Is it a bird? Is it a plane? UFOs and non-human intelligence on earth

Pic: iStock

Some swear that the earth is being buzzed by non-human intelligence. Others vehemently deny it. Either way, everybody’s been talking about it. 

Particularly since former US Air Force officer and intelligence official, David Grusch, declared in recent weeks that the US government had retrieved the remains of several craft of ‘non-human’ origin.

Referencing UAP, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, Irish astronomer, Dr Eamonn Ansbro says: “I was aware of this over 30 years ago. Leonard Stringfield [ufologist] dedicated his life to researching crashed and retrieved craft. There are actually 70 in total worldwide.” 

Ansbro began his UAP research in 1990 when he learned that an astronomer had been receiving calls about ‘balls of light in the sky.’ “I had a meteoritical background, so initially I wasn’t thinking about UFOs,” he says.

“I was thinking it was some sort of atmospheric phenomenon that people were seeing. Twelve months later I realised something else was going on.” 

What influenced that conclusion? “The data. It wasn't just an Irish situation. I studied 30,000 reports from about 60 countries across the world, going back over 120 years. All had common characteristics. That convinced me that we were dealing with a phenomenon of some sort with an intelligence behind it. Today, we know that the situation regarding UFOs is no longer [just] a phenomenon. It’s a reality -- involving actual craft.” 

As we talk, Ansbro references his experience at a ‘The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Optical Spectrum’ (OSETI) conference in San Jose, more than 20 years ago. 

Asked how he was received, he replies: “I was ostracised. Some thought I was perpetrating a hoax on the community when I spoke about my research findings on surveillance of the earth by UFOs. There seemed to me to be categories of UFOs, and this was testable. So, I presented those findings -- with some difficulty mind you -- as I didn’t once mention UFOs.” 

Ansbro’s conversation is filled with interesting accounts of craft landings. “In 1977, there was an interaction with non-human intelligence in Northeastern Brazil. 

“This was ‘Operation Plate. Afterwards, it had quite an effect on some of the key military guys who had been brought in, even into their retirement.” 

“In Ruwa, Zimbabwe, dozens of children said they’d seen a UFO and large eyed beings beside the Ariel School in 1994,” he says.

Irish astronomer, Dr Eamonn Ansbro

Video footage of what happened when a BBC crew visited the students at the scene makes a thought-provoking watch, one that begs the ‘Are we alone?’ question.

Asked precisely that, chairman of Astronomy Ireland, David Moore, replies: “It’s a huge subject. One that has generated all kinds of things, from scientific studies to people who think they’ve seen things and get really emotional about that.” 

“Some people think biological life is just a stepping stone,” he says. “That we get to this level and then we crave machine intelligence, which then takes over the universe. They can certainly evolve a lot faster than we could. So maybe we are just the first. Maybe we are alone.” 

One thing Moore doesn't believe, is that there are ‘actual intelligent life-forms watching, interfering or interacting with the earth.’ 

“I’ve never seen them and I am out watching the skies quite a bit. There are lots of interesting things you see out there. But there’s never really hard evidence.” 

Describing some of the UFO reports that Astronomy Ireland has received down the years, he tells of ‘a bright light’ seen over County Offaly. 

“We’re ‘99 per cent certain that was an aircraft,” he says. Then, referencing headlines in 1993 about a UFO seen by thousands of people across Ireland and Spain, he says: “That was a Russian satellite.” 

When I ask what he believes the reported sightings and encounters are all about, he says that the late John Mack [Pulitzer prize winner and former head of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry] once asked him the same question.

“I think it’s about imbalance,” he says. “The universe knows nothing but balance. Society has disconnected itself from nature and the universe. I think this is why so many people have encounters with an intelligence that opens them up, wakes them up to the reality that there is a larger reality there; that is not the sort of fixed reality that people may imagine. That’s my take on it.” 

Interestingly, when speaking with the New York Times in 1994 about the many who contacted him, believing they might have been abducted by extraterrestrials, Mack said: “They don't want to believe it. It's the last thing they want. They want to be told that this is a dream, that this is even madness."

Asked for his take on the video footage that shows US pilots observing UAPs, Moore isn’t buying it. “I've seen those ‘scooting across the water at high speeds’ videos,” he says. 

”What doesn't impress me about them, is that they are just tiny dots. Now I’ve no idea what those pilots actually saw, but you never know how mundane the explanations might be.

“Looking at the recent military footage, it’s just a small black dot you see. So, at worst, I think that’s likely to be an indication of something - an artefact perhaps - in the system.” 

Would anything convince him otherwise? “What we need is for the advanced intelligent aliens to land in Washington DC. Outside the White House,” he laughs, “and literally do that ‘Take me to your leader’ thing. That, while the world’s TV cameras are filming.” 

As for Ansbro, he says that following a significant response from around the world, he’s updating his research model from 30 years ago. 

“There’s far more data now than there was when I first began working on this,” he says. “So, amongst other things, that’s what I’m pursuing now.”