UFOs in Reality (40 page)

The
Sun
had been aligned only for 21:30h and Sunset orientations.

Mercury
had been referenced 29 times, but mostly by 21:30h and Sunset tracks.

Venus
showed up in all orientations, but with 11:00h RA tracks being the least often aligned.

Mars
seems to have been referenced mostly by 21:30h RA and Sunset tracks;
Jupiter
by all but Sunrise tracks and was favoured by Sunset tracks.
Saturn
had been referenced only by Sunset tracks.

Uranus
was least referenced by Sunrise tracks. It was linked with 21:30h tracks 11 times during 1977. (NB. That total does not only reflect the almost-stationary position of Uranus in the sky during any given year. It also reflects the number of times a 21:30h track was identified with the events of that year.) The total number of references (27) is considered to be significant.

Neptune
features only marginally for all orientations.

Pluto
, although having only one Close reference, nevertheless featured 18 times.

The most unexpected outcome of this exercise turned out to be the many times that minor planets and comets were found in close alignments.

The minor planets Ceres , Pallas, Vesta and Juno, were all featured, Pallas being of least significance.
Ceres
was referenced in 1977 and 1993 by all but 11:00h RA orientated tracks and, overall, featured 18 times, 11 of those references being close alignments.
Vesta
had been referenced 16 times in total during four of the selected seven years, linked only to 11:00h RA and Sunset tracks.
Juno
featured during six of the seven years, variously, in all orientations. It was referenced 26 times, 17 of those being in the ‘Close’ category.

During scanning with the astronomical software, a number of well-known comets seem to feature often in the target areas of the sky,
Gale
being the one most frequently signalled. It featured during the years 1957, 1977 , 1992 and 1993, and 33 alignments were noted. 28 of those were ‘Close’ alignments, of which 19 were accumulated during 1993 and were linked to tracks with 21:30h RA orientations. Of the remaining six comets referenced,
Hartley2
seemed to have featured most often, but only with 21:30h RA and Sunset orientations. It had featured in scans for every year, except 1990. A total count of 22 alignments, with 12 in the ‘Close’ category, made this comet’s presence difficult to dismiss.

5. Assessment.

5.1 Important considerations.

The results of this study have to be assessed taking account of the degree of probability of track alignment with each of the solar system bodies highlighted. There are two considerations
, viz.
whether the tracks considered are fixed in space or move with the Sun during the course of any year and, also, the direction and rate of movement of the aligned body.

With the exception of Pluto, the major and minor planets move along paths close to that followed by the Sun. Mercury and Venus, being closer than the Earth to the Sun, appear to move round the sky with the Sun. The planet Mars, the Minor Planets (in the Asteroid Belt), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto appear, from the Earth, to travel through only limited zones of the sky during the course of any year. Whilst Mars, being the closest of these, moves through approximately one-third of the sky, the apparent movement of the others gets progressively less with increasing distance from the Sun. The three outermost planets are so distant that they appear to be virtually fixed against the background of stars during any given year.

Comets have less well defined orbits, which are usually very elongated ellipses, and the frequency of their appearance depends on how often they sweep close enough to the Sun to produce their characteristic visible plumes of vapour and dust. Their orbits are generally inclined relative to the paths of the Sun and planets in the Ecliptic Plane. The astronomical software used in this exercise gives the predicted position of each of the long-established comets on any given day of each year, whether or not that comet is close enough to display a visible plume. It does not take account of more recently identified comets, such as Hale-Bopp.
This means that,
if the comets are genuinely linked with outbreaks of UFO activity, the picture presented here is far from being complete
.

Following onto the close approach of Hale-Bopp, a JPL photographic analyst discovered that a sequence of Hubble Telescope photographs of the comet seemed to show that it had had several highly-mobile small companions during that short period of time
.
As these supposed fragmentary ‘satellites’ of the comet did not appear on any other photographs taken, their reality has not been accepted by cometary experts (
Ref. 7.2).

One of the asteroids (or Minor Planets) called Ida also featured in Ref. 7.2. A photograph taken by the space probe Galileo shows the 35 miles long, potato-shaped, asteroid to be in possession of a small spherical companion.
It has been assumed to be a satellite of Ida and has been labelled ‘Dactyl’. It remains to be seen whether Dactyl is still accompanying Ida or whether the recording of their association was (possibly) an important fluke.

5.2 Possible Implications of the Results.

The above considerations serve to demonstrate that extreme caution must be exercised when attempting to assess the possible implications of the results of this study.

However, it is also important to remember that this Pilot Study was undertaken as a first exploratory step towards the general validation, or negation, of indicators provided by ten Close Encounter cases, which were recorded during the period 1952 – 1988. Those indicators were alignments of planets and, sometimes, the Moon with the fixed (star-orientated) tracks which had featured on the days of those ‘high-strangeness’ reports that had involved unidentifiable craft accompanied, sometimes, by alien creatures.

The
processed events database
used for this study is a general record of all high-strangeness UFO events gathered from the period 1950-1999, many of which do not fall into the same category as those providing the initial indicators. In fact, relatively few of the events processed involved alien creature reports or the prolonged period of amnesia which characterised those of the initial set. However, they have all qualified for inclusion in the database because they have been found to correlate well within the constraints of the Astronautical Theory. They include, for example, everything from Close Encounters with craft (whether or not alien creatures were involved), reports of aerial discs , saucers, triangles, etc., and inexplicable lights-in-the-sky reports.

Given such a wide-ranging set of data, it has to be acknowledged that some of the reports may be invalid and only correlated well with the Theory by accident – so, some allowance must be made for this possibility. In view of the general success in finding alignments during this exercise, it might be permissible to surmise that only the seven exceptional events were invalid data – but the validity of the other correlating events must first be assessed before that conclusion can be drawn. The
Table 2
results will now be considered in some detail.

MOON AND PLANETS

The Moon.

The Moon moves round the sky once every lunar month and, consequently, comes into conjunction and opposition (R.A.alignment) with each of the other planets and minor planets twice per month. It also cuts through each track line twice every 28 days. This means that the chances of lunar alignments, both with tracks and with other solar system bodies, are very high. In view of this fact, it is quite surprising to find alignments with the Moon featuring so little in
Table 2
. This might mean that we can regard lunar alignments as being of little consequence; but when 15 out of the 22 identified alignments were of the ‘Close’ variety, this is a difficult conclusion to draw. The best assessment seems to be that the position of the Moon may, at times, be referenced for navigational purposes.

The Sun

The Sun appears to move once round the sky each year and, in doing so, passes through each of the star-related track sets twice during its annual journey. It aligns exactly with the sunrise and sunset tracks only at the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and between those dates is only in approximate alignment, if at all. This state of affairs is reflected in
Table 2
. 8 of the 12 (all good) alignments were associated with the 21:30h tracks. This seems to have been a significant result since Sun alignments occurred in all but two of the seven years considered. It seems to imply that the Sun may be used as an aiming point from some distant source in the sky which is aligned with the 21:30h RA set of tracks.

Mercury

Mercury revolves round the Sun approximately three times during each Earth year. This means that the planet is in conjunction with the Sun approximately six times per year – leading to the same number of times per year when it might share track alignments with the Sun. This could account for the 9 approximate alignments with 21:30h RA tracks recorded. Being often displaced some short distance from the Sun, Mercury could be expected, also, to align frequently and equally with sunrise and sunset tracks.
Table 2
shows that it appears, overwhelmingly, to have been aligned with sunset-orientated tracks for all the seven years–– which must be considered to be a significant result.

Venus

Venus comes into conjunction with the Sun once per year and at other times is situated on either side of it, to the East or to the West. Therefore, it is ideally placed to align with sunrise and sunset tracks at dates between the equinoxes. Being linked with the Sun, it may also align with the star-related track sets four (or more) times per year.
Table 2
shows that Venus had lived up to these expectations. The overall count of 20 close alignments, out of a total of 24, indicates that this planet could feature from time-to-time in the navigational procedures adopted.

Mars

Being one of the outer planets, with an orbital period round the Sun of just less than two Earth years, the variations in its apparent motion among the stars, from Earth,are quite large.

The positioning from year to year is progressively different. The possibilities of alignment with the, fixed, star-related tracks and/or the sunrise and sunset-related tracks might vary from year to year.
Table 2
shows
that 21:30h RA tracks had referenced it 7 times out of 15, with 6 of those being close alignments. These events occurred during years 1957, 1990, 1991 and 1993. Presumably Mars did not occupy the alignment positions for this fixed orientation during the remaining years. The fact that the planet was referenced so few times by the terminator-related tracks (Sunrise and Sunset) seems to imply that, unlike Mercury and Venus, it has not been favoured for activities linked to those tracks.

Jupiter

This brilliant planet takes almost twelve Earth years to travel once round the Sun. During a typical year its position in the sky, when viewed from Earth, varies by only 2.0hr RA, approximately – which means that only very occasionally, as years pass, it will align with

the fixed star-related tracks. However, it could align with terminator track options, once or twice per year. Given these circumstances, the alignments with Jupiter shown by
Table 2
must be regarded as being probably significant. Strangely, although it shows up very well in the Sunset columns, references to it are completely absent from those for Sunrise-tracks.

Saturn

Like Jupiter, Saturn is one of the big visual targets in the Solar System and, therefore, it could be expected to be used for navigational purposes whenever it aligned with any of the four track options identified. Unfortunately, Saturn’s period round the Sun is almost 30 Earth years – so this planet moves through even less of the sky per year than Jupiter.

Alignments with any of the star-related tracks during only one year could be regarded as being fortuitous, rather than significant. The
Table 2
record shows that Saturn featured only as a Sunset-related marker for five of the 7 years examined, and not very significantly.

Uranus

Uranus moves round the Sun once every 84 years. During any year, its motion in the sky is less than 0.5hr RA. The comments made about Saturn apply equally-well here.
Table 2
shows that it aligned with identified 11:00h RA tracks during 1957, 1990 and 1991, for a total of 9 times, 5 of those being in the ‘Close’ category. It was also referenced by 21:30h RA tracks 11 times during 1977 – and 10 of those were close alignments. Its links with the terminator tracks, given their greater opportunities for encountering the planet, seem to be incidental.