UFO sightings in East Dulwich?

[auraaura]

Me and my flatmate (both rational professionals and sober at the time) were walking up peckham rye on the east side of the common at about 11 pm on saturday 4 august and saw 3 or so lines of quite small orange fiery lights, each line with about 4 lights in it, moving almost vertically up from the horizon near crystal palace masts, then, when they were fairly high in the sky, their trajectory flattened out sharply and they began to travel east over east dulwich and peckham rye. the speed and altitude were similar to that of a jet plane, but the flight path, formation, numbers and appearance were quite different. we watched for a few minutes. we left the road and went into our apartment building to get binoculars and look from our roof terrace; in the couple of minutes it took to get there, they had disappeared. did anybody else see this?

[Cuthbert Dibble]

I didn't see it but on the Stephen Nolan show on Radio 5 Live someone from East Dulwich rang in to report similar sightings - others called in later with similar tales, nobody knew what it was.....

You can probably hear it via the BBC interweb-I-Player thingy on the Beeb website....

[Louisa]

The ED Paranormal Society have done investigations into UFO sightings in the past. We once did a gathering at the top of the hill overlooking Hornimans park and London. I wish I had been aware of this sighting, would have been great to see and investigate. Did anyone get any photographs?

[Cuthbert Dibble]

"The ED Paranormal Society???" Cool!

[Michael Palaeologus]

There's an ED Paranormal Society?!! Fantastic!! Where do I sign up?

[Cuthbert Dibble]

Where do you meet?

Green (Man) and Blue?

E (D) T?

[Xanadustar]

ooh, I heard the lady on Fivelive as well and was hoping someone would know more about it on here. They managed to rustle up Patrick Moore who said it was probably weather baloons which is patently nonsense.

[Jeremy]

Sounds unlikely to me. If aliens wanted to announce their presence, surely they'd make the signs far more obvious than this. And if they wanted to remain discrete, why hover around shining bright orange lights?

[mockney piers]

Quite a few recent sightings have actually been those chinese lanterns which have been pretty popular in recent times at weddings.

"3 or so lines of quite small orange fiery lights, each line with about 4 lights in it" sounds a pretty good candidate to me for this.

[Brendan]

Now Jeremy I think the last 50 years have made it abundantly clear that aliens have no interest in announcing their presence to the world. They are only here to entertain themselves buy blowing up cattle, writing graffiti on wheat fields (which when translated normally says something like ?I?ve a big?un?) and every now and again having some country folk around for a spot of light bumfoolery with the old anal probe.

[mockney piers]

Managed to find this.

 

[Louisa]

The ED Paranormal Society (unofficial title) meets monthly at the Library, although we used to gather at various locations around ED/the Village/Peckham Rye.It all started after the regular psychic meetings and reading sessions there. We have been all over ED, including the parks and open spaces, churches and old buildings. Some of the best hauntings have been found in Dulwich Park, especially the two former park lodging cottages.

[ClareC]

Whats the story with the two former lodging cottages?

[Louisa]

As far as I know the gate lodges are only as old as the park itself, but they certainly hold something from beyond the grave. Many mediums have come across a lady in a straw hat who they believe to be a bee keeper or some sort. The area was once farmland, and no historic links to honey making or bee keeping in Dulwich have been found, though 3 seperate psychics with no links have come across the presence of the same person at the picture gallery entrance to the park.

[Jeremy]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Now Jeremy I think the last 50 years have made it

> abundantly clear that aliens have no interest in

> announcing their presence to the world. They are

> only here to entertain themselves buy blowing up

> cattle, writing graffiti on wheat fields (which

> when translated normally says something like ?I?ve

> a big?un?) and every now and again having some

> country folk around for a spot of light bumfoolery

> with the old anal probe.

Aha - conclusive evidence of alien vists!

Don't get me wrong, I think it's inevitable that aliens are out there, I'm just a bit cynical when it comes to most reported sightings.

[lozzyloz]

take me to your leader

[mockney piers]

I'm with you Jeremy. How can there not be life in the vastness of the universe.

But expending huge amounts of energy and or time to get to boring old earth and then do some zigzagging motions in the sky with funky lights on, or kidnapping mid-western farmers to shove things up their bottoms?

Pull the other one (leg, not .. err... bottom)

[scor46]

ED Paranormal Society... i remain an agnostic.

Howerver, Richerd Dawkins ( God Delusion ) new TV show, where he casts his critical eye over new age healing, paranormal etc says: I say to doctors who use homepathy: if you can identify this you'd have discovered a whole new force in physics. either there is no effect, in which case you shouldnt be charging people money, or there is an effect, in which case you should prove it and win the Nobel Prize.

[Keef]

Maybe they just do it because they know it freaks people out, and they find it funny. That's what I'd do anyway.

[Brendan]

Their folks will probably have a few words to say if they find out what they?re up to.

[Brendan]

scor46 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ED Paranormal Society... i remain an agnostic.

> Howerver, Richerd Dawkins ( God Delusion ) new TV

> show, where he casts his critical eye over new age

> healing, paranormal etc says: I say to doctors who

> use homepathy: if you can identify this you'd have

> discovered a whole new force in physics. either

> there is no effect, in which case you shouldnt be

> charging people money, or there is an effect, in

> which case you should prove it and win the Nobel

> Prize.

Dawkins is intelligent but he frustrates me. If you want to search for truth a rigid belief structure of classic atheism such as his can only be self defeating. You can?t do away with old, limiting belief structures simply to replace them with new ones. He is also exceedingly self-important which annoys me.

[scor46]

i hear what you say Brendan, but time moves on and so does science and our understanding of this fantastic planet. Why shouldnt we replace ideals that we cant prove, with what we do know and understand... even if that is very little?

[Brendan]

I agree scor49.

The ideal would be to be able to approach things from no frame of reference at all so as not to let it influence what you find out. The problem is that it is fundamentally impossible for the human brain to do this without imploding, as if you don?t have a point of view, where are you then? So you need some parameters, hence the scientific process. But is the scientific process infallible? In the eyes of Dawkins it is. There is nothing wrong with this. For practical intents and purposes it is the best thing we have ever come up with as it gets results from which we can draw ?truth?.

But what if there are things outside of our understanding of a universe that holds up to scientific experimentation. (I?m not talking about spirits and religion as they are just things that have not yet been scientifically explained.) What if science itself has to be a more fluid concept?

Thing is people like Dawkins get results and that?s what it is all about. Or you can make your brains leak out your ears by theorising about how to grasp the ungraspable and then trying to shut the voices up with booze.

Jeez I should really get back to work.

[scor46]

Is the scientific process infallible? Of course is. Known science is only a yard stick. We can only measure what we already know. And I think it would be difficult and scary to say that we now kow it all.

Don't get me wrong. I know the world is a marvellous place, full of beauty and wonder. I love it. It makes me want to cry it?s so beautiful. We have all the habitable wonders of an entire Universe at our feet but we don?t see it.

It's all a bit short sighted isn't it. Why are we like this? We haven?t had time for our emotions and intellect to catch up with our brains and technology. We spend $10 BILLION per space shuttle flight. What's it all about? What for? Spy satellites? In some odd notion that we can escape if we f..k it up here?

Escape? To where? It's never goign to happen. Not in our civilisation's lifespan. Unless we discover how to neatly access wormholes and steer ourselves to destination Far Reaches of The Universe with accuracy; harness post light speed transportation technologies; find how to make our bodies survive zero gravity; cosmic ray bombardment and non oxygen based atmospheres; even then we have to find that little needle in the haystack of billions and billions of delighfully pretty, shining boiling hot gas balls and their satellites that don't support life. We ought to learn and get it right here before fantasising about all that don't you think

There you go? you started me off now. There is definitely more to life I just don?t think it is predestined or preordained.

At least I hope not?. Because im in trouble if it is?

[mockney piers]

I thought the whole point of science was that it is fallible.

You put a theorem up and everyone tries to disprove it. Until that time it holds 'true' but it's never an absolute.

In fact on the beeb there's a story about a physics professor who's been working for years at Connecticut Uni trying to invent rudimentary time travel. An astronomer says of him "Much of the science being done today in many fields will turn out to be wrong. Being wrong is an essential part of investigating the universe."

Sums it up quite nicely.