Very hot but down to work

Dear readers,

The Bureau of Meteorology forecast for my home city of Melbourne today was for a maximum of 35 degrees Celsius. It is currently sitting on 37.7 degrees. So, with the kids in the swimming pool I have had some time to work on this blog post.

Firstly, a word about my style of writing blog posts. As an academic I write papers for publication in refereed professional journals all the time. So for this blog I'd like to adopt a much lighter tone, sometimes even humorous (my sense of humour is legendary at work and at home.) Above all I aim to provide factual information, and be readable. My initial perspective will be that of someone reactivating a dormant interest (which of course is true.)

As my blog profile states, I enjoy watching science fiction movies. A recent favourite was 'Passengers' - highly recommended as a love story set on an almost 100 year long interstellar trip. On the other (serious) hand I retain an interest in hard science - keeping up with developments in astronomy particularly in the area of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Well today I have started to look around at today's UFOlogy, by reading a number of websites. The current range of views is very broad indeed. In one place I read the views of individuals who believe they are 'star seeds' - part human, part alien. In another place people recount their solid belief in the existence of reptilian creatures who abduct humans. Elsewhere, there are collections of individuals sharing accounts of their nightly sky watches - and the 'UFOs' they regularly see. Buried amongst all this are 'scientific ufologists' providing hard data and analysis.

It's going to take me a while to digest everything on my UFO search 'menu.' I guess I am on the entrée course at the moment.

I'll look to publish a weekly post, probably each Sunday.

Must away, my youngest is hungry from all the pool work out!

Pauline Wilson returns

Dear readers,

For those of you who have been reading this blog since its inception and who have a long memory, you may remember me (Pauline Wilson) as the person who started off the blog. After a while I got married, things became very busy and so I handed over the blog to Adelaide researcher Keith Basterfield.

Last month on an impulse I checked on the blog, and was pleasantly surprised to find it still going, with an excellent track record of posts. I then read Keith Basterfield's post advising that he was taking a break from UFO research. I approached him with the thought of writing the occasional post, and he agreed.

I will take some time to acquaint myself with today's UFOlogy, and then start posting. I have a few year's worth of catching up to do!  

One new website I have already visited is The Australian UFO Archives  - check it out.