In the photo here, you can see in the red area what appears to be a jointed ship hovering near the sun. Some believe it’s a UFO refueling, while others claim it’s nothing but another artifact caused by peculiar conditions in space. Nathan Rich, lead ground systems engineer at the United States Naval Research Laboratory says that what some believe is a spaceship is nothing more than a collection of streaks left behind by cosmic rays as they traveled through the sensor of the satellite that took the photos.

The photo was taken by NASA’s Solar and Heliosphereic Observatory (SOHO) earlier this week. “The streaks in question are consistent with energetic particle (proton) impacts on the CCD, something which is apparent in just about every image,” Rich said. He believes the UFO is nothing more than an electric charge left in the pixels of the camera the cosmic rays penetrated. What do you think?

[via Fox News]

The deep-sea salvage ship discovered the site while towing a side looking sonar beneath the ship. The sonar discovered first a 400m long cylinder shaped object that was about 60m in diameter. A subsequent pass also discovered a disc-shaped object 200m away from the original discovery. The ship’s captain and crew are saying that they aren’t sure exactly what this is. Some are calling the discovery a UFO, and others are saying it’s nothing but natural occurring formations on the ocean floor.

The captain of the ship says he’s been in deep-sea salvage for many years, and has never come across anything like this. He notes that both of the objects are too large to be shipwrecks and are too large to the objects the might have fallen off ships on the surface of the Baltic. What we do know is that a casual exploration of the site is out of the question because of the costs involved. No one is willing to fund a full investigation until more details are discovered. What do you think is sitting on the bottom of the Baltic Sea? Maybe they’ve discovered Atlantis. Oh, and where’s James Cameron when you need him?

[via JDJournal]

STEREO-B is one of a pair of spacecraft near the sun that watch the inner solar system and provide images and video. NASA has decided to step up and debunk the rumor on the cover-up and existence of this particular UFO. According to space agency, in the video you can see the bright planet Venus come into view and the “UFO” moves along with Venus.

The triangular shaped “UFO” is nothing but reflected light from inside the telescope on the spacecraft. NASA says that this sort of triangular pattern is not uncommon and that sometimes the reflections manifest as circles too. In other words, calm down UFO nuts. NASA said, “The answer lies on the exact opposite side of the image,” the scientists wrote. “At the same time as this strange-looking feature starts being visible, the very bright planet Venus enters the [telescopic camera's] field-of-view from the lower left.”

“This is not a coincidence. The strange-looking geometrical ‘object’ is actually an internal reflection of the planet Venus within the telescope optics. This effect has been seen many times before.”

[via CSMonitor]

The document was written by FBI investigator Guy Hottel, and recounts his talk with what the letter calls an “investigator for the Air Forces.” The name of the investigator has been redacted. The memo goes on to claim that the Air Force found a crashed UFO of a saucer shape that was 50-feet in diameter.

The memo goes on to say that the Air Force believed that the powerful radar it was operating in the area was the cause of the crash. Also noted was the collection of three humanoid bodies that were about three feet tall. Hoax or not, this is a very strange memo to turn up on a government website.

[via Gizmodo]

The game is brilliantly simple to play because you only need to use the mouse to keep track of the UFO. But for me the game’s biggest draw is the graphics. The style is wonderfully apt. The sound (or lack thereof) is nicely done to. The only thing you’ll hear is the sound of your vehicle and the other cars passing by. I think this game would be a good fit for mobile devices as well, but if it does ever make it to phones and tablets, I think it would be better if it used the accelerometer, i.e. tilt controls. Your finger will obscure the screen if it were touch-based.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The best part of UFO on Tape? It’s free! Unfortunately it’s for Windows only. Download it at GameJolt, and be sure to let Nicolai know what you think.

If this dude doesn’t win whatever prize is being given out for the cool stuff shown at the faire, someone was bought off. He’s mum on the build process, but judging by the looks of the giant lamps, I’m not qualified to build one even if I had the instructions.

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The lamps are made from recycled glass tubes and festooned with light diffusers, acrylic rings, CCFL lights, LEDs, and halogen bulbs. The massive lamps ate 5’5″ tall and hold ten gallons of water bubbled by a 20-gallon pump. A little plastic cow in the water moves up and down the watery tractor beam. OMG I want one of these so bad!

[via Make:]

These fun UFO USB flash drives come to us courtesy of crafter OrigamiMe (yeah, I know this isn’t origami). Each one stores 4GB of your otherworldly data, and is hand-carved from basswood and painted with shiny chrome enamel paint to look just like one of those retro 1950s spacecraft.

Sure, it’s not the most practical looking USB drive I’ve ever seen, but it could be the coolest. You can get yours over at OrigamiMe’s Etsy shop for $30 (USD).

These little spherical lamps sure look like some sort of retro spacecraft to me, especially the glowing green part, and the tripod legs.

Created by Japan’s IDEA Label, each light stands about 3 feet tall, and has a bright LED that gets its juice from solar energy. As an added bonus, they’re waterproof, so you can actually line up a bunch of these in your front yard and they’ll be convinced the aliens have landed when the sun goes down. In addition to the bright green one, they’re also available in pink, orange and clear – but seriously, what’s the last time you saw a pink alien spaceship? What sort of fools do they take us for?

As is the case with many of the offbeat products from Japan, they’re not currently available elsewhere. For now, I guess you’ll have to admire them from afar over on the IDEA shop for ¥1575 (appx. $17 USD) each.

Told you. That picture is a deep reserve of jokes just waiting to be mined. But even without a photo we can’t just dismiss the testimonies of thousands of people. They also said that the UFO emitted no sound or light, and that it was shaped like a “triangle with smoothed edges.”

I say Chuck Norris is hurling mountains at Russia, but that’s just me.

A pair of soft, brightly colored rotors help to propel the Roboppi (ROBO-P) flyer upwards and produce stable flight.

As it flies through the air, colored LEDs inside the spinning body of the Roboppi blink rapidly, producing a whirlwind of color. Roboppi can fly around for up to 6 minutes at a time on a 25 minute charge.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Of course the pint-size flyer is no match for your cat…

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Until recently, the Roboppi was only available in Japan, but thanks to the guys over at the Japan Trend Shop, you can get one flown in pretty much anywhere on the globe for $41 USD + shipping.

TakaraTomy’s mysterious looking QFOs are pint-sized remote controlled hovering spacecraft which spin through the sky. A little propeller mounted on the bottom of a lightweight foam body gives the QFO its flight.

Each one comes with a rechargeable battery which provides up to 4 minutes of continuous flight on a 30 minute charge.

In addition to the yellow, blue, red and silver versions, it looks like there’s a retro UFO-style version that’s in the works too.

QFOs are expected to hit stores in Japan this September. I managed to find them available for pre-order over on Amazon JP for just ¥3520 (appx. $32 USD) but it’s doubtful you’ll be able to get these outside of Japan for a while.

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While the QFO homepage isn’t particularly helpful in explaining anything about how these work, it is worth a look for the goofy UFO investigation marketing campaign.

[various tidbits via Digital Gadgets Freak, CScout Japan and Gizmodo Japan]

Designer Naoto Fukasawa actually took home the coveted Red Dot Design Award for his UFO-like lamp design, which provides both direct and diffused illumination from a low-energy (5 watt) LED light source.

A set of double joints allows the stem of the Zamac (zinc alloy) lighting fixture to tilt from 0 to 90°, while the head of the lamp can be rotated through a full 180° of freedom.

The ITIS lamp comes in both high-gloss black and high-gloss white finishes and is available from Stardust.com for $395 USD.

Combining great design and a sense of humor is tough to pull off, but Artist Lasse Klein’s new Abduction Lamp manages it with ease. His sci-fi inspired lamp design features a light-up UFO, “hovering” above the ground thanks to a glass base that looks like a tractor beam. With a press of the antenna, the whole thing lights up the inside of the metal UFO, casting light out the alien-occupied windows, and down through the glass beam.

While Klein’s lamp is still just in the conceptual stages (that’s a 3D model in the photo above), I can only hope that he decides to produce these for real.

[via NOTCOT]