CNI News - Volume 19.3
June 10, 1996
Published by the ISCNI News Center
Editor: Michael Lindemann
The stories in this edition of CNI News are:
1) UFOs SIGHTED IN MANY PARTS OF AUSTRALIA
Flap Continues; Witnesses Report Saucer-Shaped Craft
2) "UFO PARTS" LESS ANOMALOUS THAN PREVIOUSLY CLAIMED
But Some Odd Features Remain to Be Explained
3) BRAZILIAN NEWS CONTINUES TO REPORT ON CAPTURED ALIENS
General Says Brazil Has Its Own "X-Files"
4) BACKGROUND ON NICK POPE, BRITISH MoD's UFO EXPERT
ISCNI encourages you to respond to stories in CNI News.
* Public responses can be posted on the Forum message board in "News
Center Feedback"
* Private responses can be emailed to ISCNI, subj: CNI News Editor
The subject matter of CNI News is inherently controversial, and the views and
opinions reported in the news are not necessarily those of ISCNI or its
staff.
The next edition of CNI News will appear on Thursday, June 13.
========================================================
1) UFOs SIGHTED IN MANY PARTS OF AUSTRALIA
Flap Continues; Witnesses Report Saucer-Shaped Craft
[CNI News thanks John Stepkowski (legion@werple.net.au) for forwarding this
report from the Sunday Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia, dated May 26, 1996]
Residents in three states reported seeing UFOs on Friday night [May 24].
The Adelaide-based director of the Australian International UFO Association,
Colin Norris, said colored lights seen over Adelaide could not have been the
space shuttle Endeavour.
The senior operator of the National UFO Hotline, Ross Dowe, told ABC radio
[on May 25] that calls about lights in the sky had also been received from
people in Horsham, Wangaratta and Penrith near Sydney.
An eyewitness, Kathy Dickmann, 47, and her family watched three lights in the
sky for 20 minutes at 9pm in the Adelaide foothills.
"We thought it was a plane or helicopter at first, but they were moving like
you wouldn't expect anything we know of to move," Mrs. Dickmann said. "Then
we pulled over and just watched as the lights just hovered, flashing on and
off about every second or so for about 20 minutes."
Mr. Norris said other callers described a white ball the size of a full moon
which hovered and then sank to the horizon over several minutes.
Norris and Dowe said six other sightings had been reported around Australia
in the past week.
[The following update is from UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 1, Number 17, dated June 9.
CNI News thanks Roundup editor Masinaigan for sharing this information.]
On Tuesday, June 4, the Examiner, a newspaper in suburban Melbourne,
Australia, published an update on the continuing UFO flap in that country.
According to the Examiner, UFOs were seen last week in Narre Warren and
Packenham, Victoria [southeastern Australia], and in Emerald and Cockatoo,
Queensland [northeastern Australia].
From Monday, May 26, to Wednesday, May 28, UFOs were seen repeatedly in the
Emerald and Cockatoo areas. According to Ross Dowe of Australia's National
UFO Hotline, "Some people had seen it three nights in a row. They were a bit
put out because they don't believe in UFOs."
Asked what the objects could be, Dowe told the Examiner: "I have no idea."
On Monday night, May 26, a brightly-glowing saucer, red in color, appeared
over Packenham. The police in nearby Narre Warren sent a cruiser to
investigate.
The following night, Tuesday, May 27, the UFO visited Narre Warren, prompting
a flurry of phone calls to police headquarters. Eleven people on Lantana
Drive watched the UFO fly south from the Dandenong range, east of Melbourne.
One resident, Dianne Walkerton, brought out her camcorder and shot nine
minutes of video footage, showing the glowing, yellowish-orange saucer flying
east. As the UFO passed over nearby Packenham, it was seen by eight people
in a milk bar. According to the Examiner, "All were adamant that it was not
a helicopter. Rough estimates were that the object was 300 feet above
ground. It made no sound but was generally described as disc-shaped with
three bright yellow-orange lights in triangular formation, flying below the
low cloud."
At 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29, Ms. Walkerton and her neighbors again saw
the saucer. According to Barbara Schyler of the UFO Encounter and Support
Line, the residents watched the object for 10 or 15 minutes before it
vanished over the eastern horizon.
On Thursday night, May 30, police received six calls from the Warren Wood
estate (housing development) in Narre Warren." Residents claimed to have
seen "a brightly-lit large object flying low and fast in the direction (east)
of Packenham at around 7:30 p.m."
At 1:10 a.m. on Friday, May 31, a saucer was reported hovering over
Cranbourne Road near Narre Warren.
As an historical note, Australia had one of the earliest UFO sightings
reported this century. In February 1927, two brothers riding herd on cattle
near Fernvale, New South Wales, saw a glowing, domed, disc-shaped UFO fly
slowly overhead, lighting up the entire valley. It landed a few miles ahead
of them. Checking the site the next day, the men found a circle of scorched
grass.
========================================================
2) "UFO PARTS" LESS ANOMALOUS THAN PREVIOUSLY CLAIMED
But Some Odd Features Remain to Be Explained
Reporting on Art Bell's syndicated radio program "Dreamland" Sunday night,
June 9, investigator Linda Howe said that the strange aluminum pieces sent to
Bell by an anonymous source are not as anomalous as previously reported. The
pieces, dubbed "Art's Parts," are allegedly part of the wreckage recovered
from the fabled UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. According to a
letter accompanying the pieces, the sender's grandfather recovered them at
the crash site and held them in secret until shortly before his death, when
he disclosed them to other members of the family.
Linda Howe has helped to coordinate laboratory analysis of some of the
pieces. So far it has been determined that they are composed mainly of
extremely pure aluminum. However, preliminary measurement of the size of one
piece, when compared with its weight, seemed to indicate that its density was
about 60% greater than expected for aluminum. Though small amounts of other
elements were identified in the piece, nothing accounted for the large weight
discrepancy.
Now Linda Howe says a simple error of measurement was responsible for what
appeared at first to be a potentially earthshaking discovery.
The scientist who first measured the piece was a biologist, Howe said. He
used a scanning electron microscope to take the size measurements, not
realizing that this method was prone to large error. A week later, after the
object's apparently anomalous density had been announced on Bell's program, a
second scientist -- this time a metallurgist -- measured the object with a
micrometer. Its actual thickness was 60% greater than previously assumed,
thus accounting for the additional weight. The object's density is therefore
just what it should be for pure aluminum.
The biologist, Howe said, was "extremely apologetic and embarrassed" to have
made such a major error.
"There's an important lesson here," Howe said. "Scientists make mistakes like
anyone else. That's why science demands repeatability."
But other features of "Art's Parts" remain unexplained and potentially
significant, Howe said. Some of the pieces contain layers of bismuth and
magnesium/zinc alloy, the purpose of which is not immediately apparent.
Further testing will be conducted this week.
Howe lamented the fact that there is no laboratory where such testing can be
done quickly and efficiently by qualified scientists at no charge. The
analysis of "Art's Parts" is being done voluntarily by several scientists in
their spare time, using borrowed equipment and lab space.
========================================================
3) BRAZILIAN NEWS CONTINUES TO REPORT ON CAPTURED ALIENS
General Says Brazil Has Its Own "X-Files"
[CNI News thanks Masinaigan for this item from the UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 1,
Number 17, dated June 9.]
Reports of the retrieval of two live aliens in the city of Varginha last
January continue to make headlines in Brazil.
On Wednesday, June 5, several UFO groups held a news conference in Brazil.
Claudeia Covo, an engineer and president of the Instituto Nacional de
Investigacoes de Fenomenos Aerospaciais (INFA) described the reported
Varginha retrieval as "certainly the most extraordinary thing we have ever
heard about, and we have lots of reports of the UFO apparitions. It was a
real complex operation involving military personnel as well as civilians, and
resulted in the capture of unidentified biological creatures."
Brazilian ufologist Vitorio Pacaccini said his group has interviewed 14
witnesses, including four soldiers who were with the truck convoy that
allegedly ferried the aliens to Campinas and on to Sao Paulo. "We have the
testimony of an army officer who was there at the Escola de Sargentos in Tres
Coracoes who was directly involved in the operation. He described in detail
everything that happened during those days."
The Brazilian Army denies that any retrieval took place. However, Brig.
General Cherubim Rosa Filho said Brazil does keep "a detailed dossier" on UFO
incidents. (These files apparently date back to a case involving Joao Prestes
and Jose dos Santos, on March 5, 1946.) The "dossier" is kept by Brazil's
equivalent of NORAD, the Centro Integrado de Dolesa Aerea E Controle de
Trafego Aerea (CINDACTA) in the capital city of Brasilia. General Rosa Filho
said, "It is true that there are lots of cases which remain unsolved even
until today."
More details have surfaced on the January 30 incident in Varginha. According
to National UFO News, that day, at about 10 a.m., a woman saw several
children on the edge of the ravine in the Jardim Andere, excited and yelling
about something. "I went over there to stop them," she said. "When I saw
what they were throwing stones at, I just about died. There was a horrible
creature with large red eyes trying to huddle down and escape being hit by
the stones."
After chasing the kids away, the unidentified woman went home and phoned the
Varginha Fire Department. The firefighters surrounded the ravine and went in
just after 10:15 a.m. They grabbed the creature and brought it out at around
10:30. The Policia Militar put it in a cage on a flatbed truck, covered the
cage with a white sheet, and then drove to the military school in Tres
Coracoes.
========================================================
4) BACKGROUND ON NICK POPE, BRITISH MoD's UFO EXPERT
As previously reported in CNI News, Nick Pope of the British Ministry of
Defence (MoD) has written a book claiming that UFOs are real,
non-conventional, and potentially significant to the national security. The
following short biography on Nick Pope was forwarded to CNI News by Roxanne
Carol.
Nick Pope was born in 1965. After having completed his education, he joined
the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1985.
During his career there, he has held a number of interesting and very
different postings. His duties have ranged from preparing briefing material
for senior officers, to involvement in the policy initiative enabling women
to fly as pilots in the Royal Air Force. He has also been involved in work on
the Gulf War, and the situation in Bosnia.
From 1991 to 1994, Nick was responsible for investigating UFO sightings for
the Ministry, and handling policy on this subject. His brief was to evaluate
whether or not there was any evidence of a threat to the UK. His conclusions
were both startling and controversial, and he uncovered a number of cases
which seemed to involve craft with technologies considerably more advanced
than our own. He concluded that some UFOs were indeed extraterrestrial in
origin.
Nick also became officially involved in research into alien abductions, crop
circles and animal mutilations, and has a good knowledge of the paranormal in
general.
Nick still works for the MoD, where he holds the rank of Higher Executive
Officer, which equates to a Major in the British Army.
Although no longer researching UFOs in an official capacity, Nick has kept up
his interest in the phenomenon, and has written a book on the subject. Titled
"Open Skies, Closed Minds," it gives his overview of the UFO phenomenon,
coupled with an insight into his official research and investigation at the
MoD. This book will be published by Simon and Schuster in June 1996.
Nick is currently researching a book on the alien abduction phenomenon, and
is actively investigating a number of interesting cases. He is also planning
a fictionalised account of the official response to a confirmed alien
presence on Earth.
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