Do You Love Mysteries?

Image courtesy flickr In August of 1953, Captain Ruppelt at Project blue Book asked to be reassigned when his staff was reduced from ten to two.   A paragraph from Wikipedia sums up the prevailing attitude at the time. Most who succeeded him as Blue Book director exhibited either apathy or outright hostility to the subject of UFOs or were hampered by a lack of funding and official support. UFO investigators often regard Ruppelt's brief tenure at Blue Book as the high-water mark of public Air Force investigations of UFOs, when UFO investigations were treated seriously and had support at high levels.  Thereafter, Project Blue Book descended into a new "Dark Ages" from which many UFO investigators argue it never emerged.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book

Image courtesy flickr Most UFO skeptics say that if beings from other worlds were visiting Earth, why don’t they simply land on the White House lawn.  While ET has yet to do the Hollywood treatment, they did the next best thing not once but twice in 1952. That’s right, on the evenings of July 20 and 27, 1952 numerous UFO’s were tracked on radar, seen by eyewitnesses on the ground and chased by fighter planes sent up to intercept them over Washington DC.  Both incidents were hard for the government to play down once the national press quickly got wind of the fact that UFO’s were buzzing the White House and the Capitol building.  

By Carl Austin Image courtesy flickr Of all the mysteries I’m likely to cover, the topic of UFOs is without a doubt one of the most controversial.   Just mention the word UFO at a cocktail party and see how fast the other guests avoid you like the plague.   Even worse is for a respected professional or, heaven forbid, a pilot or scientist to admit that he or she saw one and their careers are likely to take a sudden tailspin as quick as showing up for work wearing a tin foil hat.   What’s even worse is that many highly respected people including police officers, military officers, astronauts and at least two US Presidents have publicly acknowledged that they have seen something strange in the sky and one wonders why all the fuss?

By Carl Austin In my last few blogs, I’ve endeavored to tweak your appreciation of the world, by pointing out  how it actually works.   Well, today I’m going to take this concept one step farther by having you consider one simple question, “How real is reality? Now I know you’ve all seen sci-fi flicks like the Matrix that posit the theory that we’re all living in a simulation of reality.   In fact, there are a number of scientists who tend to agree with this concept.   But that’s not what I’ve come to investigate today.   Nor am I tilting at technological windmills that revolve around a multi-dimensional multiverse that exists alongside ours and occasionally breaks through to our reality.   Who knows, maybe I’ll tackle that Magilla in a later blog.

By Carl Austin Image courtesy flickr As you know, I'm not afraid to delve into hot button topics.   And what could be hotter than the threat of nuclear annihilation?   Today, I’m going to show you something that many Americans don’t even realize exists.   That’s because the federal government moves heaven and earth to hide the fact that its nuclear weapon stockpile is anything but 100% safe.   I’m not talking about terrorists stealing an atomic bomb.   Nor am I rattling my saber about the untold amounts of nuclear waste that is stored haphazardly all over this great nation of ours.   What I’m here to point out is that since the 1950’s, there have been hundreds of incidents where our nuclear weapons have been dropped, blown up and even lost by the US military.   The problem is so common that the government has even coined a term for this kind of incident.   It’s called a broken arrow.

By Carl Austin Image courtesy flickr Today I haven’t come here to talk to you about a galaxy far, far away, but something a little closer to home. What I’m talking about is the real Star Wars, otherwise known as SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative.   Pet project of then President Ronald Reagan, it has been credited with everything from causing the fall of the Soviet Union to possibly being the Earth’s last best hope to defend itself from an alien invasion.   While there have been a lot of half-truths and innuendos about the quest to create an orbital defense shield, I’m here to set the record straight.