UFO — or Unidentified Flying Objects — is a huge topic of discussion. There are groups of people who touch their hearts and swear that they not only saw a mysterious object but strange things happened at the same time on the ground. There are also others who just dismiss these as illusions or paranoia.

As a child, I used to be fascinated by these first-person accounts of paranormal incidents. There was no internet those days, we used to get most of the info from newspapers, magazines and books. Some of the weekend movies at my school (Sainik School, Kazhakootam, Kerala) were based on these tough-to-explain sightings of what we used to call “flying saucers”. Doordarshan (India’s government-owned television channel, the only channel available those days), in early 1980s, used to show a half-an-hour or one-hour programme on UFOs. I remember Indian Express, Kochi, carrying a number of letters to the editor on UFOs being sighted over Kerala.

Real or imaginary, my friends and I used to spend lot of time discussing all possibilities and spinning our own theories. With the advent of internet, these theories have only gained in number and momentum. A simple web search would throw up umpteen results in various categories.

Obama and UFO

What’s doing the rounds now is a web clipping on Youtube. It shows CNN anchors Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper discussing Obama’s speech. Then the clip cuts to a shot of the skyline behind Washington Monument. Then you see an object moving from the right to left, at a good speed. The video replays the shot over and over. A search on Youtube will yield you a number of results, some quite dramatised with spooky background music and all.

(I had put up a couple of links to Youtube here, but I deleted them on Jan 29 as those clips had been removed from Youtube itself.)

I personally wouldn’t make a quick judgement on this, since I have had many strange experiences, which are not only difficult to explain to others but difficult to even find reasons for. I have learnt that many things in life can’t be scientifically proved beyond all reasonable doubt. There was once a time when people didn’t know why it rained or what was lightning or why thunder followed a little later. We have been able to explain many mysterious happenings, but not all; may be one day we would able to.

Some doubts

The “UFO at Obama inauguration” clipping has left some doubts in me.

1) People say it could be a bird, but would a bird fly so fast and be so big, especially when seen from such a distance?

2) It looks like a shot from the CNN telecast, going by the CNN logo on the screen. What has CNN itself got to say about this? Are there any other shots of this strange happening? No other channel got it? 

3) Not much of media reportage on this. Even those media that reported it, are just reporting the appearance of the clipping on Youtube, and what it shows. But for this clipping, there are no accounts.

  • Fox News report here
  • The Sun report here

Nov 1 sighting during Obama speech

On Youtube you will also find another clipping that shows an object flying while Obama was speaking in Nevada on Nov 1. See it below or go to Youtube:

UFO and damaged wind turbine

This UFO-Obama incident comes close on the heels of an incident in the UK. On January 5, media in the UK reported that one of the blades of a windmill in Lincolnshire fell off the previous day. The engineers of the company that set up the wind turbines couldn’t speculate any possible reason saying such a thing had never happened. Before we have any word from the engineers, three days later, some people claimed that they had seen a UFO in the region.

  • Jan 5 BBC report – Blade falls off wind farm turbine — here.
  • Jan 8 BBC report – UFO claim over wind farm damage — here.

See ITV news report below or go to Youtube.

Now, carry on the debate.