Essay/Term paper: We are not alone.

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Miscellaneous

On June 24th, 1947 while searching for the remains of a downed



Marine C-46 transport, lost somewhere in the Mount Ranier area, a young



Idahoan businessman named Kenneth Arnold spotted something that would



change his life forever. Just north of his position flying at an altitude of



9,500 feet and an unprecedented airspeed of 1,700 mph he spotted nine



circular aircraft flying in formation. According to his estimate the aircraft



were approximately the size of a DC-4 airliner ( Jackson 4).







This account was the first sighting to ever receive a great deal of media



attention. This sighting gave birth to the phrase "flying Saucer" coined by a



reporter named Bill Begrette. Although not the first UFO sighting in history,



Kenneth Arnolds account is considered to be the first documented UFO



sighting.







The following day Mr. Arnold discovered that in addition to his



sighting there were several others in the Mount Ranier area that same day



(Jackson 6).







When most of think of UFO sightings we picture an unemployed, half-



crazed, alcoholic hick living in a trailer park in the middle small town USA.



Often times this description, although a little exaggerated, seems to fit

fairly



well. In the past when the average person spotted a UFO they were quickly



discounted as a kook or con-artist in search of either attention or monetary



reward. It wasn't until more reputable figures in our society began to come



forward that we that we started looking at this issue a little more seriously.



An article written 1957, entitled " Strange lights over Grenada" written by



Aime' Michel describes just such an account:



At 10:35 p.m. on September the 4th, 1957 Cpt Ferreira ordered his



wing to abandon a planned exercise and execute a 50 degree turn to



port. Ferreira was attempting to get a closer look at what he



described as brilliant, pulsating light hanging low over the horizon.



When the turn was completed he noticed that the object had turned



too. It was still directly over his left. There was absolutely no doubt



that the orange light was shadowing the F-84s. For another 10



minutes, it followed the jets without changing direction or



appearance. The pilots watched as four small yellow discs broke away



from the large red object and took up a formation on either side of it.









All at once the large luminous disc shot vertically upward while the



smaller discs shot straight towards the F-84s. In an instant the flat



disc sped overhead in a hazy blur and vanished. When Cpt Ferriera



was questioned by Portuguese Air Force Investigators he was quoted



as saying: "Please don't come out with the old explanation that we



were being chased by the planet Venus, weather balloons, or freak



atmospheric conditions. What we saw up there was real and



intelligently controlled. And it scared the hell out of us. (32)



This is only one of literally hundreds of pilot accounts that have been



documented and cross verified by other sources. To date the Portuguese



Government has taken no official position as to what the luminous discs



were.







The United States has had more than it's fair share of unexplained aerial



objects. In February of 1960 the N.A.A.D.S. (North American Air Defense



System) spotted a satellite of unknown origin orbiting the Earth. They knew



that it wasn't a Soviet satellite because it was orbiting perpendicular to



trajectory produced by a Soviet launch. It also had a mass estimated at 15









metric tons, no evidence of booster rockets and traveled at speed three times



faster than any known satellite. The satellite orbited for two weeks and



disappeared without a trace. Before its disappearance, the object which



appeared to give off a red glow, was photographed over New York several



times (Jackson 19).







Lights in the sky aren't the only evidence that suggests we may have



cosmic company. In the book "A History of UFO Crashes", the author Kevin



D. Randal gives detailed accounts of numerous UFO crashes in history.



Perhaps the most famous of these crashes occurred on July 4th, 1947 in



Roswell New Mexico. The crash at Roswell was witnessed from



afar by over a hundred people. Until just recently, no one who was involved



in the recovery operation was talking, but thanks to continued pressure from



UFO enthusiast our government has begun to declassify much of its UFO



related material. Perhaps more startling are than the government documents



are the accounts given by local police and members of the recovery team.



According to one unnamed witness, a member of the Roswell recovery team:



The crash site was littered with pieces of aircraft. Something about the



size of a fighter plane had crashed, the metal was unlike anything I'd





ever seen before. I picked up a piece the size of a car fender with one



hand, it couldn't have more than a quarter of a pound and no matter



how hard I tried I couldn't even get it to bend. (10)





In my opinion the most fascinating piece of evidence to come out of



the Roswell crash is the alien autopsy film. Apparently there was more than



bits and pieces of spaceship recovered at Roswell. There is an Air Force video



account of an autopsy being performed on a life form that doesn't share the



common characteristics of organ development found in life forms on this



planet. The film is silent and labeled "Autopsy, Roswell, July 1947" (Randal



17).







As difficult as the Roswell evidence is to explain or discount it pales in



comparison to the physical evidence left by our ancestors. An Illustration



taken from a Nuremburg Broadsheet Tells how men and women "saw a very



frightful spectacle". At sunrise April 14th, 1561 "globes, crosses and tubes



began to fight one another", the event continued for about an hour.



Afterward they fell to ground in flames, minutes later a "black, spear like



object appeared". In a Basal Broadsheet dated August 7th, 1566 large black







and white globes are seen over Dasel, Switzerland. Both events occurred in a



time period when there should have nothing more than birds and bees filling



our skies. They each considered to be Divine warnings at the time (Gould



95-96).



Ancient physical evidence isn't limited to newspaper illustration and



sketches on cave wall. Perhaps the most astounding and unexplainable pieces



of physical evidence are a pair of geodes. Both are believed to be



approximately 1,800 years old and when carefully examined were identified as



electrical cells. One of the cells which was discovered in Iraq was tested and



produced 2 volts of electricity. The other, which was discovered by a pair of



Arizona rock hounds, was damaged when the sedimentary encrustation was



being removed and therefore couldn't be tested (Montgomery 221).







Since the dawn of time man has told stories of heavenly and demonic



beings coming to rule, teach, torment, seduce and provide salvation. Every



culture has myths of ancient gods who strode through the heavens. The



American Indians had the cachinas who taught them to farm and saved them



from numerous cataclysms. Greece had Zeus who threw lightning bolts from







his finger tips and Apollo crossed the sky in his golden chariot. The



Christians have Ecclesiastes who encountered the "ant people" and rode



through the skies with them from Babylon to Israel. Across the entire globe



we find drawings on cave walls that resemble men in space suits and objects



that greatly resemble flying saucers. The sacred artwork of the Hopi Indian





when is without a doubt a representation of the waves produced by modern



day oscilloscopes (Montgomery 225-237). The Hopis are also native to the



area where one of the electrical cells were found. It could be that these

things



are no more than mere coincidence, but I doubt it. Man in his arrogance is



reluctant to believe that we may share Gods vast, glorious universe with other



beings of intelligence. We sometimes fail to realize that if the Earth were a



day old, the race of man would only have been here for 13 minutes. If you



couple that with the fact that there are Black Holes and White Dwarfs



millions of years older than our sun, it increases the improbability that we

are



the only ones out here. In the preceding text I have produced a limited



sampling of the volumes of evidence available. I will close this paper on



a quote from Ecclesiastes I:9 "there is no new thing under the sun", and that



includes intelligent life.







Works Cited







Ecclesiastes. Holy Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1976.



Gould, Robert. Oddities. New York: Bell PC, 1965.



Jackson, Robert. UFO's: Sightings of Strange Phenomena in the Skies.

New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1995



Michel, Aime'. "Strange lights over Grenada." Fate Magazine. Aug. 1957.

29-32



Montgomery, Ruth. Aliens Among Us. New York: G.P Putnum's Sons, 1985



Randle, Kevin. A History of UFO Crashes. Avon Books,1995