Bloody (alien) immigrants!

Since all the MPs are enjoying their annual three month holiday...sorry, we mean opportunity to work in their constituencies without worrying about Parliamentary debates at the moment, many of you will no doubt be scanning the day's news for anything worth reading during that boring seven hour period when you're supposed to be working. There's not much today, so thank the News Gods (by which we categorically do not mean Rupert Murdoch) that the Ministry of Defence has just seen fit to release details on a whole load of alleged UFO sightings.

One of the records concerns a UFO witnessed in full daylight in 1994. Hovering over a stage. At Glastonbury Festival.

Hmmm...


According to the BBC, Lord Hill-Norton wrote to Michael Heseltine about the so-called Rendlesham Incident, when several people at a Suffolk USAF base saw strange lights in nearby woodland; an event later covered and, it seems, embellished somewhat by various writers - including famous UFO researcher Jenny Randles - who before long had added enough gumpf to the story for it to become known as Britain's Roswell. In 2003, an ex-US Security policeman who had been employed at the base admitted that he and another man had faked the incident using torches and a loudspeaker - it is notable that all those (witnesses and writers) who claimed to have seen a craft of some description have been keeping unusually quiet on the subject ever since.

Lord Hill-Norton's letter states that the incident raises two concerns. The first was the possibility that an unknown aircraft entered British airspace with impunity. The second was the possibility that several US military staff from the base were capable of making what he called a "serious misperception."

We wonder how many employees of the USAF and other military branches voted for George W. Bush when he was competing for his second term in office? Because let's face it - if you can believe that was a wise thing to do despite the contrary evidence, you must be capable of some pretty massive misperceptions.

UK hacker to be extradited

Gary McKinnon, the Asperger's Syndrome sufferer who hacked into American government and military computers which he believed contained classified information on UFOs, has lost his latest appeal to halt his extradition to the USA.

The American government claims that McKinnon is responsible for what it calls the world's biggest ever military hack and says that his activities resulted in $800,000 worth of damage to computer systems maintained by a number of organisations including NASA and the US Navy. British lawyers based their case around McKinnon's mental fragility which they say may lead to psychosis or suicide as a result of his illness. Terry Waite, the human rights campaigner who was held hostage in Lebanon for four years, personally requested the USA to drop their extradition attempts and called for common sense. "No nation under the sun ought to convict an individual whose behaviour is occasioned by illness," he said, "Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with [the condition] will know that while the sufferer can be, and indeed often is, brilliant in certain logical processes they can become irrationally obsessive in other directions."

If convicted, 43-year-old McKinnon - who e-mailed US authorities highlighting the weak spots in their computer security, using his own e-mail address - could face up to 70 years in prison. The US government has assured the Home Office that his mental health will be taken into account and that they will meet his welfare needs - promises that are likely to mean little to British ears when so many of us remain shocked at the human rights abuses carried out at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in Uncle Sam's name at various extraordinary rendition flight destinations.

When we last reported on Mr. McKinnon, we provided a link to an online petition organised by the National Autistic Society. That petition was signed by 4339 people and it was not the only one: just Google "Gary McKinnon petition" and see all the hits - it is very obvious that a majority of British people do not want to see McKinnon extradited, not least of all due to the highly unfair nature of the UK-US Extradition Act of 2003, which allows the US to seek extradition of British citizens without having to provide prima facie evidence despite the fact that the UK still needs evidence when seeking extradition of an American.

"What does it take to make this government sit up and listen to the clear public view that Gary McKinnon should not be extradited?" asks McKinnon's lawyer Karen Todner. What indeed; and what's more, why are our Government - who are selected and voted into power by us to act as our representatives and to do a job that few of us could be bothered to do - ignoring the will of the British people and kowtowing to America? The British Government are our servants, not our masters, and as such ought to do what we request of them. Likewise, the USA is our ally, and though we should be grateful for all of the help they have offered to us over the years we are not beholden to them and should not sit back and let them act as though they are in charge of our legal system.

Since our own Government seems to have forgotten that it is the citizens who are ultimately in charge and are willing to ignore what we're saying, maybe McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp has the right idea - she's appealing directly to President Barach Obama. "Stand by us and make this world a better place, a more compassionate place," she asks, "I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing." Got to be worth a try, hasn't it, especially since the White House website claims that Obama is "committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history"?

Fancy e-mailing the Prez yourself? Do so here.

Just fill in your details and change the subject field to "other" - you can copy and paste the following message if you don't have time to compose one of your own:

_______________________________________________

Dear President Obama,

You are doubtless well aware of the case of Gary McKinnon, the British citizen who faces extradition to your nation where he will face charges of hacking into NASA and other databases where he believed suppressed documents related to UFOs might be held, activities which it is claimed resulted in $800,000 worth of damage. He later contacted the authorities responsible for those databases and highlighted the weak spots in their security, leading human rights campaigner Terry Waite to say that the Pentagon should be thanking McKinnon for exposing their computers' vulnerability.

Mr. McKinnon suffers from the autistic condition Asperger's Syndrome. Sufferers of this condition are frequently of very high intelligence, but often display naivety and may become obsessed with a particular subject - as was the case with Mr. McKinnon, who is obsessed with UFOs. "No nation under the sun ought to convict an individual whose behaviour is occasioned by illness," says Mr. Waite.

Although the US Government has promised that Mr. McKinnon's health and welfare needs will be taken into account, his lawyers and family say that there is "clear, uncontradicted expert evidence" that his extradition could lead to psychosis which in turn could result in his suicide. That Mr. McKinnon did not act in a purposely malicious way seems obvious, and although it may be the case that he caused $800,000 worth of damage, is a human life not worth more?

Since you became President, many of us throughout the world have new faith that the USA is a force for good that will protect ourselves and our human rights. Please use this opportunity to demonstrate to us that we can trust in your own goodness and humanity by stopping the moves to extradite Mr. McKinnon and allowing him to be tried in a British court.

Yours,

Your Name Here

___________________________________________

...but make sure you take the opportunity to help save a mentally ill British man from an uncertain future at the hands of a foreign power.

The end is nigh! Mayan apocalypse crop circle appears

A crop circle, measuring some 350 feet (107 metres) across and shaped like an ancient Mayan symbol said to represent imminent apocalypse, has mysteriously appeared in a field next to Silbury Hill.

The crop circle has got many "experts" quivering with so much excitement they can't even skin up.

Silbury Hill, near Avebury in Wiltshire, stands 130 feet high and as such is the tallest prehistoric structure in Europe. The Mayan civilisation, which ended around 900AD, is famous for being the only pre-Columbian society to have invented a developed written language and for the remarkable accuracy of its calendar. The present period in the 'long count' version of the calendar, which marks out vast stretches of time, is due to come to an end on December the 21st, 2012 - a date when, according to the same sort of people who believe that aliens regularly abduct humans and that crystals have healing powers, Very Bad Shit is going to happen, man. Some members of the crop circle community - also the type to believe in aliens and to like dolphins a little more than is normal - claim that the crop circle is identical to the symbol used to mark that event.

One crop circle fan said: "It is definitely a Mayan symbol and we are sure it is linked to the Mayan calendar, which ends in 2012. "It appears to be a warning about the world coming to an end when the calendar does. For the ancient Maya, reaching the end of a cycle was a momentous event, so we are taking this crop circle very seriously as an indicator of a possibly huge event in 2012." That's, like, really heavy stuff, right?

Crop circle enthusiasts have put forward several differing theories as to what causes the strange patterns, which have been appearing regularly in British fields since the late 1970s, though much earlier records are known. One of the most oftenheard is that they are caused by UFOs, either when they land or by some kind of beam used to collect samples of the plants. Others put them down to so-called Earth Energies (often related to the kind that causes leylines, apparently) and orgone, a hypothetical form of energy.

Some people believe crop circles are created by unusual forms of wind.

Those of a more practical (and, some would say, less stupid) mindset suggest they are more likely to be created by natural processes such as unusual forms of lightning or wind. Or mating hedgehogs, rather memorably.

Acid Rabbi falls into the second camp: we believe that they are indeed caused by a naturally-occurring phenomenon - hippies.

Stop Gary McKinnon's extradition

Gary McKinnon (pictured right), who suffers from the autistic condition Asperger Syndrome, has freely admitted that he is guilty of hacking into 97 U.S. military computers while looking for classified photographs of UFOs. He was traced because he used his own e-mail and contacted authorities alerting them to the weak spots in their security.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, McKinnon's lawyer, has stated that there is “clear, uncontradicted expert evidence” that extradition would be likely to cause his psychosis and even suicide as a result of his condition, adding that extradition would be “unnecessary, avoidable and disproportionate.”

Lawyers have fought a series of battles in an attempt to block the American Government's moves, but have been hampered by the unfair UK-US Extradition Treaty which has removed the necessity for the U.S. to provide prima facie evidence when requesting extradition of United Kingdom citizens.

Sign the petition to block his extradition here.

More on the orange UFOs

Well, seems I had no chance of seeing those orange UFOs no matter how near to Huntingdon I was on Sunday night, because the people who saw them saw them on Wednesday last week. Which just happens to be the same day that friends of Kim Huckle, a Huntingdon resident who died at the age of 53, released Chinese lanterns into the sky to mark her passing. What a coincidence.