Page 25 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2011

From The ‘X’ Zone Newsroom Video of 'UFO' in making a lot of noise days later -- with some Also along with many of his brothers, he Colorado most likely road claiming that they're not of this world. joined his father in the family business, The Vaghi Woodworking Co., Bethel, spending his Leroy Vandervegt, a 50-year-old flares, not aliens resident of Lafayette, a town roughly 25 miles entire working life at the shop. His workbench looked out to the old Bethel Train Station, and north of Denver, shot the video Sunday evening after his 17-year-old son saw the glowing orbs he saluted the conductor with each train that By Michael Sheridan move from southwest to southeast along the rolled through. DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER horizon. He was a participant in many Memorial "I don't know what they are," and Columbus Day parades through town, Mysterious lights over Colorado that Vandervegt told the Boulder Daily Camera. "All standing on his float beside the replicas of the have become the latest YouTube hit could be I know is that I had no idea what it is. It wasn't UFO's he created at the shop. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the nothing more alien than road flares. a satellite, it wasn't an airplane and it wasn't a "What sort of lights would float in the helicopter." Pope John Paul II Care and Rehabilitation night sky, drift apart, and then fade away after a The paper reported that a Federal Center, Danbury. [] few minutes?" wrote LiveScience's Bad Science Aviation Administration official for the Rocky Iran Announces Launch of Its columnist, Benjamin Radford. Mountain region noted that his staff did not "Road flares tied to balloons." notice radar returns reflecting any "abnormal Unmanned Flying Saucer Sound as improbable as a UFO? Todd unidentified activity within our airspace." Fassler doesn't think so. When Vandervegt saw what he Break out the foil hats: Iran has built a The trickster carried off a prank like that described as "UFOs," he told his son to run UFO. in southern California in January 2010, using inside and get a camera so they could film this This photo accompanies an actual news weather balloons and street flares. murky mystery. By Friday, five days after release from Iranian news service Fars, which "It is fun," he said at the time. "It gets posting, more than 39,000 YouTube visitors had claims the Islamic Republic has built a flying everyone wondering what is going on." viewed the phenomena. saucer. The balloons float close together, As appealing as it is for many of us to Of course, it's possible Iran's news forming a pattern as they are carried along by speculate that we are not alone, Adam Frank, an agents chose to illustrate their announcement the wind. The flares appear to blink or flash as astrophysicist blogging at NPR, questions why with a screen shot from a 1950s B movie. But they sparkle and burn. a planet-hopping spaceship would need the Fars News Service does not explain the Many Colorado residents thought headlights. photo's origin, simply stating that the flying something a bit more exotic was going on when "Any civilization with technology saucer was unveiled in a special ceremony. they spotted the dazzling light show in their capable of spanning light-years ought to be able The ship is called Zohal -- Saturn in skies. to hide themselves well enough to avoid Persian -- and is designed for aerial imaging. "When it flew over, there was a really detection from hairy apes with jet-planes like Zohal has a data downlink and can fly in both weird energy," said Grant Gazvoda, according us," Frank writes. indoor and outdoor spaces, according to the to ABC News. "My mind started racing. My "Of course, [the lights] might be their Fars News Service. The Daily Mail points out body started shaking... I freaked out at that engines but a species crossing trillions of that Fars is a hard-line state-run news service. point." kilometers of empty space is not going to be But with this photo, we can't help but think of Not everyone was in awe. using rockets. Hopefully they have some other the homophone farce instead. "There's a lot of things you can't explain kind of 'hyperdrive' or something cool. If so, The news release states that "the flying but the idea of it being an alien spacecraft is they should be smart enough to stealth its machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, pretty wacky," Kevin Caron said.[] exhaust (does hyperdrive have exhaust?)."[] GPS (Global Positioning System) and two Durban 'UFO' was Dante James Vaghi, separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take satellite debris Bethel's UFO Expert, and send images simultaneously." But is Zohal actually a little "cuadrotour" Passes Away drone? Another news release, from the perhaps The burning fireball crossing Durban's more reliable Iranian Students' News Agency, skyline last week was from outer space but "was Dante James Vaghi died March 25, 2011 shows a picture of a quadrocopter grasping what not a UFO", the African Space Institute said in Bethel among family and friends. The wake looks like an old-school Pentax. The news yesterday. will be held at Bethel Funeral Home on Monday release says that this, instead, is Zohal. Those who saw the bright light on from 5 to 8 p.m. The funeral will be at St. But again, this photo's origin is unclear. Tuesday night described it as a glowing circle or Mary's Church in Bethel on Tuesday at 11 a.m. SUAS News, which covers the UAV ring moving fast towards Earth. Dante entertained family and friends community, says this is a DraganFlyer X6. "We Brad Inggs, a director at the institute, with lively stories of his life. He was a self- doubt very much that the Canadian company yesterday said the object was part of a rocket proclaimed UFO expert, having seen his first has sold airframes to Iran knowingly," reports launched in Russia in January. UFO in the skies over Bethel in 1950. He was SUAS' Gary Mortimer. "The rocket was used to send an easy to spot around town in his custom-made So which one is it? advanced weather satellite into space and the jackets, jumpsuits and hats, identifying him as IEEE Spectrum's Automaton blog points debris re-entered Earth's atmosphere over The UFO Pioneer. His frequent haunts were the out that Iran may indeed have built a Coanda- Durban," he said. Sycamore, Varanos, Bethel Pizza House, effect UAV, which looks like a flying saucer. "We are starting to focus on tracking Jacquelines, and Bethel Food Market, among The plate-shaped UAV has a rotor at the top that rockets and debris so we can send out warnings others. thrusts air downward, providing lift and thrust. to the public," Inggs said. Dante is survived by a daughter, No matter Zohal's actual design, it's not Maureen, and son, Kevin, and four the first time Iran has claimed to have built a ridiculous piece of machinery for defense and UFO Sighting North of grandchildren. He was the son of Joseph and surveillance purposes. The Bavar 2 flying boat Battistina Vaghi, and was the fifth of 10 Denver, Resident Films children, all born at the family homestead in thing, unveiled last fall, supposedly packs automatic weapons and surveillance equipment. Bethel. Mysterious Red Lights He was a graduate of Bethel High Iran has announced several School. He honorably served the country as a achievements in robotics and other technologies member of the U.S. Air Force (1941 to 1946), during the past year. It launched some turtles Three red lights in a triangular formation into space in 2010, and unveiled a dancing that shot silently across the Colorado sky are alongside his four brothers who served humanoid robot named Surena-2. [] concurrently during World War II.