Google Doodle with UFO depiction to honor Morristown UFO hoaxers, Chris Russo and Joe Rudy. Today is the 9 month anniversary of their first launch using helium balloons and flares to fake a UFO sighting.

These guys are a joke and no one noticed. Helium baloons in the freezing weather they claim they were in would not get more than 500 foot up and the flare would be twisting/spinning due to the force of the flare's flame. the flame it's self would leave a heavy smoke in that type of weather also.

I think what these two guys did was amazing. They proved their point. The people on here posting against them are the very people who got fooled. I hope Chris and Joe get their own show out of this. We need rational thinking people like this in the public eye. To all you UFO buffs...in your face. They gotcha!!

Ok, so these two set out to discredit the notion of the "eye witness account" of an unidentified flying object. The entire premise of their activity was flawed. Let it be known that I do not personally believe we've been visted by extraterrestrial spacecraft, however, I have absolutely seen unidentified flying objects. Example: lights moving in the night sky. What is it? You can't tell until you hear the jet engines and see the flashing beacon lights. Up until you can identify the object as a plane, it's simply an unidentified flying object to you. Obviously, you could make an educated guess, but I think you see my point. These people most definitely saw an unidentified flying object, that should not be in question. The real test of gullibility (is that a word?) should be how many linked this to a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.

These two people are complete morons. To many good eye witness accounts over the course of all recorded history plainly shows that not just UFO'S but actual etraterrestrial beings with ships are here, and have been here since the first recorded history. These two idiots successfully made a un identified flying object,  no doubt. But is it like all the sightings that have been reported as lights in the sky? "NO"!! metalic craft in plain sight in broad daylight by people of every proffession imaginable. Are we not taught in our religions that god is in the heavens, and so are his angels??? Or are you atheiest as well? Stop trying to trick people with your deceiptful ways. I challenge these two to really study the subject in detail. And if you walk away with things with no explination, then you find the truth...  " <> "

This article makes it obvious that the author has no knowledge of the scope and history of the UFO phenomenon. Anyone who takes the time to look into the serious literature on this subject will realize that a group of lights meandering slowly in the distant night sky is in no way a compelling UFO sighting. The reason is because flares dangling from balloons look and behave in exactly that way. Were the lights to alternately hover in place and zip across the sky at incredible speeds, make right angle turns without slowing down and be tracked on radar executing such maneuvers, then you would have something of interest. Flares on balloons - not to mention airplanes, helicopters, meteors, weather balloons, blimps, satellites, birds, the planet Venus, sun dogs, clouds and swamp gas - do not move like that. Not surprisingly, most people are unaware that many such cases exist. This lack of knowledge - and the subsequent notion that UFOs are a "nonsense problem" - stems from the fact that the average person's education on the subject begins and ends with shows like UFO Hunters and an occasional news report on a "sighting" like the one referenced in Begley's article. Compelling, worthwhile information on the topic of UFOs is not found on television. It is found in books and other written material  And just as 90-95 percent of UFO reports can be attributed to the misidentification of conventional objects like airplanes and stars, the vast majority of "UFO books" available are equally worthless. However, just as there are "real" UFO sightings - well-documented reports made by reliable observers of flying objects for which there is no conventional explanation - there is a "serious" body of literature on these phenomena. Much of it can be accessed online for free. For those who are curious about UFOs but don't know where to begin reading, here are a few good points of departure: 1) James E. McDonald, Science in Default: 22 Years of Inadequate UFO Investigation (http://www.cufon.org/cufon/mcdon2.htm). This paper was presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the University of Arizona on December 27, 1969. Also see McDonald's 1968 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics (http://www.ncas.org/ufosymposium/index.html). 2) The now defunct National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena put out a good document in the 60's called The UFO Evidence, which can be read for free, along with other books, at (http://www.nicap.org/onlinebooks.htm). I have not yet read the other books on the NICAP site, but the 1968 House hearings referenced above can also be accessed there. 3) Astrophysicitst Bernard Haisch maintains a website called ufoskeptic.com that contains some great, concise articles. 4) The UFO Controversy in America, written by Temple University historian David Jacobs is probably the best historical overview of the topic I've come across. It is available at Amazon.com for a reasonable price. 5) If you absolutely cannot bring yourself to sit down an read for an extended period of time, watch a documentary called Out of the Blue. You should be able to find in on Google Video.

"Nice job, guys"???!  What did they prove?  Nothing.  This is not science, it is grandstanding, and shows the author Begley also knows nothing about science.  Science means investigating some phenomena without any bias whatsoever; could lights in the night sky or even daylight sightings be lenticular clouds, or flares, or human error, or alien spacecraft?  Yes to all of these, with varying degrees of probability.  To deny any outcomes before the truth is known is bad science and in this case, terrible journalism.  Educate yourself, Begley.

What is sad here is not just how awful this article is, but rather that no editor at Newsweek likely knows how awful it is.  Some in the US mainstream media may think they have in Joe and Chris the "Doug and Dave" of aerial sightings.  Joe and Chris are in for a rather unpleasant journey if they are following in the footseteps of "Doug and Dave."    They fooled a TV show.  Bravo.  The U. S. government has fooled Newsweek for 60 years.    When it comes to hoaxing, the government knows how to do it right.  And some media, like Newsweek know just how to roll over and play stupid.  Bravo again.

Many people seem to forget one simple fact when dealing with things in the sky: UFO still stands for Unidentified Flying Object! The objects that Rudy and Russo released into the night sky on January 5th, to those who saw them, were in fact Unidentified Flying Objects.

I don't disagree that shows like UFO hunters participate in some bad science and then make bogus reports, but it's important to remember that anything found flying in the sky that can't be easily identified CAN rightly be called a UFO.

Once someone see a real ufo in the sky.  More than just a a light in the sky.  Then it does not matter what other people say or do.  Seeing one of them is something I wish I never seen.

So when people like me sees something more than just a light in the sky it doesn't matter what people say or do, we know the truth.  

Im So Happy to See Alot of people waking up :) Wake up monkey's , Use your Brain ... UFO"S ARE 100 % REAL >>>> Alot of Great post's just in the comment section alone .. ROFLMAO .. Seemed like a better Read then the newsweek site itself... Alot of Great Post's Like :

Posted By: XPIOLT (April 4, 2009 at 1:44 AM)

So what you people and Newsweek are saying is that all investigations and all research should stop? The earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth? There is no New World Order and Newsweek is not owned and controlled by the global elite? I wonder who here really are the gullible ones, the ones that investigate the mysterious or the ones that fall for those involved in the mysterious. Who is to say that these sick fks that are claiming to have created this hoax are not lying. You and Newsweek are awful quick to believe them, why? Did they offer some proof we can see? Some video? No, just their word that they did it. Now that's science! It sounds more like a typical debunking by to me by Newsweek or Popular Mechanics or some other Fed controlled magazine, again. And of course Newsweek has all their little sheeple all lined up to come in and comment on how it is all a hoax and how stupid people are to believe in UFOs, right on que. Unfkg believable!!!

Posted By: Mocassinman (April 3, 2009 at 11:37 PM)

Bill Birnes and the other UFO Hunters are making a good living perpetrating fraud. they have to know what they are doing. Half of the show they spend convincing themselves they are being objective the other half they use trick and contrived video shoots to get the effect they want to hoodwink the audience of people with the minds of grammar school second graders.

They do a great disservice to the people who have actually have seen the authentic unexplained objects in the sky and elsewhere. This story shows exactly how easy it is to convince and the reader and T.V. watcher to spread U.F.O. hysteria.

' It is time to open the book and files on U.F.O.s in the World and disseminate the truth world wide.

U.F.O. Disclosure is probably the greatest step that can be made currently in the fledgling U.S.A. Democracy. Moc "

Now that last Quote ... is Hard Cold Truth and should be a fact ..... Unless the Brainless Monkey's

evolution Takes a step forward ... won't happen ... To Many stupid people around still like monkeys.

Really wanna wake atleast 70-80% up .. Keeping Talking about it ... Peace .. God Bless ,, Keep up the Great Posts ...

Um, Xpiolt, if you follow the links at the bottom of the story, you will see videos of them constructing and launching the fraud.  It's pretty conclusive proof.  If you find it easier to believe that there are massive UFOs flying over our country and their existence is being covered up by a vast conspiracy that requires Newsweek to be secretly controlled by the federal government, rather than two jokers and some flares in the dark pulled a pretty simple prank, then, well, I guess there's not much left to discuss.

So what you people and Newsweek are saying is that all investigations and all research should stop? The earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth? There is no New World Order and Newsweek is not owned and controlled by the global elite? I wonder who here really are the gullible ones, the ones that investigate the mysterious or the ones that fall for those involved in the mysterious. Who is to say that these sick fks that are claiming to have created this hoax are not lying. You and Newsweek are awful quick to believe them, why? Did they offer some proof we can see? Some video? No, just their word that they did it. Now that's science! It sounds more like a typical debunking by to me by Newsweek or Popular Mechanics or some other Fed controlled magazine, again. And of course Newsweek has all their little sheeple all lined up to come in and comment on how it is all a hoax and how stupid people are to believe in UFOs, right on que. Unfkg believable!!!

It's not just pseudoscience that attracts the gullible.  There's also pseudoeconomics--the belief that printing money will fix a recession or forcing car makers to produce cars that nobody wants will fix their problems.  The uneducated and maleducated will always be fodder for simplistic, feel-good solutions.

Bill Birnes and the other UFO Hunters are making a good living perpetrating fraud. they have to know what they are doing. Half of the show they spend convincing themselves they are being objective the other half they use trick and contrived video shoots to get the effect they want to hoodwink the audience of people with the minds of grammar school second graders.

They do a great disservice to the people who have actually have seen the authentic unexplained objects in the sky and elsewhere. This story shows exactly how easy it is to convince and the reader and T.V. watcher to spread U.F.O. hysteria.

It is time to open the book and files on U.F.O.s in the World and disseminate the truth world wide.

U.F.O. Disclosure is probably the greatest step that can be made currently in the fledgling U.S.A. Democracy. Moc

Hoaxes are perpetrated all the time.  The very clear issue is that there are Unidentified Flying or Aerial Objects.  If we were to buy into ALL the Skeptic’s reasoning we could have an attack by an unknown intruder and not report it because all those lights are just hoaxes or figments of our imagination.

From the late fall of 1944 through the early spring of 1945, the Japanese launched more than 9,000 "fire balloons", of which 300 were found or observed in the US. Some guesswork gives the total number that made the trip at about 1,000.  How many people thought these were UFO’s?  Good thing the military did not ignore what people were reporting.  Case in point!!

I believe many people that have had experiences they cannot explain are sincere, even if they are sincerely wrong.  UFO investigators are as necessary IMHO as SETI.  Both attempt to throw light on the “unknowns”.  There are charlatan skeptics also!!  Believe there are people in many different professions that do what they do for the money, others for doing what they think is right, regardless of badmouthing by those that do not even investigate or hold true to what they believe in.  I believe most of the believers in UFO/UAO’s do it in the pursuit of truth.

What Newsweek and eSkeptics should be investigating is the fraud and hack that  is Bill Birnes - owner of UFO Magazine and the lead investigator of UFO Hunters!

Birnes' Day After Roswell book was based on lies and disinformation! And he openly admits to the "fact" of time travel on his UFO Hunters show and in his UFO Magazine! Huh??!!  Birnes is a phony out for the money and celebrity! He's the worst thing to come along for Ufology and has set the controversial subject  back about 50 years!

They're much, much too young to have become Republicans.

PS:

Further I suggest that the History Channel sue them for fraud.

Gee. I call these two LIARS.

LIARS say something happened when it didn't.

LIARS make up stories for their own selfish agneda.

LIARS are usually prone to self righteousness, self satisfaction and other ILLS ("we're right, you're wrong--stupid!")

Mocking people for investigating UFOs...yeah, this planet has really evolved a lot since the school playground. People still throw stones when they want to and call names when they want and mock you if you are different.

Big win for skeptics! You've proven that you don't believe in anything, everyone can be wrong, and everything is questionable. What a sweep! What a victory! You can never be wrong if you don't believe in anything right? Wrong! So don't get too happy yet! Someday you can be embarrased and ridiculed too! Your day might be right around the corner! And don't expect a lot of mercy when it happens.

Now, next question. WHY do you need to do that? Why?

All this proves is that a couple of man-childs (who release lit flares in the air without arrest!) can make a few people feel less credible, and perhaps that with subterfuge and sabotage, some will remain in the dark about the "UFO" phenomenon. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. All it takes is one to be true: however, ignore this garbage -that I have come to expect form Newsweek- and watch "Capturing the Light", or "The Disclosure Project.

Hmmm.  Now, what's really been proven by all of this?

That people can be fooled?

My oh my, I never would have guessed....

That people will see something not easily recognizable in the sky and call it a UFO?

Why, that's absolutely incomprehensible!  How dare these people rush to judgement and slap such an inflammatory label on something they don't recognize?

I'm not saying that there are no UFO enthusiasts/investigators out there who are motivated by profit or personal agenda in declaiming upon the subject, and I'm not saying people are too smart to be fooled by hoaxers or optical illusions; but these two gentlemen are, I think, sorely deluding themselves if they believe that they've contributed anything even remotely scientific to the study of the sociological aspect of UFO's.  

All they've done is prove what we've all known since the beginning of the human race: people are fallible.  And this says nothing--zero, zip, nada---about the objective reality of the UFO phenomenon itself.

All this proves nothing more than a couple of irresponsible adults behaving as children. They should be prosecuted accordingly. Millions of credible people worldwide have experienced "UFO" encounters. It's a daily happening in every country all over the world, however you will never see it on the mainstream news, at least not for now....

Ufologists have enough problems without having to investigate hoaxes.  However, the hoaxes do show that, when interpretation is separated from observation, the observation (observed details of a sightings) is generally quite accurate.  For further information on sightings including the Japan Airlines Case of 1986, mentioned in a message below, see http://brumac.8k.com.

Atrueoriginall, I checked out the story.  It looks like Rudy and Russo will have to deal with the attorney general about their hoax.  Evidently they were messing with U.S. airspace and ticked off Uncle Sam.  

tisk tisk

heh heh heh

This blog has been very entertaining to say the least.  It's great to hear from so many who have real experiences with ufos, and it's been some great reading during my breaks at work.  

Sorry, I thought HTML was kosher:

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/04/knowing-movie.html

There. You be knowin...

<a href="http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/04/knowing-movie.html">You be Knowin</a>

These two have proven nothing.  They set up a straw horse.  What they're saying is:  Since we faked a UFO sighting, all UFO sightings are faked.  Or, to put it another way, since people misreported our UFO, people therefore misreport ALL UFO's.  These arguments simply don't hold water.  Of the hundreds of thousands of sightings, how many were caused by two people stringing helium balloons on fishing wire and setting off flares?  

If eyewitness accounts are "proven," in general, to be unreliable, then, according to these two hoaksters,  what should we believe?  Why, what we're TOLD to believe.  What else?  Good way to start a dictatorship.

Let`s look at some facts regarding UFOs. The government acknowledges that they do, in fact, exist. They acknowledge that a certain percentage are completely unexplainable. They acknowledge that UFOs HAVE violated our (USA) airspace. There are hundreds of UFO sightings that have been thoroughly documented and witnessed by numerous people that have a great deal to lose by having their reputations soiled with unsubstantiated, outlandish claims of paranormal encounters(Minot AFB 1968, Rendlesham AFB ufo 1980, JAL flight 1628 over Alaska 1986, and many, many more would include some of the courageous witnesses to step forward and speak publicly about their experiences).

Only a fool would assume -- without any concrete evidence -- that these vehicles originated on another planet. With that said, we simply can`t dismiss the possibility of something incredible just because  two kids, with a bit of ingenuity, fooled a few over-zealous individuals.

If UFOs don't 'exist' how do you explain the "Lady Mutilation" case whereby a horse in good health was found with the skin and flesh removed from it's neck and head right down to the bones that had been stripped clean (overnight). - and that a chunk of horse flesh was discovered in the immediate area once it was touched by one of the observers it 'oozed green fluid that burnt their hand' and 'landing marks' where found nearby. - strange but true.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_mutilation

Ask the witnesses of Area 51 if they think UFOs are real... Science Fiction movies have for many years made mention of the fact that mankind made a major 'jump' in technology right around that time period... by 'barrowing' technology from the discoveries related to that UFO crash site.

cweepypete,

what you described:"It was LOW, it displace NO air, it was triangular in shape and at least 2 or more football fields in length. Once my eyes adjusted I could clearly see it, ... what it was I have no idea, but it was pretty impressive, and scary. It was going slow and wasn't much higher than the tallest building. It had the stars on the bottom of it like you could either look through it, or it was bending light around it. Once it got behind me away from the beach I could clearly see the shape, the size and the enormity of the craft. It made NO noise, but you could feel it." - is exactly what I see every day in the night sky and described in my article "Aliens live in our Earth's atmosphere". This is Aliens Flying Object.

The body itself of a AFO is invisible and merges with the color of the sky and moreover, it appears transparent.For example, if a UFO flies under a star, you'll see through its body to the star. The ability of AFOs to be invisible is one of the main methods of disguising itself from people on earth. . Therefore, the presence of AFOs can  be identified in the sky by their signal lights located on the edges of the shell. Their brightness is 30-50 times weaker than the brightness of Polar Star. These lights give us an idea about the form of the AFO...

sites.google.com/site/socialcapital1/Home/aliens

Hey i just saw your post, you have witnessed the sam thing as me from 1987, here is my experience. http://www.electroshockmedia.com/  (ANIMATED VERSION)

and my interview with earthfiles in jan of 09   Updated: Star Field Camouflage On Large V-Shaped Craft

Near Cape Canaveral, Florida?

January 29, 2009 - For updates about another V-Shaped craft near Cape Canaveral in 1989 and a science breakthrough reported in 2009 about the development of a new cloaking technology, please see More Information at the end of this report.

An Earthfiles viewer responded to my original January 8, 2009, Earthfiles report about the star field camouflage on the huge V-shaped aircraft near Cape Canaveral with his own eyewitness sighting ten years later in 1997 near Jacksonville, Florida:  “... this lightning had hit this V-shaped craft and did something to the craft's invisibility device. It teetered as it righted itself and floated upward to hide in the cloud cover.”

Email Report:

Subject: V shaped craft 1997, Jacksonville, Florida

Date: January 16, 2009 4:25:03 PM MST

To: earthfiles@earthfiles.com

“I and a neighbor witnessed a massive V-shaped craft in broad daylight some years ago (circa 1997) in Jacksonville, FL - it was identical to the craft on your site now.

One overcast evening, around 5pm, I was watching beautiful lightning streak from one side of the sky to the other - it was just prior to a hurricane approaching up and just off the coast. One lightning bolt just suddenly stopped. I thought it was strange because all the others were sweeping great distances across the sky.

Suddenly, a straight line began to materialize where the bolt had ended. It filled in until a huge V was visible. Obviously, this lightning had hit this V-shaped craft and did something to the craft's invisibility device. It teetered as it righted itself and floated upward to hide in the cloud cover.

Each leg of the V was the size of a runway - the size blew me away! The construction was similar to modern buildings - huge panes of reflective panels - and all right angles - nothing round at all - a gigantic V-shaped craft. No sound. No visible propulsion. The exterior was comprised of two rows of panels per side and the size was so huge it made me dizzy as my mind fought to comprehend what my eyes were seeing.

I yelled for my neighbor and he ran over to see what was going on. I pointed at the object and he uttered ‘Whoa!’ as his jaw dropped. We stood there in silence - totally blown away. Those 30 seconds or so were an eternity. Strangely, just inside my front door was a table with several cameras on it, but I was so startled I didn't even think of it!

After being ridiculed by some close friends we told this to - the sighting was never mentioned again. Oh, yes - it was for real! Personally, I hope it is a USA secret craft. However, due to the extreme size - and the hair standing up on the back of my neck - I think not.”

Updated Original Earthfiles Report, January 8, 2009  Merritt Island, Florida -   Two decades ago on the warm summer evening of August 16, 1987, eighteen-year-old Robert “Bobby” Howe [no relation to this reporter] and two of his friends had driven from their Merritt Island, Florida, home out to the Cherie Down Park beach near Cape Canaveral, home of the space shuttle launches. Some time between 9 PM and 10 PM, the brother, sister and Bobby noticed what looked like two bright car lights at the shoreline underneath the water. Their first thought was deep sea divers. The lights were there for about a half-hour and then were gone. But up in the sky, Bobby and his friends saw a giant V-shaped aircraft above them. Bobby estimates the length of the craft was longer than a football field, which is longer than 300 feet.

Then the huge aircraft moved into a cloud. The teenagers waited for at least an hour, but the V-shaped craft did not come out of the cloud. So, the three friends decided to drive back to Merritt Island where they lived, which is over the Banana River by a bridge from Cape Canaveral. As Bobby and his friends drove toward the bridge, they suddenly saw four stars in a straight line on the horizon. At the bridge, the lights moved over their car and the three realized it was the V-shaped aircraft again.

As their car moved over the bridge onto Merritt Island, the three realized that the V-shaped craft seemed to be pacing them, or leading them, and they followed the aircraft in the sky through the island as far as they could go to the other side where the road they were on stopped on Plumosa Street at the Indian River west of Cape Canaveral. At that stop sign, the V-craft turned 180 degrees around from traveling west and pointed east facing Bobby and his friends in the car for nearly a half-hour.

Then the V-shaped aircraft turned toward the south and passed the Merritt Square Mall at the Banana River headed in the direction of Patrick Air Force Base between Cocoa Beach and Satellite Beach. The time by then was 1 AM Eastern. At least three hours had elapsed from the first sighting of the underwater lights that the three teenagers associated with the appearance of the V-shaped craft, their waiting for the craft to emerge from a cloud, then the craft following them through Merritt Island and finally moving off towards Patrick AFB - all with no sound.

I am 52 years old self employed man who lives 6 months in NJ and 6 months in So. FL... My house is on the beach and every night I would bring a chair down to the water to relax, listen to the waves and look at the stars. That night forever changed how I thought about everything.

I was looking up, straight up and noticed that the stars looked like they were shimmering, almost like when you look down the road on a burning hot day and you can see the heat coming off the ground... then I noticed that the stars were moving. I wasn't looking at the sky at all, what I was looking at was something bigger than anything I have ever seen in my life that wasn't on the ground. It was LOW, it displace NO air, it was triangular in shape and at least 2 or more football fields in length. Once my eyes adjusted I could clearly see it, ... what it was I have no idea, but it was pretty impressive, and scary. It was going slow and wasn't much higher than the tallest building. It had the stars on the bottom of it like you could either look through it, or it was bending light around it. Once it got behind me away from the beach I could clearly see the shape, the size and the enormity of the craft. It made NO noise, but you could feel it. Once it got about a mile away it took off ( there were then lights on it) went straight then made a right angle turn at a speed that looked like something out of Star Wars..I am not a weirdo, I am not crazy, and yet I KNOW what I saw with my own eyes... there is something here on earth we know nothing about, and if we do know, the government isn't talking.

Looks like the two boys might be going to jail - hopefully

http://aliencasebook.blogspot.com/2009/04/morristown-new-jersey-ufo-hoaxers-may.html

Looks like the two boys might be going to jail - hopefully

http://aliencasebook.blogspot.com/2009/04/morristown-new-jersey-ufo-hoaxers-may.html

"Why Classical Mechanics limited"

sites.google.com/site/socialcapital1/Home

  In this article, from the perspective of classical philosophy, I explain why neither Newton's laws nor the laws of Coulomb’s interaction of charges work in quantum mechanics. Then, from the same point of view, I explain the nature of the conflicting definitions of micro particles etc...

Well this was a hoax. But what that it proves? in my opinion it proves exactly the opposite from what the two "ingenious" hoaxers wanted. What people (and investigators) reported? Exactly what they saw. This, as they say, was a hoax. But how many of the many thousends ufo sightings every year around the world are hoaxes? If I remember well it is calculated at about 10-15 percent. And for every ufo sighting there are at least ten more, not reported for obvious reasons (it will be nice to discuss the reasons).

The two men have the excuse of young age. But i will expected a more objective article.

skeptical_one --

Faster than light travel is possible.  Although no natural phenomenon can travel faster than light, the space surrounding an object can travel faster than light.  This happened during the Big Bang, which is why the entire universe is infinitely larger than the observable universe.  This is highlighted in sci-fi shows like Star Trek (warp speed), where their engines bend space and they travel on it like a surf board.  Also allow for the possibility that the "aliens" may be from our distant future, which is why they may not want to interact much with us.

Arcesileus,

logic that we are using in our daily life to understand the nature, is just reflection of our material world which we deal with. For this reason our logic and knowledge are based on our experience. This is elementary my dear Watson.

The Phoenix Lights incident, 12 years ago, is a complicated, multiple event scenario of mile wide craft and orbs that traversed throughout the state of AZ and beyond it's borders for many hours. The technology was way beyond our imaginations from hovering silently to taking off at tremendous speeds. Some of the comments here about this still unexplained sighting are laughable - and plain ignorant. The military had to come up with something because over 10,000 people witnessed these anomalous phenomena. The 'flare theory' was put out there to confuse the issue - and obviously did. Besides the fact that flares CANNOT travel an entire state in a solid V shaped formation, the military was asked to re-enact it and actually tried three years later with dismal results. As a first-hand witness to a SILENT, massive V shaped craft with 5 giant round lights and a wing span over two major highways, plus the land on either side, the Phoenix Lights WERE DEFINITELY NOT FLARES. Why don't people LOOK at the information. There's plenty of it in books and Documentaries by credible, informed scientists, investigators, astronauts and even the witnesses themselves.

@ Astrocat

My original remarks were addressed solely to the two self-styled "skeptics" who were behind this hoax or possibly to the writer of the original post if she wanted to respond on their behalf. Hence your complaint is based on erroneous assumptions.

I have just remembered a similar, pointless, but far more elaborate, stunt that was pulled in the UK that was actually touted as a psychologcal experiment. In this, a TV company in collusion with a well-known UK pseudo-sceptic (yes, a psychologist), built a realistic, large size, working (radio controlled), replica of a flying saucer and flew it over the garden of a village pub in which many drinkers were gathered. Following this "close encounter" the drinkers were surveyed to describe what they thought they had seen. Not too surprisingly, they all thought they had witnessed a real flying saucer fly overhead. According to the debunker and program makers this proved just how gullible ordinary people are. What it proved to me was just how stupid and arrogant pseudo-sceptics can be. Suppose that I could make something that looked exactly like a bar of chocolate from metal and then paint it a realistic chocolate colour. If I then hand it to this debunker and he breaks his teeth on it trying to eat it, does he then consider that he himself has been gullible? Of course not. The patronisation and ad hominen insults are always exclusively reserved for the hoi poloi. Basically, for pseudo-sceptics it is all about stroking their own egos (did I hear someone say: "Randi"?).

@ Ilya

If formal logic is "the only tool that mankind uses to acquire knowledge", how is it that animals, with no understanding whatsoever of formal logic, gain knowledge of their environment, such as locations for feeding and shelter? Ever heard of experience? I think you are too clever by half - even fighting on the wrong side of this argument. Lol!

astrocat,

if you believe to your own eyes and apply some common sence to what you see then you can make reasonable judgment. For example,

Spacecrafts of aliens are better visible in the night sky, because the blue signal lights around the contour of its body, the size of which is 1 to 2 meters (we see that size at an altitude of 20 - 40 miles, whereas in reality their size is from 300-400 meters to 1 - 4 km and more) are more visible against the background of night sky. These contours that represent individual aliens spaceships, can have the form of a circle, a triangle or a circle with a tail and so on. It is interesting to note that I saw in the sky several circles (2 - 8) connected to each other through the tail and functioning as one spacecraft. From here follows that aliens can visit each other spacecraft and in times of technical trouble can assist to each other. UFOs can move at varying speeds from 0 to 100 miles/sec and more, changing direction at any angle immediately, and thus violating all known physical laws of gravity. Since January 2008, I have daily seen up to 100 UFOs, floating at an altitude of 20 - 40 miles above the ground. ... From my article:"Aliens live in our Earth's atmosphere"  sites.google.com/site/socialcapital1/Home/aliens

I live in Park Ridge, NJ

Ilya,

I would love to experience the ufo phenomena again.  Where are you located? Back in 1978, accompanied by a friend, I saw a ufo in the skies above Johnston, Rhode Island.  Ever since then I've been more than open minded about it.  My last post referred to the lack of actual physical evidence. I believe evidence exists but is being hidden by the government.  The sightings you experience are not physical evidence really unless you have clear videos or photos which show an actual vehicle in the skies.  I don't doubt that you're seeing real ufos.  Much like the scientific community, I would like to see physical proof from the crashed saucers because it will prove what I believe is true.  But I don't need any evidence to believe in you and your reports.  

Our beliefs and experiences don't prove anything though, as the world needs to see the real thing so to speak, before they believe it.  Physical evidence would impel scientists to determine the truth to a much greater degree than they are presently.  The Star Child Skull should have created a huge buzz for scientists, even if just for anthroplogists, but for some unknown reason has not.  

That's another problem that I see.  Why aren't the scientists more involved in examing evidence such as the starchild skull or those strange bits of metal found under the skin of abductees?  A ufologist gets the stuff examined by a scientist or two, and then it ends there, no matter what the result.  

Arcesileus, we're not on debating teams and I doubt that "we all" are trying to prove anything.  After all, we can't prove much at all, which is  why we are on a quest for truth.  

All the claims that "nothing can go faster than the speed of light," and "immense amounts of energy would be required to go the speed of light...."

How could a computer or even a light bulb be explained to a human living just 300 years ago. It's laughable, sorta, to see people dismissing the possibility of interstellar or intergalactic travel based on our current understanding of physics. Or as another poster said, it's plain arrogant.

And then there always will be those for whom half-truths are "good enough." Take this post:

Posted By: DavidArizona (April 1, 2009 at 5:15 PM)

The "Phoenix Lights "that have generated TV show appearences, book deals, and spots on UFO documentaries is also one of the biggest hoaxes ever.  They were Air Force flares dropped over the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range south of Phoenix.  People wanted to see UFOs so much that the story got embellished  more and more as the weeks, months and years went on.  But people are making money on this false sighting.

Even a cursory examination of the Phoenix Lights reveals that the flare incident is wholly disconnected from the string of time-coordinated sightings that night which began in Nevada and continued across Arizona. Don't take my word for it. Look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights

To Arcesileus:

If you are sceptic then you don't trust the way how Formal logic works (because this is the only tool that mankind uses to acquire knowledge). At the same time you by using Formal Logic that you don't trust, try to prove your point. By doing this You contradict to yourself. For this reason All your speach reduced to ZERO.

Sorry guys, but all you have proven is that if you intentionally produce something that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and makes noises like a duck, then people who observe it will tend to think that it probably is a duck. That is the common sense way that the world - including science - works, even though, of course, it can lead to mistakes. (Have any of you heard of the "Piltdown Man" hoax? Does that episode in science history prove that paleontology is a pseudoscience or that paleontologists are all fools and charlatans?).

If you actually want to prove that the extraterrestrial hypothesis to explain UFOs is what you call "irrational superstition" and "pseudoscience" then I am afraid that you are going to have to engage in rational argument to make your case. So, let us UFOlogists hear your arguments why UFOs cannot possibly explained by visitations by beings from elsewhere in this or other dimensions of space/time. I, for one, am genuinely agog with anticipation at being humbled and enlightened by your 20 years of wisdom.

Oh, and by the way, you are pseudo-sceptics and not true sceptics (UK spelling). The latter neither believe nor disbelieve in anything (in fact they eschew such religious notions), whereas the former believe everything that the authority of orthodoxy (usually scientific but often also political) tells them is true and disbelieves anything that challenges it. Having been a natural sceptic from a very early age, I have to say that I resent the way that you people have stolen the name of Scepticism and substituted your perverted version of its philosophy.

To astrocat;

you said "No one yet can "verify" anything substantial regarding God or aliens.  Nope.  Not a chance in hell. " About God I agree with you, but you are completly wrong about verifying the existence of Aliens Spacecrafts. Come to my place or in Manhattan where I show people Aliens Motherships in the night sky - and be one of them to face the truth.

Why all the criticism of UFO hunters ?  They are simply looking for the truth.  Don't judge these people by the antics of people like Bill Birnes.  Let them pursue truth and facts.  What's the harm?  Mankind must question everything, no exceptions.

The only thing that's certain in our lives is our uncertainty of having an afterlife.  Oh the religious have great faith in their gods and will swear that they have no doubts about the existence of God, but if they would look away from their books and peer a little deeper into their own beings they would find that man's natural doubt of God's existence, exists in everyone.  There is that iota of doubt in even the most devout religious people.  But too many fear losing that shot at heaven if they admit their doubts openly.  It's damn scary to question God I'm sure.

For various reasons, religion and aliens are often discussed in the same forum.  It's inevitable.  The fact remains that we have no physical proof of God's existence.  Consider the shroud of Jesus, which has never been proven as such.  Everytime someone proves it's real, someone else proves it isn't.  Some artifacts prove that the believers existed, but not the God.  The bible is simply the inspired word of God, written by men, as are all the other bibles, no matter what religion.  Faith is truth for the religious, but that's not enough for the informed and educated people of today.

There are supposed pieces of alien spacecraft, artifacts , and even alien bodies, dead or alive.  Where's does one view such evidence beside on the internet?  I fiercely believe they exist but I don't see an exhibit anywhere.  The fact doesn't change what all my research leads me to believe.  I'm convinced that the military has good reasons for not showing what they have.  Ufologists and the media all over the world have uncovered so much information on secret military projects  that the whole world knows of area 51 and much more.  That's terrible for national security no doubt. Then there are the very reputable ex government officials, airline pilots, police, astronauts, and respected citizens who risk making a mockery of their careers but stepping forward and telling the truth about such things.  Would they do it simply for a moment in the limelight or a few bucks in their pockets?  The answer for the majority is no.

No one yet can "verify" anything substantial regarding God or aliens.  Nope.  Not a chance in hell.  The facts are hidden by most governments and for good reason.  But we should listen to those who seek to solve our questions, who put themselves in the line of fire.  They will be the ones to inform us one day.  No one else will, most certainly not our governments.    

We're aware of the incredible possibilities of alien life out there, and of the possibility of a supreme being.  One thing we've learned is that anything is possible.  But then an article about a hoax comes up and some foolish writer and two publicity seekers mock our quest for answers and it ends up as front page news on a supposedly newsworthy site.  Sharon Begley called it "magic", in an effort to mock the believers in alien existence, and there's no place in the world for such media reporting.  

I believe that superior beings and aliens exist.  Perhaps in our search for truth we'll also find some truth about God.  Right now all we have is faith and a thirst for knowledge.  Nothing More.

"To question the credibility of so-called UFO ‘professionals’” is  a very good point. How many times I asked them to verify my findings that "Aliens live in our Earth's atmosphere" and nobody responded to my requests although they were very simple: come to my place and see with your own eyes the existence of Aliens spacecrafts in our atmosphere. I understand that my discovery is beyond human's imagination and only people with open mind can admitt this possibility and verify their existence. But it is not easy to find such people: I called to CIA, they are not interested; I send email to FBI, no responce, I called to air defence people, they advised me to call local police and so on. For those who are interested to see Aliens Motherships in the night sky the way I described in my article, please email me to make appointment.

http://sites.google.com/site/socialcapital1/Home/aliens

http://ufo.dailysite.com/info/

Just an observation coming from someone who watched the episode of UFO Hunters mentioned in the article. Why doesn't Ms. Begley mention that Rudy and Russo's "hoax" was demonstrated on the show? All three make it sound like there was no attempt to recreate a plausible explanation for the sightings. Let's try to include all of the facts in your reporting shall we?

A couple of points that I would think are obvious, but appear not to be from a causal review of the comments here:

1) Of course UFOs "are real". Anything someone sees in the sky that they cannot identify is, by definition, a UFO. That includes a huge number of things that are not aliens such as flares, weather balloons, human aircraft, chinese lanterns, swamp gas, planets or the moon seen under unusual atmospheric conditions, etc .etc. There's many a difference between UFOs and aliens.

2) If aliens were to visit us, it is hard to believe they could master faster than light travel (which would almost certainly be required to traverse the tens of thousands if not hundres of thousands of light years it would take to get to Earth from their planets), it is unbelievalby dubious to think the best thing they could find to do with their time would be to mutilate cattle or be fascinated by the human anus and reproductive system.

3) The point of the hoax was not to "prove that UFOs don't exist" or "prove aliens don't exist" or any of the other inanae comments I see. The point was to show that self prcolaimed "UFO experts" are just as easily fooled into attributing a fantastic explanation to a mundane visual sighting than the ordinary person, perhaps more so. To put it plainly: most people who call themselves "UFO experts" are simply con-men out to make a buck by exploiting the tendency of all of us to look for good stories.

4) It was a harmless little prank, so stop the sanctimonious whining and handwringing. Get over yourself.

So to recap. UFOs are real but are almost certainly not aliens. Aliens are not interested in your anus or your eggs and sperm and "UFO experts" aren't. Cheers.

I am one person of hundreds of thousands who have personal experiences with the alien people who visit Earth. It is my life mission to share with others what I learn from them.

Many humans create hoaxes of "UFOs" but the subject of alien life visiting Earth is legitimate- and imperative to the very survival of our race. The other races are people too, just different world to world, and all much further evolved and advanced than we are. They are as real and alive and physical as we are, and their technologies and natural abilities are far beyond what we can even imagine.

The government of Earth controls what the media can put out and at what slant, and the media controls public knowledge and opinion, all against the reality of alien life, and against the reputations of the alien races. This is professional slander, gossip, propaganda and disinformation. The government is maintaining the prejudice against all the other worlds of people around us, all of whom want to share common universal ways of peace and longevity with us.

The alien races of people are AWESOME, and the individuals who travel here to work with us and each other are THE professionals of their own races. The government of Earth is corrupt and will never allow the truth to be told openly- they only allow all of the untruths to be told. We individuals have to learn the truth about alien life from the alien people themselves on our own, and share it anyway despite government threats to control.

The government of Earth is hunting the alien people, trying to capture their crafts and bodies, trying to shoot them out of the sky. The government hunts humans who are working with the alien races, and threatens them, and buys their silence, and makes them change their stories. All while the alien people are begging our government to accept better ways to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medicine for all our people, end war, and unite our countries.

Nancy ES Malacaria

http://www.TheProjectAtEarth.com

Funny how the UFO believers are upset because their experts investigators have been fooled! If the so-called experts are fooled into believing that road flares attached to helium balloons behave like nothing man-made, then they should wonder about all other pronouncements by those folks!

Wow, this is amazing . The majority of people are on the side of the "beleivers". The truth is UFO's are not all that strange. Given the size of our universe, it would be more strange if we were totally alone. This article actually had the opposite effect of what the author intended. Good job guys, indeed. A wonderful paradoxical April fools.

UFO's are real. We are truly in a new age now. We always have been because they have probably been here all along.

We already know that UFOs can easily be hoaxed, and we do not need any proof of that from sceptics. A perplexing lot...who doubtlessly subscribe to Fortean Times but believe in none of it, at least in public...I don't believe that the many true professionals who report UFOs are lying, and those include those we trust in authority, in the skies, etc.  They are not hoaxers.  UFO experts are called so because they actually use scientific reasoning to assess UFOs.  No hokum.  It takes guts to swim against the tide, and more courage than a sniper.  There are frauds out there, and sceptics are better focussing their attention to exposing charlatans wherever they may be.  They should not however denigrate the work of those who doggedly pursue evidence in the case of the UFO.  They should not mock those who witness UFOs as gullible.  Also we have a salesman, and who more than anyone knows a pseudo-science?  Good Grief we've had more "science bits" from them to con people that their products work.  He should already know why people think irrationally, and are prepared to believe enough to buy things they do not need.

I always knew these were a hoax. Points of light in the sky mean nothing. However, there are piles of pilot reports from both commercial and military, that describe craft the size of aircraft carriers. Those are not as easily dismissed.

The term UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, does it not?

It was poor judgement by Bill Birnes to declare "definitively" that the UFO's "could not have been flares or Chinese lanterns." It is impossible to know or prove what they could or could not have been without absolute proof.

That said, Rudy and Russo demonstrated even worse judgement by launching 3-foot ballons with flares tied to fishing line into the night sky. This story could have had a tragic ending if a pilot flying a small Cessna had become entangled in their "UFO".

For two people who claim to want to help other people think rationally, they might want to begin by thinking rationally themselves.

It amazes me how much of a response something like this gets.  Most of the responses I have read only prove one thing.  Either you believe or you don't.  If you believe, you ridicule the person trying to debunk the "myth".  If you don't believe, you ridicule the believer.  I do not believe that any of the cases of UFO encounters covered on television programs are true or accurate.  I do not believe any of the television investigators are truly qualified to present their evidence as anything more than their own theory whether they are presenting it for their own benefit and profit, or because they truly believe it.  Find me an extra terrestrial to admit that he, she, it was the one caught on tape and I will believe that.  I do believe that most witnesses are being honest in reporting what they have seen.  That does not mean they have seen anything that is related to alien beings, and there may be no proof that it is not.  I also believ that somewhere in the universe there are other habitable planets and that some form of intelligent life lives there.  I do not believe we have encountered it yet on this planet, nor are we likely to in the forseeable future.  

Folks, let the people who believe continue to believe at their own peril.  Also let the disbelievers do the same.  This applies to BIgfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and every other "crypto creature" out there.  BUT if you choose to believe, please be careful and do not use televised programs or anything on them as proof one way or the other.  TV shows are on the air to make money for those who air them and possibly those who appear on them.  Also, a Physics degree does not prove someone is not just a kook.  There are no degrees in Alien Encounters.  

This planet [Earth] is ALIVE even the parts we don't think of as Alive. Trying to attack and dominate it would be suicidle, I'm sure any alien would realize this. It would be far better to just leave it alone. even with advanced weapons they would lose, and if they're from far away, that would be too big a disadvantage, anything they could want here they could get from other planets that are not so aggressive, and are not that far away. I do't think they would even want to make contact.. I would expect them to settle on Mars or someplace a little more friendly. But we haven't seen them that close, and they are noy likely to "sneak" up on us. We might even be poisonous.

Why is this different than any other two juvenile delinquents pulling the fire alarm at the local high school and watching from behind a tree while the firemen try to do their job?

Why is this different than someone falsely reporting they were robbed at gun point?

Bart Simpson reporting little Timmy fell down the well, just to get attention.

Its not.

This was a waste of public and private resources not to mention a potential safety threat to local air traffic.

The only thing it’s proven is that anyone can be a public menace and cause local officials to waste tax payer dollars.

There are hundreds of legitimate UFO sightings world wide from private and professional people in all walks of life every year.

When a solid metallic air craft of “some kind” outruns the fastest highly advanced billion dollar fighter jets on the planet and then goes straight up into space at thousands of miles per hour from a stand still is it your contention that this is a 15 minute flair tied to a balloon?

I am truly sorry that the very thought of sharing the entire universe with other beings frightens you so badly that you need to belittle the real heroes and pioneers who try to investigate and learn from all that we see in our world.

Start reading some of the leading science reports my friends.

They are predicting there are hundreds of thousands of Earth like planets in our own Milky Way.

Tens of thousands of them have the potential for advanced intelligent life!

Wake up.

Thanks.

Maybe next the reporter will pen a disdaining article on children who fear the bogeyman.

In December of the mid 90's I used to hang around the Ft. Lauderdale area a lot so one night I was driving home between the hours of 12:30 and 1:00 am on I-95 watching the road ahead of me when I see "something" that left a florecent green trail behind it that ended up making this impossible flight manuver traveling at a very high rate of speed that ended up making a perfect triangle when it was finished there was also another smaller comma shaped ufo with a corkscrew tail about the color of a sodium street lamp that made this lazy "j" into the bottom middle of the triangle.

After the comma ufo did it's thing the trail started to follow itself back in in the same direction it showed up in (from right to left) and at the same speed , one two three, until both the triangle and the comma ufo had completly disappeard like they were never even there.

Then about two nights later I'm driving down the same highway at about the same time when I saw what looked like a set of helecopter blades rotating at full speed same florecent green color as ther last one with two more comma ufos traveling perpendicular on either side of this thing like they were escorting it. It appeared to come out of a "wall" in the sky best way to describe it, being in full view for about 1 1/2 seconds then disappeared into another "wall" directly ahead of it.

Then 4 nights later I'm getting out of my car in the parking lot of the apartments where I used to live at the time and I happened to look up a to see one of the comma ufos disappearing into the nightsky. For the record let me state that I don't use drugs or drink, if I did I would never be able to make that journey from West Palm Beach where I used to live to Ft. Lauderdale about 4 nights a week back then. I feel 99.9% positive that what I saw was the real deal and not some strange weather phenomena as it was cold and crisp that week with no clouds in the sky. I also feel certain that I was witnessing these craft making some dimentional jump of some sort or something out of the time and space physics catagory.

I had already read about the ufo phenomena like I'm sure thousands of other people have in magazines(not the trashy grocery store rags btw) and some tv documentries saw some pictures to go with the stories and thought "Ok cool, so there's something being seen occasionally, but what are my chances of seeing anything like that?" Well...

And I've also read a few books on the subject over the years as well as some on-line study and the conclusion that I've come to is the following;

1. Yes we are being visited

2. Our government know more about this than we do and has physical evidence in their possesion and for some reason they are sitting on it all and will continue to do so.

I've stopped studying this subject because it's so limited, I really question some of the more promenant "reseachers" who's names I will not mention here. I believe one's in it for money and attention, and another one is simpley following and creating hoaxes and using actors on their radio show to peepetrate things further. And there are just so many collage kids and the like perpetrating their own "jackass" stunts on television and Youtube there's just no sense in looking at anything anymore. You have the "Ufo Hunters" on tv now but it's just bottomline Hollywood brewhaha and they too are following well known hoaxes trying to pass them as the real thing.

And they say this is April FOOL'S Day. There is an abundance of verification for centuries that we have been visited by 'other worldly' beings throughout human history - whether interstellar and/or interdimensional. We are just discovering that there are billions of OTHER galaxies, planets, etc. where sentient life might be possible. In addition, quantum physics is just in it's infancy, but substantiates that there could be many dimensions, leading to the possibility of other intelligencies in those other times and spaces. What is most curious - and concerning - to me is that these infantile FOOLS who hoax and ridicule get so much press, while credible sightings and the people who report them worldwide fall on the deaf ears - and pens - of the media. Who are the real fools here?

I'm very glad to see there are intelligent people out there!  One hoax does not discredit every sighting ever as this article makes it sound. "farmerdanny", thank you for your comment. I actually research this stuff for fun and you'll be amazed at what you find when you dig.  Like farmerdanny said, when astronauts come back and say they saw stuff, well I'm not gonna call them liars, and I'm not gonna call them crazy.  Neither of which I am neither.  I refuse to believe we're alone when there are over 300 billion suns in our galaxy alone.  I myself have witnessed two UFO sightings myself which has led to my interest in the subject.  And no they weren't flares.  They were huge fireballs.  And no they weren't meteors or comets or any other falling object.  Because meteors don't make 180 turns, speed up and vanish into thin air.  I know what I saw and so did the people with me.  Now if I had to bet my own money, I would say it's human technology.  But that's just to be safe.  You never know.  It could have been reversed engineered from alien technology.  Yeah I know it sounds silly but when you saw what I saw it just really makes you question.

Like I said, you never know.

Newsweek must be joking with this article.  Not that the topic is questionable, but the content borders on inflamatory, arrogance, and sheer stupidity.  The writing is childish and does not appear to come close to resembling objectivity, "Nice work, guys."

Dear Canuck Bill any civilization that is a few million years older than us would be able to do things we can't even conceive with things we can't even conceive of or accept the possiblity of yet. The laws as we know them now may be only a part of the story. What if there is an undiscovered law that allows travel faster than light or across parallel universes or its a thought form travel. We just can't know.

I hope this is an April Fool's day article.  Not because I believe in UFOs, but because I don't think I have ever read such a terrible piece of writing.  It is even worse than the AP garbage that has been coming out on Yahoo News.  

Maybe this is an April Fool's experiment on how good editors are needed. For Newsweek's sake, I hope so.

I don't believe in UFO's but I'm surprised so called "Rational" men would make the statement "If a respected UFO investigator can be easily manipulated and dead wrong on one UFO case, is it possible he’s wrong on most (or all) of them?" If all science was based on only one case or example we'd be in a sorry state.

Farmerdanny, you should do your own research. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong never saw UFOs in space. Buzz went on TV specifically to dispel this falsehood.

All of you skeptics are correct that the majority of UFO sightings are wack, BUT, I ask you if you have ever seen the original video of Space Shuttle flight STS 48? It used to be available in crisp,clear live action all over the web and now you can't access it. It showed very clearly a single white dot moving slowly between the shuttle view screen and  Earth and the atmosphere.  In an instant it does a 90 degree turn and at incredible speed shoots out into space.As it clears that spot where it executed that 90 degree turn a missile or pulse shoots up from Earth right through the spot occupied by that dot.I have always been a common sense person and look at everything with a critical eye. When I saw that video I was convinced that we just saw, without a doubt, a powered craft of some kind, not of this world. Laugh all you want but I suggest you rethink your position after viewing STS48. If you can find it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7891132.stm

i did some 5 second research for you Sharon.  Use your brain.

A Simple Hoax to be sure. - BUT, the belief in UFOs centers around the belief that Humans are not alone in the Universe, or Universes as the case may be. There were those who thought Black Holes were not real at one time as well. NOW we know that not only are they real, but that they are abundant throughout the universe(s). - In fact Micro-Black Holes are thought to exist virtually everywhere througout the fabric of space, which leads to the theory that black holes are responsible for the creation of universes. - Similar to an hour glass in shape. If you can imagine that a black hole in one Universe (or dimension of time-space) is funneling time and space into itself only for it to 'come out' on the other side in another Universe. - The point though, regarding UFOs is that of course people BELIEVE in them, otherwise we would need to believe in the fact that Humans are a 'freak' occurance and that life as we know it ONLY exists on one tiny planet in ALL of the COSMOS. - And as Carl Sagan so aptly stated the Odds of that being true are "Billions and Billions" against it. - We simply cannot be the only occurance of INTELLIGENT LIFE, even if you have no religious convictions and believe purly in RATIONAL SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT, you would be a FOOL to think that we are ALONE. - The odds a greatly agsint that being true. - So, in conclusion, while UFO Hoaxes may easily fool those of us who want to believe in them, it is really an UNDYING HOPE that we have that we have COSMIC NEIGHBORS and that some day they will visit our planet, or us theirs. - On that day the entire world as we know it will be forever transformed. - HOPE is the reason, not foolishness. HOPE for mankind. - For a future not confinded to a single planet forevermore. - But to Go Where No Man Has Gone Before... Lasers, "Communicators", long distance space travel... who knows what else might come true. - Or maybe we're all just wired into a giant battery... endlessly supplying power to our robotic machine masters. Fooling UFO believers may be fun, but to live without hope, or dreams. - I'd rather be a happy fool than a sad depressed skeptic.

 This is the only thing Newsweek has to keep them from looking into the UFOs that pilots , astronauts, scientists, have been seeing for years,  They think this little old Earth is the only one

in this whole universe that has life forms on it!!. Wake Up.!!.

Once folks knew without a doubt that the world was flat. They knew about leeches and blood letting. Now there are those who think its simply laughable that there could be UFOs,cropcircles,animal mutilations,received technology,parallel universes and so on.They are so sure just like those evangelicals on Sunday T.V. who know exactly what the Bible means and what God wants. Me, all I know is that anything is possible and all to often what you think is it is not.

Agree with frinkle. The universe is so unimaginably vast that life surely exists out there--it's typical of human megalomania, however, to think aliens would have a reason to visit here (apologies to Erich von Daniken!).

Sharon Begley is a nut job for encrouraging these idiots.  I neither heard nor saw any of this before,but it doesn't seem to prove anything.  Pilots spend more time looking at the sky than the average person, duh.  The people who saw and reported the lights seem to report just that they saw lights and at the time the source was unudentified.  I can see why Newsweek is approaching bankruptcy doesn't anyone bother superving Ms. Begley's stories?

Why are you wasting so much print space on hoaxers?  Lying to investigators is just lying.  This story has nothing to do with UFOs.

This writer just showed us all how obedient, mind controlled citizens should set an example of how many of us free thinkers should fall in line with big brother.  Think and decide for yourselves people!  Oh and Sharon, maybe you should watch some interviews on youtube with Buzz Aldrin, Gordon Cooper, Neil Armstrong, and countless other astronauts who directly state they've encountered UFOs and other unexplainable incidents while traveling in space.  Do your research before writing general statements.  You impact many people who choose not to think for themselves.  

When Roswell happened (1947) they first reported they found aliens and pieces of the craft (front page of newspaper by the way)! The next day, Oh, it's a weather balloon experiment by the GOVERNMENT!???! I'll go with the first one which is human nature reacting to something literally out of this world! To report EXCITING NEWS ON THE SPOT!!!!!!!!

HISTORY: LEARN FROM IT OR BE A VICTIM BECAUSE OF LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF IT!!!!

Wow @ Redsafety...even I know that there are billions and billions of stars, planets and whatnot in space.  Just because you can cover up the sun with your thumb does not mean it is no longer there.  Space, unless there was some new discovery, is infinite.

Now that I got that off of my chest, I would like to state how lame the two subjects of this article are.  Skepticism is great and needed in today's society, but to go out there and WASTE your time to disprove a so-called "expert" is just juvenile.  The journalist who authored this article also gets a "tsk, tsk" for asking obvious questions at the end and for overall just lazy reporting.

And Mamasauras, Obama won.  Now get over it and do your job as a citizen and support our president.  This economy is not going to get much better with that kind of attitude.  What happened to Americans pulling themselves by their bootstraps and getting things done?  

This was another hoax, alright, but it was hardly "great".  There are many fake UFO videos on the internet.  Lying to investigators is just lying.  The only exposure is to the perpetrators.  Those who have seen real UFOs, and there are thousands(at least) know what they saw, not what someone who wasn't there tries to explain away.  These NJ people don't deserve this much print space.

Well let me tell you something, yeah there are a million hoax's out there and a ton of false eyewitness accounts. But they are absolutely real. Not only have I seen a UFO years ago with my brother as a witness of a craft traveling at speeds that were in no way capable here on Earth, but I have a family member who worked for NASA for over 30 years. He work on site at Langley Air Force Base. My family and I would sometimes get to go on base with him w/ special access over the weekends to enjoy some of the activities on base. This family member told me once in confidence that he had an aquaintance that work in research in the underground labs at Langley. This person told him that the crash at Roswell was absolutely real and that one of the Alien bodies was held at Langley, the other in DC. Also that other "unbelievable" experiments were going on, such as test models that could go 90% of light speed, very human-like robots, actual force fields and "cloaks" developed for aircraft. And the fact that the original "Viking" lander probes sent to Mars in the 70's actually did find microscopic life back then. This was told to me years ago because of my interest in science and Astronomy. I'm just tired of keeping my mouth shut when I know its real. Whats the point anyway. Just wanted to say that the "non-believers" and dolts that get paid big bucks to sit around and have meetings and study groups to "debunk" these things have no idea whatsoever what is actually going on.

Sorry but I must protest.  

Belief that aliens have ever visited this earth is ludicrous.  It may happen some day.  But there is ZERO credible evidence.  

Also, any slightly intelligent educated person will realize why its virtually impossible.

1. You can NOT travel faster than light. Believing otherwise ranks right up there with using wishing well because you think they work.

2. If anything ever does travel between the stars, we will know about because of the incredible amounts of energy required to do so.  Even a "small" ship would require incredible amounts of fuel.  You need both energy and mass to move something.

3. the travel time for us to go to the nearest star would be 100's (if not thousands) of years, regardless of the technicalogical advances that get made in the next 500 years.  And it wouldn't be a  return trip.

Well, I guess kudos to these two for their little hoax. By no means does this prove anything as far as any other UFO sightings over thousands of years. I feel sorry for "scientists" who cannot have an open mind and only believe in what they themselves can prove.  

I invite them to start on their next hoax, a 100 yard x 100 yard x 100 yard trianglular black craft that can move quickly from above their heads to the horizon. THAT hoax I would love to be done by them.  All they did was call out the old guy from UFO Hunters. I am a fan of the show, but Bill reads too much into anything presented. The rest of the cast is very good by looking at things objectively. I'm not taking anything away from Bill's work over the years, it's just that he is too exciteable.

Fellas, I'm looking forward to the hoax I proposed earlier, good luck with that.

In this era of economic hardship, I will be glad to render my proofreading/spellchecking services to newsweek for a meager fee. Aliens DO exist they impregnated my wife!

I can handle the "truth". I can handle the fact that skeptics are afraid to be wrong, so its logical to err on the side of caution and take the safe bet. It is a safe bet that UFO's are fanciful stories shared around a campfire and it takes a great stretch of the imagination to believe in them.

I can not handle the smug way that skeptics are so certain they are right. Just because this one particular case is a hoax (which I suspected the moment I heard about it, someone in phoenix did the exact same thing a year before) hardly is "proof" that UFO's do not exist. Its about time people wake up and open their pathetic little brains to the idea we are not the biggest thing in the universe. UFO's are quite real and I have seen them 3 times in my own life. You can call me what you wish, I know what I know. I am not trying to convince anybody of anything, I know better.

As someone once said, the most powerful argument that there is intelligent life on other planets is the fact that they HAVEN'T visited us.

Aliens exist and they have visited earth.

They left because they found no intelligent life.

I just wonder how many things, other animals, and other stuff there is that we don't know about, or care about. it's not like there is a shortage of space here on Earth, especially since most of it is covered with water. and no one is stealing the water, the big worry there is that it's rising, but not so you'd notice, I DID hear that al gores house is now under water.So,, why would anyone care if some beings from outerspace were landed here, or using the Earth as a base, they are not bothering anyone., no-one even knows for sure, it's like worrying about a new kind of animal in africa that no-one has ever seen. wait til they try to hurt someone, if they do that , kill them, but don't quit your day job, if you know what i mean

I'm not going to act inflammatory because it's not evident that UFOs are real, however, if you blindly dismiss all UFOs and witnesses as hoaxers and nut cases without doing your research then you have set yourself up to be classified as "ignorant" in this case.  Yes, it would appear logical that UFOs and aliens don't exist.  However, UFOs (meaning unconventional vehicles that travel through our atmosphere) do exist (whether intelligent aliens exist or not).  There are countless declassified military documents available from credible sites on the internet showing reports from credible military officers and scientists, etc., that show that UFOs exist.

There are many people who, for various reasons, get off on perpetrating hoaxes regarding UFOs who discredit sincere, intelligent people.  There are many "nut cases" who have mental problems who focus on UFOs and aliens and discredit sincere, intelligent people.  There have been several military and government officials who have simply lied about UFOs and denied their existence and discredit sincere, intelligent people.  There are normal people who see bugs in their pictures or Venus at night and discredit sincere, intelligent people.  And then there are ignorant people who blindly proclaim that UFOs are fantasy or products of psychosis without objectively being able to back up their claims.  And then there are people who actually do their research with an open mind in the libraries, archives, or in the field who draw their own conclusions regarding the enigma and learn that they really exist.  So it boils down to the majority of people discredit the existence of UFOs, while only a handful have actually done their homework on them.  But because the masses blindly believe one way doesn't mean what they believe is correct...in this case the masses are laughably incorrect.

Yes, it sounds like pure nonsense.  But check your facts before you show your ignorance and ridicule others who are like more intelligent than the masses, please.

This artical is so lame.UFOs are out there whether u like it or not.

Okay, now, as an intellectual exercise, I have to try to "unhoax" the hoax.  Why?  Hey, what if the government KNOWS there are UFOs and "they" don't us to believe that UFOs exist.  What to do?  Pay a couple of college students to "hoax" things up, okay?  So, here goes:  The flare and balloon idea is great.  In fact, it's even interesting that one film shows the lights blinking (tree leaves and branches in the way, of course) and another film shows them NOT blinking.  Glad they covered THAT!  The fishing line is wonderful--can't even see that during the day at over a hundred feet.  Wonderful!  That the launching sequence ended up with an interesting formation just solidifies the "hoax" concept (but that could have been done with more fishing line and tape, of course; maybe they should have spelled out "LOVE" or something, to really goad the "UFOs want us to LOVE each other: "hoax" concept).  Now, the KEY to all this:  the "proof of time and date".  Um, sorry.  A DVR or even an old eight track recorder on a television set could have recorded that for play later, maybe even by "accident", you understand.  OR you could get the film from the television studio (let's say "the media" is just  "in" on the "hoax", too).  The weather website?  Hey, ever heard of a "screen capture" saved to disc, and that can easily be done as a video, eh?  Maybe the weather service is "in" on this, too, just for the sake of the exercise, of course, so they provide an "archive" video sho (hey, government is just into everything, including weathert.  The cellphone?  Hey, how about an app just for that purpose (another "screen capture, of course)?  Consult your local phone app geek!  So what have you got with all this?  An "unhoaxing" of a "hoax" to keep the "ready to panic" populace from going bonkers over a "War of the Worlds", galactic style?  Plus the government can say to the two college students, "Hey, we can't pay you much, but we can at least guarantee that you'll have at least fifteen minutes of YouTube fame on us!"    What college student wouldn't bite?  "Can't tell anyone until you're at least 95 years old, okay?  That's what I like about intellectual exercises...they can go in EVERY direction.  Fun, fun!  Hope them aliens are REALLY friendly!

Billions and billions of planets?  WHERE?  They have only found a few planets and not one has a stable enough orbit or of acceptable size to come close to sustaining life.  Astronomy is showing us how truly unique our solar system is.  Only a tiny fraction of stars has a planet and only a small fraction of those stars has multiple plants.  NONE of them has a stable enough star to maintain life.  Billions of stars, years of searching for planets and only 291 stars contain only 344 planets.  Where are your billions?

Of course people can be easily fooled. Just look at the Election of 2009.

bjknic, I don't get it? Science can't answer where the matter that caused the big bang came from. This should lead me to beleive in God and a garden of Eden and an arc with every animal on it? OK, fine, I'll accept that someone had to create that matter! It was leprachauns, or was it Zues, or was it David Koresh. If I have to accept that there was a creator, then why would it be GOD?

I have discovered the nature of this creator with a simple question: If there is a creator is it good or is it evil. There is more death than life, more poverty than riches & more disease than cures. If there is a creator- he is definitely evil. I am much happier believing that there isn't a creator at all!

what they created was actually a UFO.  it was unidentified. it was flying. it was an object.  hoaxters only muddy the truth and draw attention away from truly unexplainable things.  if you actually think this rock is the only planet out of trillions and trillions that can sustain life then YOU are delusional.  kind of like the early explorers who thought the world was flat and were surprised when they found natives halfway round the globe.

Excuse me!  I live in central New Jersey and I never heard a peep of the "extensive media coverage" these clowns claimed to have happened. The real hoax is in trying to pretend that anyone took any notice at all of a college frat prank like these guys are claiming. If this is the most important thing in the lives of these guys, then they haven't sexually matured yet.

Proves people can be fooled.  What's new.  Doesn't prove UFO's don't exist; although I don't believe they do.

If we accept the fact that there are billions and billions of planets in the universe doesn't that just lower the probablity that aliens would come here? How would they know we are here? Why would they choose to come visit this planet over all the others? If the evidence of our existence travels at the speed of light then that evidence hasn't even reached any aliens yet.

If we were the only habitable planet in the universe (besides for their planet) then maybe I could understand why they would come for a visit. But we now believe (from a statistical point of view) that there are billions of habitable planets. If that's the case then they would have to be patrolling billions of planets to look for life. Maybe they'll get here someday on this huge expedition, but it might be in another million years. They have a few other (billions) of planets that they need to check out on the way.

My point is... the vastness of the universe and the existence of billions of planets may help the argument for the existence of alien life, but it doesn't help the argument for alien visitation.

If aliens ever do come here, I pity them. We'll either cook them, capture them, exploit them or take over their planet- isn't that our history when it comes to encountering other civilizations?

Well, I think that over the years there have been many things that has happened upon this world.  One of them from 1947.  But it does not stop there references over the years to saucer shape craft have come from many cultures.  I think that those who wish to muddy the waters are just looking for a good laugh on the public.  However, when those who create hoax's finally do see the real thing I wonder what they will do and if anyone will believe them.  Keep an open mind...

well done. as to those dismissing the idea completely any intelligent response (even from karl sagan who believes life might be possible elsewhere) deserves skeptisism, but let us not become so skeptical we dismiss ideas and divorce ourselves from tempered rationality.

As i have found watching loads of "bad pseudoscience" shows not just prone to schlack on the sci fi channel even the history getting into ghost hunting and ufo's and even the end of the world schlock.

What i do find amusing however is how many religious people dismiss the idea of intelligent life elsewhere and yet in the same token we have many people in my view who are even more charlantous than a silly ufo conspiracy programs who will flay people at the stake for dismissing the idea of god (starting wars, inquisitions, witchcraft trails etc.) or thier personal religious beliefs, with no scant proof and if i put my money on either god or aliens, im sorry to say, i'll believe in aliens before i believe in anyones personal religious beliefes. at 37 i have seen nothing but sad easily dismissed antidotal evidence on all cases.

we wonder why such charlatism is accepted like ufo's, well religious people in mass have been doing the same thing with no proof and antedotal evidence as ufo hunters, yet masses believe in religious

ideas before accepting thie idea of life elsewhere.

I wonder if i posted a website showing jesus coming back with "real news mock footage" how many charlatans would i expose :D with those comming forward claiming to have seen him.

As I believe andrew jackson said about religion and "the spiritualist movement" I dont believe in anything I cant shoot at and p.t. barnum and thiers truly a sucker born every minute.

For the enlightened people who make fun of people who believe in "god" or other things you "can't prove" to the satisfaction of some, I'm still waiting for them to explain the big bang -- where did that big rock or mass that went "bang" come from?  Or even the first molecule of the mass that went bang - where did that come from or get its start?  Ultimately, the human mind cannot explain where the universe came from or comprehend infinity as it relates to outer space.  Man must see or idenitfy a "beginning" in order to make sense of the creation of the universe concept and there is no possible way science can explain a "beginning" to the universe or all things or first anything trillions + years ago.  This leads the question of God and if there is a God, where did Hod come from?  How did he come into existance?  No more troubling than how did the first molucule come into existence that lead to the universe.  So smart guys, since you cannot answer these questions, perhaps you should leave open some room for some very hard to believe (for you) realities you can't see or prove.

it all changes when you really see one. Ok, you all think I'm a kook now, but I will relay my experience anyway. I grew up in Jersey and was camping on a hilltop with a few friends in the late 60's when we all saw a UFO. It darted from one part of the sky to another at rediculous speed and would than shine a light straight down to the ground and then move on. Over the twenty years after that I convinced myself that what I saw was maybe a dream of a twelve year old kid. When one of those friends I was with got married twenty or so years later, and three of us who were on that hill were together for the fist time in so many years, the subject came up and we all remembered the event exactly the same and had all pretty much convinced ourselves that we dreamt it, or were mistaken. But that image was vivid and different enough for us each to remember it in exact detail. Believe me I have forgotten a lot of things from those young years, but not this one. And my friends didn't forget either.

>>> Conspiracy theorists unfortunately lack any credible motive of the conspirators, which would have to involve thousands of people, some of whom leave and some of whom enter into said conspiracy. It lacks any credibility after about two seconds of critical though.-- cloverboy75

Absolutely true--its amazing to me how few people grasp this simple concept.

“…I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.” Carl Sagan said it so well in his movie Contact.

I watch UFO Hunters and I think they make a good effort to make the show interesting but also keep things in balance. They do tend to spend too much time on easily explained phenomena, and this one bit them in the butt. Most of the sightings actually seem to be secret US military projects. <wouldn’t you like to know what they’ve come up with?> The thing is, there are those few occurrences that defy explanation- that’s what has me convinced there’s something to it. Look up J. Allen Hynek on Wikopedia and you’ll see that he was a scientist hired by the US government in the late ‘40’s to debunk UFO sightings. He was a non-believer, but after years of research his views changed. That should give the naysayers out there something to consider.

It surprises me that humans believe they are able to percieve everything.  We have what - 5 maybe 6 senses?  What things are visiting here or living here with us that we are not able to measure, prod, disect, pith, perceive - - - - - or even imagine?  As far as the prankster go?  Seems like they are having fun with the media attention and feeling rather full of themselves now . . . like they are different from the ones they so harshly evaluate?  

As an evolutionary ecologist, I would conclude that if somehow an alien species was able to travel the universe and 'discover' Earth, they would be extremely happy and consider themselves very fortunate.  For indeed an analogous situation occured on Earth several centuries ago.  Like the alien explorers that shall arive on Earth, ancient human explorers discovered Pacific islands enroute to other more valuable lands. Like our ancient human explorers and their discovery of islands , alien explorers that discover Earth will have an almost unlimited supply of easily obtained protein that will sustain them between stops to other more valuable planets. Unlike our ancient human explorers who found protein that required little effort or danger to obtain i.e., Dodo's; alien explorers will find 700 billion pounds of easily acquired protein in the form of dumb humans.  Obviously aien technology will be vastly superior to ours  and we will appear to be as dumb as Dodo's to them.  There is no way aliens will want to communicate or share technologies with dumb Dodo's, they will only use us as larder.

Well done earthlings...I mean...good job, dudes.  All humanoids...errr...tha tis, humans...know that there is no such thing as UFOs, spaceships, or aliens.  The very thought of it makes me laugh...garflunkkkk!!!!!snarfle, snarfle...dzweeettttt....foropp...aaayyyyy.....eh, eh, I mean...Hah, hah, what a ridiculous hypothesis. Next, you will claim that the Barack #709-J...I mean, that President Obama is an alien!!  He is not.  He is simply from France...but, he was incubated...errr....what is word?...I mean, he was born in the island known as the Hawaii, yes, that is correct.  So, do not woryy, go back to your American Dancing Idol Survivor and forget UFOs.

hahahahahahaha I laughed for about 5 mins at wilddrreams "subtle" way of trolling hahahaha

u had ufos religion and politics.....nice but u r a turd

What they did wasn't a "prank".

It was a very telling demonstration of how easy it is to fool people who want to believe something, and how scant evidence and dubious expert testimony is used as "proof" of extraterrestrial visits.

But even more irritating than dismissing this incident as a prank, and calling the perpetrators "boys", is the constant, sanctimonious, preaching by UFO nutjobs--(without a doubt the most unscientific, gullible people on earth)---that non-believers are closed-minded and can't comprehend the vastness of the universe.

My definition of close minded is people who ignore facts and bend logic to fit their magical thinking world view.   Maybe no one can comprehend the entire universe, but one can comprehend logic, evidence and probability.  

So...please get it through your heads before you subject us to more inane comments on how we are arrogant if we think we're the only ones in the univers--NO ONE IS SAYING LIFE DOESN'T EXIST ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE.

THERE'S JUST NO EVIDENCE THAT IT HAS TRAVELED HERE.   NONE.

But there's plenty of evidence of hoaxes, lies, and ignorance that prove a strong propensity for certain gullible people to believe otherwise, as this "prank" so aptly demonstrates.

This is April Fool's Day, so a good story for the day it is. But, back to the subject at hand....

Most Astrophysicists believe that "life" in some form is elsewhere in our Milky Way Galaxy, let alone the billions of other galaxies out in the void. Have we been visited by enitities from beyond the Sun system? There is no known physical evidence of such. But, it does tweek one's fancy to think about the prospect. Perhaps we have been visited--one of an alien's kids needed a bathroom break, and we were the closest planet. They stopped briefly and then, left. Maybe. Or, we could be under observation even now. I mean, if our own Air Force is flying invisible-to-radar craft, then wouldn't an advanced race from beyond have even more advanced stealth technology? Why would they make themselves visible to our primitive radar, infrared, etc? It makes no sense.

But, one verified hoax does not spoil the whole batch. April Fool's!

Conspiracy theorists unfortunately lack any credible motive of the conspirators, which would have to involve thousands of people, some of whom leave and some of whom enter into said conspiracy. It lacks any credibility after about two seconds of critical though.

why people believe in this sort of UFO nonsense? Isn't it obvious? It's the same reason that Jesus was born from a virgin and rose from the dead and 2000 years later you have to agree with this ridiculous premise to get elected to an office in this country.

If there is anyone/thing out there able to visit us they would be at least a few hundred years more advanced than we are, if not much more than that paultry amount of time.  The most advanced technology here a few hundred years ago whould have been Fultons boats ot a steam locomotive.  That was only about the cotton mill level of technology.  Not even internal combustion.  To us that time would be a nostalgic vacation, certainly not a society we would have any reason to do more than observe.  That's if there's only a few hundred years difference.  What about a thousand years?  It may take us a thousand years to reach that level of technology to allow us to visit and observe society around another star.  A thousand years ago, the best we could do was the longbow and troubadors.  Medical practice didn't really exist, and government was by the strongest.  What about an ancient race of star travelers?  The further apart our technology, the less use they would have for anything we could show.  They are not here, never have been, and never will be.  The closest approach would be a high orbit survey to find out we still burned fossil fuels and were still at the rule of strength level, then to move on, to boldly go where no BEM has gone before.

I am sorry Space Angel, but you lack a fundamental understanding of physics. The rules that govern our universe are constant. Travelling here would still require tremendous amounts of energy and they would still have a mass, no matter how "advanced" the aliens are. If this was not the case, there would be no evidence period. If you choose to accept anecdotal evidence, you are, by default, saying that these aliens exist in a form which is detectable (they have mass, emit energy, etc).  Both of which are easily detectable by our modern technology.

The distances involved in interstellar travel are mind boggling.  To suggest that there are "UFO" representing intelligent life is laughable.  It may happen some day, but not like this.  and probably not in the next 5 billion years.

The purpose behind this "hoax" was to show how silly the believers are.  In how they handle reports.  In how ready they are to believe.  

The majority of people already believe in things for which there is no believable evidence.  why?  Cuz its nice to believe in these things.  They include UFO's, psychics, sasquatches, god, uri geller and endless other silly things.  Its a good way to see if someone should be allowed to vote though.

If you believe in the exceptionally stupid things (astrology and creationism are the most blatently obvious examples) you shouldn't probably be allowed to even drive.

Yes, it's true that these two guys didn't actually do any research to unearth facts that UFOs are not aliens and that most UFOlogists are either gullible or liars. Many of these posts criticize these kids for not actually doing 'research' and looking for 'facts'. But honestly, plenty of people have done research to debunk UFO claims with facts. UFOlogists and believers don't pay attention to facts; they believe whatever they want to believe despite the fact that they are blatently commiting the 'falacy of the far-fetched hyphotesis', violating Okham's razor and ignoring any manner of the scientific process.

So these boys fought B.S. with B.S. I don't see what's wrong with that!

Arguing UFOlogists with facts and evidence is like arguing with religious people trying to use logic. Religion, like Aliens / UFOs & cryptozoology is a matter of faith; and when it comes to faith, science, reason, logic and evidence are totally meaningless.

I personally believe that these two kids were paid by the government to claim that it was a hoax in order to cover-up the greatest paranormal event ever witnessed. Or even better, the two boys are actually aliens trying to cover their tracks.

I'm not violating Ockham's Razor with these theories, am I? People; it's basic science to accept the theory that things are explained with the most reasonable answer and then toss that theory when it's countered by evidence. Don't start by accepting the most far-fetched theory and then ask someone to debunk it!!!!! That is called BACKWARDS!

Isn't it obvious?  Joe and Chris are extraterrestrials, and they are working diligently to cover their tracks...I bet the pilot and his family were in on it too!!

If I were an alien visiting Earth in a strange ship, I would put one blue light and one red light on my spacecraft  along with a noise maker sounding like a motor, and would likely be able to fly around without anyone giving it a second thought.  I would do this because A) every native aircraft has these lights, and B) if I were clever enough to get here, I could figure out A.  

Leave it to the aggressively ignorant to say there is more proof of UFO's than there is of God. Just because you close your eyes to the evidence all around you does not mean that others follow along.

Some people forget that Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) are just that..."unidentified."

Granted, there are some people that make the entire UFO Field look bad when they don't properly analyze footage, i.e., computer analysis, video engineer analysis, or physicist's analysis, but what many people fail to question is "Why?" i.e., why would prominent UFO Researchers do that?; why would no one, government included, care about "unidentified flying objects" in U.S. airspace?; why does the media and why do t.v. shows continue to perpetuate the same cycle that's been carried out for decades when it comes to the reporting of UFOs?  Before you answer that "they're all just in it for the money," take a closer look to see what private organizations, or associations the majority are members of, and you'll find that many skeptics and many prominent UFO researchers are all on the same side, having the same agenda,  - and that is, keeping the "original truth" of "plausible Extraterrestrial activity" buried.  As long as their non-profit organizations and associations exist, irregardless of the "color of law," where their conduct should be scrutinized, they'll continue on as they have for years to come with their cat & mouse game of skeptics trying to catch UFO Researchers.  Why? - because they've yet to be stripped of their non-profit status, as well as many of them should be stripped, for perpetuating the cycle of fraud, while keeping viable information from the general public.  As for the Russo/Rudy UFO Hoax, as unfortunate as it was that their hoax even reached the level that it did, be it as it may, the Russo/Rudy UFO Hoax only magnified the irresponsibility of accurate reporting of UFO activity, and the lack of true scientific study by people who have the resources, and no excuse as to why they didn't have the UFO footage properly analyzed.  Of course, when it comes right down to it, in the end, lack of responsibility in reporting or analysis, is eventually palmed off as simply "entertainment" and that's a complete disgrace and an outright insult to many who are seeking the truth and are searching for answers.  

Humanity is so blind, we cannot see, hear, feel, know what the other creatures on our own planet do.  So many people, so many closed minds, making judgements without learning anything before opening their mouths.  

Our universe, full of billions and billions of galaxies, billions capable of "life," whatever form of life that that life may take must be filling our universe and it is theorized that there may be multi-verses.  We live for a miniscule moment, only...other inhabitants may live for thousands of years.  

We humans cannot even concieve of what reality may actually be; we are barely out of the ooze.  The two "boys" merely prove that knowledge.

Humans are so new onto the scene...but, just suppose that we had actually reached where we are now technolically speaking, say, 50,000 or 100,000 years ago.  Do you think we would still be flying in large metal tubes with wings...or...something much, much different.  How far is space would we have traveled, mathmatical discoveries making unimaginable things possible. Would we have progressed to be able to walk through walls...since the space between our atoms would allow such.  We would probably have also achieved invisibility as well.  Perhaps, we could only be seen through infra-red as "others" have already achieved.  

Life in "all" universes is a "no brainer,"  how could it be otherwise?

Stop, spend a full half-hour and invision where you would be today if such things had happened...that we live 100,000 years in the future.  I humans have been around several million years such could have been possible.  Even, the early civilizations were well on their way to higher thinking until thinking almost died out during the almost two thousand years we lost because of human blindness and stupifiing their  actions.  

A few dangerous floating ballons doesn't change anything, except of show how blind and stupid so many still choose to be.  

The person who commented..."so many people...so few comets," may be onto something.  Comets have a way of hitting the "restart" button on life on our planet...perhaps, the next comet will allow "intelligent beings" to finally rise from the ooze.

Boys and pranks...why does that sound so "normal."  It saddens me, and so do the comments of so many blind people.  Study, learn science...get up and out of the ooze you people keep your brains in.

Hey everyone, calm down and look at the date this story was posted.

Haha, let's all cool down and have a good laugh now.

I never saw a UFO..but I believe they exist..I also realize I can be wrong...  I am just wondering why ONE hoax proves or disproves anything?  The Hoaxers and the writer seem to be to certain of there convictions about the issue.  In my opinion that shows a lack of itelligence.  

thank you daneyuleb for pointing out one obvious point. People - the MAIN point of the hoax was to show the obvious flaws in accepting anecdotal type evidence as hard fact. Project Innocence has absolutely discredited eyewitness testimony as having any reliability. Datamining with supercomputers has trashed so-called experts in various subjective fields of aesthetics and such. To progress as a species we need to have a baseline from which to work, and that is the Scientific Method.

But it is April 1st. Since there are probably more people who are sceptical of UFOs including many in the scientific community, who are perfectly willing to accept a hoax story. maybe it's a hoaxed hoax?  Certainly a good way to fool a greater number of people.

im sure their lives were threatened and if they did not publicly claim it was a hoax, that they would destroy them....look where freedom has brought us. Y would the "scientists" want to cover them up anyway? Because they are buttcracks! Thats y

This is a hoot! Newsweek magazine selling an "expose" of a single UFO sighting as though it debunks a phenomenon that is thousands of years old. Where were Newsweek's journalists when our financial system was dealing fraudulent products and services to unsuspecting Americans? GIve us an expose there, you arrogant buffoons...

"Just because you don't have any faith, don't try to bash on those that do! Besides if I'm wrong about God, no harm done, but if you're wrong about God then woe's you!"

That's called Pascal's Wager and I think "God" would be able to see through that, seeing as it's supposedly omniscient. It's a pretty poor argument for "magical thinking".

Uh...there's a big difference between believing life exists on other planets, and believing it's  visiting earth clandestinely.

The former is supported by probability--you have to abandon logic in favor of mysticism to think we are likely the only life in the universe.

The latter is not supported by logic or evidence--you have to come up with all kinds of conspiracies and contrivances to support it.  And...based on the realities of interstellar distances, it most certainly is not likely to have occurred while being kept secret.  

In light of the countless numbers of proven hoaxes and incorrect interpretations of natural/man made phenomena, plus  the absolute lack of any credible evidence, ever, multiplied by the distances involved...it's extremely likely that there has not been any alien visits.

That's not to say there's no life, and likely intelligent life, out there.  Please don't confuse the two.

Although I do not personally believe in the whole UFO phenomenon, and I don’t believe we are being visited by anything more unearthly than the Republican Party, I find it interesting that these guys seemed to document everything BUT themselves actually launching their supposed hoax.  Also, their means of “confirming” dates and times was laughable.  I can record anything I want, play the loop on my computer, and have it display any time and date I choose.  Give me a break.  You’ll just have to take their word for it.  But it seems to me the hoaxers are quite possibly also a hoax.

There very well could be extraterrestial life. That does not mean it has created a spaceship, flown it to earth, avoided all detection in terms of energy, mass, radar, etc, except for bizarre anecdotal evidence of "weird lights" and such. The point of the hoax, to reiterate, is that human perception is highly malleable, eyewitness evidence is completely unreliable, and that hyperbole and "chinese whisper" style of relating information taints all UFO reports. This is why we need reliable objective physical data from which to draw conclusions. The rest are just a bunch of non-sequitars.

omg! the secret services are at it again... "no no no peoples! there are no aliens, its just a hot air ballloon like everything else!" well.......baloons are not the anwser to everything so gotya! like way back when they werent even invented yet!

Ridiculous, in my opinion.  That is, for people to dismiss out of hand literally thousands of pieces of evidence, simply because a couple kids tied flares to baloons?  Or because some ratings-inspired "advocate" claimed the flares could not have been flares?

Some of you talk about people being gullible, but yet refuse to evaluate your own gullibility?  That is a double standard that is so glaring only a brainwashed fool would fail to see the irony.  

And didn't Columbus return to Spain without having introducing himself and describing in detail his intent to every Chief east of the Mississippi? What a ridiculous notion he had, to undertake only a limited disclosure or announcement of his presence. How dare any extraterrestrial visitor come and not show the courtesy of adopting our social and political expectations! Who do they think they are?!

What I think is pretty silly or even arrogant is all the people who bought the party line, and have concluded WITHOUT evidence that humans reign supreme as the only intelligent life in our universe, and further assume our universities have more than the 101 level courses completeed to the secrets of the universe.  Might as well expect your babies second year to display an advanced understanding of microbiology, as on the time-line of discovery and wisdom, that is about as reasonable an expectation as assuming "we" have it ALL figured out in our infancy of scientific discovery and mastery thereof.

The greatest discoveries came from open minds, some of whom refused to take the party line at face value that the world was flat or one would sail off the edge of the earth if travels were pushed a bit.  But if we could land on the moon within 10 years of deciding to do so, imagine what we can accomplish in a million years? Or what others may have figured out many millions of years ago?

Once the balloon flare scams are dismissed, there remains a ton of evidence that this planet is being visited from elsewhere.  And if there is no conspiracy, why is the UFO subject and documents guarded under the highest levels of secrecy in our military? (A trend that began shortly after the Roswell incident) And if the Roswell crash was actually a weather baloon, why start a 22 year PR campaign named Blue Book to prove it?  Just does not make any sense!

Finally, as an American citizen, I can assure you that our government, Military, etc., keep absolutely NO secrets from us. There!  Who needs evidence to prove that?  LOL @ gullibile "smart" people.

CouldCareLessAnymore (April 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM)

Just because you don't have any faith, don't try to bash on those that do! Besides if I'm wrong about God, no harm done, but if you're wrong about God then woe's you!

Okay, so it was a hoax!  I wonder if they (the hoax perpetrators) would have been so willing to come forward if these "sightings" would have caused an accident and/or endangered lives...  Okay so you had your laughs.  Now do me a favor both of you, go flush yourselves down the toilet.

Maybe these guys are full of BS, and then again...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3349667/Star-Trek-warp-drive-is-a-possibility-say-scientists.html

Rockets

Okay, so it was a hoax!  I wonder if they (the hoax perpretators) would have been so willing to come forward if these "sightings" would have caused an accident and/or endagered lives...  Okay so you had your laughs.  Now do me a favor both of you, go flush yourselves down the toilet.

I knew Sam Cassell was an Alien!

http://www.dadsclan.com/2004/sam_cassell_alien.gif

we are ...without a doubt....the most arrogant people in the universe to believe  "we are it" in all space.

I am not recounting this story.....simply saying........wake up to what you see when you look up.

forget god ................think..............................are we the only ones "HE" created?

Or if you believe the other "Darwin" are "WE" the only planet that can provide life?

Get real and just get used to the idea.......................................we aint it baby!

Why are there no Aliens here?  Because they know better then to land on this freakish unjust planet.

Can you say "disinformation"?   There are plenty of cases where hoaxes were created for or built upon for the sole purpose of discrediting a subject.  If there is nothing going on, how can the US Government insult us with stories of "crash test dummies" at Roswell that didn't even exist until  10 years after the fact.  Why would they lie if they were not aware of certian issues and have choosen to keep the information from the general public?  Well for one, the "general public" would most likely be in a panic if they knew all there was to know.

Also, a skeptic is quite often a closed minded person or someone who fears the unknown or a paradigm shift.

lol at the guy who said aliens are dumping their mentally ill here - agreed!

I am sorry but anecdotal evidence just doesn't cut it to all the people claiming personal experiences with UFO's, abductions, etc. Physical evidence would have been left behind. Aircraft require tremendous energy and a large mass.

There is more proof of UFO`s than there is of God... An awful lot of ignorant gullible people still believe in the latter just because someone told them to... lol...

Hm-m-m-m....Does this experiment hold up to critical thinking and logic? Let's see:

If a given number of UFO's are reported each year (let's say 100 sightings), does one verified hoax make the other 99 sightings false? No.

I am not saying that all sightings are hoaxes, but neither can one discount all sightings based on a single instance of hoax. It is false logic. But please remember, too, that:

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object. UFO does NOT = Extraterrestrial Vehicle from another planet.

A UFO could be a weather balloon, an Air Force jet, a rocket launch, a "Black" Air Force project, or a simple weather/light anomaly. Until the object can be 100% accounted for, it remains a UFO. Simple.

I think some people aren't asking the right questions in regards to UFO's. One blogger did ask this question, which gets to the heart of the matter about intelligent life and UFO's - Why would they travel repeatedly to earth, only to reveal themselves in the vaguest and most suspicious of circumstances? If you use your logical faculties, one reaches the conclusion that it just doesn't make sense. However, as also pointed out, UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, of which there have probably been many. Some are probably military related, some weather ballons, flares, etc, some weather related phenomenon, but I am highly skeptical that any are from aliens. The other point of the experiment is what the hoaxsters stated, mainly, that human perception is easily manipulated, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable (think Project innocence) and that hard, objective data is needed before we start extrapolating a bunch of conclusions  which are all non-sequitars. This can be applied to all so called paranormal phenomenon. The only way we will progress as a species is when we can finally leave "Magical Thinking" behind.

The government of Earth is hunting the alien people, trying to capture their crafts and bodies, trying to shoot them out of the sky. The government hunts humans who are working with the alien races, and threatens them, and buys their silence, and makes them change their stories.

All while the alien people are begging our government to accept better ways to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medicine for all our people, end war, and unite our countries.

Nancy ES Malacaria

http://www.TheProjectAtEarth.com

I don't have a problem with someone finding a way to "warp" time/space to travel the vast distances of the universe. What is mind boggling is the possibility that the universe is so vast that multiple civilizations have each solved the problem in their own ways. Another interesting difficulty is navigating the vastness of a universe with each of the components moving at incredible speeds in different directions. Finally, Drake's equation omits, IMHO, an interesting final factor: That a civilization survives its own technology and apocalyptic disasters, and finds a way to leave its planet to seed life (or alter it?) on other planets with favorable conditions. If you make it this far you can then throw the entire equation in the trash can.

As a final comment I have been involved in some high tech areas, including in Russia, where once at dinner with some scientists from the Academy of Sciences (their SDI program, incidentally) we discussed this topic. Their position is not one of denial but rather "yeah, they are here and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it".

These two jokers created exactly, what they were trying to discredit...  Unidentified Flying Objects?!?  Lets be real.  Many reports of UFO's, aliens and "Nessie" are Bull****.  The concept of life in this universe other than the human race, cannot be discredited.  Believe what you want to believe...  The "Hubble" telescope has yet to send back pictures of "God" or information leading to the existance of a "higher power"!?!  Oh, I get it faith is found in your heart...  The bible consists of short stories that are much more unbelievable, than what a person may have observed...  I may be wrong, but I think some of those stories were borrowed/stolen from other cultures and text.  Our imagination, is the result of our own failure to find the reason of why we exist...  Try this on for size...  We are just simple organisms, co-existing on a planet with other organisms...  I don't care if it's Art Bell or the Rev. Billy Graham.  Opinions are like a**holes.  Everyone has one and they all stink...  

Hey Joe and Chris, the verdict is in.  It would appear that your hoax was a hoax.  Who knew?  It'a great to be loved, isn't .it?  You've very possibly repolarized the definition of the word "skeptic". These would now be the people who don't believe...you!

The conspiracy nutjob posts I'm seeing here are the only evidence that -might- make me believe alien visits might actually have occurred...I'm beginning to think it's possible that other civilizations are dropping their mentally ill here.

But alas, as in most things, the simplest explanation for these postings is the likeliest.  

Specifically: drug abuse, alcoholism, and/or simple retardation.

QUICK!! Somebody warn the Martians.!!! We come in peace.!!! We're really not Aliens, just neighbors checking out the hood...if all goes as planned by the year 2025.

No such thing as Aliens? Please...I watch them go up from my back yard every other month. Now if you're one of those with their head planted and believes we are truely "alone" in this Universe of BILLIONS of stars and planets, then yeah the only aliens we have live south of the border.........

Personally, I think the odds are against us being alone. No, I've never seen any green men, but I refuse to live in a state of denial when there's a possibility and odds on probability they exist.

Rockets

I can fake a UFO too, doesn't mean the UFO's i've seen were hoaxes, doesn't mean the UFO's and abductions experienced and reported by perfectly sane and intellegent people are hoaxes and lies.  In this new world of pundits, the definition of skeptic has evidently changed into denier.  I realize that such things are usually something you don't believe until you see it yourself, but when you go around claiming that none of these things are real and that anyone who has experienced these things are trapped in a "child-like dreamstate" just makes these "skeptics" appear ignorant and arrogant to those of us who have seen the real thing.  Also, those of us that KNOW there is something else out there aren't going to have our minds changed by those who won't even open their minds to the concept of something bigger.  The only people who enjoy reading these things are other close-minded so-called "skeptics."

I am one person of hundreds of thousands who have personal experiences with the alien people who visit Earth. It is my life mission to share with others what I learn from them.

Many humans create hoaxes of "UFOs" but the subject of alien life visiting Earth is legitimate- and imperative to the very survival of our race. The other races are people too, just different world to world, and all much further evolved and advanced than we are. They are as real and alive and physical as we are, and their technologies and natural abilities are far beyond what we can even imagine.

The government of Earth controls what the media can put out and at what slant, and the media controls public knowledge and opinion, all against the reality of alien life, and against the reputations of the alien races. This is professional slander, gossip, propaganda and disinformation. The government is maintaining the prejudice against all the other worlds of people around us, all of whom want to share common universal ways of peace and longevity with us.

The alien races of people are AWESOME, and the individuals who travel here to work with us and each other are THE professionals of their own races. The government of Earth is corrupt and will never allow the truth to be told openly- they only allow all of the untruths to be told. We individuals have to learn the truth about alien life from the alien people themselves on our own, and share it anyway despite government threats to control.

Nancy ES Malacaria

http://www.TheProjectAtEarth.com

Nice Job! I'm a partner with The Lone Star Observatory and as an astronomer we know the night sky pretty well. We get calls all the time asking what was that bright object in the sky last night. 95% of the time their seeing Venus, but folks so desperately don't want to be alone in the universe. Their is a 100% chance that their is other life in the universe, but they can't get here, and we can't get there either. If, as a planet, we do stumble upon something, it will most likely be mechanical, not biological. If a species had the technology to travel among the stars, I doubt that they would hit a windmill and crash into a field in Roswell. As a species, we have sent Voyager out into space 20 years ago and it's hasn't even left the solar system yet. It has 600 more years to reach the very next star, so space is a very big place and if you can travel between stars, we are hairy monkeys scratching our behinds. Crashing on Earth is like a monkey with a hand full of poop bringing down a B-2 Stealth, it simply won't happen!

The old video tape sighting of big foot that is shown all of the time on TV etc,  was also an admitted hoax.  Two guys came forward about 5 years ago and produce the suit they used and explained everything, including how they placed phoney foot prints all over.  They even made it a family affair, having their kids and aunts and uncles make "big foot " prints in the forest.

But to this day, the media still uses the tape as an exemple of a possible Big Foot sighting.

And one more thing......

Let's remember that a "UFO" is just that,   unidentified!!

Unless you caused the sighting or it is positively and without a doubt discovered to be a flare, chopper, etc,  it is   UNIDENTIFIED!!!

Since a ton of these reports are "explained", but not actually identified, they ARE  UFO's.

I'm curious as to know what "experts" are claiming this to be a real UFO?  I can tell you right now who ever is doing it is no real expert, but merely a snake-oil salesmen.

A true expert wouldn't make ANY assumptions without first weighing all the facts.

It doesn't matter if this was real or not, it has already been tarnished, case closed, move on.

Lets just say for instance that project blue book investigated over 10,000 claims and determined that all but 700 could be explained....

Now lets say of all the thousands of witnesses, government employees, pilots, military personnel...etc, who have come forward to talk about what they experienced or saw, or personally played a role in...

Sure a majority could be false, misrepresented, hoaxed, or misidentified.....but only ONE needs to be true.

The Extraterrestrial Society

www.etsociety.com

I have a couple points on both sides of the coin.

I dislike Sharon's editorial views in this matter, it's a good thing she works for a magazine instead of trying for Journalism, she obviously missed a few classes when working on the high school paper. She took the "low road" with her personal bias, rather than simply report the facts.

If these guys had been olive skinned, and caught in the act of sending incendiaries over a populated area, I believe they would be labeled terrorists instead of heroes to Newsweek.

And the adolescent disclaimer- sorry sharon, your flimsy story is not quite enough to overturn my well thought-out lifelong conclusions (note i did not say 'belief') about life elsewhere. It just isn't strong enough. Were you really expecting to change anyone's mind with a single, faked incident?

This kind of faulty logic would dictate that reading about Jonestown and Waco are eveidence that God is a fake. "Warning: do not read this article about Jim Jones if you want to believe in God." See how stupid this sounds?

Now for the other side of the coin:

As a serious investigator, I have complained numerous times about the TV show in question. I pleaded that they start doing some actual investigation, and to be honest they have stepped up their game quite a bit over the 2nd season.

However, Bill Birnes is a liability to the group and I have stated it plainly before. He lacks credibility and his on-camera antics reveal this. After the barest of evidence he labeled one witness a "hybrid".  While I am entertained by the show itself, I cringe every time Bill opens his mouth. He sets the UFO subject back about 20 years every time he makes a wildly outlandish claim.  (they stand out as outlandish amongst a landscape of the incredible, no small feat)

My conclusion: Have one of the journalists who work in cube next to you follow up if or when these two young men are arrested.  

and could someone please replace bill birnes? please?

-Greg Grub

interesting to see the variety of post subjects, but i'm still curious as to what the apollo 11 astronauts viewed that has not been talked about.

If just a couple dumb "fraternity clowns" could fool MANY people into thinking it was really a UFO just think what intelligent non-fraternity clowns could do and have been doing for yrs. These sightings are all hoaxes. There is no intelligent life on other planets.

The "Phoenix Lights "that have generated TV show appearences, book deals, and spots on UFO documentaries is also one of the biggest hoaxes ever.  They were Air Force flares dropped over the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range south of Phoenix.  People wanted to see UFOs so much that the story got embellished  more and more as the weeks, months and years went on.  But people are making money on this false sighting.

This is one thing that I dont understand now that qn intelligent race will traval billions of miles to this planet  and not make contact with a head of state or some other  political leader but show upto joe six pack in his trailer park. I just dont understand the point

Im so scared of all you saying they are part if government conspiracy to cover up UFO's!  or saying they are intimidated. Ridiculous! Saying its conspiracy theory is great evidence =(  How easy to write off what you dont beiieve by crying "its a conspiracy theory!" pllleeaaasssee!  There is no such thing as intelligent life on other planets people. Stop drinking your Kool aid and step into reality!

Terminus indicated a friend of his ran Project Blue Book. I also had friends who freqently had J. Allen Hynek as a guest at their home. He left Project Blue Book as a frustrated man and to his dying day he maintained that there was a lot more going on than the Air Force would reveal. My father was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in the early 60s and I recall driving by what was the HQ for Project Blue Book. They actually had a sign on the fence. I can tell you the place was secured like Ft. Knox. It was mostly in a large bunker surrounded by double layers of fence with razor wire, patrol dogs and armed guards. Now you tell me why that level of security if there was nothing to hide. I'm afraid I have to agree with Dr. Hynek that there is much worth knowing.

thinking...should project blue book have been called project blue box?...Doctor?

A while back two guys pull off a hoax about Big Foot....they were arrested and charged......I believe they have wasted many many people time and money in investigating this hoax...these two guys should have to pay for all damages. I understand that not all UFO sightings are space ships, but being a person who saw something very very unusual in Park Falls, WI a few years back....I was a sceptic...now I am a believer.....If you are a sceptic.....move on to something else.....if you don't believe then don't.....are you about to take God away from those who "believe" to? I feel that would be a better use of time and resources.....more people are fooled into believing that every day....

Buzz Aldrin did NOT see a UFO, and he would be the first to tell you that. Claiming that he did is typical of the dishonesty of UFO believers.

Love it! Finally people coming forward showing how everyone who has "seen" a UFO has been duped. There is no such thing as aliens.  

How unfortunate that a couple of would-be fraternity clowns were only able to dismiss 1 of more than 1 million factually reported real-life UFO cases...Now if they could use all their brain cells to just manage to find a real job instead of spending their boring and desperate lives trying to disprove a phenomenon that respectable, educated, and highly professional people from all over the globe know in their hearts to be a REAL occurrence-which the governments of the world spend so much time, resources and money to cover-up! If there is no other life out there, than why the HELL are we spending so many billions of dollars on space exploration instead of feeding all the homeless people on this planet and fixing this damn economy!

1. The many commercial and military pilots having witnessed UFO's , is adequate fact of UFO

activity and existence.

2. Mr. Russo and Mr. Rudy in their desire to make fools of humans have exposed themselves as hoaxsters of limited intelligence. Cave men didn't conceive of the harnessing of electricity though lightening was overhead  from time to time.

3. For a longtime, humans have labored over idiotic beliefs as if Universal Fact.

4. Traveling at speeds in excess of the speed of Light is not an issue with UFO's and the Aliens who own and operate UFO's.

5. So long as Humans accept mere theoretical thought and spend money making a case of thetr theorectical thought, then humans remained chained to an obvious error.

Mr. Russo and Mr. Rudy reveal their deep intimidation by the reality of UFO's and what must be powers which are intimidating to Mr. Russo and Mr. Rudy..

UFO's exist, why those whom humans call  Aliens don't socialize with humans aroses a deep fear- how friendly is exclusion and silence? Mr. Russo and Mr. Rudy seek something precious- contact with Aliens. In not being able to achieve that, they made frauds of their own intelligence to undermine a reality that surely is undeniable.

Not being acceptable to Aliens, they want to undermine a reality humans ought to pay attention to.

This was NOT a hoax!  It was a REAL UFO sighting.  Eskeptic magazine only came out and claimed that it was their hoax because they are part of the government cover up.  UFOs visited New Jersey and Eskeptic and the governement CANNOT change that fact!!!

The things we humans are unaware of that happen around us would boggle even the most brilliant minds. The senses we have are in fact amazing but there's many many holes in our radar. We see things that don't exist and we don't see things that do exist! Recently I watched a documentary about Death Valley in an area where they've never found a single trace of life. The humidity there is below 10% most of the time. Now they have found that due to water vapor settling over the salt rocks that green microbes are growing inside. Get this, inside salt rocks with very little water life abounds. I don't know about the rest of you but as big as our universe is and as much baryonic matter as we see out there, I just have this sneakin' suspicion that life abounds throughout our realm.

I wonder if Terminus could expand on his comment.  Will the "release of the Blue Book" info show that there have been visitors, or is there a lot more swamp gas than  we ever imagined?

lol just had to respond to jexman's bizarre question:

"If there is no God, and there are no aliens, who/what created the particles that created our universe?"

There we go...it's definitely god or aliens, case closed!

It's very easy to generate UFO reports, done it twice inadvertantly over the years. First time was from a rock concert held in a remote canyon when the colored lights flashing caused someone to call the sheriff. They, of course, came up and checked it out. It was actually a High School graduation kegger. We thought we were busted but the organizers not only collected money for the beer but they also collected the car keys. The deputies saw the bucket of keys and told people tp be careful and left!! It is a huge county with a small jail so they most likely thought things were ok and left.

The second time came from a High Power hobby rocket I flew on a windy day. I miscalculated the delay time and the rocket was still going up when the nose cone ejected ripping it and a large parachute off. It was a black cone with a red and black parachute 4 feet across, The wind was blowing from northeast to southwest and  the cone and chute traveled 40 miles from where it was launched down the Boise Front mountian range from Mt. Home to Boise. 2000 reports were made as the "UFO" went past town. It even made the Art Bell radio show  ;)_

I don't see the big deal here.  It was a funny and eye opening prank, hopefully a few people will get the message.  Those that are bashing this just because you were wetting your pants with excitement when this all went down, get over it!  The simple and for some reason very hard to admit truth is we don't know and anyone who pretends to is likely a liar.

The only thing I could add is that during the 70s I was employed by the CIA. and used to all kinds of top secret stuff. When I looked up Rosewell the security classification was "MAJIC" or "MAGIC" I had never seen that one before. Since then I have learned about the "Magestic Seven" and believe that to be true. There was a notation in what I was looking at that said something about the physological ramifications of releasing the information contained in the Rosewell files....That's all I know but given the size of the universe you'd have to be almost an idiot to not beleive there is intelligent life out there. I'm sure some of the sightings are real but many others hoaxes

You can't make someone an idiot.  They have to do that all by themselves.  And I have lost a lot of respect for the History Channel based on their more recent programming choices that show all the idiots running around looking for UFO, monsters, etc.  The small amount of truly unexplained stuff wouldn't carry a full season of programming though.  But what a load of crap.

Its sad to see a story written that commends these pranksters for wasting a portion of their lives to become recognized for pulling an "April fools" type stunt on America. I personally think what they did was funny, and so will other people, giving them motivation to chase their own fame by coming up with another extravagent hoax. SacCurmudgeon, are you a floater? If there is no God, and there are no aliens, who/what created the particles that created our universe?

I live near Roswell, was here in the 1950's.  The UFO landing  site is near Roswell and people pay $15.00 to visit the site.  Every five years the site is changed because the Ranchers are tired of having people traipse around their land. It is a local joke about who has the site now.  The real weather balloon fell 90 miles away near Corona, NM.

A bunch of kooks,but it makes the area money so we don't object.  Even Wal-Mart in Roswell has an alien sign on its walls. The guy next door to me closed his restaurant so he could "make more money" being a UFO expert.

Some very well made points astrocat.Anyone familiar at all with fact finding, either in a research context or in a legal setting knows very well that that the weight  placed on the testimony of pilots, military observers and police officers who are all trained to observe and report is justifiably high.So too is the credibility afforded material evidence, as in those cases where the UFO registers on RADAR. These two clowns only proved that they are empty headed and childish

While I really believe some of the reports in the past could be valid, I also wonder how come a space vehicle could travel across the universe, for who knows how long, and then "crash" here on earth.  Seems strange........but then you read about the Kecksburg case near Pgh in mid 60's where the Army denied any military presence at all, but did report there was nothing found in the woods....or removed on a flatbed Army truck, for that matter.  Why would the govt. conceal this stuff for so long?  Any recovery of a UFO would be the greatest story in our history, and would not have been able to be kept a secret by so many for so long!!

Of course, have you ever seen the movie "Hangar 18"?

Why is everyone so quick to believe these two jackasses actually perpetrated a hoax? Ever heard of TiVo? It's too easy to go record something, replay it later with claims they they are doing something live. I think these clowns are playing the hoax RIGHT NOW by claiming to have played a hoax earlier.

I think what these lads did is outstanding. They managed to puncture some egos and make a valid point. Be very careful about what you see and don't fall for any claptrap. Do your research and check into these sightings. It's too easy to fall for the "It's a UFO" crap.

They did their research and managed to fool several experts with very little expenditure and a great deal of imagination. They couldn't help it if people went for the UFO nonsense.

I must go now, my transport to the mother ship just arrived.

Great! Now for your next experiment determine the answer here.  2 people less 2 brains equals ho w many think you two are total asses and wonder why your parents arent outraged taht this is all they got for the money put into your educations. did your degree come with a t shirt and beer huggie?

First, not all sightings on UFO Hunters are attributed to aliens or UFOs, some are believed to be test flights of super-secret military aircraft.

Second, people fake religious "miracles" all the time, yet no one seems ready to close the book on the existence of god(s) or angels.

Third, why aren't these guys hiring lawyers right now?  Didn't they put people at risk, either in the air or on the ground?  

I agree with the comment about Popular Mechanics.  When did these yahoos become our nation's first and foremost "experts" on everything under the sun?  Believing that there are races older and far more advanced than ours is far less insane than believing that everything was created in seven days and that the vastness of space is totally unoccupied and simply there for our entertainment.

A close friend of mine headed up project Blue Book.

If the time comes when he can release what he knows.....there are going to be a lof of "red faces" among the Ufologists.

My father had top secret clearance in the Army Air Corps during and immediately after WWII. He was also single and multiengine rated, and worked on the guided missiles program and radar gunnery systems. After he died I found documents that showed he was stationed in Florida, New Mexico, and reported directly to Gen. H. H. Arnold while working on these programs. Further, I never knew him to lie. One day about twenty five years ago I heard about the Roswell incident, and knew that he was in the 8th Air Force at the time and working in New Mexico with the guided missiles testing. I asked him "did it (Roswell) really happen?" and he simply said "Yep." Good enough for me.

Too many bleeding Startrek fans in this world, that's the problem. Even a speed of Warp 2000 will not be good enough for space travel! Get over it.

Planet Earth is an insignificant part of the Universe. There must be higher levels of existence that we cannot presently comprehend. there does seem to be an intelligent PLAN in the formation of life. Just because we have not found it, does not mean that it does not exist. Someday, we may have a visit form another intelligent species, and a lot of unanawered questions (like GOD) may be understood and answered..

Rudy and Russo have not only fessed up to wasting the world's time, but they exhibit the same ignorance that most skeptics do whenever the subject of UFOs comes up.  Sharon's Begley's statement that " For some reason, reporters find pilots’ UFO sightings especially believable" shows her lack of common sense in dealing with this topic.  Certainly one must tend to believe that pilots would experience the most  sightings.  Duh!

Do a minimal amount of research and you will find the multitude of reports made by military and professional pilots (don't forget Buzz Aldrin's ) which are backed up by airline and military records.  Anyone with common sense would realize that pilots would be the "best witnesses,"  would have much to lose, and fear great ridicule for reporting UFOs.

The great efforts being made by ufologists to expose the truth are being made a mockery of by these three un-informed fools, who have done nothing but play a prank on the world.  All they've proven is that they have almost no knowledge of the topic at hand.  They exposed no charlatan ufo investigators, as their story lacks everything but foolishness.  

You ever heard of truth and facts boys?  It doesn't appear you know how to find such.

Perhaps  Begley, Russo, and Rudy should return to school and start over with lesson number one.  

STUDY!!!

Then learn something about research.

What is so terrible about this stunt? Religious "leaders" have been fooling the world for thousands of years that there is a "god" that created and controls everything. These people, some call them priests or "father", collect billions of dollars every year to instruct and counsel their followers in the ways of a totally non-existant diety. There is no god, there never was a god, there never will be a god. These rational skeptics have proven once again how totally gullible people can be when they see something that is not immediately explained. Everyone who "believes" is seriously delusional and should not be trusted with anything that is not proven by science. If you are religious, please let me know why your god has not spontaneously healed an amputee? Never has it been done, can't be done, and (without medical science and transplants) never will be done. Keep your religion out of my life and I'll keep my life out of your religion.

These guys are jerks. It's stunts like this that make it so difficult to seriously study an unexplained phenomena. Their stunts also do nothing to dissuade the people who wear tin foil hats & hang out in Roswell. Some people will believe anything regardless of the number of hoaxes that are exposed.

If it wasn't for all the pranksters & attention seekers that fake ufo sightings, bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, & ghosts, it would be a lot easier to research the small number of truly unexplained phenomena that may be out there. There might actually be something really remarkable going on out there somewhere, but people like these guys guarantee that we'll never know about it because they condition all of us rational people to automatically regard everything as either a hoax or a mistake. Thanks a lot guys.

Nicely done, guys? They are nothing but a bunch of irresponsible jackasses that have made other people their pawns in a stupid little game of "ha, ha, we made idiots out of you all".

That was the intent. To make idiots out of believers and non believers alike.

Guys you are just as sick as the person who believes, that you tried to discredit.

People like you make me sick. This was no scientific study or anything close for scientific research. Just a bunch of jackasses doing what jackasses do best. Bray at the moon and think that makes them look and sound good.

Isn't that exactly what aliens would do....try to convince reporters that they are Earthlings and then denounce the whole thing?  I don't believe them.  I saw their space ships on Youtube and that's all the proof I need.    

I love these guys for doing this -- very funny.  So many stupid people, so few comets. . .

At least the Dr that works on the UFO Hunters program tries to keep some rational thought going. Birnes assumes that everything is an extraterrestrial until proven otherwise.

I'm bummed it wasn't real. But I'm stoked you made that Bill Birnes guy look like an idiot. I've watched that show and he always uses words like "undeniably". What an ass.

It is easy to scam those who want to believe.  This is how scammers victimize sp many people.  The same basic principle applies here.

imaginingthat, you hit the nail on the head. Creating a hoax of this nature to be able to say that all similar things must be hoaxes is really ridiculous, not to mention childlike and irresponsible. Have your own opinion, be skeptical and analytical – that is responsible, adult-like and a true service to your fellow man.

Next question; how do we know that Joe Rudy and Chris Russo are even truthful.  Do they supply any evidence that proves their case? Is the story of a hoax the real hoax?

As for those that don’t find any credibility in psychic ability, spiritual mediums, alien abductions, etc. , too bad you aren’t willing to investigate for yourselves. The position that all of this kind of phenomenon is absolutely untrue is as ridiculous as saying all of these this kind of phenomenon is totally true. Skeptics are always asking the supporters of these things for “hard evidence.”  This is a particularly ridiculous request because it supposes that everything in so-called science is supported by “Hard Evidence” which of course is completely false.  

UFO Hunters have always been way too eager to declare (or at least strongly imply) that the observed UAP is an UFO. In one of the episodes they were investigating something very similar to this but over Phoenix AZ. The official explanation was flares from an air force training exercise.

UFO Hunters shot some flares and asked one of the eye witnesses to watch and say if they look similar to what she saw that night. I bet you that was flares too.

The eye witness said they don't but that's to be expected because no body wants to make a fool out of themselves on national TV. To me, the flares did look very similar to an ammature video of the UAP they did show earlier in the episode. They quickly declared that the experiment is "nothing close" to the observed UAP and brush it under the carpet. And since it is not flares, by association the government is lying to cover up an alien visit.

The problem is that in the air there is no reference points, so it is very easy to get confused when it comes to judging height, size and distance. It has happened to me so I know.

Aw... you guys are just still sore from the anal probing...

All I know is that Kristine Johnson is fine.

Good Day Sharon,

Couldn't let this one go without making some observations:

First you wrote, "They cooked up a spaceship hoax 'to show everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are, along with investigators of UFOs.'"

I would argue just the opposite; although I don't condone the experiment, i.e., illegally launching incendiaries into the atmosphere, contrary to the perp's conclusions, in my view "it reinforces how accurate eyewitness declarations can be" in regards to seeing aerial phenomenon.

I think that the perps' can rightfully criticize the ignorance of a few, whom assigned an "extraterrestrial presence" to "lights in the sky"; however, this is a matter of an evaluation of what they witnessed, not the "description" of what they witnessed, which if one goes over the eyewitness accounts is fairly accurate of what occurred.

Finally, using an "entertainment show" and their respective opinions as a benchmark on an alleged UFO event isn't prudent in my view, and adds no weight to their argument. Most sober investigators would make no conclusions without further evidence, and in my view, that same group would have presumed that they were flares to begin with, as this type of hoaxing is not uncommon.

What stands out in my mind is why these guys haven't been arrested, since obviously launching uncontrolled incendiaries is against the law, and they have incriminated themselves, as well as provided evidence of their crimes publicly. One can only wonder if something had gone wrong and someone's house caught on fire, or even worse . . ..

Regards,

Frank Warren

http://www.theufochronicles.com/

Well, there ya go. It's settled.

Every sighting ever seen can be explained away. We - the sensible among us - knew this all along. And, yes, all UFO investigators are foolish ... we knew that too.

What Newsweek has done here is a mirror image of  what "foolish" investigators do, hoping to strike a chord with those who "know" there's nothing to UFO sightings, and never has been. Why, these folks need to be fed, too, and lately their pickin's have been slim.

Looks like we can add Newsweek in with Popular Mechanics, and everyone, who "know" it's all a ruse.