300 million habitable planets in our Milky Way galaxy, say scientists

 https://uk.yahoo.com/news/300-million-habitable-planets-163743646.html

Some of these potential planets are also very close to Earth, relatively speaking, with the closest likely to be a mere 20 light years away. (Getty)

There are at least 300 million habitable planets in the Milky Way, new NASA research has shown – hinting that it’s less likely that humanity is alone in the universe.

Research based on scans by NASA’s retired planet-hunting Kepler telescope suggest that about half the stars similar in temperature to our sun could have a rocky planet capable of having liquid water on its surface.

That means the planets could potentially harbour life, scientists believe.

Some of these potential planets are also very close to Earth (relatively speaking) with the closest likely to be a mere 20 light years away.

Four are within 30 light years of Earth, the researchers say.

"Kepler already told us there were billions of planets, but now we know a good chunk of those planets might be rocky and habitable," said the lead author Steve Bryson, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

"Though this result is far from a final value, and water on a planet's surface is only one of many factors to support life, it's extremely exciting that we calculated these worlds are this common with such high confidence and precision."

The researchers say that there could be many, many more than 300 million habitable planets, according to the research published in the Astronomical Journal.

These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7% of sun-like stars host such worlds.

However, at the average expected rate of 50%, there could be many more.

For the purposes of calculating this occurrence rate, the team looked at exoplanets between a radius of 0.5 and 1.5 times that of Earth's, narrowing in on planets that are most likely rocky.

The study is based on observations by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

This new finding is a significant step forward in Kepler's original mission to understand how many potentially habitable worlds exist in our galaxy.

Previous estimates of the frequency, also known as the occurrence rate, of such planets ignored the relationship between the star's temperature and the kinds of light given off by the star and absorbed by the planet.

The new analysis accounts for these relationships, and provides a more complete understanding of whether or not a given planet might be capable of supporting liquid water, and potentially life.

That approach is made possible by combining Kepler's final dataset of planetary signals with data about each star's energy output from an extensive trove of data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission.

"We always knew defining habitability simply in terms of a planet's physical distance from a star, so that it's not too hot or cold, left us making a lot of assumptions," said Ravi Kopparapu, an author on the paper and a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Gaia's data on stars allowed us to look at these planets and their stars in an entirely new way."

"Not every star is alike," said Kopparapu. "And neither is every planet.

Ufology Needs To Get Into The Real World

 

 I think, before I let this blog go, I need to make my position clear on certain points especially since certain Ufologists keep telling outright lies (some of this may be due to mental instability on their part).

I do not believe that an extra terrestrial space craft crashed anywhere in Wales. Samples of material I had turned out to have mundane origins -as I noted in Some Things Strange & Sinister. Margaret Fry was fully aware of my explanation and I have the correspondence to prove this. Cover ups and a "not of this Earth" material claims were all her own and based on anything but fact.

I am an "MI5 stooge"/"Security Service plant". Again, pure fantasy. I hyave never been in any military ser4vice. I never held the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy nor of Captain or Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force and I was certainly not a Captain in the British Army -all to conduct a secret investigation into UFOs.

I have worked with people who have been in the military and other services just a I have worked with biologists, geographers, aeronautical engineers and astronomers. These are or were all private and unofficial.

I do not believe that either the United Kingdom or United States and certainly not Russia or China have ever had a captured/crashed extra terrestrial craft. What branches of intelligence services do and why is beside the matter. 

In my work on relic British wild cats the Royal Air Force were very helpful and communicative.  When it came to the case of the 'ghost lear jet' (Some Things Strange and Sinister) I receive above and beyond the standard response from the Ministry of Defence. 

When it comes to the subjecxt of UFOs all parties have been fairly straight on the matter and it is important to understand to constraints of the various riules and regulations at work. We have seen how a witness to a UFO sighting can have Ufologists barrage them with phone call, turn up on their doorstep or even get the press involved. Statring constantly that the MoD is using "the Official Secrets Act" to hide things is silly. The data protection act is quite binding -I know because I had to work within its constraints. 

Why is everyone surprised that, despite no defence implications, the intelligence services of various countries still maintain an interest and investigation capacity?  Defence and Intelligence agencies are there not to just prepare for any possible conflict to defend their respective countries.  Just because something (in this case not proven to be extra terrestrial) shows no hostility on a Monday does not mean that it will maintain that stance on Wednesday. "Remember Pearl Harbor!" is not just a war time slogan but has far deeper meaning and if you do not know that then study history.

Radar, satellite and many other means are used by the military-intelligence services to keep an eye on things and a snippet of information such as "The Russians are trying to find out what UFOs are" help in assessing things.  A great deal of equipment used is still unknown to the public (who probably do not care) as well as potential enemies.  Why won't anyone tell us what was discussed at defence oversight meetings? You have to be dense not to know the answer to that.

From the very outset of my own work in the 1970s, when everyone was paranoid and discussing how the MoD wanted to get at their reports, I made it very clear in public and elsewhere that what they needed to do was forward copies of reports to the MoD. I once shocked a UFO conference in the 1970 by announcing that "My work may be private but why would the MoD spy on me when all they have to do is ask for any data they were interested in?" What were Ufologists doing with that data other than putting it in newsletters? 

The Defence and Intelligence communities are not youyr enemies. They may use UFOs a a cover for aircraft or drone testing but that is to be expected.

Personally, I am very happy to see official interest in the conbtinued study of UFOs and my guess is that they know about as much as Ufologists -though some technical data/analysis would be beyond civil;ian groups.

There. I never believed that USAF or US Navy interest in UFOs had stopped (it was well known that it had never stopped) and no doubt in 10 years someone will reveal (again) that it is still ongoing.

Ufology and Ufologits need to grow up and look at the real world once in a while.

Dionisio Llanca -updated

 In 1980 Flying Saucer Review published a lengthy article on the 1973 Dionisio Llanca (alleged) UFO abduction case.

Since then bits and pieces of that article have been used online -most modern Ufologists seem to have no idea about the case.

That's it.

What happened to Llanca? Was the case ever proven not to have happened? Where is Llanca now?

If anyone has any information or links please get in touch.

Thank you.

addendum

The fact that Llanca was said to be "paid for standing by" to appear where ever a mysterious backer wanted him to should not be taken out of context.

Firstly, I need to point out that FSR and its Editor -Bowen- and conbtributor later editor -Creighton- were very prejudiced in how they described someone. In the main if you were someone from a country in Soputh America you were ill educated, semi literate if literate in any way. In report after report from the 1960s on it is over stressed just how "primitive" /"ignorant"/ "illiterate or ""introverted" witnesses were. In the case of Llanca the term "a savage" was used several times in the FSR article.  This is, in fact, a form of ethnic prejudice (I don't use the word "racism" because there is only the human race so prejudice is against ethnic or regional types).  

Oh,  how ignorant Antonio Villas Boas was. Hardly able to read, would not be able to understand anything in articles about UFOs etc etc etc.  This was a lie. It was known by Bowen and Creighton (Creighton doing the translating work) just how literate Boa was -as detailed in UFO Contact? he rose to a very prominent position and in the 1975 report on The Anthropomorphic Phenomena at Santa Isabel (FSR21/2 ) we read of the semi literate and introverted workers (all of the apparently).

Boas was no dope but this is FSRs legacy: everyone fropm a Latin American country is a dope unless they are persons of high standing in which case their credentials were fawned over and then came "Why would they lie with so much to loose?".

I think it fair to write that in Llanca's case he was not highly educated but was certainloy no dope. He would be put in the class of person who has a certain routine and life-style and never really veers from it (oh, being ill educated he is, obviously, a lazy sod as FSR points out). Why repair that tyre and make more work for yourself? He would not be the first driver I've known who did this! Llanca was/is basically an everyday working person in 1973.

It was claimed that "despite the time, he says he still wears marks on his body" and I believe that quote is from 1980 but I have no definitive source. His family shunned him because "he would not work" -he had been pulled into some financial deal that was not that rewarding for him. His personal relationship seems to have suffered. In fact, it looks as though Llancaq was sufgfering some form of post traumatic stress. This quote says everything and echoes the words of many other alleged UFO abduction percipients:

"If that night happened to me again, I wouldn't tell anyone. It did me a lot of harm, they defamed and used me,"

Was Llanca abducted by aliens (forget the alien cover story because I have never really given that credibility and some doubt was cast on early hypnosis used on him ("question that offered the answers"). The problem is that this could have been some altered state experience because there was only one percipient. Were others seeing UFOs in the area at the time? That adds some addition but coincidental evidence.

It could have been a genuine case. Only if we were there at the time could we say and that is not going to happen so we go by what we read. That doctors checked every aspect and looked at different possibilities but cxould offer no explanation is interesting.

Llancxa became a guinea pig and then an object to make money from with no real consideration for him as a human being. Genuine alien abduction or altered state the effect on him and on his life were real.

Sheppey "Space Ape"

 I have added a couple of reports that really do require more detail o if anyone can help let me know

Sadly, I no longer have the letter from RAF Manston but if you have heard of the 1979 Sheppey, Kent "Space Ape" report it was one I looked into. I contacted RAF Manston and asked whether anything odd had been picked up by radar on the night in question as a "UFO" had been reported.  The type-written reply stated thaty Manston had received a repoprt of a UFO and that radar had detected an object in the area in question.

This letter and the file was destroyed (deliberately) by a member of the UFO International group. It seems that uch a confirmation gave weight to the "space ape" report and they were not having that.

I believbe the letter was from Squadron Leader Chris Lemon -I can give that much out since the 35 year confidentiality rule ran out "a while ago"!

It would be nice to see if anyone had more information on the report at that time.

Todmorden, W Yorkshire November 1980

 Another case that needs far more information (it is tempting to cxlass it as a dream experience -and I am ALWAYS suspicious when certain location names crop up) is this one (Northern UFO News, NUFON, U-K., #141, February 1990):

END NOVEMBER 1980, TODMORDEN, WEST YORKSHIRE, U-K.

It was reported in a ufology bulletin of Northern England that near Todmorden, England, on late November 1980, at 01:00 a.m., a witness who was living in a rural farm area suddenly awoke from a deep sleep.

She then saw an orange light shining through her window and attempted to wake her husband but he did not respond. Looking outside, she saw that the light came from an oval shaped object, surrounded by a white halation, hovering in a nearby field.

She then suddenly found herself outside of the farmhouse sitting on the grass, looking at the object and three figures standing next to it. The figures were described as five-feet tall and wearing black colored diving suits. They stood in the shadows near a farm building.

She then found herself back in her bed attempting to wake up her husband.

The next day several of the chickens in the coop were found dead by the witness son.

KESTON PONDS, KENT, U-K 1981

 If anyone has anymore information on this case please get in touch so that it can be assssed -Thanks!

6th MAY, 1981, KESTON PONDS, KENT, U-K.

US author and sensationalist ufologist Gray Barker apparently reported in 1982 that on May 6, 1981 at an hour not specified, at a pond in Keston, U-K., two schoolgirls saw a figure wearing a cloak, a dark pointed hat and a circles of lights at its lower half, and this is all there seems to be about it.

Spanish CE3K/AE file

 Having updated the file for France and Belgium I found a couple other French reports so those were printed out and added to the file.  

Then came the updating of the Spanish file. I used up half a ream of copier paper, had to refill the ink cartridge twice (hence my black smudged fingers) as well as sort out printer jam but I have finally finished at 1900 hrs.

The photo hows the darker (plastic wallets with entries) older file pages. The cleaner chunk of pages are today's work.

Some very interesting reports, too.

Update -The Salamanca Incident | U.S. Intelligence Tracks CE3K Reports

I think that some of the rather pedestrian comments in this video need dealing with. If you have never dealt with the military or authorities on a regular basis then you have no idea what i going on. If you ever studied military or intelligence history then you would know how things work.

Blue Book closed and stated that there was no evidence of a threat by UFO to the defence of the United States. Both Dr J Allen Hynek and Leonard H Stringfield told my late colleague Franklyn A Davin-Wilson that Blue Book had not ended the US military interet in UFOs. We knew that. There were magazine articles and even book giving 'the' code name of thi project -all of them were incorrect because this was the Ufological rumour mill and look at "Disclosure" -every year since 1999 I've heard how "This is it! Thi is the year we get UFO disclosure!"  Nothing.

In 1958 Lt General James M ("Jumpin' Jim") Gavin had a book published: War and Peace in the Space Age. Gavin looked at -as the title states- war in the space age and did not touch on the subject of UFOs, however, as US Army Missile Chief he would have been aware and probably saw reports. I often wonder whether he actually considered the possibility of hostiles from space.

Let's just step back from all the UFOs used as cover-up stories for aircraft and mi9ssile teting or even for secret aircraft test flights that reulted in a crash. Even i9f someone in the military or intelligence services thought UFOs and flying saucers a heap of hogwash there was always "Remember Pearl Harbor" and what happened there ingrained into their thinking. What might appear to show no threat to the United States on Monday may well attack it on Wednesday.

Even adopting the "It's all a natural but unknown natural phenomena" stance the military or intel;ligence community would have to question certain cases: Socorro, New Mexico, 1964 like a few other cases, had physical traces left behind -and when M. Maurice Masse had his encounter at Valensole, France, a few months later there were physical traces and when Masse was shown a phopto of a model of the Socorro UFO he was very  excited because someone had photographed the object he saw....two objects that looked the same and left physical traces but seperated by thousands of miles.

Marius Dewilde had an encounter that left physical evidence at Quarouble, Nord, France in 1954. Official French investigators ran all the checks and tests. Unexplained. 

I could go on because there is the Linke case that took place in Germany that we know the Central Intelligence Agency noted as well as US Air Force.  Here is where the "explain-it-all-away" natural phenomenon falls flat.  As a young man I knew that lights flashing about the skies could be anything because they were just lights.  However, how could I dismiss reports of seemingly solid, constructed objects? One witness -hoax? Two witnesses -still possible hoax.  Several people observing the objects and traces left.

To me, the very first question had to be "Who is flying these things?" Most UFO groups or saucer fan I spoke to responded "We have no idea"...unless they were leaning toward the contactee stories.  Blond-haired, tall, peace-loving "Nordic" type aliens or even visitors from Saturn, Venus, Mars and Jupiter -even at that point in time (I note there are still followers of this trash in 2020) we knew that Venus and Jupiter would not have supported humanoid life forms. Our interest should not dwell on thi matter, however.

Betty and Barney Hill were mostly dismissed for various reasons including that they were "mixed race" -as far as I know, however, both were human!   You accepted the Adamski type aliens or shut up and I was never good at shutting up. Luckily, people like Norman Oliver existed in British ufology who were willing to look at these accounts sensibly.

I still had my doubts but in 1977, under the guise of "Project Fort" I gathered every UFO report I could find from newspapers, magazines, UFO journals and books and as this was by hand within the space of a week I had thousands of slips of paper with reports that needed categorising. In  three days something became very obvious. In fact so obvious that I went through the process of analysing the reports a second btime....then a third time.  The result were the same every time.

there were three clear categories:

1. Insufficient data and dubious reports -many of these.

2. Some form of unscientifically investigated natural phenomenon/na -what I termed UNP

3. Clearly seen and described and obviously solid, constructed objects. Even if I dismissed single witness accounts I could not do so with multiple witnesses -who in many cases were unconnected and spread over an area.

Obviously, for me, Category 3 was a problem. I had proven that noted Ufologists were not just faking or altering accounts to make things seen "UFOs" but they had for over thirty years carried out no analysis of reports.  This is why the results of my work seriously concerned me. Vallee, Michel and, yes, even Hynek (who had at least categorised encounter types but took it no further) had not gone through the process of taking all the reports and categorisiung them to come up with the same results as I had and yet they were in perfect positions to do so.

Category 1 could be dismissed since most of the reports were of stars, planets, aircraft lights or hoaxes.

Category 2 I found a huge data base of cases for.

Category 3 I tried and tried to find solutions for. 

My late colleague Franklyn had told me that for research you must never depend on one source: "Find a second source and see what it says. Then look for a third and a fourth and if you can always contact the person who made the report"  This is why cases in my books will often have multiple sources as references.

I looked at all the For and Against arguments in cases. Despite everything said about the Hills and their "motives" it seemed as solid a case as you could wish for based on the fact that only they were percipients.

In UFO Contact? I looked at the "Classics" as well as cases previously dismissed by Ufologists -mainly because they were not looking at or considering the psychological aspects involved. Reports were to be millked for publicity and profit -Dr R. Leo Sprinkle shines out as someone who was more interested in the people than profit.  The Lorenzens were happy to hypnotise away or pump someone with scapolamine. 

The one thing that came across in every case was the psychological stress percipients underwent and how, had it not been for Ufologists inappropriate action and breaches of confidentiality these people were just going to get on with their lives. 

Single alleged percipient could be dismissed. The who "Grey" hysteria coul;d be dismissed since those involved in 'investigation' were far from unbiased or even willing to "stack evidence" in their favour.

But this is the point: if you have these seemingly solid reports of strange craft that you know do not belong to you and certainly nothing to do with the Soviets/Russians then who do they belong to and just who/what is flying them?

Military/Intelligence are obviously going to ask those questions after looking at the reports and I have no doubt what-so-ever that there are cases they have investigated and talked to the percipients and, one hopes, they would at least give those percipients the help they need especially if neither party want the story getting out.

Even then it is likely that they would not know more than Ufologists.  I have known military people interested in UFO reports and who even discuss ones they knew of and we all asked the same question: Who? Where from? Why?  The fact is that the resources available to the military/intelligence community are far superior than anything a civilian Ufologist (or me) have.

Yes, I would love to see those reports but I won't.  However, it shows that the official bodies are doing what they should be doing: looking at all the reports to assess the situation. I would be far more shocked if I had been told these people were not gathering information and studying the reports!

It's [Redacted] produce some interesting videos but their agenda(s) and lack of real world knowledge seems to problematic at time: either you are just going to present facts with educated speculation that you can back up by citing cases or just leave the speculati9ng to the viewer.

Schoonaarde, Belgium (0008) 1t January, 1979

 One of the good things about Ufology in the 1970s-1980s was that most communication was by letter and whether it was Werner Walter in Germany, Rudy De Groote in Belgium etc we got to know of any pecial interests in the subject. Rudy, like Werner, knew that I wa interested in any and all reports of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien Entities.

In a covering letter with the Studiegroup Progressieve Wetenschappen's UFO Info publication for June 1979, Rudy said the Scoonaarde report ought to interest me and that omeone had volunteered to translate it from the Dutch (that in Belgium having some differences from the Dutch spoken in the Nederlands) for me. Sadly, nothing came of that and my smattering of Dutch is definitely no good to carry out translation work!

There is a brief summary in English at the rear of the publication -thi tended to be a standard with a lot of non English Ufological publication back then.

I have searched the internet but have not even found the report mentioned (it will be after this post has been copied!).   The following are the detail given:

"Schoonaarde   On January 1t 1979, between 8 and 9 o'clock (0800-0900 hrs or 2000-2100 hrs?-TH)Johan Van Boven (10) sees two large beings (Michelin type) walking in mid air. They wear a metallic, shining suit and helmet.  From the oppoite direction a flying saucer with two domes (as per Aveyron, France, 1967 -TH) approaches. Both figures climb a mall ladder on the ide of the craft, then the UFO flie off in the direction of Wetteren.

"The credibility of this case has not yet been established. A second boy, Dimitri Clinck (13), who also witnessed the sighting, gives a contradictory account. Moreover Johan Van Boven refuse to meet the researchers. All details collected have been given by his mother."

The UFO Info item covers pp. 5-16 and I believe this is looking at activity at the time since what is summarised could not posibly take up that much space.  Maybe one day someone can translate the full article.

We are not told what the contradictions in account are and a 10 year old may use different term to a 13 year old.  One might expect a made up account to be of a single domed flying saucer yet Van Boven describes a double domed object of which there are a few but even asking a Ufologist to name the cases might not yield the answers. So double domed is interesting.

Then we have that "Michelin type" decription. The events at Warneton wa 6 years before in 1974 so would a 10 year old know about the case or the outfits decribed?

Add to thi the fact that this is not the most sensationalist of reports and I am sure a 10 year old could have come up with a better story. As for his not meeting researchers well, he was a 10 year old boy and the sighting (if genuine) would have been scary enough so to meet adults he did not know would have been scary.

Johan would be in his 40s now as would Dimitri and it would be interesting to see whether they stuck by their accounts or could give more details.

CE3K/Alien Entity Reports from Belgium

 Updating the French CE3K/AE file has stopped for the moment so thaty I can tidy up the Belgian file.  Much smaller but some interesting reports. Sadly, not all well detailed (these I have marked "+") since back in the 1970s-1980 most communication were by letter and when it came to giving details for summaries such as Contact UKs UFO Register the space was restricted.  

If anyone has fuller report summaries thaty they can forward then please get in touch.

Report list:

0001   Spring 1935        Malines, Antwerp       +

0002   August 1946       Sint Niklaas, Antwerp   +

0003   9th Oct 1954      Nr Huy                          +

0004   20th Mar 1973   Tarcienne, Namur         +

0005   Dec 1973          Vilvorde, nr Brussels  

0006   7th Jan 1974      Warneton

0007   8th Jun  1974     Warneton

0008   1st Jan 1979       Schoonaarde  +

That is the total number of known (in English language sources) of reports from Belgium and it would be interesting to find out more details regarding 0001-0004 and 0008. If any Belgian Ufologist can help it would be appreciated.