UFO ROUNDUP Volume 4 Number 36
Volume 4
Number 36
December 30, 1999
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
UFO LASER BLINDS MOTORIST NEAR GUYRA
On Monday, December 6, 1999, at 2:30 a.m., Brian Renwith, 74, was driving his 1998 Subaru station wagon on the New England Highway in northern New South Wales, Australia when he saw a peculiar array of lights on the roadway ahead.
Renwith was driving between Armidale and Glen Innes, heading north towards Queensland, when he spotted the mysterious lights. Armidale is about 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of Guyra, the site of the recent UFO crash. (See UFO Roundup, volume 4, numbers 34 and 35 for details--J.T.)
"When I saw all the frizell of lights ahead of me, I thought, what the hell was it?" Renwith reported, "It looked like an island in the middle of the road. It was just a maze of reflectors ahead and so I had to slow down. They were on both sides of the highway and down the middle of both lanes. They looked like they were every ten feet as far as you could see."
"As I approached it, I was struck with the red light," he added. "It just lit everything up, and everything went red."
Renwith described entering the blaze of lights and then feeling that the object was rising and moving behind him.
The UFO "seemed high and it seemed to blind me," he added, "It was a laser-type beam the thickness of a broom handle. It hit the side mirror and flashed back in my face. I could feel the heat from this thing."
Instantly blinded, Renwith slowed the Subaru and pulled over to the side of the road. He sat there for over an hour, his eyes blind and streaming tears. After a long while, his vision cleared enough for him to drive away.
Afterwards, when he heard about the Guyra UFO crash on TV, he contacted the Australian UFO Research Network and was interviewed by ufologist Diane Harrison.
Renwith still suffers from severe eye irritation as a result of the incident. (Many thanks to Diane Harrison of AUFORN for this report.)
NINE UFOs SEEN IN MISSOURI ON CHRISTMAS DAY
On Saturday, December 25, 1999, from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., the eyewitness, who identifies himself as "Goni" said he saw nine UFOs approaching from the east over Valles Mines, Missouri. He described them as "nine objects moving periodically and in formation.. They sloped at a 45-degree angle, and (there) appears to be a glow from flames."
"After about an hour, I spotted a U.S. jet cruising at a good speed, making a pass, then back again. The UFOs didn't seem threatened by this and went on about their business."
"While moving," the UFOs "had a white color, thought to be flames, then a light reddish glow." (Email Form Report)
DISCOVERY COMPLETES SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION
The space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew safely returned to Earth on Monday, December 27, 1999 after a successful eight-day mission to repair the ailing Hubble Space Telescope.
Following replacement of the gyroscope array, which failed on November 13 putting the Hubble into "safe mode," the Discovery astronauts began work on a wide array of repair tasks.
On Thursday, December 23, 1999, astronauts Michael Foale and Claude Nicollier "stepped outside again and working amid floating cables and connectors replaced the Hubble Space Telescope's antiquated computer with a newer model."
"With the door of the Hubble swung open like the hood of a car, Michael Foale and Claude Nicollier hovered next to each other as they pulled out the old computer and put in the new one."
"A quick electrical check showed that all the connections were good."
"'The Hubble not only has new brains. It's thinking,' Mission Control told the crew."
"The Hubble's old computer was based on an Intel 386 microchip. The new one is an Intel 486-- 20 times faster with six times the memory. Actually, there are three identical computers in the replacement box, only one of which is used at any given time. Each has two megabytes of memory."
"'Now that doesn't sound like much in days where everybody talks about 64 megabytes or 128 megabytes,' said Hubble program manager John Campbell. 'But you should keep in mind that we don't do Windows and we don't have disks and we don't do Internet, and the old computer only had a tenth of a megabyte, so this is a major increase in capability.'"
"Foale and Nicollier, both astrophysicists, were awestruck gazing up at the four-story telescope jutting out of the shuttle cargo bay, more than 370 miles above Earth."
"'Well, Claude, what do you think?' Foale asked."
"'Beautiful. Beautiful,' Nicollier murmured."
On Friday, December 24, 1999, the Discovery crew undertook the third and most difficult spacewalk of the mission.
Astronauts Steven Smith and John Grunsfeld "floated out into the shuttle cargo bay for the third and final spacewalk of the mission."
"'Ah, John, another beautiful day outside,' Smith called out."
"They quickly hooked up an electronic unit to the pointing system, then replaced Hubble's broken radio transmitter." The unit went down in 1998, and NASA has been using the backup radio to transmit and receive data.
"NASA never expected the radio transmitters to break, so the connectors were not made to be handled with the astronauts' bulky gloves. Engineers redesigned the replacement unit and devised a special tool to remove and install the small connectors."
"Even with the tool, it was tedious work. Grunsfeld had to rest his hands while unplugging the old transmitter."
"Hubble's old reel-to-reel recorder, on the other hand, was meant to be replaced. The new solid state recorder has no reels, no tapes and no moving parts and can hold ten times as much data."
"Besides installing the two instruments, Smith and Grunsfeld had to hang steel shields around the base of the 9-year-old telescope to guard against the sun's damaging rays."
The astronauts also installed new batteries with voltage regulators to prevent overheating. All told, the Discovery crew installed $70 million worth of new equipment on the $3 billion space telescope.
Although its landing was delayed for a few hours by high winds, the shuttle Discovery safely touched down on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:01 p.m. on Monday, December 27, 1999. Col. Curtis brown, U.S. Air Force, was at the controls during the landing.
"A sensor went off in the cockpit, indicating the shuttle had low pressure in one tire, but it ended up being a faulty indicator."
"'Welcome back to Earth after a fantastic flight,' said Mission Control's Scott Altman."
"The mileage for the eight-day trip was 3.26 million miles."
Next to fly is the shuttle Endeavour, which is set to launch in late January on the first manned space mission of the Twenty-first Century. (See the Duluth, Minn. New-Tribune for December 24, 1999, "Hubble telescope gets new brain," page 4A; December 25, 1999, "Hubble repairs near completion," page 4A; December 28, 1999, "Space shuttle Discovery returns to Earth," page 4A. Also USA Today for December 28, 1999, "'Welcome back to Earth,' Discovery," page 3A.)
CASSINI ENTERS ASTEROID BELT, HEADS FOR JUPITER
On Monday, December 20, 1999, while the shuttle Discovery was closing in on the Hubble Space Telescope, the robot spacecraft Cassini entered the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Cassini was launched from Earth on October 15, 1997 and is on an epic seven-year voyage to Saturn. Last August, Cassini performed a close flyby of Earth, picking up enough momentum to fling itself out to Jupiter.
The Cassini Flight Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California reports that the spacecraft remains in excellent health and on track for its arrival at Saturn in July 2004."
"The mission and science teams are busy preparing for Cassini's four-year orbital survey of Saturn. They are also working on additional opportunities to make observations and test Cassini's science instruments during the spacecraft's flyby of Jupiter on December 30, 2000 from a distance of 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles)." (JPL news release of December 21, 1999. Many thanks to Steve Wilson Sr. for sending along the news release.)
A CENTURY OF UFOs
And now UFO Roundup presents a historical chronology of UFO and alien sightings during the Twentieth Century. These are not the most important sightings of each year, but they are significant. Here's the UFO history of our century year by year:
1900 - Teenager Miranda McKay and three other girls, plus their Scottish chaperone from Appleyard College boarding school, disappear at Hanging Rock, near Melbourne, Australia.
1901 - An unusual substance, "smelling like glue" falls from a clear sky at Sart, Belgium.
1902 - Unusual sky booms heard over Boschof, Oranjevrystaat, South Africa.
1903 - Large alien seven feet tall with long hair, horns and huge bulging eyes appears and is chased away by coal miners in Iola, Kansas, USA.
1904 - Three luminous UFOs are seen by the crew aboard the USS Supply, which is on a cruise off the shore of northern California, USA.
1905 - "Buzzing" UFO descends from heavy overcast and flies over Portland, Oregon, USA.
1906 - "Mystery meteor" performs weird aerial maneuvers over Syracuse, New York, USA.
1907 - "Torpedo-shaped" UFO explodes over downtown Burlington, Vermont, USA. Seen by Bishop John S. Michaud, former governor Alexander Woodbury, A.A. Buell and others.
1908 - Spherical black UFO with a brilliant spotlight hovers and flies over Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA. Seen by John E, Flynn, Philip S. Prophett and others.
1909 - Cigar-shaped UFO appears repeatedly over Dunedin and smaller towns along the South Island's Otago coast in New Zealand.
1910 - Large cigar-shaped UFO hovers over Huntsville, Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, playing its bright spotlight over both cities.
1911 - "Mystery airship" flies under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, USA.
1912 - "Mysterious airships" hover over cities and towns in Kent, UK.
1913 - Large cigar-shaped UFO flies slowly over Milwaukee and Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA, flashing its bright spotlight over streets and buildings, and then retreats back out into Lake Michigan.
1914 - Three luminous UFOs fly low over Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA.
1915 - A cigar-shaped craft, thought to be a German Zeppelin, is seen over Andenes, Norway.
1916 - Norwegian fishermen working nets north of Svalbard (Spitzbergen) Island see a "dark Zeppelin" moving quickly over the Arctic pack ice, heading for the North Pole.
1917 - Minister and family use a telescope to watch a silver UFO shaped like a wagon wheel near Salida, Colorado, USA.
1918 - Luminous cruciform UFO seen hovering over Lismore, N.S.W., Australia.
1919 - Two British soldiers see several orange spherical UFOs hovering over Salisbury Plain near Figeldean, Wiltshire, UK.
1920 - Fishermen see a blue egg-shaped UFO touch down near Mount Pleasant, Iowa, USA.
1921 - Bright circular UFOs seen above a cloud overcast at night in Killingly, Connecticut, USA.
1922 - Twin girls aged 8 see a daylight disc UFO near Davenport, Iowa, USA.
1923 - A UFO explodes in mid-air over Quetta, Pakistan. Flaming debris rains down, destroying a few buildings. The fire lasts for hours, leaving only melted slag and "thin wires."
1925 - Mysterious fireball explodes just outside Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA.
1926 - Nicholas Roerich sees a daylight disc UFO in a clear blue sky in northern China.
1927 - While flying near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, USA, pilot Barney Oldfield finds his biplane flanked by "flying manhole covers."
1930 - Small humanoid alien shows up at a farm in Mandurah, W.A., Australia, asking for water. Shot to death by terrified farmer.
1931 - On a flight from Australia to New Zealand in his Tiger Moth biplane, Sir Francis Chichester encounters and chases a teardrop- shaped UFO over the Tasman Sea.
1932 - Death of Charles Fort, the father of ufology.
1933 - Small disc hovers behind a house in Nambour, Queensland, Australia. It's grabbed by a boy, who suffers itching and blistering on his hands as a result of grabbing the object.
1934 - During a winter blizzrd, mysterious engine noises are heard above the clouds in New York City, USA.
1938 - "Mysterious lights" hover over Tabor, Quebec, Canada.
1939 - Bright green UFO hovers over Juminda, Estonia for an hour, then disappears.
1940 - "Fiery cartwheel" UFO is seen ascending from a hilltop in Bata, Hungary.
1941 - German aviatrix Hannah Reisch sees a UFO speeding by at an altitude of 20,000 meters (66,000 feet) while flight-testing a forerunner of the Messerschmitt 163 Komet.
1942 - "Battle of Los Angeles." U.S. Army gunners fire at a UFO squadron passing over L.A. and Burbank, California, USA.
1943 - Spanish troops of the Division Azul see a washtub-shaped UFO hovering nearby during a battle in Russia.
1944 - First appearance of the "foo fighters" over France and Belgium, the UFOs of World War II.
1945 - Three Japanese Zeroes engage two daylight discs in a dogfight over Wonsan, North Korea. One Zero is shot down, and the UFOs flee into space.
1946 - A cylinder-shaped UFO crashes in Lake Kolmjarv in Sweden during the "ghost rockets" flap of that year.
1947 - A UFO crashes in Roswell, New Mexico, USA. Three aliens are killed, and the survivor is captured by the U.S. Army.
1948 - Capt. Thomas Mantell's F-51 Mustang is shot down by a UFO over Franklin, Kentucky.
1949 - U.S. Navy scientists use a theodolite to observe a daylight disc UFO near Arrey, New Mexico, USA.
1950 - Airliner Northwest 2501 is shot down by a UFO over Lake Michigan.
1951 - U.S. Army platoon fires armor- piercing bullets at a hovering bell-shaped UFO in Chorwon, South Korea.
1952 - "Battle of Washington D.C." A UFO fleet buzzes the USA's capital city and then flees before U.S. Air Force jets arrive.
1953 - Lt. Felix Moncla's F-86 Sabre jet is captured by a UFO over .Lake Superior, hauled aboard by a tractor beam. Lt. Moncla is still MIA.
1954 - Two truck drivers get into a fistfight with small humanoid aliens at a roadside cafe between Caracas and Petare, Venezuela.
1955 - After sighting a UFO, a family is besieged by over 20 small big-eared aliens at their farmhouse in Kelly, Kentucky, USA.
1956 - A Royal Candian Air Force F-100 fighter is captured by a UFO over Lake Huron.
1957 - Several cigar-shaped UFOs are seen by residents of Levelland, Texas, USA.
1958 - Uruguayan Air Force pilot engages a daylight disc UFO in a dogfight over Pan de Acucar, near Salto, Uruguay. The UFO uses a microwave beam to disable the plane.
1959 - Rev. W.B. Gill and his parishoners at Boianai mission, Papua New Guinea are astounded when a flat saucer hovers overhead and four aliens wave to them.
1960 - Czech military officers observe a UFO with their binoculars at Brno, Czech Republic.
1961 - Betty and Barney Hill are abducted aboard a UFO while driving just south of Littleton, New Hampshire, USA. First publicized abduction and first appearance of the Zeta Reticulans.
1962 - UFO explodes over a South Atlantic beach in Ubatuba, Sao Paulo state, Brazil. Molten slag is recovered.
1963 - Four children see a UFO land just outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. An alien nine feet (2.7 meters) tall and wearing a white monk's hood beckons to them.
1964 - Patrolman Lonnie Zamora sees a UFO and aliens on the ground in Utah, USA.
1965 - UFO blacks out a U.S. military base at Nha Trang, Vietnam and is seen by hundreds of American soldiers.
1966 - College coeds at the dorm in Ann Arbor, Michigan have repeated sightings of UFOs.
1967 - Patrolman Herbert Schirmer sees a UFO take off from Ashland, Nebraska, USA. Later, under hypnosis, he describes an abduction experience. First of the "silent contactees."
1968 - Children see a landed UFO and an alien at St. Stanislas de Koska, Quebec, Canada.
1969 - Eleven witnesses see a daylight disc UFO hover over a farm in Anolaima, Colombia.
1970 - Two skiers see a UFO descend and emit a beam of light in Imjarvi, Finland.
1971 - UFOs with stubby side wings are seen over a tea plantation in Hewaheta, Sri Lanka.
1972 - Two flying humanoid aliens seen by a crowd in the plaza at Ixtalapa, Mexico.
1973 - Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker are captured by alien robots and taken aboard a saucer in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA.
1974 - A UFO crashes at Llandderfel, Wales. The British Army recovers two dead aliens.
1975 - Travis Walton is hauled aboard a UFO by a tractor beam near Snowflake, Arizona, USA. He is missing for five days and then returns with an amazing abduction story.
1976 - F4 fighter jets of the Iranian Air Force battle UFOs over Tehran, capital of Iran.
1977 - A small alien wearing a green uniform and a helmet with blinking red and white lights on it is seen by several people in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico.
1978 - Pilot Frederick M. Valentich encounters a UFO while flying across the Bass Strait from Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania. Valentich describes the UFO in a frantic radio call, which is suddenly cut off. Pilot and plane are still missing.
1979 - Newsman videotapes luminous UFOs over Keikoura, New Zealand.
1980 - Woman motorist abducted from her car and taken aboard a UFO in Pudasjarvi, Finland.
1981 - Peruvian fighter jet gets into a dogfight with a UFO over Chosica, Peru.
1982 - Brilliantly-illuminated UFO hovers over Mount Senohara in Japan.
1983 - Large V-shaped UFOs seen over Newburgh, New York, USA.
1986 - Pilot for Japan Air Lines sees a giant UFO over Anchorage, Alaska, USA.
1987 - Reddish-orange UFOs fly over Meishan, Sichuan province, China.
1988 - Family in their car chased down the highway by a UFO in South Australia.
1989 - UFO lands at a park in Voronezh, Russia. Four aliens 3 meters (10 feet) tall emerge from the craft, causing a panicky crowd of onlookers to flee.
1995 - UFO crashes near Boyle, Ireland. Crew of five aliens are captured by a NATO task force and Irish Gardai (police).
1996 - UFO crashes just north of Varginha, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The seven surviving aliens are captured by the Brazilian Army.
1997 - "Battle of Phoenix." Giant triangular UFO seen over Phoenix and other cities in central Arizona, USA.
1998 - Three Japanese fighter jets shot down by UFOs over the ocean off northern Japan.
1999 - Exploding UFO levels huge patch of jungle west of Sao Felix do Xingu, Para state, Brazil.
To paraphrase the National Enquirer, "And how was your century?"
LOREN COLEMAN NAMED BIGFOOTER OF THE YEAR
The Center for Bigfoot Studies in California has awarded Loren Coleman its 1999 Bigfooter of the Year title.
In the December 1999 issue of Bigfoot Times, editor Daniel Perez wrote, "As we approach the year 2000, 52-year-old Loren Coleman snagged the top spot with the publication and co-authorship of two books in one year--The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide and Cryptozoology A to Z, bringing tremendous publicity to the cause and securing his place as the Bigfooter of the Year."
Coleman, who lives in Portland, Maine, is a cryptozoologist, writer, consultant and filmmaker at the University of Southern Maine. He has been studying Bigfoot and other mysterious creatures for 40 years, when, as a 12-year-old boy in Decatur, Illinois, he became fascinated with the Yeti or "Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas."
(Editor's Comment: UFO Roundup readers can check out Loren's latest adventure at his website, located at http://www.lorencoleman.com.)
from the UFO Files...
3000: PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
Now that it'll be a new millenium in a couple of days, have you ever wondered what the year 3000 will be like?
There may be a way to find out.
Thirty-eight miles south of Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, is a little town on the prairie called Cannon Ball (population 700). About three miles southeast of Cannon Ball, N.D. is Holy Hill, a site long held sacred by the indigenous Lakota and Samish (also known as Sioux and Mandan) people.
A very strange incident occurred here back in 1913. That winter, a Lakota man named Joe Huff invited his elderly relatives to visit him in Bismarck. Among them was his great-uncle, Eagle Staff.
Eagle Staff was a medicine chief (what we today call a spiritual advisor--J.T.). At the time, he was 80 years old, having been born during a very auspicious time--November 1833, known to the Lakota people as "the night the stars fell" due to the tremendous Leonid meteor storm that year.
During the trip to Bismarck, Huff showed them the new nickelodeons. Feature films were still two years in the future. The elderly people were amazed and delighted by the moving images. Eagle Staff, however, remained aloof. He said, "I have seen this thing before."
Aware that the old man hadn't been off the Standing Rock reservation since 1880, Huff asked, "When?"
"When I was a boy. At Holy Hill."
Huff looked on in disbelief. The cinema had only been invented less than twenty years earlier. How could Eagle Staff have seen it back in the 1840s?
"The spirits showed us images of the future," the old man added.
"Of course, Uncle." Thinking that Eagle Staff's mind had begun to wander, Huff gave the matter no more thought.
A few weeks later, "Eagle Staff asked Huff to go with him to his house for an overnight visit. Huff agreed and climbed in the wagon next to Eagle Staff and for the journey to his log home."
Once they arrived in Cannon Ball, "they talked until late into the night. At last Eagle Staff said, 'Have you ever heard the spirits working on Holy Hill?'"
"'No,' Huff replied."
"'This is the month for the spirits to work,' Eagle Staff explained. 'But as they do not work every night, I do not know if they will work tonight. But if they do, I will knock on your window, and you can get up to hear them.'"
Sure enough, sometime after midnight, Huff was awakened by a soft rapping at the window. Out in the snow stood Eagle Staff, wrapped in a bearskin cloak, a frosty plume trailing from his lips.
When Huff came outside, he said, "Listen. The spirits are working."
Huff heard a strange sound. Click-click! Like two rocks being knocked together. Turning to the southwest, he saw a weird glow near the summit of Holy Hill, a flickering white aura similar to the light of a cinema film.
Immediately Huff wanted to go to the hill. But Eagle Staff held him back. "The spirits will leave as soon as you arrive. But if you have a good ear, get down on the ground and listen."
"Huff did as he was bidden. The clicks were even more clear when Huff placed his ear to the ground. It was like that for two miles around, Eagle Staff said. At ground level the clicks seemed to come from directly beneath, but when Huff stood again, they drifted through the air from the direction of Holy Hill."
Had Eagle Staff and the other medicine chiefs seen visions of the future in the 1840s? Joe Huff couldn't say for sure. But he was never again so certain about the nature of reality as he was before his trip to Cannon Ball, North Dakota. (See the book Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott, Tor Books, New York, N.Y. 1994, pages 268 and 269.)
AN INVITATION TO OUR READERS
If any of our readers have a dream about the upcoming Twenty-first Century over the New Year's weekend, write it down and send it by email to Masinaigan@aol.com. UFO Roundup will run selections from each letter during the month of January 2000.
Well, here we are on the verge of Y2K. The good news is, D-Day wasn't on December 28. Although National Guard units are preparing for any contingency, there has been no Operation Abacus. The bad news is, the state of Israel sent 12,000 troops, including its special Millenium Units, to occupy the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Wednesday, December 29, 1999. And the Jewish state has deported 60 Christians for "unspecified crimes" including no doubt accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. (See USA Today for December 30, 1999, "Israeli authorities bulk up forces," page 8A) I'm afraid a Bill of Rights, or even an Edict of Nantes, in that unhappy land will have to wait until the Next Millenium.
In the meantime, don't spend New Year's Eve in your foxhole with your helmet, flak jacket and rifle. Although, when you think about it, that is an apt metaphor for the whole stupid Twentieth Century. The Millenium only comes around once every thousand years. Go out and have some fun.
I intend to. If I didn't have to work tomorrow, I'd drive out to Cannon Ball, N.D., grab a box of popcorn and watch previews of the year 3000. Or maybe drop on over to Inyan Kara or Mato Tipi and see what's happening. But there'll be a powwow a lot closer to home. I plan to eat some frybread and wild rice stew and dance to the beat of the spirit drum. And maybe later on, when it gets really cold, I'll slip away to a promontory overlooking the Big Lake and marvel at the ebony sky full of stars. And maybe I'll see a UFO. Maybe it'll even land and at last we'll meet face to face. Maybe.
And if the computer doesn't crash, and it isn't TEOTWAWKI, we'll be back in the Next Millenium with more UFO news from around the world, brought to you by "the paper that goes home--UFO Roundup." Happy new Year!
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1999 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of issue in which the item first appeared.
