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For over 50 000 years Aboriginal people have built up their knowledge of the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars to complement their relationship with the natural world. Across Australia there are many different Aboriginal cultures, each with its own astronomy. Many have stories of a female Sun who warmed the land, and a male Moon who was once a young slim man (the waxing crescent Moon), but grew fat and lazy (the full Moon). But then he broke the law, and was attacked by his people, resulting in his death (the new Moon). After remaining dead for 3 days, he rose again to repeat the cycle, and continues doing so till this day. The Kuwema people in the Northern Territory say that he grows fat at each full moon by devouring the spirits of those who disobey the tribal laws.

Songs and stories about the Sun, Moon, planets and stars connect ceremony and law to celestial cycles, providing essential tools for navigation, calendars, and life.

Aboriginals quite often use the dark space in the night sky to give meaning rather than traditional western astronomy that uses the stars as markers. To see the "constellation", look at the dark dust-clouds, not the stars!

If you cant see it look at this image

Can you see it now.

These cave paintings date back to approx 3,000 B.C and are from Kimberley, Australia. These paintings are what the local Aborigines call the Wandjina Are these images of aliens.

Other ancient peoples can potentially documented encounters with extra-terrestrials.

This cave painting is from Tassili, Sahara Desert in North Africa. It dates back to 6000 B.C. The figures do not look human. Notice the flying disk in the sky (top right hand corner).

This image of Peruvian rock art is from Toro Muerto and dates back to 12-14,000 years ago.

 This rock painting was found in the Sego Canyon in Utah and is from approx 5,500 B.C. Notice the odd looking beings. The large eyes are reminiscent of modern reports of aliens having disproportionally large eyes.

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 This image is from a cave drawing in France. It's from the cave of Pech Merle which is near Le Cabrerets. It's approx date is 17,000 - 15,000 BC. The scene depicts a field of various wildlife with several UFO-looking objects. On the enlargement on the right you can see three UFO-shaped objects with a man gazing on them.

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This cave painting is c.10,000 BC and is from Val Camonica, Italy. It appears to depict two beings in protective suits holding strange implements. Notice the halo looking objects over their heads, which is identical to the ones in the photos above from Toro Muerto, Peru.

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This carving was found in Kiev, Ukraine. It is approx 6,000 years old (4,000 BC).

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These carvings, on display in the British Museum, are from Iraq and date back to around 5,000 to 4,500 B.C. Many ancient people groups and many even in current times, have reported reptilian looking beings in association with UFO activity.

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 As early as the 28th Dynasty of the New Kingdom, Egyptians refer to Mars as "Horus of the Horizon", a God whom they depicted as a human with the head of a hawk. They also spoke of the planet travelling backwards, a reference to its retrograde motion.

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 Aristotle (384-322 BC), the Greek philosopher, happens to observe an occultation of Mars by the Moon. Aristotle believed in the Geocentric model of the solar system. From seeing the Moon pass in front of Mars, Aristotle concludes that Mars is higher up in the heavens than the Moon.

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 Claudius Ptolemy (120-180) publishes his book, Almagest sometime between 127 and 141. The title means "The Greatest Compilation". This book presents Ptolemy's ideas of how the Universe worked. This came to be known as the Ptolemaic System. It made use of epicycles and equants to describe the orbits of the planets. In this system, the hierarchy of the Universe was Earth - Moon - Mercury - Venus Sun - Mars.

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 Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the Danish astronomer and master of Uraniborg (an observatory built before telescopes but containing instruments to accurately determine the position of objects in the night sky), Makes the most detailed measurements to date of the location of Mars in the night sky.

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 Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), a German astronomer hired by Tycho Brahe as an assistant, publishes his first two laws of planetary motion in his book Astronomia Nova... Commentaries on the Motions of Mars. These laws are The orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of its foci. Each planet will sweep out equal areas in equal time. Kepler's discover was made possible largely through his use of Tycho Brahe's accurate measurements of the position of Mars in the night sky. It has been suggested that he may not have devloped his lasw if had studied another planet.

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Up until this time all these observations had been made with the naked eye.

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 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), a professor at the University of Padua in Venice, Italy, uses the telescope, invented in 1608, to observe Mars. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) reports in a letter, dated December 30, 1610, to a friend that "I dare not affirm that I was able to observe the phases of Mars; nevertheless, if I am not mistaken, I believe that I have seen that it is not perfectly round."

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Francisco Fontana, an amateur astronomer from Naples, Italy, makes the earliest known drawing of Mars based on his telescopic observations. He observes that "the disk of Mars is not uniform in color."

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Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), a Dutch astronomer and discoverer of the rings of Saturn, first describes a feature on Mars that we believe to be what we call Syrtis Major. The feature is present in a drawing he made on October 13, 1659. Huygens describes this feature's appearance as like a large bog. Estimates that Mars is about 60% the size of the Earth. He makes this determination by: Observing Mars telescopically with an eyepiece that has a micrometer installed; Determines the angular size of Mars based on micrometer measurements; Estimates the distance from Earth to Mars; Using geometry to estimate the true size of Mars from the size as measured in his eyepiece. Estimates the Martian day to be 24 hours long. He does this based on his observations of the rotation of the albedo feature Syrtis Major. Christiaan Huygens was fascinated by all new inventions. In around 1650 he became interested in telescopes. He examined the existing models thoroughly and decided to make one himself. With the very first telescope he made together with his brother Constantijn, Christiaan made a spectacular discovery. In 1655 he saw through the telescope a moon of the planet Saturn, which was later named Titan. Subsequently Christiaan made many other telescopes. The only telescope of Huygens' that has been preserved intact is this 12-foot campanine telescope. The special feature of this type is that it contains four lenses, so that you obtain an upright image. The telescope

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comprises five extendable tin tubes. When fully extended it is over five metres long. Yet this is not an exceptionally long telescope, because the Huygens brothers made telescopes up to sixty metres long. 1698 - Huygens Publishes Book About Life on Mars: a book about whether or not there is life on Mars. This was published after his death.

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Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712), a French astronomer, states that he has determined that the length of a Martian day is 24 hours, 40 minutes long. This is based on his observations of the time it takes Martian surface features to complete one rotation.

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1781 - Herschel Determines Inclination of Mars Discovers that the inclination of Mars axis of rotation is approximately 24 degrees. He makes this determination based on his observation of the way in which Martian surface features rotate. Observes the white areas around the poles of Mars and deduces that they are polar ice caps. While others had previously observed the caps, none had gone so far as to claim that they were made of ice. 1784 - Herschel Addresses the Royal Society on the subject of Mars Address to the Royal Society has the following to say about Mars: It appears that this planet is not without considerable atmosphere; for besides the permanent spots on the surface, I have often noticed occasional changes of partial bright belts; and also once a darkish one... These alterations we can hardly ascribe to any other cause than the variable disposition of clouds and vapors floating in the atmosphere of the planet... Mars has a considerable but modest atmosphere, so that its inhabitants probably enjoy a situation in many respects similar to our own.

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 Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910), an Italian astronomer, produces a detailed map of Mars based on his observations of the planet with an 8.5 inch refractor. His map gave classical names to the features he observed. These feature names became widely accepted. This map is also famous for the inclusion of features Schiaparelli identified as canali, an Italian word for a naturally occurring channel. This led many people to speculate about intelligent beings who built canals. He did not think the lines proved anything about life on Mars, though he remained open to the possibility. However some observers did not see any lines, and there was some controversy over whether they existed at all.

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 Percival Lowell (1855-1916), American astronomer, establishes the Lowell Observatory outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. Using 12" and 18" refractors, observations are made continuously from the end of May 1894 through April 1895 by Lowell and his assistants W.H. Pickering and A.E. Douglass. In finding a place for his telescope he considered many possible locations in an attempt to find the best seeing conditions. Seeing is a term used by astronomers; good seeing means there is little or no turbulence (interference) in the atmosphere. This inetrference makes the stars twinkle. 1906: Lowell publishes a book Mars and its Canals. This book was widely read by the general public and goes into detail on Lowells ideas on the canals. He claims the canals were built by Martians for the purpose of transporting water from the poles to the dry Martian plains.

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 1907: Alfred Russel Wallace, better known as an early developer of the theory of Natural Selection and Evolution and the "father of biogeography. He proposes that the craters observed on Mars are formed by the impact of meteorites. Writes a book of his own in which he argues that Mars is completely uninhabitable. Wallace used measurements of the light coming from Mars and argued that Mars has a surface temperature of minus 38 degrees Celsius. Lowells claim that there was liquid water must be wrong. He also concluded that the polar caps consisted of frozen carbon dioxide not water ice as Lowell and many others had assumed.

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 Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist and Nobel Laureate, proposes that the observed changes in Martian albedo features (the ratio of light reflected by a planet) are not necessarily the result of seasonal changes in vegetation on Mars. He believes that the changes could be explained by some simple chemical reaction that is brought on by the melting of the polar ice caps. He was the first scientist to describe the greenhouse effect, predicting that rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) would cause the earth's temperature to rise. During the 1920's, Seth Nicholson and Edison Pettit of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, collect "radiation" from the planets using a 100" mirror. The light collected by the mirror was focused on a thermocouple which then generated an electric current. This current was then measured by a galvanometer. Their measurements of the light from Mars resulted in an estimate that the surface temperatures in the equatorial regions of Mars at noon hit 15 degrees Celcius. Temperatures along the limb of Mars at sunrise were measured to be approximately -85 degrees Celcius. The light coming from the polar regions was to weak for the temperatures there to be determined

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 1909: There was growing doubt about the existence of the canals themselves, not to mention the rest of Lowells ideas. Lowell gave public lectures, wrote books and articles in popular magazines to counter the growing skepticism.

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 Orson Wells produces a radio production of the fictional story War of the Worlds. This is a story of Martians invading the earth. The production was so convincing, that many people believe there has been a real invasion by Martians. A panic resulted. This only serves to reinforce the general publics perception that Mars is inhabited.

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 The canal controversy would not be completely resolved until spacecraft arrived at Mars. In the 1960s most scientists thought there were no canals on Mars, however there were a few exceptions, such as Earl Slipher. Mariner 4, is the first to flyby Mars.

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On July of 1976 the American Viking 1 Orbiter beamed down images of the desolate Martian landscape. One of the images that was sent, would stir up conspiracy theorists for decades to come. The infamous Face on Mars photo has spawn off several theories on what could have created it. From ancient Martian civilizations, to ancient humans from Atlantis having the technology to colonize Mars. Even theories of friendly aliens from nearby stars who had landed on Mars and created a human face as a present to us.

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Pyramids on Mars - composite of original Viking I frames 70A13 and 35A72, from 1976 showing the entire Cydonia Complex - and colored orange to bring out fine details. Comment on this image from a Mars conspiracy website. unmistakable contours of ancient water flow, running roughly northwest to southeast as if the City were located on the western bank of a great waterway, many miles wide (to give you an idea of scale, The Face is a mile and a half long and a half a mile wide) but these markings are on top of the fainter, more regular, seashore edge elevations (many smaller tributaries and streams can also be made out, throughout this image) as if a very high volume of water rushed suddenly past here - and then nothing more compare to spectral image (below right) showing where the longstanding water was

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We now have a very different picture of Mars. Some parts of Mars have numerous craters suggestive of Mercury and the Moon, but other parts of Mars have plains, volcanoes, canyons and river channels. The volcanoes and canyons are bigger than any other known examples, however there is a vague similarity between some of these features and similar features on the Earth. There was no evidence of canals or liquid water.

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THE IMAGE ON THE LEFT IS FROM THE ORIGINAL VIKING MISSION, THE ONE ON THE RIGHT IS FROM A MORE RECENT MGS MISSION. We now know that the atmosphere has a pressure that varies between 5 and 10 millibars (much lower than anyone had suspected until Mariner 4 made radar occultation measurements). It is almost entirely carbon dioxide, but contains some water vapor and other trace gases. The polar caps are partly water ice and partly frozen carbon dioxide, but there are differences between the northern and southern polar caps, as there is between a polar cap seen in the Martian winter and a polar cap seen in the Martian summer. Since the canals are not real, why were Schiaparelli, Flammarion and Lowell (among others) so convinced they were real? There are some clues. First, Schiaparelli was colorblind and this may explain why he saw details others did not. Once Schiaparellis results were known, the power of suggestion may have influenced other observers. Also, records suggest most observations of canals happened under poor seeing conditions or when small apertures were used. The canals disappeared under better conditions and larger apertures. Lowell preferred to reduce the aperture of his scope (which made observing the canals easier), but many of his critics used larger apertures. There also have been a few tantalizing clues suggestive of life, but to date no proof

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that Mars has or ever had life. The most publicized of these clues was a meteorite that was given the designation ALH84001. ALH84001 is one of the dozen or so meteorites known to come from Mars and had what looked like fossils. Some scientists believe these fossils come from ancient Martian bacteria, however other scientists are not convinced. I should note that Viking photographs in the region known as Cydonia look like a human face, but MGS photographs of the same region look like a pile of rocks. A few non-scientists claim this is a structure built by Martians, however that is unlikely.

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There are currently 2 main arguments for the existence of Alien Life Forms: 1. Dont be absurd they are out there for sure! 2. Dont be absurd we are all alone!

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 This is an image taken from the Hubble Deep Field telescope. Each dot is a galaxy made up of millions of stars. 100, 000, 000, 000 stars We are able to see about 1, 000, 000, 000, 000 galaxies with our current technolgy We know that at least 7% of stars have planets around them. This figure is probably mush higher, maybe as high as 100%

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 How can we estimate the number of technological civilizations that might exist among the stars? Dr Frank Drake conceived an approach to bound the terms involved in estimating the number of technological civilizations that may exist in our galaxy. The Drake Equation, as it has become known, was first presented by Drake in 1961 and identifies specific factors thought to play a role in the development of such civilizations. Although there is no unique solution to this equation, it is a generally accepted tool used by the scientific community to examine these factors. This means about 1, 000, 000, 000 (pessimistic) to 50, 000, 000, 000 (optimistic) planets should have intelligent, communicating life in our galaxy alone.

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The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. SETI search has not yet received a confirmed, extra-terrestrial signal. Project Phoenix used the world's largest telescopes (40 to 300 meters in diameter) to look at nearby, sun-like stars. Stars are examined one by one over a portion of the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum for artificially produced signals. The Targeted Search System looks for signals in the range 1,000 MHz to 3,000 MHz, with a frequency resolution of 1 Hz. The ability to detect slowly-drifting signals and the application of near real-time data processing made Project Phoenix the most comprehensive and sensitive SETI search in the world. There is relatively little background static from galaxies, quasars, and other cosmic noisemakers in the microwave part of the spectrum. This makes faint signals easier to pick out. Additionally, the microwave band contains a naturally-produced emission line, a narrow-band "broadcast", at 1,420 MHz due to interstellar hydrogen. Every radio astronomer (including extraterrestrial ones) will know about this hydrogen emission. It may serve as a universal "marker" on the radio dial. Consequently, it makes sense to use nearby frequencies for interstellar "hailing" signals If ET was looking for us would they be able to detect our radio signals? NO. Most earthly transmitters are too weak to be detectable by Phoenix-type equipment at the distance of even the nearest star. The exceptions are some highpowered radars and the Arecibo broadcast of 1974 (which lasted for only three

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minutes). To detect "leakage" radiation similar to our own will require instruments that are many times more sensitive than what we now have.

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 The probability of life forming on any planet is considered to be quite remote. The improbability of life occurring is very much larger than the number of planets in the observable universe.

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Following our story of a UFO seen off Cornwall on December 29 2008 we were inundated by calls from people who had similar things all over the country.

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