Posted: January 19, 2007-1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs-© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A retired Air Force colonel who photographed mysterious, colorful lights hovering over western Arkansas last week has ignited a frenzy of interest in unexplained airborne phenomena, as WND has received numerous reports of similar sightings across the U.S., while a digital expert has filtered the pictures to reveal startling images of what he says could be the "pilot" of the unidentified craft.

"I believe these lights were not of this world, and I feel a duty and responsibility to come forward," said Col. Brian Fields, who spent nearly 32 years in the military piloting F-16 fighter jets. "I have no idea what they were."

As WND exclusively reported, Fields, 61, was at his Van Buren, Ark., home Jan. 9 when just before 7 p.m., he observed two intensely bright lights as he looked to the southeast close to the horizon.

"At first I thought they were landing lights from an aircraft," he said. "As I continued to observe them they began to slowly disappear, then suddenly one reappeared, followed by two, then three. On at least one occasion four or five appeared. Each time they would slowly fade and eventually disappear. This occurred several times and when they would reappear they might do so in differing numbers and in different positions, sometimes in a triangular shape, sometimes stacked on top of each other, sometimes line abreast, etc. When the objects appeared they might stay illuminated 10 or more minutes."

Fields' wife thought the lights may have been ground-based, but Fields says he's certain they were airborne.

"I'm certain it wasn't an aircraft [from Earth]," said Fields, who also ruled out the possibility of flares, saying they didn't descend like flares typically do. "It's not anything I ever had any experience with . ... They were some kind of energy or something."

Fields snapped numerous images of the white, yellow and orange lights using a Canon digital camera with 6 megapixel resolution.

The story received heightened exposure after being posted on the Drudge Report yesterday, and became one of the most-viewed news reports in WND history. That prompted many others to contact WND, saying they witnessed the same or similar phenomenon.

"When I read this story, I literally got chill bumps all over my body, because it was exactly as I remember it also," said Will Childers of Camden, Ark., who says he saw the same lights Jan. 10 at approximately 7:15 p.m. in southern Arkansas.

A pilot from Lancaster, Pa., says he witnessed the mystery lights two years ago over northwestern Arkansas.

"I contacted Air Traffic Control and asked if they were handling or painting any aircraft off my left, and they informed me there no aircraft visible on radar in that direction for a couple of hundred miles," Rick Armellino told WND. "About 15 or 20 minutes after first noticing these two lights, both began changing position relative to one another, and then multiplied into about five or six smaller lights which began orbiting each another fairly briskly, and then simply just disappeared, leaving me very perplexed."

Richard Mobley, a software developer who commutes from Scottsdale, Ariz., to his home in Tucson, says he witnessed "the same exact thing" Fields described, noting his incident took place Nov. 15, 2006.

Mobley registered the following characteristics about the behavior of the objetcs:

They appeared over the Gila Indian Reservation and moved southeast;

I saw one, then two, then three, then four and five of these objects light up;

Each lit up at a different time and went out at different times;

Sometimes they would be in a row, and at other times they would appear stacked close to each other (bunched up or on top of each other);

They were about 6,000 to 10,000 feet off the ground moving, high enough to flying over the mountain range;

The light (when lit) was a round, super intense amber light which seemed to illuminate the ground below them;

They would light up for about five to seven minutes and then dim down and go out;

After about three minutes of being out, they would light back up, going from dim to intense amber light (not clear color like airplane landing lights);

There was an aircraft in the area which had landing lights on as well a beacon light (red and green on the wings and tail) so to distinguish between these object and a plane was easy;

At the height they were flying at and the amount of light given off, it showed that these objects were quite large. In Belton, Texas, Jim Martin, a national sales manager for Clear Channel Radio says he, too, "observed a bright, white round light looking exactly like Col. Fields' pictures," but his sighting was Dec. 22, 2006.

Martin speculated it might have been a meteor headed directly toward him since "it did not vary in location in the sky" and that "it slowly dissipated without losing altitude."

And Jeff Pement of Pensacola, Fla., says he saw the same phenomenon as well.

"Except for the duration of time the lights stay visible, the description of the lights is exactly as I have seen it. Some of my friends think I am crazy. A few have witnessed them as I have taken them to the spot where I would typically see them. When I read Col. Fields' words describing what he saw, it was as if I was relating the event to someone."

A spokesman for the Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado told WND he had not heard anything like what was reported, but he would check into it.

In Fields' hometown of Van Buren, comet-watcher Mike Holloway was photographing Comet McNaught in the sky the same night of the colonel's sighting, and he said what Fields had witnessed was apparently something quite different from the comet.

"I do not think this has anything to do with the comet that was visible in the west sky just after sunset," Holloway told WND. "I imaged the comet on the 8th and 9th of January, and these lights look nothing like the comet."

Meanwhile, a digital-production expert in Columbia, S.C., analyzed the photographs taken by Fields, processing both the yellow-light image and the orange-light image through various filters using computer software.

"I was kind of surprised," said Mark Kirby, president and CEO of EIC Research, Inc.

When Kirby did a black-and-white analysis of the yellow light image, he noted "it looks like a clean silhouette of someone sitting behind a console or flight control."

When he examined the orange light, he said the result was "a bit scary," as he perceived what seemed like a face looking directly ahead.

"You could literally see two eyes and a mouth," Kirby said. "It looked like someone looking at you."

Kirby, who says he doesn't really believe in extraterrestrial life from elsewhere in the universe, wondered, "Could this be the first actual photo of visitors from another planet?"

He also proffered a more earthly explanation, saying, "It's not far-fetched to believe it's something our military has developed."

Nearly a decade ago, in March 1997, hundreds of Arizona residents witnessed strange illuminations in the sky, which have come to be known as "the Phoenix Lights," a mystery which has yet to be resolved.

Some readers have suggested the possibility of "earthquake lights," which are believed to be flashes or glows of light associated with strong seismic activity.

Still others maintain the "not of this world" lights were definitely nothing supernatural.

"I get a little annoyed by 'prior military people' talking about 'strange lights in the sky,'" said James Whitesell of Greenwood, Ind. "Tell the former Air Force officer to step back and take a deep breath ... . It was likely an illumination round of some type."

Stephen Richard Armour, an American missionary working as a video producer in Brazil since 1977, thinks the event could likely be a hoax similar to one he witnessed.

"Some clever kids had taken a clear [2 liter] Coke bottle, inverted it and cut little breathing holes in the top and one in the exact center of the inverted bottom," he said. "They had then put a lit candle in the cap, stuck a toothpick tied to a string in the center hole and had then hung the string down about 50 feet or so from [a] black kite, hanging from the dark string they used. When they flew the kite up high, it was big enough to pull the candlelit Coke bottle up, which then very convincingly, bobbed up and down (like a yo-yo) with the kite."

Armour suggests Fields, who is honestly reporting what he saw, was simply "suckered."

"No aliens, no demons," he said, "only kids or malicious adults with some multiple kite variation of this trick."

Also see UFO Casebook's Air Force Colonel Reports Lights-"Not of this World"

Source & References:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53841

Photograph © Col. Brian Fields, USAF, ret.

Yaakov Lappin Published: 01.19.07, 05:17

A UFO omitting a "yellow ray" has been seen across Western Iran, the Fars News Agency claimed in a report recently.

"Witnesses told FNA (Fars News Agency) that the object has been observed for more than an hour," the report said, adding: "In a similar incident last Monday, an Unidentified Flying Object was witnessed in the same area and at the same time."

According to eye witnesses, "the UFO has been as big as a ball, with a yellow ray and a bright reddish color in the center. They also stated that the object has been flying at a very low altitude."

The FNA said Iranian officials declined to comment.

The Iranian news outlet also reported a UFO "crashing" last Wednesday, "in Barrez Mounts in the central province of Kerman."

"Deputy Governor General of Kerman province Abulghassem Nasrollahi told FNA that the crash, which was followed by an explosion and a thick spiral of smoke, has caused no casualties or damage to properties," the report said, adding: "He further denied earlier reports that the explosion has been the result of a plane or chopper crash, reminding that all the passing aircrafts have been reported as sound and safe."

Iranian authorities were investigating the crash, described by witnesses as an explosion "caused as a result of the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground. "

"Meantime, an informed source told FNA that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn't have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke," the article said.

It added: "The source also said that the crash has been witnessed by people in several cities, and mentioned that the rendezvous point was located 100 kilometers from the provincial capital city of Kerman . He said that people in the city of Rafsanjan also reported to have witnessed a similar incident several days ago."

Source & References:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3354296,00.html

Flight engineer Loe Gonzalez informed researcher Alfonso Salazar of the observation of an unidentified flying object during a domestic flight between the city of Villahermosa (Tabasco) and Mexico City, adding that the probable UFO irradiated a very powerful white light.

He indicated that the pilot, the first officer and himself were witnesses to the sighting from the cockpit of their Boeing 737-200, registration XA-MAF.

According to their account, the object flew alongside the aircraft, placing itself some 1500 meters to the left of the airliner.

The crew lost the UFO from sight when it flew at high speed along the vicinity of the Popocatepetl Volcano, entering a dense cloud bank.

The witness does not remember the exact date of the sighting, estimating that it took place between the months of September-October, 2006. He specified that it occurred shortly after taking off from Villahermosa, roughly around 6:50 p.m.

“It wasn't picked up on the Ticas radar, a situation indicating that it wasn’t another airplane, aside from the impressive speed at which it peeled away from the airliner,” explains Alfonso Salazar, adding that he has it on the best authority that some pilots are currently traveling with their own cameras or camcorders in order to pick up these unexplained aerial phenomena.

(translation (c) 2007, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Ana Luisa Cid and Alfonso Salazar).

Source & References:

www.analuisacid.com