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Questions
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On night when I was in Italy on holiday, a bright light appeared. I turned around and saw a big round thing and it was so close it looked like I could have touched it. It hovered where I was standing and had lights from what looked like little windows. It then disappeared as quickly as it had come. I have a friend who saw it too. There was no sound. I didn't report it because people at breakfast the next day laughed at me, but it was definitely a craft.
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(Nick) This is a fascinating account. What is particularly spectacular about your sighting is that you can describe the craft well. Most of the cases we see are vague, or just blurry lights.
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Are there any substances on other planets that can be used for energy?
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There are billions of suns out there (which look like tiny stars from earth), some of which are like our sun. They have powerful chemical reactions going on in them just like our sun. Planets can be gassy, rocky and watery, substances very much like those on earth. As John Zernecki said earlier, the atmosphere on Titan has lots of hydrocarbons in it. These are the same things that can be used as fuel in your car. So in answer to your question, there are definitely raw materials on other planets to make fuel from.
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I've always wondered why these supposed aliens with their amazing spaceships get all the way to Earth and then crash land in America...
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(Nick) Aside from the Roswell incident, there haven't been that many landings in America. I'd also like to add that advanced technology is not always particularly safe. Even though our planes are much better than in the days of the Wright brothers, we still manage to crash!
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I often see lights in the sky when I'm driving. Are they aeroplanes or are they UFOs?
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(Nick) Statistically, 85-90% are usually explained by normal things such as planes, weather balloons or satellites. Driving is also a difficult situation in which to make an accurate judgement: not only is the car moving, but you are also seeing the lights through glass, which can lead to distortion.
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I was out in the garden in the early 1990s and saw a light in the distance. It then came closer and closer and got bigger and bigger. It hovered silently, was all different colours and a shape sort of like a dalek but not quite. It then shot off into the horizon.
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(Nick) This is the type of movement often reported about UFOs. It's a very common feature. It is also interesting that it happened in the early 1990s, as these were years with many sightings.
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I had a sighting in the daytime in about 1984. I was doing some gardening at about 4pm, when I stood up to stretch and have a look at clouds. I became aware of a silver disc in the sky that gradually got closer and closer until it was about 500 to 1000 feet in the air. There was no sound and it was present for about a minute and a half. I turned away to call my wife, but by the time I turned back, it had gone. No-one else saw it, which surprised me as it was so large and in the sky on such a clear day. A newspaper in another area reported similar sightings around the same time.
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(Nick) I've seen several reports and photos of disc-like objects. Most of them are described as looking like a metallic frisbee. This is a fascinating encounter.
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If Santa were real, would it be possible to make reindeer fly?
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Yes, put wings on it or put it in an aeroplane!
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My wife and I were walking through a park in the evening. Suddenly, a light shot across, hovered over us and then shot away at a speed you wouldn't believe. There was no sound whatsoever.
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(Nick) This is fascinating because this is the fourth call this evening in which the craft was silent and showed amazing flexibility in movement. The lack of sound is quite common, and a low frequency hum is also often described.
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| Interviews
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Prof. John Zarnecki
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Why does the government need a UFO desk and when was it set up?
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Fact or Fiction
At the last count, Saturn has 24 orbiting moons
 
![]() It's False - It actually
has 33 known moons, and thanks to new data beamed back by the Cassini
mission which was sent to explore the Saturnian system, there may be 34.
UK Cassini project scientist Professor Carl Murray recently discovered
a small moon-like object measuring about 4 kilometres across out beyond
Saturn's F ring.
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A recent survey of UK adults showed that people are more scared of
a trip to the dentist than anything else
![]() It's False - A recent survey
of 1000 adults found that creepy crawlies and spiders were ranked the
scariest things, with a Bin Laden-style terror attack in second place.
A trip to the dentist came sixth, followed by fear of injections, seventh.
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The dating game in Britain is worth 2 million pounds a year
![]() It's False - Present estimates predict that singletons are coughing up a total
of 2 billion pounds a year playing the dating game going on at least 21
million dates in their quest for Mr. or Miss Right. It's obviously not
working because the number of single people has gone up 12% since 1991.
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50% of UK men are now on a diet
![]() It's False - It's not quite 50% yet,
with closer to 25% of UK men on a diet at the moment, but that number
has increased from about 16% in the 1980s to the present level. Studies
suggest that about two-thirds of men in the UK are overweight or obese.
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More than half of all the bones in your body are in the hands and
feet
![]() It's True - There are 206 bones in the adult skeleton, over half
of them in the hands and feet.
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Owners of short-sighted dogs can now obtain corrective glasses to
help their pooch to see better
![]() It's True - Doggles recently went on sale
for short-sighted canines. They look like a cross between swimming goggles
and Ali G wrap-arounds.
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The sea looks a blue colour because it reflects the colour of the
sky
![]() It's False - Seawater looks blue because it absorbs light from the
red end of the spectrum, so shorter wavelength blue light travels the
furthest through the water. That's why things look 'bluer' the deeper
you go underwater. The other major determinant of sea colour is the type
and concentration of plankton - tiny marine microorganisms.
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The world's shortest ever man is 57 cm tall
![]() It's True - India's Gul Mohammed was crowned the world's shortest man in history, in 1990. He's just 57 centimetres tall.
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You can now enroll on a Pop Idol course at university, to learn to
be as nasty as Simon Cowell
![]() It's True - Thankfully this course, which
promises to be as big a waste of time as the programme it idolises (pardon
the pun), is only available in America where undergraduates at North Carolina
University in Charlotte can opt for the "Examining American Idol
Through Musical Critique" course which tutors promise "could
be a springboard for serious discussion about music".
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The world's largest rain drops ever recorded measured 15mm in diameter
![]() It's False - The largest raindrops were recorded in Brazil and were a
smaller, but still very respectable, 8 mm across.
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