HomeHome
Cette page en français

News and observation reports, September 2004:

Some of the UFO observations and ufology news in September 2004 are listed on this page. Please note that these are not studies, but second hand observation reports, although mostly obtained from reliable and well known sources.

STROBING LIGHTS SEEM IN MASSACHUSSETS, USA:

THREE RIVERS -- The witness was sitting outside talking to a lady friend on September 26, 2004, at 8:30 PM, when he noticed a star like object hanging very low in the sky. It sat above the trees strobing, pulsing and shifting from blue to green, to red to white to orange. It appeared to be rotating, so he waited 15 minutes and determined it was moving. The witness went next door and got his friend Mike to witness the object. He's a skeptic so the first thing out of his mouth was "That's an airplane." The witness told him how long he had been watching, and his friend agreed, "That's not an airplane!" It was at that point that another witness became involved. We watched this thing as it moved, pulse shifted in color, and looked at times like it was splitting itself apart in separate lights. It then dropped behind the trees as two possible fighter jets moved in on its position. Then it took off leaving a trail of white light in its passing.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

THREE LIGHTS SPOTTED NEAR PHILADELPHIA, USA:

PHILADELPHIA -- On September 26, 2004, at 10:15 PM the couple had just finished dinner at the Moshulu Restaurant that is located on board a sailing ship in the Delaware River and went up to the upper deck to sit. "I was looking over the edge of the boat, and my friend asked me, "What is that?" We spotted three lights, flying in a triangle shape, and thought it could be an airplane coming into the nearby Philly airport. The lights were south of where we were. Other planes were also flying that night. It became apparent that it wasn't a single plane when the two lights at the bottom of the formation seemed to weave, move around, and perhaps changes positions. The upper light may have also moved, but the bottom two were definitely moving. The formation was moving west. We continued to watch, as they seemed to move either further away, or became lost in clouds. We could see that the upper light was a bright white, the bottom two were dimmer or smaller, and of a different hew. It looked different from any of the planes."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

FIREBALL SEEN IN BATAVIA, USA:

BATAVIA - The observer was exiting the NewYork Thruway and observed for several seconds a tear dropped shaped fireball/craft enveloped in what looked like butane-colored light/flame. It was a butane colored craft/fireball descending from SE to SW across sky on September 26, 2004, at 8:05 PM. It left no trail and descended from above to beneath the cloud deck.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

LIGHT SEEN IN NEW-YORK, USA:

MIDDLE ISLAND - The observer saw a bright light in the sky on September 26, 2004, at 10:15 PM that was moving like an airplane. The light was not blinking and it was moving in a straight line across the night sky from the west to east. The observer didn't hear any engine noises and there were no clouds in the sky. He states, "When it got into the center of the clear sky, it suddenly disappeared and was completely gone from my view.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

SIGHTINGS IN OLMSTED FALLS, OHIO, USA:

According to a Falls police report, a Wainwright Terrace woman reported Sunday night september 26, 2004, seeing something suspicious in the western sky white and green in color, which scared her.

Several police officers then observed with binoculars something in the sky hovering with a round circle of oscillating red and green lights, according to their report.

Police then spoke to an employee with Cleveland Hopkins Airport Operations who said the airport had received several calls regarding the object but they detected nothing on their radar.

About 20 minutes later, the airport worker called police back, saying he also observes the object, and that it could be a satellite. However, the tower was still checking on it and as of Monday, the object had not been identified.

On Tuesday, Bill Steigerwald, with the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that the object was possibility a meteor or debris from space. His agency, though, had not been contacted, so he had not seen the pictures taken by Falls police.

FATE OF MOD'S UFO PAPERS IN QUESTION, U-K.:

While french UFO files from the defense are still kept away from the public's eye, with no guarantee whatsoever that they are kept or destroyed, and the only certainty that the general public still has no access to it, UK ufologist Dave Clarke has concerns over the fate of UK's defense UFO files.

Dave Clarke writes: "In July the MOD admitted that thousands of sensitive Cold War documents had been quarantined in plastic sacks because of fears they might have become exposed to deadly asbestos whilst stored in the basement of the War Office building at Whitehall. The files included important documents relating to British nuclear policy and defence intelligence briefings during the Cold War. But we can reveal exclusively that among the records are 25 UFO files generated by the shadowy MOD intelligence branch known as DI55 that investigated the more bizarre reports reported to the Ministry since 1971. Historians who describe the Cold War files as "the crown jewels of contemporary history" are concerned the MOD will use the asbestos scare as an excuse to further delay their release, imminent when the Freedom of Information Act comes into force in January 2005. The MOD have told us that it is possible some of the files might have to be destroyed if the cost of preserving them safely is too high.

"You would have thought this was a classic case for the Disclosure Project, with questions in Parliament and a 'save the files' campaign. So what precisely are British UFOlogists doing about it? Well this is the first they will have heard of it. It seems they are so busy organising skywatches and social events they have remained blissfully unaware of the impending threat of destruction of their own "crown jewels." And as usual it has been left to professional historians to mount a campaign to save them."

Dave Clarke adds: "I have already initiated my own campaign to save these files from destruction via my MP, Helen Jackson, who intends the raise the issue with Defence Minister Geoff Hoon in Parliament in the near future."

UK Ufologist Joe McGonagle specifies: "There are a number of things that people can do without leaving their armchair, or posting a letter:

1. Send a message to the PM at:
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page3.asp

This is the text of the message UK Ufologist Joe McGonagle has sent to the Prime Minister:

"Dear Mr. Blair,

"It has recently come to my attention that an important part of our heritage is at risk of being destroyed."

"Records held by the Ministry of Defence relating to a critical period of the cold war and other records relating to the MOD handling of UFO reports have been contaminated with Asbestos, and consideration is being given to their destruction."

"These records are potentially of enormous importance to historians that want to better understand military and political decisions made during a very stressful period. If they are destroyed, rumours of "cover-up" will be rampant, and the resulting cost of dealing with such accusations will exceed any cost of salvaging the documents."

"Not only would this be a waste of public money, but it would also be a denial of the rights of voters to be informed the decisions made by their elected representatives and Civil Service departments."

"We have already had to wait for over a quarter of a century to learn what is in these files, and it seems that we may never have the opportunity to see them at all."

"Please can you take this matter up with the MOD in the national interest."

"Yours sincerely,
Joe McGonagle"

2. Contact your MP online. If you don't know who your MP is, visit: http://www.locata.co.uk/commons/
and enter your postcode.

3. Email the MOD at public@ministers.mod.uk

BRIGHT ORANGE LIGHT IN STRATTANVILLE, USA:

STRATTANVILLE -- The witness opened the door to let in the dog and noticed a bright orange light hanging in the sky to the west on September 24, 2004, at 8:19 PM. It was really bright. He watched it for about ten minutes and the light disappeared but came back into sight with four flashing strobe lights that flew slowly to the east, then up and out of sight. It was a clear dark night.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

NOCTURNAL LIGHTS SEEN IN FRING, NORFOLK, UK:

On Friday, September 24, 2004, at 11:30 p.m., N. Davies reported, "At Fring, northwest Norfolk, a friend and I saw a very large triangular shape made up of three white lights travelling across the sky. I could not say what height they were, but they almost looked as if they were in space."

"They were heading south across The Wash, the northwest Norfolk coastline. The triangle kept the shape for a couple of minutes, and then one of the lights accelerated ahead without breaking formation. After about three minutes of perfect visibility, the first light faded, and when the two other lights behind reached the same spot in the sky, they faded, too."

"There were no clouds blocking my view at this point," he reported, adding that the objects were "very possibly in space."

Thanks to Joe Trainor, UFOroundup for the Email form report.

FLYING CYLINDER IN BELGIUM:

The witness writes:

"Sir,
I want to let you know that this Friday 09/24 in belgium, at St-ghislain(mons) while driving my child to school, we have noticed, a motionless cylinder object above us, in the turn of the road I lost it, I went back to the location and they were not there. So I resume my way to the school and there I see it again and this time it was going fast and went up in the cloud... While dropping ny son at school, my son calls his schoolmates and they also saw the object disappear in the distance in the clouds."

"I really do not believe this was an airplane,
for one: it had no wings
second: it was not manoeuvering in an ordinary flightpath
for three: an airplane does not stay motionless in the sky"

"The question is to know of this craft was of military origin or (extraterrestrial)."

"With my truthfulness, sir,"

[nom et prénom]

"PS: It drive me mad I had binoculars in the car !!!!"

Note: once interrogated on wether it may have been an helicopter, the witness answered that he does not think so because it was too high and silent.

Before I had published the above report, I received another report from another person:

"Hello I sent this email to you to report that on 09/24/2004 in the morning I believe I have seen a UFO in the sky of Saint-Ghislain, first at low altitude the craft was cigar-shaped and moving very slowly then a few minutes later it disappeared behind the clouds at an unbelievalble speed then it xomes back and stays motionless for 5 minutes then O keep on looking the craft and it plays hide-and-seek behind the clouds but still at a tremendous speed a few moments later the craft making no noise starts again at an incredible speed and goes towards Tertre ou towards France or England. Of course this may be a simple airplane but did you already see an airplane which descends again and goes up again in the sky and then shoots off at an unbelievable speed at this height we have the impression that objects in the sky are very slow but in this case the object departed at a no imagineable speed. You decide."

MULTICOLORED LIGHTS SEEN IN NEW JERSEY, USA:

HIGHWAY 287 -- "A friend called me while on the road to tell me about bright lights in the sky that hovered, then disappeared rapidly. On September 23, 2004, at 8:50 PM. He said he saw stationary multicolored blinking lights in the sky for a few seconds, then they moved off at a great speed, leaving a tracer." Since my friend has about ZERO imagination, I believe he saw something strange. P.S. He called me because of my flight experience and military background."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer, FilersFiles.

UFO STOPS TRAFFIC ON OHIO TURNPIKE:

TOLEDO-CLEVELAND - In the early morning hours calls started coming into the radio station WTAM in Cleveland with Mike Trivisonno, 1100 AM Dial, where people on the Ohio Turnpike started seeing a UFO between Toledo and Cleveland on September 22, 2004, at 4 AM. The callers to the radio station said they were seeing a huge circle with green, yellow, and orange lights. Trucks and cars were pulling off the turnpike to observe the object. At the same time a 12 to 15 fighter jets were allegedly scrambled. People close to an air force base in Michigan (near Lake Sinclair) said it reminded them of 911. The witness stated, "Also, my husband, myself, and our neighbors, observed a lot of military craft in the sky. We even saw two Black-Hawks fly over."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com

STRANGE LIGHTS SEEN BY TWO IN RIDGEPORT, CALIFORNIA, USA:

Sept. 17, 2004, 1 a.m. - Two campers, who were en route to a camping area east of Ridgecrest on State Route 178, reported seeing two red blinking lights circling a single white light right above their vehicle. After about five minutes, the lights that had begun moving northward an "unbelievable speed" vanished."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com

BRIGHT LIGHT IN NICE, FRANCE:

NICE -- On September 16, 2004 at 10:20 PM a disk at high altitude with changing colors was observed for two minutes flying over the Vendome Hotel . The bright light was flying from west to east with bright flashing red, green, blue, and yellow lights. The witness grabbed his camera and to his surprise after he got home he found that he was successful in capturing it with his camera.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer

FLYING TRIANGLE IN MAINE, USA:

LEWISTON. - It was about 11 PM, on September 15, 2004, as the witness walked to his car, he heard a noise similar to a plane and saw a low flying black object behind his house. He noticed there were no red lights flashing and the three corners were lit up in a regular light color and in the middle a light was beaming down. There was a deep weird sound, that didn't sound like a plane. He states, "I felt like I was in a movie. Behind my house is probably about 4-5 miles of forest and hills. I honestly believe that it was one (a UFO)."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director, www.ufocenter.com, and George Filer.

LUMINOUS BALL IN BRIVE, IN CORREZE, FRANCE:

The witness emails on September 15, 2004:

"Subj: strange observation in correze at brive"

"in the night from the 11 to September 12 2004 at about 3 in the morning we were lighting the forest from our window to look for an animal which emitted odd noises. not finding it we had stopped to light and at this moment we observed a blue-green luminous ball accompanied of a trail of the same couleur. its trajectory was rectilinear and went down in soft slope towards the firest it appeared to us from the clouds then disappeared above the forest without any noise. we could observe it approximately during 5 to 7 seconds. could you inform us about what we saw and if there were others witnesses?"

(Probable meteor.)

SIGHTING IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA:

On Sunday, September 12, 2004, Laura Simmons and her friend "were chatting on the back porch" at her home on Fulton Street in San Francisco, she reported, "when I noticed movement in the sky. It was a silent, abstract blob almost like the underside view of a manta ray shape, moving quickly, quietly across the sky. I have no idea how high it was so I cannot judge the size."

She described the UFO as "very large, almost gossamer, sprinkled with lights but almost like dusted with a luminous powder. I can only describe it as if it were draped in 'star camoflauge' or something. It had a swimming-amoeba-like effect. Sounds silly but it's true."

"We both drew pictures of our view before we ever started talking to each other about it, so as not to influence (each other)," and the sketches "are quite similar. We were facing north, and it streaked from the northwest to the northeast, then disappeared out of view. It is a clear night tonight and very windy, but around the thing it seemed kind of cloudy."

(Email Form Report to Joseph Trainor, UFOroundup).

THREE UFOs SPOTTED IN BELVEDERE, UK:

Dorothy Godfrey, 72, of North Road, Belvedere, U-K, went for an early morning trip to the bathroom at around 5am on Monday when she looked out a back window to check on the weather.

The grandmother was returning to bed when she spotted three UFOs hovering outside her bungalow. She called her husband to witness the amazing sight.

She said: "There were three lights in the sky, they looked like light bulbs but they were quite a long way away. After a few seconds one zipped off toward Woolwich and another zipped to the Thames. The third one stayed for a while longer before zooming off in the direction of the river. I called my husband because I knew if he didn't see them he would think I was dreaming."

She added: "I'm not senile, I know what I saw. Before this morning I never really believed in little green men, but there is obviously something up there. My daughter believes everything about Martians. She's very much into these things and she said I should report it."

DISK SEEN IN MASSACHUSETTS, USA:

WALTHAM. - The observer saw a disk-shaped object covered with lights in the sky at 8 PM, on September 11, 2004. The object was just hovering there for a number of minutes. The witness states, "It was covered with lights and just hovered there."

Thanks to Peter Davenport, Director, www.ufocenter.com

FAST MANOEUVERING NOCTURNAL LIGHTS IN RIDGECREST, CALIFORNIA:

Sept. 4, 2004, 8 p.m. - Two lights were reported as moving very quickly and erratically through the skies over Red Rock Canyon State Park. Objects were moving in instant 90-degree turns, performing looping and circling acrobatics throughout clear night skies for approximately 15 minutes. Scared, the witness quickly left the area, convinced that sightings were neither satellites nor meteors.

Thanks to Peter Davenport, Director, www.ufocenter.com

SETI PEOPLE SAY POSSIBLE ET-RADIO DETECTION NEWS OVERBLOWN:

While the mass media (Reuters, CNN, etc.) now report the SETI story from the New scientist widely, saying that it excites the international community of astronomers," SETI people say it is all "overblown" and "hype."

SETI well known and vocal promoteur and participant Seth Shostak seems to have said on C2C that it was just an overblown situation. Dan Wertheimer said "it's all hype and noise. We detected nothing unusual."

Dr Paul Horowitz, of Harvard University, who specialises in hunting for possible alien contacts added: "It's not much of anything at all. We're not investigating it further." He added that it is "not new and definitely not a signal."

(See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3621608.stm)

Amor Alexander of the Planetary Society wrote that "Reports of SETI@home extraterrestrial signal" are "highly exaggerated." However, it does not seem to me that the New Scientist reported an "extraterrestrial signal", but a unlikely but not impossible extraterrestrial signal.

Amor Alexander quotes http://planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/SETI@home/Update_051704.html where SETI's Werthimer wote in May about this signal: "the fact that this candidate's frequency drifts rapidly makes it extremely improbable that it is a transmission from extraterrestrials. Because of the drift, if we had looked at the sky even a few seconds later we wouldn’t have found a match A signal that drifts so quickly that it can only be heard for seconds at a time at a given frequency can only be detected by blind luck. Needless to say, such a transmission is an unlikely vehicle for message from an advanced civilization."

(Note: they mean that they are looking for signals which are obviously and clearly intended to be easily detected by other civilizations, and this one does not seem such an "advertizing signal" but an "unlikely to be heard" characterization.)

(See http://planetary.org/news/2004/seti_signal_0902.html)

The twice-found candidate signal is described on this page by the SETI project:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/Candidates/SHGb02+14a/SHGb02+14a.html

The list of their top-25 best candidate signals is at:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/Candidates/index.html

The SETI League website: http://www.setileague.org
The SETI Institute: http://www.seti-inst.edu
The SETI@home website: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

The SETI League's position on UFOs is in http://www.setileague.org/general/faq.htm

INTRIGUING RADIO-TELESCOPE DETECTIONS BY SETI PROJECT:

The web site of the News Scientist magazine says on http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996341 that SETI people from the Arecibo radio telescope have detected, in February 2003, on three separate occasions, an enigmatic radio signal.

They say the Arecibo radiotelescope had previously detected "unexplained" radio signals at least twice from each of some regions, and when the astronomers were trying to reconfirm the findings, all had disappeared except this one, which became stronger.

This radio signal, now seen on three separate occasions, is an enigma. It could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon. Or it could be something much more mundane, maybe an artefact of the telescope itself.

They say it is the best candidate yet of an intelligent aliens signal in the nearly six-year history of the SETI@home project. So says Dan Werthimer, a radio astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and the chief scientist for SETI@home.

"We’re not jumping up and down, but we are continuing to observe it," he said.

Named SHGb02+14a, the signal has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz. This happens to be one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy, and the SETI people are watching this ferquency because they think it's the best that aliens would use if they want to let their presence known by radio.

The signal seems to come from a point between the constellations Pisces and Aries, where there is no obvious star or planetary system within 1000 light years, and it is a very weak signal, detected for one mnite only. SETI's Eric Korpela who analyzed it said it does not appear "obviously" artificial, but, he add, this may "because it is distant."

Korpela thinks it unlikely SHGb02+14a is the result of any obvious radio interference or noise, and it does not bear the signature of any known astronomical object. Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath, UK, said it may be alien, or "it may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamed-of kind like I stumbled over." He his the scientists of the famous LGM affair, who discovered the first pulasar regular yet natural radio signals.

The signal’s frequency is drifting by between eight to 37 hertz per second. "The signal is moving rapidly in frequency and you would expect that to happen if you are looking at a transmitter on a planet that’s rotating very rapidly and where the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet," Korpela says.

Paul Horowitz, a Harvard University astronomer who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes, said he was not convinced, because the SETI@home software corrects for any drift in frequency and the drift stay after correction, which he said is "fishy." He adds a rather nonsense remark that "If [the aliens] are so smart, they’ll adjust their signal for their planet’s motion."

Another point is that the relatively rapid drift of the signal would correspond to a planet which would have to be rotating nearly 40 times faster than Earth.

Even more strange is that the signal, when detected always start with the same frequency of 1420 megahertz, as if the signal had been reset to initial frequency inbetween. Korpela said "It just boggles my mind"; I do not exclude that maybe this is how aliens would made it clear to us that the signal is artificial: making it drift and reset to a base frequency regularly, something which may be clearly unnatural.

Of course a possible artefact created by a radio signal on the ground is also suggested. Korpela said "Perhaps there is an object on the ground near the telescope emitting at about this frequency," so there is suggestion to use a different telescope to listen for SHGb02+14a.

Fraud by hacking the SETI@home software seems excluded since SHGb02+14a was seen on two different occasions by different SETI@home users, and those calculations were confirmed by others. Moreover, the signal is so unusual that it does not suggest a prank. Korpela said "As I can’t think of any way to make a signal like this, I can’t think of any way to fake it."

Director of SETI@home David Anderson says he remains "sceptical but curious", adding merely that "it's unlikely to be real but we will definitely be re-observing it."


Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on November 13, 2004