You-foes?

I spent a night in Bellingham this weekend at my cousins' place. One of them is in a two man comedy group, which is hysterical, and I bounced a show. I bounced on the honor system: if you said you had a season pass but forgot it, I let you in. I took notes down like, "girl in red dress prepaid for 2 more and stepped out", etc.

Over the course of the weekend, my cousins and I reminisced and told the funniest stories we could come up with. One of the stories my older cousin told was about a German girl who said "you-foe" instead of "UFO". I've heard of this sort of thing happening before. In China, they pronounce the name of our country "you-sa". Haha! Those darn foreigners!

But it was UFO's being on the mind that inspired this post. I recently watched a documentary featuring Dan Akroyd about UFOs. I had no idea, but apparently he's not only a UFO buff, but a believer. He claims to have had a show he was making about the unexplained, Out There, canceled by "men in black" and none of the episodes were aired or brought out on DVD.

Anyone who knows me, knows this is a pet issue of mine and always has been. I've gone through all the stages, from childish wonder as a, well, child, to adult skepticism, to finally grudging acceptance that something has to be out there, whatever that something is. I wrote a very long post about it that you can read here.

I'm certainly not claiming to have any proof or that I have a first hand account, I just think there's alot to be suspicious about. It's often remarked that if aliens are real, how come they only reveal themselves to weirdos and crackpots? I blogged once before about the former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Defence.

... [the former Canadian D.M.] went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

[He] revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."

[He] warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

I wouldn't chalk him up to a random crackpot, would you? And yes, Canada-is-lame jokes are so original and funny. You are ever so clever, aren't you? But I just made the joke, so you don't have to embarrass yourself.

I mentioned in that same post about a former Air Force pilot I knew. This is just one person, but he said he heard the rumors going around the Air Force, and they were that aliens were alive and well on US military bases, walking around speaking English. Granted, they were rumors that were at best second hand to me, probably worse.

I asked him about Area 51, the Roswell, NM incident where for the first couple days it was being reported in the press as a UFO crash with two dead aliens inside. Those people who were interviewed must have been mistaken (the official story is that it was a dummy falling off a high altitude balloon that is on public record as not launching until several years later). He said he didn't know what happened, but he knew this, "Something big happened, and they're still lying about it."

Area 51 just happens to be right next to where we tested our nukes, incidentally. If I were investigating an alien race on another planet, a nuclear blast would be easily visible from space and I would want to know as much as possible about their weapons. Yeah, that's a big if. Just sayin'.

I flat out asked him if he believes, and he said yes. I find him credible because I knew and trusted him. But I understand if you don't lend him any credence.

In the same vein, a guy I know here is a UFO enthusiast like myself, and we got to talking. He worked with a photographer who used to work on top secret bases. Two military guys with no ranks or insignias on their uniforms would come to his room, hand him orders which said something like, "Follow these men to hangar X, take a roll of film of what's inside, and give the film to these two men." Along the walk they would follow behind him and say things like, "Do NOT look to your left", etc.

This guy should have known better than to brag about this stuff to my friend, because he pestered him relentlessly. He finally got him to back off by threatening to turn him in. My friend was leaving their place of employment and on his last day took this guy two slips of paper. One said "yes", the other "no". He told him, "You know this is my last day here, and you know what my question is. If one of those slips of paper got thrown away ... " and he left his office.

He checked on his desk a few minutes later. The No paper was gone, the Yes paper was left in plain sight.

If you're a skeptic, none of this effects you whatsoever, with the possible exception of the former Canadian Defense Minister. Well, let me add one more for you to mull over.

THE first men to walk on the Moon reported seeing a UFO, a new TV documentary reveals.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon's surface after Neil Armstrong, says space agency bosses covered up their sighting.

And the Apollo 11 astronauts were also careful not to talk about it openly.

He said: "There was something out there, close enough to be observed, and what could it be?

"Now, obviously the three of us weren't going to blurt out, 'Hey, Houston, we've got something moving alongside of us and we don't know what it is, you know?

"Can you tell us what it is?'

"We weren't about to do that, because we knew that those transmissions would be heard by all sorts of people and somebody might have demanded we turn back because of aliens or whatever the reason is."

Buzz Aldrin, American hero, saw a UFO. I find it particularly interesting that he saw it from the vantage point of what was at the time the most advanced spacecraft made by humans.

I have to wonder, why say it now? I mean, if Buzz Aldrin kept this a secret for 40 some years, what changed now? Is it because he's old and thinks we ought to know, or are they preparing to tell us something? Could just be a batty old man for all I know, but Buzz Aldrin strikes me as a level headed straight shooter. If he says he saw something, I'm inclined to believe him.

There's also a former Air Force test pilot in that Dan Akroyd documentary who claims to have seen UFOs close up and that they are real. The sound quality is terrible and they reuse the same UFO videos over and over, but it's still interesting to watch.

Take all of this as you will. It's certainly not proof of aliens. But I think it's far past the point of denying that some sort of highly advanced air/spacecrafts exist. I don't just mean top secret military weapons, I mean technology that makes a saucer fly faster than any jet we know about, and at accelerations we would consider impossible.

It's probably just highly advanced military craft. But the next time you see a satellite moving across the sky, maybe you'll watch it for sudden 90 degree course changes.


And now I'll employ one of the bestest of all the rhetorical strategies, quoting famous people you're supposed to find credible, possibly out of context:

"We deal now, not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier. We speak in strange terms of harnessing the cosmic energy, of making winds and tides work for us, of creating unheard of synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundred of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of spaceships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all times."

General Douglas MacArthur - May 12, 1962 to cadets at West Point


"I'm in the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force. I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomenon".

Former U.S. President Gerald Ford 28th March 1966


"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us realise this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us?"

-- President Ronald Reagan., Remarks made to the 42nd General Assembly of the United Nations., Sept. 21, 1987


And here's some pictures of aircraft and spacecraft depicted in ancient heiroglyphics, just because it's spooky. WoooOOOooo!....

(note that I don't endorse anything at the link, I'm just pointing to interesting pictures)