August 2003

The news items below are updated daily and will cover any paranormal and interesting topics we come across. They are written by HUFOS member, Rita A. Jennings, who kindly donates her time and effort in keeping these News In General pages full of upto date information.

Rita Jennings

Hull UFO Society c/o 62, Egton Street, New Cleveland Street, Hull. N. Humberside HU8 7HU Tel: 01482 219887 Mbl: 07754 036536 Email: Hull UFO Society

Don't forget we hold a monthly meeting every second Tuesday
of every month were we read out more interesting news items like these.

(See Monthly Meetings link on the left hand side of this page)

Jelly Fish-Like UFO's - There has been consistent reports world wide of "Jelly Fish-like" objects/or creatures as some say, seen in the sky. Most UFO's seen are the usual metallic looking grey discs or boomerang shaped and even cigar shaped, which are usually called "Mother ships or Crafts." Adrian Dalton of Daventry in the UK. saw what he describes as "Like two brown jelly fish in the sky." They looked like they were swimming. They were brown with a dark brown centre. The same night a cameraman caught a shot of a UFO in the night sky in Worcester. In June a woman from Crick saw an aeroplane which had a lozenge-shaped object above it. It was travelling at the same speed as the plane. It then appeared underneath the plane and shot off quickly in the opposite direction.Another viewing of a jelly fish object took place on the 21st August l995. At 1.30pm. in Iowa City, IA, USA. It was transparent and floating in the sky. It was spotted by a man and his grandson. They saw a white disc shaped object and what appeared to be a jellyfish. The transparent shimmering object began descending approximately 15 feet to the east of were they were sitting. It fell to what he estimated to be an altitude of 150 feet. It fluttered just like he had seen jellyfish do in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It had what looked like cords hanging down from under its transparent circular body. The chords did not move. The white disc shaped object hovered motionless higher above.

Mars - Mars will be closest to Earth than it has been in the last 60,000 years next month. It will appear larger and brighter then normal. On the 27th August, Mars and Earth will be less than 35 million miles apart. in l988, the last time they were close together, they were 2 million miles further apart. The photo of Earth and the Moon was taken from Mars. It shows the pale blue disc, half in shadow of the Earth and the smaller disc of the Moon. The picture was captured by Nasa, by the Mars Global Surveyor Space-craft now orbiting Mars. The image has been processed to allow the Earth and the much darker moon to be visible together. The picture taken on the 8th May when Mars was 86 million miles from the Earth. The bright area at the top of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern North America. Below, darker area includes central America and the Gulf of Mexico. The bright feature near the centre right of the crescent Earth consists of clouds over northern South America.

Mars. - Get ready for the closest Mars has ever been to earth in almost 60,000 years. Here are a few facts:-

Every 26 months, as the Earth and Mars orbit the Sun. The Earth overtakes Mars on the inside track. This happens every 15 - 17 years when Mars is closest to the Sun.

On the 27th August this year, they will pass at a distance of 55,760,000 km.

At its closest, Mars will be 25 seconds of arc in diameter, the size of a tennis ball at a distance of 528 metres.

Already, Mars is visible to the naked eye.But by late August, it will be just above the horizon, south of east, soon after sunset. If you have a good quality telescope you will be able to see any surface detail.

Throughout August and September, you will be able to see Mars easily with your naked eye. Throughout August and September it will rise earlier and once risen. it will be the brightest object in the sky, appearing orange red. From the UK, it will never rise higher than 22 degrees and you will need an unobstructed view to the south to see it.

Mars will be best seen from the Southern Hemisphere, where by the middle of the night it will be high in the sky and there will be no doubt that it is Mars. So don't forget, keep your eyes peeled for a once in a lifetime encounter. The last time Mars was this close, it was the stone age.

Mars And The Moon - This picture was taken above the city of Turku near the south-western tip of Finland. It shows the Moon with the planet Mars to the right. The Moon is 400,000 kilometres away in this picture but still shines brightly in the night sky. Mars is 64 million kilometres away and getting closer and brighter by the hour. Streaking between the Moon and the planet Mars is the Earths largest artificial moon, The International Space Station. This is orbiting at 400 kilometres above the Earth's surface. The picture on the right was taken on the 17th July, 2003.

The Shuttle - Ever wondered how the shuttle gets back to Florida when it lands in California? This is the answer - on the back of a modified Boeing 747. The Ferry is operated by Nasa. It has two Boeing 747 airplanes which have been modified to carry the shuttle on it's back. The official name is "Shuttle Carrier Aircraft or SCA" and the 747's were made for flights, but bolstered with several struts, stabilizers and electronic monitors. They span about 70 meters in length and the two combined craft's mass is nearly 150,000 kilograms. The picture is of the shuttle Atlantis being ferried back to Nasa, Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in September, 1998.

Return To Space Of The Shuttle - An independent team began work at the Kennedy Space Centre, on judging the return to space of the shuttles. The 27 members of the panel are charged with making sure that Nasa complies with all the findings and recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report.

The group is known as the Stafford/Covey Task Group and is co-chaired by Tom Stafford and Dick Covey. Stafford is a veteran of the Gemini and Apollo programmes and has flown four times. Covey also has four flights to his credit. The rest of the team members, include former astronauts, retired Nasa managers and experts in the field of engineering, flight safety and public policy. Only one member is a current Nasa employee and he serves as an ex-officio and is a non-voting member. This impressive panel is at the Cape learning more about the shuttle operations and is holding its first meeting at the Kennedy Space Centre Visitors Complex's Debus Conference Centre and is open to the public.

The latest date for the return of the shuttle flights has now been given as the 11th March 2004. Atlantis will lift off on the STS-114 Mission to the International Space Station. But some officials are advising not to put too much weight on that date. Several new restrictions will be advised. Shuttles are to be launched in daylight, with the external tank separation also in daylight. This will reduce the number of days available to fly each year. The CAIB continues to finalize their report on the 1st February loss and are pressing ahead with return of flight plans. They stated "We are committed to return to flight, but we are committed to doing so as safely as we can." Also, in the CAIB report are suggestions about how Nasa's culture played a role in the loss of the Columbia. The Board members have stated repeatedly at their press conferences that the intangible way Nasa officials and others interact with each other as they go about their jobs could use some scrutiny.

The Great Moon Hoax - We think that our latest conspiracy theory about the moon is new, but we are wrong. Years ago in 1835 A Moon Hoax took place. The noted astronomer Sir William Herschel (1738 - 1822) and his sister Caroline discovered new satellites of Saturn, discovered Uranus and catalogued star clusters and nebulae. Herschel was convinced that all stars and planets had intelligent life on them. He even said that the Sun was inhabited. He maintained that the Sun had a thin shell around it with a cooler inner, on which people lived. Right upto his death in 1822 he still believed "Sun Men" lived on the Sun. His son, John was also a respected astronomer. He built a telescope in 1835 in Feldhausen, South Africa.

In 1835, the New York Sun paper printed an alleged reprint of discoveries that John Herschel had made. These immediately caused a sensation. According to Herschel, life on the moon had been discovered. He had apparently invented a system which enabled him to magnify the Moons surface so brilliantly that according to his words "It is as if one where standing on it." His telescope observed the moons craters, amethyst crystals 90 feet high, rivers, vegetation and animals. They were curly-antletered antelope, goats, cranes, pelicans.bison with eye-flaps of skin to shield their eyes from the sun and tailless beaver. Then he revealed the Moon Men. He described them in full detail - furry-winged men and women, resembling bats and they could fly. These articles in the paper even fooled two scientists and became one of the most famous newspaper hoaxes in history.

Two scientists from Yale could not find the original Edinburgh Journal articles in the Yale library. They travelled to New York to try and obtain them from the newspaper office, but were told the articles were at the printers. A newspaper runner took another route to the printing plant and told the printer where to send them next. All day long they were given the run-around and finally went back to Yale none the wiser and very disappointed.Still in South Africa, John Herschel finally heard of the hoax by letter and stated. "It is too bad my real discoveries here won't be that exciting."

This hoax fooled many people. The whole story was written by Richard Adams Locke, who was the editor of the Sun. It was a four page daily and cost 1p per copy. His target of satire was Dr.Thomas Dick, a writer of popular scientific books. Dick had a style which combined some scientific fact with fantastic speculation, wild theory, and moral preaching. Dick's books about the moon, assumed that it was inhabited, without any scientific proof. The physicist and mathematician Gauss also made similar proposals.

Locke later admitted to friends that he never imagined how many people would be taken in, and said that he was "the best self-hoaxed man" in the community. In the 19th Century, New York City had a reputation for being a place where suckers were ripe for the picking and the name "GOTHAM" , a nickname for New York City derived from the name of a mythical "land of fools." So, there we have it, even all those years ago, Moon Hoaxes were taking place, just as to day and most probably for many years to come.

Asteroids Dedicated To The Columbia Astronauts - Seven astronauts lost in the final mission of the space shuttle Columbia were today memorialized in the heavens as seven Asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. They were named in their honour. The Space Shuttle Columbia crew, Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark; and Israeli payload specialist Ilan Ramon, will have celestial memorials, easily found from Earth.

The names which were proposed by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Pasadena, California were approved by the International Astronomical Union. The Official clearing house of asteroid data, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Minor Planet Centre, released the dedication today. On the nights of July 19th to 21st 2001, the seven asteroids were discovered at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego by Eleanor F. Helin (now retired July 2002) who was a former JPL astronomer. The seven asteroids range in diameter from 5 to 7 kilometres (3.1. - 4.3 miles). The Palomar Observatory is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

The final flight of the space shuttle Columbia (the 28th) was a 16 day missions dedicated to research in physical life and space sciences. The seven astronauts conducted approximately 80 separate experiments working 24 hours a day in two alternating shifts. When the solar system was formed about 4.6.billion years ago, these rocky fragments left over became the asteroids. Most of the ones we know about orbit the sun in a band between Mars and Jupiter. There are probably millions of them ranging in size from less then 1 kilometre (.62 mile) wide to hundreds of kilometres across. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered on the 1st January, 1801 and is the largest at 933 kilometres (580 miles) in diameter. Since then, more than 100,000 asteroids have been discovered. The Near- Earth Asteroid Tracking System is managed by JPL for Nasa's Office of Space Science, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

The Great New York Blackout - Last week millions of people in New York where plunged into darkness. Usually, the reflection from the lights of the city block out the beautiful view of the stars shining above them. But if the people of New York took time to look up, they would have seen this magnificent site. This picture shows the moon shining in all its glory with the planet Mars to the right of it. The visible lights in the picture are due to the cars, local power generators, flashlights and candles. Just shows you what they are missing every day due to the light pollution.

Science Fiction Now A Reality - In science fiction stories, the Starship Enterprise and the Discovery in the 2001 film A Space Odyssey were both powered by an "ion engine using solar electric propulsion." This is now to become the system to power the unmanned Smart-1 lunar probe which is to be launched next month to the Moon. Ion-powered engines are 10 times more efficient then conventional rocket-fuelled ones. The probes engines uses solar panels which convert sunlight from the panels into electricity, which is then used to change xenon gas atoms into ions. The matter is then thrust out by the engine at high speed providing a propulsion slighter than a breath of air. The solar panels provide only 0.07 newton of thrust - the equivalent to the weight of a postcard. This is the first time Star-Trek technology is to be used and it could take years off journeys to planets and other worlds. The Smart-1 which is the size of a small washing machine will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, on September 4th. The mission will last for 18 months and will search for water, and using a X-ray instrument built by the British will map the moons surface and test other new technologies.

Stardust - Apparently Stardust from deep space is penetrating the Sun's protective magnetic field. This is increasing the amount of debris in the Solar System. The European Space Operation Centre in Darmstadt, Germany stated "It will not effect Earth, but could damage spacecraft."

Czech State Dinner Attended By ROBOT. - An unusual state dinner party was held by the prime minister of Japan and the Czech Republic, a robot joined them. Named ASIMO, he walked into the dining room at the cities Hrzansky Palace and then went and shook hands with the two leaders. The robot then said in Czech, "I have arrived in the Czech Republic, where the word robot was born, together with Prime Minister Koizumini as a Japanese envoy of goodwill." ASIMO is the worlds most advanced humanoid Robot and you will all have seen pictures of him before, he speaks Japanese, can walk upstairs and recognises voices. As a tribute to the Czech writer Karel Capek, Japanese's leader Junichiro Koizumi decided to bring ASIMO along for the ride and to provide light relief from the diplomatic purpose of Mr Loizumi's trip. The word Robot was invented in Capek's 1921 play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) when the concept of human-like creations capable of doing dull repetitive tasks was introduced. The word Robot comes from the Czech word Robota, which means drudgery. ASIMO stands for "Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility."

India To Go To The Moon - India has announced that they will send a spacecraft to the Moon before 2008. The Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said "Our country is ready to fly high in the field of science." "I am pleased to announce that India will send her own spacecraft to the moon by 2008." It is not clear whether the ship - "Chandrayan Pratham", Mooncraft One will be manned. The state-run Indian Space Research Organisation has said to is hoping to send a small satellite first to circle the moon by 2005 and then follow it with a manned flight in 2015.

BRAZIL - Space Dream Shattered - A Brazilian Space rocket VLS-3 has exploded on the launch pad at it's Alcantara base in the north-eastern state of Maranhao, and killed 20 people. It was just days from it's scheduled launch when one of the four rocket motors caught fire, causing the launchpad to collapse. Technicians were carrying out final tests and the explosion was so intense that the identities of the bodies have been difficult to establish and the full number of victims are not known at the present. This is Brazil's third unsuccessful space attempt since 1997. In 1997 and 1999 both rockets were destroyed after lift-off because of technical problems. Technicians had just completed two days of tests and everything had gone well. Air Force Colonel Romeo Brasileiro said "Everything is devastated and the president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has reaffirmed Brazils determination to pursue the space programme." blast which happened at 13.30 (16.30 GMT) on Friday was heard dozens of kilometres away in the town of Sao Luis, and Brazil's Globo TV showed pictures of the plume of smoke over the base. The rocket which was 60 foot high cost 6 million dollars and was destroyed along with the two satellites which were due to collect weather data for research programmes. Alcantara is close to the Equator which allows the rockets to use less fuel to reach orbit and it is hoped that it will become an international launch centre for commericla satellites. As the news of the explosion was emerging, the head off the Brazilian Space Agency was holding a news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart about a deal to launch Ukrainian rockets from Alcantara. Valeriy Komarov, the head of the Ukrainian Space Agency stated "This sad accident should not and will not influence relations between Brazil and the Ukraine."

Two Bllion Dollar Space Observatory- On Monday a space observatory is due to be launched by Nasa. The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), as it is called, will be able to detect infrared energy (Heat) which is emitted from stars, galaxies and planets. It will begin its journey to study the early history of the Universe on a Boeing Delta 2 rocket which will launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida during the early hours of Monday. It will be the largest and most sensitive infrared telescope that has ever been sent into space. The telescope will orbit for 2 - 5 years and then sent off even further into deep space. Among those making use of the observatory will be UK astrophysicists, who will be looking for infrared galaxies which are found 10 billion light years away. Dr. Sebastian Oliver of the Astronomy Centre at the University of Sussex says "It allows us to look through dust and to study objects that would be hidden from us." They will be able to look right back to a time when the Universe was a very different place, violent and many new stars in the process of being born. Michalel Rowan-Robinson of Imperial College London states "That by looking back through almost 90% of the Universe's history, we are able to look back to a period when star formation was much more frequent that it is today" "And this will enable us to trace the evolution of Star formation from early times." The launch of SIRFT marks the completion of Nasa's Great Observatories Programme. The Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory study the Universe at other wavelengths. Compton has now been taken out of commission (June 2000) but the other two are still operating. The European Space Agency will launch a larger infrared telescope called Herschel in 2007.

Viruses - By now everyone must of heard of the latest virus doing the rounds on the net - SoBig-G - which could bear the worlds worst-ever virus. It nearly paralyzed the internet and criminals have been blamed. But apparently according to computer security experts, the next incarnation of the virus could be even worse and this is what they fear. Millions of computers were effected and severe disruptions to some mail servers was caused. Previous epidemics have estimated to have cost 2 billion dollars in lost business, clean up costs and replacement to technology, plus all the wasted time. 2001 was a bad year for viruses which cost 13 billion dollars globally. So once you have been infected by a virus, most people tend to avoid getting caught out again by taking the appropriate action. But for some security hi-tech workers, the job of fighting these viruses is a 24 hour, 7 day a week task. Many security firms run network monitoring centres to make sure their customers network are virus free. Symantec's European Network operation centre sits inside a underground bunker in the Wiltshire Countryside. Behind blast proof doors bunker staff sit in air-conditioned comfort and have enough fuel and water to survive for days if the need arises. Jeff Ogden who is the manager of the European Operations Centre states "The number of potential security problems and the speed at which they are exploited is accelerating."

In South Korea where the majority of computer users use the broadband, the net is constantly being attacked. 10 - 15 new viruses are discovered everyday and Symantec customers get attacked on average 35 times per week. Many of the viruses are simply variants that are easy to spot, or copycat attacks. But some are what Mr.Ogden calls "Flash threats" He states "These malicious programs pop-up, spread with alarming speed and are almost impossible to defend against." "The Slammer worm was a good example of a "Flash-threat" as it managed to reach almost all vulnerable machines on the net within 15 minutes of its first appearance." Symantec's operations Centres automatically obtain information from 20,000 sensors on the network it watches. It now has more than 30 terabytes of database to analyse to spot impending security problems, and watching for people preparing to attack. Lets hope it keeps up the good work and stops these idiots who constantly drive us all round the bend.

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