help me cut my UFO essay in half, page 1

hi everyone. im writing a ufo paper for an essay writing class but i wrote too much. i have to cut this in half. this is still in rough draft form. tell me what you think should be out. thx.

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From thousands of UFO sightings to hundreds of abduction reports, awareness of extraterrestrials is continuously on the rise. More people are witnessing the phenomena everyday, and it�s not just uncle John and cousin Joey anymore. Infamous events such as The Roswell Incident and the Phoenix Lights were observed by the mass public. The Rendlesham Files released by the United Kingdom further prove extraterrestrial existence. Leaked papers such as the Majestic 12 and MAJIC documents may be denied by skeptics, but unclassified government documents serve as clear-cut evidence that we are not alone. Sooner or later, the government will have to plead guilty to covering up the existence of extraterrestrial life. Silly excuses that claim the pattern of colorful lights in the air were due to climate changes and the crashed silver spacecraft with fallen aliens in obvious view that was cleaned up by men in black suits was just a �weather balloon� could only last so long without people coming to their common senses.

The modern record on this subject began somewhere in the 1940s, but there have been many references and implications to UFOs before. For example, numerous accounts of flying �chariots� can be found in The Ancient Sanskrit Texts of India. These stories tell of a chariot that brings destruction to whole cities at a time by sending a shining lance. In addition, the passages describe not slings and bows but nuclear weapons in great detail. The Bible also mentions the prophet Ezekiel describing a �wheel within a wheel.� Such implications are made throughout the Bible. Similar references can be found in literatures of Babylonian, Aztec, Assyrian, and other ancient texts. The Hopi Indians speak of their ancestors coming from the stars and tell many prophecies concerning the return of these �Star People� (UFO Historical Revue, screens 1-3).

To date the modern history of UFOs, there are mysterious sightings of �airships� that go back to the 1800s. The reports of strange airships started in the United States as well as New Zealand. The UFOs were described as luminous shapes and cigar-shaped crafts, according to the sightings in California. Even the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland admitted to witnessing these airships. By the late 1890s, the crafts were appearing all over the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Ships at sea were beginning to report of disk-shaped objects rising out of the water and flying away.

Reports of the mysterious aircrafts continued until World War II, and the pilots nicknamed them �Foo Fighters� because they looked like bright glowing balls that performed incredible aerial maneuvers far exceeding the capabilities of those observing them. The Americans thought it was a secret new technology by the Germans. Ironically, the Germans thought it was the Americans with the high-tech discovery.

In June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold saw several objects in the sky that he described as looking like �saucers skipping across water.� Hence, the term �flying saucer� was birthed by the press. In early July of 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, a crash was reported. Many believed it to be a flying saucer, but the United States government went out of its way to explain the incident as a mere weather balloon accident. However, there were too many spectators that saw the crash debris and handled the mysterious lightweight material. Many witnesses who cleaned up the debris observed the recovery of small bodies from the spacecraft. This historical event is the most popular UFO phenomenon, widely known as The Roswell Incident (The Roswell Incident, screens 1-4).

After years of UFO research, numerous documents serve as overwhelming evidence supporting the existence of extraterrestrials. Yet the government continues to embarrass itself by denying the facts when the evidence proves otherwise.

The Majestic 12 and MAJIC documents are significant sources with evidence to support the existence of UFOs, but they�re taken with great skepticism. Supposedly, these infamous documents were leaked out of the government. UFOlogists and other respected sources have studied the authenticity of the papers and the results were mixed. Although it�s difficult to prove whether each document is official evidence or not, some of them have amazing historical accuracy and expertise in numerous scientific fields. However, there are UFO skeptics that believe the MJ-12 and MAJIC documents are purely a work of a writer�s imagination. Still, many agree on the difficulty of making up such material. If the papers were indeed fabricated, most experts see it as professional fiction.

A Majestic 12 document dated March 5, 1942, George C. Marshall wrote a top-secret memo to the president, stating �regarding the air raid over Los Angeles it was learned by Army G2 that Rear Admiral Anderson� recovered an unidentified airplane off the coast of California� with no bearing on conventional explanation... This Headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and according to secret intelligence sources they are in all probability of interplanetary origin.� Marshall continues, �As a consequence I have issued orders to Army G2 that a special intelligence unit be created to further investigate the phenomenon and report any significant connection between recent incidents and those collected by the director of office of Coordinator of Information.�

Another MJ-12 document dated February 22, 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a double top secret memo White House stationary for �the special committee on non-terrestrial science and technology.� The title and the content of the paper implies existence of extraterrestrial life using the word �non-terrestrial� and speaks about �coming to grips with the reality that our planet is not the only one harboring intelligent life in the universe.� This was during World War II so Roosevelt adds that he�ll �take every advantage of such wonders that have come to us� after the U.S. has won the war.

On September 2, 1947, a two-page Top Secret MAJIC Eyes Only report was issued to General C. P. Cabell and commanding General of the Air Material Command from the Research and Development Laboratory. The first analytical team clearly indicates the problems it ran into examining actual crashed extraterrestrial craft. Investigating the hardware, the team �has concluded that some nation has reached a stage of flight development in which the present ideas are entirely obsolete.� It also adds, �A notable advance in the drag and high-lift� the absence of riveting and surface over-lapping indicates a �simplistic� concept that confronts our technology to match the �careful and well-considered compromises in respect to weight, aerodynamic refinement, and design.� The rest of the description presents the spacecraft�s metallic surface and propulsion engine identification, including historically accurate AISI metallurgical tests (Documents Dates 1948-Present, screens 1-8).

More credible than the leaked MJ-12 and MAJIC documents are authentic UFO government documents that were released in light of the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the publicly accessible papers, two police officers Juanius Pozera and Laimis Kraujalis spotted an unidentified flying object near the Lithuanian Border on June 25. After alerting the Vilius Police, �vehicle loads of soldiers from the Aras Rapid Reaction Force, sniffer dogs and police enforcements immediately arrived on the scene of the emergency.� The two eyewitnesses �noticed a spherical object hanging and �pulsing,� alternately shrinking and expanding. At the same time, they heard what they described as �a strange sound like an electric or electronic crackle,� wanting to take a closer look at the UFO, the policemen moved toward it. When they had advanced about 50 meters through the long grass, - the police said the sphere moved away, rose higher and rapidly departed in the direction of Vilnius. The policemen watched the UFO for about half an hour.� The document goes on to say when the Special Forces arrived, they measured the background radiation and tape-recorded the strange sound, which was still heard in the area after the disappearance of the UFO. It was also noted that the tall grass around the place, where the UFO had �hung� was flattened to a 10-meter radius.

A document dated April 16, 1992, reveals that UFOs became a hot topic in China in the late 1970s. With over 5,000 sightings, Acting Chairman of the Curo Wang Changting said that �searching for creatures that might be living in other solar systems is one of the themes of the �1992 International Space Year.�� The paper also states that in 1978, the United Nations called all countries to �be on full alert for sightings and establish UFO investigation bodies.�

On February 19, 1993, the documents report Japan�s bureaucrats are beginning to take supernatural phenomena seriously and plan to study �unidentified flying objects.� Other UFO-related papers report sightings in different countries like Moscow and Uromqi (Freedom of Information Act, screens 1-4).

As you can see, these documents aren�t as heavy as the MJ-12 and MAJIC documents, where they show hands-on government involvement with alien spacecraft, and it is clear the government isn�t planning on releasing them. But as far as authenticity goes, these unclassified documents are the only UFO files the government cannot deny.

There have been many eyewitness testimonies of UFOs, some more believable than others. The following are the most professionally acknowledged incidents.

In the evening between 7:30 and 10:30 of Arizona, lights were seen in the Phoenix sky on March 13, 1997 by hundreds of witnesses (Phoenix Lights: Altered Dimensions, screen 1). This important event in UFOlogy is now regarded as �the Phoenix Lights.� �Neither researchers nor witnesses have yet figured out what Arizonans saw in the event,� reported CNN. �But that hasn't stopped them from trying to puzzle it out.� Tim Ley and his family were one of the witnesses that took pictures of the lights. �When it finally got here and we realized this thing was coming right over us, we really started getting antsy,� said Ley. Then he said the lights of what appeared to be a V-shaped craft went directly over their heads in complete silence. Ley described the size of the craft to be a few blocks. Ley�s wife, who also experienced the phenomenon said the craft was enormous, but �didn't seem threatening [�]� She remarks, �[�] it was right overhead and we couldn't hear a sound, it was like you're just awestruck� We've never seen anything like it� (What were those lights in the Phoenix sky, screen 1). Until today, the Phoenix Lights is still a mystery, but two days after the incident, two undocumented construction workers found a box. According to an expert, who purchased the �mystery box� from the workers, what�s inside it is �remarkable� and puts to rest the mystery behind the event. The contents within the box have not yet been disclosed (Phoenix Lights: Altered Dimensions, screen 1).

The Rendlesham Forest case is arguably the best documented and most significant military encounter with a UFO. In December 26, 1980, two USAF security patrol witnessed strange patterns of lights above the forest in the direction of Orford Ness. The next day, U.S. Military personnel posted to the RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge facilities witnessed strange lights and activity near the base�s back gate. Jim Penniston led three security patrolmen to the Rendlesham Forest to investigate the situation and observed unearthly phenomena that could not be explained. The next day, the servicemen returned to the forest to find three radioactive depressions in the area the incident took place. When night fell, other witnesses admitted to seeing an intensely pulsating red light moving through the trees. One patrolman described it as �being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approx. 2-3 meters across the base... it illuminated the entire forest with a white light, and had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath.� Being dubbed as the United Kingdom�s version of Roswell, the highly credible event spanned four days. As time passed, several of the men involved in the incident were debriefed by U.S. and British officers and ordered to sign documents contradicting with their firsthand accounts. They were also ordered to keep silent and warned by U.S. military intelligence personnel that if they didn�t, �bullets are cheap.� Two weeks following this incident, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt wrote a detailed document on everything that he and his patrolmen had witnessed. This event also came to be known as the most famous government cover-up in Britain�s history. In November of 2002, the British Ministry of Defense finally released the Rendlesham File, 180 pages of previously classified documents that confirm the Rendlesham Forest incident and government cover-up to the public. The U.S. government is still denying the encounter and refuses to release its own files (Pope, screen 1).

Some people like artist John Velez and writer Budd Hopkins have made claims of being abducted, but the phenomena was never professionally recognized until Harvard University psychiatrist John E. Mack exposed his encounter.
When I first encountered this phenomenon, or particularly even before I had actually seen the people themselves, I had very little place in my mind to take this seriously,� said the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. �The idea that we could be reached by some other kind of being, creature, intelligence that could actually enter our world and have physical effects as well as emotional effects, was simply not part of the world view that I had been raised in [�] I came very reluctantly to the conclusion that this was a true mystery.� (Kidnapped by UFO).

It wasn�t that long ago when aliens were merely the figment of a science fiction writer�s imagination. But times do indeed change, and now a recent poll from CNN reveals that 80% of the general public believes the government is hiding knowledge on the existence of extraterrestrial life form (CNN). The mission for us believers is not to find an alien spacecraft or extra terrestrial being, nor is it to get thousands of eyewitnesses and government documents proving that we are not alone. That has already happened countless times in the exhaustive history of UFOlogy. Today our mission is to just sit and wait because time is on our side. As the years come, there will be more sightings, more abductions and more unusual phenomena. More and more people become believers every day. Sooner or later, the United States government will not be able to cover up the truth any longer. From the early beginnings of UFO history in ancient texts to the first sightings by modern civilians, to leaked confidential documents to controversial phenomena, the subject is becoming more widely accepted. UFOs are very real, more so than we may be willing to admit, and it�s existence should no longer be a topic of debate.