Paul Hellyer and the Politics of Exopolitics

 

 

Paul Hellyer and the Politics of Exopolitics

 By Gord Heath Nov 5, 2005

 Paul Hellyer Former Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer, a former Minister of Defence in the Pearson Government, has announced his belief that UFOs are real and that the US is developing weapons systems for space which are to be used against alien craft entering earth’s airspace. He voiced his opinions at the recent “2005 Toronto Exopolitics Symposium”. Exopolitics is a new term used to describe the study of the politics of extraterrestrial contact. It is usually discussed in a context which assumes that enough evidence exists from existing UFO reports to conclude that some UFOs are craft that are piloted by beings originating from other planets and solar systems. Hellyer’s comments received some coverage in the national media and stirred some interest and reaction from the public, mostly from those who have some interest in UFOs. Hellyer’s History as Political Nomad Paul Hellyer was first elected as a Liberal from Toronto’s Davenport riding in 1949. He was, at that time, the youngest MP to serve in Canada’s parliament. He served as a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of National Defence and then went on to serve as the Associate Minister of Defence in the cabinet of Prime Minister Louis Saint-Laurent. He later served as Minister of National Defence in Prime Minister Pearson’s cabinet in the mid 1960s and served as Minister of Transport in the cabinet of Prime Minister Trudeau. His most notable and controversial achievement was the integration and unification of Canada’s army, navy and air forces into a single organization, the Canadian Forces. At the time, unification sparked considerable negative reaction from many members of the armed forces who objected to the manner in which military traditions such as separate and unique uniforms were discarded. After resigning from cabinet in a dispute with Trudeau, Hellyer sat as an independent and later formed a political party, the Action Canada Party, before crossing to join the Progressive Conservative Party. He failed in a run for the leadership of the PCs before leaving that party to rejoin the Liberals where he failed to secure a nomination. He later went on to form the Canadian Action Party in 1995. In terms of influence, the peak of his political career was probably in his earlier years when he served as a cabinet minister. His political views gravitated towards concerns about the threats to Canada’s sovereignty posed by US political and economic influence in Canadian affairs. In recent years he is one of many prominent Canadians who have opposed Canadian support and participation in the US National Missile Defense program (NMD) and supported calls for a ban on weapons in space. It is through these contacts that he began to encounter the views of persons who believe that the US is planning space based weapons systems to be deployed against ET controlled vehicles entering earth’s atmosphere from space. Paul Hellyer states that his beliefs in ET visitation do not relate back to insider knowledge obtained from his time spent as Minister of National Defence from 1963 to 1967. At that time he was largely consumed by other pressing public policy priorities and paid scant attention to high profile UFO encounters like the Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia incident in October 1967 or the Falcon Lake, Manitoba encounter in May 1967 where Stephen Mickalak received chest burns from a hovering UFO. Roswell Writings Change Hellyer’s Views Hellyer states his recent interest in UFOs was prompted by viewing Peter Jennings TV documentary on the topic. He later read “The Day After Roswell” by Col. Philip J. Corso, who once served as the head of the Foreign Technology Desk at the US Army’s Research and Development department. In his book, Corso asserts that parts from a crashed alien vehicle were recovered from the July 1947 incident at Roswell, New Mexico which the US Army Air Force later explained as a weather balloon. Corso states some parts were transferred to a “file cabinet” at the Pentagon where they were used to guide developments in several technologies such as integrated circuits, night vision systems and lasers. Col. Philip John Corso Author of controversial book, “The Day After Roswell” Many UFOlogists dispute conclusions that a UFO crashed at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Others do not believe Corso’s specific allegations in his book relating to his role in applying ET derived technologies from this alleged crashed UFO to practical recent technological innovations. Stanton Friedman is a nuclear physicist who investigated Roswell and has books about the Roswell crash and MJ-12, the alleged top secret US committee created to study UFOs. Friedman, who now resides in New Brunswick, casts doubts on Corso’s claims that he was the central figure responsible for seeding technology derived from wreckage taken from the ET spaceship which (allegedly) crashed at Roswell. In response to those who question how he came to believe the contents of this specific book, Hellyer states that he personally spoke with an unnamed US General who assured him that all of this and more was true. Exopolitics Versus the UFO Fundamentalists For some UFOlogists, Hellyer’s foray into Exopolitics was not welcomed. The very notion of a study of the politics of extraterrestrial contact is hotly contested by many as they feel that UFOlogists must focus on the scientific investigation of UFO phenomena. Some reason that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that some UFOs may be vehicles incorporating technology far beyond those developed by earth civilization. The reality is that all of this is mostly a debate happening amongst a very small group of researchers and interested persons that has little measurable impact on the information shared through mass media outlets like television, radio and newspapers. There are few celebrities of any sort who want to risk their profile and public following to publicly state their views on the possible importance posed by UFO encounters, especially if some have extraterrestrial origins. Few politicians have been brave enough to face the ridicule posed by suggesting there might be anything worthwhile to gain through the study of UFOs. President Carter and President Reagan both spoke about personal UFO encounters but made few other public statements about the policy implications posed by these events. It might be expected that any viewpoint supporting the possible reality of ET visitation to the planet might be welcomed by those UFOlogist’s who claim to be open to this possibility. But due to deep divisions between some UFOlogists and persons who advance the study of exopolitics, this has not been the case. As an example, Paul Hellyer’s statements to the Exopolitics conference in Toronto were mocked and ridiculed by filmmaker Paul Kimball of Redstar Films based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Kimball’s views are of some significance as he is one of the few Canadians to have an interest and financial stake in producing documentary films on UFO related topics. His documentaries include “Stanton T. Friedman IS Real” and “Do You Believe in Majic?” He is currently working on film documentaries on cattle mutilations and the ten best UFO cases. Kimball Believes Hellyer Should Have Known UFO Secrets Paul Kimball UFO Documentary Filmmaker One of Kimball’s posts on his weblog “The Other Side of Truth” (http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/) was largely focussed on heaping scorn on Hellyer’s nomadic political career “Ladies and Gentlemen – Meet the REAL Paul Hellyer”. His earlier post on Hellyer “Paul Hellyer – The Big Fish Flops” raised more specific issues relating to Hellyer’s statement. Kimball’s opinion is that if anyone would know about UFO secrets, it would have been Hellyer: “Because if anyone in Canada would have known about the Cosmic Watergate, and UFO secrets, and alien bases, etc. etc., it would have been the Minister of National Defence in the mid 1960s.” This statement assumes that the Minister of National Defence is privy to all secrets contained within the Department of National Defence. It further assumes that any questions concerning the security implications of UFO incursions into Canadian air space would require a continuing policy review from the Minister of National Defence. What if Canadian policy on the security implications of UFOs was already determined by our participation in NORAD continental air defence, established back in the early 1950s? US Policy Was to Debunk UFOs There is documentation to suggest that there was considerable concern about the possible security risks posed by UFOs during the early post World War 2 time period. The US Air Force initiated several studies of UFOs to evaluate the potential threat to national security. It was initially thought that the UFOs might be secret weapons produced by Germany or the Soviet Union. It was later determined that the UFOs were not foreign developed weapons systems and one study in the US Air Force concluded some UFOs possibly had an “interplanetary origin”. In his UFO books, Major Donald Keyhoe documented the struggle in the US Air Force between those who favoured open sharing and disclosure of UFO information with the public and “the silence group” who feared that the public was not prepared for this information and wanted to keep all unsolved reports secret. The CIA sponsored Robertson Panel Report in 1953 appears to have set the policy direction for US government agencies including intelligence and military agencies regarding UFOs. It suggested that the credible UFO reports should be debunked, that only reports of easily explainable occurrences of meteors and such should be publicized, and that the activities of civilian UFO study groups should be monitored. It was concluded that there was no evidence that UFOs posed a specific security threat to the US, but that the reporting of UFOs might trigger the mass hysteria that was observed following the radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”. The panel felt that the mass media could be used to discredit UFO sightings. It was also concluded that there was no evidence that UFOs were actually advanced vehicles piloted by beings from other planets. The official study of UFOs by the US Air Force did continue through Project Blue Book until the 1968 University of Colorado “Condon Committee Report” advised that Blue Book should be shutdown as there was nothing further to be gained from the study of UFOs. But even though Project Blue Book continued through the 1950s to the late 1960s, it was largely ineffectual in conducting serious research into UFOs and its direction was largely to abide by the policy framework established through the Robertson Panel Report. The more serious and contentious question is whether some persons connected with the study of UFOs decided to continue studies in a compartmentalized and secret organization and program. Those who support this view refer to documentation suggesting such a group, possibly called MJ-12, has been operating in the US since the late 1940s or early 1950s. A key contention is that the existence of this organization and its activities are hidden behind walls of internal security from any and all elected and publicly accountable officials such as presidents, cabinet members, senators and members of congress. This secrecy is allegedly maintained by threats and intimidation. While some information does leak out, it is countered by the deliberate leakage of “disinformation” which masks the truth behind many seemingly related but false or partially false allegations. Some theorists believe that some of the information about these programs is released in a controlled manner to eventually prepare the public for a broader and more open disclosure of the real history of UFO studies. What About Canada? Did Canada have an active UFO study program in the mid-sixties? Did the Canadian government ever formally establish a policy direction concerning the potential national security implications posed by UFOs? While there has certainly been many UFO encounters involving RCAF aircraft and radar installations, there does not seem to exist a paper trail showing the policy direction that guided reaction to these events. The RCAF did perform some study of UFO incidents, but there is not any clear indication of the policy objective that framed this study. It is quite possible that the elected arm of the Canadian government, the PMO and cabinet, have never prepared a policy directive concerning the study of and response to UFO incidents. Perhaps there has never been sufficient pressure to require a government policy response. Perhaps government bureaucracy including National Defence has preferred to set their own internal policy. The media has largely ignored reporting of UFO events since the 1950s and the public is itself fragmented by differing belief systems and focussed on more tangible and immediate priorities. In Canada, the study of UFOs was offloaded to the National Research Council in 1968, the year that the US disbanded the USAF “Project Blue Book” study of UFOs. There were few scientists at NRC who harboured any willingness to show interest in the objective study of a “frivolous topic” like UFOs, except for the purposes of finding and locating fallen meteorites. The timing of the offload of UFO study responsibility suggests that Canada was simply following the US lead in its policy towards the study of UFOs. Since the mid 1950s, Canada has participated in NORAD which provides security of Canadian and US air space from foreign incursions. The response to any unidentified return that shows up on NORAD radar systems would abide by the policies and regulations established by the joint US and Canadian NORAD command structure. It is therefore quite likely that our response to UFOs detected by the military would abide by NORAD policies which are likely largely developed by US military strategists. It is theoretically possible that the US has actually discouraged Canadian government research into UFOs because they might be concerned that the results of such studies might be released to the public or may be obtained by competing foreign governments. There Never Was a Project Magnet It is difficult to catch Paul Kimball’s line of reasoning on Hellyer. Apparently he sees Hellyer’s disclosure that as a defence minister, he knew little or nothing about UFOs as proof positive that the Canadian government has never had an interest in UFOs. He might be right that most people in government were at most puzzled by what they heard. But there were certainly some people in the Canadian military that had to be concerned about what was reported by pilots and radar observers in various military encounters with UFOs. Kimball goes on to say “There was no super secret Wilbert Smith research project” in his efforts to debunk the notion that the Canadian government ever had any interest in studying UFOs. The project he is referring to is “Project Magnet”, a program run by Department of Transport scientist, Wilbert Smith. The project was concerned with the idea that the earth’s magnetic field might be the force used by the flying saucers for their propulsion. It later led to a small UFO detection station at Shirley Bay near Ottawa, Ontario. Project Magnet was funded by government from 1950 to 1954 and the UFO detection station was publicly funded from 1952 to 1954. Although the project was supposedly secret, the UFO detection station was written about in several newspaper articles. It appears that publicity surrounding the station possibly contributed to the government’s decision in 1954 to discontinue funding for the project. Flying Saucer Detection Station at Shirley Bay near Ottawa This photograph was published in the Toronto Globe and Mail, on the same day as a USAF F-89 disappeared after merging with a UFO on radar in Canadian air space over Lake Superior. Paul Kimball goes on to state “There was no secret plan to get an alien spacecraft to land in Alberta”. I guess the point here is to disprove any notion that the Canadian military had any interest in the UFO phenomena. Here Kimball must be referring to the article printed in the Ottawa Journal in July 1967, “UFO Landing Site was 13 Year Secret”. The article states “The Canadian Government 13 years ago made available the defence research board experimental station at Suffield, Alberta as a landing site for Unidentified Flying Objects, defence minister Paul Hellyer has now disclosed.” The article goes on to state: “Nothing ever materialized from that top secret project. No extraterrestrial flying objects ever sought to land on that 1000 square mile restricted tract of land over which no aircraft, civilian or military, was allowed to fly without special permission. The idea behind the classified project was that if any UFO tried to make contact with earth it could land at the DRB station without being shot down by defence interceptors.” CFB Suffield This Canadian Forces Base is located northwest of Medicine Hat, Alberta. For decades it was Canada’s primary research centre into chemical and biological weapons. It is also alleged to have been designated as a top secret reserved “UFO landing site” back in the early 1950s. Yurko Bondarchuk refers to the alleged site in his 1979 book “UFO Sightings, Landings and Abductions – The Documentary Evidence”. He revealed that Captain Douglas Caie, Public Information Officer from National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa stated regarding the alleged UFO landing site at Suffield “We have no record of any such program… From the information I have, we never had one.” According to the 1973 book “Aliens from Space” by Donald Keyhoe, US Air Force intelligence learned of the restricted landing site at Suffield in 1954. According to Keyhoe, the site was established when efforts by the RCAF to “bring down” a UFO failed. The intent was to lure the aliens into landing but there was apparently nothing to indicate the area was reserved for alien machines. In the 1950s through to the 1970s, the experimental station at Suffield was Canada’s main centre for research into chemical and biological WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). This included the testing of mustard gas and sarin on soldiers and other human test subjects. Suffield was also the primary Canadian test site for biological weapons such as anthrax, plague, ricin and botulinum toxin. It is also alleged that the RCAF has engaged in many pursuits of UFOs with its fighter jets since the 1950s. It is perhaps little wonder that the UFOs would not choose to land at a site controlled by Canadian National Defence which is devoted to chemical and biological weapons research. What was the source for this story? Why would the government designate a military base as a “safe landing site” for UFOs? AFFA and PONNAR Orbit Earth and Make Contact What I have found quite interesting about this, aside from Kimball’s denials, is the whole history of Smith as it relates to Canada’s UFO studies of that period. While investigating this whole episode of the alleged UFO landing site at Suffield, I was quite surprised to find out that there might be a connection between this “bit of Canadian UFO fantasy” and our favourite UFO/ET proponent, Wilbert Smith. This story goes back to a UFO researcher named Grant Cameron. Through his interest of the alleged alien landing site at Suffield, he engaged Hellyer in a long period of correspondence with the purpose of locating certain information about the site. Grant Cameron wrote Hellyer several times in the 1970s, trying to determine the identity of the top defence department official who had revealed the existence of the secret Suffield “UFO landing site”. Hellyer was never able to recall the name of the official, but told Cameron that he had searched his files at National Archives but was unable to locate his UFO file, which apparently contained notes from defence briefings on UFOs. The story does not stop there however. Cameron states that in 1978 he interviewed Wilbert Smith’s widow and asked her if she remembered anything about the Suffield UFO landing site. In her version of the story, her husband had been making efforts to convince government officials that the aliens existed and that they should make efforts to talk to them face to face, to learn who they were and what they wanted. Wilbert Smith Canadian radio scientist and prominent “UFO Contactee” ran Project Magnet and UFO Detection Station for the federal government. Here the story begins to get very weird. In August 1954, the technology publication “Aviation Week and Space Technology” reported that Dr. Lincoln LaPaz was conducting a study of two “satellites” which had been recently discovered orbiting the earth at 400 miles and 600 miles above the surface. According to the article, the satellites had caused worries in the Pentagon as they were initially believed to be artificial. This was three years before the Soviet Union launched “Sputnik” the first human manufactured artificial satellite into orbit. The story was subsequently covered by several newspapers. Some people believed that the two mystery satellites were alien spaceships. One of these people was a Mrs. Frances Swan, who lived in Eliot, Maine. She claimed that beginning in April 1954 she began receiving channelled messages from the commanders of two alien ships orbiting the earth, AFFA who commanded ship M-4 and PONNAR who commanded ship L-11. For some reason or another, AFFA was the main alien contact for Swan and other contactees. Wilbert Smith, who was a strong believer in aliens, maintained contact with Swan and other “AFFA” contactees. He also allegedly tried alternative methods for establishing contact with AFFA on his own or through various intermediaries. Back to the story of the Suffield UFO landing site… Mrs. Smith told Grant Cameron that Wilbert believed that if the government stopped shooting at UFOs, then he might be able to get spaceship commander AFFA to land for a meeting. Apparently AFFA had given this indication in a contact to Swan. Smith indicates that he approached a top secret committee in government to relay this request and they had agreed to allow AFFA a safe place to land. When Smith relayed this agreement back to AFFA, he was told that AFFA would also require assurances that he would also be free to take off without any interference. According to Cameron, Mrs. Smith told him that the top secret committee would not agree to this, and so the landing never took place. As weird as this story is, it is at least partially true. We know that Wilbert Smith was “a UFO contactee” and a “true believer” that some of the UFOs were spaceships flown by aliens. Mr. Smith really did receive government funding for his “Project Magnet” and the “UFO Detection Station” at Shirley’s Bay. We know that Paul Hellyer did apparently reveal that Suffield Research Station had been designated as a top secret UFO landing site sometime back in the mid-1950s. His statement revealing this site was apparently made when he attended the official opening of the “UFO Landing Pad” in St. Paul, Alberta, which was a community project for Canada’s centennial. From Mrs. Smith’s telling, the aliens never landed because the Canadian government wouldn’t consent to granting the commander permission to freely leave. What Hellyer was told and what was in his notes seems forgotten and lost with his vanished UFO file. The Suffield story seems to at least be partially true and it would be fascinating to know the complete real story behind it. From what we know sitting in our stuffy armchairs reading these stories and perhaps getting a good chuckle or two, is that AFFA and PONNAR appear to have left earth orbit, probably not impressed with the diplomacy extended by the Canadian government of that time. Present Media Climate Discourages Interest in UFO Study It is difficult to assess what impact Hellyer’s comments have had on the Canadian public. I have had a few people mention to me that they had heard something about this, but they seemed largely unaware of any details concerning Hellyer’s comments. The National Post published a column by regular political columnist Andrew Coyne. In his piece, “Holding Editors to Account”, Coyne seems amazed by Hellyer’s belief in a decades long government conspiracy to withhold secrets about UFOs from the public, and thinks this might mean that Hellyer has lost his marbles. He links Hellyer’s “conspiracy views” with those of someone who believes the US government created the Islamist terrorist network that they are now fighting. Coyne proclaims his belief in factual reporting but calls on newspaper editors to be more selective and “exclude the obviously marginal”. “There is a time and a place to debate whether the earth goes around the sun or the contrary, but we should have little time to address other matters if we were perpetually revisiting old controversies, or disproving every fantasy.” I guess this explains why large media outlets almost never report any UFO unless it can be easily explained as a meteor. It is a very rare event for any large media outlet to present any news relating to UFOs and alien visitation with a straight face. Discovery Channel did recently produce a satisfactory summary of the Exopolitics conference in Toronto but they prefaced it with a goofy cartoon UFO landing. Perhaps this was done to assure the audience that they were not intending anyone to take this in any way seriously. The same thing happens on CBC Radio anytime they have Chris Rutkowski providing reports from his annual survey of Canadian UFO events. It is always prefaced with yuk- yuk UFO alien jokes. I once heard an interview on “As it Happens” with an Indiana police officer who was witness to a huge triangular UFO that was seen by several officers in adjacent counties. The interviewer could hardly contain her smirking attitude while the officer tried his best to provide cool responses to her demeaning line of questioning. After the interview was concluded she was almost rolling on the floor in giggles as she said, “Pardon me, but I really have to wonder what it is that they put in the water down there!” It is hard to believe that such consistent disrespect can be dished out so casually by mass media outlets when it so clearly shows contempt for the views and beliefs of large parts of their reading, listening and viewing audience. The best that audience members can do when this bias and derogatory demeanour is displayed in the media is to complain to these media outlets. As long as the present climate of ridicule persists in the large media organizations, this climate will discourage any serious researcher from publishing material on UFOs and will discourage agencies from funding this research. Hellyer Believes in Public Role in Government Response to Alien Contact Hellyer has stated his belief that elected governments have been largely excluded from information which is held within the bureaucracy about UFOs. He has in fact used his own experience to buttress this argument. UFOlogy has not made great strides in finding conclusive, unambiguous evidence for the ETH (Extra-terrestrial hypothesis) or any other theory on the origin for unexplained UFOs. Despite this failure, many UFOlogists have evaluated the evidence and concluded for themselves that the ETH is the most likely explanation for the phenomena. Given the potentially serious implications of this hypothesis, it makes sense to seriously investigate the potential implications of this hypothesis and to seek answers to the following questions: Who are the visitors? What do they want from us? How are our governments reacting to this presence? Are government agencies hiding information about UFOs from the public? Paul Hellyer is the perhaps the first former senior Canadian government minister to suggest that these questions are important policy questions and that the public has a right to be involved in the development of policy regarding the response of government to possible extra-terrestrial contact events. It is the duty of UFOlogists to seek truth and clarity in the reporting of UFO incidents. It is also our duty as citizens to seek the answers to the key questions posed in Exopolitics forums if we are at all open to the possibility that some UFOs may indeed be advanced vehicles fabricated and possibly piloted by beings from extraterrestrial civilizations. And while many of the stories circulating in the UFO field are arguably in the category “too good to be true” you never know, you really, really never know…

 

http://www.ufobc.ca/Beyond/exopolitics.htm

Pacific tsunami toll exceeds 100

 

Pacific tsunami toll exceeds 100

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:03:27 GMT

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Rose Island is one of two small islands in American Samoa.

More than 100 people are feared to have been killed from a major earthquake and its following tsunami in South Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga.

According to Samoan officials, at least another 145 people have been injured and a large number of villages destroyed. AFP reported that some villages were wiped out.

An earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale hit the Samoa Island on Tuesday evening.

The Samoa islands comprise two separate entities-the nation of Samoa and American Samoa, a US territory — with a total population of about 250,000 people.

So far, more than 100 people have lost their lives across American Samoa and neighboring independent Samoa while at least seven people died in Tonga.

A fresh tsunami warning was issued with police asking residents to go away from water, witnesses say.

Despite the local warning in the nervous Samoan capital of Apia, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a fresh alert and the US Geological Survey did not record any new major earthquake in the area, AFP reported.

President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in American Samoa, enabling federal funding to be made available to help victims.

Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi sent his condolences to the families of the dead, saying he was ’shocked’ and ’saddened’ by the sudden event.

“So much has gone. So many people are gone…I’m so shocked, so saddened by all the loss,” he told the Australian news agency AAP.

According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake shook the waters about 120 miles (190 km) southwest of the remote Pacific islands at 1748 GMT on Tuesday, triggering tidal waves up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) high above normal sea level.

A tsunami watch has also been put in effect for New Zealand, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, and other small Pacific islands.

HSH/FF/AKM

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http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=107462&sectionid=351020406

 

Samoa tsunami toll may exceed 100, hundreds injured

Reuters – 09/30/2009 | Sydney |

Emergency shelters were required and Red Cross teams had mobilized more than 100 emergency workers who were collecting coconuts to help meet early food and water needs, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

 

A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa, killing possibly more than 100 people, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday.President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in American Samoa, a U.S. territory, and ordered federal aid to help recovery efforts, with a U.S. C-130 military transport aircraft due to leave Honolulu for the tiny South Pacific islands.

At least 24 people were killed and 50 injured, Governor Togiola Tulafono said from Hawaii, with the southern portion of the main Tutuila island “devastated.”

Television images showed flattened shorelines and homes torn apart by the waves, with large fishing boats hurled ashore.

New Zealand said there were serious concerns about the neighboring island nation of Tonga after a 4-meter (13-foot) wave hit its northern coast. Tongan officials said they feared as many as 10 people had been killed.

A Pacific-wide tsunami warning was issued after an 8.0 magnitude undersea quake off American Samoa, with reports of a small tsunami reaching New Zealand and rising sea levels in several South Pacific island nations.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled its Pacific-wide warning, but Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued a local tsunami warning for its east coast, warning of a possible small tsunami.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later issued an advisory that small tsunami waves had reached Hawaii, warning the waves could be dangerous to swimmers and boats.

An Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004, which killed about 230,000 people across 11 countries, is the worst on record.

BODIES BURIED IN SAND

Shortly after local radio tsunami warnings were issued in American and Western Samoa, waves started crashing into the capital of American Samoa, Pago Pago, and villages and resorts on the southern coasts, witnesses said.

“It’s believed as of now, there could be a number close to 100 deaths,” said Ausegalia Mulipola, assistant chief executive of Western Samoa’s disaster management office.

“They are still continuing the searches for any missing bodies in the area,” Mulipola told Reuters, adding the southern side of the country’s main island Upolu was the worst hit.

At least 47 people had been killed, officials later told Reuters, with the number of injured still unknown as emergency teams scoured remote coastal villages.

 

 
 

SAMOA TSUNAMI VIDEO

 

http://www.eitb.com/news/international/detail/255926/samoa-tsunami-toll-may-exceed-100-hundreds-injured/

Amateur Australian astronomer spots asteroid crash on Jupiter

 

The collision was confirmed by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Photo: Anthony Wesley/REUTERS

An amateur ‘backyard astronomer’ peering through his telescope from his home in rural Australia has spotted a galactic event that Nasa’s own star-gazers had missed.

By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
Published: 12:58PM BST 21 Jul 2009

 

Anthony Wesley, a computer programmer from Murrumbateman, a village north of Canberra, discovered that a comet or asteroid the size of the Earth had crashed into Jupiter, leaving a vast crater.

His timing was impeccable. Not only does it come as the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon, but the impact would only have been visible for another few days.

 

The collision was confirmed by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which uses a large infrared telescope positioned at the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii to capture an image of the crater, near the gas giant’s south pole. Within hours, his images had spread across the internet on science websites and amateur astronomers around the world were raving about the discovery.

News of the impact came on the 15th anniversary of another comet strike on Jupiter. In 1994, the planet was bombarded by pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Glenn Orton, the Nasa scientist who confirmed the discovery, told the Sydney Morning Herald: “We are extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event. We couldn’t have planned it better.”

Mr Orton said he was not yet sure whether the object that hit Jupiter was a comet, asteroid or a piece of space junk. But the impact mark was about the size of the Earth.

“It’s been a whirlwind of a day and this, on the anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Apollo anniversaries, is amazing,” he said.

Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer who worked with Mr Orton on confirming the discovery, said: “These are the most exciting observations I’ve seen in my five years of observing the outer planets.”

However, to most people the image of the crater appears as little more than a scar on Jupiter’s vast gas surface.

Mr Wesley, who was using a 14.5 inch backyard telescope, said it took him 30 minutes to realise a dark spot rotating in Jupiter’s clouds on July 19 was a new crater.

“I thought [it] likely to be just a normal dark polar storm,” he said.

“However as it rotated further into view and the conditions improved I suddenly realised that it wasn’t just dark, it was black in all channels, meaning it was truly a black spot.”

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/5878319/Amateur-Australian-astronomer-spots-asteroid-crash-on-Jupiter.html

 

Capturing the Stars, Astrophotography by the Masters

Capturing the Stars, Astrophotography by the Masters A new book featuring stunning images of heavenly bodies has been published The True Color of the Solar Corona This extraordinary image displays the range of true coronal colors. The blue sky has been artificially removed close to the sun’s surface, revealing the green hues dominant in the innermost corona (1.8 million degrees Kelvin), caused by the presence of the element Fe XIV, known as coronium. The corona becomes progressively redder farther from the sun’s surface as dust particles scatter the shorter wavelengths of light Receive updates every time we produce a new picture gallery. Follow TelegraphPics on Twitter Picture: Miloslav Druckmüller / Capturing the Stars, Astrophotography by the Masters

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/picture-galleries/5852123/Capturing-the-Stars-Astrophotography-by-the-Masters.html

Jesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come-Pictures

 

 

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/05/08/BANL17H9IR.DTL&o=1

Jesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come

Jesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come

Peter Fimrite,

Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, May 9, 2009

 

 

The wildfire crackling over dry chaparral and engulfing homes in Santa Barbara is an ominous sign for the Bay Area, which experts say is ready to burn after two years of drought. Raging along an 8,600-acre stretch of coastline in the Santa Ynez Mountains, the 4-day-old Jesusita Fire has destroyed about 75 homes and forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people. It is an example of how dry shrublands are throughout California, which is enduring a third straight year of drought conditions, according to Rick Halsey, an ecologist and expert in fire fuels from Escondido. “Every year seems to be getting worse,” said Halsey, who works for the California Chaparral Institute. “I don’t see the climate changing and people are still building. If this is any indication, it certainly seems like it is going to get a lot worse.” Invasive, fire-prone weeds have taken over in many areas of Northern and Southern California, he said, creating kindling for fire. Combine that with a warming climate, drought and an ever-increasing population and you have what he called “a perfect storm” for fire. “You’ve got Mount Diablo up there,” Halsey said. “The only thing that has saved that area is the coastal fog and less density of homes.” Recent rain showers in Northern California may have helped in the short term, but the damp grasslands are quickly drying out, said Paul Van Gerwen, a battalion chief and spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Annual grasses from Santa Cruz County north are three to five weeks drier than normal at this time of year, he said, and the trees and heavier fuels are also abnormally dry. “That little bit of rain doesn’t do anything for the big timber,” Van Gerwen said. It is the second year in a row that a big fire has erupted in May along the California coast, which is normally damp this time of year. The Summit Fire swept through the mountains west of Morgan Hill starting last May 22, scorching more than 4,000 acres, injuring 12 people and destroyed 132 homes and outbuildings. That fire marked the beginning of a catastrophic fire season that had firefighters scrambling as flames crackled in every direction and blocked the sun with clouds of smoke. “Here we have coastal ranges in California that don’t normally see fire this early and we’re seeing fire there in the spring,” Van Gerwen said. “It creates a condition where people should beware of what could be in store this fire season.” The Santa Barbara fire is not what firefighters would characterize as a good omen. Flames threatened homes Friday along a 5-mile front as columns of smoke billowed from the Santa Ynez Mountains. Most of the destroyed homes were in neighborhoods that rise up the foothills, ridges and canyons above the north edge of Santa Barbara. Some 2,300 firefighters, 246 engines, 14 air tankers, including a DC-10 jet airplane, and 15 helicopters were battling the blaze, the cause of which remains under investigation, the Associated Press reported. The blaze comes less than six months after another catastrophic fire burned through the upscale Santa Barbara County community of Montecito. That fire, known as the Tea Fire, destroyed 130 homes, including several multimillion-dollar mansions, injured 25 and forced the evacuation of 5,400 people. Like the current blaze, it erupted amid superheated winds known as “Sundowners” because they blow north to south at dusk. It was the first in a series of big fires in one week that devoured hundreds of homes and thousands of acres in Southern California. The fires last year came after a similarly calamitous fire season in 2007. Tim Duane, professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Berkeley, said there is no way of knowing from the latest Santa Barbara fire whether this year will be as bad as last year. But, he said, the long-term outlook is grim. “Fire seasons have become much earlier and more intense than they ever were before,” Duane said. “It used to be that we’d have big fires around September and October. Last summer it happened in June. This fire in Santa Barbara is in the first week of May. “Is it a bad omen for the Bay Area? You never know, but we can see patterns over time,” he said. “If we keep building in places that are getting drier and hotter, the danger of fire is going to get worse.” Scientists predict that the biggest change in California from climate change this century will be an “alarming, increasing trend” in fire frequency between now and 2085. Acreage burned by fires is expected to increase by between 57 and 169 percent, according to a statistical model of the relationship between fires and climate conditions in California. Research by the U.S. Forest Service shows that the average number of trees killed by fires has increased as a result of higher temperatures and less snowmelt. Fires in the contiguous United States and Alaska release about 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to researchers. That amounts to 4 to 6 percent of the nation’s total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel burning – with the fires contributing to global warming, which in turn is fueling more fires. E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BANL17H9IR.DTL This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco ChroJesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, May 9, 2009 The wildfire crackling over dry chaparral and engulfing homes in Santa Barbara is an ominous sign for the Bay Area, which experts say is ready to burn after two years of drought. Raging along an 8,600-acre stretch of coastline in the Santa Ynez Mountains, the 4-day-old Jesusita Fire has destroyed about 75 homes and forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people. It is an example of how dry shrublands are throughout California, which is enduring a third straight year of drought conditions, according to Rick Halsey, an ecologist and expert in fire fuels from Escondido. “Every year seems to be getting worse,” said Halsey, who works for the California Chaparral Institute. “I don’t see the climate changing and people are still building. If this is any indication, it certainly seems like it is going to get a lot worse.” Invasive, fire-prone weeds have taken over in many areas of Northern and Southern California, he said, creating kindling for fire. Combine that with a warming climate, drought and an ever-increasing population and you have what he called “a perfect storm” for fire. “You’ve got Mount Diablo up there,” Halsey said. “The only thing that has saved that area is the coastal fog and less density of homes.” Recent rain showers in Northern California may have helped in the short term, but the damp grasslands are quickly drying out, said Paul Van Gerwen, a battalion chief and spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Annual grasses from Santa Cruz County north are three to five weeks drier than normal at this time of year, he said, and the trees and heavier fuels are also abnormally dry. “That little bit of rain doesn’t do anything for the big timber,” Van Gerwen said. It is the second year in a row that a big fire has erupted in May along the California coast, which is normally damp this time of year. The Summit Fire swept through the mountains west of Morgan Hill starting last May 22, scorching more than 4,000 acres, injuring 12 people and destroyed 132 homes and outbuildings. That fire marked the beginning of a catastrophic fire season that had firefighters scrambling as flames crackled in every direction and blocked the sun with clouds of smoke. “Here we have coastal ranges in California that don’t normally see fire this early and we’re seeing fire there in the spring,” Van Gerwen said. “It creates a condition where people should beware of what could be in store this fire season.” The Santa Barbara fire is not what firefighters would characterize as a good omen. Flames threatened homes Friday along a 5-mile front as columns of smoke billowed from the Santa Ynez Mountains. Most of the destroyed homes were in neighborhoods that rise up the foothills, ridges and canyons above the north edge of Santa Barbara. Some 2,300 firefighters, 246 engines, 14 air tankers, including a DC-10 jet airplane, and 15 helicopters were battling the blaze, the cause of which remains under investigation, the Associated Press reported. The blaze comes less than six months after another catastrophic fire burned through the upscale Santa Barbara County community of Montecito. That fire, known as the Tea Fire, destroyed 130 homes, including several multimillion-dollar mansions, injured 25 and forced the evacuation of 5,400 people. Like the current blaze, it erupted amid superheated winds known as “Sundowners” because they blow north to south at dusk. It was the first in a series of big fires in one week that devoured hundreds of homes and thousands of acres in Southern California. The fires last year came after a similarly calamitous fire season in 2007. Tim Duane, professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Berkeley, said there is no way of knowing from the latest Santa Barbara fire whether this year will be as bad as last year. But, he said, the long-term outlook is grim. “Fire seasons have become much earlier and more intense than they ever were before,” Duane said. “It used to be that we’d have big fires around September and October. Last summer it happened in June. This fire in Santa Barbara is in the first week of May. “Is it a bad omen for the Bay Area? You never know, but we can see patterns over time,” he said. “If we keep building in places that are getting drier and hotter, the danger of fire is going to get worse.” Scientists predict that the biggest change in California from climate change this century will be an “alarming, increasing trend” in fire frequency between now and 2085. Acreage burned by fires is expected to increase by between 57 and 169 percent, according to a statistical model of the relationship between fires and climate conditions in California. Research by the U.S. Forest Service shows that the average number of trees killed by fires has increased as a result of higher temperatures and less snowmelt. Fires in the contiguous United States and Alaska release about 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to researchers. That amounts to 4 to 6 percent of the nation’s total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel burning – with the fires contributing to global warming, which in turn is fueling more fires. E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BANL17H9IR.DTL This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle © 2009

 

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New videos: Springtime observing targets

New videos: Springtime observing targets

 

Posted 03-10-2009 by Rich Talcott

In this video, I discuss the objects you can see with your naked eyes and binoculars in this spring’s sky. The season offers several bright planets, notable constellations, and bright deep-sky objects. You can locate all the night-sky sights I talk about with Astronomy.com’s interactive star chart StarDome. Watch the video, “Observe easy-to-find objects in the spring sky.” Venus As darkness falls during the first half of March, your eyes will be drawn to the western sky. In the deepening twilight, Venus gleams like nothing else. You won’t have any trouble identifying the brilliant planet, which glows brighter than any other point of light in the sky. Venus passes between the Sun and Earth in late March, and will reappear in the east before dawn by mid-April. Saturn Beautiful Saturn also lies in the evening sky, although it doesn’t stand out like Venus. Look for Saturn among the background stars of Leo the Lion, where it glows as bright as that constellation’s brightest star, Regulus. Saturn will remain in the evening sky until late summer. Mercury Elusive Mercury puts on its best evening show of the year in the last 10 days of April. Watch for a bright point of light low in the west-northwest 30 to 45 minutes after the Sun sets. The easiest evening to spot it will be April 26, when it lies directly below a crescent Moon. Jupiter Meanwhile, Jupiter appears conspicuous in the morning sky during April and May. Look for it in the southeast around the time twilight starts to paint the sky. Only the planet Venus shines brighter than Jupiter. The Big Dipper Spring’s starry background has its own charm. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have a signpost in the spring sky: the bright asterism of the Big Dipper. Seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear create the Dipper’s shape. On spring evenings, the Dipper stands nearly overhead, at the center of this star chart. Use the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl, called the Pointers, to lead you to the North Star, Polaris. Extend the line between the Pointers (which lie at the bottom left of this photo), and extend it about five times that distance. Polaris is the brightest star in the Little Dipper and forms the tip of its handle. Head back to the Big Dipper and take a close look at the middle star in the handle, called Mizar. If you have decent eyesight, you should see a fainter companion star just to its east. If you can’t see it, turn your binoculars on this star and its double nature will stand out. Now, let’s use the Big Dipper to find some of spring’s other celestial delights. If you follow the arc of the Dipper’s handle away from the bowl, you’ll soon arrive at Arcturus — the brightest star in the spring sky. Continue the arc about an equal distance and you’ll find Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo. Spica dominates this sprawling constellation, and has the distinction of being the bluest of all 1st-magnitude stars. When it comes to stars, blue means hot, and Spica’s surface blazes at a temperature nearly four times hotter than the Sun. Next, head back to the Big Dipper, and imagine poking a hole in the bottom of its bowl. The water would flow out and fall on the back of Leo the Lion. Leo consists of two distinctive sections: A group of six stars on the right that looks like a backward question mark, and three stars on the left that form a right triangle. Remember that Saturn augments the Lion’s shape this year, just below the pattern seen here. Our final stop in the spring sky lies one constellation west of Leo, in the faint group known as Cancer the Crab. Smack in the middle of this constellation lies perhaps the spring sky’s finest binocular target: the Beehive star cluster (M44). On exceptionally clear nights from a dark site, you might spot the Beehive with your naked eyes. Binoculars reveal the cluster’s true nature. Through 10×50 binoculars, you should be able to see at least two dozen stars packed into a circle some three times wider than the Full Moon. It’s a sight you won’t soon forget. We’ve created two more videos like this one to help you enjoy everything the springtime sky has to offer. Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Michael Bakich’s video “Springtime observing for small telescopes” highlights this year’s best springtime targets you can see with a 4-inch or smaller telescope. Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher’s video “Springtime observing for large telescopes, 2009” highlights this year’s best springtime deep-sky objects you can see with an 8-inch or larger telescope. Both of these videos are available for Astronomy magazine subscribers at Astronomy.com/videos. I’ll be back again this summer to talk about what’s on view during the warmest nights of the year.

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/blogs/astronomy/2009/03/10/new-videos-springtime-observing-targets.aspx

Extrasolar planet obscuring Big Dipper star

Extrasolar planet obscuring Big Dipper star	02.07.2009  17:10
This sounds like a difficult event to observe, but I thought I would mention it anyways. The star HD 80606, which is one star in a binary star system located in Ursa Major, has a planet about twice the diameter of Earth orbiting it. The interesting thing is that on February 14, 2009, the planet (named HD 80606b) will be passing right in front of its parent star (from our perspective on Earth), and there’s a 15% chance that it will be detectable with small telescopes1. What’s more, the orbital period of this extrasolar planet is a 111 days (i.e. its “year” is 111 days long). So if you’re able to locate the star (RA: 09h 22m 37.5679s, Dec: +50deg 36′ 13.397″)2, you should see the star dim and brighten in a matter of hours, as the transit will last about 17 hours. The two stars are both about magnitude +9, so you’ll have to use binoculars at least to spot their location.
HD 80606/80607 binary system, by NASA/GALEX The two images below are centered on the RA/Dec of the binary star system. The red circle in the middle marks the spot.
I would highly recommend finding this binary system before the night of the 14th, to get some practice in. The system is located along one of the front legs of the “bear”. The Big Dipper handle in the above diagram is extending to the upper left, out of the frame. You could start with the dipper part of the constellation, and star hop down towards the “knee” of the leg, which is close to the binary stars.
References: 1. Yahoo News – Odd planet’s extreme global warming: Highs of 2240 2. Wikipedia – HD 80606 3. NASA Spitzer – Spitzer Watches Wild Weather on a Star-Skimming Planet

 

http://www.andrewging.com/readpost.php?id=21

Are We Alone in This Universe?

 

 

The Kepler telescope, which launches this week, will search for habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

(Courtesy NASA)

 

 

Telescope to Search for Habitable Planets That Have Water

By GINA SUNSERI

HOUSTON, March 5, 2009—

 

Are we alone in the universe or is there life out there waiting to be discovered?

NASA is getting ready to launch the Kepler telescope on an ambitious, first-of-its-kind mission: to search for Earth-size planets in our galaxy, orbiting stars at the right distances to have water on their surface.

These planets are too small and too difficult to be seen with past telescopes. But they are precisely the kinds of planets on which life could exist.

Kepler is NASA’s $600 million telescope, scheduled to launch this week from the Kennedy Space Center. Its potential is enormous, according to astronomer Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University.

“What excites me is for the first time, we are going to have a mission that can take a full census of the kind of planets that exist around other stars,” she said. Jon Morse, NASA’s top astrophysicist, believes Kepler will revolutionize what we know about the universe.

“Kepler will push back the boundaries of the unknown in our patch of the Milky Way Galaxy,” Morse told ABC News. “And its findings may fundamentally alter humanity’s view of itself.”

Kepler’s telescope will work by detecting starlight, and analyzing minute changes in brightness in the galaxy while scanning space for planets like Earth. Kepler will trail Earth as it orbits the sun, on a mission that will last from three-and-a-half years, possibly going as long as six years.

During the mission, Kepler will measure changes in the brightness of more than 100,000 stars, every 30 minutes, searching for “winks” in light that happen when a planet passes in front of its star.

That is how Kepler will know when it has found another Earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope, which has a different mission, can’t do this.

“Hubble is really amazing for reviewing the structure of the universe [and] formation of galaxies,” Fischer said.

“Hubble can’t afford to do what Kepler is doing. Kepler has a smaller telescope and will stare at only one field, a large area of the sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.”

 

At Least Three Years to Find Another Earth

Fischer said that will take years.

“The hardest thing is going to be finding Earths around a star,” she added. “If Kepler is flying for three years, an Earth in the habitable zone would take [a] year’s orbit to spot, so it will take three transits in three years to detect another Earth.

Kepler may not find ET but it may find ET’s home.

 

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Space/story?id=7010234&page=1

Asteroid 2009 DD45 ‘nearly hits’ Earth

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:26:19 GMT Asteroid 2009 DD45 ‘nearly hits’ Earth

An asteroid on its way to Earth A small asteroid, known as 2009 DD45, has passed close by the Earth at a distance of 38,000 miles, astronomers have declared. The object, thought to be 21-47 meters or 68-152 feet in diameter, raced by the earth at 1344 GMT on Monday. According to astronomers, the gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles), a near-miss in terms of cosmic distances. Asteroid 2009 DD45 was discovered by Robert McNaught of the Australian National University last week. “It’s not something to worry about, but something to be aware of,” McNaught said on Tuesday. “No object of that size, or larger, has been observed to come closer to the Earth.” “If discovered in advance and with enough lead time, there is the possibility of pushing it off course, if you have decades of advance warning,” he added. “If you have only a few days, you can evacuate the area of impact, but there’s not a great deal you can do.” McNaught pointed out that the 2009 DD45 asteroid circles the sun every 18 months, but its path will not threaten this planet until the next century at the earliest. According to McNaught, the number of “potentially harmful asteroids” discovered each year has grown dramatically over the past decade as systematic programs to scan the skies have been put in place. In 1908 an object possibly up to 50 meters across flattened 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian forest near the Tunguska River. It had the force of a multi-megaton nuclear blast, and leveled everything for a distance of twenty-five kilometers around the epicenter. If it had crashed into the ocean “I imagine it would produce a tsunami,” McNaught concluded. HRF/JG   http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=87466&sectionid=3510208