The Fool on the Hill seems to envision a person with access to everything that sees nothing. What he does see, he doesn’t bother to try and understand. Have we become the fools on the hill when it comes to what is happening around us? I think many of us have and that’s what the government counts on to keep information from us that they deem as too sensitive for public consumption. That may be the real explanation for a series of bizarre events that have occurred over the past decade. These events may involve Alien life forms.

I. It All Began With the 1997 Phoenix Sightings

Things started to get strange in 1997 when unexplained lights and a huge triangle craft appeared over Phoenix, Arizona. Despite photos, video and competent witnesses, the amazing events were explained away as military flares and everyone bought that lackluster explanation. Local politicians seemed unconcerned about the lights and tended to ignore or censure others that were. Despite putting out the SPACE PEOPLE GO HOME sign, the Phoenix area received a whole new set of visits during the summer of 2006.

Once again strange lights began to dance in the skies over the Phoenix area. Just like before, the media all but ignored any explanations except those offered by the military. Politicians again balked at the idea of alien spacecrafts flying over their heads, with one important exception. Fife Symington, the man who was Arizona Governor when the original Phoenix Lights event occurred in 1997, admitted that he took the entire thing too lightly and had seen a huge triangular UFO himself at that time.

II. Couldn’t They Just Have Left a Message on Clinton’s Voice Mail?

Sometimes I wonder if Aliens watch the TV signals we end up beaming into space or patch into the internet and for a quick read of the latest news from Earth? If so, they would have to come to the conclusion that there is no intelligent life here, especially when politicians make self-serving statements about them. I imagine that at least some Aliens might not have been amused if they saw him speak on TV or were able to read the comments made by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1995 (according to an article written by Carlton Stower that appeared on the Dallas Morning News website):

“It was a snow-covered December in 1995 when President Bill Clinton, visiting Northern Ireland in support of the country's new and fragile peace process, spoke to a large gathering that had arrived for a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The president opted to dismiss politics and keep the mood of his speech light. At one point, he drew laughter as he referred to a letter he'd recently received from a 13- year-old boy in Belfast. "Ryan," the president said, "in case you're out there, here is your answer: No. As far as I know, no spaceship crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. And if the Air Force recovered any extraterrestrial bodies, they did not tell me."

Perhaps the Aliens had the last laugh and their answer to such dribble came in the form of the Phoenix Lights and subsequent sightings that occurred nationwide for years afterward. If so, they wasted a lot of gas to get here and should have just called President Clinton or left a voice mail message for him. Because just as the 1997 Phoenix sightings were dismissed out of hand, the ensuing UFO events were largely ignored with claims of computer enhanced photographic trickery and video fakery becoming the newest and most popular tools in the Skeptics Toolbox. It stayed that way until just after the new wave of Phoenix UFO sightings during 2006.

III. Maybe They Came To See The Sears Tower?

On November 7, 2006, a disc shaped UFO hovered above O’Hare International Airport near Chicago. It was seen by a number of people and photographed. Despite the fact that some of the witnesses were pilots and others were airport personnel that would tend to know the difference between a UFO and incoming or outgoing conventional aircrafts, the event was barely mentioned by the local media. Even some in the UFO research community took weeks to report the information they received about to anyone outside of a disinterested press.

Ignoring or failing to report the O’Hare event in a timely manner robbed UFO Researchers of a chance to put two and two together regarding the disc over the airport, UFO sightings that were occurring all over Michigan at the time, insanely strange weather patterns across the central USA and alleged computer glitches at Midwest Airports. As of this writing in late June of 2007, I can look back to the O’Hare sighting and say that a pattern of strange events began at that time that has continued and increased.

Over the past seven months since the O’Hare incident, a series of alleged ‘computer malfunctions’ have occurred at airports all over the USA. These technical problems were sometimes accompanied by very odd weather conditions. During May and June of 2007, things really picked up with computer outages affecting major airports in Chicago, Atlanta, New York City, Newark, Boston, Pittsburgh, Denver, Los Angeles and other places.

On June 8, 2007, the FAA reported that the huge number of flight delays, cancellations and other problems that occurred on that particular date were due to a software malfunction in their computers located near Atlanta, Georgia. However, if that were true, why has the situation continued and gotten worse long after those problems were fixed? The weird weather continues and now Airlines report that their computers all seem to be malfunctioning as well.

IV. When in Doubt, Blame the Terrorists and the Weather

Although they are still ignoring the weird weather and any UFO reports that come their way, even the major news gathering organizations are tiring of the ‘computer glitch’ explanation for what’s been happening at most of the airports. While they consider themselves too credible to blame or even consider Aliens or a government cover-up of UFO activity for all this, I guess they are conspiratorial-minded enough to consider holding terrorists responsible. However, the experts disagree.

Non-government terrorism experts that help protect large corporations from cyber attacks say that the Terrorist explanation doesn’t wash. They point out that it’s always been easy to spot the signs of a cyber attack, but harder to track down those carrying it out. None of the usual cyber attack warning signs exist in the case of the airport or airline computers. In the words of one cyber attack expert appearing on Fox News, “The terrorists want to kill us, not make our flights arrive an hour late. And then there is that strange weather.

I recently received several emails from a UFO Researcher named Steve Tobias. He provided me with some very interesting information after reading my article about the unusual coincidences of June 8, 2007. In that article for the International UFO Society Newsletter, I pointed out that it seemed bizarre how the primary news gathering organizations managed to spend an entire day following Paris Hilton around with cameras and helicopters when almost all the east coast airports had been brought to a stand still by computer problems and bizarre weather conditions.

Tobias sent me some Weather Channel Maps which appear to show unusual objects being tracked a few hundred miles off the coast of New England. The objects appeared in conjunction with some very unusual weather conditions and the alleged computer problems that virtually shut down airports. Other maps show the same thing happening in other parts of the USA.

V. Reruns with an Attitude

As if all this weren’t enough grab the attention of almost any sane person, another bizarre incident recently occurred over the past week that I am at a complete loss to explain. On Tuesday, June 19, 2007, I received a call from Dick Criswell, my friend and fellow IPUS Board Member. He told me that a show about Roswell was airing in prime time on WRTV, Channel 6, Indianapolis, Indiana (an ABC Network Affiliate). That wouldn’t necessarily be odd, but the show was not previously announced and replaced the normal Tuesday evening ABC Primetime Schedule.

Dick received some calls from IPUS Members in the Indianapolis area that reported the same thing. All thought it even more peculiar that the SCI-FI Channel logo appeared on the Roswell program airing on Channel 6. Thinking the cable channels might have gotten mixed up, Dick checked to see what was airing on Sci-Fi that day. There were no shows that even resembled the Roswell program on Channel 6. To take it a step further, he also checked the signal going out over the air from Channel 6 with a TV connected to an antenna that he had available. He found the same Roswell program being broadcast over the airwaves.

After listening to some of the audio that Dick played for me over the phone, I recognized the program as an hour-long documentary hosted by Jonathan Frakes that featured information about the 1947 Roswell UFO Crash. I recorded the program when it originally aired on Sci-Fi and watched it a few times since. The documentary was designed to help promote Roswell, the fictional TV Series that ran from 1999 to 2002, and to bring fans of that show up to speed on the real UFO crash. Frakes was as one of the Executive Producers of the TV Series and appeared in the pilot episode.

The documentary about the Roswell UFO Crash hosted by Frakes was released as an extra feature on some of the Roswell TV Series DVD Sets (depending on which version you purchased and where in the world you purchased it). An updated version of the documentary with new footage and previously excluded material is now available as part of a new DVD Set. Roswell, Operation UFO (60^th Anniversary Edition) is a two disc set that features the updated documentary with Frakes and Roswell: Startling New Evidence, a special that also aired on the Sci-Fi Channel hosted by Bryant Gumbel.

Over the past few days I have placed a total of six calls into the various departments of Channel 6 without success. I haven’t been able to get anyone on the phone that was in a position to discuss this and no one in charge has called me back. Most of the people I did manage to speak to called seemed oblivious to what had happened or what I was talking about. Dick Criswell told me that he had the same experience when he called the TV Station.

In an effort to find get any information at all, I tried calling the Indianapolis Star Newspaper. After bouncing my call through a couple of voice mails for people that write about radio and television programs, I tried the news desk. They said that nothing about this had been reported to them and that I should call the TV Station (Helpful? NOT).

I also called WISH TV and FOX59 explaining that I had received a call from a friend who lives in their broadcast area about unannounced programming on Channel 6 and wondered if they had heard anything. They had no clue what I was talking about and could have cared less. Someone at the WISH TV News Department thought it was funny and said, “Your friend in Indiana should have been watching us. We interrupt programming for storm alerts, not Aliens.” With comments like that, his broadcasting career is definitely going to go someplace (nowhere fast).

The Roswell documentary broadcast might have been a fluke or someone’s idea of a practical joke. It might also have been a message about the reality of Alien life forms from a human in the know or the Aliens themselves. If so, message received. Either way, I’m almost certain that you’ll never hear a word about any of this from Channel 6. As the late Roger Grimsby (legendary TV News Anchor in major markets all over the USA) once said about television news departments, “When they cover the news, it’s news. When they ignore the news, it‘s not. When they make the news, it never happened.”

VI. Mile Long Mistake

I woke up today (6/23/07) to news about a mile long UFO seen by the crew and passengers of an airliner. The story aired on Fox News and other News Channels. With few if any details about the sighting and a photo that I saw for the first time twenty some years ago being identified as one from the event, this is how the media delivers the news of a major UFO Sighting. There is no better example of how any news about UFOs or the Unexplained is completely ignored, misreported or filtered beyond recognition.

Having covered this in a previous newsletter, here are the facts of the sighting:

Captain Ray Bowyer, 50, of Aurigny Airlines, spotted a "bright-yellow light" 10 miles west of Alderney at about 3pm during a flight from Southampton while his aircraft was 30 miles from the island at 4,000 feet on Monday, April 23, 2007.

While on approach to Guernsey, Bowyer noticed a "second identical object further to the west". He said: "It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey. I can't explain it. At first, I thought it might have been a reflection from a vinery in Guernsey, but that would have disappeared quickly. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes. As I got closer to it, it became clear to me that it was tangible. I was in two minds about going towards it to have a closer look but decided against it because of the size of it. I had to think of the safety of the passengers first. I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."

Bowyer reported the incident to Paul Kelly, 31, an Air Traffic Controller on duty. Kelly indicated that nothing appeared on his radar. However, ATC Paul Kelly received a "similar report" from a Blue Islands pilot en route to Jersey at the same time. Kelly explained that as the pilot went past Sark he "described an object behind him to his left".

Kelly continued: "The description was very similar to Captain Bowyer's and they described it as being in exactly the same place. But they were looking at it from opposite sides." The other pilot said that the UFO was 1,550 feet lower than his aircraft, which was at 3,500ft. "Both pilots placed it at the same altitude", Kelly added.

It’s just sad that we have to be told about a sighting of this magnitude two months after it happened and even sadder that the facts provided are wrong.

When it comes to looking at all this, I have tried to exist in a mental No Man’s Land between the Galactically Stupid and the Completely Conspiratorial. This allows me to retain some journalistic credibility, investigative objectivity and attempt to explain the unexplained in the most reasonable way possible. But like the old saying goes, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it‘s a duck.” If it looks like a Dodo bird and sounds like a bad impression of Rush Limbaugh, it’s a local News Reporter or television Station Manager.