January 4, 2009 - H5N1 Bird Flu Back in Hong Kong Poultry.

“What alarms me is that we have developed a sense of pandemic-preparedness fatigue.”
- Michael T. Osterholm, M. D., Dir., Center for Infectious
Disease Research and Policy, Univ. of Minnesota

Hong Kong health workers slaughter all the chickens at the wholesale poultry
market in December 2008. The city suspended poultry imports for 21 days and
slaughtered 80,000 birds after three dead chickens tested positive for the lethal
H5N1 bird flu. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the
total number of verified human cases from the H5N1 bird flu since the 2003
Hong Kong outbreak is 391, of whom 247 died.
Image source: Kin Cheung, AP.

January 2, 2009 - Part 15:  Army/CIA Unit Studied
the Real UFO Blue Book Cases. Click for Real X-File.

“To finish their meeting with Vice President Nixon, the FBI had a short film
about a saucer materializing over a power station. Nixon said he brought
us in to the FBI and USAF meeting to see that 16mm film of the UFO.”  
 - “Stein,” Former Army/CIA UFO Analyst

December 31, 2008 - To More Peace Everywhere in 2009.

Green aurora and ice sculpture polar bears in Salluit, Nunavik,
Quebec, Canada, January 9, 2008. Image © 2008 by Sylvain Serre.

December 30, 2008 - Intense Earthquake Swarm in Yellowstone Caldera.

The University of Utah Seismograph Stations report that an intense swarm of 250 earthquakes has been underway since December 26, beneath Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park, three to six miles south-southeast of Fishing Bridge, Wyoming, centered on the east side of the Yellowstone caldera.

Red circle is site of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park
where intense swarm of 250 earthquakes since December 26,
have been recorded beneath the lake.

This energetic sequence of events was most intense on December 27, when the largest number of events of magnitude 3 and up to 3.9 occurred. The Yellowstone Caldera erupted about 640,000 years ago in a “super volcano” that produced 240 cubic miles of ash distributed in a radial pattern from Lava Creek around the caldera.

Scientists cannot identify any causative fault or other feature for current seismic swarm without further analysis. Seismologists continue to monitor and analyze the data and will issue new information if the situation warrants it. The upward movement of the Yellowstone caldera floor – almost 3 inches (7 centimeters) per year since 2004 – is more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923. From mid-Summer 2004 through mid-Summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera has moved upwards as much as 8 inches at the White Lake GPS station. For more information, see Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

December 29, 2008 - 9 Threatened Animals in 2009.

World Wildlife Fund's list of  “9 to Watch in 2009”  is an annual list of some of the most threatened species around the world:  Javan Rhinoceros, Vaquita, Cross River Gorilla, Sumatran Tiger, North Pacific Right Whale, Black-Footed Ferret, Borneo Pygmy Elephant, Giant Panda, Polar Bear. See:  WWF.

Javan Rhinoceros, rarest large mammal in the world,
is down to less than 60 animals as poachers and
loss of habitat threaten their extinction.

Vaquita, world's smallest porpoises found only in the northern Gulf of California,
Mexico, are down to about 300 known animals and are the most critically
endangered marine mammals on Earth.

Cross River Gorillas, threatened by hunters and deforestation,
are down to about 300 in southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon, Africa.

Sumatran Tigers, threatened by poaching and deforestation,
are down to about 500 in Western Indonesia.

North Pacific Right Whales were hunted to near extinction
in the 1960s and primarily feed in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

Black-Footed Ferrets, found only in the Great Plains of
North America, are facing extinction as its food supply of prairie dogs
have been reduced to 2% of original abundance.

Borneo Pygmy Elephants found in northern Borneo are smaller than
all other Asian elephant subspecies. Deforestation has reduced
its population to 1500 or fewer.

Giant Pandas found in southwestern China east to the Tibetan
plateau are threatened by deforestation and only 1,600 are thought to exist.

Polar Bears of the Arctic are threatened by increasing
ice melt in global climate change and possible
extinction by the end of the 21st Century.

December 24, 2008 - Part 14:  Army/CIA Unit Studied
the Real UFO Blue Book Cases.   Click for Real X-File.

“‘Tagging’ was when non-humans put little chips into the necks of people -
the CIA had many cases. One implant device was supposed to have produced
hieroglyphs when passed over a certain kind of scanning device.”  
 - “Stein,” Former Army/CIA UFO Analyst

December 22, 2008 - Part 2:  CIA, UFOs and Hollywood.
Click for report.

“If you’ve got government agencies working in Hollywood covertly
to improve their own images, that’s not only a bad use of funds, it’s also
fundamentally anti-Democratic and wrong.”   - Matthew Alford, Ph.D.  

Medium Cool, directed by Haskell Wexler about anti-war protesters
at the 1968 Democratic convention was temporarily blocked from 1969 Paramount
Studio release by Paramount's parent company, Gulf and Western,
pressured by Chicago political forces.

December 21, 2008 - Mystery of Missing East Coast Acorns.
Click for report.

“Once I started paying attention, I couldn't find any
acorns anywhere. Not from white oaks, red oaks or black oaks,
and this was supposed to be their big year. It's really bizarre!”
- Greg Zell, Long Branch Nature Center, Arlington, Virginia

Acorns on Black Oak, Quercus velutina.
Image from Virginia Dept. of Forestry.

December 20, 2008 - Carbonate Finally Found On Mars.
Click for report.

“We know there’s been water all over the place,
but how frequently have the conditions been hospitable for life?
We can say pretty confidently that when water was present in the places
we looked at, it would have been a happy, pleasant environment for life.”
- John Mustard, Ph.D., Geological Sciences, Brown University

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) illustrated in an
elliptical, low-planet orbit around Mars. MRO entered Mars orbit
on March 10, 2006. Image courtesy NASA/JPL.

December 19, 2008 - Mysterious Multi-Colored Light Patterns
in Sky Over Reno, Nevada.   Click for report.

“I finally photographed the mysterious light with my digital camera
and was surprised to see colored light patterns similar to the ones that were taken in
Stephenville, Texas, during the mass sighting events in January 2008.” 
– Reno, Nevada, Resident

December 10, 2008, 9 PM Pacific, over Washoe Valley South
of Reno, Nevada. Digital image © 2008 by Reno resident.

December 17, 2008 - Coast to Coast AM News Updates:  

- More Ohio Eyewitnesses See Glowing “Pod”
Rise Up to Triangle.   Click for report.

- Crystalline Triangle in Ohio.  Click for report.  

“As the large white-orange object was rising up,
it looked like it was going into the center of the triangle of blue lights. ” 
- Tim Comstock, Ohio Truck Driver

- Erath County, Texas, Policeman Saw 600-Foot-Diameter
Aerial Craft Over Stephenville Court House.   Click for report.

“I’m looking directly at this craft and it starts pivoting upward
at a 35 to 40 degree angle off the left ‘wingtip.’ It rises there for about
three seconds and then it goes completely 90 degrees and starts moving
away from me, all without sound!”  - “Greg,” Erath County Police Officer

January 8, 2008, between 7 PM and 7:30 PM Central,
hovering over Erath County Courthouse, Stephenville, Texas.
Graphic illustration produced from eyewitness testimony of three Erath
County police officers. Provided to Earthfiles by officer Greg.

- Updated: Part 1: CIA, UFOs and Hollywood.  Click for report.
“If  NASA took the time to write me a 20-page letter,
then I knew there must be something happening.
When they read the (Close Encounters) script, they got very
angry and felt that it was a film that would be dangerous.”
– Steven Spielberg, Director,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, released
on November 16, 1977, directed by Steven Spielberg.

December 17, 2008 - Saturn's Mysterious Moon, Enceladus.

October 2008 image by Cassini spacecraft from
a distance of 15.6 miles (25 kilometers). Upper chasm is .6 miles
deep. Big mystery is what's in that chasm and beneath the moon's
icy surface? Image from NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

This composite image of Saturn's moon, Enceladus, was taken in October 2008 by the NASA Cassini spacecraft. NASA:  “The incredible detail of the photograph shows the fractures that indicate significant geological activity on the icy moon. The deep chasm visible in the upper half of the image is Labtayt Sulci, a furrow some 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) deep. Enceladus itself is only about 300 miles, or roughly 500 kilometers, in diameter. The 28 images that constitute this mosaic were taken as Cassini drew away from Enceladus after a flyby that brought the spacecraft to within 15.6 miles (25 kilometers) of the moon's surface.”

December 16, 2008 - Two Trillion Tons of Land Ice Have Melted into Oceans Since 2003 from Greenland, Alaska and Antarctica.

Land water runoff since 2003 has raised global sea levels 1/5th inch.

“It's not getting better. It's continuing to show strong signs
of warming and amplification. There's no reversal taking place.”
- Jay Zwally, Ph.D., NASA Earth Observing System
and ICE Satellite Project Scientist

Contrast ice (left) on land at Sermersuaq (or Humboldt) Glacier in Greenland,
photographed by NASA’s Terra satellite on Aug. 31, 2000, and Aug. 30, 2008 (right).
More than 50% of melted landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland,
based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite. Satellite images by NASA.

December 12, 2008 - More Ohio Eyewitnesses See Glowing
“Pod” Rise Up to Triangle.   Click for report.   Tune In Dreamland Online. 
“It did not seem to be a manmade object or anything mechanical ...
It was different than anything I’d ever seen.” - “Joy,” Midvale, Ohio, Resident

2:33 AM Eastern, November 2, 2008, glowing “pod” rose upward
and disappeared with triangle of lights near Midvale, Ohio, home.
Dark circles show position in daylight photo where lights were in night
sky as glowing, orange-yellow object moved upward. Photograph
and graphic illustration © 2008 by “Joy.”

December 9, 2008 - Part 13:  Army/CIA Unit Studied the Real
UFO Blue Book Cases.  Click for Real X-File.

“My CIA boss explained that when you came up with a question
in your mind, none of the humans had to say the question out loud.
The grey being could read your mind and answer telepathically before you
could even say the question.”   - “Stein,” Former Army/CIA UFO Analyst

December 9, 2008 - Gov’t Study Concludes “Gulf War Syndrome”
Is Real and Affects 1 in 4 Veterans.

“Scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness
is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences
for affected veterans.” - Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses Committee

“Gulf War Syndrome” reported by thousands of American veterans
after serving in the August 1990 to February 1991 Gulf War.
Image source U. S. Army.

Seventeen years after the August 1990 to February 1991 war with Iraq, the Research Advisory Committee On Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, a congressionally mandated committee, has concluded that “Gulf war syndrome” is a legitimate condition that continues to affect 25% of the nearly 700,000 U.S. soldiers deployed in that war. Symptoms include widespread pain, unrelenting headaches, mental difficulties, skin rashes, chronic diarrhea, digestive and breathing problems and persistent fatigue.

In a report presented in mid-November 2008 to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the committee reported two possible causes: exposure to pyridostigmine bromide, a drug given to protect against nerve gas, and pesticides sprayed heavily throughout the war. The past American government policy has been to spend $440 million on research, but deny the reality of the “Gulf War Syndrome” while some 200,000 veterans suffer. The committee's report acknowledged, “This is a national obligation, made especially urgent by the many years that Gulf War veterans have waited for answers and assistance.”

December 8, 2008 - Fireball “100 Times Brighter Than Full Moon”
Explodes Over Colorado.
“In seven years of operation (Cloudbait Observatory, Colorado),
this is the brightest fireball I've ever recorded. I estimate the terminal
explosion at magnitude  -18, more than 100 times brighter
than a full moon.”  - Chris Peterson, Ph.D., Astronomer

December 6, 2008, at 1:28 AM MST, the Cloudbait Observatory's
all-sky camera photographed an exploding fireball estimated by observatory
astronomer, Chris Peterson, Ph.D., to be “100 times brighter than a full moon.”
Cloudbait Observatory is near Guffey, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains
west of Colorado Springs in Park County.
On November 20, 2008, a 10-ton meteorite exploded over Lloydminster,
Saskatchewan, Canada.  See: December 6, 2008, Video by Cloudbait Observatory.

Also see:  Nov. 20, 2008, Devon, Alberta, Canada police car dashboard camera video.

December 6, 2008 - Two Cosmic Ray Hot Spots
Never Seen from Earth Before.
“This discovery calls into question our understanding of cosmic rays
and raises the possibility that an unknown source or magnetic effect near our
solar system is responsible for these observations.” 
- John Pretz, Ph.D., Los Alamos National Laboratory

An international team of researchers, using Los Alamos National Laboratory's
Milagro Observatory, has discovered for the first time two distinct hot spots (red regions)
that appear to be bombarding Earth with an excess of cosmic rays near the
Orion constellation (white diagram). Image credit John Pretz, LANL.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory Milagro cosmic-ray observatory was constructed in a water pond atop Fenton Hill west of Los Alamos, New Mexico. It is a telescope without lenses and mirrors. The instrument is the size of a football field with a protective cover to keep out light. Any cosmic ray that hits the pond flashes light that is recorded by the Milagro telescope under water. Until now, scientists thought cosmic rays came randomly from all over the cosmos. The new LANL research published in the November 24, 2008, Physical Review Letters, shows two regions near the bulls eye of the constellation Taurus and near the constellation Gemini are firing out cosmic rays more intensely than any other region. The puzzle is why? And what is the source?

December 4, 2008 - Part 12:  Army/CIA Unit Studied
the Real UFO Blue Book Cases.  Click for Real X-File.

“Col. Jim at Area 51 said alien craft propulsion systems
were anti-magnetic and anti-gravitational on two of the craft and one
had an anti-matter type propulsion that was much more complicated
than the other two.”  - “Stein,” Former Army/CIA UFO Analyst

December 3, 2008 - 22,000-Year-Old Mammoth
Tusk Carvings Uncovered in Russia.

“These finds are really incredibly rare, and they offer a unique
picture into human Upper Palaeolithic life ( 40,000 to 10,000 years ago).”
- Jeffrey Brantingham, Ph.D., Anthropologist, UCLA

Left:  Mysterious cone-shaped object carved from mammoth ivory.
Right: Human-looking figurines found at Zaraysk, Russia, carved from mammoth tusks.
Images courtesy Amirkhanov/Lev/Antiquity Journal.

Southeast of Moscow, Russia, about 93 miles is an Old Stone Age excavation at Zaraysk, where Russian scientists have discovered figurines and carvings on mammoth tusks dated to around 22,000 years ago. The cone-shaped ivory tusk carving (above) is unique among Palaeolithic artifacts and its function is a puzzle.

December 2, 2008 - Buried Water Ice Glaciers Discovered On Mars.

“Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is not in the polar caps. Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick. And there are many more. In addition to their scientific value, they could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars.”  - John W. Holt, Ph.D., Univ. of Texas-Austin

Artist concept of glacier on Mars.
Image credit: NASA/JPL.

Using shallow radar technology, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found “vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitutdes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet. ...The rocky debris blanket topping the glaciers apparently has protected the ice from vaporizing, which would happen if it were exposed to the atmosphere at these lower latitudes.”

“A key question is, how did the ice get there in the first place?” said James W. Head of Brown University, Providence, R.I. “The tilt of Mars' spin axis sometimes gets much greater than it is now. Climate modeling tells us ice sheets could cover mid-latitude regions of Mars during those high-tilt periods. The buried glaciers make sense as preserved fragments from an ice age millions of years ago. On Earth, such buried glacial ice in Antarctica preserves the record of traces of ancient organisms and past climate history.”

December 1, 2008 - Common Cold Viruses Came from Birds.
“We calculated that the moment of divergence between various
[cold virus strains] occurred approximately 200 years ago ...
crossing the species barrier to infect humans around that time.” 
- Dr. Ron Fouchier, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Metapneumoviruses that cause cold-like symptoms
in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species
barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published
in the December 2008 Journal of General Virology.
Image credit: iStockphoto/Stephen Uber.

Metapneumovirus strains such as HMPV and AMPV-C have high evolutionary rates, similar to those of other RNA viruses such as influenza, hepatitis C and SARS. By understanding the evolution and emergence of these viruses, medical researchers hope to develop ways of monitoring and predicting the emergence of new pathogenic viruses that could lead to pandemics.

November 30, 2008 - Part 11:  Army/CIA Unit Studied
the Real UFO Blue Book Cases.   Click for Real X-File.

“We were supposed to talk with Vice President Nixon
about what we in the CIA were going to do with the special
Project Blue Book.”  - “Stein,” Former Army/CIA UFO Analyst

November 27, 2008 - Part 10:  Army/CIA Unit Studied
the Real UFO Blue Book Cases.   Click for Real X-File.

“You’re going to see some highly classified equipment.
At this time, we have some saucer craft that have been gathered
in the United States from New Mexico and we have other craft
that have been gathered from around the world.” 
- “Col. Jim,” USAF, Area 51, Nevada

January 8, 2007 - U. S. Navy Yeoman Sees Extraterrestrial Photos.

A brief video excerpt from an upcoming Earthfiles Vodcast about an aerial disc technology described by government documents as “interplanetary” and the strict American policy of denial about the disc intelligences in the interest of national security.

              
Click on Google or YouTube for links to Earthfile's video excerpt.
For more about Navy Yeoman, drawings of non-humans and documents:
Click on Earthfiles reports:
• 03/17/2006 -- Part 1: U.S. Navy Chief Yeoman Describes "Extraterrestrial Biological Entities" in TOP SECRET/MAJIC Photographs.

• 03/23/2006 -- Part 2: U.S. Navy Chief Yeoman Describes "Extraterrestrial Biological Entities" in TOP SECRET/MAJIC Photographs.