Where did your interest come from?

Hi all,

I did something last night, which I haven't done for a long time. I sat outside in the back garden, in a chair, and took a long look at the night sky.

Doing so took me right back to age eight, when I lived in England in a fairly isolated hill top village. From there, the view of the night sky was excellent. I had really dark skies.

Today, living in Adelaide, the capital of the Australian state of South Australia, street lights cast a strong illumination across my nocturnal view. I can barely see third magnitude stars, with the naked eye. Binoculars are better, extending the limit to which I can see stars.

As an eight year old, I learnt my way around the sky. I memorised the names and outlines of the constellations, and the names of some of the individual stars.Those nocturnal views, back in the late 1950's created the background for my interest in Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP.) Having learnt of some of the wonders of the universe through viewing the heavens, I pondered on the possibility of life elsewhere. In those days there were no confirmed extra-solar planets and the first earth circling artificial satellite had only been launched in the year 1957. The Moon landings were eleven years into the future.

It wasn't until the mid 1960's that I read Jacques Vallee's first two books. These, combined with my developing interest in astronomy, triggered my interest in UAP, which remains with me today.

Sitting outside last night, and thinking about the distance between myself at age eight and my current sixty two years, reminds me that the enigma of UAP still remains unsolved.

Despite the fact that perhaps 95% of all incoming raw UAP reports can be explained in conventional terms, there still remains instances which truly puzzle me, e.g. the 1980 Rosedale, Victoria CE2 case. That's why I retain my interest, even after all these years.

Do you occasionally revisit the basis of your own interest in UAP? For some, it will have been a puzzling personal sighting. For others a sense of scientific curiosity about a case you have heard of. Yet other may have had an intimate encounter with the phenomenon. Whatever the cause, it seems to me that it is really useful to revisit the cause of your own interest, from time to time. Why? Perhaps to remind yourself that yes, that sighting really did take place and remains unexplainable to you. Perhaps to ponder yet again, that intimate encounter which has always puzzled you. Perhaps, simply to remind yourself that science still doe not have all the answers.

So, why not take a few minutes yourself, sit outside; look at the night sky and ponder what's out there and where your own interest came from?