THE US REPORT

None other than ABC News has an interview up with Chicago priest Michael Pfleger, who has returned to the pulpit and to a properly progressive network with comments about his anti-Clinton tirade during the primaries. Watching the video of Pfleger as he did a Clinton imitation is sort of like watching a stranger on the street come unhinged. If he spoke like this on the subway, you'd want to move down a few seats. Pfleger plays the race card, partly because he ministers to a mostly black congregation. He said he got death threats because of his remarks.

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(Jacksonville, Fla.)--The British Ministry of Defence recently released information covering 19 years of sightings and reports, and UFO enthusiasts must be pleased because reports of unidentified flying objects continue to surface around the world. Some Texas sightings cannot be explained and nor can reports of objects spotted along the coast of Southern Africa in Namibia. In April, ‘The Phoenix Lights’ documentary was released. Tony Ortega, a former Arizona newspaper reporter writing for 'The Village Voice' completely debunks the research spearheaded by Dr. Lynne D. Kitei; he also debunks the recent 'Dateline NBC' special 10 Close Encounters Caught on Tape. Ortega says the Phoenix lights actually involved two different incidents, one he defines as an airplane and the other as military flares. Ortega seems to bristle with anger in his article as he debunks claims from those who believe they actually saw UFOs. A quibble from this reader is his evidence—he believes a young man who claims he saw what others saw in one incident, only this young man says the lights clearly were planes. Ortega says the fellow, who used a Dobsonian telescope, also has a witness—his mom.

NASA reports
Some years ago, my husband and I saw strange lights in the night sky as we headed home from fishing in the swamp. They were multi-colored and visible through the trees. It didn’t occur to us this was a UFO. We just talked about what strange lights they were and we still have no idea what we saw. NASA even has a photo based on about 4 seconds of video taken by Apollo 16 astronauts as they returned from the moon in April, 1972. (photo above) The image is otherworldly, but NASA makes a good case the image was simply the spacewalk floodlight boom. On the NASA website, you can take a look at the photo beside a photo of the boom and make up your own mind.

Did ancients see UFOs?
Stories about lights in the sky date to ancient times. One of the most famous, for Westerners, is Ezekiel’s wheel of fire, a story from the Bible. Read today, the description of the wheel bears a striking resemblance to the images we see of UFOs. American Indian tribes have various creation myths, and one very interesting tale that spurs as many questions as Ezekiel’s is an Ojibway tale of a ladder to the sky. The ladder was actually a vine connecting the sky to the earth; humans weren’t permitted to use it. But when an old woman tried to climb upwards in a search for her runaway grandson, disease and death struck her people. In a telling of this story at Turtletrack,  there’s this description of the people who lived in the sky: “Then one day, the air was filled with strange blue lights, and the spirit beings came drifting down out of the sky.”

The Phoenix Lights and a South Carolina tale
I purchased Dr. Ketei’s documentary and found it very level-headed. The people interviewed come from all walks of life. They don’t claim encounters with extra-terrestrials, but rather state simply they saw lights that can’t be explained. Photo experts looked at images and basically discounted the possibility these lights could have been planes or flares. The reporter, Ortega, does make a point that data from two different events are merged, but even if you accept that, there are still solid grounds for not accepting conventional explanations for whatever did appear over Phoenix in March, 1997. Ketei points out that Russia, China and Japan take the idea of UFOs more seriously than the US.

In my April 22 column, I mentioned a story I did for a daily newspaper years ago about a South Carolinian who claimed he’d been abducted by aliens. The man passed lie detector tests, and his story appeared in various tabloids. For me, he was a very credible interview subject, but according to one recent report I found, he has now recanted his story.

US information readily available; other countries proactive
More recently, strange lights in Erath County, Texas, have drawn a great deal of media attention. Many historical documents related to UFO reports in the US, compiled as part of Project Blue Book, are available online now at the National Security Agency website. A US Air Force fact sheet states, “Of a total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remained unidentified.” Like the lights I saw years ago, no one really knows what those 701 sightings comprised. In the US at the present time, Science has become the god of all. But science can’t explain the lights we sometimes see in the sky, and it still can’t cure a common cold or completely dispel menstrual cramps either. Compare the histories of various religions and science and you will find both can claim various missteps.

I don’t know about alien abductions, but I do know there are mysteries aplenty left for man to contemplate. In the sense that the sky holds inexplicable phenomena, UFOs are real. I believe that however, neither proves nor disproves extraterrestrial creatures or life. What do you think?

(Filed by Kay B. Day; to read source material and related articles, click on the ‘References’ link below. Photo above is courtesy of NASA.)

 (Orlando, FL)—I’m not the sort of person who claims to see the Blessed Virgin in a waffle that I then pop up for bids on eBay. But a story I saw at the TV station Orlando 6 website today gave me pause. Visitors to the Florida Hospital Medical Complex believe an image of Christ weeping appeared in a prayer garden window on April 14. The image remained for hours, then vanished, according to observers. The station’s website features a slideshow of photos taken by different people who believe they saw the image of Christ.

When I saw the photos, I was amazed by them, especially one taken by Lisa Kilian. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say if there was perhaps a painting in a building overlooking the garden, or if there was a person whose reflection etched itself into the glass. I feel the same way a hospital spokesperson did when he said if it makes people feel good, that’s what matters.

People of faith have these moments when they believe they feel a higher power. I remember interviewing a woman who was dying. At first I was a little afraid. What could you really say to someone who knew she would die soon? Her name was Judith. I spent more than an hour talking to her. She had the most wonderful sense of humor, and although she was in great pain, she appeared to enjoy our visit together. One thing she told me stays with me. She said she was glad for the times she’d done the unexpected. She described driving with a friend, and suddenly, Judith made an unexpected turn just to see what was on that road. I do the same thing sometimes—at times, when I’m alone and do it, it drives my family nuts. But I can tell you it lifts your spirit to take a wrong turn sometimes.

Judith passed away shortly after our interview, but she will always be with me. She was a fine woman, and spending some time with her during her last days on earth made me feel closer to God. Sometimes, even for lapsed churchgoers like myself, Christ makes himself known through a person, a place or by other means. To me, the child I met when I did the story on refugees captures the essence of all things good, for any faith. It appears something miraculous occurred in a hospital building overlooking a prayer garden in Orlando. Who am I to question what others claim they saw?

[When we do worship, we visit the Shepherd of the Woods Lutheran Church chapel at the lake shown in this photo. Shepherd of the Woods also has a church with a very large congregation on Southside Blvd. in Jacksonville. Story and photo filed by Kay B. Day]

I was invited to write a guest column at rightcommentary.com. Please visit the site and read my essay  "Gender and Race are hot buttons, but age baiting draws no controversy."