Are UFO's A Kind Of Lifeform? - We all know that deep down in the depths of the oceans, unidentified creatures may exist that we know nothing about. But what about our skies. Do colossal, primitive lifeforms, invisible to the human eyes, populate our skies? Trevor James Constable, a sailor, aircraft historian and scientific iconoclast certainly thought so. Inspired by the writings of Charles Fort and Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Horror of the Heights", Constable was convinced that the UFO's which he heard so much about in the l950's were not alien spacecraft but living beings.

Constable armed with a camera with a high-speed infrared film and an ultraviolet filter set out to capture these sky beings. And his photo's certainly showed something. They appeared like discolorations produced during the developing process, but if you stared long enough they took on the appearance of floating, zeppelin-sized amoebas. In his book "The Cosmic Pulse of Life" (1975) he called them "critters." He wrote "As living organisms, critters appear to be an elemental branch of evolution probably older than most life on Earth, dating from the time when the planet was more gaseous and plasmatic than solid. They will probably one day be better classified as belonging to the general field of microbiology or even micro-bacteria inhabiting the aerial ocean we call the sky. For the most time they are invisible to us but when they stray into our frequency they are mistakenly identified as flying machines." At the time Constable's theory struck a chord with readers and one zoologist named the creatures Amoebae constablea after their discoverer. Now over 30 years on, ufologists consider Constable a fringe character. Now the creatures are called "Rods," alleged airborne lifeforms that can be captured only on digital camcorders, and "Orbs" balls of light, which are beloved of ghost hunters.

Search For Cosmos 1 - The Russian military have searched around the artic islands of Novaya Zemlya for the wreckage of the missing Cosmos 1 solar sail spacecraft and the Volna rocket that was meant to launch it on its experimental mission. There was still hope that it was functioning perfectly and the Russian navy's Northern Fleet and space forces were scouring the uninhabited Novayz Zemlya archipelago between the Barents and Kara Seas. The Northern Fleet have set up a commission to investigate what happened to the spacecraft during the first stage of the Volna rocket's flight, 83 seconds after blast off from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents sea. The Russian space forces have said that fragments have been found of what was probably a Molnaya M rocket, which crashed Tuesday after lift off from Plessetsk in northern Russia while carrying a military satellite. The pieces have been found in the Tyumen region of Siberia. The joint US-Russian Cosmos 1 project have cost four million dollars in private funds, the bulk of the funding coming from America's Cosmos Studio. The launch was funded by the Russian government.

Deep Impace - The Nasa Mission "Deep Impace" has achieved its goal after a probe, just bigger than a washing machine has smashed into a distance comet in attempting to unlock the secrets of the Universe,. The comet, Temple 1, is thought to have a icy surface and Nasa is trying to find out what lies beneath this frozen surface. The comet is 83 million miles away from Earth at the time of the collision and Deep Impact has just 13 minutes to film images from 310 miles away before being hit by the blizzard of dust and rock which will occur when the crash happens. It is also hoped that the debris from the smash will provide clues about the creation of the solar system. Despite the probe being small, it is expected that the crater left will be roughly the size of a football stadium when it crashes into it at a target speed of 23,000 mph. It will cause an explosion that would be the equivalent to detonating more than five tonnes of TNT. Deep Impact was launched from Cape Canaveral on the 12th January,2005.

Discovery Stays At The Launch Pad - Discovery will stay on its launch pad at present and according to Nasa officials on Friday it will not be threatened by Hurricane Dennis, which is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. It was decided that because the storm has ended its eastward drift and the primary track is now slightly more to the west, Discovery will not be rolled back to the 52 story Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida. There were concerns that the winds could rise past 40 knots, which would have exceeded the conditions for a rollback. KSC officials said that the mission was still on for a target launch on the 13th July. Nasa hopes to launch Discovery and its seven-astronaut STS-114 crew at about 3.51pm. EDT (1951 GMT) on Wednesday. Discovery will be the first space shuttle to fly since 2003 with the loss of STS-107 Columbia.The STS-114 mission will be the first of two test flights to evaluate shuttle launch system modifications. The mission will be 12 days and will deliver fresh supplies and equipment plus replacement parts to the two astronauts above the International Space Station.

Clocks - In Greenwich, England at this time of year to get the correct time, the clock is adjusted by a second or two. A sediment, mainly made up of algae is affecting the light and thus "records" the amount of sunlight, indicating that days are longer than they used to be. Thus meaning that the rotation of the Earth is slowing down. During the early years of Earth's existence, it only took, 6 hours for our planet to make one complete rotation, which was the length of a single day. Is this due to the melting of some of the ice at the poles?, global warming could be making Earth's rotation speed up and our days shorter.

Secret UFO Report Revealed - The British Freedom of Information Act is now in place in the UK as well as in the US. Welsh UFO investigator Chris Fowler has been able to get a 107 page report about an incident that occurred in 1973. 70 UFO sightings were reported at 1.am. on the 31st March,2005 in the UK. These sightings were taken seriously by the government and the military. The sightings were thought to be of the secret tests of the US stealth aircraft Aurora and after consultation to determine if this was correct this explanation was ruled out at the highest levels of the government and the military. The US has never admitted the existence of the Aurora craft which is a special type of stealth plane One of the witnesses to the sightings was a Royal Air Force officer who reported seeing an object the size of a jumbo jet that aimed a narrow beam of light at the ground from a height of 400 to 500 feet. Many of the witnesses were police officers and military personnel. Similar sightings took place in many areas of the UK and a total of 70 people reported seeing the craft.. Similar sightings have taken place recently in the US.

War Of The Worlds Causes Panic Again! - In the Khabarovsk region of Siberia there has been a mass panic by the locals after they mistook a tornado for an alien invasion. People jumped into their cars and fled their homes when a freak wind arrived which flattened trees and destroyed property. The Officials from the local emergency services said that the destruction had been caused by a freak tornado that had ripped through the area and blamed the fear of alien invasion on the recent showing of the Tom Cruise Film. People had really thought that alien space ships had landed in the area. A team of experts are surveying the damage.

Columbia FInal Flight Sheds New Information - In January, 2003 a burst of mesospheric cloud activity over Antarctica was caused by the exhaust plume of the space shuttle Columbia.during its final flight. Scientists who have studied the satellite and ground based data from three different experiments have confirmed this. The data also calls into question, the role these clouds may play in monitoring global climate change.

Remote Viewing Anyone? - Remote viewing has been practised in Tibetan monasteries for thousand of years and some people are taking lessons from the monks there. This is what the monks see happening in the future.Major world power's are in the course of self-destruction, but the world will not be destroyed Superpowers between now and the year 2012 will continue to engage in regional and religious wars, Terrorism will be the main problem. In the year 2012 (This is the year the Mayan civilisation thought the world would end, since their calendar does not go past that date) the world will begin moving towards nuclear war. According to the monks, in 2012 ET's will intervene and stop the destruction, since it's not yet our destiny for the world to end. After 2012 we will realise that the final frontier of science is the same as spirituality. The monks also state that UFO sightings, starting with Roswell, have all taken place in countries that have nuclear weapons. According to the Tibetan monks, every human being has a life plan and while we can alter our future to some extent changing the destiny of the world is not possible.

Discovery Problems! - The shuttle Discovery was supposed to blast off last Wednesday but at the last minute the launch of the shuttle was postponed due to a problem with a fuel tank sensor. Engineers are working through around 200 possible scenarios. It is unclear whether the shuttle is to blast off until July 31st. The Deputy Manager, Wayne Hale has announced more trouble shooting is necessary to determine why an Engine Cut-Off sensor gave intermittent readings during Wednesday's attempted launch of the Space Shuttle. Nasa, launch regulations require that all four sensors are working properly for lift-off. Early on Friday, technicians removed propellants from the shuttle's onboard power generators, so this will rule out a launch the following weekend. Nasa have until the 31st of July to launch Discovery. The launch must take place in daylight so cameras will have a clear view of the lift-off. The next launch window begins on September 9th. Nasa had planned to use the this launch window to fly the space shuttle Atlantis on the agency's second post Columbia mission. The STS-114 crew which was led by astronaut Eileen Collins will remain at Kennedy's Space Centre for the time being.

Planet Has Three Suns - The first extra-solar planet to have three suns has just been discovered in the constellation of Cygnus by a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology. It was found by using the 10 metre Keck 1 telescope in Hawaii. The planet is slightly larger than Jupiter and it has to contend with the gravitational pull of three bodies. The scientist said that this seriously challenges our current understanding of how planets are formed.

UFO Over Brackwell - Another unidentified flying object has been spotted in the sky above Bracknell. The Bracknell News said last week that the residents living near the Coppid Beech Hotel saw what they thought was an alien craft. Now another witness has come forward and reported seeing a strange object in the sky above Bracknell. Terry Campbell said he and two other colleagues were installing a new synthetic hockey pitch at around 3 pm on Sunday 26th June when they saw what was described as an object the shape of an ashtray in the sky. The sky was clear and blue and the image was like a deep round ashtray. It was stationary, but the sunlight was glistening on the paintwork or metal work he said. "It was like somebody holding a mirror and flashing it on and off in your eyes - there was sunlight off the side of it" said Mr.Campbell.."To the naked eye it could certainly be the third of the size of an average aircraft".They watched the object for about 15 minutes and it appeared to be hovering. Some clouds went across the sky and then it was gone.

Was It A Balloon Or UFO? - Emergency Services carried out a major search of the Derbyshire countryside between West Hallam and Derby last night after people reported seeing a hot air balloon which apparently burst into flames and fell to the ground. Police investigated the area covered, country lanes around West Hallam, Smalley, Stanley and Shipton Park. But after a hour the search was called off as no balloon was found. They have tried to contact Hot Air Balloon Experts from the local area. West Hallam resident Kerry Barratt said "We were in the conservatory looking out in the direction of Derby when we saw a huge ball of fire moving towards us. Flames were dropping off it and then it suddenly disappeared."

Has Nasa Put "Life" On Mars? - Nasa may have un-intentionally put "life on Mars". The two rover spacecraft which are now on the Red Planet are carrying bacteria from Earth. The bacteria, bacillus safensis, has been found in a chamber in California that had been used to test the rovers. Now Officials believe that it is likely that some of the microbes were on board when the spacecraft left. These bacteria would most probably be from the scientist's skin. When the craft Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars last year, the task was to look for signs of life. Now it looks as though we have put it there and if this is the case and proved, the contamination would raise concerns at possible breaches of a UN treaty, to sop other planets being polluted from Earth. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a microbiologist at Nasa's spacecraft assembly plant in Pasadena has made the claims. His tests have shown the microbes could survive space travel and the climate of Mars - 60C. He believes the bacteria are living inside the electronic circuitry of the two landers. Nasa said there were "massive odds" against the microbes becoming established on the planet.

Launch Of The Giant - The largest ever spacecraft is going to be launched to Mars by Nasa. This is to skim close to the Planet's surface sending back more data than all previous missions combined. It will also scout out landing sites for future Mars Missions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is scheduled to begin its six-months journey to Mars on the 10th August, 2005 and it will blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, US onboard an Atlas 5 rocket. The colossal spacecraft stands two storeys high and four storeys across and weighs 2180 kilograms when fully fuelled. It will begin its two year primary science phase in November 2006 and will glide 20% closer to the surface than any of the three spacecraft now circling the planet. It will orbit at an altitude of about 305 kilometres and it will be able to take high resolution images over an area 10 times larger than previous surveys.

It will beam back 10 times more information per minute than any other Mars probe and these new, improved science measurements will help Nasa scout out future landing spots for the robotic landers. Phoenix will be set to launch in 2007 and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover is scheduled for lift off in 2009. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) will take pictures than can see objects as small as an office desk over 1% of the entire Martian surface. The Context Camera will take a wider-angle approach to cover at least 15% of the surface. The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) will be able to identify minerals over areas as small as a swimming pool. It will map the mineralogy of the globe at a resolution of 200 metres, hunting for signs of minerals deposited in a watery environment. The Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument, will is provided by the Italian Space Agency will hunt for subsurface rock, ice and liquid water by scanning 500 m below the Martian Surface.The Mars Climate Sounder will measure the atmosphere's water vapour, dust and temperature. This has a two fold increase in sensitivity over the current probes. Also, Mars Colour Imager will track daily weather changes. There will be other instruments aimed to make future landings safer.