Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Explain the anal probes, then.We know what 'foo fighters' that buzzed Second World War pilots really were, say scientists
New study suggests the phenomena were plasmas, or ionised gases, drawn to the electrical charge of aircraft, spacecraft and satellites.
Experts from the universities of California, Arizona and the Harvard-Smithsonian argue that the strange properties of plasmas make them appear to behave like living organisms, even though they are not alive.
Plasmas can grow in size and replicate, make contact with each other and may "feed" off the electromagnetic radiation of satellites and spacecraft, they argue.
Huge glowing masses of up to a mile wide, which behave similarly to swarms of living organisms, have been filmed by 10 Nasa space shuttle missions, while astronauts have reported strange phenomena since the 1960s.
Astronauts Ed White and James McDivitt spotted a huge "metallic object" approaching the Gemini 4 orbiter, in June 1965, while James Lovell reported a "Bogey at 10 o'clock high" on a mission six months later.
The team believe that plasmas in the thermosphere – 66 to 372 miles high – may descend into the lower atmosphere, and account for reports by pilots.
Co-author Dr Rudolph Schild, of the Centre for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian: "These plasmas are electromagnetic entities that have a variety of shapes and sizes. They have repeatedly approached spacecraft and the space shuttles and are attracted to electromagnetic activity including thunderstorms
