UFO sighting puzzles N.L. residents
Residents of Harbour Mille, on Newfoundland's south coast, reported seeing this object fly over their community Monday night. (Courtesy: Darlene Stewart)
Residents in Harbour Mille, a tiny community on Newfoundland's south coast, want to know what they saw in the sky Monday night.Darlene Stewart said she was outside taking pictures of the sunset when she saw something fly overhead.She snapped a picture of the object in an attempt to zoom in on it to see what it was."Even with the camera, I couldn't make it out until I put it on the computer," she told CBC News. "I knew then it wasn't an airplane. It was something different."Stewart's picture shows a blurry image of what appears to be some kind of missile-like object emitting either flames or heavy smoke.Emmy Pardy also saw the object."It appeared to come out of the ocean," she told CBC News. "It was like it was in the middle of the bay."Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/01/26/nl-ufo-012610.html#ixzz0drFrZUIy UPdate :
DND, RCMP mum on UFO mystery
People who saw a missile-like object soaring through the sky over a small rural community in Newfoundland Monday night are getting no answers about what it was, although police say they'd gotten to the bottom of the mystery. Darlene Stewart spotted the object while taking pictures of the sunset over Harbour Mille, a community of about 200 residents on the south coast of the province. She says she started snapping photos.
She then called her neighbour, Emmy Pardy, and the two women, along with Stewart's husband, say they saw three similar objects flying through the air minutes apart, one up close and two farther off in the distance. The photos taken by Stewart show blurry pictures of what appears to be a long, round object, much like a missile, seemingly rising from the ocean, with either smoke or flames shooting out the back end.
Objects made no noise
Stewart said the objects didn't make any noise. "We confirmed that it was something," Sgt. Wayne Edgecombe told CBC News Wednesday. But Edgecombe said he couldn't reveal what the police investigation uncovered.
He said the focus of any police investigation is on whether something criminal has occurred."It's nothing criminal," he said, in relation to the unidentified object.
Edgecombe said he contacted the Department of National Defence and "they gave me some info," but he said that it is up to that department to release the information publicly. Defence department officials were refusing comment.
The sighting has intrigued people in the Harbour Mille area, with some saying they were told by officers who were in the community Tuesday investigating the sightings, that the objects were test missiles launched from the nearby French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Edgecombe said that rumour is completely false.
The suggestion that the object possibly involved the military has Liberal MP Gerry Byrne, who represents the Newfoundland riding of Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, demanding answers."There's a credible body of evidence," Byrne told CBC News, "that suggests there's something spectacular happened off of our shore. Before this goes any farther, I think the government needs to actually respond very quickly with a straightforward, factual statement."
Was safety in jeopardy?
Byrne said if it was some kind of military test, then people should be told whether their safety was jeopardized.
"If indeed this was a man-made object, that it was a missile, was there any potential risk to health and safety from collateral damage should the missile fire have failed?"
Byrne used the mystery to take a shot at the federal government for proroguing Parliament. He said if the House of Commons was opened, he'd be able to question the ministers of defence, transport and public safety about the incident.
"It's cloaked in relative secrecy," he said. "And the only way to get around that secrecy is a special institution called the floor of the House of Commons."
Stewart said Tuesday she has been overwhelmed by the number of calls she has received about the sighting. But she said nobody has told her officially what it was that she saw."I would like to get to the bottom of it," she said.
Finnish UFO researcher says winter sun on jet streams creates rocket effect
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A UFO researcher and author from Finland calls it "the December Phenomenon."
Bjorn Borg, a 63-year-old retired economist, says each winter he can count on media reports of what appear to be rocket or missile sightings of the kind seen last week over Newfoundland's south coast.
"Every year this comes up in the news," he said Monday from Helsinki.
But what people are really seeing is the effect of jetliner vapour trails catching winter sunlight, he said....
His theory was backed up Monday by Chris Stevenson, local president of the Royal Astronomical Society.
It's unbelievable how far this went," Stevenson said of rampant speculation about covert foreign missile testing or perhaps alien life forms.
"I've seen this several times," he said of the effect created when transatlantic aircraft, which often travel in pairs, reflect sunlight far overhead after daylight has faded on the ground.
The resulting bursts of colour can be spectacular and startling, Stevenson said.
"They might strike fear in the hearts of people who don't know what they're looking at."
Stewart's photo is obviously not a rocket because the contrail goes transparent at the end, Stevenson said.
"A rocket plume would be thick all the way back to where the rocket was launched. Again, had the sighting not been at sunset, I would have taken this a bit more seriously."
Still, Stewart is adamant that what she captured on her digital camera was no jetliner.
"To me, it was not a jet," she said from her home Monday in Harbour Mille. "No, no, no.
"We didn't hear any noise. No noise. Every airplane that comes over here, whether we're inside or the TV's going, you still hear them. A jet may be farther off but it still makes noise.
"To me and my eyes, it was not a jet."
The federal government had little to say Monday.
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"It appeared to come out of the ocean," she told CBC News. "It was like it was in the middle of the bay. "It's kind of scary because you don't know if something is being set off out in the bay, [or] if someone is doing experiments," she said." Emmy Pardy CBCNews
