Lights in the sky, levitating beings, hard science vs conjecture: Meet the guys trying to sift the crazies from the true witnesses in their search for unidentified flying objects.
(HT Illustration: Sri Krishna Patkar)
Updated: May 07, 2017 10:37 IST
By Roshni Nair, Hindustan Times
ON THE JOB WITH A UFO INVESTIGATOR
The first thing to do when you receive a report about a UFO sighting is rule out what’s explainable, says Kumaresan Ramanathan, who has served as chief investigator with MUFON (India).“Phenomena like strange lights are more explainable than not. These can be caused by anything from crackers to iridium flares caused by moving satellites.”Online tools like FlightRadar and Heavens-Above can help determine if there was a passing craft or astronomical occurrence in the area at the time of the sighting.Interviews with eyewitnesses are generally conducted via email or over the phone. “Only sightings that are compelling require us to go on site,” Ramanathan says.What tools does a UFO investigator use? Hitesh Yadav, who is self-trained, lists a film camera, compass, telescope, tape recorder, electromagnetic field or EMF sensor, Geiger counter (for radiation), scintillation counter (for ionising radiation), and Plaster of Paris to make moulds in case impressions are found!
I. Midnight Special
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world slept, Sunita Yadav awoke to a levitating alien.
She watched, petrified, as it hovered a foot above the ground just behind her home. Standing over 4ft tall, with grey skin and big, black eyes, it proceeded from the Yadavs’ backyard toward their front door before – as her son Hitesh remembers – it “just vanished”.
In the 15 years since, the humanoid has made numerous other appearances around the Western Command Hospital in Panchkula, some 10 km away from Chandigarh.
“It’s now a mascot. Residents in the area believe it’s lucky to spot it,” says Hitesh, 20, now a tech student living in Gurgaon.
In their sketch, the alien looks like a swarthy dwarf. But Hitesh remains convinced that what he saw was an extraterrestrial. And he spends much of his free time trying to prove it.
Hitesh runs the free bi-monthly e-zine UFO Magazine India, is developer of the Ufology App and founder of Disclosure Team India, which investigates UFO sightings and encounters in the country.
“Disclosure has grown to 200 members since it was set up in January 2016, including 22 from the US and UK,” he says. The website has a form where people can report their sightings in detail.
This form has been filled four times. “But our investigators hear many stories from locals on the ground,” he stresses.
“I’m currently researching an alien abductee case in Chhattisgarh,” Hitesh says. “I don’t care what people think, because my parents and sister are accepting. But my relatives don’t know what I do. If they did, they’d surely call me crazy.”
News Source - Hindustan Times
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http://m.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/the-truth-is-out-there-tales-from-india-s-ufo-investigators/story-9crhwh8tiWKU4LSvwCfrpM.html
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