Sometime between mid-June and early July 1947, rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel found wreckage on his sizable property in Lincoln County, New Mexico, approximately 75 miles north of Roswell. Several “flying disc” and “flying saucer” stories had already appeared in the national press that summer, leading Brazel to believe the wreckage—which included rubber strips, tinfoil, and thick paper—might be something of that ilk. He brought some of the material to Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell, who in turn brought it to the attention of Colonel William Blanchard, the commanding officer of the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). The next day, the RAAF released a statement, writing that, “The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County.” According to that statement, Major Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer, oversaw the RAAF’s investigation of the crash site and the recovered materials. The following day, the Roswell Daily Record ran a story about the crash and the RAAF’s astonishing claim. But U.S. Army officials quickly reversed themselves on the “flying saucer” claim, stating that the found debris was actually from a weather balloon, releasing photographs of Major Marcel posing with pieces of the supposed weather balloon debris as proof. For decades, many UFO researchers were skeptical of the government’s changed account, and in 1994, the U.S. Air Force released a report in which they conceded that the “weather balloon” story had been bogus. According to the 1994 explanation, the wreckage came from a spy device created for an until-then classified project called Project Mogul. The device—a connected string of high-altitude balloons equipped with microphones—was designed to float furtively over the USSR, detecting sound waves at a stealth distance. These balloons would ostensibly monitor the Soviet government’s attempts at testing their own atomic bomb. Because Project Mogul was a covert operation, the new report claimed, a false explanation of the crash was necessary to prevent giving away details of their spy work. Other elements of the Roswell story—namely that some eyewitnesses claimed that there were alien bodies taken from the site—were explained as fallen parachute-test dummies in a more extensive follow-up report in 1997. Roger Launius, a historian and retired curator for the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, says those two reports close most of the remaining questions about Roswell. “This story has been resolved,” Launius says. “Has absolutely every question been answered? I can’t say that. But I’m not sure that there are significant holes [...] You do not divulge state secrets in the context of national security […] My surmise is they probably saw [the initial flying saucer explanation] as a useful cover story.” Donald Schmitt, a UFO researcher who has spent nearly three decades investigating the Roswell incident and is the co-founder of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, says that explanation makes little sense. The “flying saucer” story, he contends, was so ostentatious that it was bound to draw attention to the area, with its sensitive military operations at the time. Doing so would seem highly counter to the interests of the War Department. “Two hours west of Roswell the first atomic bomb was detonated. You had ongoing atomic research at Los Alamos. You had all this testing of captured German V-2 rockets at White Sands. And at Roswell, you had the first atomic bomb squadron headquartered,” Schmitt says. “The thought that they would have intentionally set up any type of publicity as a distraction? If anything, they needed less attention.” Another questionable theory—advanced by the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base—states that the crashed flying vehicle was neither extraterrestrial nor the work of U.S. spies. Rather, it was an unconventional plan to induce widespread American panic, implemented by Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin. An unnamed source who worked as an engineer at Area 51 for the defense contractor EG&G told the book’s author Annie Jacobsen, a veteran national security journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee, that the program had been designed by Nazi concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele. According to the source, adolescent children were deformed by the Soviets to resemble aliens and then deployed in an aircraft to fly over New Mexico. According to this book, Stalin’s “plan was for the children to climb out and be mistaken for visitors from Mars. Panic would ensue… [and] America’s early-warning radar system would be overwhelmed with sightings of other ‘UFOs.’” That theory could go some way in explaining the wreckage described by Jesse Marcel, Jr., the son of the intelligence officer named in the initial press report. According to Marcel, Jr.’s book, The Roswell Legacy, his father brought some of UFO wreckage home, allowing his son to handle the debated debris before he took it to his base. Marcel Jr. wrote that the material was metallic and “I could see what looked like writing. At first I thought of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but there were no animal outlines or figures. They weren’t mathematical figures either; they were more like geometric symbols—squares, circles, triangles, pyramids, and the like.” Marcel Jr. was 11 years old at the time, the Cold War only just beginning. Could the young boy have been reading the Cyrillic alphabet for the first time, allowing his imagination to do the rest? On this, Schmitt and Launius agree: It’s not likely. “There’s no evidence in any Soviet archives that there were such experiments as this,” says Launius. “And if the intent was to generate panic, it failed utterly miserably.”
Reports of UFOs: 1947 Roswell Incident
To understand the series of events that unfolded near Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947 and entangled the United States Army in UFO conspiracy theories that persist to this day, Dr. Roger Launius (a former chief historian at NASA) cautions that it’s important to remember context. At the time, the U.S. was in the early stages of the Cold War. According to Launius: “There was great concern that we were going to be head-to-head with the Soviet Union in a competition that could last a short or a long time, but may well end in nuclear annihilation.” It is in this Cold War context that the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) is truly born. It began with Kenneth Arnold, an amateur pilot and businessman. He reported seeing a flying saucer while piloting an aircraft around Mount Rainier in the summer of 1947. This singular sighting kicked off a craze, and hundreds of UFO sightings began pouring in. So when rancher W. W. “Mac” Brazel found something odd on his property, he immediately took the news, and parts of what he discovered, to the sheriff. The sheriff called up the local military base, the 509th Bombardment Group—the same group responsible for dropping the atomic bombs at the end of World War II. The local newspaper ran the headline: “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region” While the news set off the world in a UFO-induced buzz, the Army quickly dispelled the rumors. What they found was actually a high-altitude weather balloon. At least, that’s what they wanted the public to believe at the time. It wasn’t until years later, Dr. Launius explains, that the world truly knew what Brazel found that summer. Declassified government documents revealed Project Mogul, a program under the War Department, now the Department of Defense, that aimed to find out if the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons. Sophisticated balloons and instruments that could detect the sound waves from an atomic bomb test were sent aloft in the upper atmosphere and floated toward the Soviet Union. But for many, this was not the end of the story. What do you think?

Roswell & Conspiracy

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Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was initially directed by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and followed projects of a similar nature such as Project Sign established in 1947, and Project Grudge in 1948. Project Blue Book had two goals, namely, to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data. Thousands of UFO reports were collected, analyzed, and filed. As a result of the Condon Report, which concluded that the study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries, and a review of the report by the National Academy of Sciences, Project Blue Book was terminated in 1969. By the time Project Blue Book ended, it had collected 12,618 UFO reports, and concluded that most of them were misidentifications of natural phenomena (clouds, stars, etc.) or conventional aircraft. According to the National Reconnaissance Office a number of the reports could be explained by flights of the formerly secret reconnaissance planes U-2 and A-12. 701 reports were classified as unexplained, even after stringent analysis. The UFO reports were archived and are available under the Freedom of Information Act, but names and other personal information of all witnesses have been redacted.

Wright-Patterson and Hangar 18

J. Allen Hynek

Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 – April 27, 1986) was an American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three projects: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1951) and Project Blue Book (1952–1969). In later years, he conducted his own independent UFO research, developing the "Close Encounter" classification system. He was among the first people to conduct scientific analysis of reports and especially of trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs.

Hynek's Encounter Scale

J. Allen Hynek devised a sixfold classification for UFO sightings. They are arranged according to increasing proximity:
  • Nocturnal Lights: Lights in the night sky
  • Daylight Discs: UFOs seen in the daytime, generally having discoidal or oval shapes
  • Radar-Visual: UFO reports that have radar confirmation—these supposedly try to offer harder evidence that the objects are real, although radar propagation can be occasionally discredited due to atmospheric propagation anomalies
  • Close Encounters of the First Kind: Visual sightings of an unidentified flying object, seemingly less than 500 feet (150 m) away, that show an appreciable angular extension and considerable detail.
  • Close Encounters of the Second Kind: A UFO event in which a physical effect is alleged; this can be interference in the functioning of a vehicle or electronic device, animals reacting, a physiological effect such as paralysis or heat and discomfort in the witness, or some physical trace like impressions in the ground, scorched or otherwise affected vegetation, or a chemical trace
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind: UFO encounters in which an animated entity is present—these include humanoids, robots, and humans who seem to be occupants or pilots of a UFO.
BLOECHER SUBTYPESUFO researcher Ted Bloecher proposed six subtypes for the close encounters of the third kind in Hynek's scale:A (Aboard) : An entity is observed only inside the UFO.B (Both) : An entity is observed inside and outside the UFO.C (Close) : An entity is observed near to a UFO, but not going in or out.D (Direct) : An entity is observed—no UFOs are seen by the observer, but UFO activity has been reported in the area at about the same time.E (Excluded) : An entity is observed, but no UFOs are seen and no UFO activity has been reported in the area at that time.F (Frequence) : No entity or UFOs are observed, but the subject experiences some sort of "intelligent communication. "
  • EXTENSIONS OF HYNEK'S SCALE
  • Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A UFO event in which a human is abducted by a UFO or its occupants. This type was not included in Hynek's original close encounters scale.
  • Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: A UFO event in which there is direct communication between aliens and humans.

Area 51

Area 51 (officially called Homey Airport or Groom Lake [after the salt flat next to its airfield]) is a remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base and is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. Details of its operations are not made public, but the USAF says that it is an open training range, and it is commonly thought to support the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The USAF and CIA acquired the site in 1955, primarily for flight testing the Lockheed U-2 aircraft. The intense secrecy surrounding the base has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component of unidentified flying object/unidentified aerial phenomenon folklore. It has never been declared a secret base, but all research and occurrences in Area 51 are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. The CIA publicly acknowledged the base's existence on June 25, 2013, following a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2005 and declassified documents detailing its history and purpose. Area 51 is located in the southern portion of Nevada, 83 miles (134 km) north-northwest of Las Vegas. The surrounding area is a popular tourist destination, including the small town of Rachel on the “Extraterrestrial Highway.”
OVERVIEW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51OVERVIEW: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a24152/area-51-history/BBC OVERVIEW (2019): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49568127CONSPIRACY THEORIES: https://www.britannica.com/video/212132/Area-51-military-air-force-base-alien-videoCONSPIRACY THEORIES: https://www.businessinsider.com/area-51-american-conspiracy-theories-aliens-history-animation-video-2017-7

2021 UFO Report

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCEPreliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena25 June 2021

"This preliminary report is provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in response to the provision in Senate Report 116-233, accompanying the IntelligenceAuthorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year 2021, that the DNI, in consultation with the Secretary ofDefense (SECDEF), is to submit an intelligence assessment of the threat posed by unidentifiedaerial phenomena (UAP) and the progress the Department of Defense Unidentified AerialPhenomena Task Force (UAPTF) has made in understanding this threat." Page 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY"The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP. TheUnidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) considered a range of information on UAPdescribed in U.S. military and IC (Intelligence Community) reporting, but because the reportinglacked sufficient specificity, ultimately recognized that a unique, tailored reporting process wasrequired to provide sufficient data for analysis of UAP events.• As a result, the UAPTF concentrated its review on reports that occurred between2004 and 2021, the majority of which are a result of this new tailored process tobetter capture UAP events through formalized reporting.• Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that amajority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared,electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flightcharacteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, orobserver misperception and require additional rigorous analysis.There are probably multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations based on therange of appearances and behaviors described in the available reporting. Our analysis ofthe data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they willfall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmosphericphenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and acatchall “other” bin.UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security.Safety concerns primarily center on aviators contending with an increasingly cluttered airdomain. UAP would also represent a national security challenge if they are foreign adversarycollection platforms or provide evidence a potential adversary has developed either abreakthrough or disruptive technology.Consistent consolidation of reports from across the federal government, standardizedreporting, increased collection and analysis, and a streamlined process for screening allsuch reports against a broad range of relevant USG data will allow for a moresophisticated analysis of UAP that is likely to deepen our understanding. Some of thesesteps are resource-intensive and would require additional investment." Page 3

2022 Congressional Hearing

On 17 May 2022, members of the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held congressional hearings with top military officials to discuss military reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs). It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years.The 1969 Congressional hearings had initially begun in 1966, when then-congressman Gerald Ford called for an Air Force report and for congressional hearings to discuss Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) sightings following a string of sightings. Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force program that collected, investigated, and analyzed reports of unidentified flying objects, was disbanded that same year, partly because it determined that the UFOs evaluated did not seem to pose any threat to national security. In 2020, a Covid relief and government funding bill signed by President Donald Trump included a stipulation that US intelligence agencies deliver congressional intelligence committees with an unclassified report covering UAPs within 180 days. An unclassified report was released in June 2021 by the US Director of National Intelligence. It concluded that UFOs related to 144 incidents dating back to 2004 largely defied explanation, and called for further investigation and analysis. On 23 November 2021, the Pentagon announced the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) to succeed the Navy's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. In December 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 signed by President Joe Biden included provisions for the establishment of a permanent agency to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena, codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3373. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 was signed in March 2022 and its main relevant provisions were codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3373a. Rep. André Carson (D-IN), chairman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing on 17 May, 2022. He raised the concern that UAPs posed a potential threat to national security and should be treated as such, and that the "stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis." He criticized the Pentagon for failing to name a director to head the newly established Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group and for failing to provide any updates. Carson pledged to "bring the organization out of the shadows.” The hearings included testimony from Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald S. Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. Bray stated that the number of "frequent and continuing" reported sightings had grown to about 400 since last year's mandated report. He cast out the notion that the UFOs had extraterrestrial origins, testifying that no organic/inorganic material or unexplainable wreckage indicated so. Bray added that there had been no attempts at communication with the objects, and that despite at least 11 "near-misses", no collisions between unidentified aircraft and U.S. aircraft had been reported so far. It was revealed that other countries had similar reports on UFOs, and that a number of them communicated with U.S. intelligence agencies, although Moultrie told lawmakers that they did want "potential adversaries to know exactly what we see or understand." He also mentioned the need for cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration as well as other government agencies. Moultrie stated that most UFOs could be identified through "rigorous" analysis and investigation, but pointed out a number of incidents that defied explanation, such as a 2004 sighting where aircraft carrier pilots in the Pacific came across a hovering unidentified object that appeared to have rapidly descended tens of thousands of feet. Lawmakers were shown declassified images and footage of UFOs, including a video of a UFO observed by a Navy fighter-jet pilot in 2021, a "spherical object" that "quickly passes by the cockpit of the aircraft." Another video captured triangular objects (speculated to be drones) floating off the coast as seen through night-vision goggles. A number of lawmakers, including Rick Crawford (R-AR), expressed concerns about potential Russian or Chinese hypersonic weapons programs. He warned that a failure to identify such threats was "tantamount to intelligence failure that we certainly want to avoid". The standardization of the civilian reporting process was also discussed, as the majority of reports in the military's database are from military officers. The public portion of the hearing, held in the morning and lasting less than 90 minutes, was followed by private classified session in the afternoon.

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A Dozen Noteworthy UFO-UAP Sightings

No. 1 PUSHPAKA VIMANA Before Roswell, there are many examples accounts of UFO visitations. Indeed, nearly every culture around the world describes them. For example, going back nearly thousands of years, there are depictions and descriptions of vimana in India. A vimāna is a car or a chariot of the gods, any self-moving aerial car sometimes serving as a seat or throne, sometimes self-moving and carrying its occupant through the air; other descriptions make the Vimana more like a house or palace, and--click-- one kind is said to be seven stories high.” The Pushpaka Vimana of Ravana is an example. Ravana is the supreme antagonist in the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana, often depicted having ten heads. He is considered both a demonic force and the great king of what is now Sri Lanka. He is known as a demon with ten heads. --click-- A vimana may denote any car or vehicle, especially a bier or a ship as well as a palace of an emperor, especially with seven stories. Nowadays, vimana means "aircraft" in Indian languages.
No. 2 EZEKIEL Of the many accounts in the Bible of strange happenings and otherworldly occurrences, the story of Ezekiel is one of the more fascinating, especially when looked at through the lens of modern technology. When biblical texts are interpreted through this perspective in general, an interesting picture emerges of the possibility that our ancient ancestors were actually visited by an advanced race, rather than gods. This idea, known as the ancient astronaut theory, sees Ezekiel’s “vision” of the Merkabah, or wheeled chariot, as more likely to be a spaceship or space shuttle used by an advanced species to reach out to humans.Erich von Däniken is one of the biggest proponents of this theory, providing a very compelling argument for an alternative interpretation of the Book of Ezekiel. --click-- So compelling in fact that his theory even reversed the entire thesis of a NASA scientist’s book aimed at disproving his claim.
No. 3 NUREMBERG UAP A broadsheet news article printed in April 1561 describes a mass sighting of celestial phenomena. The broadsheet, illustrated with a woodcut engraving and text by Hans Glaser, measures 26.2 centimetres (10.3 in) by 38.0 centimetres (15.0 in). The document is archived in the prints and drawings collection at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich in Zürich, Switzerland. According to the broadsheet, around dawn on 14 April 1561, "many men and women" of Nuremberg saw what the broadsheet describes as an aerial battle "out of the sun", followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object and exhausted combattant spheres falling to earth in clouds of smoke. The broadsheet claims that witnesses observed hundreds of spheres, cylinders, and other odd-shaped objects that moved erratically overhead. The woodcut illustration depicts objects of various shapes, including crosses (with or without spheres on the arms), small spheres, two large crescents, a black spear, and cylindrical objects from which several small spheres emerged and darted around the sky at dawn.
No. 4 UTSURO-BUNE Utsuro-bune was an unknown object that allegedly washed ashore in 1803 in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan. When defining Utsuro-bune, the bune part means "boat" while Utsuro means empty, or hollow. Accounts of the tale appear in three texts: Toen shōsetsu (1825), Hyōryū kishū (1835) and Ume-no-chiri (1844). According to legend, an attractive young woman aged 18-20 years old, arrived on a local beach aboard the "hollow ship" on February 22, 1803. Fishermen brought her inland to investigate further, but the woman was unable to communicate in Japanese. She was very different from anyone else there. The fishermen then returned her and her vessel to the sea, where it drifted away. Historians, ethnologists and physicists such as Kazuo Tanaka and Yanagita Kunio have evaluated the "legend of the hollow boat" as part of a long-standing tradition within Japanese folklore. Alternatively, certain ufologists have claimed that the story represents evidence for a close encounter with extraterrestrial life.
No. 5 AURORA UAP During the last two decades of the 19th century, there were reports from around the world of mysterious airships. In the United States, numerous newspaper accounts of airship sightings were published in late 1896 and early 1897. The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897. According to a contemporary newspaper account, a UFO crashed on a farm near Aurora, Texas, resulting in the death of the extraterrestrial pilot. Supposedly, the alien was buried in the Aurora Cemetery. An article written by S.E. Haydon and published in the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897, described the crash two days earlier of "the airship which has been sailing through the country." The craft suddenly appeared over Aurora at about 6 a.m. local time on April 17, 1897. It was "much nearer the earth than ever before", and "evidently some of the machinery was out of order". The ship subsequently "collided with the tower of Judge J. S. Proctor's windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres". The pilot, presumed to be the sole occupant, was killed. Examination of his remains indicated that "he was not an inhabitant of this world." T.J. Weems, from nearby Fort Worth, whom Haydon described as "the United States signal service officer at this place and an authority on astronomy," opined that the pilot was "a native of the planet Mars." A funeral was planned for the alien on April 20. Papers found on his body after the crash contained writings "in some unknown hieroglyphics," which, according to Haydon, appeared to record the pilot's travels. Haydon noted that the ship was made of "an unknown metal." A Texas Historical Commission marker outside the Aurora Cemetery, alleged burial site of the UFO pilot, which briefly mentions the incident, characterizing it as a "legend".
No. 6 WORLD WAR II: FOO FIGHTERS The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots during World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations. The nonsense word "foo" emerged in popular culture during the early 1930s, first being used by cartoonist Bill Holman, who peppered his Smokey Stover fireman cartoon strips with "foo" signs and puns. The term "foo" was borrowed from Smokey Stover by a radar operator in the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, Donald J. Meiers, who, according to most 415th members, gave the foo fighters their name. According to Ringwald, because of the lack of a better name, it stuck. And this was originally what the men of the 415th started calling these incidents: "f***in' foo fighters". In December 1944, a press correspondent from the Associated Press in Paris, Bob Wilson, was sent to the 415th at their base outside of Dijon, France, to investigate this story. It was at this time that the term was cleaned up to just "foo fighters". The squadron commander, Capt. Harold Augsperger, also decided to sanitize the term to "foo fighters" in the historical data of the squadron. Although Royal Air Force personnel had reported seeing lights following their aircraft from as early as March 1942, with similar sightings involving RAF bomber crews over the Balkans starting in April 1944, American sightings were first recorded by crews from the 422nd Night-Fighter Squadron stationed in Occupied Belgium during the first week of October 1944. At the time, these were erroneously believed to be Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptors which did not operate at night. However, the bulk of the sightings started occurring in the last week of November 1944, when pilots flying over Western Europe by night reported seeing fast-moving round glowing objects following their aircraft. The objects were variously described as fiery, and glowing red, white, or orange. Some pilots described them as resembling Christmas-tree lights and reported that they seemed to toy with the aircraft, making wild turns before simply vanishing. Pilots and aircrew reported that the objects flew together in formation with their aircraft and behaved as if they were under intelligent control, but never displayed hostile behavior. However, they could not be outmaneuvered or shot down. The phenomenon was so widespread that the lights earned a name – in the European Theater of Operations they were often called "Kraut fireballs", but for the most part called "foo fighters". The military took the sightings seriously, suspecting that the mysterious sightings might be secret German weapons, but further investigation revealed that German and Japanese pilots had reported similar sightings.
 No. 7 THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to a rumored attack on the continental United States by Imperial Japan and the subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late 24 February to early 25 February 1942, over Los Angeles, California. The incident occurred less than three months after the U.S. entered World War II in response to the Imperial Japanese Navy's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and one day after the bombardment of Ellwood near Santa Barbara on 23 February. Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but speaking at a press conference shortly afterward, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the purported attack a "false alarm". Newspapers of the time published a number of reports and speculations of a cover-up to conceal an actual invasion by enemy airplanes. When documenting the incident in 1949, the United States Coast Artillery Association identified a meteorological balloon sent aloft at 1:00 am as having "started all the shooting" and concluded that "once the firing started, imagination created all kinds of targets in the sky and everyone joined in". In 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries. No. 8 MOUNT RAINIER UAP The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred on June 24, 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/hr). This was the first post-World War II sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs. No. 9 WASHINGTON DC UAP It was just before midnight on July 19, 1952, at the Washington National Airport (now the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) when an air traffic controller spotted seven unidentified flying objects in the sky southwest of the nation’s capital. The controller, Edward Nugent, asked colleagues to double-check what he was seeing. They confirmed the equipment was working properly, and what they could see was not following a typical flight pattern. Not long after, the controllers could see other bright objects hovering over the White House (then occupied by President Harry S. Truman) and the Capital Building. Fighter jets were scrambled from nearby New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware in the pre-dawn hours of July 20, 1952, but the UFOs disappeared from the radar and from sight when the fighter jets arrived over the city. When a lack of fuel forced the jets to return to Delaware, the radar detected UFOs again, leading the air traffic controllers to believe the mysterious crafts could intercept and understand radio traffic. By daybreak, the objects were no longer visible on radar or by eye. The following weekend, the strange phenomena happened again. Again, fighter jets raced from Delaware to Washington, and air traffic controllers could see numerous unidentifiable objects across the radar. That night, one of the fighter pilots saw the strange lights and attempted to chase them, but his craft was no match for the speed of the UFOs, and ended his pursuit. After two consecutive weekends of UFO activity over the city, President Truman asked to be briefed by a representative from Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s new program for documenting and studying reported UFO sightings. Specifically, Project Blue Book wanted to determine if UFOs posed a national security threat — 1952 was in the midst of the Red Scare, and the Cold War was simmering on the horizon — and to analyze data and reports about UFO in a scientific manner. Ultimately, the Air Force claimed the event was weather-related. But there was a problem. The leader of Project Blue Book, Capt. Edward Ruppelt, later publicly denounced the Air Force’s explanation, saying that temperature inversions were already well-documented radar anomalies, and what happened in Washington, D.C., was not related to an inversion. So was it a true cover-up? Did the Air Force know more than they said and officials simply wanted to quell public panic?
No. 10 BETTY AND BARNEY HILL Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. It was the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in the United States. Most of Betty Hill's notes, tapes, and other items have been placed in the permanent collection at the University of New Hampshire, her alma mater. In July 2011, the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources marked the site of the alleged craft's first approach with a historical marker. No. 11 RENDELSHAM The Rendlesham Forest incident was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England in late December 1980 which became linked with claims of UFO landings. The events occurred just outside RAF Woodbridge, which was used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF). USAF personnel, including deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, claimed to see things they described as a UFO sighting. The occurrence is the most famous of claimed UFO events to have happened in the United Kingdom, and is among the best-known reported UFO events worldwide. It has been compared to the Roswell UFO incident in the United States and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's Roswell". No. 12 USS NIMITZ "TIC TAC" UAP On November 14, 2004, fighter pilot Commander David Fravor of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group claims to have investigated radar indications of a possible target off the coast of southern California. Fravor said the operator had told him that the USS Princeton (CG-59), part of the strike group, had been tracking unusual aircraft for two weeks prior to the incident. The aircraft would appear at 80,000 feet (24,000 m) before descending rapidly toward the sea, and stopping at 20,000 feet (6,100 m) and hovering. Fravor reported that he saw an object, white and oval, hovering above an ocean disturbance. He estimated that the object was about 40 feet (12 m) long. Fravor and another pilot, Alex Dietrich, said in an interview that a total of four people (two pilots and two weapons systems officers in the back seats of the two airplanes) witnessed the object for about 5 minutes. Fravor says that as he spiraled down to get closer to the object, the object ascended, mirroring the trajectory of his airplane, until the object disappeared.[8] A second wave of fighters, including pilot Lieutenant Commander Chad Underwood, took off from Nimitz to investigate. Unlike Fravor, Underwood's fighter was equipped with an advanced infrared camera (FLIR). Underwood recorded the FLIR video, and coined the description "Tic Tac" to describe the infrared image, but did not himself see any unusual object.During 2014–2015, fighter pilots associated with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group were operating off the East Coast of the United States when they recorded the GIMBAL and GOFAST videos while reporting instrument detections of unknown aerial objects which the pilots were unable to identify. The Pentagon released the UAP videos, which are selected visual recordings of cockpit instrumentation displays from United States Navy fighter jets based aboard aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015, with additional footage taken by other Navy personnel in 2019. The four grainy, monochromic videos, widely characterized as officially documenting UAPs, have received extensive coverage in the media since 2017. The Pentagon later addressed and officially released the first three videos in 2020, and confirmed the provenance of the leaked 2019 videos in two statements made in 2021. Publicity surrounding the videos has prompted a number of explanations, including drones or unidentified terrestrial aircraft, anomalous or artefactual instrument readings, physical observational phenomena (e.g., parallax), human observational and interpretive error, and, as is typical in the context of such incidents, extraordinary speculations of alien spacecraft.

Partial Lists/Reports of UFO-UAP Sightings

MUFON

The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is a US-based non-profit organization composed of civilian volunteers who study reported UFO sightings. It is one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind, claiming more than 4,000 members worldwide with chapters and representatives in more than 43 countries and all 50 states. The purpose of the organization is: "The Scientific Study of UFOs for the Benefit of Humanity." The organization has been criticized by skeptics for its focus on pseudoscience, and critics say its investigators fail to use the scientific method.
MUFON WEBSITE: https://mufon.com/ MUFON HISTORY: https://mufon.com/history/
J. Allen Hynek

A Sampling of Other Aspects of Ufology

THE GRAYS: Grey/gray aliens are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequent subjects of close encounters and alien abduction claims. The details of such claims vary widely, but typically Greys are described as being human-like with small bodies with smooth, grey-colored skin; enlarged, hairless heads; and large, black eyes. The Barney and Betty Hill abduction claim, which purportedly took place in New Hampshire in 1961, popularized Grey aliens. Precursor figures have been described in science fiction and similar descriptions appeared in early accounts of the 1948 Aztec UFO Hoax and later accounts of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. The Grey alien has emerged as an archetypal image of an intelligent non-human creature and extraterrestrial life in general, as well as an iconic trope of popular culture in the age of space exploration.
MEN IN BLACK: The Men in Black, in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen.
THE MOTHMAN: In West Virginia folklore, the Mothman is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register, dated November 16, 1966. The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States. The source of the legend is believed to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons. Ancient alien proponents suggest possible extraterrestrial involvement.
CROP CIRCLES: A crop circle, crop formation, or corn circle is a pattern created by flattening a crop, usually a cereal. The term was first coined in the early 1980s by Colin Andrews. Crop circles have been described as all falling "within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes" by Taner Edis, professor of physics at Truman State University. Although obscure natural causes or alien origins of crop circles are suggested by theorists, there is no scientific evidence for such explanations, and many crop circles are consistent with human causation. The number of reports of crop circles has substantially increased since the 1970s. There has been scant scientific study of them. Circles in the United Kingdom are not distributed randomly across the landscape but appear near roads, areas of medium to dense population and cultural heritage monuments, such as Stonehenge or Avebury. In 1991, two hoaxers, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, took credit for having created many circles throughout England after one of their circles was described by an investigator as impossible for human beings to make. Formations are usually created overnight, although some are reported to have appeared during the day. In contrast to crop circles or crop formations, archaeological remains can cause cropmarks in the fields in the shapes of circles and squares, but they do not appear overnight, and they are always in the same places every year. Nearly half of all crop circles found in the UK in 2003 were located within a 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) radius of the Avebury stone circles.
THE NAZCA LINES: The Nazca Lines are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BCE and 500 CE by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving differently colored dirt exposed. There are two major phases of the Nazca lines, Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BCE, and Nazca phase, from 200 BCE to 500 CE. In the years leading up to 2020, between 80 and 100 new figures had been found with the use of drones, and archaeologists believe that there are more to be found. Ancient Alien theorists have posited that these lines were created by people attempting to communicate with extraterrestrial beings, which explains why they can only be observed fully from high altitudes. Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. The individual figurative geoglyph designs measure between 400 and 1,100 metres (440–1,200 yd) across. The combined length of all the lines is over 1,300 km (800 mi), and the group covers an area of about 50 km2 (19 sq mi). The lines are typically 10 to 15 cm (4–6 in) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey subsoil. The width of the lines varies considerably, but over half are slightly over 33 cm (13 in) wide. In some places they may be only 30 cm (12 in) wide, and in others reach 1.8 m (6 ft) wide. Most of the Nazca lines form shapes that are best seen from the air (at around 500 m [1,600 ft]), though they are also visible from the surrounding foothills and other high places. The shapes are usually made from one continuous line. The largest ones are about 370 m (400 yd) long. Because of its isolation and the dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau, the lines have mostly been preserved naturally although human squatters have affected the lines in some areas. The figures vary in complexity. Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs, including a hummingbird, spider, fish, condor, heron, monkey, lizard, dog, cat, and a human. Other shapes include trees and flowers. Scholars, scientists, and alien theorists differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, many mainstream researchers ascribe religious significance to them. They were designated in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
GOBLEKI TEMPE: Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, around 10,000 to 9500 BCE, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are richly decorated with abstract anthropomorphic details, clothing, and reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft)-high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell also includes many smaller rectangular buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods. Ancient alien theorists wonder whether the culture that constructed the site may have had extraterrestrial aid since the complexity of the monoliths and buildings is considered beyond the abilities of any existing human culture 11 to 12 thousand years ago. The site was first used at the dawn of the Southwest Asian Neolithic period, which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture, but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice versa. Göbekli Tepe, a monumental complex built on the top of a rocky mountaintop, with no clear evidence of agricultural cultivation produced to date, has played a prominent role in this debate. Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, recognising its outstanding universal value as "one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture." As of 2022, less than 5% of the site had been excavated.
PUMAPUNKU: Pumapunku is a 6th-century T-shaped and strategically aligned man-made terraced platform mound with a sunken court and monumental structure on top that is part of the Pumapunku complex, at the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanacu, in western Bolivia. The Pumapunku complex is an alignment of plazas and ramps centered on the Pumapunku platform mound. Today the monumental complex on top of the platform mound lies in ruins. In assembling the walls of Pumapunku, each monumental stone interlocked with the surrounding stones. The blocks were fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints. The precision with which these angles create flush joints is indicative of sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry. Many of the joints are so precise, a razor blade cannot fit between the stones. The precise cuts suggest the possibility of pre-fabrication and mass production, which are technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku’s Inca successors hundreds of years later. Scientists today conclude that "[…] to obtain the smooth finishes, the perfectly planar faces, and exact interior and exterior right angles on the finely dressed stones, the ancient culture resorted to techniques unknown to the Incas and to us at this time. Further, […] The sharp and precise 90° interior angles observed on various decorative motifs most likely were not made with hammerstones. No matter how fine the hammerstone's point, it could never produce the crisp right interior angles seen on Tiahuanaco stonework. Comparable cuts in Inca masonry all have rounded interior angles typical of the pounding technique […]. And finally, The construction tools of the Tiahuanacans, with perhaps the possible exception of hammerstones, remain essentially unknown and have yet to be discovered." Ancient alien theorists suggest otherworldly involvement as a serious possibility.
THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA: The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. Initially standing at 146.6 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft). What is seen today is the underlying core structure. The base was measured to be about 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) square, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet), which includes an internal hillock. The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes in total. The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape and are only roughly dressed. The outside layers were bound together by mortar. Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used. Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile: White limestone from Tura for the casing, and granite blocks from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the King's Chamber structure. There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, upon which the pyramid was built, but remained unfinished. The so-called Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber, that contains a granite sarcophagus, are higher up, within the pyramid structure. Khufu's vizier, Hemiunu (also called Hemon), is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques. Because of the monumental weight of the building stones, the great distances between certain quarries, and the precision of the pyramid's structure some Ancient Alien theorists suggest the aid of extraterrestrial technology. Further, the astronomical alignments of this pyramid and others at Giza suggestion a connection to stars outside our solar system.
STONEHENGE: Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds). Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC. One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust. Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years. Because of monumental size of the columns and lintels, some theorists believe that extraterrestrial technology was used to facilitate the construction. Further, the alignments within the henge and surrounding henges suggest a connection to star systems in the Milky Way and beyond.
EASTER ISLAND MOAI: Moai are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads, which comprise three-eighths the size of the whole statue - which has no legs. The moai are chiefly the living faces (aringa ora) of deified ancestors (aringa ora ata tepuna). The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island in 1722, but many of them had fallen by the latter part of the 19th century, possibly as a result of European contact or internecine tribal wars. The production and transportation of the more than 900 statues is considered a remarkable creative and physical feat. The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighed 82 tonnes (80.7 tons). The heaviest moai erected was a shorter but squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki, weighing 86 tonnes (84.6 tons). One unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 m (69 ft) tall, with a weight of about 145–165 tons. Alien theorists and others wonder how the Rapa Nui were able to accomplish such monumental feats without the aid of modern technology. Some suggest direct extraterrestrial intervention and others go further to posit that the statues themselves are artistic representations of alien visitors that the native people mistook for gods.

Selected Web Resources

1. The Greys (PBS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptN59GH3yL02. The Men in Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_black3. The UnXplained: Mystery of the Mothman (Season 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxDb2lKVdgQ4. Ancient Aliens: Secret Crop Circle Messages (Season 10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WNFqo2zQI5. THE SECRET OF ALIEN SYMBOLS: THE NAZCA LINES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avqwRQzHgY46. Ancient Aliens: Gobekli Tepe (Season 12, Episode 16): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3aBN2QGn6w7. Ancient Aliens: The Impossible Stone Blocks of Puma Punku (Season 9): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMZyl6zbKU8. Ancient Aliens: Engineering Mystery Behind the Great Pyramid (Season 5): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UMizqJ58HU9. Ancient Aliens: Stonehenge Revealed as UFO Hotspot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIQmyPUBD5g10. Ancient Aliens: The Easter Island Mystery (Season 13): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-4V7rCCdOM11. Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens: https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-racism-behind-ancient-aliens/12. Debunking Ancient Aliens: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4719?13. The Washington Post (Debunking aliens and UFOs): https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/08/11/stop-ufo-mania-no-evidence-of-aliens/

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI)

1. History of the SETI Institute
The SETI Institute--The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute--was incorporated as a 501(c)3 California Non-Profit Corporation on November 20, 1984. The inaugural officers of the Institute were CEO Thomas Pierson and SETI scientist Jill Tarter. The Institute began operations on February 1, 1985. Prior to the inception of the SETI Institute, NASA was funding a small project in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. John Billingham, Chief of Life Sciences at NASA Ames Research Center and Bernard (Barney) Oliver, formerly of Hewlett-Packard invited Tom Pierson and others into discussions about maximizing the effectiveness of the funds, and ways of putting more money into the research and less into institutional overhead. These discussions led to the concept of a dedicated non-profit research organization focused on research and education around the factors of the Drake Equation. This vision was realized in the 1984 incorporation of the SETI Institute. The newly-formed SETI Institute’s first Trustees were Frank Drake, Andrew Fraknoi, Roger Heyns, and William Welch. Over the years, such well-known figures as Carl Sagan, Lew Platt, and Nobel Prize winners Baruch Blumberg and Charles Townes have served on the Board of Trustees. Jill Tarter is currently a Trustee of the Institute. The first grant-funded proposal at the Institute was for SETI research, led by Jill Tarter. Following shortly thereafter, the first astrobiology grant (then known as exobiology) was received, with Harold Klein as the Principal Investigator. Hundreds of research and education grants have been successfully managed at the SETI Institute since those first few awards. Founder and CEO Tom Pierson helmed the SETI Institute from its inception until ill health overtook him in 2013. He passed away in 2014. Acting CEO Edna DeVore led the Institute until she was succeeded by President and CEO David Black in 2014, who served for a year. Current President and CEO Bill Diamond took charge in June 2015. New directions for the SETI Institute have led to a restructuring of the operations of the Institute, folding the SETI research program into the larger science umbrella of the Carl Sagan Center. Nathalie Cabrol holds the position of Director of the Carl Sagan Center. Simon Steel is the Senior Director of Education and STEM Programs, while Pamela Harman and Rebecca McDonald are Director of Education and Director of Communications, respectively. Education and Public Outreach has always been an integral part of the Institute, including space science and astrobiology curricula for formal and informal education, the popular radio show/podcast Big Picture Science, the SETI Talks lecture series, public lectures by scientists, and popular science writing. Outreach to the general public via social media and other efforts has received new emphasis as the Institute looks forward to continuing its mission to explore the possibilities of life in the universe and share discoveries with the public.
2. The Drake Equation
The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. The equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying the number of civilizations, but as a way to stimulate scientific dialogue at the first scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The equation summarizes the main concepts which scientists must contemplate when considering the question of other radio-communicative life. It is more properly thought of as an approximation than as a serious attempt to determine a precise number.
The Drake equation is: N = the number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on the current past light cone);and R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations) fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space
3. Exoplanets
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, initially detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. As of 1 December 2022, there are 5,284 confirmed exoplanets in 3,899 planetary systems, with 847 systems having more than one planet. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars have an "Earth-sized" planet in the habitable zone. Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included. The least massive exoplanet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive exoplanet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b, about 30 times the mass of Jupiter. However, according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium), it is too massive to be a planet and might be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from less than an hour (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. However, there is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist. The nearest exoplanets are located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbit Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone (or sometimes called "goldilocks zone"), where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life as we know it, to exist on the surface. However, the study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life. Rogue planets are those that do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered a separate category of planets, especially if they are gas giants, often counted as sub-brown dwarfs. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.
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