Self-proclaimed alien hunter and astronomer Seth Shostak spoke about his work searching for life on other planets to a crowd of about 100 people Tuesday night on the Tempe campus.

The speech was hosted by ASU’s BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, a group that tackles questions of science and philosophy through research programs, workshops and public outreach.

Shostak said he searches for signals from outer space daily as a senior astronomer for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Mountain View, Calif.

“The universe is truly, incredibly large,” he said.

A galaxy could have a few billion stars and each of those could potentially have a planet, he said, adding that the Milky Way Galaxy alone has about 1 trillion planets.

The recent disclosure is particularly powerful because it contains dozens of reports of UFOs on May 19, 1986, considered the “Official UFO Night in Brazil”, when 21 spherical objects, estimated 100 meters in diameter – according to military sources – were detected by radars and spotted by civilian pilots, and literally jammed air traffic over the major Brazilian Airports, such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Then, several Mirage and F5 jets were scrambled to pursue them.

Well known Perm expert on UFOs, Nikolai Subotin, commented that a satellite launch had been planned for around that time and therefore it was unlikely to have been an object of ET origin.

Perm Territory minister for public security also acknowledged the UFO event however noted that ‘It is no secret that perm lies under a path for orbiting satellites’. He also announced that no debris had been found at all in the area where the object might have impacted. Valery Tiunov, the head of the major local news agency did observe however that Perm emergency services did not receive information about any satellites impacting earth, adding to the mystery surrounding the event.

The 49-year-old detective constable, who works for British Transport Police in Leeds, has studied weird and wonderful conundrums in the UK’s skies for years.

Seven years ago Det Con Heseltine created a database to cover UFO sightings by officers both on and off duty.

He has now investigated more than 330 cases involving more than 750 officers.

His favourite relates to 1979 when three unsuspecting bobbies parked up for a chat and a cigarette in a quiet country lane at 3am.

“One of the best to come my way was from Chiltern in the Thames Valley in 1979 involving a PC Eric Rayment and two of his colleagues,” he said. “It was an amazing report.”

1. Seti stands for the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.

2. If intelligent aliens are out there, Dr Seth Shostak, the Seti Institute’s senior astronomer, believes they will be “thinking machines”. He believes a highly advanced species will be several centuries ahead of us in technological development.

3. Professor Duncan Forgan, an astronomer from Edinburgh University, estimates that between 360 and 38,000 life forms capable of interstellar communications have evolved at some point in the history of our galaxy.

4. In April 2006, Dr Shostak predicted we would find evidence of extraterrestrial life between 2020 and 2025. He believes the best way of bringing them up to speed with the human race is to send them the contents of the internet.

5. So far, no alien signals have been heard, however.

David Burch was with his son and grandson when they spotted the orange balls over Ufford Park hotel and golf course, near Woodbridge.

That is just a few miles from Rendlesham . . . scene of Britain’s most famous UFO incident in 1980.

Mr Burch, who claims to have seen a UFO around 20 years ago while in Dunfermline in Scotland, said his family have been at a loss to explain the mysterious sighting.

In other news: MUFON state section director for Kansas City Margie Kay is investigating a sighting in Peculiar, Missouri, from Saturday, September 19, at 5:30 a.m. “This is a large, oval shaped dark object with dim whitish/bluish lights at the edges of the oval. It moved silently, with no trail right over his house at 90 degrees above the horizon at approximately 1,000 – 3,000 feet (a guess) in a West – East direction. He said it was larger than a 747. As it moved into the clouds he could see a reflection of the lights on the edges. The cats in the neighborhood usually prowl around but they were not out. He also said there were no sounds of crickets or anything else, which he thought was unusual. No neighbors were out at the same time.”

The photographed object does not fit standard UFO descriptions of disc and triangle-shaped objects, but appeared to “morph” in shape, according to Shishis.

He said the object was 100 yards away and between 300 and 500 feet in altitude, when it appeared to “open up,” and then “looked like a long sheet of some material – that was approximately 10 to 15 feet in length.”

The silent lights were first spotted by the reporting witnesses’ daughter, but after these three family members watched – they alerted two more family members who live nearby.

York is the county seat of York County in South Central Pennsylvania, population 40,862; and the 14th largest city in PA.

Following is the unedited witness testimony from MUFON. Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If MUFON investigates and reports back on this case, I will update this page.

The three spheres “converged” at about 60,000 feet.

In a second case from September 23, a Washington witness describes something similar in the night sky.