Space Aliens, alien abduction and UFOs

[Jhanananda]

Mirage
A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirari, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to admire".

In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer's location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water.

Mirages can be categorized as "inferior" (meaning lower), "superior" (meaning higher) and "Fata Morgana", one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically stacked images, which form one rapidly changing mirage.

Inferior mirage
For exhausted travelers in the desert, an inferior mirage may appear to be a lake of water in the distance. An inferior mirage is called "inferior" because the mirage is located under the real object. The real object in an inferior mirage is the (blue) sky or any distant (therefore bluish) object in that same direction. The mirage causes the observer to see a bright and bluish patch on the ground in the distance.

Light rays coming from a particular distant object all travel through nearly the same air layers and all are bent over about the same amount. Therefore, rays coming from the top of the object will arrive lower than those from the bottom. The image usually is upside down, enhancing the illusion that the sky image seen in the distance is really a water or oil puddle acting as a mirror.

Inferior images are not stable. Hot air rises, and cooler air (being more dense) descends, so the layers will mix, giving rise to turbulence. The image will be distorted accordingly. It may be vibrating; it may be vertically extended (towering) or horizontally extended (stooping). If there are several temperature layers, several mirages may mix, perhaps causing double images. In any case, mirages are usually not larger than about half a degree high (same apparent size as the sun and moon) and from objects only a few kilometers away.

Heat haze
Heat haze, also called heat shimmer, refers to the inferior mirage experienced when viewing objects through a layer of heated air; for example, viewing objects across hot asphalt or through the exhaust gases produced by jet engines. When appearing on roads due to the hot asphalt, it is often referred to as a highway mirage.

Convection causes the temperature of the air to vary, and the variation between the hot air at the surface of the road and the denser cool air above it creates a gradient in the refractive index of the air. This produces a blurred shimmering effect, which affects the ability to resolve objects, the effect being increased when the image is magnified through a telescope or telephoto lens.
Light from the sky at a shallow angle to the road is refracted by the index gradient, making it appear as if the sky is reflected by the road's surface. The mind interprets this as a pool of water on the road, since water also reflects the sky. The illusion fades as one gets closer.

On tarmac roads it may look as if water, or even oil, has been spilled. These kinds of inferior mirages are often called "desert mirages" or "highway mirages". Both sand and tarmac can become very hot when exposed to the sun, easily being more than 10°C hotter than the air one meter above, enough to create conditions suitable for the formation of the mirage.

Heat haze is not related to the atmospheric phenomenon of haze.

Superior mirage
A superior mirage occurs when the air below the line of sight is colder than the air above it. This unusual arrangement is called a temperature inversion, since warm air above cold air is the opposite of the normal temperature gradient of the atmosphere. Passing through the temperature inversion, the light rays are bent down, and so the image appears above the true object, hence the name superior. Superior mirages are in general less common than inferior mirages, but, when they do occur, they tend to be more stable, as cold air has no tendency to move up and warm air has no tendency to move down.

Superior mirages are quite common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice that have a uniform low temperature. Superior mirages also occur at more moderate latitudes, although in those cases they are weaker and tend to be less smooth and stable. For example, a distant shoreline may appear to tower and look higher (and, thus, perhaps closer) than it really is. Because of the turbulence, there appear to be dancing spikes and towers. This type of mirage is also called the Fata Morgana or hafgerdingar in the Icelandic language.[1]

A superior mirage can be right-side up or upside down, depending on the distance of the true object and the temperature gradient. Often the image appears as a distorted mixture of up and down parts.

Superior mirages can have a striking effect due to the Earth's curvature. Were the Earth flat, light rays that bend down would soon hit the ground and only nearby objects would be affected. Since Earth is round, if their downward bending curve is about the same as the curvature of the Earth, light rays can travel large distances, perhaps from beyond the horizon. This was observed and documented for the first time in 1596, when a ship under the command of Willem Barentsz in search of the Northeast passage became stuck in the ice at Novaya Zemlya. The crew was forced to endure the polar winter there. They saw their midwinter night come to an end with the rise of a distorted Sun about two weeks earlier than expected. It was not until the 20th century that science could explain the reason: the real Sun had still been below the horizon, but its light rays followed the curvature of the Earth. This effect is often called a Novaya Zemlya mirage. For every 111.12 kilometres (69.05 mi) the light rays can travel parallel to the Earth's surface, the Sun will appear 1° higher on the horizon. The inversion layer must have just the right temperature gradient over the whole distance to make this possible.

In the same way, ships that are in reality so far away that they should not be visible above the geometric horizon may appear on the horizon or even above the horizon as superior mirages. This may explain some stories about flying ships or coastal cities in the sky, as described by some polar explorers. These are examples of so-called Arctic mirages, or hillingar in Icelandic.

If the vertical temperature gradient is +12.9°C per 100 meters (where the positive sign means temperature gets hotter as one goes higher) then horizontal light rays will just follow the curvature of the Earth, and the horizon will appear flat. If the gradient is less (as it almost always is) the rays are not bent enough and get lost in space, which is the normal situation of a spherical, convex "horizon".

In some situations, distant objects can get elevated or lowered, stretched or shortened with no mirage involved.

Fata Morgana
A Fata Morgana, the name of which coming from the Italian translation of Morgan le Fay, the fairy shapeshifting half-sister of King Arthur, is a very complex superior mirage. It appears with alternations of compressed and stretched zones, erect images, and inverted images.[2] A Fata Morgana is also a fast-changing mirage.

Fata Morgana mirages are most common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice with a uniform low temperature, but they can be observed almost anywhere. While in polar regions, a Fata Morgana may be observed on cold days and in desert areas; and, over oceans and lakes, a Fata Morgana may be observed on hot days. For a Fata Morgana, temperature inversion has to be strong enough that light rays' curvatures within the inversion are stronger than the curvature of the Earth.[2][verification needed]

The rays will bend and create arcs. An observer needs to be within an atmospheric duct to be able to see a Fata Morgana.[3] Fata Morgana mirages may be observed from any altitude within the Earth's atmosphere, including from mountaintops or airplanes.[4][5]

A Fata Morgana can go from superior to inferior mirage and back within a few seconds, depending on the constantly changing conditions of the atmosphere. Sixteen frames of the mirage of the Farallon Islands, which cannot be seen from sea level at all under normal conditions because they are located below the horizon, were photographed on the same day. The first fourteen frames have elements of a Fata Morgana display—alternations of compressed and stretched zones.[2] The last two frames were photographed a few hours later around sunset. The air was cooler while the ocean was probably a little bit warmer, which made temperature inversion lower. The mirage was still present, but it was not as complex as it had been a few hours before sunset, and it corresponded no longer to a Fata Morgana but rather to a superior mirage display.

Distortions of image and bending of light can produce spectacular effects. In his book Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck", the author Ludovic Kennedy describes an incident that allegedly took place below the Denmark Strait during 1941, following the sinking of the Hood. The Bismarck, while pursued by the British cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, passed out of sight into a sea mist. Within a matter of seconds, the ship re-appeared steaming toward the British ships at high speed. In alarm the cruisers separated, anticipating an imminent attack, and observers from both ships watched in astonishment as the German battleship fluttered, grew indistinct and faded away. Radar watch during these events indicated that the Bismarck had in fact made no changes of course.
Night-time mirages

The conditions for producing a mirage can take place at night. Under most conditions, these are not observed. However, under some circumstances lights from moving vehicles, aircraft, ships, buildings, etc. can be observed at night, even though, as with a daytime mirage, they would not be observable.[1]

This includes the mirage of astronomical objects.
Mirage of astronomical objects
Main article: Mirage of astronomical objects

A mirage of an astronomical object is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon, in which light rays are bent to produce distorted or multiple images of an astronomical object. The mirages might be observed for such astronomical objects as the Sun, the Moon, the planets, bright stars, and very bright comets. The most commonly observed are sunset and sunrise mirages.

[Jhanananda]

This photo and description provides further support of my hypothesis that most of the so-called UFOs reported are just secret military research air and space craft.


Higher And Faster: The Quest For Speed

One theory about NASP—voiced openly by a senior European space official in 1992—was that it was a cover for a secret hypersonic or high-supersonic project, the subject of extensive rumors and reports and publicly nicknamed Aurora. Unexplained sonic booms over southern California in 1991 and the 1989 sighting of an unidentifiable delta-shaped craft over the North Sea bolstered the hypothesis, along with the expansion of the secret base at Area 51.

Aurora was a rumored mid-1980s American reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a myth.[1][2]

The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site Aerospaceweb.org concluded "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."[1]

Others come to different conclusions.[3] In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer Bill Sweetman said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."[4]

Background

The Aurora legend started in March 1990, when Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for "black aircraft production" in FY 1987.[5] According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft, and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In the 1994 book Skunk Works, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit.[6]

Evidence

By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach-5 replacement for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into black projects.[7] By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms and related phenomena that suggested the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations.[1]
British sighting claims

In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.

Gibson, who had been in the Royal Observer Corps' trophy-winning international aircraft recognition team since 1980, was unable to identify the aircraft. He dismissed suggestions that the aircraft was an F-117, Mirage IV or fully swept wing F-111.[8] When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British Defence Secretary Tom King was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."[9]

A crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly. Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after.[10]
American sighting claims

A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California, beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by United States Geological Survey sensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle, rather than the 37-meter long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered.[11] In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7."[5] Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year-old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c. 27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at Los Angeles International Airport, rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds.[12] The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different.[4] There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.

On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB)[13] A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.

In February 1994 former resident of Rachel, Nevada, and Area 51 enthusiast, Chuck Clark claimed to have filmed the Aurora taking off from the Groom Lake facility. In the David Darlington book Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, he said:

    I even saw the Aurora take off one night - or an aircraft that matched the Aurora's reputed configuration, a sharp delta with twin tails about a hundred and thirty feet long. It taxied out of a lighted hangar at two-thirty A.M. and used a lot of runway to take off. It had one red light on top, but the minute the wheels left the runway, the light went off and that was the last I saw of it. I didn't hear it because the wind was blowing from behind me toward the base." I asked when this had taken place. "February 1994. Obviously they didn't think anybody was out there. It was thirty below zero - probably ninety below with the wind chill factor. I had hiked into White Sides from a different, harder way than usual, and stayed there two or three days among the rocks, under a camouflage tarp with six layers of clothes on. I had an insulated face mask and two sleeping bags, so I didn't present a heat signature. I videotaped the aircraft through a telescope with a five-hundred-millimeter f4 lens coupled via a C-ring to a high-eight digital video camera with five hundred and twenty scan lines of resolution, which is better than TV." The author then asked "Where's the tape?" Locked away. That's a legitimate spyplane; my purpose is not to give away legitimate national defense. When they get ready to unveil it, I'll probably release the tape.[14]

Additional claims

Although his claims have been controversial, Bob Lazar has stated that, during his employment at the mysterious S-4 facility in Nevada, he briefly witnessed an Aurora flight while aboard a bus near Groom Lake. He claimed that there was a "tremendous roar" which sounded almost as though "the sky was tearing". Although Lazar only saw the aircraft for a moment through the front of the bus, he described it as being "very large" and having "two huge, square exhausts with vanes in them". Lazar claims that his supervisor confirmed to him that the aircraft was indeed an "Aurora", a "high altitude research plane". He was also told that the aircraft was powered by "liquid methane".[15]

By 1996, reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short service life.[1]

In 2000, Aberdeen Press and Journal writer Nic Outterside wrote a piece on US stealth technology in Scotland. Citing confidential 'sources', he alleged RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll to be a base for Aurora aircraft. Machrihanish's almost 2-mile (3.2 km)-long long runway makes it suitable for high-altitude and experimental aircraft with the fenced-off coastal approach making it ideal for takeoffs and landings to be made well away from eyes or cameras of press and public. 'Oceanic Air Traffic Control at Prestwick' Outterside says, 'also tracked fast-moving radar blips. It was claimed by staff that a "hypersonic jet was the only rational conclusion" for the readings.'[16]

In 2006, aviation writer Bill Sweetman put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic booms, as well as the Gibson sighting and concluded:

    "This evidence helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora."[4]

On 1 December 2014, loud repetitive bangs were heard in Bedfordshire, Glasgow, North Devon, Leicestershire, and West Sussex in the UK. The repetitive banging sound lasted for 20 to 30 minutes and was recorded by one resident on a cell phone. At around the same time, a loud boom was reported by a number of people in the upstate New York areas of Buffalo, Cheektowaga, and Clarence. Dr Bhupendra Khandelwa (University of Sheffield, UK) stated that he believed the loud, repetitive bangs sounded like an experimental jet engine called a pulse detonation engine (PDE). Sonic booms caused by meteors and military planes were ruled out, as were the sounds of fireworks and thunderstorms. Media speculation concluded that the noise recorded by locals in the UK could have been caused by the PDE engine of an Aurora aircraft.[17]

[Jhanananda]

DARPA Falcon Project
The DARPA Falcon Project (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States) is a two-part joint project between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF) and is part of Prompt Global Strike.[1] One part of the program aims to develop a reusable, rapid-strike Hypersonic Weapon System (HWS), now retitled the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV), and the other is for the development of a launch system capable of accelerating an HCV to cruise speeds, as well as launching small satellites into earth orbit. This two-part program was announced in 2003 and continued into 2006.[2]

Blackswift was a project announced under the Falcon banner using a fighter-sized unmanned aircraft which would take off from a runway and accelerate to Mach 6 before completing its mission and landing again. The memo of understanding between DARPA and the USAF on Blackswift—also known as the HTV-3X—was signed in September 2007. The Blackswift HTV-3X did not receive needed funding and was canceled in October 2008.[3]

Current research under FALCON program is centered on X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV), a common aerial platform for hypersonic ICBMs and cruise missiles, as well as civilian RLVs and ELVs. The prototype Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) first flew on 22 April 2010; the second test flew 11 August 2011. Both flights ended prematurely.

Design and development
Past projects

The aim was always to be able to deploy a craft from the continental United States, which could reach anywhere on the planet within one to two hours. The X-20 Dyna-Soar in 1957 was the first publicly acknowledged program—although this would have been launched vertically on a rocket and then glided back to Earth, as the Space Shuttle does, rather than taking off from a runway. Originally, the Shuttle was envisaged as a part-USAF operation, and separate military launch facilities were built at Vandenberg AFB at great cost, though never used. After the open DynaSoar USAF program from 1957–1963, spaceplanes went black. In the mid-1960s, the CIA began work on a high-Mach spyplane called Project Isinglass. This developed into Rheinberry, a design for a Mach-17 air-launched reconnaissance aircraft, which was later canceled.[4]

According to Henry F. Cooper, who was the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") under President Reagan, spaceplane projects consumed $4 billion of funding in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (excluding the Space Shuttle). This does not include the 1950 and 1960s budgets for the Dynasoar, ISINGLASS, Rheinberry, and any 21st-century spaceplane project which might emerge under Falcon. He told the United States Congress in 2001 that all the United States had in return for those billions of dollars was "one crashed vehicle, a hangar queen, some drop-test articles and static displays".[5] Falcon was allocated US$170 million for budget year 2008.[6]

FALCON

The overall FALCON (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States) program announced in 2003 had two major components: a small launch vehicle for carrying payloads to orbit or launching the hypersonic weapons platform payload, and the hypersonic vehicle itself.[2]
Small Launch Vehicle

The DARPA FALCON solicitation in 2003 asked for bidders to do development work on proposed vehicles in a first phase of work, then one or more vendors would be selected to build and fly an actual launch vehicle. Companies which won first phase development contracts of $350,000 to $540,000 in November 2003 included:[7]

    AirLaunch LLC, Reno Nevada
    Andrews Space Inc., Seattle Washington
    Exquadrum Inc., Victorville California
    KT Engineering, Huntsville Alabama
    Lockheed Martin Corp., New Orleans Louisiana
    Microcosm Inc., El Segundo California
    Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles Virginia
    Schafer Corp., Chelmsford Massachusetts
    Space Exploration Technologies, El Segundo California

Hypersonic Weapon System

The first phase of the hypersonic weapon system development was won by three bidders in 2003, each receiving a $1.2 to $1.5 million contract for hypersonic vehicle development:[7]

    Andrews Space Inc., Seattle, Wash.
    Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, Calif.
    Northrop Grumman Corp., Air Combat Systems, El Segundo, Calif.

Lockheed Martin received the only Phase 2 HWS contract in 2004, to develop technologies further and reduce technology risk on the program.[7]

Follow-on hypersonic program
Following the Phase 2 contract, DARPA and the US Air Force continued to develop the hypersonic vehicle platform.

The program was to follow a set of flight tests with a series of hypersonic technology vehicles.[8]

The FALCON project includes:

    X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV): a common aerial platform for hypersonic ICBMs and cruise missiles, as well as civilian RLVs and ELVs.
    Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 1 (HTV-1): a test concept, originally planned to fly in September 2007, now canceled.[9]
    Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2): first flew on 22 April 2010, but contact was lost soon after booster separation[10][11][12]
    HTV-3X: Blackswift, now canceled

The Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) would be able to fly 9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km) in 2 hours with a payload of 12,000 lb (5,500 kg).[13] It would fly at a high altitude and achieve speeds of up to Mach 20.[14]
Blackswift

The Blackswift was a proposed aircraft capable of hypersonic flight designed by the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Boeing, and ATK.[15]

The USAF states that the "Blackswift flight demonstration vehicle will be powered by a combination turbine engine and ramjet, an all-in-one power plant. The turbine engine accelerates the vehicle to around Mach 3 before the ramjet takes over and boosts the vehicle up to Mach 6."[16] Dr. Stephen Walker, the Deputy Director of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, will be coordinating the project. He told the USAF website,

    I will also be communicating to Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on how important it is that we get the technical plan in place ... I'm trying to build the bridge at the beginning of the program—to get the communication path flowing.

The Falcon program has announced the hypersonic horizontal take-off Blackswift/HTV-3X. It is also launching the HTV-2 off the top of a rocket booster.[17] Falcon seems to be converging from two directions, on the ultimate goal of producing a hypersonic aircraft which can take off and land from a runway in the USA, and be anywhere in the world in an hour or two. Falcon is methodically proceeding toward a Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle. Dr. Walker stated,

    We need to fly some hypersonic vehicles—first the expendables, then the reusables—in order to prove to decision makers that this isn't just a dream… We won't overcome the skepticism until we see some hypersonic vehicles flying.

Flight testing
DARPA had two HTV-2s built for two flight tests in 2010 and 2011. The Minotaur IV light rocket is the booster for the HTV-2 with Vandenberg Air Force Base serving as the launch site. DARPA planned the flights to demonstrate thermal protection systems and aerodynamic control features.[3][10] Test flights were supported by NASA, the Space and Missile Systems Center, Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Air Vehicles and Space Vehicles Directorates.

The first HTV-2 flight was launched on 22 April 2010.[10] The HTV-2 glider was to fly 4,800 miles (7,700 km) across the Pacific to Kwajalein at Mach 20.[17] The launch was successful, but the first mission was not completed as planned. Reports stated that contact had been lost with the vehicle nine minutes into the mission.[20][21] In mid-November, DARPA revealed that the test flight had ended when the computer autopilot had "commanded flight termination". According to a DARPA spokesman, "When the onboard system detects [undesirable or unsafe flight] behavior, it forces itself into a controlled roll and pitchover to descend directly into the ocean." Reviews found that the craft had begun to roll violently.[22]

A second flight was launched on 11 August 2011. The unmanned Falcon HTV-2 successfully separated from the booster and entered the mission's glide phase, but again lost contact with control about nine minutes into its planned 30-minute Mach 20[citation needed] glide flight. Initial reports indicated it purposely impacted the Pacific Ocean along its planned flight path as a safety precaution.[23][24][25] Some analysts thought that the second failure would result in an overhaul of the Falcon program.[26]
Refocus

In July 2013, DARPA decided it would not conduct a third flight test of the HTV-2 because enough data had been collected from the first two flights, and another test was not thought to provide any more usable data for the cost. The tests provided data on flight aerodynamics and high-temperature effects on the aeroshell. Work on the HTV-2 would continue to summer 2014 to provide more study on hypersonic flight. The HTV-2 was the last active part of the Falcon program. DARPA has now changed its focus for the program from global/strategic strike to high-speed tactical deployment to penetrate air defenses and hit targets quickly from a safe distance.[27]

[Cal]

This is getting a little more interesting. This Dr. Steven Greer is encouraging more prominent members of society to speak out on "ET's" and "UFO's". Dr Greer claims that the ways of communicating with these other lifeforms is through meditation. What do you make of this Jeff?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKWElDHhY4

This is just another video of one of the NASA astronauts that landed on the moon and how hes got on the Greer boat.

[Jhanananda]

While I have had many encounters with apparent high tech cultures and apparent space aliens while in an OOBE; nonetheless most of those high tech cultures were not evident when space probes were sent to those planets.  Thus, it is my conclusion that the space alien premise is the product of misunderstanding various phenomena.

My documentation here is an effort to show that these natural phenomena are either misinterpreted OOBEs, or experimental air and space research vehicles, and/or misunderstood natural phenomena, such as mirages.

The immaterial domains, and the OOBE are commonly misinterpreted.  Misinterpreted phenomena on the immaterial domains is a product of people who are: dreaming, or dead, or in an OOBE, who collectively create a domain in the immaterial (spirit) world, where an apparent high tech culture exists, but it is simply a collective fabrication of the mind (delusion).

[Cal]

The immaterial domains, and the OOBE are commonly misinterpreted.  Misinterpreted phenomena on the immaterial domains is a product of people who are: dreaming, or dead, or in an OOBE, who collectively create a domain in the immaterial (spirit) world, where an apparent high tech culture exists, but it is simply a collective fabrication of the mind (delusion).

Like creating a dream? The depth of this is quite immense, and very confusing.

[Jhanananda]

Yes, the immaterial domains are collective delusions.  As we move through those collective delusions we shed identity.

[Jhanananda]

I found this article If There Are Aliens Out There, Where Are They? a very interesting read.

[Jhanananda]

Recent research found 'Space Brain': Mars Explorers May Risk Neural Damage, Study Finds

Astronauts making a years-long voyage to Mars may get bombarded with enough cosmic radiation to seriously damage their brains, researchers reported Monday.

The damage might be bad enough to affect memory and, worse, might heighten anxiety, the team at the University of California Irvine said.

It's the second study the team has done to show that cosmic radiation causes permanent, and likely untreatable, brain damage. While their experiments involve mice, the brain structures that are damaged are similar, they write in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

 "Our data provide additional evidence that deep space travel poses a real and unique threat to the integrity of neural circuits in the brain," Charles Limoli and colleagues write in their report.

NASA knows that astronauts risk physical damage from the radiation encountered in space. Earth is enveloped in a large, protective sheath called the magnetosphere, which deflects a lot of the ionizing radioactive particles that speed through space.

Teams aboard the International Space Station are inside that envelope. But moon travelers were not, and this summer a study showed the cosmic radiation may have damaged the hearts of many of the Apollo program astronauts.

 A trip to Mars would expose astronauts to even more radiation — enough to cause cancer, for sure, and now this research suggests brain damage, as well.

"Such conditions could clearly be problematic for astronauts and their capability to efficiently operate over the course of a deep space mission," Limoli's team wrote.

They bombarded mice with the same type of radiation that would be encountered in space, and then looked at what happened to their brains.

 It did not look good. The changes were seen in the connections between brain cells and in the cells, as well.

"Deficits in fear extinction could make you prone to anxiety, which could become problematic over the course of a three-year trip to and from Mars," Limoli said.

"Exposure to these particles can lead to a range of potential central nervous system complications that can occur during and persist long after actual space travel — such as various performance decrements, memory deficits, anxiety, depression and impaired decision-making. Many of these adverse consequences to cognition may continue and progress throughout life."

 NASA has been looking hard at the problem, since a major goal is to get people to Mars by the 2030s.

"There are two ways to shield from these higher-energy particles and their secondary radiation: use a lot more mass of traditional spacecraft materials, or use more efficient shielding material," NASA said last year on their website. "The sheer volume of material surrounding a structure would absorb the energetic particles and their associated secondary particle radiation before they could reach the astronauts."

But that could get heavy and expensive.

"Using materials that shield more efficiently would cut down on weight and cost, but finding the right material takes research and ingenuity," the agency wrote. "NASA is currently investigating a handful of possibilities that could be used in anything from the spacecraft to the Martian habitat to space suits."

Conclusion:  robotic exploration of space is very efficient, and inexpensive compared to manned spaceflight, so it is very unlikely that space aliens have come here from a planet far-far-away.  Nor are we likely to be successful at manned space exploration.

[Jean]

To me, there has been nothing new in the world over the last 10,000 years, everything has always been here, all aliens are from Earth, just soulless humans and without a soul you cannot reincarnate, so they wander the Earth like hungry ghosts with a high powered telepathic mental astral body.

Everyone knows the pop culture stories of Aliens, at least since the 1930s. Here is my theory based on my experiences over the years and encounters when I was a young child.

Long ago you lived and you had a powerful mind and maybe you put it to good use, or maybe you didn’t. The next lifetime you got worse, more selfish, more powerful and your mental ego was never scolded or slayed. By the third lifetime in reincarnation, your emotional body and soul body began to deteriorate and loose some of its power and you began to kill and torment people in ordinary life or the military. By the next lifetime, you started to loose health and loose the ability to speak.

Eventually you loose your soul and without a soul you can never reincarnate again. Now you are stuck, you are a disembodied human living on mental astral body and can never reincarnate again. So what do you do as you roam the earth like a hungry ghost, missing companionship and the power of life itself. You begin to talk to the living, you begin to telepath to those who are incarnated to influence them.

You continue your lies and tell them you are God or Jesus, or an Ascended Master. If they drink, do drugs or shamanic plants, they will believe you even more because those things dampen and dormant the soul's intelligence.

Now you have entered an era of technology and you give knowledge/mathematics to men. These men talk to you in their dreams and you talk to them. They wake up in the morning like Einstein and have the mathematical formula to create the bomb. You get the idea.

Now your Earth is ruled by military/alien humans who sleeping people think are from another planet…. No, they are not, they are humans who were once evil and only have a mental astral body left.

As a young child my astral body has been sucked up and I ended up in what I would identify later as a military/spaceship that exists in the astral plane. Sometimes sensitive people can perceive such 'ships' with their astral senses when they're relaxed. I've watched some of the experiments they're doing on people astral bodies, like piercing the eye area with a red laser. Not cool.

[Jhanananda]

Very interesting, Jean. Here we get beyond the demonic domains by saturation in the bliss, joy and ecstasy of the deep levels of meditation. First comes bliss and joy in the 1st jhana, then comes the bliss of a still mind, then comes the charisms, which the OOBE community speak of, but here we are not in a hurry to get to the OOBE. We are interested in saturation in the bliss, joy and ecstasy, because how are we going to negotiate this hell without the bliss, joy and ecstasy of the higher realms?

[Jean]

Very interesting, Jean. Here we get beyond the demonic domains by saturation in the bliss, joy and ecstasy of the deep levels of meditation. First comes bliss and joy in the 1st jhana, then comes the bliss of a still mind, then comes the charisms, which the OOBE community speak of, but here we are not in a hurry to get to the OOBE. We are interested in saturation in the bliss, joy and ecstasy, because how are we going to negotiate this hell without the bliss, joy and ecstasy of the higher realms?

I had the experience of bliss and ecstasy while meditating and that lasted for hours or days when not meditating. Nowadays it's more like feeling completely content and at ease, with no worries or restlessness if I'm wrapped in a soft blanket of calm, and all the excitement and joy from before have settled down into a gentle, deep sense of satisfaction. I'm simply there, present and serene, like a still pond. Sometimes it's more like tranquility. neither excited nor bored, neither happy nor sad—just deeply at peace. There are still energetic sensations inside and outside of my body all the time. Are those sensations what you call charisms?

[Jhanananda]

I had the experience of bliss and ecstasy while meditating and that lasted for hours or days when not meditating. Nowadays it's more like feeling completely content and at ease, with no worries or restlessness if I'm wrapped in a soft blanket of calm, and all the excitement and joy from before have settled down into a gentle, deep sense of satisfaction. I'm simply there, present and serene, like a still pond. Sometimes it's more like tranquility. neither excited nor bored, neither happy nor sad—just deeply at peace. There are still energetic sensations inside and outside of my body all the time. Are those sensations what you call charisms?

Very good. This is what we have been all about since before this forum was launched, and most of the members here experience.