• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

UFOs & Ufology In China

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,408
I love the nationalistic touches and a touch of yank-bashing (or is that some starnge sexual practice?):

Aliens among us?!

01/14/2004 16:11

Half of the entire Chinese population believes in UFOs.

Hundreds of scientists and engineers conduct thorough studies of the unidentified phenomenon. According to Chinese ufologists, aliens live among humans. Ugologists also claim that recently aliens started to show more interest in China. Most recent UFO was spotted in Nanking, China.

According to a Chinese pilot, he noticed a flickering white and blue object, which hovered right beside the aircraft just as he was about to land. The pilot observed how an oval-shaped flying object was escorting the airplane. Then suddenly, the object made a rapid turn and disappeared behind the clouds.

This story could sound rather nonsensical. However, other two pilots from other Chinese aircrafts reported the exact same phenomenon to the control center. One of them was piloting at 120 km to the North, while the other was flying at 300km to the South, reports "Izvestia".

A considerable amount of such strange encounters with "feidi" (this is how a UFO is referred to in China) has been recorded in China for the past few years. In some cases, people saw fluorescent orange light, above which hovered a rather strangely-shaped object. In other instances, people witnessed an object no bigger than a basket ball which had been divided in half right before their eyes. The two balls started circling the area and then disappeared completely. One time, people witnessed an object similar to a whipping top. Its trail was marked by a stripe of light. The object was also held responsible for shutting off electricity in several houses, since no malfunction had been reported at the electric power station.

One Chinese newspaper "South China Monitoring Post" reported the most fascinating case. One hundred Chinese witnessed a double-seated fighter-interceptor of the Chinese Air Force "playing cat-and-mouse" with a hypothetical UFO not far away from a military base in the town of Chinjou. A mushroom-shaped object with rotating brightly lit bottom was spotted by four radar stations. When approaching the interceptor (in about 4,000 meters), the object instantly moved upwards. None of the ground-based control services ordered to open fire.

"Izvestia" reports that China has a record number of special clubs of UFO lovers. There are many who attempt to establish some sort of a connection with the extraterrestrial. Their actions are protected by the National Society of the extraterrestrial studies, which was founded 25 years ago. The Society is financed by the government. Only professional scientists and engineers are allowed in the Society. A person also required to have PhD in science and have several published works about UFOs. About a third of all members of the society are also experienced members of the communist party.

One of Chinese most famous experts in ufology, 66-year-old Sun Shili, who is also a former diplomat and a translator of Mao Zedong, has told us about his first encounter with an unidentified object. It happened in 1971 during the "cultural revolution" when Sun Shili had been undergoing physical labor at a correctional facility high up in the mountains of the Tsyansi province. One day, while working in the rice fields, he spotted a strange object in the sky. He momentarily thought it was a real UFO.

Experts from the National Society claim that half of Chinese residents believe in such phenomenon. Sun Shili explains such interest in UFOs in China (every fifth UFO appears in this country) in the following way. He says that China appeals to aliens the most, due to the country's recent breakthroughs and its aspiration to become the world's leader.

Aliens used to be interested in the US up until recently.
According to Sun Shili (and his opinion is shared by many in the National Society) some of the aliens live among us, by turning into humans.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/378/11796_ufo.html

Emps
 
He says that China appeals to aliens the most, due to the country's recent breakthroughs and its aspiration to become the world's leader.

Aliens used to be interested in the US up until recently.

As Falkirk is considered the "Costa Del Sol" for aliens-more sightings there than anywhere else in the world, does this mean that Scotland is about to take over the planet? The aliens obviously know something we don't! Clearly Jack McConnell is conspiring with ET to rule the world then!;)
 
China District Receives $20 million to Build UFO Research Base

Authorities in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province, announced Monday that they had received $20 million from a Taiwan-based company to construct a UFO research base.

Some people in the city's Baiyun District believe they were visited by aliens in 1994, and with this new research base, they hope to reproduce the mysterious moment, through photos and historical documentation.

On November 30, 1994, more than 27 hectares of masson pines in a forest farm in the district mysteriously fell down. However, nearby plastic shelters stood intact.

An adjacent truck factory reported similar enigmas: steel pipes were strangely broken; a huge truck was found more than 20 meters away from its original place; an employee on the night shift said he had been pulled up in the air by an "unknown" force.

While some thought it was UFOs that did all these strange things, scientists said after a field trip that thunder, lightning and tornados were the probable causes.

Wang Fangchen, a biologist who visited the site right after the event, said the city's plan to build a UFO research base is "ridiculous."

"Where do they recruit scientists for the research?" he asked, before adding: "I won't oppose it if they just want to promote local tourism through the program."

Li Jing, a senior astronomer with the National Astronomical Observatories, echoed the view.

Li said China does not have an official UFO research institute because "it needs scientists of various disciplines."

"It can be an atmospheric phenomenon, or a biological issue, or a physical reaction," Li said.

"People often mistake planes, clouds and insects, as well as strange shadows on photographs, as being UFOs," said Zhou Xiaoqiang, secretary-general with the Beijing UFO Research Association.

"If aliens really came, they would more likely appear before our eyes politely than hide themselves."

© 2005 China Daily; North American ed. All rights reserved.
source

This story features on several news sites, although everyone seems to have just cut-and-pasted the original article from China Daily. Anything to it, or is someone pulling our legs?
 
Trying to find something on this NOT related to the recent press release.

So far, only this:

Guiyang tracking station..... China, organization, tracking station. See Xian Satellite Monitor and Control Center.

EDIT: UFO report (in French) from 1995:
http://toutsurleparanormal.skynetblogs.be/

Google translation doesn't extend that far down the page!
Seems a UFO impeded the landing of an aircraft. The Ufo was similar to one reported in the forest near Guiyang earlier.
 
I did a Lexis-Nexus search in Dutch newspapers and found this one. I ran it through babelfish so the english is not good, but still interesting:

Today China launches it’s second manned space rocket, the Shenzhou 6 (celestial vehicle 6). After the first successful manned flight with an astronaut in 2003, now two will stay five days in the universe. Launching is transmitted by the state television.

I will certainly sit shackled to the tube, Zhang Jinping of the Peking Ufo-society says. Hopefully there will be more activities. After the launching of Shenzhou 5 the aviation university held a forum concerning Ufo-sightings. Studying flying dishes is a popular occupation in China, where 50,000 registered Chinese assist Ufo-societies approved by the communist government. The state television dedicates non-specialist programmes to unexplainable flying objects. Reports of flying dishes also reach the newspaper. China has the highest number of Ufo-sightings in the world: one in five flying dishes in spotted in China.

That openness indicates that belief in UFO's does not create political problems in China. China knows spiritual groups of which claim that extraterrestrial beings are already on the ground. In the books of Li Hongzhi, the guru of the in China prohibited movement Falun gong, are several references to ' aliens '.

To avoid associations with the Falun Gong Ufologists use the motto of ' scientific research '. The Peking Ufo-society can ask assistance from a special department of the police force according to Zhang, to test people with a lie detector whom claim having been kidnapped by aliens. According to reports thirty per cent of the Peking Ufologists are also party members. There is anyway a diplomat on the member list.

Source:
AD/Algemeen Dagblad
12 October 2005 Wednesday
MARIJE VLASKAMP
 
I wonder why the state would approve of UFO clubs. As a diversion from more serious issues? After all, better that Chinese citizens organise themselves to hunt for "flying dishes" than that they organise themselves to protest against their repressive government.
 
S'true.

They are supposed to suppress anything that is not in the public interest, but they allow tv programmes and newspaper articles about UFO's, and allow UFO clubs.

Ah well.
 
coldelephant said:
S'true.

They are supposed to suppress anything that is not in the public interest, but they allow tv programmes and newspaper articles about UFO's, and allow UFO clubs.

Ah well.

History repeats itself, it's often suggested that in the 50s the US intelligence community actively encouraged the whole UFO mythos to distract attention away from genuine experimental aicraft programs, weapons testing and other stuff they didn't want people enquirng about.
 
UFOlogy: Science and the Flying Saucers

When you think of UFOs, the first things that usually come to mind are little green men, conspiracy theories, sci-fi buffs and uncomfortable probes. But to members of the Hong Kong UFO Club, the study of UFOs (UFOlogy) is a serious science. Pat Morais discovers that if the UFO Club has their way, someday soon you may be able to study for a degree in UFOlogy at your local university.

Hong Kong’s UFO Club meets once a month at UFO Station, a Tsim Sha Tsui cyber cafe filled with books, newsletters, and old news clippings of close encounters in order to explore otherworldly topics like “E.T. Civilization” and “Alien Kung Fu.” The club is made up of members such as scientists and university professors who study subjects including physics, history and even some paranormal activities and a number of broad studies in order to understand as much as they can about UFO phenomena.

The members of the Hong Kong UFO Club are not dreamy stargazers, but researchers who see their passion as a science. So much so that they’re lobbying for a university degree programme in UFOlogy. In an interview with CNN, Hong UFO Club members Albert So, a professor at Hong Kong University and Joseph Wong, a lab manager at Hong Kong’s City University said:

“The graduates of this programme will grasp at least all major knowledge available in order to understand UFO phenomena, including various disciplines such as mathematics, physics, history, philosophy and also other technologies and any other skills related to UFOs.

"After students finish this degree, hopefully they will be able to apply their knowledge to the real world; they may have their own understanding about this universe. Maybe they will be able to come up with a new universe model, a new way of life, or whatever."

"For them, it is very important whether or not there really is a UFO that can fly. Through the process of investigating questions like this, helps the group understand more about themselves and our planet."

It is a common error to assume that the only question of interest provided by UFOlogy is whether UFOs represent alien intelligence. Putting aside the question of physical reality of UFOs, there have been studies of UFOs and UFO enthusiast subcultures from a folklore or anthropological perspective, and some feel the subject, at the very least, may provide new insights in the fields of psychology (both individual and social), sociology, and communications.

The UFO Club is not alone when studying UFOs as a science. Mainland China, which has had waves of mass UFO sightings since 2000, treats the topic of UFOs with an unexpected seriousness. The conservative state-run newspapers and television media often report UFO sightings. China has a bimonthly UFO magazine devoted to UFO research, The Journal of UFO Research, which was launched in February 1981, circulation 400,000 -. UFO buffs claim support from eminent scientists and liaisons with the secretive military, giving their work a scientific sheen of respectability.

China had its first massive UFO sighting on the night of July 24, 1981. It caused such pandemonium that the Astronomical Observatory of Zijingshan released a communique stating, “the population of 14 provinces in our country sighted this celestial phenomenon.”

UFOlogy, formerly a forbidden subject in this country of more than one billion people, has only recently emerged from the shadow of Chairman Mao when authorities in China lifted a ban on reporting UFO sightings in 1979. Modern research shows, however, that UFOs are not a new phenomenon in China. For thousands of years, Chinese have looked to the skies for portents of change on Earth, historical records cite strange celestial objects during the Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. There is even an old Chinese fairy tale where the emperor meets a ‘flying boat’ which looks surprisingly similar to the conventional image of a modern day UFO.

When the modern UFO era began 50 years ago in 1947, flying saucers were reported in China. However, they were quickly forgotten when the country was engulfed in a civil war. All mention of UFOs was strictly forbidden during Mao’s long reign, when China was mostly closed to foreign influences.

Chinese UFOlogy re-emerged in the late 1970s during Deng Xioping’s program of economic reforms. In November 1978, The People’s Daily finally gave the official green light for UFO reporting. Other reporters began to cover UFO news, and by 1980, a group of students from Wuhan University in Hebei province formed the China UFO Research Organization (CURO) and obtained moderate support from the National Academy of Social Sciences.

During the turn of the century (2000) China had its first eruption of UFO sightings; with over 500 reported sightings in 1999 alone and every year since then, the numbers have grown. Shen Shituan, honorary director of the China UFO Research Association (CURO - membership 50,000) believes that all UFO phenomena are worth researching. The Truth is that 95 to 99% of the sightings can be explained naturally, like airplanes or satellites, but a minority may be real UFOs and we should take them seriously

CURO’s president Shen Shituan, a (real) rocket scientist and president of Beijing Aerospace University believes that serious research into UFOs will help spur new forms of high-speed travel, unlimited sources of energy and faster-growing crops.

Others aren’t so sure, Geremie Barme, a Chinese culture watcher at Australia National University believes that China’s fascination with UFOs can be blamed on cultural beliefs, stating, While China was passing through its first millennium using the West’s Gregorian calendar, the traditional lunar calendar was ushering in the Year of the Dragon, regarded as time of tumultuous change.

People in China and Asia in general, are more open to believe in the supernatural. That sort of millennial fear and trepidation fits in so nicely with Chinese cosmology - and also the Hollywood millennium propaganda that everybody has been lapping up.

Another theory going around is that aliens may find China attractive for the same reason foreign investors and tourists do. Generally, well-developed areas like the United States have reported more sighting UFO activity than any other country. It is very possible that relatively rapid development attracts investigations by flying saucers, and China has been going through a phase of rapid development over the last few years.

In Beijing, a dedicated group of enthusiasts forming the core membership of the Beijing UFO Research Association are on constant alert, ready to move out and investigate observations of mysterious phenomena in the night sky. They take photos, record videos and interview witnesses, all in the interest of addressing the issue from a scientific point of view. As it has in most other areas of human endeavor, China is also an emerging force to be reckoned with in UFOlogy.

Though it has been disregarded in the past as the work of quacks, UFOlogy has started to gain respectability in the scientific communities of countries in the western world. A formal survey of the American Astronomical Society revealed that a majority of those who responded to the survey thought that UFOs deserved scientific study, and were willing to contribute their time and expertise to such studies.

The legitimacy of UFOlogical research will a hot topic on September 8- 10 when top experts from around the world gather in Dalian, China when the International Chinese UFO Association holds one of the first international meetings on UFOlogy and UFO research.

So whether you believe in UFOs or not, the world scientific community is starting to realize that there are answers behind the UFO mythology and the applications of those answers could soon change the way we live our life down here on Earth.

Remember, the realistic chances of anyone seeing a UFO is quite remote, however, you can attend a sky-watch and learn more about what naturally flies around in the sky and discover the source of many a reported UFO sighting. Contact the Hong Kong UFO Club to learn more on sky-watching and UFOs in general, visit the HK UFO Club’s website at http://www.ufo.org.hk/ or send an Email to the HK UFO Club at [email protected]

‘UFOlogy’ Appreared in Urban Soul Magazine Issue 5
Copyright 2005 Patrick Morais All Right Reserved

source
 
I hope those kids in China don't get into any trouble. The Chinese government is prone to violent mood swings, what is tolerated today, can get you an appointment with a firing squad tomorrow. It was just a few years ago that they had old Randi over to help whip up persecution hysteria:

link

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA170112000

:cry:
 
Chinese scientists 'filmed UFO for 40 minutes'
The UFO world is alive with speculation that China is about to reveal details of startling and detailed footage of an unidentified flying object taken during the solar eclipse on July 22.
Published: 10:08AM BST 07 Sep 2009

Scientists at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing are reported to have confirmed that they filmed a UFO during the eclipse for 40 minutes. They say that they will spend the next 12 months studying the footage before drawing any conclusions.

The director of the observatory, Ji Hai-sheng, told sina.com that scientists would not be speculating publicly on the nature of what was captured on film until it had been properly studied.

He added:"'Purple Mountain Observatory and Chinese Academy of Sciences said that during the July 22 total solar eclipse observation, China had discovered near the sun, by observing staff, an unidentified object, it's physical nature remains to be further studied.

"Currently manpower is being organized to deal with this data, complete the data analysis and reveal the scientific results and this will take at least one year's time to finalise."

The incident follows a series of UFO sightings in China which culminated in an object being captured on film by students in Deqing. The footage, which was featured on Chinese television, appears to show the object repeatedly changing shape after initially appearing as a glowing blue sphere.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... nutes.html

[Includes video which would be more informative if you understand Chinese!]
 
Well spotted Rynner, this really is very interesting. I watched a few Chinese news blurbs on youtube and it seems to be too widespread to be a hoax. I'm surprised the Chinese powers haven't tried to keep it quiet, atleast until they've studied it enough to come up with a definitive explanation. I originally was going to say it's a shame that the "evidence" is under Chinese control, but I don't know if supposed Western liberalism would have been any more open.
 
As others have mentioned, two stories have been merged into one (chinese whispers eh?) Apparently the observatory saw something unusual near the sun during the total eclipse. Then this story has been taken and merged with an old clip of a mylar balloon drifting around.
 
Yes. Also, the whole "40 minutes of footage/12 months to analayse" refers to the eclipse data captured. Nothing to do with UFO footage at all.
 
Interesting photos here:

Chinese airport closed after fiery UFO is spotted flying over city
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:58 AM on 10th July 2010

A Chinese airport was closed after this mysterious object was spotted in the sky.
Arcing over Zhejiang's provincial capital Hangzhou, the UFO appeared to glow with an eerie white light and left a bright trail in its wake.
Xiaoshan Airport was closed after the UFO was detected at around 9 pm and dozens of flights had to be diverted.

Stunned witnesses reported seeing a comet-like fireball in the sky and a number of local residents took photos of the strange ball of light.
A local bus driver, giving his name only as Yu, said he had seen a strange glowing object in the sky late on Wednesday afternoon.
'The thing suddenly ran westwards fast, like it was escaping from something,' he said.

Inbound flights were diverted to nearby airports while outbound flights were delayed for three to four hours.

Some Chinese experts claimed that the strange sight was actually debris from a US intercontinental ballistic missile.
Chinese officials later said that they knew what the object had been but were unable to make it public because there was a 'military connection.'
An official statement is expected later today.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0tH0pB51k
 
The second image reminds me of the Norwegian Spiral, without the spiralling.

There's also a video here:
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo ... __July__9/

Edit: PS. Video has overly-dramatic music!

I reckon rocket launch. Why rockets are suddenly producing amazing light shows though, I don't know.

Also, I'm not convinced that the two images are related. They seem to show different things to my eye.
 
Fascinating video!

About 40 sec in, the shape of the 'cloud' changes as if something is just breaking the sound barrier, cf
http://www1.airliners.net/photo/USA---A ... 0252881/L/

But vapour effects can ccur at lower speeds:
http://www1.airliners.net/photo/British ... 6/0979746/

I'm not convinced that the two images are related. They seem to show different things to my eye.
True, but both your video link and the newspaper report include both images, so they must be linked somehow in the source data.

I'm wondering if we will ever see the'official statement'...
 
That certainly wasn't a "UFO" but a rocket. Probably an experimental rocket gone wrong - maybe they are using some new engine technology that produces these light effects?

I don't think we'll ever see the outcome of these investigations - too bad.
 
Zilch5 said:
That certainly wasn't a "UFO" but a rocket. Probably an experimental rocket gone wrong - maybe they are using some new engine technology that produces these light effects?
But the 'rocket' flight only appeared to take a couple of minutes or so - why was the airport closed down for so long? ("outbound flights were delayed for three to four hours")

In fact, why carry out secret tests so near a commercial airport anyway?
 
If it was an errant ICBM, they (whoever "they" are) may have had very little control over where the missile ended up. I doubt it was the US. More likely, it was the Chinese and they just didn't want to admit publicly that one of their missiles failed.

If it was a catastrophic failure, they may have kept the airport shut down so that any falling debris would have a chance to come down. Nothing says "bad day" like an airliner colliding with a burnt-out rocket booster.

In any event, I don't think there's anything terribly mysterious about this. Seems it was just a very expensive fireworks display.

S
 
In watching the video it appears to have been taken shortly after sunset (edit: Yep... Around 21:00 according to the report). I would guess that the brightly-lit hazy contrail is simply being backlit by the sun from beyond the horizon.
 
The beginning of the trail certainly looks like the normal kind of rocket trail, albeit somewhat bright (lit by the sunlight, as per LazarusMP?). The greenish hue reminds me a lot of an intense aurora (though it could be the colour settings on my monitor). If that was the mechanism at play, there'd perhaps be some reddish hues too due to the oxygen at higher altitude.

The fluidity of it reminds me of videos of plasma in a magnetic field (however wouldn't a plasma "plume" dissipate much, much quicker?)

All-in-all, I'm not sure what to think.
For me, the strangest thing is that suddenly we seem to be getting more of these light-shows than ever before (or are we? have there been displays like this reported in the past but explained as something else, or not explained at all?)

It could be rockets, and it's just that we've not really been so aware of these effects in the past due to the lack of a worldwide network spreading the information as fast, with video evidence.
On the other hand, it could be that "It was a rocket" is the "It was Venus" of the current time.

The airport being closed could well be due to the Chinese government wanting to minimise fallout (politically, socially and possibly literally?) however, closing an airport is something not to be taken lightly as it would certainly draw attention, which would suggest they had good reason.

With regards to the possible breaking of the sound barrier at about 40 seconds, it could also just be an interruption in the out-gassing.
Think of a tap running into a sink with the plug in; if the flow from the tap is smooth, the surface of the water in the bowl isn't disturbed much, but if there's an air bubble in the flow, it causes the flow to be disrupted and after the interruption you get lots of ripples. Maybe it's something like that.

As I said, I'm really not sure.
There's a lot of questions and no truly satisfactory answers.
To quote Patrick Moore (although I'm not sure he'd want to comment on something such as this - maybe we should ask him?) "We just don't know!"
 
THE "PROBABLY TRUE" STORY SO FAR...

Here is what I have gathered from a week of Internet snooping.

There were two separate UFO incidents in China during the past weeks:

1. The Urumqi incident on June 30, 2010, covered, or should I say "covered up" here by the official Chinese press: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001 ... 54799.html
This "news" story uses a picture of the launching of a Russian refueling missile of the International Space Station on the same day in Kazakhstan (see: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Rus ... n_999.html ; also see: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... -no/60044/ ), 1,250 miles away, as visual evidence of the Urumqi UFO. It also blames the Americans for firing a missile from California (!!!) to an undisclosed target 7,000 km away for the confusion - which simply boggles the mind. This "official" story barely holds together.

2. The Hangzhou airport incident (July 7, 2010) that closed down the entire airport. Only one legitimate photo of this incident exists and it is analyzed here as a possible sighting of a Chinese DF-21 rocket fired from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre: http://forden.armscontrolwonk.com/archi ... light-show

The actual photo:

1852.jpg


This would tend to suggest that the Urumqi incident (much closer to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre) could also be a "covered up" DF-21 rocket fired from the same location a week earlier and along the same trajectory. Jiuquan is only 631 miles away from Urumqi and 1,384 miles away from Hangzhou on a direct line between those two cities. As Urumqi is also approximately 1,255 miles from the launch site in Kazakhstan, it is also possible that the Russian missile would have been visible from that city but there is no confirmation of this and it seems equally possible at this point that the later (conspicuously excellent ) video source is an official film of the Kazakhstan launch obtained by China through official channels and leaked to western media. (Here is a homemade Russian-language video of the same launch uploaded on YouTube on June 30, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iruc2SXYHcU )

It is impossible to further hypothesize on the Urumqi UFO without knowing the exact trajectory of the Kazakhstan rocket, but I think it is fair to say the California rocket can be eliminated at this point as a source of the sighting. 8)

_40484371_china_urumqi_map203.gif


As for the "other" pictures, the ones that appear all over YouTube, they are of two kinds:

1. Photoshopped pictures of what looks like a neon light tied to some kind of red plank and emitting mysterious rays. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-h7DaJC ... re=related
These fakes were first used in the Sun story on the subject: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... space.html
The US network Fox News (also owned by Rupert Murdoch) used the same pictures and presented them as genuine. Fox News never retracted the pictures, which were exposed as fakes by another US network, CNN, earlier this week.

2. This Sun and Fox News story also used, for the first time in the West, the video footage of the Kazakhstan launch (first used by the Chinese in their Urumqi cover-up) as video "evidence" of the Hangzhou incident (3,266 miles away from the launch site and a week after the launch).

From this point on, the trail is incredibly muddled and made worse by the totally moronic and idiotic nature of the YouTube posters, commentators and "true believers" and the sloppy investigative work of so-called journalists. I tried to correct some of those misinterpretations by posting this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzk6hmq9ovo .

But here are the (OK, my) general conclusions:

1. The Chinese press and government covered up the launching of one and possibly two DF-21 missiles visible from Urumqi and Hangzhou on June 30, 2010, and July 7, 2010. They used a picture of the Russian rocket of June 30, 2010, as part of the first cover-up, and video footage of the same launch as part of the second cover-up. For the debunking of the rocket launch video, see; http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... -no/60044/ .

2. The Sun and Fox News used the mislabeled Russian footage for their story on Hangzhou and added for good measure the photoshopped pictures of what looks like a neon tube tied to a plank, which may or may not be of Chinese origin. This last point is hard to ascertain as even the most serious news organizations have a tendency to automatically resort to photoshopped and/or stock illustrations every time the headline contains the word "UFO". For the debunking of the "neon tied to a plank" photoshopped pictures (probably time-lapse exposure photos of a helicopter with a stobe light on its roof and a seach light on its underside flying over some Western- or British - urban landscape), see: http://www.aolnews.com/article/space-ex ... d/19560026 .

3. There is probably only one genuine picture of the Hangzhou UFO (see above), which was used by Geoffrey Forden to demonstrate that the Hangzhu fuss could have been caused by the sighting of a Chinese DF-21 missile from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, which may or may not have been the origin of the Urumqi sighting a week earlier as well.

Here is a map showing the probable trajectory of the July 7, 2010 missile as seen from Hangzhu put together by Geoffrey Forden on his blog ( http://forden.armscontrolwonk.com/archi ... light-show ):

1851.jpg


It's all very simple, really, once you take into account (1) the Chinese need to cover up their own mistakes and/or nefarious purposes and (2) the insatiable and irresponsible greed of the Rupert Murdoch empire and its willingness to provide unverified sensationalistic pseudo-information to a hungry, gullible public without any scruple or shame. :)
 
A slighly less encouraging twist...

James (Jim) Oberg, professional skeptic, emits doubts about the authenticity of the "contrail in the sunset" photo from Hangzhou that Geoffrey Forden bases his DF-21 theory on. He commented on Forden's blog ( http://forden.armscontrolwonk.com/archi ... light-show ):

The problem with connecting the top photo with the airport event is the solar illumination condition. Local sunset was about 7:02 PM local time. An hour later, the sky is dark and rockets or satellites may remain sunlit, but not aircraft or their contrails. One has to ask, how would a naive observer in the city be prompted to take a photo BEFORE the UFO was reported, and even recognize that such a photo was relevant once they had heard of the report, later? If any of those images really IS from the day of the event, they were probably random tourist photos later examined for anything unusual in the sky.

1852.jpg


While a missile ID is a reasonable going-in conjecture (one of many), there remains no other reports of such an event on that date and time, and the observation conditions across vast stretches of China were ideal for eyewitness detection.

We still don’t have raw eyewitness accounts of the airport event. Whether there was one light or many, what azimuth/elevation it was seen at, or whether it was moving across the sky or not, or steady or twinkling — nothing is reliably known.

I live in Toronto, where sunset illumination regularly lasts until 10 PM on a July night, a.k.a. Canadian sunset. But, of course Toronto is 43 degrees of latitude North and Hangzhou only 30 degrees North, and the sun sets quicker there.

Be that as it may, Jim Oberg opines toward the classic "the pilot saw the planet Venus at the end of the runway" explanation.
 
A Chinese perspective on the Urumqi June 30, 2010 incident

This website ( http://www.comhaha.com/blog/502544-xinj ... ctivities/ ) publishes a kind of logbook of rocket and missile observations in China in a very bad English translation.

From what I can make out, it starts with the June 30, 2010 sighting of a rocket in Urumqi (Xinjiang region), China (a week before the Hangzhou incident). The author seems to be saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that it couldn’t have been an American missile fired in the Pacific (or over the Pacific, it’s not clear) and that it most certainly had to be a rocket fired from the Kazakhstan launch site, 1,255 miles away from Urumqi. The official Chinese press release about that incident does show a photo of what is arguably the Kazakhstan rocket – when compared to other available videos of that event (see: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001 ... 54799.html ).

No mention, of course, of the possibility of a Chinese DF-21 rocket fired from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, just 631 miles away from Urumqi…

This Chinese report doesn't mention the Hangzhou incident, possibly because it was published before it happened, but it is dated July 13, 2010 (six days after the Hangzhou incident).
 
James Oberg added the following on July 26, 2010 ( http://forden.armscontrolwonk.com/archi ... light-show ):

Chinese ‘official report’ released today, dismisses famous ‘light smear’ photo as aircraft unconnected with sighting, doesn’t mention other images of small lights leaving contrails, admits cluelessness about cause of original pilot report of light over airport, and displays unrelenting garble and confusion.

In other words, no progress.

But meanwhile, the absence of evidence for a DF-31 test launch diminishes in my view the likelihood of that suggestion. Without more specific eyewitness descriptions — appearance, motion, azimuth, etc.. — there are too many potential prosaic explanations to select from.

Investigation: UFO seen in Xiaoshan airport is aircraft
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001 ... 80675.html
14:58, July 26, 2010

Hangzhou’s UFO was definitely not aliens, experts say
Elaine Chow in News on July 26, 2010 10:00 AM
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/07/26/hangz ... not_al.php
 
Epilogue (or epitaph?):

It is perhaps worth noting that, exceptionally, at the begining of July 2010, three planets were visible in plain sight in the West at sunset: Venus, Mars and Saturn.

See these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXocFeXggTQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GptxHmyE ... re=channel

Quoting James Oberg again (from: http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/artic ... d/19560026 ) :

The China airport incident reminded Oberg of an early 2001 case in Barnaul, Siberia, where a UFO shut down an airport.

"A jet got to the end of the runway for takeoff when they reported a bright white light, like landing lights, also at the end of the runway," Oberg explained. "After a few minutes, it was still there, and the pilots reported it was hovering. Finally, it went away, and most people agree that the object in question was the planet Venus."

This may surprise you, but according to Oberg, who has written 10 books on all aspects of space flight, pilots might not be the best UFO eyewitnesses.

"One of the dirty little secrets of UFO witnessing is that pilots are, as a category, among the worst identifiers of celestial objects -- and this is in their own words.

"The reason for that is that pilots, to fly safely, have to interpret visual stimuli as dangerous so they can react quickly, rather than sit there and speculate what the light might be."

In his lectures on space safety (and the principle of spaceflight safety as it applies to aviation) given to the National Transportation Safety Board, Oberg says it's confirmed what he felt about pilot reports on UFOs.

"Investigators are very reluctant to take testimony from pilots as witnesses because the pilot has an analytical mind and is trying to solve or understand the sequence of events, and will edit or stress or leave out elements of his raw perceptions that are inconsistent with the way he's interpreted the sequence.

"We're left with having to slice away most of what people thought they knew about the event and come back to the fact that there was something visually seen -- at least by the flight crew -- that worried the traffic control into not knowing what was over the airport."
 
Back
Top