Apparently UFO’s - and lots of them! Well, actually…NOT!

Over 12 sightings of a UFO have been reported from the little ol’ Texas town of Stephenville.

According to The Associated Press, residents reported seeing an object that operated lower to the ground than a plane and had lights unlike an aircraft’s.

Lockheed Martin Corp., which provides many of the aircrafts for the U.S. Department of Defense, has a branch in Fort Worth, just 70 miles northeast of Stephenville.

And one of those wacky professors from the University of Texas by the name of Neal Evans is quoted:

UT professor Neal Evans teaches an astronomy course in which students must prove the likelihood of whether or not extraterrestrial life exists and whether humans on earth could ever come in contact with such life.

Evans said that it is difficult to travel between stars because they are so far away from each other.

“It takes tremendous technology to travel between stars and a large amount of resources,” he said. “Any civilization who could do that would be far beyond us, and I don’t think they would be fooling around in Stephenville.”

To say that it takes tremendous technology to travel between stars elicits a big…duh!!!

Sounds like some low-flying slow-flying airplanes. We’ve seen these low flying airplanes around the Mysterious Earth eastern headquarters here in South Carolina. And honestly, if you’ve never seen them before many folks immediately ask “is that a UFO?”

But there’s an interesting twist to the case of misidentified airplanes. Seems a Scottish psychic by the name of Catherine Brown predicted this on December 11, 2007:

“I see Texas ablaze and a stunning star, like the star from the East rising over the land. I hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to: ‘Watch for cosmic signs and wonders in Texas.’

“He said there will be a cosmological phenomenon that scientists cannot explain, and the media will carry as front-line news.

“People will begin to ask about ‘the Light.’ … For a period of four months — from Christmas to Easter — there will be a window of opportunity for salvations, signs, healings and wonders in Texas.”

Hmmm…coincidence, true psychic powers, or just the cosmos laughing??

If you’re heading that way:

And if you are so inclined, read full reports from The Daily Texan and the Star-Telegram.

Not wanting to be left behind the Russian KGB in the “UFO” wars, the Japanese government has officially pronounced UFO’s as being real.

So if you are a true believer (Mysterious Earth is officially in the “skeptic” house), you can now tell everyone that UFO’s have government backing.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters he believed they were “definitely” real.

It is the sort of question politicians dread but, under Japanese rules, are unable to ignore.

A member of the opposition asked the government what its policy was to deal with UFOs.

He said work should begin urgently to try to confirm whether or not they exist because of what he called “incessant” reports of sightings.

Of course, most skeptics are going to ignore anything coming out of Japan.

Read the full BBC report.

Well, allegedly these are authentic declassified KGB photos showing a crashed UFO.

We OFFICIALLY think these are photoshopped.  You, of course, are free to make your own judgement.

See more photos (plus a video) here.  (WARNING - site wants to open a popup!)

A little mainstream coverage of UFO’s. Currently there are 2 videos - watch both of them - fairly interesting! What’s really good about Larry King’s coverage is that he assembled a fairly balanced discussion panel - very unusual for “big” media.

Part 1:

Originally found via UFONEWS.TV

Outstanding UFO reference! The Project Blue Book has been put online by the National Archives. Days and day of material here - study and draw your own conclusions. Excellent set of images and documents - definitely an outstanding effort making this material available.

From Alaska to Arizona, from Florida to Labrador, UFO sightings were reported from within North America and even around the world. They are documented in these files. Very few photographs are included in these records. Instead these are text descriptions of encounters or sightings during the years 1947 to 1969. Names of people involved in the sightings are excluded. They are arranged chronologically, then by location.

Project Blue Book

Not So News has a humorous list of the Top 10 Ways to debunk a UFO sighting. And even though this list is a bit tongue in cheek, its pretty spot-on accurate as well. We’ve seen an uprising of UFO videos on YouTube lately - seems everyone is seeing aliens!

Our favorite is #2:

Then, use the weapon of ridicule: “If UFOs are for real, why haven’t they landed in front of the White House yet?”

Read the entire list.

UFO Over Hawaii

This is definitely an unidentified flying object discussed in this video from KHON in Honolulu Hawaii. One expert in this clip says its is a contrail - maybe so. View the video for yourself.

Here’s a map of the general location where the Hawaiian UFO was spotted:

How To Fake A UFO

The very cool site Weird America has a new video up - How To Fake A UFO. We thought our readers will really like this video, so a little pointer for you!

After you watch this video, be sure and check out the rest of the stuff up on the site.

UFO Crash in Iran

With all the world tensions involving Iran these days, this little story could be a bit on the scary side. A UFO crash has been reported in Iran last week…or maybe it was something else.

You can read the original story here if you are so inclined.

But what we really found interesting was this:

Meantime, an informed source told that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn’t have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke.

mmmm…we are quite thrilled to see that great minds still exist in Iran and they are putting such keen deductive reasoning to good use.

Plus, we didn’t know that “meteors do not smoke”….

French UFO Archives

Ah, you crazy French! We here at Mysterious Earth are looking forward to sightings regarding the Eiffel Tower - and we imagine there’s some reports from the Left Bank of Paris as well!

In some exciting news for UFO researchers and enthusiasts, the French government has announced they will be publishing their entire UFO sighting archive - only removing individual names to provide anonymity!

The French space agency said it will publish its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online, but will keep the names of those who reported them off the site to protect them from pestering by space fanatics.

Jacques Arnould, an official at the National Space Studies Centre, said the French database of around 1,600 incidents would go live in late January or mid-February.

You can read MSNBC’s full report on this announcement and also go ahead and check out the French Space Agency web site.

And, by the way, Happy New Year - hopefully 2007 will be a great year for strange and unusual events from around the world!