Undersea mystery deepens in the Baltic - Update 30 June 2012

Another article posted by UFO Sightings yesterday reveals more titbits of information about the undersea object or objects - as there are now allegedly two that have been discovered. Right-angled 'corridors' in the main object; what is being described as a staircase; and even a hole in the shape of a 'gothic' church window in the second undersea object found (lancet or ogee arch presumably?) also now feature.

If the latest is to be believed this is proving more bizarre by the day and the Ocean X Team are milking the hype on this for all its worth to them. Still all seems too good to be true somehow...

Original Post

I've been following the developments of this story for months now and guess it's time to add to its growing online coverage.

Three of the increasing number of online articles covering the findings of the Swedish Ocean X Team so far (which I'm now guilty of adding to!) can be found at Digital Journal, the Mail Online and TNT Magazine.

The strange object, supposedly resembling the Millennium Falcon in shape (see pic right supplied by the Ocean X Team) and which is on the floor of the Baltic sea, is described as anywhere between 18 - 60 metres across, depending on which report one reads (60ft is roughly 18 metres which may be behind the confusion). It also allegedly has a 'trail' of up to 200 metres on the sea-bed leading from it.

As with anything like this, I would treat the whole story with caution until the whole thing comes out in the wash (pardon the pun). I mean have you looked at the Ocean X Team's website logo and the over-use of the courier font? Remind you of anything?

It's annoying that various news articles are already tagging this incorrectly as a 'UFO' - given that the unidentified object is under the sea and is clearly not 'flying'. By using the initials 'UFO' some observers already appear to be drawing their own conclusions (not me thus far) that this might be a crashed ET vehicle - either that or it just cynically generates more hits to their sites. The recent updates suggesting that electrical equipment fails within 200m of the object just adds fuel to the fire - given that such phenomena has been a supposed by-product of many 'close encounters' with UFOs or UAP.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the next few weeks as another dive is planned in that time-frame. I can't help seeing an anticlimax looming but I'd love to be proven wrong...

An open email to Douglas Trumbull about UFOTOG

UPDATE 10 September 2012

See Douglas Trumbull's response to my email to him about UFOTOG here 

In my earlier post I speculated on why there had been no news for some considerable time about the ambitious and exciting UFOTOG project being led by Mr Trumbull.

I decided to see if he would like to explain for himself why things have gone so quiet on this project - my email to him was as follows:-

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sent to douglashtrumbull@gmail.com - 15 May 2012 16:47 London time]

"Dear Mr Trumbull,

This is just a quick query from a long-time admirer of your very impressive work in the movie industry.

I am the British author of UFOScrutiny, a relatively new blog which aims to give an informative and impartial overview of the subject of UFOs from an (anonymous) ex-Govt official's viewpoint.

I was especially interested to see information online about your UFOTOG project which, in my view, promises to be a very welcome and rigorous field study of the UFO phenomenon using state-of-the-art technology. I personally can't think of anyone better qualified to lead this ambitious project.

I'm sure I'm certainly not the first to ask but - for the benefit of visitors to my blog - I wondered if you would be so kind as to let me know if there is any update concerning how UFOTOG is progressing, or whether it has in fact been temporarily shelved in favour of other projects?

I do appreciate that you will be very busy and will understand that a response will only be forthcoming if time permits.

Any update you could provide would be very much appreciated. May I also reassure you that I will only publish any response, or extracts of a response online with your express permission.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Niven
UFOScrutiny"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So far (just over five weeks) there has been no response but you never know...

UAP or USAP?

Well the (wet) Jubilee weekend is long gone and my more rural re-location for the event did not bear any fruit at all in terms of unusual aerial phenomena - when the clouds cleared away that is. Ho-hum.

Anyway - readers of my blog will have most likely heard of the increasingly used UAP as a replacement for the effectively stigmatised 'UFO'.

But how many will have heard of the initials USAP?

USAP stands for 'Unacknowledged Special Access Program [sic]' and a description of this and its precursor - the 'SAP' - can be found here.

Now it is pretty well documented that SAPs and USAPs exist and that these cover a variety of 'above top-secret' projects operated by US military-technological concerns. Of course, ongoing projects are shrouded in secrecy, which is understandable from the point of view of protecting the operating country's national security interests. One could argue that the US is perhaps being the most tolerant concerning public speculation (mostly on-line) about the content or aims of such SAPs or USAPs. Either that, or such public speculation serves its purpose in that it diverts attention away from other super-secret projects, or as they are also often called - 'black' projects.

I have yet to see many (if any) articles simply speculating about what my own Government does in terms of equivalent projects, or even what other countries such as Russia and China could be up to.

BUT there is no doubt that such projects do exist in and of themselves. The generic acronyms employed in the US are SAPs or USAPs but there could be other - as yet undiscovered - names for such projects elsewhere in the World.



Once one accepts that these projects do exist then speculation about what might be going on under these begins to abound.

I should point out that I have no privileged information on any such projects - and even if I were to possess such information - I certainly would not be divulging it online.

However, if you follow the threads of information on the net and in other media, you can glean certain key characteristics that these projects possess, namely:-

• they generally have unlimited funding; 
• individuals within or authorised by Government to oversee them are very few in number;
• their emphasis is on maximum plausible deniability;
• those working on projects are compartmentalised so that they don't have a holistic overview; and
• disinformation is frequently employed (often unknowingly by participants) to protect the true nature of such projects.

In view of the above, it can be easy to see why even military and civil aviation professionals may be taken aback when confronted with an experimental or advanced USAP aerial vehicle as discussed in my earlier post 'Bogey or friendly'.

Not having any pre-existing knowledge of even one of the many - and I'm sure there are many - USAP or equivalent projects, these professionals may very well turn to less earthly explanations for UAP they have seen once the usual astronomical or meteorological explanations have been discounted.

It would of course be unreasonable (and unscientific) to rule out all the various unexplained sightings and incidents as just unwitting eyewitness accounts of yet-to-be-confirmed USAP vehicles.

And there is also the possibility of sophisticated fakery which - on rare occasions - can fool some 'experts' such as radio-controlled airships made to look like flying saucers*.

But then - once one discounts astronomical or meteorological phenomena, USAP or equivalent vehicles and fakery what does that leave you with?

*I dimly recall what I think was one specific (possibly BBC) television programme devoted to just such a project but - unfortunately - a net search hasn't turned it up yet as it was some years ago. If anyone happens to know the programme I mean and what it was called let me know.

Calm down dear. They 'probably' come in peace

I shall shortly be away to another part of the UK to see family over the Jubilee weekend so - despite having said earlier that I would return to more blogging after finishing my latest appointment - I will in fact not be able to blog until later next week. I will be in a more rural area than London though so shall be intently watching the skies...

So the absence of posts won't be for much longer. In the meantime, with my recent mixed success at gaining access to the Open Minds site I have managed to see some of their latest articles at the time of posting.

I found the following amusing
http://www.openminds.tv/jill-tarter-comments-on-hollywood-aliens-943/.

Children stumbling in the dark?

There seem to be plenty of eminent scientists out there who think they have a handle on what E.T. would do if ever in contact with little old Earth. Stephen Hawking for example suggests that we shouldn't assume a super advanced non-terrestrial species would be benevolent and equates the encounter between them and us as something akin to "...when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

On the other hand, SETI astronomer Jill Tarter suggests that if E.T. visited Earth, “that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food, or other planets.” She then offers her theory that “If aliens were to come here it would be simply to explore.”

Well my view on this is twofold:-

1.  IF they exist - and that's a big 'if' - THEY ARE ALIENS who may, as the word 'Aliens' suggests, be so utterly different to us as to be incomprehensible in terms of their intentions or motives. There simply is no point speculating about what such visitors' intentions are until they are actually here; and

Allen Telescope Array, SETI

2. IF they exist - and assuming for the moment that just one non-terrestrial species out in space is at least as advanced as us technologically if not more so - then logically it follows that it is already too late for us to concern ourselves about whether we should even engage in 'first contact'.  We have been broadcasting into space (first by radio and then latterly by other means) continuously for roughly the last ninety years. Any advanced non-terrestrials out there will pick up our transmissions in due course (assuming they don't perceive it as just 'noise').

Proponents of the E.T. hypothesis for UFOs will of course argue that they've already heard and are here...