ARK OF THE COVENANT

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Filling in for George on Wednesday night, Rob Simone ( email) welcomed investigative mythologist William Henry, who discussed historical, geopolitical, and supernatural aspects of the lost Ark of the Covenant, and its possible connection to end times prophecies. The Ark is traditionally thought of as a rectangular container made by Moses to contain holy books and other items, but Henry believes it's actually a component of a larger, powerful Judgment Day device. He suggested that this device can operate as an otherworldly ascension tool, transmuting a person upon contact into a body of light, who can then travel the universe. It's really a "throne of God," which facilitates the manifestation of luminous beings that can appear on the Earth plane, he continued.

Henry contended that the Ark is not currently on Earth, but will be brought here by advanced beings who use it like a stargate. Yet, various countries such as Iran and Israel may be seeking out the Ark, he said. Israel's recent operation in Gaza was called "Operation Pillar of Cloud," which is a direct reference to the Ark, he commented. Further, the Ark was a factor in the Iraq war-- "there's no doubt that's why we wanted to stop Saddam Hussein-- this is the weapon of mass destruction," he argued. And Ayatollah Khamenei, the spiritual leader of Shi’ite Islam in Iran, believes he is divinely ordained to introduce the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, who will recover and reveal the Ark.

In July, 2012 Khamenei told the Iranian people to prepare for Judgment Day and the imminent return of the Mahdi. Various prophecies speak of the appearance of a great sign before the Second Coming, and Henry believes the re-emergence of the Ark of the Covenant is that sign. He also addressed how the Ark exists as both a material object, and spiritual potential within each person. For more, check out a trailer for Henry's new DVD, The Judgment Day Device.
 

ooast to coast am

2012 & Earth Activations:
 
On Thursday night, esoteric researcher Drivel Melchizedek discussed the great Earth activations fueling 2012, the magnetic pole shift that is currently affecting humans around the world, and new ways in which humans will begin to perceive and communicate in the world. A magnetic pole shift can precede a catastrophic physical pole shift, and there is some evidence there was one 26,000 years ago, and again 13,000 years ago, which would mean we are due for another one, he said. According to Melchizedek, when a physical pole shift occurred over a 14-day period during the time of Atlantis, the people went crazy and lost their memory, and we had to start all over again.

In Chicane Ital in the Yucatan on 12/21/12, the calendar end date for a Mayan cycle, the Earth, the sun, and the center of our galaxy will align in an absolutely straight line, "and that hasn't happened for almost 26,000 years," he said. The Mayans will celebrate on December 22nd at the start of their new cycle, though there is a doomsday aspect to their prophecy, he continued. While they believe a massive cataclysmic event is coming, the Mayans have said that human consciousness will escape to a higher dimensional level on Earth, and experience a kind of ascension, he recounted.

He cited the significance of the human heart in Mayan and ancient cultures. Current research such as at Heart Math also points toward the intelligence of the heart, he noted, adding that inside the heart, small areas are generating toroidal fields that extend 8-10 feet out beyond the body. Regarding crop circles, Russian researchers decoded complex mathematics shown in authentic formations, and found a warning that Earth would suffer eight catastrophes in a row, and we can only survive the first one, Melchizedek reported, noting that the ancient Mayans reached a similar conclusion.

COAST TO COAST AM

CoastZone: Rendlesham, UFOs, & Nukes

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Nightwatch@CoasttoCoastam.com via presslaff.net	Nov 19 (1 day ago)
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Weekend Edition   November 19, 2012   Insider Audio

Rendlesham, UFOs, & Nukes: During the first hour on Sunday night, George Knapp was joined by Charles Halt, former USAF base commander, who shared his eyewitness account of the 1980 Rendlesham Forest sightings, and his personal investigation of the UFO landing site. During the morning of December 26th 1980, he learned that two officers had been chasing UFOs the night before in the woods. Two nights later, he heard from a lieutenant that the UFO was back in the forest, so he went out to the site. He saw indentation marks in the ground, and tested the area with a Geiger counter and found that it had higher than normal radiation levels. Then, they saw a glowing red object in a farmer's field that moved into the forest, avoiding the trees. Later, the object silently exploded sort of like fireworks, and they saw multiple aerial objects moving nearby, Halt detailed. One of the objects sent down the equivalent of a laser beam that illuminated the ground; another of the objects moved above the weapons storage area of the Bentwaters base, he reported. Halt pointed out that the Rendlesham Forest area is known as a location for high strangeness, and he theorized that it could be a type of portal between dimensions or places. Appearing during the latter 3 hours of the show, ufologist Robert Hastings discussed his research into the phenomenal Rendlesham case, as well as other incidents involving UFOs at nuclear bases. He interviewed two air traffic controllers on duty during the Rendlesham sightings who told him that they tracked a UFO on radar, and it was definitely not a conventional craft of any kind. "They picked up an object that covered 120 miles in some 8-12 seconds," and observed it making an instantaneous 90 degree turn, which no earthly aircraft can do," Hastings recounted. One of the air traffic controllers looked out the window of the control tower, and described seeing a spherical-shaped object, bright orange in color, that appeared to be hovering just above the Bentwaters water tower. "It instantaneously went from a hover to a rate of speed he'd never seen any aircraft perform," the controller told Hastings. Hastings has documented many cases in which UFOs have appeared over nuclear weapon sites and sometimes tampered with or shutdown the nuclear capability. During a 1989 incident at the Kapustin Yar army missile base in the Soviet Union, a dome-shaped craft seen by multiple witnesses sent down laser-like beams into the weapons storage area. He also spoke about a September 2012 incident near the Malmstrom AFB in Montana in which two V-shaped objects were spotted flying low in the sky. Malmstrom is known for a 1967 episode in which a UFO was seen hovering, just as ICBMs malfunctioned.

UFO Encounters & Prophecy:

In the first half of Friday's program, George Norry was joined by author, clairvoyant, and earth mysteries investigator B Betsey Lewis for a discussion on her own UFO encounters and a prophetic message she was given. Lewis said she was born into "high strangeness," when at eight months old she and her parents had a UFO experience in which they lost two hours of time. To make sense of what had happened to her family she sought the help of UFO investigator Ann Duffel. According to Lewis, hypnotic regression sessions with Duffel revealed that her family had been abducted by "small gray aliens." Lewis recalled being taken aboard an alien craft and seeing her parents inside what appeared to be tubes.

Several years later Lewis had yet another UFO encounter, this time with what she described as a giant silver disc that changed diameter as it flew overhead following her around. Shortly after this strange sighting she began having vivid images of earth changes, often accompanied by painful headaches. Lewis believes these messages are indicators of dramatic things to come for our planet and have been foreshadowed by other bizarre events, such as dead birds falling from the sky, freaky fish die-offs and mysterious noises heard around the world. She predicted that a powerful earthquake will hit Indonesia and there may also be a serious solar event.

Lewis spoke about angels and ancient astronauts. Citing accounts by Old Testament prophet Ezekiel as well as the story of Lot, Lewis suggested that these biblical figures had encounters with time traveling ancient astronauts, not angels—though she believes these celestial beings do exist and help guide us. She suggested that ancient cities Sodom and Gomorrah were bombed into oblivion with nuclear/atomic weapons and pointed to sheets of green glass found at various sites around the world as evidence. She also tied the mystifying Fatima events to the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident, noting that like the city's mythical namesake our world is about to be reborn into a new spiritual awakening.

PHYSICS BREAKTHROUGHS:

 

On Tuesday's show, theoretical physicist at Cal Tech, Sean Carroll, discussed why he believes the discovery of the Higgs boson is perhaps the greatest breakthrough in our understanding of the universe since the splitting of the atom, and how it is launching particle physics on a new era of discovery. "What really matters to us is not the Higgs boson, but something called the Higgs field that fills space...the bosons that we detect as particles are just little vibrations in that field," he explained. By detecting a Higgs-like boson through experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, we were able to demonstrate the existence of the Higgs field, he reported. The search for such a particle has been going on for decades, Carroll noted, and its discovery was a cause for celebration in the physics community.

While the Higgs discovery doesn't particularly lead to new technological applications, its significance has to do with understanding how the particles that form our existence work together, he pointed out. "If it weren't for the Higgs, electrons would be massless; they'd be like photons moving at the speed of light-- they wouldn't stick together in atoms...there wouldn't be planets or stars, there would not be you and me," he continued. For more on the Higgs discovery, check out this video clip Sean sent us.

Carroll cited dark matter as the next big target after the Higgs boson. We've detected its gravitational field, and can see its effect on light traveling through the universe, and various stars. Dark matter is clearly exerting a force, but we don't know what it is yet, he said. Carroll also shared his theory that our universe may have been born out of larger universe, and touched on such topics as black holes, string theory, and hidden additional dimensions that might affect particle physics.
 

ufo in the skies of denver colo. ?????????

An unusual video of mysterious dark objects moving very quickly and erratically over the skies of Denver, Colo., has local residents buzzing.
Fox affiliate KDVR reporter Heidi Hemmat described "an unusual object that appears to launch and land in the metro area." The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had no record of anything unusual in the skies at the time, either visually or on radar

UFO

UFO Encounters & Evidence:

Former White House/Air Force One engineer for ABC News, Wilbur Allen, has been a contactee since childhood, when he was implanted. Since then, he has forensically documented sightings and anomalies. On Monday's show,  he discussed his recent trips to investigate Area 51 and Sedona, his telepathic encounters with UFOs, and analysis of various sightings. In the Sedona desert, while documenting the sky late at night, he said he saw an object come out of "warp," and dogs and coyotes immediately started howling. Then "something drew blood from my finger and left a very unusual puncture wound," he detailed.

In video footage shot in Rachel, Nevada, he made the statement 'show it to me,' and 15 seconds later an aerial object appeared, which he believes demonstrates telepathy between humans & ET. Additionally, while shooting at the perimeter of Area 51, he heard a disembodied voice commanding him to pack his stuff and get out. At Area 51, the military is working with assimilated alien technology, and have operational craft, possibly built with the assistance of ETs, Allen surmised. He has further concluded that the aliens have the ability to bend space and time in their travels, as well as cloak their ships.

Yet in recent years, camera sensitivity has increased 10 fold, allowing some cloaked ships to be caught on camera, particularly in high speed shutter images shot at 1/8000th of a second, Allen commented. He also stated that UFOs seen on the India/China border which were reported as yellowish spheres, as well as a recent sighting in Denver, match some of the images that he took in Washington DC. He conjectured that repeated sightings in various locations may have to do with specific portals.

                                                            KEEP LOOKING UP TO THE SKY??????

read up on it

the Paranormal:
 
Computer scientist, specializing in artificial intelligence and neural networks, Maureen Caudill, has worked on such advanced projects as DARPA. She discussed both anecdotal and empirical evidence to prove the existence (and power) of various phenomena, including psychokinesis, remote viewing, energy healing, telepathy, precognition, and reincarnation. Culling research from academic studies conducted over the last decade, she concluded that "our world is richer than just the physical reality around us," but mainstream scientists often try to dismiss evidence for the paranormal because it undermines their materialist viewpoint.

She described an interesting study done in China in which telekinesis was demonstrated by a teenage male who reportedly used his mind to move a folded up piece of paper out of a film canister to a location 20 ft. away. Caudill shared her own experiment trying to get a seed to sprout in her palm. During the process, she felt a mild electric shock, and the seed actually disappeared from her hand. Accessing or manipulating the chi or subtle energy field may be a factor in telekinesis, she suggested.

Paranormal and psychic phenomena seem to function on a different set of rules, operating out of time, and/or space, she commented. For instance, remote viewers could be tapping into scalar fields, a kind of all-at-once consciousness, in which information can be gleaned from any location in the universe instantly, she explained. Caudill also cited some fascinating cases of interspecies telepathy. A talking parrot named N'Kisi was said to wake her owner up from sleep, and then describe what she'd just been dreaming!

RISE AND FALL OF THE MAYA EMPIRE ?

Every civilization has its rise and fall. But no culture has fallen quite like the Maya Empire, seemingly swallowed by the jungle after centuries of urban, cultural, intellectual, and agricultural evolution.

What went wrong? The latest discoveries point not to a cataclysmic eruption, quake, or plague but rather to climate change. And faced with the fallout, one expert says, the Maya may have packed up and gone to the beach.
But first came the boom years, roughly A.D. 300 to 660. At the beginning of the so-called Classic Maya period, some 60 Maya cities—each home to between 60,000 and 70,000 people—sprang up across much of modern-day Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. (Explore an interactive map of key Maya sites.)
Surrounded by pyramids, plazas, ball courts, and government buildings, the urban Maya discussed philosophy, developed an accurate solar-year calendar, and relished a thick, bitter beverage made from cacao beans: the world's first hot chocolate.
Farmers, too, were riding high, turning hillsides into terraced fields to feed the burgeoning population.
Then came the bust, a decline that lasted at least two centuries. By 1100 the residents of once thriving Maya cities seem to have just up and left. But where did they flee to, and why?
In the 19th century, when explorers began discovering the overgrown ruins of "lost cities," theorists imagined an immense volcanic eruption or earthquake or superstorm—or maybe an empire-wide pandemic. (Related: "Maya Mystery Solved by 'Important' Volcanic Discovery?")
But today scientists generally agree that the Maya collapse has many roots, all intertwined—overpopulation, warfare, famine, drought. At the moment, the hottest field of inquiry centers on climate change, perhaps of the Maya's own doing.
(Also see "Climate Change May Have Killed Off Maya Civilization, Study Says.")

Flowering With the Rain
The latest Maya climate-change study, published Friday in the journal Science, analyzes a Belizean cavern's stalagmites—those lumpy, rocky spires on cave floors—to link climate swings to both the rise and fall of the empire.
Formed by water and minerals dripping from above, stalagmites grow quicker in rainier years, giving scientists a reliable record of historical precipitation trends. One sample used in the new study, for example, documents fluctuations as far back as 2,000 years ago.
Among the trends revealed by the Belizean stalagmites: "The early Classic Maya period was unusually wet, wetter than the previous thousand years," according to study leader Douglas Kennett, an environmental anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. "During this time, the population proliferated," aided by a surge in agriculture.
During the wettest decades, from 440 to 660, cities sprouted. All the hallmarks of Maya civilization— sophisticated political systems, monumental architecture, complex religion—came into full flower during this era.
(Read about the rise and fall of the Maya in National Geographic magazine.)
Climate Shift Sparks Conflict
But the 200-year-long wet spell turned out to be an anomaly. When the climate pendulum swung back, hard times followed.
"Mayan systems were founded on those [high] rainfall patterns," Kennett said. "They could not support themselves when patterns changed."
The following centuries, from about 660 to 1000, were characterized by repeated and, at times extreme, drought. Agriculture declined and—not coincidentally—social conflict rose, Kennet says.
The Maya religious and political system was based on the belief that rulers were in direct communication with the gods. When these divine connections failed to produce rainfall and good harvests, tensions likely developed.
Within the scant 25 years between 750 and 775, for example, 39 embattled rulers commissioned the same number of stone monuments—evidence of "rivalry, war, and strategic alliances," according to Kennett's study.
But times would get even harder.
The stalagmite record suggests that between 1020 and 1100 the region suffered its longest dry spell of the last 2,000 years. With it, the study suggests, came Maya crop failure, famine, mass migration, and death.
By the time Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, inland Maya populations had decreased by 90 percent, and urban centers had been largely abandoned. Farms had become overgrown and cities reclaimed by forest.
(Take a Maya quiz.)
A Cautionary Tale?
The collapse, though, wasn't exactly all natural. To some extent, the Maya may have designed their own decline.
"There were tens of millions of people in the area, and they were building cities and farms at the expense of the forest," climate scientist Benjamin I. Cook said.
Widespread deforestation reduced the flow of moisture from the ground to the atmosphere, interrupting the natural rain cycle and in turn reducing precipitation, says Cook, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
According to computer simulations Cook ran for a study published in Geophysical Research Letters this past August, the localized drying decreased atmospheric moisture by 5 to 15 percent annually. Even a 10 percent decrease is considered an environmental catastrophe, he says.
Add this to the broader drying trend and the situation becomes dire—a cautionary tale for modern society, according to Cook. Today, as more and more forestland is turned into farms and cities, and as global temperatures continue to rise, we may risk the same fate that befell the Maya, he says.

But, according to Arizona State University professor of environment and society B.L. Turner, "that's the kind of oversimplification we're trying to get away from. The Mayan situation is not applicable today—our society is just so radically different now."
Lure of the Beach
In a study published in August by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Turner attempts to correct some common misconceptions, beginning with the idea that Maya civilization vanished after the conquistadores arrived.
"It didn't cease to exist; there are still today Mayan people in the area. The culture, the traditions have been maintained," he said. But the cities, historically, have not—and that's odd.
Throughout global history, he said, "rarely can you find a large sustained population that just left and never came back," Turner said. The closest analogue he can think of is the sudden, and final, abandonment of Cambodia's Angkor Wat complex in the 15th century.
Turner's study concludes that the natural environment recovered rather quickly after the dry centuries. Why, then, didn't the Maya reclaim their glorious cities?
Turner points to the coasts. Fleeing starving, warring inland cities, many Maya made a beeline for the shore. Trade also shifted, from overland paths to coastal routes, he suggests.
With life relatively comfortable on the coast, the inland Mayan cities may have simply been forgotten, Turner says. No catastrophic earthquake, no plague, no curse, but rather a gradual migration to the beach, where life was a bit mellower.
That is, until the Spanish arrived.
More: See National Geographic pictures of Maya ruins and artifacts >>

READ UP ON THE PLEIADIAN AND ALEX COLLIER

November 9, 2012   Coast Insider Audio

ET Contacts & Intervention:

Filling for in for George on Thursday night, John B. Wells was joined by Robert Potter, who has been experiencing UFO contacts since 1975 with (the late) Dr. Fred Bell in Laguna Beach. Potter said he's been working with a man who goes by the code name "Cobra," who's been releasing information in regards to an ET/Inner Earth or "Agarthan" network that's helping our planet to heal. There's a "galactic enforcement codex" being enacted due to regressive ETs' (Greys, Reptilians etc.) genetic manipulation of humans-- the positive ETs, who are part of a Galactic Federation, are arriving to help us remove the "hostile force that has been here for 26,000 years," he said. The Earth has been in a semi-quarantine position because we were infiltrated by these forces during the Atlantean/Lemurian times, which led to a destructive planetary war, he continued.

As we move through the Galactic Plane, and more light is hitting our planet, humans have evolved, "and we're beginning to reestablish our galactic humanity, and our membership to the Galactic Federation," Potter announced. The hostile forces or "lower astral beings" are being cleared out by various higher dimensional beings & spaceships, and the underground bases of the Illuminati and secret cabals "have been cut off at the knees, and their attempts to create WWIII have been thwarted," he related. Yet, the negative forces have used such things as chemtrails, vaccinations, HAARP, and GMO foods to genetically alter humanity, he lamented.

Potter described some of the encounters that he and Fred Bell had with Semjase, a Pleiadian being of light, as well as accounts from contactees such as Frank Stranges, Alex Collier, and Norm Paulsen. The displays of space fleets/UFOs, which began increasing in intensity around 1991 in Mexico City, "are part of the process of identification and preparation for open interplanetary exchange," he noted.

( COAST TO COAST )

Lost Mayan Technology:

Structural engineer, James O'Kon, in addition to designing award-winning projects in major cities, has also spent 40 years investigating Maya engineering feats and lost Maya technology. On Monday's show, he discussed damage from Hurricane Sandy, as well as how many important discoveries in Mayan ruins have been overlooked by archeologists. Regarding the damage from Sandy, developers have typically ignored suggestions not to build where the water level is too low. Now, they need to put in sea walls or structures, as well as build the sand dunes back up to protect the vulnerable areas, he said.

The Maya civilization was one of the longest in history, and they developed complex sciences including astronomy, and mathematics, as well as their own written language. O'Kon is particularly impressed by their "quadripartite cosmic philosophy," dividing the cosmos into four vertical elements, which they set into motion with time. This kind of approach is similar to today's space-time continuum model, he marveled. "They absolutely used this to determine all their future and past events, and this mindset...kick-started their technology, and agronomy," he continued, adding that 60% of the food in the world today, such as corn, originally came from the Maya.

The tools the Maya used have not been widely recognized by archeologists, O'Kon declared. According to his research, they fabricated tools from a type of jade that is harder than iron, tougher than steel, and facilitated drilling and chiseling precise sculptures and structures. Their infrastructure was also quite sophisticated, with paved and elevated roads (which could withstand floods) running hundreds of miles, and used for trade, he noted. O'Kon also talked about a recent discovery in Guatemala in what may have been a studio for Mayan astronomers. The uncovered calculations and murals indicated a Mayan calendar with 17 "baktun" cycles which would run an additional 1,124 years after the end date of December 21, 2012 in the calendar with 13 baktuns. For more on this, see O'Kon's blog posting, and an article from National Geographic.
 

UFOs.AND CROPCIRCIES:

On Thursday's show, investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe discussed a September 2012 sighting at Black Diamond, Washington of a triangular craft with glowing spheres, climate change brought on by the collapse of Arctic summer sea ice by 2016, and a complex crop formation with 43 circles near ancient mounds in Ohio. In her first report, she interviewed power-line machinist Gregory McManus, who on September 22nd, saw seven, large, red-orange glowing spheres on the bottom of a large, triangle-shaped aerial craft that was completely silent (see illustration). The spheres, which looked like pool balls racked in a triangle, were dropped by the craft one at a time into a nearby canal. Shortly after that, house lights briefly dimmed out from across the canal. He and his wife videotaped several minutes of the craft, but later found out their camera malfunctioned and only a few seconds of the incident were recorded. 

The Arctic summer sea ice melted by the first of September 2012 to the smallest coverage on record since satellite observations began in 1979, Linda reported. She spoke with one of the world's leading ice experts, Prof. Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who says a "global disaster" is now unfolding with huge methane-rich continental shelves around the Arctic beginning to melt, and methane plumes coming to the ocean surface. As methane release increases, the planetary temperature could rise beyond 4 degrees F. Such climate change will likely lead to water wars and famine in the years ahead, he warned, adding that technology might help slow the build-up of greenhouse gases. "I would really go for a crash course in building thorium power stations and some kind of very serious rapid research into ways to either take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or geoengineering solutions that will give us some more time by cutting off some of the solar ra diation by putting aerosols into the atmosphere," he said. 

In her two-part report, Linda described one of the most complex crop formations ever found in the US, with 43 circles on seven "arms," rings and circles in standing corn, which was discovered in the middle of September in a field near the Chillicothe, Ohio, ancient Mound Group - a mysterious archaeological site that is at least 2,000 years old. She interviewed Jeff Wilson, Director of the Independent Crop Circle Researchers' Association (ICCRA), who studied the remarkable pattern spanning about 350 feet in diameter with very few corn stalks flat to the ground. "Almost every stem is bent at a different height above the ground, yet from the air, it is a clear 7-fold geometry perhaps unique in the history of American corn formations," he said. Scientific examination of the corn stalk growth nodes revealed anomalous lengthening that has convinced Wilson that this is not a man-made formation. She also spoke with biophysicist W.C. Levengood who exa mined the Chillicothe corn samples, and found them among the most unusual he'd ever looked at. Levengood, who has studied plants from more than 400 crop formations, has a new book out, co-written by Penny Kelly, titled Consciousness and Energy.
 

(ETs)

naturopathic physician, and the founder of the Institute of Applied Energetics, Rita Louise, shared her most recent work researching the genetic origins of humankind, through the study of various ancient mythologies and cultures. She and her co-author Wayne Laliberte found that there were concepts and storylines which paralleled across cultures that you could line-up and create a chronology from, starting with the formation of the Earth. According to her thesis, a group of ETs first came to Mars, and then relocated to Earth after a destruction occurred on the Red Planet.

"We were most certainly engineered by the gods. Mythology is very clear that there were a number of attempts to create mankind. Some were successful because we're here, but many of them were unsuccessful," she stated. In contrast to Sitchin's theory that the Annunaki created humans as a slave race, Louise suggested that our creation could be viewed more like a "domestication," such as how we have domesticated certain animals. She also did not find a consistency in the idea that the ETs were here to mine for gold, but there was some evidence that ochre was mined 40,000 to 90,000 years ago. Louise further speculated that the ETs may still be here, but they aren't able to survive under normal conditions, thus they live in their ships, or subterranean or underwater environments.

News from the Discovery Channel

Fatal Distraction: Can UFOs Cause Air Accidents?

Analysis by Ray Villard
Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:54 AM ET
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Pilots have been seeing unexplained things outside their cockpit windows since the dawn of aviation.
One of the most legendary examples happened near the end of World War II when both Allied and German pilots reported seeing fiery glowing objects that followed their planes and then disappeared in wild maneuvers.
The sky phantoms were nicknamed foo-fighters (long before the 1990s alternative rock band), and thought to be secret military weapons. The term "UFO" didn't appear until a few years later -- at the height of anticipation over the eventuality of human space travel.

"... the number of fatalities in airline accidents caused by UFOs equals the number of motorists killed in vehicle collisions with unicorns."

SLIDE SHOW: True Halloween Horror Stories from Space
In the Oct. 19th, an issue of U.S. News & World Report, editor Michael Morella warns that UFOs distract pilots and can cause air disasters.
To the best of my knowledge there has never been a documented commercial air crash attributed to a cockpit distraction due to a UFO buzzing outside. Historically, pilot distractions inside the cockpit have triggered crashes, including: pilot chitchat, misreading of instruments, preoccupation with certain flight controls, and other loss of situational awareness. There isn't one flight recorder transcript I know of where, in the doomed flight's final minutes, the pilot says: "Is that an alien spaceship out there?"
UFO debunker Robert Sheaffer puts it more bluntly blog: "... the number of fatalities in airline accidents caused by UFOs equals the number of motorists killed in vehicle collisions with unicorns."
ANALYSIS: Why Do People Believe in UFOs?
There is a legendary case of a military aircraft crashing during a UFO pursuit. In January 1948, four P-51 Mustang fighters were rerouted to check out an object described as one fourth the angular size of the full moon (the diameter was estimated to be 300 feet, but this can't be calculated without knowing the object's distance). The P-51s broke off the pursuit except for one pilot Thomas Mantell who climbed to 25,000 feet without oxygen, blacked out, and spiraled to a crash landing.
As is symptomatic of UFO hyperbole, this story has been embellished with claims the UFO was gigantic and metallic, and it perhaps used a space weapon on Mantell to keep him away. The incident was a game-changer for belief in UFOs at the time. UFOs could shoot back! The simplest explanation is that Mantell was chasing a silver 30-foot diameter secret Navy high altitude balloon. (Another secret balloon probably crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947, but that’s another story.)
Yes, there are decades of pilots reporting oddball lights in the sky spooking them, and even a New York Times best-seller entitled: "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record." But there has never been a corroborated report of a truly exotic vehicle of obvious extraterrestrial construction (something more than a blob, a Frisbee-looking thing, or other primitive geometric shape) ever being seen in broad daylight and up close.
ANALYSIS: NASA Debunks Mysterious Triangular 'UFO'
This is ironic when considering the oddball case of the lawn chair UFO. On July 2nd, 1982, truck driver Larry Walters tied 42 helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair in the backyard of his girlfriend's house in San Pedro, Calif. He shot up to 16,000 feet where a TWA pilot incredulously reported the details of seeing a man adrift like the character in the 2009 cartoon "Up."
An interstellar spaceship zooming through the clouds should make a much bigger impression on pilots. But this has never happened despite thousands of UFO reports per year.
UFOs are almost exclusively seen as just weird lights. And, often the misinterpretation is made that the lights are attached to a physical body, as in the case of the legendary Phoenix lights sighting in 1997 (which Morella references as an outstanding UFO mystery). The Phoenix lights have been debunked as a hoax where flares were attached to a series of helium balloons. Witnesses' imaginations filled in the nonexistent details to describe a monstrous flying delta-shaped vehicle.
Similarly, a report from 1968 describes a cigar shaped object with rectangular windows (a commercial alien tourist spaceliner?), when it was really found to be the breakup of a a Soviet satellite, as tracked by NORAD.

WATCH VIDEOS: Aliens, UFOs, Hoaxes and Other Mysteries

One of the eeriest UFO tales comes from the tragic July 1996 midair explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island. Numerous witnesses reported seeing a "streak of light" moving to a point where a large fireball suddenly appeared. Ever since then conspiracy theorists have come out of the woodwork claiming that a military surface-to-air missile brought the 747 down.
NEWS: Secret FBI File Exposes Roswell UFO
Not to be left behind, UFO enthusiasts claimed that a mysterious object was seen 70 miles from the crash site 45-minutes before the explosion. Witnesses said that the object didn’t look like an airplane but seemed to change color from grey to silver.
Shortly after the Flight 800 crash an astrophysicist did come up with a plausible extraterrestrial explanation for the streak of light. Mike Shara calculated that given the rate of meteors impacting our atmosphere, there is a statistical chance that a large meteor fireball should explode close enough to a commercial aircraft once every 50 years to cause it to crash. However, the Flight 800 fuselage did not have the chemical signature of meteor debris. A detailed investigation traced the explosion to a short circuit that ignited fuel tank vapor.
For those true believers who think that flying saucers are buzzing our aircraft, let's look at the logic. Why would any alien visitor, who has taken the time and expense to come here from another star, be interested in "toying" with our aircraft, as the foo-fighter observers reported? I'd only expect to seen that kind of nonsense in a Bugs Bunny cartoon with Marvin the Martian.
What's more, Morella writes that "five percent (of UFO sightings) ... seem to defy rational explanation," This would throw the phenomenon into the fantasy land of metaphysics or the supernatural. Statistically, this really means that there is more noise than signal in the residual data. In other words -- in the absence of tangible evidence -- the residual sightings are strongly influenced by an individual's perception and over-interpretation.
This is why, despite over 60 years of UFO reports, they remain as irrelevant to modern science as Linus' illusory search for The Great Pumpkin.
Hot rod aliens or not, air transportation is still the safest form of travel. But if you are skittish about looking out the window and seeing a bug-eyed alien looking back at you, keep the cabin window shade closed.
Image credits: Associated Press, NASA