Monday, September 5, 2011

The New World Order

In my second novel, Alien Log II, the New World Order, the alien Quellin described what the new world order would be. Many people cringe at the words New World Order because they imagine a world government run by despots from the financial world who rules for their own benefit. Not so, with the alien’s version. The new world order as envisioned by Quellin is one I would welcome. Perhaps we could start with a change in our dysfunctional government in Washington. Here is how it would work.

In the new government, all elected officials would serve a SINGLE four year term with NO chance for re-election. They would spend 100 percent of their time doing what they were elected to do and not spend a single minute building a war chest for re-election. Elections would be publically financed. These two changes alone would greatly reduce the influence of special interest groups and lobbyists.

In the new government, all elected officials except the President and Vice President would spend most of their time in their districts or states in office buildings providing office space and conference / meeting theaters. This would keep them close to their constituents and not lobbyists. Only on special occasions such as voting on a bill, would they venture to Washington to meet. Most of their work would be conducted using technology such as videoconferencing or telepresence. It continues to amaze me why we continue to “put all of our eggs in one basket” (Washington) where they are an easy target for terrorists.

The way the new system would work in electing Congress people is that everyone is placed in a draft pool for their district on their twenty-fifth birthday. To be eligible for Congress one be at least twenty-five and must have been a citizen for at least seven years. Two months before the end of the present Congress person’s term, twelve names are drawn by lottery and are notified that they have been selected to run for Congress. They have thirty days to appeal. Four names from those who survive the appeal process are selected at random to run. Anyone who qualifies may also choose to run even though they were not drafted, provided they can get at least 1,000 signatures from members of their district. The publicly financed election is tightly controlled as to how much and where election funds can be spent. There will be at least one televised debate. After the election, the winner is sent to Washington for an intensive indoctrination in the functioning of Congress. Following that, they return to their district where an office building houses their staff and provides space for “town meetings” that are televised on monthly bases. During these meetings, constituents can air their concerns and the Congress person can bring the people up to date on bills and issues being discussed in Congress. All assets and obligations of the Congress person are frozen and their pay is equal to the average income for their district. Five percent of their salary is matched and placed in a 401K. A portion of their wages would be taxed for FICA and they would contribute a portion of their salary to a group health insurance policy. If the elected person cannot fulfill their four year term, the person who placed second would finish out their term.

The election for Senate is somewhat different than for Congress. People run for Senate by choice but must be a resident of their state, have served in Congress, and be at least thirty-five. Each state will have two Senators whose terms are staggered by two years. Two months before the term of a Senator is about to expire, an eligible person can apply to be a candidate. One month before the election, six names from the pool are randomly selected to run. The election process is run the same as for Congress persons but includes two televised debates. At the end of the election, the winner is sent to Washington for indoctrination. Following that, they return to their state where an office building in their state capital houses their staff and provides space for “town meetings” that are televised on monthly bases. During these meetings, constituents can air their concerns and the Senator can bring the people up to date on bills and issues being discussed in the Senate. Living quarters for both Senators and their families are provided in the state capital. All assets and obligations of the Senator are frozen and their pay is equal to twice the average income for their state. Five percent of their salary is matched and placed in a 401K. A portion of their wages would be taxed for FICA and they would contribute a portion of their salary to a group health insurance policy. If the elected person cannot fulfill their four year term, the person who placed second would finish out their term.

The election for President is similar to that for Senate but to be eligible, they must be at least thirty-five, a naturally born citizen, and have served in the Senate. Four months before the President’s term is to end, eligible people apply to run. Three months before the election, four candidates are selected at random and a publically funded election begins and includes four televised public debates. The election process is completed in November and the winner (President) and runner up (Vice President) have until the following January to put in place a transition government. The inauguration occurs in January and the President occupies the White House and the Vice President is given a residence in Washington. Their salary is equal to four times that of the national average. Their benefits are similar to those of the Congress and Senate.

Nine Supreme Court Justices are selected for a single fixed term of six years that are staggered by three years. They are nominated by the President and are confirmed by the Senate. Their salary and benefits are the same as for the President. They reside and work in Washington.

With this new government we would finally be close to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as envisioned by Abraham Lincoln. We can begin this transition today by NEVER voting for an incumbent. Following that, we would need to make an amendment to our constitution. In addition to the above changes, other changes would place severe penalties for bribery and for signing on to deficit budgets or budgets that exceed a certain percent of GDP.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

How the Universe Began WITHOUT a Big Bang

In my last blog, I showed that there is no evidence supporting a time rate of increase in the velocity of recession for distant galactic clusters. Today, I will discuss an alternative theory for how the universe began WITHOUT a big bang. This theory was developed by Bobby McGehee, a retired physicist and amateur astronomer. He worked as an engineering physicist in the aerospace industry but throughout his career he had a passion for astronomy. The Big Bang theory bothered him deeply because it violated so many fundamental laws of physics. It did not explain the immense amount of angular momentum and how the universe could be younger than some white dwarf stars. Also, it requires the universe to begin in a singularity, expand at faster than light speed, and requires the discovery of Dark Energy to explain what theory proponents interpret as an accelerating rate of expansion. Over the years, Bobby developed a model that is a better fit to the data, explains the origin of the angular momentum, does not start at a singularity, is at least 30 billion years old, and explains how the universe is growing while corporal matter of the universe is decelerating with time.

I subscribe to the notion that everything developed from space and matter already existed and did not come from nothing out of a single point. The 1933 Nobel laureate, Paul Dirac, visualized the universe as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy. It was a mixture of electrons and holes. Later it was discovered that the holes were the anti-particle of the electron and led to the discovery of the positron which is approximately equal to the electron in mass.

It is agreed that by far most observed matter in the universe are hydrogen atoms. Several cosmologists have estimated that if the total matter (mass and energy), including dark matter, in the universe were distributed throughout all space as hydrogen atoms, its distribution would be about eight atoms per cubic meter. Estimates of total matter vary over a wide range of several factors therefore the primordial particle populations are referred to as 'about'. Generally it is agreed that dark matter is about 8 times more plentiful than what is conventionally observed.

One of the simplest atoms in the universe is known as positronium. Instead of an electron orbiting a proton, an electron orbits a positron about a common center. Under normal conditions, the atom is unstable and the electron and positron self-annihilate in less than a second. Usually two photons (gamma rays) are released traveling in opposite directions. It is the positronium atom that forms the basis of Bobby McGehee’s model.

In Bobby’s model there is a primordial universe that extends out to infinity. It consists of a three-dimensional “matrix” of stabilized positroniums. Each positronium is in a steady state at each vertex of an equilateral hexahedron. The spacing is stabilized by synchronized rotations and electrostatic attractions / repulsions. Hydrogen atoms are about 900 times the mass of positronium so,based on the generally agreed upon mass of the universe, the positroniums atoms are spaced at a separation of about five centimeters in all directions to infinity. This high degree of order represents the lowest level of entropy for the universe.

According to Bobby’s model, at some time about 30 billion years ago an instability occurred at one of the positroniums in our region of the primordial universe. Self-annihilation occurred. The two photons that were released began a chain reaction that continues today. The deflagration wave is racing at near light speed into the infinite primordial universe. The model does not exclude the possibility that other initiation sites may have occurred elsewhere at other times.

Within and behind the deflagration wave, transmutation of the photon energy results in the creation of corporal matter. This mass traveling at relativistic speeds agglomerates due to the enhanced gravitational attraction. As the particles grow in size, their collisions often occur off center, resulting in the conversion of linear momentum into angular momentum. As the bodies grow, more of the linear momentum continues to be converted into angular momentum and, just as in the potato truck analogy, the linear velocity away from the initiation site continues to decrease. The growth of the bodies continues until stars are borne. These in turn form into clusters of stars known as galaxies and these in turn into clusters of galaxies. Based on this model, one would expect to see galactic clusters decelerating with time.

Bobby McGehee has presented his theory in two books available on Amazon.


NEW UNIVERSE THEORY WITH THE LAWS OF PHYSICS



Model of the Universe

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Evidence that the Universe is NOT Expanding at an Accelerating Rate

In the second book of my Alien Log series, one of the main characters, Dr. Corey Newton, is accidentally abducted. As it happens, Dr. Newton is an astrophysicist and has many questions for Quellin, his alien abductor. Quellin freely answers any questions that Dr. Newton has because he knows he can implant a memory block on Corey before he is released. The very first question that Corey has out-of-the-box is whether we're on the right track with our Big Bang theory. Quellin is unfamiliar with our Big Bang theory so Corey has to explain it to him. It should be noted that Quellin teaches in a Socratic method whereby he answers a question with another question in order to get Corey to reason out the answer for himself.

Corey explains how as our technology improved we were able to determine that galactic clusters are moving away from our galaxy. This, he explained, was evidenced by the red shift in the light that we received from these clusters. Quellin accepted this. Corey explained that through logic, by running the clock backward, so to speak, it appeared as though our universe began as a singularity in which all energy (matter) was contained. Corey explained that our research indicates that the universe began from this singularity about 13.7 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. Quellin found that explanation interesting but ask Corey if he was comfortable with everything coming from a singularity. Corey answered that he was uncomfortable with that and in fact many cosmologists are also uncomfortable with that model of the universe. However, the Big Bang theory is the prevalent theory.

Corey then went on to explain that by 1998 cosmologists had found a yardstick by which they could measure distances to remote galactic clusters. Using a particular kind of exploding star known as a Type 1A supernova as a yardstick, they have discovered that there is greater red shift for objects further away. This indicates that objects further from us are traveling at a higher velocity than those near to us. Not only is the universe expanding, but the rate of expansion is increasing. In order to account for this acceleration, it became necessary to begin looking for the energy that would drive the acceleration. Our cosmologists have labeled this energy dark energy. Quellin was now becoming concerned with this explanation and asked Corey some probing questions. For instance, he asked Corey what evidence there was that the universe is accelerating. Corey explained that increased red shift at greater distances implied acceleration. Quellin was perplexed by this answer as he expected Corey to cite some time rate of change in velocity of clusters. Quellin used a metaphor to explain his concern. Quellin asked Corey to imagine he was standing on a corner with a handheld velocity measuring device similar to our radar gun. A truck passes by carrying potatoes and as it drives past and down the road, potatoes are falling off the back of the truck. Quellin explains that if Corey were to measure the velocity of the potatoes at different distances from him, he would find that the potatoes farthest away which have just fallen off of the truck would have the velocity of the truck while those closer would have lower velocities because they are tumbling on the road and converting linear momentum into angular momentum. Quellin asked Corey how he thought someone might interpret the data he would collect which shows that the more distant objects are traveling faster than the closer objects. Corey agreed that without understanding the situation, someone might come to the conclusion that the further away an object is the higher its velocity because it is accelerating.

The discussion that took place in my second book points out that unless we have data that shows a time rate of change in velocity of the galactic clusters we cannot say that the clusters are accelerating away from us. To claim that these clusters are either accelerating or decelerating requires that we measure the red shift over an extended period of time for each cluster. Our present red shift data is only reported to a resolution of four decimal places and was collected and reported back in 1959 by Abell, Corwin, and Olowin who cataloged all observable Galactic clusters, both north and south hemispheres. They used the Palomar All Sky Survey (PASS) which was the initial/first priority study for the then new huge Palomar telescope. The ACO survey team produced a listing of 4076 galactic clusters along with cluster vitals, most importantly red shifts.

Over the next 40 years there appeared to be no change in red shift data. Whatever velocity changes were occurring were below that which could be detected with only four decimal place resolution. However, during the period of 2003 to 2009, data was collected using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Because this telescope was positioned in space and was cryogenically cooled, it had the capability of measuring red shift data to a resolution of six decimal places. Some of the data that was collected was for some of the same galactic clusters that had been measured in 1959. We have compared this new Spitzer data with the older ACO data and have been able to detect velocity changes for individual clusters over a 50 year span of time. While some clusters appeared to increase in velocity others decrease in velocity. Between the values of Z equals 0.1 and Z equals 0.35, the trend line had a negative slope and showed deceleration. These values encompassed the only values we had for Spitzer data. This data suggests that on the whole, the galactic clusters are decelerating. This result fits with expected results from a revised model of the universe which will be explained in a later blog.

The late Charles Hoy Fort (1874 – 1932) was a famous American writer and researcher who had the view that “alternative conclusions and world views can be made from the same data from which"orthodox" conclusions are made, and that the conventional explanations of science are only one of a range of explanations, none necessarily more justified than another.” One of Fort's great contributions is questioning the often frequent dogmatism of mainstream science.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

It's Just a Matter of Time

This week the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe." What he meant was that Einstein was right and nothing can travel faster than light. This put the dampers on some theories which were counting on superluminal speed in order to travel back in time. Of course, this did not affect other time travel theories that use other exotic means such as worm holes to go back in time.

Personally, I think it is illogical to believe it is even possible to travel into our past, no matter what means might be developed. So consider for example that there might be other beings living among us who are so far technically advanced that they have developed the capability to travel back in time. It seems to me that it would be impossible for them to travel back in time without affecting the present. Suppose, for example, while you are talking to someone, a time traveler decides to visit the past. Suppose they accidentally kill or even just alter the direction in life of the person to whom you are talking. Suddenly that person would vanish before your eyes. There are many other examples in which the time travelers would alter the present and we would notice a sudden discontinuity in events. To my knowledge we never have noticed such discontinuities. That tells me that no one or no entity has traveled into the past or could ever do so.

This is not to say that any time travel is impossible. What if someone were to construct a spaceship propelled by a gravitational field? They could accelerate at very high rates and travel great distances into our galaxy. According to Einstein, time is altered for a traveler who is experiencing very high velocities and/or accelerations and/or gravitational fields. So that person may use their spaceship to travel out perhaps 100 light years from Earth. However in their time frame perhaps only one year elapses. They then turn around and return to Earth at high velocity and accelerations just as when they left. While according to their clocks they have aged perhaps two years the earth is now 200 years into the future. This then would be a form of time travel. Unfortunately, the traveler could not return to their original time as this would be the same as time travel into the past.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Are You Positive it's not Negative?

In an earlier blog, I showed how it is theoretically possible to generate a #gravitational #field using #electromagnetic #fields or #radiation (light). I concluded by proposing that UFOs may use a negative gravitational field as a means of #propulsion. I cannot site any equations in #physics that would give a theoretical explanation but I gave evidence for this by describing a photograph I show in my lecture The Science Behind Alien Encounters. The photo appears in the book UFO: Richard Brunswick Photocollection; 1999; Goliath Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. It shows a UFO kicking up dust as it moves over the field. The dust is being excluded from an annular area under the craft as would be expected if a negative field were operating there. That by itself may not be too convincing but combined with other evidence makes a good case for a negative field.

Consider another piece of evidence. On more than one occasion people have come upon a UFO that was hovering over a shallow body of water or pond. After the craft sped off, the witness noticed that the pond was frozen. How could this be? Well, if the craft was expelling the air beneath it, there would be a low pressure region created. The evaporation rate of the pond water would be very high and as the water evaporated the heat carried away would cause the water temperature to drop until it freezes.

Some witnesses who have had a #UFO pass low overhead reported having the feeling of being pushed down. This would be another symptom of a negative field under the craft.

The final piece of the argument is that having the capability to project a negative field in front of the craft as it travels at supersonic speed would give the air molecules ahead of the craft time to pass around the craft without producing a shock wave. UFOs have been clocked by radar traveling over 3,000 miles per hour and no #shock #wave was observed.

I have not worked out the technology required to produce a gravitational field but I am sure the technology involves manipulation of #EM #fields. The best explanation I have read thus far is the paper presented in 2007 at a joint conference on propulsion by AIAA-ASME-SAE-ASEE by Dr. Dan Brasoveanu and Dr. Constantin Sandu. It is a peer reviewed paper AIAA 2007 – 5128 published in AIAA’s journal of propulsion. In this paper they proposed using powerful pulses of EM energy directed through “light tunnels” formed by parallel “plates” spaced about 300 nm apart. As the #photons bounce off of the surfaces, they release gravitational waves (#gravitons) normal to the surfaces. This gravitational field would act in both normal directions and that acting inward would not only propel the “plates” but also the entire craft and occupants. By using a number of these plate sections and sequencing their activation, it would be possible to vector the force in the desired direction of motion. There would be some inefficiency that would result in EM energy being #radiated from the craft. Thus, as the craft is hovering, it might radiate a small amount in the infrared spectrum. If the craft is accelerating or moving against a resistance such as air or gravity, it would radiate more energy at a shorter wavelength. This might well be why UFOs change color and intensity as they go from #hovering to #accelerating.

Keep checking www.alienlog.com for more blogs. I will be discussing time travel next.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Now You See It - Now You Don't

Some people believe that #UFOs are #interdimensional #travelers. I think the reason for this is frequently people will see UFOs appear to blink out in one location in the sky and then blink back on in another location in the sky. I believe that UFOs are not interdimensional travelers but are simply obeying the laws of physics which we already have but perhaps have not applied correctly to the many sightings. Consider that they are actually #cloaking themselves so just before they moved to a different location they cloak themselves so you do not see them. They then moved to another location and uncloak themselves. So, you might ask, how do they cloak themselves?

Dr. Thomas #Erber from the University of Chicago published a paper in the #British #Journal of #Nature in 1962. In this paper he published the results of the study he had done on the effects of a magnetic field on the velocity of light. From this study he produced an empirical equation that related the #index of #refraction to the strength of the magnetic field. Index of refraction you may recall is the ratio of the speed of light in a #vacuum compared to the speed of light as it passes through some substances such as glass. A plot made from his equation shows that with extremely high magnetic field strengths, relatively high index of refraction can be achieved. With today's technology our strongest magnets can barely change the index of refraction. However if we could produce magnetic fields that are perhaps one or two orders of magnitude more powerful, then we could create an effect similar to what one sees driving down a hot road in the summertime where there is a significant distortion near the pavement. So I believe that the UFOs have this capability of producing a #strong #magnetic #field and by doing so they can actually bend the light from behind them so that the observer in front of them does not see them. In essence they are cloaked.

There is evidence for this in that strong magnetic fields are reported when UFOs are present. According to Dr. Erber studies, the effect on index of refraction is not only a function of the magnetic field strength but also the wavelength of the light being passing through. As it turns out if one were to graph the effects on two different wavelengths, one #infrared and the other yellow (visible light), one would see that it takes significantly stronger magnetic fields to distort the infrared light than it does to distort yellow light.

Many of you may recall the groundbreaking video released by the #Mexican #Air #Force in March of 2004. In that video it showed a formation of UFOs that were filmed using the infrared cameras that were aboard the aircraft. The actual mission of these planes was to track drug smugglers by using infrared cameras to track the heat signature of their engines. Initially the crew of the aircraft was not aware that they were filming UFOs. When they discovered that they were recording this formation, they looked in the direction where the formation should have been but they saw nothing. I believe the reason for this was the UFOs were cloaked in visual the wavelengths but remained uncloaked in the infrared wavelengths. Keep checking www.alienlog.com for more blogs.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Its Magic My Boy

One of the late Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quotes is “ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY WILL APPEAR INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC.” When things are hard to believe, people often refuse to believe and skeptics have a field day. One of the things I try to do in my Alien Log books and my lecture is to remove the mystique associated with UFOs. I try to give a “nuts & bolts” explanation for the fantastic things that have been reported. I believe my years as an engineering professor have prepared me for this by teaching me how to explain complex things is a way that is easy to understand. I try to do this using only three dimensions plus time and using classical physics plus a little relativity thrown in. I stay away from parallel universes, eleven dimensions, worm holes, and time travel. While I do believe that time dialation does allow us to go into the future, I am skeptical about going backward in time.

Trained observers have reported UFOs making maneuvers at fantastic speeds, well beyond our own technological capabilities. 100 G accelerations and high G manuvers with near right angle turns are just a few things these craft are capable of doing. Any skeptic reading reports of 100 G accelerations will use that as evidence that the reports can’t be true else the occupants would be crushed. Our best pilots in our best planes are limited to 10 Gs before damage occurs to the plane or the pilot. The same goes for right angle turns. Another observation is these craft have been clocked flying at thousands of mile per hour yet they do not produce shock waves. How can that be?

There is a wealth of information on UFOs in the form of sightings by highly credible and highly trained witnesses. I believe that by laying out this information it is possible to formulate a hypothesis as to how the above speeds and maneuvers can be accomplished without invoking inter-dimensional travel or wormholes.

In 1947, the German Government commissioned the famous rocket scientist, the late Hermann Oberth, to study the issue of UFO sightings. In his report, he concluded that UFOs were not built by human beings and that they were flying by means of artificial gravity. Other scientists who have studied the issue have agreed that they are somehow creating or manipulating gravity. I AGREE! Propulsion by means of gravitational fields is the ONLY explanation that makes sense to me.

Ask any physicist what gravity is and they will give you a long winded description of what gravity does and how to measure it but they can’t tell you with certainty what gravity is. They may try to explain that gravity is an exchange of subatomic particles called gravitons. The theory that has the most followers is that gravity is produced by a Higgs particle, what ever that is. With this in mind, you might well ask how then could we produce a gravitational field?

I will take you back to 1915 and my hero, Albert Einstein, who told us in his famous General Relativity Theory that there is a connection between gravitational fields and electromagnetic fields. He predicted that light (electromagnetic radiation) from a star passing a strong gravitational field (the sun) would be deflected 1.75 arc-seconds. In 1919, one of his ardent followers, Sir Arthur Eddington, went on expedition to an island near Africa during a solar eclipse and proved Einstein was right.

So, it seems that gravity can affect light. It seems logical then to assume that light can affect or even produce gravity. In 1934 professor Richard C. Tolman from California Institute of Technology wrote a remarkable textbook titled Relativity, Thermodynamics, and Cosmology. In pages 274 to 285 in this book he derived a relationship between the gravitational field generated by light and that produced by a particle of mass. He concluded that light (electromagnetic radiation) was twice as effective as mass in producing a gravitational field. In 2007, at a joint conference on propulsion by AIAA-ASME-SAE-ASEE , Dr. Dan Brasoveanu and Dr. Constantin Sandu presented landmark papers on gravity propulsion using light. This was published as paper AIAA 2007 - 5128 in AIAA’s peer reviewed journal of propulsion.

In my first book, Alien Log, Corey an astrophysicist with a passion for UFOs, runs his hands over the surface of a crashed UFO and explains to his boss, Colonel Pete Mitchell, that the aliens are somehow manipulating electromagnetic fields to produce gravitational fields. Ok, you might say, how does that allow them to accelerate at 100 Gs and make right angle turns without crushing the occupants? That’s a fair question and for the answer I will turn again to my hero, Einstein. He was famous for doing thought experiments so let’s do one.

I am going to place you in the nose of a large rocket and give you a cell phone so that we can chat during our experiment. I light the fuse and off you go. “What’s happening?” I ask. “I am being pulled down into my couch and my G-meter is reading 4 Gs,” you say. I watch as you rise up into the sky and suddenly the flames fizzle out as you continue to coast upward. “What’s happening now?” I ask. “I’m floating out of my couch and my G-meter reads zero,” you say. I continue watching as the rocket reaches its peak altitude and then begins to fall. “What’s happening now?” I ask. “Well, nothing has changed. I’m still floating and my G-meter still reads zero,” you say. “But wait,” I say, “you are now accelerating toward Earth at one G! Had we done this experiment on a very large planet, you could be accelerating toward the planet at perhaps 100 Gs!”

So you see, if we had the ability to project a strong 100 G gravitational field in front of the craft, we would simply free fall into it and there would be no sensation of acceleration. If we suddenly projected the field to our right, we would make an abrupt right turn but with no sensation. We could produce the same effect with a negative gravitational field except we would free fall away from the field. A negative field has another advantage. By projecting it in front of our craft, we could warn air molecules that we are coming well in advance so they could move out of the way and avoid the pileup associated with shock waves at supersonic speeds. In my lecture, The Science Behind Alien Encounters, I show two photographs of a UFO kicking up dust as it is taking off from a dusty field. Dust particles are being excluded in an annular area beneath the UFO. I use this as evidence that, indeed, they are being propelled by means of a negative gravitational field.

More on the evidence for propulsion by a negative gravitational field as well as how UFOs are able to cloak themselves and do other wonderful things in a later blog.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

It is Logical, Spock.


I grew up in the post World War II era of the 1940’s and 50’s. I suppose you could say I was a nerd although that term was not common until later years. My passion was rocketry and space travel. There was no question in my mind that I would become a space cadet after graduating from high school and college. Werner Von Braun was my hero and I had every popular book on space travel available in my personal library. When questions about rocket ships and space travel came up in class, they would turn to me for answers.

It was also fortunate for me that one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th Century was still alive during my formative years. I’m referring to Albert Einstein. In some ways he was my role model, even more than Von Braun. Einstein’s strength was in his intellect and ability to use beautiful logic to arrive at conclusions about how our universe functioned. He was known for using his “thought experiments” to reason out solutions to problems in physics, the math followed later. Although I have had my share of math courses during my pursuit of my Doctorate of Engineering, I sometimes feel that the theoretical scientists of today are doing the math first and then trying to figure out what it means. I think Einstein had it right, do the logic first and let the math follow.

Spock from the Star Trek series epitomized the logical approach to problems and even today I often use his words, “it is logical”. I think it was simple logic that led me to the conviction that there is other life in the universe and that there is extraterrestrial life. I am talking of life, ET’s, more advanced than us and capable of traveling at near light speed throughout the universe. It is only a small leap of logic to conclude that the marvelous flying machines, UFOs, people have been reporting for centuries are a reality.

What I find truly amazing is how a person who is convinced that we are routinely being visited by advanced intelligence can go about his or her daily life without giving a second though to the ET reality. I’m sure ants don’t give us much thought either as they go about their daily lives. One would think that knowledge of ET’s presence would be all consuming but, strangely, it is not.

Having an enquiring, engineering, mind, I could not let the issue of ET rest. I had to investigate to find how their marvelous flying machines worked and how ET was interacting with us during our daily lives. In 1980, Budd Hopkins wrote his landmark book, “Missing Time”, and I discovered that people are routinely being abducted. Why? Further research by the late Dr. John Mack of Harvard University and by Dr. David Jacobs of Temple University reveal that not only are people being abducted but there seems to be a “breeding” program by the ETs to create hybrids. Why? Then there is the question of cattle mutilations that seen to be connected to UFO sightings and thus ETs. Why are they doing that? A wonderful series of books written by the late Zacheria Sitchin reveals that the Sumerians civilizations may have had direct interaction with ETs over six thousand years ago. How else can one explain their detailed understanding of our solar system and how Home sapiens were created.

The doubting Thomas may ask why ET has not tried to communicate with us or made direct contact with us? SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has been searching for evidence of ET by monitoring radio signals from distant stars. After decades of searching, no luck. But wait, what about signs on the ground? I’m talking about designs known as crop circles that have been appearing by the thousands around the world for decades. While some of these have been made by hoaxters, many have been produced in a way that defies our technology. Researchers who study these designs have found evidence of advanced mathematics and new fundamental laws of geometry have been found. Is ET testing our intelligence to see if we are worthy of direct contact?

During both my industrial career and my fifteen years as a professor of engineering I continued to do research into the science relating to ufology. In fact, I now travel the country with my PowerPoint lecture, The Science Behind Alien Encounters. In 2003 I retired from Penn State University and decided it was time I share the knowledge I had acquired about the many related issues within ufology. I felt that there were many people who were curious but did not want to be stigmatized by being seen reading books on UFOs. I decided that the best way to share my knowledge was through science fiction. So I decided to give out information through the dialog of my characters. Michele Criction was well known for his ability to wrap a story around good science so I tried to follow his lead. When faced with the issue of adding credence to the words spoken by my characters, I again followed the Cricton model by providing references by chapter at the end of the book. In 2004 I launched the Alien Log series of science fiction with Alien Log. I thread information about ufology throughout the continuing story. I hope you will visit my website www.alienlog.com to learn more about me, my books, and my lecture.

During World War II pilots on both sides of the conflict reported being paced by large six foot diameter balls of light. They were known as Foo Fighters. People continue to see these and there are at least two Presidents who have seen them. That is what I saw early one morning while vacationing in Cancun, Mexico. Just as Einstein came to logical conclusions and followed them with proofs, I am fortunate that my logical conclusion about ETs has been verified by an actual sighting of a UFO. I will discuss how UFOs propel themselves in a later blog.