An interesting recent interview (7th July, 11 minutes) of Dr. Andrey Kinkelstein, the Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Applied Astronomy, about the scientific reasoning behind his controversial statement that in 20 years, humanity will discover aliens and they are likely to look much like humans….

This biologic issue of potential convergent evolution is in line with what I wrote my document that I recently posted (UFOs and Exogenous Intelligence Encounters): Can the alien physiologies be conformed or a close approximation of our own? Generally, scientists scorn the movie industry’s simplistic notion of the extraterrestrial, whose anatomy is invariably inspired by the body plan of Homo sapiens. The debate seems to be still open. After the Royal Society’s interview of the leading evolutionary paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris, this is the turn of A. Kinkelstein to mention that an extraterrestrial form will “definitely be well-known to us”. In his opinion “…life and intelligence, should they exist elsewhere at all, should be highly human-like”.

A second interesting comment relates to a program of reporting in the USSR sightings of UFOs. This program, called “the net”, was allegedly composed of two parts: The Defence Minstry’s net looked for what might be traces of new types of weaponry; and the other part, the so-called “AN Net”, looked for phenomena previously unknown to humankind. According to  Kinkelstein, for more than 20 years, the USSR General Staff had issued an order to various units under the Defence’s Ministry’s command to report any UFO. Apparently they detected approximately 1000 unusual phenomena, only two of which remain unexplained to this day.

Besides the fact that this is the first time that this news come out (but I might be wrong), it could be hoped that one day the program’s archives are released.

Finally and more importantly, what about the two remaining unexplained cases ? We don’t need hundreds of them…one or two sufficiently documented could be enough for attracting the attention of the scientific community…

A rare Blue Book historical report has been uploaded under the tab “Documents”.

Dated August 1952, the special report on conferences with astronomers on unidentified aerial objects was prepared by J. Allen Hynek and aimed at recounting personal opinions of 45 professionally trained astronomical observers regarding unidentified aerial objects.

It also reported sightings by five professional astronomers that were not explained by them.



Participation to two major European scientific conferences:

* JENAM 2010, The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (Lisboa, Portugal), http://www.jenam2010.org/

* EPSC 2010, The European Planetary Science Congress (Roma, Italy), http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc2010/

My presentation and poster (see poster herebelow attached) focused on promoting the project and providing some preliminary results, almost one year after its launch under the umbrella of the International Year of Astronomy.

Poster: poster_ds_final_n

Update of the website: A new category of daytime misidentifications has been added under the tab “Misidentifications”: Vortex Rings

Collaboration has started with the programme “The world at night (TWAN)” http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/index.asp, in order to obtain pictures or films of intriguing natural/man-made phenomena, or even UAP.

Launched in 2009 as a special project of the International Year of Astronomy, TWAN aims at producing and presenting a collection of stunning photographs and time-lapse videos of the world’s landmarks against the celestial attractions. In addition, TWAN features each month, under his section “solves a mystery”, a photo with a strange phenomena (http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/mystery.asp. The readers are invited to share their thoughts about the potential explanations, and the final conclusion is posted a the month’s end.
Besides fulfilling general educational purposes, perhaps some interesting UAP pictures or footages will surface in the future..

I encourage all readers to consult this stunning website and solve the mysteries of the night sky!

The UAP observations reporting scheme currently participates to the Global Astronomy Month (GAM, April 2010), an international project organised by Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) that builds on the achievements of the International Year of Astronomy, by combining a wide array of activities with the possibility of sharing experiences in real-time.

“The excitement of bringing people together from all countries regardless of age, race or beliefs – all awed by the wonders of the Universe – is something that will long outlive the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009)”, says Mike Simmons, President of AWB and co-chair of the 2009 100HA effort. “GAM2010 will build on that passion and energy, starting from a simple idea and building to a global project by multiplying its effect as it goes. Like 100 Hours of Astronomy, GAM will be a social movement in the astronomy community”

The Global Astronomy Month represents another opportunity to put emphasis on the UAP topic, and another opportunity for the collection of data and dissemination of information that is not to be missed !

How to participate:

Organisers of GAM events around the world could contribute to this effort by making available to amateurs Astronomers and the general public the specific UAP observations reporting scheme’s brochure that has specifically been designed for this event.

Download the brochure:

(2 sides A4 PDF file to be printed preferably in colors):
GAM3_brochure2

Second press release

Further advertising of the project has been on going in order to reach the widest possible astronomical audience. Last December, an important American Astronomical Organisation has accepted to distribute the project’s information to its network of astronomical and space science’s journalists. According to my interlocutor, one of the most common questions sent to this organisation is: “What was the bright thing that I saw in the sky last night ?”. Therefore it appears that the Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) Observations Reporting Scheme may definitely feels a need ! This has resulted to various news items  in different countries , a significant increase of visits on the project’s website, and also in the translation of the UAP reporting questionnaires in others languages (Russian, Spanish, …) that will soon be made available on the website.

The Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) Observations Reporting Scheme is launched:

Press release: WEBSITE launched for astronomers to report observations of unexplained phenomena

A scheme is being launched that will give amateur and professional astronomers a formal mechanism for reporting any unexplained phenomena they observe when studying the night sky. In the framework of International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), the Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) Observations Reporting Scheme aims to provide a global focus for sightings by astronomers and contribute towards a better understanding of transient phenomena occurring in the atmosphere.

The reporting scheme has been set up by amateur astronomer, Philippe Ailleris, who proposes to use the unique opportunity of IYA2009 to collect additional and more rigorous information on UAPs, more popularly referred to as UFOs.

“These phenomena are mainly seen in the night sky, a domain that astronomers have long considered their own, and it is important to collect testimonies from members of the population that are trained observers. We aim to approach this controversial field of UAP sightings from a professional, rational point of view and without any preconceived ideas. Certainly whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists could learn something new by further study,” said Ailleris.

Ailleris has developed a questionnaire that requests precise details of the sightings, including the location, time, elevation, velocity, apparent size and distance of the UAPs, as well as a description of the terrain and weather conditions at the observation point and any sketches, photos, audio or video footage. A short and long version of the questionnaire in English and French can be downloaded from a dedicated website, http://www.uapreporting.org.

The website will also give information on common nocturnal and daytime misidentifications, such as sightings of satellites, weather balloons, rockets, meteors, planets and natural phenomena such as ball lightning, sprites and mirages. There will also be links to relevant websites where people can further check charts and details.

“As well as allowing people to double check their sighting against explainable causes, we hope that the website will be a useful tool for the astronomy community to redirect enquiries from the general public and to help engage with the public in discussions about the science behind what is seen in the sky,” said Ailleris.

The scheme is being launched in the run up to the IYA2009 Cornerstone Project, Galilean Nights, which will see amateur and professional astronomers around the globe taking to the streets on 22-24 October, pointing their telescopes to the wonders that Galileo observed 400 years ago.

“Many IYA2009 observers will be scanning the skies with all kinds of technical equipment –telescopes, binoculars, video-cameras, cameras with spectrographs – which creates an excellent opportunity to obtain supplementary data,” said Ailleris. “This is also a great opportunity to engage with the general public and discuss some of the challenges astronomers face in determining various parameters such as coordinates, altitude, distance, speed and size. I hope we can use this opportunity to enthuse young (and not so young) people and prompt them to start looking upwards and outwards to make sense of their place in the Universe.”

Further Information

UAP Observations Reporting Scheme website: http://www.uapreporting.org.

International Year of Astronomy The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery. The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is supported by eleven Cornerstone projects, including ‘She is an Astronomer’. These are global programmes of activities centred on specific themes and are some of the projects that will help to achieve IYA2009’s main goals. IYA2009 website: http://www.astronomy2009.org

Contact

Philippe Ailleris
E-mail: contact@uapreporting.org