Phantoms and Monsters

Was the Needles UFO a Secret Military Craft?
Unknown 'Monster' Pulled From Ontario Lake
U.S. Scientists Announce 'Artificial Life' Breakthrough

Was the Needles UFO a Secret Military Craft?

Posted: 21 May 2010 11:04 AM PDT

8newsnow - It's a UFO, in the literal sense -- it's still unidentified. Half a dozen witnesses say they saw something in the sky over Needles and Bullhead City or watched it being carried away by a phalanx of military helicopters. Was it a spy plane or a drone or something more exotic?

Several eyewitnesses say the mystery object blazed out of the sky in the early hours of May 14, 2008. The long cylinder with the turquoise glow was seen over Bullhead City by former cop Frank Costigan and others. It seemed, at one point, to slow down in its descent.

South of Needles, a fisherman in a houseboat saw the light pass over and slam into the riverbank 50 or so yards west of the Colorado River. Minutes later, at least four military type helicopters appeared in the area and a giant sky crane was used to haul the object into the air and away toward the north.

The fisherman, who uses the nickname Bob on the River, said what he saw. "It didn't look like a meteor. I've seen meteors before. It looked like a plane crashing."

In the two years since the story broke, a lot of people have traveled to the rough terrain of the tri-state area to search for the point of impact -- UFO enthusiasts, TV producers, aviation buffs -- but the shifting sand and thick salt cedar defied efforts to identify a crash site.

The I-Team traveled with Houseboat Bob to whittle down the search area, though we still did not locate the spot. But Bob kept looking.

He traded in the houseboat for an RV and now lives in the desert, not on the river, but he never stopped searching, driven by one thing.

"Everybody thinks I'm an idiot. Everybody thinks I'm looney tooney in the cabooney," he said.

His weekly one-man safaris into the riverbank region came up with something no one else noticed, not even those who searched by air. A large, flat clearing where someone used heavy equipment to remove the gnarly brush, about 70 yards west of the river at almost the exact spot where Bob says the object landed.

It's an unusual spot, he says. "You would not see another hardened ground clearing like this anywhere between here and Needles. It's all sugar sand everywhere."

Ex-cop Frank Costigan is one of those who searched for the crash site. He's also amazed to find the clearing, but says area residents encountered members of what was described as a clean up team in the weeks after the crash.

"There was a cleanup crew dining at the Topock Marina on occasion, after that thing had been removed and we were hunting for the spot," he said.

But if this is the spot, we still don't know what hit the ground. Retired intelligence Colonel John Alexander speculates it could be any number of high tech UAV's -- unmanned spy planes being developed at several western test ranges, including Area 51 in Nevada, or Edwards in California.

"It's also the possibility it lost control and flew off the range. It's not that far from Edwards or the test ranges," he said.

Last month, a classified object was launched into space by the Air Force. The Pentagon has confirmed it's the X-37B space plane, an unmanned spy plane, sort of the military's version of the space shuttle. A few images of the X-37 have been made public, along with video of a sister vehicle the X-40.

The military acknowledges these crafts have been test flown at Edwards and Vandenberg, not too far from Needles. The shape and the size are a near perfect match for what the witnesses saw.

Bob confirms it looks like the object he saw. "Without the horizontal surfaces, yes. Without the wings," he said.

Houseboat Bob said even though the glow from the object was blue green, the object appeared to be black and shiny as it was being airlifted away. Photos of the X-37 show black, shiny tiles on the exterior.

The I-Team sent records requests to numerous agencies and none were able to shed light on what the Needles object might have been. The Air Force won't say much about the mission of the X-37, but military analysts have some guesses.

"What they say they will use it for testing space technologies, and certainly having a re-usable vehicle would be a way of sending up prototypes, batteries, cooling systems, electronics, testing them then bringing them back down so you can modify them. Possibly, it's a space maneuver vehicle so it can duck back in the atmosphere and change its orbit so next time it flew over China, the Chinese wouldn't expect it coming," said military watchdog John Pike.

Another military analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity says he thinks it could be part of a weapons program known as the Rods from the Gods, which we know has been tested out at Area 51. These are spaced-based kinetic weapons that literally fall out of the sky and cause problems for the bad guys.

But for now, the best guess of the witnesses is the X-37.

NOTE: I have to give Las Vegas 8 News reporter George Knapp a lot of credit and kudos for sticking with this story. From my understanding, he took heat from the Feds and local government while looking into this event...Lon
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Originally posted - 7/29/08

New UFO Mystery Surfaces in the Mojave Valley

A large object with a turquoise hue plummeted out of the sky earlier this summer and plowed into the earth south of Las Vegas near Needles, California.

Eyewitnesses say this was no meteorite, especially since a bunch of helicopters came looking for it and then hauled it away.

The object was seen in the early morning hours of May 14. It appeared to crash into the ground just west of the Colorado River. And that's when things got interesting for residents of the area.

Somewhere in the rough terrain just west of the Colorado River and south of Needles is a point of impact, maybe some burn marks, created by something that fell from the sky. Frank Costigan saw it because he got up at 3 a.m. to let his cat out -- a fiery object that flashed across the sky, but it wasn't a meteor he says.

"It was bright, bright enough that it illuminated the ground," he said.

For seven years, Costigan worked as the chief of airport security at L.A.X. He says the mystery object flew out of the north east, heading southwest, traveling very fast, but at one point it slowed down, then sped up again.

"It went behind a hill, and I waited to see if I could hear it crash because as big as it was, it was bound to make noise," he said.

But he didn't hear a crash. Hours later, David Hayes, the owner of KTOX Radio in Needles, was coming to work when he spotted an odd formation of dark vehicles getting off the highway. He drew a picture of the lead vehicle, a large truck with a dome on top and a black structure that reminded him of a stealth fighter.

"It seemed like it was some kind of surveillance vehicle -- four-wheel drive. It had government plates, U.S. government plates and behind it were a couple of vans that looked like support vehicles," said Hayes.

The men inside had a military bearing, Hayes said, but weren't in uniform. He made eye contact with one of the drivers and the guy followed him. Later in the day, one of the vehicles was parked outside the station, seemingly conducting a surveillance of the place.

"These guys staring you down had a 'Men in Black' feel to it?" asks Knapp.

"Absolutely. Very serious, serious as a heart attack," said Hayes.

Coincidentally, Costigan, the ex-cop, works on investigations for Hayes. When he came in to the radio station, he told Hayes about the thing he had seen in the sky, and Hayes told him about the Men in Black.

Then they got another piece of the puzzle -- a call from a man who lives in a houseboat on the river, who said he saw the fiery object -- that it had crashed about 100 yards west of the river, that it landed with a thump. Hayes says he's known the witness for years by the name Bob on the river. Bob thought a plane had crashed and tried to call 911 but his cell wouldn't work, so he moved his boat out into the river, and then heard the helicopters.

In an interview with journalist Linda Howe, Bob says he saw at least five helicopters flying in formation, including a large sky crane. The crane picked up the oval shaped object, still glowing, and flew away, heading in the direction of Las Vegas. One odd detail, the choppers arrived only 17 minutes after the object crashed. He described it to Hayes.

"It was about the size of a semi-trailer, he says, oblong shaped thing," said Hayes.

Out of the blue, the station got a call from a friend in Laughlin who said the Laughlin Airport had been inundated on the night of the crash with so-called Janet planes. That's the airline that flies workers to top secret Area 51. Costigan says the airport could not confirm this because no one is on duty after 6 p.m. at night, not even in the tower.

The black vehicles have left Needles. Bob the houseboat guy can't be found either.

"The fact that there were people here the next day, it was almost like they were doing some sort of cleanup or whatever. The point is, something definitely happened.

The I-Team phoned nearly every agency we could think of to see if they had received any report or knew anything. We were not surprised to learn that no one knew anything.

Here's the list -- police agencies in three states, the Laughlin Airport, the weather service, the FAA and several military bases.

A military watchdog group found a public record showing there was at least one army helicopter in the air in that area at that time. The helicopter, oddly enough, is listed as being attached to a U.S. base in Europe.

We are filing freedom of information requests and will report back when we get responses.

Video: More on Needles UFO Crash, Military Helicopters and Area 51

On May 14th the Eyewitness News Channel 8 reported a large object with a turquoise hue plummeting out of the sky earlier this summer and plowed into the Earth south of Las Vegas. Eyewitnesses say this was no meteorite, especially since they witnessed a group of black helicopters flying in formation to quickly haul it away.

Numerous witnesses to the crashed UFO say it was speeding down towards the Earth and crashed, one witness heard a thud. Five Black helicopters were reported on the scene 17 minutes after the crash with one helicopter identified to be a skycrane helicopter which has a very special design enabling it to carry the large glowing object away from the scene.

One witness reported a group of dark, strange looking vehicles canvassing the area. The men inside had military markings that could not be clearly identified. Their appearance was very similar to 'men in black' according to one witness at the crash site. Witnesses conclude that shortly after the crash there was a very obvious and quiet clean up of the area.

This video is certainly worth the time to watch and more details are covered in the video regarding the local airport and secret flights to the area 51 base. There has not been an official UFO crash since the Roswell, New Mexico incident.
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Originally posted 5/15/09

One Year Ago: Colorado River UFO Crash Update

One year ago, residents in the tri-state area of Nevada, Arizona, and California saw something weird blaze out of the sky and crash on the banks of the Colorado River, south of Needles.

Reports about the needles UFO were sent all over the world and brought a lot of visitors, including men-in-black types to that region. Residents have had a year to think about the object that crashed and to ponder some new, similar sightings from the past few months.

A trio of yapping dogs, excited about something outside their Bullhead City home is what caused Tutu Martin and her husband Paul to awaken just after 3 a.m. on May 14, 2009. "The whole bedroom lit up, like they had lights on it, so I pushed the blinds back and looked," said Tutu.

The glowing object blazed across the sky in a southwest direction and appeared to slow down, then speed up. Minutes later, Martin says, she saw and heard a formation of helicopters as they sped south past the Laughlin skyline. "They were definitely following the river heading south. About another 20 minutes or so, they were coming back," she said.

"It was bright -- bright enough that it illuminated the ground," said former police chief Frank Costigan.

A few miles away, a cantankerous cat caused Frank Costigan to awaken. He also got a good look at the streaking object, saw it slow down, then speed up, then zip below the horizon. "I expected to hear a boom or siren or something," he said.

Down on the Colorado, a fisherman we call Bob on the River had the best view of all. The oblong object with a turquoise hue lit up the water and then smashed into the sandy bank 100 yards away. "It didn't look like a meteor. I've seen meteors before. It looked like a plane crashing," he said.

Within minutes, Bob says, the air was buzzing with helicopters, and then a large sky crane somehow attached the object, picked it up, and carried it away.

In Bullhead City, Brad Allen watched the aerial procession with his son. "I looked thru the binoculars and below one of them was a green object. It was glowing a faint green," he said.

Tutu Martin saw the same procession. An hour or so later, she says the Laughlin Airport, located just below her home, was invaded by several 737's which were identical to the famed Janet planes used to transport workers from Las Vegas to the Area 51 military base. "It was white with a red stripe," she said.

In the days that followed, residents in and around Needles reported encounters with mysterious men-in-black types in odd unmarked vehicles with government plates.

Radio station owner Dave Hayes says the vehicles were similar to, but not exactly like, a government convoy the I-Team ran across. The group the I-Team stumbled upon turned out to be a team from the agency which transports nuclear weapons.

In the year since the needles UFO incident, plenty has happened. Hayes' station, KTOX, which is also where Costigan works, has become an unofficial clearinghouse for UFO reports.

Most are explainable or not believable, he says, but Costigan thinks there's no question the object that crashed near Houseboat Bob was the real deal, though every military unit within 200 miles denies knowing anything about it.

Although the story has raised the public profile of the area and has drawn curious tourists, sort of like Roswell on the River, Costigan says the locals think it's a serious matter, even if it was a military test of some sort, which is the prevailing view.

"I think it was military or the military was tailing it or knew it was coming down. But my gripe, why didn't we get warning we were in danger of something falling out of the sky? We want answers," he said.

Residents of Lake Havasu would also like answers about what's been flying over their heads in recent months. In March and again in April, eyewitnesses saw a large triangle, some say boomerang, cruising over the lake in the wee hours. The craft was flanked or followed by warplanes. The reports are similar to huge triangles seen all over the world in recent years.

A Las Vegas think tank known as NIDS found an apparent correlation between the sightings and military facilities, but the Pentagon denies having anything this big in operation.

Costigan says the Havasu sightings ring true to him. "It was seen up and down the whole West Coast. I've got several descriptions, but always with a military presence," he said.

NOTE: here are links to the 'UFO Hunters' episode that references this incident...Lon
UFO Hunters - UFO Crashes - 1/5
UFO Hunters - UFO Crashes - 2/5
UFO Hunters - UFO Crashes - 3/5
UFO Hunters - UFO Crashes - 4/5
UFO Hunters - UFO Crashes - 5/5

Was the Needles UFO a Secret Military Craft?

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Unknown 'Monster' Pulled From Ontario Lake

Posted: 21 May 2010 09:50 AM PDT

dailymail - Locals in a small Canadian town have been stumped by the appearance of a bizarre creature, which was dragged from a lake.

The animal, which has a long hairy body with bald skin on its head, feet and face, has prompted wild internet speculation that it is a more evolved version of the famous 'Montauk monster'.

The creature was discovered by two nurses in the town of Kitchenuhmaykoosib in Ontario, Canada, while out on a walk with their dog.

When the dog began sniffing in the lake, the two women started investigating, before the dog pulled the dead animal out.

After taking some photographs of the odd animal, the nurses left it alone. When locals decided to go back and retrieve the body, it has disappeared.

The photographs have now been posted on a local website, with an explanation which reads: 'This creature was first discovered by Sam the Dog, a local dog.

'It was discovered first week of May in the creek section of town, hikers noticed Sam sniffing something in the water and they approached to see in what the Sam had detected and they noticed the creature in the water face down.

'The dog jumped in the lake and pulled the creature to the rocks and dragged it out for the hikers to see and these are the photos they took.

'The creature's tail is like a rat's tail and it is a foot long.'

There has been much speculation about what kind of species the animal is.

The body of the creature appears to look something like an otter, while its face - complete with long fang-like teeth, bears a striking resemblance to a boar-like animal.

Even the local police chief Donny Morris is baffled, saying: 'What it is, I don't know. I'm just as curious as everyone else.'

The pictures of the animal have caused mass speculation online, from bloggers who are all stumped as to what the creature could be.

One internet blogger wrote: 'That certainly is a face only a mother can love. It looks like some sort of otter, weasel-type thing.'

While another added: 'Some kind of mustelid - I thought otter first.

'Being in the water and bashed around has made the fur on the face and tail come off so clean like that.'

Many people have suggested the animal could be a new 'Montauk monster' - due to the similarities between these photographs and those of a different creature which washed up in Montauk, New York, in 2008.

The animal, which quickly earned the nickname the 'Montauk monster', thanks to the beach's location to a Long Island government animal testing facility, has never been officially identified - although the general consensus is that it was some kind of racoon.

However, other bloggers have speculated that the new creature discovered is a type of chupacabra, or 'goatsucker'.

The chupacabra is rumoured to inhabit parts of the U.S., with many several hundred eyewitness accounts over the past few years.

But despite these sightings, the majority of biologists and wildlife experts believe the chupacabra is a contemporary legend.

Thanks to Billy Green for the 'heads up'!

NOTE: There are a few suspects to consider, namely Beaver, Northern River Otter, Muskrat, Pine Marten, Mink. But my guess is the Fisher (Martes pennanti)...Lon

Unknown 'Monster' Pulled From Ontario Lake

U.S. Scientists Announce 'Artificial Life' Breakthrough

Posted: 21 May 2010 09:18 AM PDT

HOW THE SYNTHETIC CELL WAS CREATED

The scientists "decoded" the chromosome of an existing bacterial cell - using a computer to read each of the letters of genetic code.

They copied this code and chemically constructed a new synthetic chromosome, piecing together blocks of DNA

The team inserted this chromosome into a bacterial cell which replicated itself. Synthetic bacteria might be used to make new fuels and drugs.

bbc - Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

Some also suggest that the potential benefits of the technology have been over-stated.

But the researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.

The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.

He and his colleagues had previously made a synthetic bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another.

Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell", although only its genome is truly synthetic.

Dr Venter likened the advance to making new software for the cell.

Dr Venter told BBC News: "We've now been able to take our synthetic chromosome and transplant it into a recipient cell - a different organism.

"As soon as this new software goes into the cell, the cell reads [it] and converts into the species specified in that genetic code."

The new bacteria replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained and were controlled by the constructed, synthetic DNA.

"This is the first time any synthetic DNA has been in complete control of a cell," said Dr Venter.

'New industrial revolution'

Dr Venter and his colleagues hope eventually to design and build new bacteria that will perform useful functions.

"I think they're going to potentially create a new industrial revolution," he said.

"If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide."

Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.

But critics say that the potential benefits of synthetic organisms have been overstated.

Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies, told BBC News that synthetic bacteria could be dangerous.

"If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good," she said.

"By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution.

"We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."

Dr Wallace accused Dr Venter of playing down the potential drawbacks.

"He isn't God," she said, "he's actually being very human; trying to get money invested in his technology and avoid regulation that would restrict its use."

But Dr Venter said that he was "driving the discussions" about the regulations governing this relatively new scientific field and about the ethical implications of the work.

He said: "In 2003, when we made the first synthetic virus, it underwent an extensive ethical review that went all the way up to the level of the White House.

"And there have been extensive reviews including from the National Academy of Sciences, which has done a comprehensive report on this new field.

"We think these are important issues and we urge continued discussion that we want to take part in."

Dr Gos Micklem, a geneticist from the University of Cambridge, said that the advance was "undoubtedly a landmark" study.

But, he said, "there is already a wealth of simple, cheap, powerful and mature techniques for genetically engineering a range of organisms. Therefore, for the time being, this approach is unlikely to supplant existing methods for genetic engineering".

The ethical discussions surrounding the creation of synthetic or artificial life are set to continue.

Professor Julian Savulescu, from the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, said the potential of this science was "in the far future, but real and significant".

"But the risks are also unparalleled," he continued. "We need new standards of safety evaluation for this kind of radical research and protections from military or terrorist misuse and abuse.

"These could be used in the future to make the most powerful bioweapons imaginable. The challenge is to eat the fruit without the worm."

The advance did not pose a danger in the form of bio-terrorism, Dr Venter said.

"That was reviewed extensively in the US in a report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Washington defence think tank, indicating that there were very small new dangers from this.

"Most people are in agreement that there is a slight increase in the potential for harm. But there's an exponential increase in the potential benefit to society," he told BBC's Newsnight.

"The flu vaccine you'll get next year could be developed by these processes," he added.

U.S. Scientists Announce 'Artificial Life' Breakthrough

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