We are not alone!

                                                Outline

Thesis: We once believed that Earth is the only planet in the Universe

                that supports life.  Today there is overwhelming evidence that 

                not only suggests, but supports the very real possibility that we

                may share the Universe with other intelligent beings.

I.      Things in the Sky

        A.      The First Documented Sighting

        B.      The Fever Spreads

                1.      Pilot Encounters

                2.      The Lights in the Sky

II.     Dents in the Earth

       

III.    Unexplained Phenomenon

        A.      The Writing on the Wall

        B.      Geodes

IV.     What About Religion?

        A.      The Christian Bible

        B.      The Ancient Greeks

        C.      The American Indian

V.      Conclusion

We are not Alone.

        On June 24th, 1947 while searching for the remains of a downed

Marine C-46 transport, lost somewhere in the Mount Ranier area, a young

Idahoan businessman named Kenneth Arnold spotted something that would

change his life forever.  Just north of his position flying at an altitude of

9,500 feet and an unprecedented airspeed of 1,700 mph he spotted nine

circular aircraft flying in formation.  According to his estimate the aircraft

were approximately the size of a DC-4 airliner ( Jackson 4). 

        This account was the first sighting to ever receive a great deal of media

attention.  This sighting gave birth to the phrase "flying Saucer" coined by a

reporter named Bill Begrette.  Although not the first UFO sighting in history,

Kenneth Arnolds account is considered to be the first documented UFO

sighting.

        The following day Mr. Arnold discovered that in addition to his

sighting there were several others in the Mount Ranier area that same day

(Jackson 6). 

        When most of think of UFO sightings we picture an unemployed, half-

crazed, alcoholic hick living in a trailer park in the middle small town USA. 

Often times this description, although a little exaggerated, seems to fit

fairly

well.  In the past when the average person spotted a UFO they were quickly

discounted as a kook or con-artist in search of either attention or monetary

reward.  It wasn't until more reputable figures in our society began to come

forward that we that we started looking at this issue a little more seriously. 

An article written 1957, entitled " Strange lights over Grenada" written by

Aime' Michel describes just such an account:

          At 10:35 p.m. on September the 4th, 1957 Cpt Ferreira ordered his    

          wing to abandon a planned exercise and execute a 50 degree turn to

          port.  Ferreira was attempting to get a closer look at what he

          described as brilliant, pulsating light hanging low over the horizon. 

          When the turn was completed he noticed that the object had turned

          too.  It was still directly over his left.  There was absolutely no doubt

          that the orange light was shadowing the F-84s.  For another 10

          minutes, it followed the jets without changing direction or

          appearance.  The pilots watched as four small yellow discs broke away

          from the large red object and took up a formation on either side of it. 

          All at once the large luminous disc shot vertically upward while the

          smaller discs shot straight towards the F-84s.  In an instant the flat

         disc sped overhead in a hazy blur and vanished.  When Cpt Ferriera

          was questioned by Portuguese Air Force Investigators he was quoted     

          as   saying:  "Please don't come out with the old explanation that we        

         

          were being chased by the planet Venus, weather balloons, or freak

          atmospheric conditions.  What we saw up there was real and  

          intelligently controlled.  And it scared the hell out of us.  (32)

This is only one of literally hundreds of pilot accounts that have been

documented and cross verified by other sources.  To date the Portuguese

Government has taken no official position as to what the luminous discs

were. 

        The United States has had more than it's fair share of unexplained aerial

objects.  In February of 1960 the N.A.A.D.S. (North American Air Defense

System) spotted a satellite of unknown origin orbiting the Earth.  They knew

that it wasn't a Soviet satellite because it was orbiting perpendicular to

trajectory produced by a Soviet launch.  It also had a mass estimated at 15

metric tons, no evidence of booster rockets and traveled at speed three times

faster than any known satellite.  The satellite orbited for two weeks and

disappeared without a trace.  Before its disappearance, the object which

appeared to give off a red glow, was photographed over New York several

times (Jackson 19). 

        Lights in the sky aren't the only evidence that suggests we may have

cosmic company.  In the book "A History of UFO Crashes", the author Kevin

D. Randal gives detailed accounts of numerous UFO crashes in history. 

Perhaps the most famous of these crashes occurred on July 4th, 1947 in

Roswell New Mexico.  The crash at Roswell was witnessed from

afar by over a hundred people.  Until just recently, no one who was involved

in the recovery operation was talking, but thanks to continued pressure from

UFO enthusiast our government has begun to declassify much of its UFO

related material.  Perhaps more startling are than the government documents

are the accounts given by local police and members of the recovery team. 

According to one unnamed witness, a member of the Roswell recovery team:

          The crash site was littered with pieces of aircraft. Something about the

          size of a fighter plane had crashed, the metal was unlike anything I'd         

          ever seen before.  I picked up a piece the size of a car fender with one

          hand, it couldn't have more than a quarter of a pound and no matter

          how hard I tried I couldn't even get it to bend.  (10)

        In my opinion the most fascinating piece of evidence to come out of

the Roswell crash is the alien autopsy film.  Apparently there was more than

bits and pieces of spaceship recovered at Roswell.  There is an Air Force video

account of an autopsy being performed on a life form that doesn't share the

common characteristics of organ development found in life forms on this

planet.  The film is silent and labeled "Autopsy, Roswell, July 1947" (Randal

17).  

        As difficult as the Roswell evidence is to explain or discount it pales in

comparison to the physical evidence left by our ancestors.  An Illustration

taken from a Nuremburg Broadsheet Tells how men and women "saw a very

frightful spectacle".  At sunrise April 14th, 1561 "globes, crosses and tubes

began to fight one another", the event continued for about an hour. 

Afterward they fell to ground in flames, minutes later a "black, spear like

object appeared".  In a Basal Broadsheet dated August 7th, 1566 large black

       

and white globes are seen over Dasel, Switzerland.  Both events occurred in a

time period when there should have nothing more than birds and bees filling

our skies.  They each considered to be Divine warnings at the time  (Gould

95-96).

        Ancient physical evidence isn't limited to newspaper illustration and

sketches on cave wall.  Perhaps the most astounding and unexplainable pieces

of physical evidence are a pair of geodes.  Both are believed to be

approximately 1,800 years old and when carefully examined were identified as

electrical cells.  One of the cells which was discovered in Iraq was tested and

produced 2 volts of electricity.  The other, which was discovered by a pair of

Arizona rock hounds, was damaged when the sedimentary encrustation was

being removed and therefore couldn't be tested (Montgomery 221).

        Since the dawn of time man has told stories of heavenly and demonic

beings coming to rule, teach, torment, seduce and provide salvation.  Every

culture has myths of ancient gods who strode through the heavens. The

American Indians had the cachinas who taught them to farm and saved them

from numerous cataclysms.  Greece had Zeus who threw lightning bolts from

his finger tips and Apollo crossed the sky in his golden chariot.  The

Christians have Ecclesiastes who encountered the "ant people" and rode

through the skies with them from Babylon to Israel.  Across the entire globe

we find drawings on cave walls that resemble men in space suits and objects

that greatly resemble flying saucers.  The sacred artwork of the Hopi Indian

when is without a doubt a representation of the waves produced by modern

day oscilloscopes (Montgomery 225-237).  The Hopis are also native to the

area where one of the electrical cells were found.  It could be that these

things

are no more than mere coincidence, but I doubt it.  Man in his arrogance is

reluctant to believe that we may share Gods vast, glorious universe with other

beings of intelligence.  We sometimes fail to realize that if the Earth were a

day old, the race of man would only have been here for 13 minutes.  If you

couple that with the fact that there are Black Holes and White Dwarfs

millions of years older than our sun, it increases the improbability that we

are

the only ones out here.  In the preceding text I have produced a limited

sampling of the volumes of evidence available.  I will close this paper on

a quote from Ecclesiastes I:9 "there is no new thing under the sun", and that

includes intelligent life.

Works Cited

Ecclesiastes. Holy Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1976.

Gould, Robert. Oddities. New York: Bell PC, 1965.

Jackson, Robert. UFO's: Sightings of Strange Phenomena in the Skies.

        New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1995

Michel, Aime'. "Strange lights over Grenada." Fate Magazine. Aug. 1957.

        29-32

Montgomery, Ruth. Aliens Among Us. New York: G.P Putnum's Sons, 1985

Randle, Kevin. A History of UFO Crashes. Avon Books,1995