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| A model of an alien attracts visitors at a recent exhibition featuring space science in Beijing. An increasing number of UFO sightings have been reported in China since 2011. Kuang Linhua / for China Daily |
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| A youngster faces up to the possibility of extraterrestrial life at the Beijing exhibition. Kuang Linhua / for China Daily |
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| Photographer Wu Chunyan snapped this unidentified flying object in Fenghuang Mountain near Harbin, Heilongjiang province in early July. Provided to China Daily |
Rumors of
UFO sightings and aliens visiting this planet seem to be increasing, report Cui
Jia and Wu Wencong in Beijing.
After 17
years of hard work, Xiang Kuansong has finally completed the "alien
research station" he has been building in his village in Mayang county,
Hunan province. The 79-year-old said he was told to build it by two beings from
another planet.
"Don't
be afraid. We are not ghosts or god. We are people from another planet who want
to help you," the aliens allegedly told Xiang in Chinese.
Xiang's
research station has none of the radio dishes and high-tech equipment that are
usually associated with the search for extraterrestrial life. In fact, it looks
more like a traditional Chinese temple, with a sign at the entrance that reads:
"The harmonious way to a foreign planet".
The retired
soldier said he first met the two aliens from the planet of
"Dongsheng" in the late 1980s. They are about 1.95 meters tall and
visit him quite often, wearing clothes that make them invisible but he can see
them and communicate with them. The two "Dongshengians" asked him to
build the station so they could have a place to rest during their trips to
other planets, and so far he has spent 200,000 yuan ($31,470) on their way
station.
Inside
there is a concrete model of a saucerlike spaceship, and stone tablets marking
the spots where Xiang says the aliens talked to him are scattered around the
compound.
Although
the other villagers believe Xiang is crazy, he just smiles and ignores their
taunts.
UFO
detectives
But even
some of those who believe that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the
universe pour scorn on those who claim to have been visited by aliens.
"I
always turn my back on people who claim that they have seen aliens. Most of
them have mental health problems," said Zhou Xiaoqiang, secretary-general
of the Beijing UFO Research Organization, which was founded in 1983 and now has
more than 100 members.
"If
aliens visited earth, it doesn't make sense they would not make themselves
known to all of us. These stories of meeting aliens are just unbelievable,' he
said.
An
increasing number of UFO sighting have been reported in China since 2011, but
according to Zhou, such sightings are fueled by the media.
"People
read about mysterious things or see television reports about such things and it
fires their imagination," he said.
"The
media have been reporting supposed UFO sightings for the past three or four
years and they always mystify the incidents to grab people's attention.
Meanwhile, people have become more interested in unsolved phonomena - I think
it has something to do with the 2012 end of the world theory," said Zhou,
who has been studying UFO sightings for more than 20 years.
Also, some
people still try to manipulate others by claiming they are in contact with
aliens, he said. "In the old days, such people would say that they could
see and talk to ghosts. Nowadays, its aliens."
Zhou said
the mission of his team is to simply identify what it is people have seen when
there has been a UFO sighting.
"We
investigate the circumstances and analyze the evidence. We are more like
detectives," he said.
The Beijing
UFO Research Organization has received 14 detailed reports of UFO sightings in
Beijing so far this year. All of them have been identified as kites with
lights, aircraft or insects.
According
to Zhou, the majority of UFO sightings are reported during public holidays in
big cities or scenic spots.
China's
Roswell
Zhu Jin,
curator of the Beijing Planetarium, also believes intelligent life probably
does exist elsewhere in the universe, but says that most "sightings"
of UFOs have nothing to do with aliens from another planet.
"Chinese
people love to associate UFOs with alien spaceships. But all UFO sightings can
be explained by natural phenomena, man-made objects, illusions or hoaxes.
Aliens might not even need a spaceship to travel to earth."
In the most
recent UFO sighting to grab the public's attention, Li Hui told the media of
the UFO she saw at Fenghuang Mountain, a scenic spot in Northeast China's
Heilongjiang province.
On the
afternoon of July 8, Li, a local tourist, claimed she had seen a flying object
faintly glowing on the opposite mountain when she finished posing for photos at
one of the viewing platforms. She said the object had already disappeared when
she took off her sunglasses for a clearer view, but its image had been caught
on camera.
Most media
showed a cropped version of the photo, which showed a glowing oval with two
bright "wings". But the original photo, which was obtained by a
reporter from Harbin Daily, shows that Li is the subject of the photo and the
"glowing" object is on the left side of the photo.
On July 13,
five days after the incident, Xi Wang, a doctoral candidate in bioscience at
the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, part of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, posted a photo of a hoverfly, which was clearly similar to Li's UFO.
Xi told
China Daily that considering her major and personal interests, she is very
familiar with the flying posture of the insect.
"It
looks more like sensationalizing the scenic spot to me," said Xi. "I
understand UFO fans' enthusiasm, and personally I also believe in the existence
of extraterrestrial life in such a big universe, but we need to investigate and
analyze every incident carefully before coming to a conclusion."
Other
netizens also pointed out that judging from the size of the object in the
photo, if it really was an alien spaceship more people would have noticed it as
it would have been about 1 kilometer long.
But despite
all the doubts, UFO researchers and enthusiasts rushed to Fenghuang Mountain,
because this is not the first time the mountain has been linked with UFOs and
extraterrestrial beings. It is known as China's Roswell because of the many UFO
sightings that have been reported there.
Loving the
alien
In June
1994, a local farmer claimed he had seen a shining white "metal
monster" when he was out picking wild plants on the mountain. Meng Zhaoguo
became famous throughout the country after he claimed he'd had sex with a
female alien three times. Once at the landing site and twice at his house the
same night. The alien then told him that she would have his child once she
returned to her planet.
Meng, now
45, later told local governmental officials that about a month after his
amorous adventures with the alien, he was invited to her spacecraft, where a
male extraterrestrial spoke to him in his dialect.
"Sixty
years from now, the son of a farmer from the Earth will be born on our
planet," the alien told him.
Since then
the mountain has been a popular destination for UFO enthusiasts.
"There
is nothing wrong with using UFO sightings to attract tourists. It might even be
a good thing because it might make people more interested in exploring the
unknown," said Zhou Xiaoqiang of the Beijing UFO Research Organization.
But Wang
Sichao, a scientist at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, Jiangsu
province, which is run by Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that people should
not be so quick to dismiss all sightings of UFOs as illusions or publicity
ploys. He believes that there have been more than a dozen genuine sightings of
alien spacecraft in China.
He files
unexplained UFO sightings into two categories: those that lack details, so that
it is difficult to say what they really are, and those that are detailed, but
they still can't be explained. These, he says, could be genuine sightings of
alien spaceships.
"People
should not underestimate the power of aliens. Although there is no evidence
that they are harmful to people," he said.
Contact the
reporters at cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn and wuwencong@chinadaily.com.cn
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(China Daily 08/23/2012 page1)
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