Area 51!

Karma Paljor-CNN-IBN

UNKNOWN OBJECTS: Eight days after they blinked on ATC radar, no one yet knows what they were.

New Delhi: Were there some unidentified flying objects over Delhi last Wednesday or was it a security lapse near the Prime Minister’s residence?

On March 7, 2007, air traffic control radars in Delhi picked up two unidentified flying objects over Delhi moving northwest to south between 0930 hours and 1000 hours (IST).

While the ATC was alarmed by the sightings, the Air Force did not scramble its jets to intercept the flying objects as per the security protocol even though the breach of air space happened at a time when air traffic was at its peak. Security experts say the objects might have involved a serious threat to civilian air traffic.

And eight days later, no one really knows if they were birds or planes or kites. ATC officials say the objects were too slow moving to be aircraft. The Air Force says they could have been migratory birds. A radar malfunction has also been not ruled out.

But the incident has raised serious security concerns as the two unidentified flying objects were detected very close to the Prime Minister’s residence.

Sources told CNN-IBN that both the objects were flying seven miles apart. They flew over Safdarjung before heading east and vanishing off the radar. Both the ATC and the Air Force tried to establish radio contact, but failed.

The UFOs flew just above the Safdarjung Airport. But what has raised serious concern in the security establishment is the fact that the Prime Minister’s house is just 2 km from the spot and so are the other high-security areas.

The Air Force says it was informed about the radar trace only when the objects were within 5 nautical miles of Safdarjung. They vanished from the radar 3 minutes after crossing Safdarjung.

The Civil Aviation Ministry says there are no reports of unidentified flying objects over Delhi. The Air Force has already conducted an enquiry into this incident, but it had no clear answers to any of the questions.

A FAMILY feared they would be “wiped out” when a UFO plummeted from the sky, heading straight at their Hertford home.Reports of the bizarre phenomenon poured into the Mercury after the cylindrical object was spotted on Monday at around 4pm. But none was more dramatic than that by mum-of-four Maxine Abbess, 44, of Pages Road on the Sele Farm estate.

She said: “My little boy was lying on his back on the trampoline in the garden when he said, ‘Look at that black spot in the sky, Mum’.

“We thought it was a balloon high up and then it started to suddenly fall at such a rate that we all rushed into the house. We thought it was going to land in the garden.

“We slowly came back out to look and it had come to a dead stop - it was amazing.

“Then it slowly and silently started rising up into the sky and disappeared into the clouds.”

Maxine’s husband, Paul, 41, the head chef of Braughing’s Axe and Compasses pub, their eldest son Sam, 18, and other sons, Aston, 11, Ayrton, 10, and Jenson, 8 - pupils at Wheatcroft School in Hertford who are named after fast cars and Formula 1 drivers - also saw the shape.

Maxine added: “It was terrifying. We really feared it was going to fall on us and wipe us all out.

“It was sausage-shaped and very dark. It wasn’t a Zeppelin as there was no engine noise and it definitely wasn’t a balloon. It was made out of metal.”

Hertford office worker Jodie Enright estimated it was 500ft up when she saw it.

She said: “I spotted the UFO from my office window. It looked black, but it reflected the sun.

“It was floating up Caxton Hill from the direction of Ware Road, up and over our factory.

“It probably took 10 minutes to travel this distance and appeared to be listing and yawing in the wind.

“It was definitely cylindrical in shape and, as it appeared closer, you could see a square shape hanging from the end of the cylinder.”

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: “If someone has invaded our air space we will be able to say whether the Russians have come or not.

“Our official who records UFO sightings has no reports of this incident.”

According to the bloggers of the UFO Iconoclast blog, they have in their possession a third, “lost” Trent photo. In 1950, Paul Trent took two photos of a UFO over his property in McMinnville, Oregon. Many UFO investigators have determined the photos to be genuine; or at least, no evidence of fakery has been found. There are skeptics who to this day insist the photos are fake of course. Either way, all these years, the case’s authenticity fell on the two photographs, along with the genuine nature of the Trents themselves.

Now, more than 50 years — 50 years — after the Oregon sighting, a third, “lost,” photograph has surfaced.

The writers on the UFO Iconoclast blog (which, it needs to be noted, is a somewhat notorious anti-UFO/chronic skeptic blog) say they have a third photograph, which was “obtained by SMC in Phoenix, Arizona.” Who, or what “SMC,” is, is not revealed.

The photograph is close to the ground, which causes the writers of the blog to ask if this means that “the object (or model?) nearer to the ground, and at an angle precluding a bona fide aerodynamic craft?”

They promise us “more to come” on this subject. The blog entry has numerous comments, including comments to the comments by the blog writers, who attempt clear up some of the obvious questions.

There is no proof this is a third, “lost,” photo. Why would someone wait fifty years to come forward? Other questions: who is this “SMC,” where did the photo come from, where is the negative, has it been analyzed, (if so, by who and what are the results?) and so on.

We are assured that the photo “predates any digital manipulation programs.” and that “It is not computer generated.” At this time, all we have is their word on this, with more promises of further information.

Horseshoe Bend, AR — Judges on a federal appeals court, taking up a case involving local politicians and UFOs, say a woman’s claim that she has a constitutional right to an elective office is alien to them.

Ruth E. Parks, the former recorder-treasurer of Horseshoe Bend, sued Mayor Robert Spear and others, claiming they conspired to prevent her re-election. But the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Saint Louis said voters turned Parks out of office, not the mayor and other defendants.

At a trial of a supporter of the mayor, Parks testified that she believed in UFOs, and said she had seen one. Her husband testified at the same trial that his wife had been abducted by aliens, and cited a scar on her neck he said was proof of the abduction.

The local newspaper, The News, published a story about the couple’s testimony. Mrs. Parks did not challenge the article’s accuracy but said it was defamatory and designed to make her look foolish. Mrs. Parks finished third in her re-election bid, and then sued the mayor, police, Perkins and the author of the article, claiming a conspiracy. The 8th Circuit said Parks has no constitutional right to be elected.

A LOCAL driver was left wondering if he had spotted a UFO after he saw mysterious lights hanging in the sky above Berwick on Monday evening.

The driver was going through Paxton when he noticed the five lights at around 7.30pm. Both his wife and his 17-year-old grandson witnessed the lights and were so startled that the driver stopped the car in order to have a better look.

“They were just hanging in the sky above Berwick and were really big,” said the driver who contacted the Berwickshire News to find out if anyone else had reported seeing the lights or any other unidentified flying objects.

“They were like the kind of yellow lights you see on the motorway but they were big. They weren’t high in the sky and were sitting just above Berwick.”

The driver and his family spotted the lights while they were driving past the Cross Inn. “The pub is closed on a Monday night so it wasn’t that,” laughed the driver. “I have not seen anything like these lights in the sky before and I am not prone to exaggeration but I am curious to find out if anyone else saw them.

“I just thought it was strange as they disappeared after about 30 seconds.” 16 March 2007

Ten years after the Arizona UFO incident known as the ‘Phoenix Lights’, former Arizona Republican Governor Fife Symington, III, now says that he himself was a witness to one of the strange unidentified flying objects, even though he originally did not say so publicly.

“It was enormous and inexplicable”, he said in an exclusive interview from his home in Phoenix. “Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too.”

On March 13, 1997, during Symington’s second term as Governor, thousands saw multiple triangular and V-shaped craft, gliding slowly and silently across the sky for half an hour beginning at approximately 8:15 pm.

Awestruck witnesses, throughout the state, estimated that the eerie, lighted vehicles were bigger than many football fields, up to a mile long.

Arizona Senator John McCain, a friend of Symington’s who the former Governor describes as “open-minded”, acknowledged at a 2000 press conference that lights were seen over Arizona.

“That has never been fully explained. But I have to tell you that I do not have any evidence whatsoever of aliens or UFOs”, he said.

The evidence for a possible UFO, which simply means something in the sky that can’t be identified, lies in the fact that countless witnesses reported seeing low, gigantic, technological flying machines that blocked out the stars - not merely lights.

Now the former Governor attests to that. Symington says he saw a large triangular “craft of unknown origin” with lights, moving slowly.

“It was dramatic. And it couldn’t have been flares because it was too symmetrical”, he says. “It had a geometric outline, a constant shape.”

The sightings of the objects that evening are sometimes confused with the row of lights that appeared at about 10 pm, near Phoenix, and have been shown repeatedly on television news.

These later lights were probably flares. People witnessed the objects at around 8:30 because they were outside on that pleasant, cloudless night watching the Hale-Bopp Comet.

Symington was known for ridiculing the incident at a spoof press conference, so his statement marks a dramatic turnaround. He wants to make amends to his constituents and set the record straight.

On the morning of June 19, 1997, when pressure was building from frustrated citizens who wanted answers, the Governor announced on television that he was ordering a full investigation and would make “all the necessary inquiries.”

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this. We’re going to find out if it was a UFO”, he said in a serious tone.

Later that same afternoon, Symington suddenly called a press conference and told viewers that he had found the source behind the Phoenix Lights.

His chief-of-staff, Jay Heiler, was escorted in by public safety police officers while handcuffed, wearing a large rubber mask and dressed as a space alien.

The Governor presented the costumed extraterrestrial as the “guilty party.”

While laughter filled the room, he joked that “this just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious.”

“It was an insult to the intelligence of the witnesses”, Barwood recalls.

“The message to Arizona citizens was that reporting this was stupid.”

“If I had to do it all over again I probably would have handled it differently”, Symington explains.

He says that the state of Arizona was “on the brink of hysteria” about the UFO sighting when he called the press conference, and the frenzy was building.

“I wanted them to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule”, he says.

The former Governor, a cousin of the late Missouri Senator Stuart Symington, states that the incident remains open and unsolved, and should be officially investigated.

The US Government has never acknowledged that something was in the sky that night.

Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Barwood was the only elected official to launch a public investigation in 1997, but she received no information from any level of government.

Barwood spoke with over seven hundred witnesses, including police, pilots and former military, who provided very similar descriptions.

“The government never interviewed even one witness”, she says.

Symington also attempted to find an explanation.

He called the Commander at Luke Air Force Base, the General in charge of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety in 1997.

None of these officials had answers, and they were “perplexed”, he says.

In 2000, the Department of Defense maintained that it could not find any information about the triangular object, in response to a court-ordered search requested by a U.S. District court in Phoenix, as part of a class action suit filed by witnesses.

“How could they possibly not know about these huge craft flying low over major population centers? That’s inconceivable, but it’s also frightening”, Barwood commented.

Phoenix Lights Symington’s announcement is bolstered by the fact that similar flying objects have been documented by the governments of England and Belgium.

On March 30, 1990, the Belgian Air Force sent two F-16s armed with missiles to intercept a black triangular UFO displaying bright lights on its underside. The object could accelerate or dive at tremendous speeds, starting from a stationary position, as recorded on radar. It flew at the speed of sound without making a sonic boom.

The Belgian Ministry of Defense released all its data on the UFO to the press, after eliminating American stealth aircraft and all other possible explanations.

On the night of March 30, 1993, three years later to the day, a vast triangular-shaped craft, also capable of rapidly accelerating in seconds from a virtual hover, was seen by over a hundred witnesses in England, including police officers and military personnel. The British Ministry of Defense stated that “none of the usual explanations put forward to explain UFO sightings seem applicable” and concluded that the evidence showed that “an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK.”

According to an April 1993 MOD document, the agency sent a letter to the US Embassy which was “disseminated to all ‘interested Agencies’ in the US” to find out whether the March UFO could have been attributable to some US prototype such as the Aurora.

“The answer I got back was extraordinary”, reports Nick Pope, the MOD official who investigated the 1993 sighting.

“The Americans had been having their own sightings of these large, triangular-shaped UFOs and wanted to know if the RAF might have such a craft.”

This statement, four years before the display over Arizona, contradicts the 2000 claim by the US DOD that the department had no information at all about the triangles.

To this day, US officials continue to keep the lid on the Phoenix Lights and other well-documented American sightings of mysterious giant triangles.

“I wish that government entities would stop trying to shut down these investigations by putting out some flakey story”, says Symington, a long-time pilot, drawing an analogy to the November sighting of a hovering disc by many aviation witnesses at O’Hare airport, which the FAA explained away as a “weather phenomenon.”

Leslie Kean is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines around the world such as the Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Providence Journal, Sacramento Bee, Atlanta- Journal Constitution, Newark Star Ledger, The Nation magazine, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Bangkok Post, the Kyoto Journal, and the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Her stories have been syndicated through Knight-Ridder Tribune, Scripps-Howard, New York Times Wire Service, Pacific News Service and the National Publishers Association.

She is the co-founder of the Washington-based Coalition for Freedom of Information.

I have been searching the web to find someone who can hopefully understand and relate to what I’m about to share with you. I’m Carolyn Z., married, mom of 4 children, living in the Huntsville, Alabama area. I have been abducted, visited, examined (I try not to use the word abduction because it scares people) all my life, my youngest memory was when I was 7 when I got the implant and tissue samples were taken.

My children now have to endure this. They are 14, about to turn 11, 7, and 6. My “about to turn 11 year old” is the one who has urged me to find someone who I can at least discuss this topic with.

Saturday night she went to sleep as usual wearing the clothes she had worn that day (I’ve given up on getting her to change into her night clothes, its a moot point). She was wearing the usual shirt and jeans. Sunday morning she ran to me shaken up because she had woken up not wearing her jeans and she had looked everywhere for them and they were missing. She said she had a dream that confused her, some loud music blaring and lights flashing, and then she woke up and noticed her jeans were gone.

I have looked everywhere in her room and in the house, every crack and crevice. I’ve searched every plausible explainable end and found nothing. I accepted the truth (what I believe the truth is anyway) quickly because when I was pregnant with this same child of mine, I had a dream of being abducted, examined and returned. I had gone to sleep that night wearing a pink maternity shirt and woke up wearing a grey work shirt that neither me or my husband owned or had ever seen.

It’s very easy for me to pretend that this doesn’t go on until you wake up missing clothing that you wore to bed. I’ve somehow passed this on to my children and I know that… I just would like to know why. Kaitlyn (the child in question) took my explanation very well, I was honest with her about our family and how we constantly see UFOs and reminded her of several instances throughout her life.

I told her about my instance with the shirt in 1996. All she wants to know is when she will get her jeans back. Go figure… she is 11 and is all about her wardrobe right now.

She’s a normal child, artistic, intelligent, intuitive, very stubborn and willful as the day is long but what child her age isn’t? My mom and her sisters used to see UFOs too growing up. We have an idea where it stems from but aren’t 100% positive.

My grandfather (mom’s dad) used to work for NASA and van Braun in the 1950-60’s designing the first rockets and satellites. He was a brilliant thinker, could memorize thousands of pages of nothing but consecutive 1’s and zeros and then burn the written copy and use that information to program the first room-sized computers.

For some reason he was mysteriously promoted to the Pentagon in the 1960’s, right about the time frame of when my mother says she started remembering seeing UFOs. My grandfather was assassinated in 1972, we believe by the government. He just knew too much.

I have seen my own implant on X-ray. When I was 21 I had to have an X-ray of my left elbow (why they decided to put it there I will never know). The doctor who looked at my X-ray showed me the film. He turned on the bright X-ray light on the wall and shoved the film up into its holder and asked me what the metal in my arm was.

It is very tiny, probably no more than a 2 millimeters in radius. It’s not round either, more like rounded edges on a triangle. The doctor asked me if I had ever been shot with a BB growing up, I said no. He asked me if I had ever had an open wound there, I said no. (I do think the doctor had a feeling of what it was, and was seeking validation from me, but that was just my gut feeling). I simply told him, after catching my breath and sitting down, that I had a feeling I knew what it was.

He seemed anxious to know, but I just shook my head and begged him not to ask me because I was sure he would think I was crazy. That was the implant that I had remembered all those years, of the “dream” where I was taken and put on a table, and what I would call very tall greys (not what people think of as Roswell small ones), were taking samples from me.

I remember from my eye, a needle going in and also my teeth, the top of my mouth. When I was 32 my dentist (who was new to me, doing an initial once-over to establish his baseline of the health my teeth) said “well, now this is interesting. It looks like someone took a tiny ice cream scoop and just scooped out some of your tooth behind one of your two top front teeth.” And with that, I rolled my eyes and didn’t say a word. I asked my mother later on when I got my permanent top teeth in the front, she said I was 6 or 7.

I remember parts of things later on. My most vivid memories are while Im asleep. I am currently seeking out a local hypnotist to retrieve something that happened just two weeks ago during broad daylight while I was driving. I’ll see if I can express this clearly. You know how you have two pieces of a puzzle and they are supposed to slide together smoothly in order to see a picture that has no obvious dividing lines in it? OK, when I was driving home from Redstone Arsenal (army base near Huntsville where I go twice a week for class) something happened that caused me to just black out while driving, yet I didn’t wreck or even stop driving.

It normally takes me 20-25 minutes to get home from there and somehow I got home in 11 minutes. Not missing time, but condensed time. When I look back on it, all I remember is driving, but there is a rift in between driving, and driving.

The missing fragment occurred on the same road as before it began. I don’t think I bypassed any part of the road, just drove thru it quicker?

I’m seeking hypnosis hoping that whatever I am shown will fill in the blank rift. I would like to know how one person can experience something on a road filled with cars and no one else know what is happening, but I’m sure I’ll find that out. Anyway, feel free to post this on your site, which I will check out in a moment.

Thank you,

Carolyn Z.

translated by Guerman Grachev

Scientists may soon unravel the mystery of the “Uralian alien,” a tiny creature found near the town of Kyshtym in the Urals. Scientists carried out five series of laboratory studies investigating the DNA samples of the creature’s biological material. The latest study conducted by a Moscow-based Institute of Forensic Medicine produced sensational results.

“A gene discovered in the DNA samples doesn’t correspond with any genes pertaining to humans or anthropoid apes,” said Vadim Chernobrov, a coordinator with the public research center Kosmopoisk.

“No gene samples available at the laboratory match the gene. The experts in DNA research haven’t come across any creatures with such an elongated DNA molecule,” Chernobrov added.

Scientists have been looking for an explanation of the Kyshtym phenomenon for more than ten years.

The story began in the summer of 1996 after a miniature creature was found in the Chelyabinsk region. The find was soon dubbed the “Kyshtym alien.” A local medical examiner who performed an autopsy concluded that the dead body was neither human nor animal in nature.

Ufologists regarded the Kyshtym dwarf as a clear-cut case of the extraterrestrial. The clergy believe the dwarf was a demon.

The creature was still alive when it was found by an old and barely literate woman. She was the only one who gave the dwarf a human name – Alioshenka (a diminutive of the Russian name “Alexei” – ed. note).

The curse of Alioshenka

The dwarf from Kyshtym did not do any harm to anybody while he was in the land of the living. Some really weird things began to happen following the death of the creature.

The old lady, a “godmother” of Alioshenka the Alien, died in a hit-and-run accident. The woman was knocked down by a car just a few days before a team of researchers arrived in the town from Moscow.

The body of the dwarf vanished without a trace.

An investigator assigned to the case is reported to have handed the corpse to some perpetrators who walked off with it.

A Japanese TV crew arrived in Kyshtym to do a documentary on Alioshenka. The Japanese posted a reward of 0,000 for information on the whereabouts of the stolen creature. However, their attempts to locate the body of the dwarf ended in failure.

A minute piece of the dead body was the only hard evidence the Japanese somehow managed to recover. The Japanese displayed the object for the benefit of the cameras.

Academician Mark Milkhiker looked into the Kyshtym phenomenon on location. He carefully examined the area in which the dwarf was found. Milkhiker fell seriously ill shortly after he returned to Moscow. He died of a sudden heart attack while in hospital.

The above Vadim Chernobrov was also taken ill four years after the discovery of the dwarf. A mysterious disease paralyzed him from the waist down.

Doctors were unable to explain the cause of his disease. It was Chernobrov who found a piece of fabric used by the old lady for wrapping around the dwarf on the day she found him.

Were all those misfortunes a coincidence? Did the alien really put a curse on everyone who tried to solve his mystery?

It is clear that Deguchi Masao, a producer of the Japanese documentary on Alioshenka, fell victim to his own naivety that borders on idiocy. What did he do? He promised to pay cash to locals who could share their memories of the dwarf with his crew.

Needless to say, the news spread across the town like wildfire. Dozens of bums and drunkards formed a long line around the house where the Japanese were interviewing “eyewitnesses.” It took the producer a while to realize that all those incredible accounts of the event were a fake.

Two of the cases that have been investigated this month stand out as exceptional in description, witness credentials and credibility. I share these with you here.

Maryville, TN

The witness, a former Marine and navy veteran( a trained observer), reported on the CMS that he saw something quite extraordinary.

Having just exited his house, he notices a DC 10 departing McGee Tyson . His attention was on the aircraft when he noticed more “aircraft” further up in the sky. A commercial “heavy” was at altitude and leaving a condensation trail and heading west. Much further below the heavy, a featureless cylinder shaped object was crossing the sky. The witness described the object as a “cigarette butt” at arm’s length and slightly constricted in diameter in the center, almost a slight barbell shape. He noted in his interview that he waited for this object to do something more amazing as it crossed the sky but it never deviated from it’s straight line path. This witness was adamant that the object had “no wings” and made no noise.

Mufresseboro, TN

The witness in this case is a housewife/mother who was watching her daughter ride a 4-wheeler when she had an amazing experience.

Standing still and observing her daughter, she saw something out of the corner of her eye moving across the sky. She reports that she looked up and almost “died”(from interview). A cigar shaped object was slowly moving across the sky. The object was metallic and looked like “tarnished stainless steel”

As she watched the object picked up speed slightly and leveled out to show that it was in fact a disc shaped object, becoming completely round. Her testimony stated that the object was “soccer ball” sized at arm’s length, sometimes larger.. As the object maneuvered, it was joined by an identical disc which both began circling each other, joined and moved away in an instant.

This witness was adamant that until this event, she thought everyone who had ever seen or reported a ufo was delusional. We also found this witness to be quite credible. It should be noted that this witness is a former employee of the Air Force at Arnold Engineering/AFB, just outside.

NASCA, Peru – Everyone here, it seems, has a theory about the Nasca Lines.

The mysterious markings on the desert floor are a massive astronomical calendar. That's a popular one.

Or maybe they point to hidden reserves of water, the source of life in the desert.Then there's my favorite: UFO landing site. Forty years ago, Danish writer Erich Von Daniken popularized that theory with his best-selling book Chariots of the Gods?

Now, strapped into a four-passenger Cessna circling over a figure called the astronaut, I'm not sure what to think. One of its hands points to the sky, another to the ground. His owlish eyes stare into mine.

Look at me, the 1,500-year-old seems to say. Can you solve my mystery?

Here's what's known: For hundreds of years, the Nasca people created lines on the ground. Some form familiar figures: a spider, hummingbird and dog. Others – a whale, monkey and parrot – don't belong in the desert at all.

The only way to see the Nasca Lines is from the air. That makes them even more mysterious. How did pre-Inca people make these images without being able to fly? And what was the point of forming lines if they couldn't appreciate their glory? The lines weren't even discovered until 1929, when a pilot flew over the area and was astonished to see eyes looking up at him.

Thanks to the ancients, the town of Nasca now has a veritable air force: More than a dozen companies fly planes over the lines. The tours are an industry, as indicated by the handwritten sign taped to my plane's instrument console. "Tips are welcome," it says in six languages.

Not bad for a dusty desert town of about 20,000, a six-hour bus ride south of Lima. The modern city of Nasca, a place that gets less than an inch of rain a year, owes its prosperity to the mysterious markings. Statues inspired by the desert figures decorate the town plaza. Sketches of the lines are everywhere else. Elongated hummingbirds mark store signs, while a lizard graces City Hall. On sidewalks, brass inlays of a monkey and spider reflect the sun.

But the lines might have been forgotten without Maria Reiche. She came to Peru from Germany in the 1930s as a tutor and eventually dedicated her life to documenting the creations. For years, she surveyed the area, measuring the markings and pondering their meaning.

"To the local people, she was the gringa loca, the crazy woman sweeping the desert," said Bruno Huancahuari, who works at the Maria Reiche Foundation, a museum built at her former home outside Nasca. Displays include her hand-drawn maps and the Volkswagen microbus she used for explorations.

The world came around to Ms. Reiche's way of thinking before she died in 1998. Her statue now overlooks the city plaza. UNESCO declared the area a World Heritage Site, but not before some lines were destroyed by development – the Pan American Highway cuts a lizard's tail in half.

Only a few spots allow visitors to get a close look at the lines. A roadside fire tower, built with Ms. Reiche's funds, provides a view of two figures: a tree and a pair of hands. Like the astronaut and monkey, the two hands have only nine fingers. Another mystery.

But the city is generous with theories. Here's one explanation offered to me by a guide: Nasca has nine months of blazing summer heat, thus nine fingers.

Maybe so. But to understand the lines, I wanted to see them from ground level. Half a mile from the tower, visitors can get a desert-level view of the creations. I kneel to look straight down a line. I see no monkeys, whales or spiders. Just a long, straight pathway bordered with stones and disappearing into the distance in the brown, dusty desert.

The markings were made by clearing away dark rock, exposing white soil below. Archaeologists have demonstrated that using sophisticated surveying techniques it would have been possible for the Nascans to create figures working from a small model expanded to a large scale. That's probably how they were built. But one researcher has shown that the Nascans also could have built hot-air balloons to supervise the construction from above. We'll never know. The Nascan culture disappeared, eventually absorbed by the Incas.

Ms. Reiche spent her final years at the Hotel Nazca Lines (Nasca has alternate spellings), where she received free room and board in exchange for nightly lectures, during which she wrestled with questions such as these.

The hotel keeps the tradition alive with a nightly planetarium show. I drop in one evening, browsing alpaca scarves and Nasca replica pottery in the lobby gift shop before a German couple and I are led outside to a circular wooden building for a presentation in English.

As Peruvian flute music plays, the lights dim and an astronomer reviews the theories behind the lines. Ms. Reiche, it's noted, came to believe the lines were a star calendar, and that gets a thorough examination as lines and stars trace across the planetarium screen.

The hummingbird figure, for example, has a line emerging from its beak that crosses the desert and eventually points to the spot where the sun rises on Dec. 21, the South American summer solstice.

But just a third of the lines can be linked to astronomical observations. It could all be coincidence.

Each figure is made from a single line, we're told. Some believe the Nascans would visit their drawings for religious ceremonies, following the lines as some worshippers elsewhere in the world walk labyrinths in prayer and meditation.

Another theory suggests that the lines point to springs. Water here is a constant worry. Peru's coastal desert is one of Earth's harshest environments. Summer temperatures often top 125 degrees.

The word Nasca means "hard place to live," but its ancient residents found ways to survive. They constructed a system of aqueducts, channeling water from underground springs to their crops. At one point, an aqueduct flows underneath a river channel.

The underground waterways would clog, so the Nascans built walkways spiraling down as far as 20 feet, making it possible to clear obstructions and keep the water flowing. I follow one path down to the water level, marveling at the engineering and the startling sight of water coursing through a desert. These were clearly sophisticated people.

That same day, I look them in the face at the Chauchilla Cemetery, about 20 miles south of town. The dead rested in peace here until a century ago, when grave robbers desecrated the huge burial ground. The criminals grabbed pottery and textiles, leaving bodies and bones scattered across the desert floor. And that's where many remain.

Mummies have been returned to 12 graves, which are open for viewing. I stick to the path linking the sites. Vertebrae, femurs and slivers of unidentifiable human bones lie exposed on the sand.

The Nascans placed their mummies in a fetal position. Many had long hair, some still attached to the leathery skin on their skulls. The scene is creepy even at midday, looking like a bad Halloween display. Then I see mummies of children, and I'm reminded that this was once a place of mourning and sadness. Their small bodies are heartbreaking centuries later.

Now all the bodies and skulls again face east, waiting for the rising sun and rebirth.

It's sobering, but I had come to celebrate the Nascan's genius, not their demise. I had come to see their lines from the air.

Nasca's airport is little more than an open-air waiting room. Visitors line up for flights, which last 25 minutes and cost about .

I share a plane with a couple from Spain, who take the back seat. I'm to be the co-pilot. Before takeoff, we're given a map showing our route and the dozen or so figures we will see.

The pilot introduces himself, then radios the control tower for permission to take off. I'm unnerved when he writes the runway coordinates on his hand with a pen. Before I can back out, we're airborne.

In moments, the city of Nasca gives way to wide-open desert. Lines stretch everywhere. There are literally thousands, covering hundreds of square miles, but only a small percentage form recognizable figures.

The pilot taps my shoulder and points. There's a whale swimming forever through the sand. We circle it twice before moving on to the next figure, like a game of aerial connect-the-dots. Next come a pair of trapezoids – Erich Von Daniken's UFO landing strips. Then we circle the astronaut, who looks forlorn on the hillside, his big eyes staring up.

The pilot taps me on the shoulder again and pushes his body against the yoke so I can stretch behind him for a view out his window. It's like the driver of a sports car leaning forward to let a passenger into the back seat. Except we're cruising several thousand feet above the ground.

We pass a dog and a monkey. That's when I make my own Nasca Lines connection: The monkey's spiraling tail looks just like the path leading down to the aqueducts.

As we circle the figures, the plane tilting and dipping, my head starts spinning. I feel the blood drain from my face.

The pilot guarantees his tip when he nudges my shoulder. He pours some alcohol on a cotton swab and hands it to me, motioning for me to hold it to my nose.

My head clears.

During the next 10 minutes, we pass a spider, hummingbird, parrot, hands and a tree. I had seen the last two from the tower the previous day, but now the altitude guarantees a spectacular view.

Then he circles one last time and heads back toward town. For the first time in my life, I feel a cold sweat pouring down my back.

Somewhere over a grove of tangelo trees, I officially lose my breakfast in a bag provided for the occasion.

Back on the ground, I take a shaky step down to the tarmac.

The Nasca Lines remain a mystery to me, but I now have a wish for the ancients.

If aliens ever did fly in circles over the desert in southern Peru, I hope they tipped their pilot well.

E-mail lbleiberg@dallasnews.com

BEST GUESSES

Why were the Nasca Lines made? Here are some theories:

UFO landing strips. OK, a little far-fetched, but the idea presented in the best-seller Chariots of the Gods? helped popularize the lines.

Astronomical observatory. Many of the lines point to constellations and can be tied to solstices and equinoxes. But most don't.

Water. The desert-dwelling Nascans obsessed about water, and the lines could map underground sources.

Labyrinths. Each figure is constructed from a single line, so they could be walked during ceremonies.

Sports stadium. The Nascans were great athletes, the thinking goes. Maybe the lines were running tracks.

For tribute. The markings can be seen only from the air, making them messages to the gods. (See first suggestion.)

WHEN YOU GO

The town of Nasca (also spelled Nazca) is about 275 miles south of Lima. It's possible to visit on a day trip, flying from Lima to the towns of Pisco or Ica, and then taking a smaller plane for a flight over the Nasca Lines. But that would give you time to see the lines from the air and little else.

Consider overnighting, and even adding an extra day if you're a lines nut. Nasca sites can be visited on day tours provided by many area agencies.

I used a bus to reach Nasca, Cruz del Sur (www.cruzdelsur.com.pe), that cost about each way from Lima and included movies, large business-class style seats, a snack and a game of bingo.

Avoid people selling tours and hotel rooms at bus stops. You'll get a better and more reputable deal from a hotel or agency.

FLIGHTS AND SHOW

Take my advice: Skip eating before you take a flight.

Flying over the lines costs about for 25 minutes. Or you could fly from Ica or Pisco, which is closer to Lima, but it's usually just a flyover and won't allow time for other sights. These flights are 0 to 0.

The planetarium show at the Nasca Lines Hotel is offered in English nightly at 7 p.m. Cost: .

HOTELS

One of the newest hotels, Casa Andina, offers boutique style and comfort. About . Contact: 1-866-447-3270; www.casa-andina.com.

The Nasca Lines Hotel is another standby. Rates around ; 011-51-56-522-293.

I stayed at the Hotel Alegria. 011-56-522-702. Cost: under . Some rooms are air-conditioned, important in the desert heat.

Peru travel information: www.peru.info