UFO Buzzes Australian Town

Northern Territory News reports on a short yet intense UFO incident in Australia: a small outback community, Marlinja, was "buzzed" by UFOs. It's not clear whether there was a single UFO or several of them.

The incident took place on Sunday evening starting at around 20:00 local time. Initially a loud rumbling in the sky was taken to be a jet, however the noise continued to grow as several bright red lights approached. Eventually the noise was so loud that the ground began shaking.

All that could be seen in the sky was a huge red light that reportedly hovered over the town for a couple of hours.

As well as the sound and light there were also electrical disruptions with a phone ringing then going dead and house lights becoming excessively bright.

At around 23:00 the UFO disappeared.



Subject Tags: UFOs

UK Police Helicopter Spots UFO

A police helicopter in Wales spotted an unidentified "unusual aircraft" in the skies near Cardiff International Airport. The chopper was hovering above St Athan's RAF base at 00:40 when the crew spotted the UFO. The crew, who are described as "very experienced", were unable to get any pictures before it "vanished".

Reports of what happened next vary. According to The Telegraph, the police helicopter chased the UFO almost as far as the North Devon coast before they ran low on fuel. However the BBC reports South Wales police as saying they helicopter did not give chase.

Strange lights were also reported by witnesses on the ground, including an ex-RAF glider pilot.

The presence of multiple witnesses including trained observers with experience of flying makes this a very interesting incident.

Subject Tags: UFOs

Humans Can See Into the Future

Newly published scientific research describes how humans can see into the future - without the aid of a crystal ball. But don't get too excited - it's only about a tenth of a second into the future!

The research by Mark Changizi of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, is published in the journal Cognitive Science. It describes the effect of something known as the "neural lag" - the delay between light hitting the eye and the brain interpreting that information. This delay is around a tenth of a second, which may not sound like much but could make a significant difference in some circumstances.

The theory is that the human brain has evolved to compensate for this delay. We extrapolate recent input to predict what we are going to see before it actually happens. This isn't just theoretical, the visual system actually generates appropriate images - we literally "see" the future.

Changizi's research concentrates on the way this system can explain various optical illusions - we're fooled into seeing what we expect to see. Personally I wonder if this mechanism also has implications for experiences such as deja vu and even some psi phenomena.