Showing posts with label army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label army. Show all posts

Monday, June 11, 2012

Keep an eye on the skies for saucers during the Olympics Games, warns former MoD UFO expert



* UFO expert Nick Pope says massive summer events like the Olympics would be a prime time    
   for an alien encounter

* Ministry of Defence 'has planned for the worst outcomes - attack and invasion'

* 'We should be prepared for even the most seemingly unfathomable'


By Eddie Wrenn

One of the UK's top UFO experts has given his views on the likelihood of aliens suddenly appearing in our skies - and how the international community would respond.

Nick Pope, who has more than two decades under his belt at the Ministry of Defence, said mass summer events - like the Olympic Games in London - would be a prime time for crafts from otherworlds to present themselves to mankind.

He warned: 'With the summer of mass events we are all on high alert for terrorism. But we must also cast our eyes further afield and be prepared for even the most seemingly unfathomable.''

Pope's duties at the MoD included investigating reports of UFOs between 1991 and 1994, and says he began his research as a sceptic, before becoming convinced that the sightings raised important defence for national security and air safety issues.

He was particularly interested in cases where the witnesses were pilots, or where UFOs were tracked on radar, and said there were other believers among his former colleagues.

He said: 'It has been a widely held belief in Ministry of Defence circles that "aliens" have been able to detect us for decades via TV and radio broadcasts.

'What once seemed like science fiction is steadily being realised by central governing bodies as distinctly real.

'If aliens have studied our psychology, they may choose to appear in our skies on a significant date – the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games is one date being widely circulated by conspiracy groups.

'The atomic bombs detonated in the 1940s, and the rocket technology since developed would unquestionably have alerted nearby alien civilisations to our existence.

'On their arrival it is difficult to say what they would do: explore, help or destroy. Our resources make us quite a special threat.'

A Tornado F3 flies past a Rapier missile set-up: These kind of defences could be used against an extra-terrestrial threat - although sure the Others would have better technology than us

Hopefully, if aliens do come and introduce themselves to us, they come in a spirit of warmth, friendship and shared learning - but Pope said the government was also prepared for the worst scenarios.

He said: 'The government must - and has planned - for the worst-case scenario: alien attack and alien invasion.

'Space shuttles, lasers and directed-energy weapons are all committed via the Alien Invasion War Plan to defence against any alien ships in orbit.

'If UFOs came into our atmosphere, RAF jets such as the Eurofighter Typhoons, and missiles such as the Rapiers guarding the Olympic Games would be well equipped to enter the fray.

'And if the aliens landed, in an unprecedented move, I am in doubt that the entire Army would be join the fight.

'The TA and the Reserves would be called out and conscription potentially introduced. '

Speaking about the cultural impact of aliens since the first widely-reported cases in the 1940s, he said: 'It is interesting to note that we are all in some ways equipped to deal with alien invasion - games such as Resistance: Burning Skies on PlayStation Vita help acclimatise people to the reality of extraterrestrial life - and in particular that they might be hostile.

'It is a widely held belief that classified information about weapons and tactics useful in combatting alien occupation are embedded into such gameplay.

'The primary flaw is our lack of knowledge - we are limited in the extent of what we know about the alien species.'

Pope's role in the government was once described as 'working on the the X-Files of the UK', and he has since published Sunday Times top ten non-fiction bestsellers, such as Open Skies, Closed Minds.

His final role at the MoD, held until 2006, was Directorate of Defence Security, and since leaving he has given lectures and TV interviews about his views on the existence of UFOs.

He added: 'Aliens may possess weapons or advanced technology we’ve no idea of. Aliens may have invisibility, a death ray, teleportation, force fields and other things we can't even guess at.

'Beyond this, unity is key, but as history dictates, this is not so easy.

'The logical course is to unite the world against the alien threat, combining our military strength and fighting under the United Nations. But some countries might not fight.

'We saw this type of treachery and cowardice in the Second World War. Though some brave people joined the Resistance, much of France accepted Nazi occupation.

'The final and perhaps biggest flaw is preparation. With the summer of mass events we are all on high alert for terrorism. But we must also cast our eyes further afield and be prepared for even the most seemingly unfathomable.'

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Ehud Barak refuses to rule out military strike against Iran



Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, refused to rule out military action against Iran yesterday, heightening expectations that his government is preparing to authorise an attack on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

By Adrian Blomfield, Jerusalem

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Barak said that sanctions and international diplomacy had so far failed to deter Iran from seeking to build a nuclear bomb, a prospect that would, he warned, threaten the stability of the "whole world".

"We strongly believe that sanctions are effective or could be effective if they are ... paralysing enough, that diplomacy could work if enough unity could be synchronised between the major players, but that no option should be removed from the table," he told the Andrew Marr Show.

The minister's comments come after a week of increasingly insistent claims in the Israeli press that Mr Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, his prime minister, are lobbying cabinet colleagues to support military strikes against Iran.

The two men, considered Israel's chief political hawks when it comes to Iran, are hoping that a report to be submitted by the UN's nuclear watchdog this week will provide justification for military action, observers and officials have suggested.

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency are expected to present the most compelling evidence yet that Iran is exploring ways to build a nuclear weapon, although European diplomats say the report will not amount to "a smoking gun".

Even so, the Israeli government will seize on its findings to urge the international community to take more decisive action.

The Netanyahu administration tasked Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, with mounting a diplomatic offensive over the weekend in the belief that his dovish credentials will make its case even more compelling.

In a series of interviews, Mr Peres warned that time was running out to prevent Iran from fulfilling its perceived nuclear ambitions and appeared to urge the international community to consider the military option.

"The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option," he told the Israel Hayom newspaper.

The key conclusions of the IAEA report will inevitably refocus international attention on Iran. It is expected to confirm that Iran has enough fissile material to build four nuclear bombs if it were further to enrich the uranium in its stockpiles. But it is an appendix, already partly leaked, that concentrates of the military aspect of Iran's nuclear programme which will garner most interest.

Satellite images will show a large steel container at the Parchin base near Tehran that appears to be designed for nuclear-related explosive testing.

Documentary evidence will also be provided to flesh out earlier IAEA suspicions that Iran is researching the construction of an atomic bomb trigger, has carried out computer simulations on building a nuclear device and is experimenting with the neutron technology needed to ignite a nuclear chain reaction.

The report is likely to conclude that Iran is researching how to construct a nuclear weapon but is not actively building one. Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the report was based on "counterfeit" claims.

As alarming as the findings are, European states are still likely to countenance against military action and call instead for a fifth round of sanctions.

"We gave imposed sanctions that continue to expand," Alain Juppe (ED: Acute on e please), the French foreign minister, said yesterday. "We can toughen them to put pressure on Iran. We will continue on this path because a military intervention could create a situation that completely destabilises the region."

Some observers have suggested that the bellicose rhetoric emerging from Israel is recent days is intended to alarm the international community into imposing tougher sanctions that it might otherwise ensue.

But there is also concern in the West that Israel could pursue unilateral military action.

US intelligence agencies have reportedly stepped up their monitoring of Israel to glean clues of a surprise attack after allegedly failing to win sufficiently concrete assurances from Mr Netanyahu that he would confer with Washington before taking military action.

Israeli intelligence has concluded that Iran intends to move the bulk of its nuclear production to a heavily fortified underground facility near the hold city of Qom by the end of the year, increasing the pressure to strike before it does so.

But Israel is thought only to have a window of only a few weeks if it wants to launch military action before the onset of winter, when heavy cloud would hamper aircraft targeting systems, making an attack impracticable. Some military experts predict that if an attack does come it will take place either in the spring, or, more likely, next summer.