SALT LAKE TRIBUNE– On April 4, 1949, FBI agents in Utah sent a cable marked “urgent” to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It said an Army guard at the Ogden Supply Depot, a Logan policeman and a Utah Highway Patrol officer in Mantua each saw from miles apart a UFO — which they said exploded over Utah.

Under the title “Flying Discs,” the cable said they “saw a silver colored object high up approaching the mountains at Sardine Canyon” that “appeared to explode in a rash of fire. Several residents at Trenton … [reported] seeing what appeared to be two aerial explosions followed by falling object.”

That and other documents show the FBI was investigating whether UFOs were real, and it figured they could be. Such documents are now available in “The Vault,” vault.fbi.gov, a revamped FBI website for documents that have been released through the Freedom of Information Act and have been recently or often requested.

Besides talking about Utah UFOs, other Utah-related documents on the website look at such things as FBI snooping into whether the Salt Lake City NAACP had been infiltrated by communists; a death threat in Utah against Lady Bird Johnson; and Hoover lambasting W. Cleon Skousen — a Utahn who has become an icon of the tea party movement.

Read full article about New FBI ‘Vault’ Discusses UFOs.

Check out full section from The Vault about Unexplained Phenomenon.

© Copyright Salt Lake Tribune, 2011

Photo by flickr user Dnewman8

GIZMODO– The total number of stars in the Universe “is likely three times bigger than realized.” Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum says there are “possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars,” dramatically increasing the possibility of finding alien civilizations.

According to the new study just published in Nature, new observations on the red end of the optical spectrum at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii show an overwhelming population of red dwarfs in eight massive nearby elliptical galaxies. The team has discovered that these galaxies hold twenty times more red dwarfs than the Milky Way.

Van Dokkum says that “there are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars” which are “typically more than 10 billion years old.” According to him, that’s long enough for complex life to evolve, which is “one reason why people are interested in this type of star.” In fact, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet similar to our own Earth—and therefore capable of harboring complex life—orbiting the Gliese 581 red dwarf star system, 20.3 light years from our home planet.

Carl Sagan explains why this discovery has a dramatic impact in our search for intelligent life in the Universe, using the Drake Equation:

Continue reading about Probability of Finding Aliens Is Now Three Times Higher.

© Gizmodo, 2010

Photo by flickr user Temari 09

GIZMODO– Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn’t share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don’t have to be like planet Earth.

No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn’t been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don’t know about you but I’ve not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. And that’s without counting yesterday’s announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor a trillion Earths, dramatically increasing our chances of finding extraterrestrial life.

Continue reading about NASA Finds New Life in Mono Lake.

© Gizmodo, 2010

Photograph by flickr user satosphere

EPOCH TIMES– Manhattan UFO sightings that generated buzz in downtown New York City coincided with a prediction made by Stanley A. Fulham, a retired NORAD officer, in his recently published book, according to a press release dated September 13, 2010.

In “Challenges of Change (3rd ed),” Fulham says that a fleet of UFOs would hover over earth’s major cities on Oct. 13, and says this event is the first interaction that leads to mankind’s acceptance of aliens. That turns out to be the same day of the UFO sightings.

Fulham claims that he has had experiences with UFOs dating back to World War ll, and has received a plethora of historical data on NORAD’s experiences with UFOs that have never before been revealed.

Epoch Times reporter Stephen Summer was an eyewitness of the UFOs, and was present at a scene where New Yorkers gathered and pointed at the mysterious metallic objects in the sky.

Summer said he was walking near the corner of 28th Street and Sixth Avenue when he saw groups of people looking up. He said he looked up as well, and saw four small shiny objects in the sky.

Videos of the UFOs have gone viral on the Internet and clearly show shiny silver objects floating over Manhattan.

Continue reading about Manhattan UFOs Predicted by Ex-NORAD Officer.

© Epoch Times, 2010

My Fox News covers the incredible phenomenon.

Russia Today’s coverage of the sightings.

THE HERALD SUN– Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks Zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.

Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.

It’s just right. Just like Earth.

“This really is the first Goldilocks planet,” said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.

Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone?

Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing.

“This is the first one I’m truly excited about,” said Penn State University’s Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a “pretty prime candidate” for harboring life.

Continue reading about Could ‘Goldilocks’ Planet Be Just Right For Life?.

© AP, 2010