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Mother of Autistic U.K. Hacker Calls on Obama for Help

Forty-three-year-old Londoner Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the U.S. (as well as up to 60 years in a U.S. prison) if convicted of hacking into government computers, reports the BBC. He also has Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism disorder. After numerous failed attempts to have her son tried in the U.K., McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp (pictured) is pleading directly to President Obama for help, having sent him a letter signed by 40 Members of British Parliament asking him to "bring this shameful episode to an end." Speaking outside the High Court last week, she added, "I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing."

McKinnon claims he was simply looking for suppressed UFO-related documents, and that the attacks were in no way malicious. Still, laws were broken, and two judges found that extradition was the proper response, but also admitted that extradition and prison in the U.S. for the handicapped McKinnon might be "very difficult indeed." With the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty recently failing to get a revision, it's unknown exactly what Obama's choices are in the matter. But Sharp is hopeful. Outside the High Court, she told reporters, "Obama wouldn't have this. He doesn't want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be a guy with Asperger's, a UFO guy." [From: BBC News]

Computers

Children Alarmed by Teacher's 'War of the World's' Style Abduction


When Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' pretended that aliens had invaded in 1938, Americans didn't fare too well, becoming panicked and believing the staging was real. So when a similar trick is played on British school children 71 years later, it's no surprise the gag didn't go as administrators had planned.

At a Sussex-based elementary school, an event designed to inspire student creativity and engage their imagination backfired when one staff member was 'abducted' by a pretend UFO, reports the Telegraph. Aided by local police, who provided flashing lights and sirens for the performance, the headteacher informed the 360 students that a spaceship had crashed near the school, and the pupils should "follow a trail of debris" before finding the craft. As a part of the invasion, a teacher was snatched, distressing some younger children.

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Audio/Video, Web

NASA YouTube Footage Fuels UFO Conspiracies


NASA video footage recently uploaded to YouTube by a user named 'secretnasaman' has created a stir among UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists, alike. The hotly debated films come from different space missions, and capture odd, moving lights in the background. In the above film, which follows a test satellite, a light appears at the bottom of the frame around the 1:18 mark and then slowly moves upward out of camera view. A second film, also from a 1996 mission, seems to show numerous unidentified objects zipping around the screen.

Leave it to NASA and the eyewitness astronauts to shoot down the alien claims, though, and ruin everyone's fun. Mario Runco, the astronaut involved in the first incident, attributed the luminescent abnormality to either ground light or a star. According to FOXNews, he said that if it were an alien craft attempting to make first contact, he would "be the first one to step up. I'd want the credit." An astronaut on the second film, Thomas Jones, also dismissed extraterrestrial involvement, saying the points of light were merely ice crystals or residue being moved around by the thruster exhaust plume.

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UFOs? No, Just Aircraft That Looks Like Spacecraft.


When NASA footage from the 1990s was recently uploaded to YouTube, it sparked a renewal of the debate over whether or not the government conceals knowledge of alien activity. Fittingly, FOX News has created a list of military planes and contraptions that may confuse amateur sky watchers and inspire visions of extraterrestrial visitors.

According to the story, the CIA attributes half of all UFO sightings from the '50s and '60s to the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. The military and other government organizations may have also promoted UFO hysteria in order to maintain the secrecy of the covert planes. If you've served in the military, been to an air show, or just seen stealth planes in action, you know that they can appear to morph shapes and change directions instantly, which could easily lead even more recent spectators to believe they've witnessed something extraordinary.

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Green Tech

UFOs Attacking Wind Turbines?

Despite their green appeal, there are a lot of people out there who aren't too pleased by the increasing prevalence of wind turbines. People say they kill birds, ruin views, make irritating noises, and are a general menace. Some residents in a sleepy town in England are wondering if visitors from other planets hate the things, too, and are indicating that one of their wind turbines was destroyed by a UFO.

Locals in Conisholme, a village in Lincolnshire, reported hearing a loud noise and seeing glowing orbs in the sky one night, and then they woke up to find one of the wind turbines mangled. The turbine manufacturer has no explanation for what happened -- nor can it find the missing third blade. We're sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation (after all turbines have been known to explode on their own), but we admit the alien theory is rather intriguing. [From: Silicon Alley Insider]

Car Tech, eBay

Flying Car for Sale on eBay




Moller International will end an eBay auction for its '80s flying car prototype -- dubbed the M200X -- on Tuesday, according to BoingBoing.net.

While there have been any number of flying cars introduced over the years (like this one and this one, for instance), the M200X should really garner the most praise from sci-fi fans, as its UFO-like aesthetics are very much in line with that genre's most memorable images.

That being said, although it's billed as a "flying car," don't expect this thing to usher in 'The Jetsons' age quite yet; judging from the video (after the break), the machine hovers more than it flies, and runs at pretty unremarkable speeds. What is remarkable, though, is that the reserve price for the airborne vehicle is set at $19,000, a price far lower than those of other flying machines.

Plus, we're willing to bet that it gets better mileage than your SUV.

You'll find video of the airborne auto in action after the break. [From: BoingBoing.net]

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Celebrities

Apollo 14 Astronaut Claims Government UFO Cover-Up

Apollo 14 Astronaut Claims Government Alien CoverupDo aliens exist? Most scientists will tell you that it's hard to imagine there not being life somewhere out there, given the vastness of the universe. The more controversial question is whether that alien life is coming to visit us here. According to Dr. Edgar Mitchell, astronaut aboard the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon, not only has alien life been here to Earth, but our government is covering it up.

The 77-year-old Mitchell participated in the longest moon walk in history, over nine hours back in 1971. In a recent radio interview he made some startling claims. "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet," he said, "and the UFO phenomena is real." He goes on to make some claims about our government's handling of the situation that sound right out of an 'X-Files' episode:
It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it. I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit
That's quite a claim, and from quite a reputable source, but is it enough? Plenty have been spotted around the world and there's no shortage of believers, but we're thinking it'll still take more than this to convince skeptics. [Source: NEWS.com.au]


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Computers

Share Your Close Encounters With Spielberg's UFO and Ghost Site

While moviegoers will be filling multiplex seats this weekend, hoping to be transported to a place of adventure and a little fantasy with the latest 'Indiana Jones' blockbuster, Steven Spielberg is busy working up another kind of transporting experience, this one more in line with themes from his sci-fi classic 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.'

'The Rising' (the Web site is currently just a placeholder) is the name of Spielberg's ghost and UFO social networking site. Yes, that's right, social networking for the flying object set.

The Rising will be a place for users to share experiences, detailing sightings, abductions, theories and anything else related to the topic of UFO spotting or ghost hunting. Poltergeist hunters are welcome, we assume. Original content will be hosted, too. [Source: TechCrunch.]

Green Tech

British Government Releases 200 Reports of UFO 'Sightings'

Drawing of a supposed flying saucer sighting in the United Kingdon.

Flying saucers? Alien encounters? It may sound cliché to seriously consider visits from little green men descending from saucer-shaped spacecraft, but the British government is releasing first-person accounts from people who have claimed to see unidentified flying objects.

Among these encounters are indeed alleged visits from space dudes in green.

A spokesman for the National Archives says the government is releasing the documents in response to several Freedom of Information Act requests. About 200 files will be made available to the public during the next four years as part of an effort by the Ministry of Defence to show it is "open and transparent."

Among the first files released there are accounts of alleged sightings over the River Thames, reports by patrons at a pub who saw lights in the sky near Gatwick Airport (what were they drinking, we want to know), and even a sighting by two U.S. Air Force policemen who claimed to see unusual lights near a Royal Air Force location.

Perhaps the best of the batch is an account by a 78-year-old man who says he met an alien in 1983. After spending some time on board a UFO he was asked questions by the alleged aliens. In the end, they told him to disembark with a somewhat condescending statement: "You are too old and too infirm for our purpose."

The lesson here? If you're hoping for a more successful alien encounter, perhaps it's time to start your fitness regimen now.

Want to learn more? Go to the U.K. National Archives site. [Source: BBC News]

Computers

Texas UFO Sighting Explained?


You know that UFO that was spotted in Texas last week? The one that was supposedly a mile long and traveling at 3,000 miles per hour while being chased by military F-16's? Well, the military has a fairly simple explanation. It turns out it wasn't a UFO that was being chased by F-16's, it actually was F-16's -- ten in fact -- flying in formation with lights on that may have created the illusion of a large craft.

The 301st Fighter Wing at the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base indicated that it was indeed performing some exercises that evening and that the sightings were simply its jets. Mystery solved? For most, yes, but conspiracy theorists won't be able to stop thinking about this one just yet. It seems that after the sightings last week, the 301st indicated that it didn't have any jets in the area at the time. So, was this an innocent mistake, or is this some government cover-up? You decide.

From cbs11tv.com and MSNBC

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Computers

Possible UFO Spotted Over Texas, Chased By F16s

UFO Spotted Over Texas, Chased by F16s

Wondering how yesterday's MacBook Air got so thin? Some, of course, think it was just the result of decades of research by Apple techies. We think we have a better explanation, though: alien technology. Don't believe us? According to the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, several witnesses say they spotted something mysterious in the air over Texas last night. Said unidentified flying object (UFO) was traveling at an estimated 3,000 miles per hour while being chased by military jets!

One of the witnesses, a pilot named Steve Allen, indicated that the alleged craft was difficult to see, but based on the lights that appeared to be on the edges of the thing, Allen estimated it to be about one mile long and a half-mile wide.
The lights went from corner to corner. It was directly above Highway 67 traveling towards Stephenville at a high rate of speed - about 3,000 miles per hour is what I would estimate.
No mention of how thin this thing was, but it would have had to have been a large craft to be sure, and a fast one, something we certainly don't have in our military -- at least not that we're aware of anyhow.

No comment from Apple, for whatever that's worth.

From Stephenville Empire-Tribune (via BoingBoing)

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Wired Celebrates 60 Years of Flying Saucers

Wired Celebrates 60 Years of Flying Saucers
Wired is celebrating 60 years of flying saucers with an article giving a brief overview of the history of UFOs, aliens and conspiracy theories -- everything from Roswell to tales of abduction to the 1995 Fox special 'Alien Autopsy' is covered. Apparently, even the Spielberg film 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' was initially subject to suspicion. UFO enthusiasts believed the film was part of a U.S. Government project to ease the public into the idea of friendly aliens.

Head on over to Wired to get your fill of little green men.

From Wired

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Audio/Video, Cameras, Computers

UFO Terrorizes Flickr Photo Site



A user on Flickr, rajman1977, has stirred up a bit of interest with a series of photos called "Bizarre Thing in Sky".

The photos were supposedly taken by rajman while visiting his fiance's parents in California. They show what he describes as a "bizarre thing in [the] sky." It gets more interesting: Last month, someone names Chad claimed he saw a similar object while hiking near Lake Tahoe, a sighting he shared on Coast to Coast, George Noory's paranormal radio show site.

We're guessing Chad and rajman1977 are probably the same person, or they at least know one another.

Sure, it's probably a fake, but the crazy part is the photo-manipulation frenzy the image has started on Flickr from just about anybody with a decent photo-editing program like Photoshop.

To prove just how easy it is to make something fake, one user went through the trouble of recreating the "UFO" with computer-generated graphics. In an hour and a half, he had a more convincing space craft than either Chad or Rajman.The object looks to be about the size of a bicycle, is way too clear in most of the photos, and honestly looks like a prop from the '70s version of 'Battlestar Galactica.'

One dead give away is this photo, where part of the power line simply disappears making it appear as if the craft is below the power lines. The photo is likely the work of a skilled, but amateur PhotoShopper.

Several people have suggested that this is part of a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming 'Transformers' film. There is a stark similarity between the font on the craft to that of the robots in the film. However, we believe that the studio could probably afford a better fake.


From Boing Boing





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