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CNI News 19.3


  
 CNI News - Volume 19.3
 June 10, 1996
 Published by the ISCNI News Center
 Editor: Michael Lindemann
 
 The stories in this edition of CNI News are:
    1) UFOs SIGHTED IN MANY PARTS OF AUSTRALIA
        Flap Continues; Witnesses Report Saucer-Shaped Craft
    2) "UFO PARTS" LESS ANOMALOUS THAN PREVIOUSLY CLAIMED
        But Some Odd Features Remain to Be Explained
    3) BRAZILIAN NEWS CONTINUES TO REPORT ON CAPTURED ALIENS
        General Says Brazil Has Its Own "X-Files"
    4) BACKGROUND ON NICK POPE, BRITISH MoD's UFO EXPERT
 
 ISCNI encourages you to respond to stories in CNI News.
    * Public responses can be posted on the Forum message board in "News
 Center Feedback"
    * Private responses can be emailed to ISCNI, subj: CNI News Editor
 
 The subject matter of CNI News is inherently controversial, and the views and
 opinions reported in the news are not necessarily those of ISCNI or its
 staff.
 
 The next edition of CNI News will appear on Thursday, June 13.
 
 ========================================================
 
 1) UFOs SIGHTED IN MANY PARTS OF AUSTRALIA
     Flap Continues; Witnesses Report Saucer-Shaped Craft
 
 [CNI News thanks John Stepkowski (legion@werple.net.au) for forwarding this
 report from the Sunday Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia, dated May 26, 1996]
 
 Residents in three states reported seeing UFOs on Friday night [May 24].
 
 The Adelaide-based director of the Australian International UFO Association,
 Colin Norris, said colored lights seen over Adelaide could not have been the
 space shuttle Endeavour.
 
 The senior operator of the National UFO Hotline, Ross Dowe, told ABC radio
 [on May 25] that calls about lights in the sky had also been received from
 people in Horsham, Wangaratta and Penrith near Sydney.
 
 An eyewitness, Kathy Dickmann, 47, and her family watched three lights in the
 sky for 20 minutes at 9pm in the Adelaide foothills.
 
 "We thought it was a plane or helicopter at first, but they were moving like
 you wouldn't expect anything we know of to move," Mrs. Dickmann said.  "Then
 we pulled over and just watched as the lights just hovered, flashing on and
 off about every second or so for about 20 minutes."
 
 Mr. Norris said other callers described a white ball the size of a full moon
 which hovered and then sank to the horizon over several minutes.
 
 Norris and Dowe said six other sightings had been reported around Australia
 in the past week.
 
 [The following update is from UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 1, Number 17, dated June 9.
 CNI News thanks Roundup editor Masinaigan for sharing this information.]
 
 On Tuesday, June 4, the Examiner, a newspaper in suburban Melbourne,
 Australia, published an update on the continuing UFO flap in that country.
 According to the Examiner, UFOs were seen last week in Narre Warren and
 Packenham, Victoria [southeastern Australia], and in Emerald and Cockatoo,
 Queensland [northeastern Australia].
 
 From Monday, May 26, to Wednesday, May 28, UFOs were seen repeatedly in the
 Emerald and Cockatoo areas.  According to Ross Dowe of Australia's National
 UFO Hotline, "Some people had seen it three nights in a row.  They were a bit
 put out because they don't believe in UFOs."
 
 Asked what the objects could be, Dowe told the Examiner: "I have no idea."
 
 On Monday night, May 26, a brightly-glowing saucer, red in color, appeared
 over Packenham.  The police in nearby Narre Warren sent a cruiser to
 investigate.
 
 The following night, Tuesday, May 27, the UFO visited Narre Warren, prompting
 a flurry of phone calls to police headquarters.  Eleven people on Lantana
 Drive watched the UFO fly south from the Dandenong range, east of Melbourne.
 One resident, Dianne Walkerton, brought out her camcorder and shot nine
 minutes of video footage, showing the glowing, yellowish-orange saucer flying
 east.  As the UFO passed over nearby Packenham, it was seen by eight people
 in a milk bar.  According to the Examiner, "All were adamant that it was not
 a helicopter.  Rough estimates were that the object was 300 feet above
 ground.  It made no sound but was generally described as disc-shaped with
 three bright yellow-orange lights in triangular formation, flying below the
 low cloud."
 
 At 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29, Ms. Walkerton and her neighbors again saw
 the saucer.  According to Barbara Schyler of the UFO Encounter and Support
 Line, the residents watched the object for 10 or 15 minutes before it
 vanished over the eastern horizon.
 
 On Thursday night, May 30, police received six calls from the Warren Wood
 estate (housing development) in Narre Warren."  Residents claimed to have
 seen "a brightly-lit large object flying low and fast in the direction (east)
 of Packenham at around 7:30 p.m."
 
 At 1:10 a.m. on Friday, May 31, a saucer was reported hovering over
 Cranbourne Road near Narre Warren.
 
 As an historical note, Australia had one of the earliest UFO sightings
 reported this century.  In February 1927, two brothers riding herd on cattle
 near Fernvale, New South Wales, saw a glowing, domed, disc-shaped UFO fly
 slowly overhead, lighting up the entire valley.  It landed a few miles ahead
 of them.  Checking the site the next day, the men found a circle of scorched
 grass.
 
 ========================================================
 
 2) "UFO PARTS" LESS ANOMALOUS THAN PREVIOUSLY CLAIMED
      But Some Odd Features Remain to Be Explained
 
 Reporting on Art Bell's syndicated radio program "Dreamland" Sunday night,
 June 9, investigator Linda Howe said that the strange aluminum pieces sent to
 Bell by an anonymous source are not as anomalous as previously reported. The
 pieces, dubbed "Art's Parts," are allegedly part of the wreckage recovered
 from the fabled UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. According to a
 letter accompanying the pieces, the sender's grandfather recovered them at
 the crash site and held them in secret until shortly before his death, when
 he disclosed them to other members of the family.
 
 Linda Howe has helped to coordinate laboratory analysis of some of the
 pieces. So far it has been determined that they are composed mainly of
 extremely pure aluminum. However, preliminary measurement of the size of one
 piece, when compared with its weight, seemed to indicate that its density was
 about 60% greater than expected for aluminum. Though small amounts of other
 elements were identified in the piece, nothing accounted for the large weight
 discrepancy.
 
 Now Linda Howe says a simple error of measurement was responsible for what
 appeared at first to be a potentially earthshaking discovery.
 
 The scientist who first measured the piece was a biologist, Howe said. He
 used a scanning electron microscope to take the size measurements, not
 realizing that this method was prone to large error. A week later, after the
 object's apparently anomalous density had been announced on Bell's program, a
 second scientist -- this time a metallurgist -- measured the object with a
 micrometer. Its actual thickness was 60% greater than previously assumed,
 thus accounting for the additional weight. The object's density is therefore
 just what it should be for pure aluminum.
 
 The biologist, Howe said, was "extremely apologetic and embarrassed" to have
 made such a major error.
 
 "There's an important lesson here," Howe said. "Scientists make mistakes like
 anyone else. That's why science demands repeatability."
 
 But other features of "Art's Parts" remain unexplained and potentially
 significant, Howe said. Some of the pieces contain layers of bismuth and
 magnesium/zinc alloy, the purpose of which is not immediately apparent.
 Further testing will be conducted this week.
 
 Howe lamented the fact that there is no laboratory where such testing can be
 done quickly and efficiently by qualified scientists at no charge. The
 analysis of "Art's Parts" is being done voluntarily by several scientists in
 their spare time, using borrowed equipment and lab space.
 
 ========================================================
 
 3) BRAZILIAN NEWS CONTINUES TO REPORT ON CAPTURED ALIENS
     General Says Brazil Has Its Own "X-Files"
 
 [CNI News thanks Masinaigan for this item from the UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 1,
 Number 17, dated June 9.]
 
 Reports of the retrieval of two live aliens in the city of Varginha last
 January continue to make headlines in Brazil.
 
 On Wednesday, June 5, several UFO groups held a news conference in Brazil.
 Claudeia Covo, an engineer and president of the Instituto Nacional de
 Investigacoes de Fenomenos Aerospaciais (INFA) described the reported
 Varginha retrieval as "certainly the most extraordinary thing we have ever
 heard about, and we have lots of reports of the UFO apparitions.  It was a
 real complex operation involving military personnel as well as civilians, and
 resulted in the capture of unidentified biological creatures."
 
 Brazilian ufologist Vitorio Pacaccini said his group has interviewed 14
 witnesses, including four soldiers who were with the truck convoy that
 allegedly ferried the aliens to Campinas and on to Sao Paulo. "We have the
 testimony of an army officer who was there at the Escola de Sargentos in Tres
 Coracoes who was directly involved in the operation.  He described in detail
 everything that happened during those days."
 
 The Brazilian Army denies that any retrieval took place.  However, Brig.
 General Cherubim Rosa Filho said Brazil does keep "a detailed dossier" on UFO
 incidents. (These files apparently date back to a case involving Joao Prestes
 and Jose dos Santos, on March 5, 1946.) The "dossier" is kept by Brazil's
 equivalent of NORAD, the Centro Integrado de Dolesa Aerea E Controle de
 Trafego Aerea (CINDACTA) in the capital city of Brasilia. General Rosa Filho
 said, "It is true that there are lots of cases which remain unsolved even
 until today."
 
 More details have surfaced on the January 30 incident in Varginha. According
 to National UFO News, that day, at about 10 a.m., a woman saw several
 children on the edge of the ravine in the Jardim Andere, excited and yelling
 about something.  "I went over there to stop them," she said.  "When I saw
 what they were throwing stones at, I just about died.  There was a horrible
 creature with large red eyes trying to huddle down and escape being hit by
 the stones."
 
 After chasing the kids away, the unidentified woman went home and phoned the
 Varginha Fire Department.  The firefighters surrounded the ravine and went in
 just after 10:15 a.m.  They grabbed the creature and brought it out at around
 10:30.  The Policia Militar put it in a  cage on a flatbed truck, covered the
 cage with a white sheet, and then drove to the military school in Tres
 Coracoes.
 
 ========================================================
 
 4) BACKGROUND ON NICK POPE, BRITISH MoD's UFO EXPERT
 
 As previously reported in CNI News, Nick Pope of the British Ministry of
 Defence (MoD) has written a book claiming that UFOs are real,
 non-conventional, and potentially significant to the national security. The
 following short biography on Nick Pope was forwarded to CNI News by Roxanne
 Carol.
 
 Nick Pope was born in 1965. After having completed his education, he joined
 the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1985.
 
 During his career there, he has held a number of interesting and very
 different postings. His duties have ranged from preparing briefing material
 for senior officers, to involvement in the policy initiative enabling women
 to fly as pilots in the Royal Air Force. He has also been involved in work on
 the Gulf War, and the situation in Bosnia.
 
 From 1991 to 1994, Nick was responsible for investigating UFO sightings for
 the Ministry, and handling policy on this subject. His brief was to evaluate
 whether or not there was any evidence of a threat to the UK. His conclusions
 were both startling and controversial, and he uncovered a number of cases
 which seemed to involve craft with technologies considerably more advanced
 than our own. He concluded that some UFOs were indeed extraterrestrial in
 origin.
 
 Nick also became officially involved in research into alien abductions, crop
 circles and animal mutilations, and has a good knowledge of the paranormal in
 general.
 
 Nick still works for the MoD, where he holds the rank of Higher Executive
 Officer, which equates to a Major in the British Army.
 
 Although no longer researching UFOs in an official capacity, Nick has kept up
 his interest in the phenomenon, and has written a book on the subject. Titled
 "Open Skies, Closed Minds," it gives his overview of the UFO phenomenon,
 coupled with an insight into his official research and investigation at the
 MoD. This book will be published by Simon and Schuster in June 1996.
 
 Nick is currently researching a book on the alien abduction phenomenon, and
 is actively investigating a number of interesting cases. He is also planning
 a fictionalised account of the official response to a confirmed alien
 presence on Earth.
 
 #     #     #
 

Next: CNI News 19.4