By Nancy Atkinson
"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our
planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged
any member of the human race," Phil Larson from the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy reported on the WhiteHouse.gov website."In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye."
The petition calling on the government to disclose any knowledge of
or communication with extraterrestrial beings was signed by 5,387
people, and 12,078 signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from
the White House that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human
race.
“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses have come
forward with testimony confirming this extraterrestrial presence,” the
second petition states. “Opinion polls now indicate more than 50 percent
of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence
and more than 80 percent believe the government is not telling the truth
about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can
handle the truth.”
These petitions were sparked by an Obama administration initiative
called "We the People." Initially, the White House said staffers would
respond and consider taking action on any issue that received at least
5,000 online signatures within 30 days. The requirement has since been
raised to 25,000 signatures.
Larson stressed that the facts show there is no credible evidence of
extraterrestrial presence here on Earth. He pointed out that even though
many scientists have come to the conclusion that the odds of life
somewhere else in the universe are fairly high, the chance that any of
them are making contact with humans are extremely small, given the
distances involved.
"However, that doesn't mean the subject of life outside our planet isn't being discussed or explored," Larson wrote.
Larson mentioned that a scientific search for extraterrestrial
intelligence is keeping an “ear” out for signals from alien
civilizations, with none found so far. (He noted that this at first was a
NASA effort, but is now being funded privately.)
He added that the Kepler spacecraft is searching for Earthlike
planets in the habitable zones around other stars, and that the
Curiosity rover will launch to Mars this month to "assess what the
Martian environment was like in the past to see if it could have
harbored life."
Regarding any evidence for alien life, all anyone has now is
"statistics and speculation," Larson said. "The fact is we have no
credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth."
The Paradigm Research Group, one of the organizations promoting the
petitions, said that the response by a "low-level staffer" was unacceptable and that it would begin a new petition campaign.
Hello again,
and again my congratulations on your superb astrophotography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq01rj...You are clearly getting some images at almost the diffraction limit of
your telescope. In the very sharpest images there are hints of diffraction
rings visible on the edges of the satellites. That is of course the
absolute limit of optical performance, and is only rarely attained.
Interestingly, the process you have, of using a high-quality imaging
system, with fast read-out, and then selecting the rare `perfect' images
is something which has been developed and applied somewhat by one of my
colleagues here. You might like to look at our local web page presenting
some of this:
[link to http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/You might also be interested in a journal produced by the
MIT Lincoln Laboratory -- which is the group which has built some of the
things you are seeing. Much of what they do is what used to be the
Star wars project, which no doubt involves some of your objects. They
don't talk about the military satellites,
of course, but there are many dicussions of earth surveillance, and
related issues. It is distributed only to academic organisations, so
you may need to get your local library to borrow it, but you
may be able to get this (for free) from
Subscription Coordinator
Room---------4
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT
24--------eet
Lexington
MA 0240-9185
USA
G-----------ore FInstP ScD
Professor of Experimental Philosophy
Institute of Astronomy direct phone +--------------6
Cambridge University PA: S-------------rd
Ma----------------ad +-----------97
Cambridge CB----------------c.uk
UK
fax +4------------23
mobile +4------------------2
e-mail: gil----------------k;
[link to http:-------------k/
From:
Ge-----------------k)
Sent:
Sat 2/10/07 2:37 AM
To:
john lenard (sa---------------m)
Hi John,
thank you for the moon images: once again they show that you are an
excellent photographer.
There are of course many satellites in orbit, only a few of which are
anything to do with JPL, but these are readily seen by
astro-photographers like yourself all over the world.
You should just enjoy the excellence of your images, and make them
available as widely as is possible, through the public web-sites,
magazines, etc, so you can get the credit you deserve for your skills.
best regards
G-----------
Institute of Astronomy
www.--------------.uk
The Insitute of Astronomy is a department of the University of Cambridge
NEOShield European project that will assess
