UFO-like object floating in the clouds - So what is it?
A UFO-like object floating in the clouds was caught on camera on the same day ten dead birds were found in a nearby garden.
Calum Sherwood, 23, was shocked to see the outline of what appeared to be a UFO while riding on a bus in Salterbeck, south of Workington, Cumbria, on Monday.
Sharon Larkin, UFO enthusiast and Mr Sherwood’s friend who lives nearby, found ten dead birds in her garden that day.
Ms Larkin claims that ‘dead birds are associated with sightings of UFOs’, and experts are divided over the cause - with some believing it could be a rare cloud formation, while others believe it could be ice crystals from a jet engine.
The circular shape may have been caused by a 'contrail' - ice crystals produced by jet engines at high altitude that have left a condensation trail.
However, another explanation is an unusual cloud formation known as a fallstreak hole or hole punch cloud - a large circular gap that can appear in clouds and is often mistaken for a UFO.
They are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice particles.
If it is not a cloud formation or a plane - and ruling out the arrival of little green men - perhaps it was created when Fearless Felix Baumgartner re-entered the earth's atmosphere after his leap from the edge of space on Monday.
She claims the area, which is close to Sellafield nuclear power plant, was a hotspot for unusual activity.
Ms Larkin said: ‘There is something about this picture. The line around the edge of the UFO is very clear and very specific.
‘I’ve shown it to other people and some people have suggested it might be an unusual cloud formation, but the perimeter is very clear and I don’t think that’s the case.
‘What’s really strange is that the day Calum took this picture I discovered about ten dead birds in my garden, the back and the front.
‘They were sparrows and blackbirds. It could just be a co-incidence but the discovery of dead birds is associated with sightings of UFOs.’
A spokeswoman from the Met Office said: 'It looks like a it’s just a persisting circular contrail (a condensation trail of ice crystals produced by jet engines at high altitude).
'There’s patchy high cirrus cloud around, so the atmosphere is moist enough to allow contrails to last for some time.
'It’s hard to tell whether the contrail is above or below the cloud around it but we suspect that in some places it is below, and the grey bits are then where the contrail shadow falls on the cloud beneath it.
'It’s unusual for a civil aircraft to be doing this sort of thing so it’s probably military.'
Ms Larkin said she had also heard unusual noises in the sky which sounded like ‘metal being scraped against metal’.
Mr Sherwood, who works at the power plant, said: ‘I was looking at the object for about 20 minutes. It was so strange.
‘When I showed the picture to my girlfriend Michelle, we thought it might be a UFO so we contacted a friend who knows a lot about this kind of thing.
‘I have never seen anything like this before and have no idea what it might be.’
In 2010 a man was walking his dog when he saw a bright solid red light moving in a northerly direction above the town.
He claimed he saw the object flying very low, beneath cloud level, before it changed direction and disappeared from view.
Residents also reported seeing triangular shaped craft in the sky and shining balls of light in 2004.
Sellafield is responsible for decommissioning and reprocessing nuclear waste and fuel manufacturing, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
The Sellafield site has been operational since the 1940s, when it was used as a Royal Ordnance factory supporting the war effort. The site is also home to the world's first commercial nuclear power station - Calder Hall, which operated from 1956 to 2003.
Today the site comprises a wide range of nuclear facilities, including redundant facilities associated with early defence work, as well as operating facilities associated with the Magnox reprocessing programme, the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, the Sellafield Mox plant and a range of waste treatment plants.
The sighting comes as a woman spoke out about a UFO she saw hovering above her house in rural Scotland.
Morag Ritchie, 50, of Aberdeenshire was awoken in the middle of the night by flashing lights in the sky and caught the shocking images of four blinking lights on video. - Daily Mail
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Massive Fireball Over California Coast – October 17th, 2012
The American Meteor Society has received over 150 reports about a large fireball seen from the coast of California on October 17th, at approximately 7:44 PM Pacific time. Numerous witnesses reported hearing a series of loud booms.
John in Larkspur, CA writes:
“There were three consecutive booms that happened at least a minute later. Sounded like distant artillery fife or sonic booms.”
From Sarah in San Francisco:
“I heard a sonic boom that was came at least 1, possibly 2 minutes later.”
From Mathew in San Rafael, CA – United States:
“30 sec after the fireball went out, several very loud booms like medium sized thunder claps occurred followed by a long duration rumbling decay over another 30 sec.”
Many witnesses reported that the fireball fragmenting into multiple pieces.
While we are in the middle of the Orionid Meteor Shower and approaching the peak this weekend, this fireball has the signs of a meteorite dropping asteroidal meteor and not a fireball associated with a meteor shower. Generally cometary fireballs will vaporize high up in the atmosphere. The fact that this fireball was accompanied with sonic booms means the meteoroid penetrated the lower atmosphere — something not typically seen with cometary fireballs. Continue for graphics and videos
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Possible alien encounter in North Carolina
Carrboro, NC - 10/2/12 -unedited: On the internet in room, had just started up the computer when I heard a high pitch ringing and felt a super high pressure build in my head almost like an even wave of pressure, no changes or fluctuations once it started, from left to right. I could feel it as it moved over the complex. I remember thinking it was super weird but felt oddly calm, like more calm then the few minutes before I started hearing the ringing. Suddenly drowsy and I passed out at the computer. woke up two hours later, spread eagle in front of computer, fully awake and alert but really disoriented almost like I was drunk. Immediately felt a presence and heard noises in living room and went out to say hi and ask if they heard the ringing too(still happening at this point). remembered what time it was and stopped in the hallway before getting to the living room. Had a sudden great fear of the whatever was in the other room as I stood in the hallway, retreated to the backrooms and turned on every light in the place before entering the living room. No presence but still ringing, it stopped 15 min later - MUFON CMS
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Alcoholic sells wife to finance drinking
A Gulf returnee allegedly sold his wife for Rs 6,000 to a broker in Korutla mandal of Karimnagar district. The incident came to light here on Monday after police booked a case against the accused following a complaint from the victim's son.
The accused, Medula Rajender, 42, of Malyala village in Chandurthi mandal sold his wife Medula Ammayi, 36, to the broker on October 13 to meet his liquor expenses. Daily wager Rajender found it hard to buy liquor and struck a deal with the broker to sell his wife.
On Saturday morning, he forcibly took her to Chandurthi where he left her at the bus station and told her to wait for the broker. "I was shocked when he told me that he had sold me for Rs 6,000 to the broker in Kortula. He even bought a bus ticket to Korutla for me and left the place," recalled a crying Ammayi.
She travelled for some distance and got down at Rudrangi village. Later, she went to a relative's house at Rajalingampally village in Mudipally mandal to narrate the incident. "I had married Rajender 20 years ago but could not imagine in my wildest dreams that he would resort to such a heinous act," she said.
Based on a complaint from the couple's eldest son Anoop, 18, on Monday, police registered a case under section 498 of the IPC. Sub-inspector Rafeeq Khan told TOI that Rajender used to threaten and harass Ammayi for money. "We are counselling the couple. The accused would be produced before the family court soon," the SI said. The couple have two other sons - Karthik, 15 and Abhishek, 12. - Times of India
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Scientists turn fresh air into petrol: is breakthrough a milestone on the road to clean energy?
A small British company has produced the first "petrol from air" using a revolutionary technology that promises to solve the energy crisis as well as helping to curb global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees has produced five litres of petrol since August when it switched on a small refinery that manufactures gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapour.
The company hopes that within two years it will build a larger, commercial-scale plant capable of producing a ton of petrol a day. It also plans to produce green aviation fuel to make airline travel more carbon-neutral.
Tim Fox, head of energy and the environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, said: "It sounds too good to be true, but it is true. They are doing it and I've been up there myself and seen it. The innovation is that they have made it happen as a process. It's a small pilot plant capturing air and extracting CO2 from it based on well known principles. It uses well-known and well-established components but what is exciting is that they have put the whole thing together and shown that it can work."
Although the process is still in the early developmental stages and needs to take electricity from the national grid to work, the company believes it will eventually be possible to use power from renewable sources such as wind farms or tidal barrages.
"We've taken carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water and turned these elements into petrol," said Peter Harrison, the company's chief executive, who revealed the breakthrough at a conference at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London.
"There's nobody else doing it in this country or indeed overseas as far as we know. It looks and smells like petrol but it's a much cleaner and clearer product than petrol derived from fossil oil," Mr Harrison told The Independent.
"We don't have any of the additives and nasty bits found in conventional petrol, and yet our fuel can be used in existing engines," he said.
"It means that people could go on to a garage forecourt and put our product into their car without having to install batteries or adapt the vehicle for fuel cells or having hydrogen tanks fitted. It means that the existing infrastructure for transport can be used," Mr Harrison said.
Being able to capture carbon dioxide from the air, and effectively remove the principal industrial greenhouse gas resulting from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, has been the holy grail of the emerging green economy.
Using the extracted carbon dioxide to make petrol that can be stored, transported and used as fuel for existing engines takes the idea one step further. It could transform the environmental and economic landscape of Britain, Mr Harrison explained.
"We are converting renewable electricity into a more versatile, useable and storable form of energy, namely liquid transport fuels. We think that by the end of 2014, provided we can get the funding going, we can be producing petrol using renewable energy and doing it on a commercial basis," he said.
"We ought to be aiming for a refinery-scale operation within the next 15 years. The issue is making sure the UK is in a good place to be able to set up and establish all the manufacturing processes that this technology requires. You have the potential to change the economics of a country if you can make your own fuel," he said.
The initial plan is to produce petrol that can be blended with conventional fuel, which would suit the high-performance fuels needed in motor sports. The technology is also ideal for remote communities that have abundant sources of renewable electricity, such solar energy, wind turbines or wave energy, but little in the way of storing it, Mr Harrison said.
"We're talking to a number of island communities around the world and other niche markets to help solve their energy problems.
"You're in a market place where the only way is up for the price of fossil oil and at some point there will be a crossover where our fuel becomes cheaper," he said.
Although the prototype system is designed to extract carbon dioxide from the air, this part of the process is still too inefficient to allow a commercial-scale operation.
The company can and has used carbon dioxide extracted from air to make petrol, but it is also using industrial sources of carbon dioxide until it is able to improve the performance of "carbon capture".
Other companies are working on ways of improving the technology of carbon capture, which is considered far too costly to be commercially viable as it costs up to £400 for capturing one ton of carbon dioxide.
However, Professor Klaus Lackner of Columbia University in New York said that the high costs of any new technology always fall dramatically.
"I bought my first CD in the 1980s and it cost $20 but now you can make one for less than 10 cents. The cost of a light bulb has fallen 7,000-fold during the past century," Professor Lackner said. - Belfast Telegraph
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