Hi All

Considering the subject matter of the BIS I'd say it is as serious as you can get on space issues - it's been respected in its field for years.

Haisch et al.s argument may be unpalatable to sceptics but they've done the right thing and made a rational case for a seemingly irrational belief in ETs visiting us.

However considering the CIA revelations about the UFOs of the late 50s/early 60s reported in "Popular Mechanics" and similar revelations about the UFOs of the late 40s in "The Fortean Times" - that most of the UFO flaps were caused deliberately by both Cold War sides via high-altitude balloons and aircraft, and both deliberately encouraged the belief in the phenomena to overload each other's early warning systems... well it speaks volumes.

Other UFOs, such as the mysterious giant deltas, have turned out to be secret multiple-aircraft refuelling flights and commercial freighters flying low and slow to avoid inconvenient air traffic rules. Once we eliminate fireballs (the usual suspects), Venus (fooled more people more than once), long-distance reflections off aircraft (so many out-of-focus "saucer" videos) and so on and so forth... what's left???

I've seen things like the Mexican "fire-balls" of recent news, and so have others. Through out history and world-wide. Even African culture has folk-beliefs in balls of light... so I wonder: are there coherent plasmas out there? Created by geostresses and/or weird EM fields just like sprites and similar weird transient lights, but more permanent?

Such plasmas, especially toroidal neutral plasmas, could exist for long periods in Earth's atmosphere - they might even have a semi-solid residuum made of dusty plasma. While I don't believe in real ETs abducting bored housewives, the dust of the homes of reported abductees consistently has micro-spheres of glass - could it be a trace of dusty plasmas? And could their EM fields cause the abduction experience like Dr Michael Persinger's Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation reportedly produces? A rational theory to fit the facts.

Adam