Month: June 2010

Rumored to be written above the gates of Hell: ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’. Was this the greeting heralding in the 3rd milennium? I just hope not, but sometimes it seems that way.

Go back to the mid-20th Century, in the years following the Second World War. A third of the world seemed to be marching triumphantly towards a Communist utopia after much of it was liberated from Fascism, in Britain and other countries we had our own version of Socialism and a better world ahead with the new Welfare State and nationalized industries to serve the public not private profit, the economy was improving, nuclear energy promised an almost unlimited source of power, technology leaping ahead with new labor-saving devices, the Soviet Sputnik heralded the new Space Age with journeys to other planets, campaigns started up to get rid of nuclear weapons and were supported by hundreds of thousands if not millions around the world, the European Coal and Steel Community developed into the European Common Market – making war between European states, which twice developed into World Wars, very unlikely.

Jump ahead to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Again hope was re-kindled for a new age of peace and rapproachment between East and West. Some of us hoped the gains of Socialism would be preserved, while the negative aspects of the corruption and bureaucratic dictatorships would be jettisoned. In fact the very opposite happened – all the positive achievements of Socialism were thrown out, and the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats survived, to plunge former Yugoslavia and many former Soviet states into terrible ethnic conflicts. The Warsaw Pact was dismantled, but NATO, an obsolete leftover from the Cold War, actually expanded to Russia’s very borders, causing further distrust of the West.

Come the 21st Century, and in the very first year, 2001, we had 9/11, Bin Laden and Al-Quaida, then the second Iraq War and the Afghanistan conflict. Also the failure of the banks, and the world economic crisis.

There is no hope any more, no grand schemes for replacing the failing capitalist system with something better, nobody has even learnt from the grave mistakes of the former Socialist country experiments of the last century by formulating a more democratic, less corrupt model which works.

Yugoslavia, before its break-up into warring independent states, had achieved a remarkable form of Market Socialism based largely on cooperatives. Most of this was lost in the insane rush for ‘independence’, just as all the achievements of over 70 years of Socialism and unity in the Soviet Union was lost in the rush towards ‘independence’ which just meant the revival of bourgeois nationalist rivalries and ethnic conflicts.

In the Western capitalist countries we had careers and jobs for life, protected by strong trade unions till Thatcher and others destroyed them. The capitalist market now ruled supreme, and after the demise of the USSR the USA became the one and only super-power which dictated the political system for the rest of the world thru its military might and the financial institutions it controls, such as the World Bank and IMF.

Russia and many other former Soviet republics became hotbeds of crime, led by many of the same corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who were in power before, but now there was no attempt to build Socialism or help create a more equal society.

So what hope is there for the 21st Century? At present all seems gloom and doom. For me personally, I just hope that new visionaries will arise; that ordinary people will tire of all the gadgets and trivialities of the early 21st Century (reality TV included) and start getting involved in creating a better world for themselves and their children, instead of trusting it all to the politicians.

We don’t all need to own our own homes, mortgaging ourselves up to the hilt for life in the process. We don’t need cars at all, let alone two or three per family – they are destroying the planet. Low-rent council or housing association homes and good public transport in towns and rural areas, plus more bicycles, would solve so many of our present problems. As would getting rid of the ‘living on credit’ culture which leads directly to inflation and financial crises. The classic case of too much money chasing too few goods and services. 

Those who believe in Spirit or God (or alien visitors) can hope and pray that there will be guidance from beyond this Earth. That is the one ray of hope I can see – New Age awareness of the unity of all things, and brave scientists, doctors, and others who with the aid of the Internet are revealing wondrous things to those with open minds.

The karma of this planet has brought it many Dark Ages, but if we are to evolve we must acknowledge our mistakes past and present and resolve not to repeat them, but to do better in the future.

At least George W. Bush has been replaced by Barack Obama as American President, a man who, although still embroiled in the unwinnable Afghan conflict, has set a date for withdrawal, and who has said he wants to see a world without nuclear weapons.

So there is hope, and a breakthrough in scientific thought and parallel revelations from Spirit could alter the course of human history and evolution dramatically. If people worldwide became aware that we are eternal beings and will be accountable for all our actions while on Earth, that positive things will aid our evolution but negative things will hold us back, then this could be quite revolutionary.

The old-style organized religions based on ancient texts often written by power-hungry men created terrible wars, genocide, torture and confusion. The New Age philosophies, Spiritual awareness and neotic sciences point to the unity of all things, and that religion is unimportant.

Once we know as a scientifically proven fact that we are essentially conscious energy which cannot be destroyed then we surely will start thinking about our long-term evolution beyond this Earth life and acting accordingly. That is my hope, call it ‘pie in the sky’ if you like, but it won’t come to us when we die unless we start creating it for everybody here and now.

Organized religion was described as the ‘opiate of the people’ by Karl Marx – an excuse to sit back and tolerate injustice, poverty, cruelty, etc. in the hope of a better world in the next life – ‘pie in the sky when we die’.

However the new scientific, medical and Spiritual knowledge which is developing of the eternal nature of all living things evolving thru the karmic process will surely be the spur to creating a better world here and now.

Organized religion was a tool for controlling people and exploiting them, but universal and undeniable scientific knowledge of the true nature of things, backed up by new technologies now being developed to communicate directly with other dimensions/universes (such as the after-life planes) will mean everyone will know the consequences of failing to create a fairer and better world here and now, which will be bad karmic debt to be paid back until the lessons are finally learnt and they progress.

If people want to stagnate and not develop spiritually, that is their choice. There is no eternal Hell but they will find themselves in an environment with others much like themselves until they bore of it and strive to evolve to something more pleasant and rewarding.

The rest of us will continue to live fairly decent lives, as most people do already, but hopefully will be joined by many more who decide that their personal (and also general human) progress and evolution is far more important than the latest flashy gadgetry,  luxury property and consumer goods, reality TV show,  petty political/ethnic/religious conflicts or striving for things like great wealth or power over others.

Click on picture to enlarge

I attended my first Rockabilly Rave at Pontins Holiday Center, Camber Sands, East Sussex last weekend. I had to be persuaded to go as, while I love first rate rockabilly from the American greats like Carl Perkins, Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, Warren Smith, Johnny Burnette Trio, etc. I’m not so keen on neo-rockabilly and obscure 1950s rockabilly from equally obscure artists.

I decided to go because I wanted to see the great Sleepy La Beef and Jack Scott once again. In fact I enjoyed much more than these two, though they were superb.

Sleepy La Beef went well over his allotted 45 minutes playing for an hour 20 or 25 minutes. Not for nothing is he called ‘the human jukebox’ as he treated us to a mixture of rock’n’roll, rockabilly and Country music, some complete songs, some medleys. And he was singing a different set to when I last saw him just a couple of years ago. He may have been a bit hoarse, that rich baritone voice seemed a bit subdued and some noticed him cough a few times, but it was still a great set. His guitar playing is as good as ever, and I was close enough to see the dice stuck to his guitar, a novel embellishment.

Jack Scott was, if possible, even better the next nite. He did about the same time on stage as Sleepy, and again we got a good mixture of his rock’n’roll/rockabilly and pop hits, together with some Country. He even did a fantastic fast yodel on ‘Mountain Dew’ (I have the Grandpa Jones version of this, no yodeling on that.)

Lynette Morgan and the Blackwater Valley Boys were great as usual, doing a rockabilly set. They also do a great Country set, featuring Patsy Cline and Hank Williams numbers, but not on this occasion.

If these hillbillies hailed from England the Hillbilly Boogiemen who played on Sunday nite came from the distinctly hill-less below sea-level plains of the Netherlands. They did some excellent Country and hillbilly, including some great fiddle playing, and also banjo playing on some Bluegrass numbers.

Following them we were treated to a Janice Martin tribute from Lynette Morgan, Maibell, Jessie, Rockin’ Bonnie, Miss Mary Ann and Little Esther. The gals all looked stunning and sounded great too. My only criticism being we only got about 40 minutes, instead of the promised full hour as in the program. Janice herself, of course, sadly died a few years ago, but before that played many rock’n’roll weekenders.

Closing the weekend were The Sureshots from England, with Charlie Thompson guesting on lead vocals for three numbers. They were great too.

The atmosphere was very friendly, with many young rockabillies, a few Teds (most of us abandoning our drape jackets/suits in favor of more appropriate attire for a rockabilly do, but there were a handful of Teddy boys in their gear), and others who were just themselves. A couple who looked like aging hippies were thoroughly enjoying the music, and a gentleman called Robin/Robyn came on the dance floor in full drag on the Saturday nite. This reminded me of the party atmosphere on the last nites of the Rhythm Riot! held at the same venue every November, when many guys dress up, some in drag. One homophobic notice in the Gents loo on the Saturday which I removed, and glad to say it never reappeared. Robin/Robyn had many friends among the rockabilly crowd, and I admire his pluck.

Surprisingly there was a good selection of records/CDs over the weekend, not all obscure rockabilly – even Bill Haley, Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry were featured.

Apart from the music, the four of us sharing a chalet visited nearby Hastings and St Leonards on the Saturday. The other three explored the Old Town, while I visited an old friend, Brian, in his care home, and another friend, Steve, in his new compact home in front of the cliffs at the Bo-Peep end of St Leonards, a few yards from the beach.

Sunday the four of us went by bus to New Romney where we caught the Romney Hythe Dymchurch small-guage steam railway to Dungeness, then to Hythe, and back to New Romney.  A very enjoyable day out. We have to thank Martyn, who lives locally in St Leonards, for this, and for taking Alan and Gordon on a tour of Hastings Old Town on the Saturday.

The RHD Railway also had a very interesting museum at New Romney, which we visited. A fantastic large-scale model railway with many different trains on tracks running around half the museum, plus photos and models showing the history of the railway. Some of us could have spent more time here, quite appropriate for fathers’ day. Everyone knows fathers buy model railways as much for themselves as for their sons!

I had my doubts about going to my first Rockabilly Rave, especially as I’m at the Teddy-boy oriented Wildest Cats In Town Weekender at Pontin’s in Pakefield, Lowestoft in just two weeks’ time. But with a line-up like we had last weekend I would be tempted to do the Rockabilly Rave again. A lot of new faces, some very young, some much older, but also quite a few familiar ones.

And a relief not to be sweating in my drape jacket, and suffering from aching feet in my winkle-pickers. Just my regular shoes, and some suitable rock’n’roll/rockabilly jackets for a change.

Diana  has recorded a new podcast on her site DianaSpeaks.info/

The URL follows: http://www.dianaspeaks.info/CurrentMessages.html 

Scroll down to June 2010 podcast, Titles and Hospitals, and click on arrow to hear the podcast.

I won’t reveal the contents, except to say Diana’s return is obviously  via  her voice channel, Andrew Russell-Davis.

Occasionally people ask me how I’m coping with retirement. One thing I can say is that I don’t do all the things I expected to do. This is not so much because I don’t find the time to do them, as I’m not often in the mood to do so.

I have a pile of DVDs and CDs to wade thru on my coffee table, some given to me on retiring 3 years ago. I’ve watched bits of some of them, and now can’t remember which episodes of TV programs, etc. I’ve watched and which I haven’t.

I also had a project for transferring concerts and music clips from my old VHS cassettes on to DVD. Haven’t done any of this for months.

What do I do with my free time? Well this computer takes up most of my spare time, when not watching the soaps, etc. on TV. There’s so much you can do on a computer linked to the Internet. Blogs like this one, games, corresponding with friends around the world, research via various websites, play music videos, etc.

I have a mother, aged 95 (96 in September) who lives near me and who I visit most days. I cook our main meal which we eat together or take her out for a meal. and when the weather is fine I take her in the wheelchair (she can walk, but tires easily) to one of the local parks or down by the River Thames, which is about half a mile away.

I meet up with friends for a drink and a meal several times a month, sometimes we go to the cinema or a music gig.

I go on rock’n’roll weekenders – one next weekend, another the first weekend in July, another in December (I was at another one in May). My mother and I will have days out to Brighton or somewhere on the coast by train during the Summer, and we have 4 nights at a holiday camp in Suffolk coming up in September.

Sometimes I get in the mood to play a record, CD or DVD. Usually a music DVD.

The thing that puzzles me is how I ever found time to go to work, even though it was only part-time. Nevertheless I had to be out of the house for 8 hours a day, from around 12 noon till 8pm at night, meaning my main meal of the day wasn’t eaten till 8.30 or 9pm. I usually just managed a sandwich or roll to keep me going till then, very rarely a breakfast. I still rarely have a breakfast, but usually have my main meal with my mother between 5 and 7 pm, unless we are eating out when it is midday or during the afternoon.

I certainly don’t miss work as the last job they put me on I was totally isolated, wasn’t entitled to any breaks because I was part-time, therefore not able to explore the local cafes and markets or to socialize at all. Even at our department Christmas lunch when the rest of the department would spend all afternoon in the pub, we had to gobble down our lunch and rush back to Reception/Switchboard, they never arranged cover for us for the afternoon. Bastards! I deliberately got drunk on wine one Christmas lunch and passed out on the floor of Reception, recovering in the Sick Room at about 8pm. I thought that would mean they’d get cover for us next Christmas, but no chance. They still expected us to remain sober, rush thru our lunch and then back on Reception. Again, f**king incompetent bastards!!!

I really resented the fact that almost everyone else in the organization had an afternoon off to socialize and get merry at Xmas with colleagues but never us on Reception. And the fact we couldn’t socialize any other time of the year either because we didn’t have any breaks just added insult to injury. What a horrible place to work, and what incompetent managers not to be able to arrange cover one day a year. Even on planned days out my department boss would sometimes say: ‘Everyone can come, except those on Reception’.

When my line of work, telex, became obsolete due to fax and email they had put me and my colleague down in the Reception area, which later became isolated from everyone else. Staff entered by a different door. We could go all day without seeing anyone we knew. This was NOT suitable work for us, certainly not for me, and didn’t use any of our considerable keyboard skills. We should have been transferred to the IT department and this was planned as we were pioneers in that field, being the first to have VDU screens, the first to deal with electronic mail, etc.  We were already going into the computer room to do certain tasks, and the computer expert was training us up to transfer to that department. But the senior manager put a block on it – an American bastard who I never forgave. They were all very jealous of their own departments and didn’t like staff transferring from one department to another.

I ended up doing Reception/Switchboard, a job I was totally unsuited for. It was against all the organization’s rules and that of the trade union because I was given no training for Reception, and inadequate training for the work with the phones system we were also responsible for. I have never been a ‘people person’ used to dealing with the public and frequently lost my temper with callers. I should have been sent on an ‘anger management’ course, and also on a Reception course on how to handle different situations but I never was.

All this was against the rules, and we were supposed to be given an assessment after three months on the job to see how we were coping and if we needed extra training. This never happened, and added to all the other problems I was deaf and often couldn’t hear people who came into Reception properly thru the bullet-proof glass. I was so relieved to be able to take early retirement at the age of 62 to spend more time with my mother. It was supposed to be a ‘human rights’ organization, but as my partner used to say (he also worked there for a time) some of the people working there were more ‘human frights’. Quite appalling the way some of us were treated. My partner was blacklisted for reporting to the press in a letter about the waste of money, bad management, etc after he left, urging members/supporters to put things right. They barred him from even doing voluntary work, just for trying to save the organization’s money and reputation. Once again, bastards!!!

My mother and I (my partner died in 1991) went on several cruises before and after I retired, but now I feel they are probably a bit too ambitious for her at such an advanced age. She can’t enjoy the entertainment, not being able to hear properly even with digital hearing aids, and she hates dressing up.  Also we’ve cruised the Med several times, and she is not keen on going North to Iceland, Norway or the Baltic States. Flying is too much for her at her age in a wheelchair, all the hassle at airports, etc. and she hates being stuck in a seat unable to smoke for hours.

That means any cruises have to be from Southampton or Dover and return to those ports, which strictly limites the cruises we can choose. There are the island ones (Madeira, Canary Islands) or long-hall transatlantic cruises there and back.  We may decide to go on another cruise next year, perhaps around Britain and Ireland. We did this once, and it was very pleasant - we spent a few hours in Dublin,  my one and only trip to Ireland.

With my mother dependent on me for meals, making sure she takes her medication, taking her out, dealing with correspondence, finances, doctor’s and similar appointments, I am unable to go on holday by myself or with friends. I did go for a week with a friend to Cyprus last November and came home to find my mother hadn’t eaten for about a week, or at least hadn’t touched the chilled meals I’d left for her in the fridge, being unsure how to use the oven. She refuses to have ‘Meals On Wheels’ which other people tell me are almost inedible anyway.

So the most I can be away is a long weekend really, or else we go together on holiday. This doesn’t particularly worry me as I’ve traveled all the places I really want to go, some I’ve visited many times.

On hot Summer days I like to go swimming in natural water (ponds, lakes or the sea) and sunbathe listening to Country Music audio cassettes I made up years ago (I haven’t gone in for an Ipod and probably never will). Sometimes I take my mother and we go the Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park, taking the bus to/from Kensington Gardens. If I go on my own Hampstead Mixed Bathing Pond is my favorite swimming place in London. That and the Serpentine Lido. I hate swimming pools, with their clinical appearance and chlorinated water.

Retirement suits me fine, and I’m never bored. I’m sure I’ll always find more than enough to occupy my time.

….on the two main TV channels that is. In this day and age of multi-channel TV there’s absolutely no need for football, Wimbledon, the Olympics, etc. to disrupt the regular programs on BBC1 and ITV1 in the UK.

Both the BBC and ITV need one or two sports channels each for these things, which often over-run. Why should the rest of us with no interest whatsoever in silly, overpaid people kicking or batting a ball about have all our favorite programs disrupted when most channels are full of a load of old crap which nobody would miss anyway?

There’s Sky Sports, and if BBC or ITV want to get in on the act they should start their own Sports channels and leave the main ones free for scheduled programming.

I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss whether England is knocked out of the World Cup in the first game, or goes on to win it. Nor do I care a damn who wins Wimbledon.

Interrupt the main channels for important news events by all means as, even though there are separate News channels, things like the death of Diana or the Twin Towers collapsing are things we all need to know about as soon as possible. I do NOT need to know whether a ball went into a net so many times, or for that matter whether a counter went into a cup in an International Tiddlywinks Contest. No – PLEASE don’t put THAT on the main TV channels!

Red line is Greater London boundary, built up areas in mauve (click on map to enlarge.)

London is in a mess. It has always been in a mess as long as I can remember. For instance, I grew up from the age of 6 in the now extinct county of Middlesex, came under the Middlesex County Council education board, but we had the London postal address of Wood Green, London, N22.

To this day there’s a village in Essex, Sewardstone, which has the London postal district of E4.

Conversely many areas of Greater London do not include the city in their postal addresses. Many people still insist on including the non-existant County of Middlesex (e.g. Wembley, Middlesex) in the postal address. In outlying London boroughs many people still include the name of the old county before Greater London was created, so we get incorrect addresses like Croydon, Surrey; Ilford, Essex; Barnet, Herts.; Bromley, Kent. All these places are in Greater London and not in the above counties, but they don’t have a London postcode.

However their correct postal addresses do not need an incorrect county name, just the postcode after the street/area.

The old London County Council covered just inner London. It was abolished in the 1960s and Greater London was created as an urban administrative area which included most of the suburbs and urban area. However Greater London also includes some rural areas, whilst ribbon development means places like Woking, Leatherhead, Loughton, Cheshunt, Waltham Abbey, Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Dartford and Gravesend are now more or less joined up to London and are therefore considered part of the London urban area although they remain in the surrounding Home Counties.

Greater London roughly covers the area inside the M25 motorway encircling the capital. The London postal district is much smaller. The Post Office decided it could not afford to expand the London postal district when Greater London was created, and there seems to be a reluctance by the local population outside the London postal district to admit their towns have long been swallowed up by the metropolis. This happened before the Second World War, as since then London’s growth has been restricted by the Green Belt.

So we get a mental picture of Ilford as a town in the rural fields of Essex, when in fact it is an East London suburb, Croydon is a South London suburb, etc. Battersea, where I live, was once in the county of Surrey, but we have long had the London postal district of SW11 so Surrey no longer appears in our address, quite rightly.

The Greater London administrative metropolitan area should surely include the whole urban area and the London postal codes should correspond to this.

The same applies, of course, to other urban areas, such as the West Midlands conurbation. Postal districts should be revised to reflect the fact that Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Solihull, etc are all part of the same urban sprawl or metropolis – e.g. allocating all these places the postcode beginning WM or, if this is already in use, a similar one. The same applies to the conurbations around Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, etc.. 

Maintaining the illusion that places are separate towns or cities surrounded by green fields and forests is really unhelpful, and including incorrect and sometimes obsolete county names in postal addresses is even more confusing.

Certainly large joined up urban areas should have one metropolitan authority administrating them, and a post code which reflects this fact.

Anybody who doubts the existence of UFOs is simply ignorant of the facts and have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by the massive debunking and cover-up by governments around the world.

The late U.S. Major Donald E. Keyhoe  revealed the truth in his books, quoting official documents and USAF personnel, none of whom sued him which is what would have been expected had Keyhoe made it all up. From one of his books:

On January 7th, 1948 a large round machine descended over Kentucky, seen by the commanding officer and others at Godman Air Force Base, by state police and thousands of citizens. As it hovered above Godman an interception was attempted  by Capt. Thomas Mantell, a World War II ace, and two other fighter pilots. The wingmen lost contact in the broken clouds, but Mantell climbed out on top.

The upshot of this chase was that Mantell radioed that he had sighted the UFO, that it looked metallic and was huge. His last radio message was that he was climbing to 20,000 feet in pursuit. His body was found near his wrecked plane ninety miles from Godman.

Following this incident Project Sign began, an investigation into UFOs conducted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, staffed by top scientists and engineers aided by Air Technial Intelligence officers. During the next six months they questioned pilots, radar trackers, scientists and other witnesses.

In unanimous agreement they drew up this Top Secret conclusion:

‘The UFOs are spacecraft from another world, observing the Earth for an unknown motive.’

Capt. Mantell’s death was not considered proof of hostility, but due to defensive action by the UFO assuming Mantell was going to attack.

On August 5th, 1948 (yes Keyhoe is as specific as that) a Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was delivered to American Air Force headquarters and the spacecraft conclusion cleared the Directorate of Intelligence without any dissent, then reached Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg.

Vandenburg was urged to release this secret conclusion and start preparing the public, but others urged secrecy until the Air Force had more information. Vandenberg refused to release the spacecraft conclusion to the public – this was the start of the official cover-up.

Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt and other project officers told Keyhoe the reason: ‘How could we convince the public the aliens weren’t hostile when we didn’t know it ourselves?’ General Vandenberg feared it would cause panic.

Vandenberg ordered the document with the spaceship conclusion burnt, but a copy was saved and Major Dewey Fournet and Capt Ruppelt saw it in 1952.  The existence of this Top Secret spacecraft conclusion was confirmed in a signed statement by Major Fournet and Lt Col George Freeman, UFO spokesman attached to the office of the Secretary of the Air Force.

Projects investigating UFOs have continued ever since, under various names, and the reason for the continued secrecy remains the same – basically the American and other governments are not happy that alien craft of far superior technology can enter our air space at will, and their mission and objective is still not known. Governments are totally powerless against them, though Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ project could well have been designed to shoot down UFOs (an almost impossible task due to their high speeds, ability to maneuver in ways which defy our known laws of physics, and even to change shape and disappear, some at least being clearly inter-dimensional craft.)

The cover-up actually started before 1948, shortly after Kenneth Arnold, a civilian pilot, reported UFOs over the Cascades mountain range in Washington state on June 24th, 1947.  He counted 20 UFOs flying in formation in the vicinity of Mt Rainer, and was the first to describe the craft as looking like ‘flying saucers’.

Less than a fortnight later, on July 8th, 1947, the public office of the Roswell USAF base issued a Press Release reporting the recovery of a crashed flying disk from the property of local rancher William ‘Mack’ Brazel.

The first official US government cover-up started an hour later when Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey commanding General Eighth Air Force at Fort Worth Army Air Field issued a statement claiming that the crash remains were only a ‘weather balloon’.

The idea that a weather balloon could be mistaken by the USAF for a crashed UFO is clearly ridiculous, though it has to be said that this famous Roswell incident is not mentioned by Major Keyhoe in his books (too secret and dangerous for him to spill the beans perhaps?) However witnesses who saw the crashed remains, examined and touched them before the USAF arrived on the scene say it was nothing like the material from a weather balloon later put on display by the USAF in an attempt to debunk the idea that a UFO had crashed and been recovered, with or without alien bodies inside.

This is just some of the evidence from the USAF and its personnel, but governments around the world have been studying the UFO phenonenum for over 50 years now. Most sightings reported by the public are of aircraft, satellites, meteors, etc., but there are also undoubtedly alien craft commanded by a superior intelligence constantly observing the Earth. It seems they have always existed, but have been monitoring us closely since the first atomic bomb explosions in the 1940s.

More recently Dr Ed Mitchell, NASA scientist and former astronaut, has admitted publicly on a UK local radio station that UFOs exist and that there has been ‘ongoing contact’ with the aliens by the U.S. government.

British scientist Prof. Stephen Hawking also stated, on the 50th anniversary of NASA, that UFOs most likely exist and warned it might not be a good idea to attempt contact due to the likely advanced nature of ET technology.

But if the UFOs were hostile they probably would have taken over by now. There are reports of alien abductions, experiments on humans and also cattle mutilations, but by and large they just seem to be observing and monitoring us in the nuclear age when we could blow ourselves up and destroy our planet.

Where they come from is still a mystery, but probably from more than one source. They could be from other inhabited planets in the Universe, though they would have to use superior technology and hyper-space to travel the huge distances involved. Some at least are probably inter-dimensional craft since they seem to change shape, appear and disappear. 

Another possibility which would also explain the sudden appearance and disappearance of some of these craft is that they could be time machines from our own future. They would be most careful not to interfere with their own past and change the course of their own history. 

That UFOs exist and are not of the world we know is indisputable, and the current folklore via books, films, TV etc. is no doubt part of the preparation of the public for when the eventual truth is released by governments. Indeed people like Dr Ed Mitchell are already letting slip semi-official announcements about the reality of UFOs.

(Thanks also to the Rev. John E. Otey, NST CM for some of this info, as published in the June 2010 edition of Psychic World).