A Mysterious Planet With Two Suns

Some people think our sun has a twin (NOTE: subscribers can still listen to this show). We don’t known whether or not this is true, but NASA HAS discovered a planet about the size of Saturn that is orbiting around two suns. Previously this was thought to be impossible–something that could only happen in science fiction or on "Star Trek."

It was discovered by the Kepler spacecraft. Scientists have been searching for a planet orbiting two stars for decades. In the September 16th edition of the Los Angeles Times, Scott Gold quotes astrophysicist Avi Shporer as saying that periodically, a research group claims to have found one, "but people were not really convinced. (But) you cannot argue with this kind of evidence. This system is like a laboratory to learn about planets and stars. We didn’t really know whether a planet could actually evolve in such an unstable environment. Now we know that it can."

He quotes Kepler project scientist Nick Gautier as saying, "This tells us that you can have planets in the habitable zones around binary stars–which doubles the potential real estate that we ought to be thinking about for habitary planets in the galaxy."

According to MUFON International Director Clifford Clift, UFO sightings during August were more than double the average. 1,013 sightings were recorded by MUFON during the month, as compared to about 500 reports recorded in an average month. Some reasons given are that there were a number of alien themed films during the summer, but in fact, the summer of 2010 saw more such releases. Additionally, it was theorized that more sightings are due to more people being outdoors in the summer, but the summer months don’t generally show spikes in sighting reports.

Clift says that the data is still under study, as there could be some duplication of the reports, but from our perspective at Unknowncountry.com, we also noticed an increase in UFO reports that started in August and has continued into September.

Is this the beginning of a new "UFO flap?" Only time will tell. So far, the only consistent cause of spikes in UFO reports is Mars opposition. When Mars draws closest to Earth, UFO sightings increase. But Mars is not in opposition to Earth at this time. The next Mars opposition will occur on March 4, 2012 (Whitley wrote a speculative novel about the future called "The Omega Point," which is available from the Whitley Strieber Collection and comes with an autographed bookplate he designed himself!)