D'Arcy O'Connor discusses the Knights Templar theory for Oak Island

Author D'Arcy O'Connor discusses the theory that the Knights Templar were behind whatever might be hidden on Oak Island, Nova Scotia in this clip from the interview I filmed with him on August 12, 2007, at the Oak Island Resort (you can see Oak Island in the background on the left). The questions were asked by Halifax-based esoteric researcher Graham Simms, with whom I'm working on developing a documentary about Oak Island.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Truth - Halls of Fame and Shame Inductees, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, the voting is now closed, the results have been tabulated, and the first five members of The Other Side of Truth's UFO Hall of Fame and UFO Hall of Shame have been chosen by you, the readers. They are:

UFO Hall of Fame
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Dr. Jacques Vallee
Stanton T. Friedman
Major Donald Keyhoe
Dr. James McDonald

You can view the final Hall of Fame poll results here.

UFO Hall of Shame
Billy Meier
Philip J. Klass
Dr. Steven Greer
Dr. Edward U. Condon
Marshall Applewhite

You can view the final Hall of Shame poll results here.

I can't argue with any of the choices for the initial inductees in either Hall - all are deserving, for reasons that I will elaborate on in a future post. For now, however, thanks to everyone who voted - and see you again next year when the polling for the class of 2008 begins.

Paul Kimball

D'Arcy O'Connor discusses Oak Island, folklore and the paranormal

Author D'Arcy O'Connor discusses some of the paranormal myths and folklore surrounding Oak Island, Nova Scotia, in this clip from an interview conducted with him August 12th, 2007, at the Oak Island Resort.



D'Arcy's book The Secret Treasure of Oak Island: The Amazing True Story of a Centuries-Old Treasure Hunt, is a cracking good read, and an excellent overview of the Oak Island saga from the perspective of someone who is convinced that there really is some sort of treasure buried there. His lecture this past weekend at Explore Oak Island Days was "Debunking the Debunkers", a title many in the UFO field might find familiar.

More to come...

Paul Kimball

Psychic Eugenia Macer Story discusses the paranormal and Oak Island

Psychic and clairvoyant Eugenia Macer Story discusses Oak Island, Nova Scotia, and the paranormal, in this brief clip I filmed at the Oak Island Resort, 12 August, 2007:



This is raw, unmixed footage, so the audio is a bit low, and the camera mic is still mixed in with the lapel mic. Still, a sample of some of the stuff we got while we were down at Explore Oak Island Days this past weekend.

More Oak Island stuff to come.

Paul Kimball

5 Questions with Tim Binnall

A short Q & A I conducted this past weekend with Tim Binnall while we were camping in Martin's River, Nova Scotia, and attending a conference on Oak Island.



Yes, folks - the first Kimbinnall Summit has been a rousing success. More photos, video and anecdotes to follow.

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - Case #4: McMinnville, 1950

Here is a clip of one of the segments from Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings. The 1950 Trent photo case, from McMinnville, oregon, came in at #4.



Narrated by Kris Lee McBride, the film is distributed by B7 Media in the United Kingdom. Hopefully it will make its way to a broadcaster in your country soon (it's currently playing on Space in Canada, and TVNZ in New Zealand).

Paul Kimball

Kimball & Friedman - The Media and UFOs

Here's another clip of Stan and I on Melanson Live back in 2004, this time discussing the media and UFOs. We also touch upon SETI, and my colleague Mike MacDonald, who made The Shag Harbour UFO Incident and Northern Lights, and is currently in post-production on Intruders.

FYI -at the start of the clip, the lead-in question was: "what did you find most surprising when you made the film?"

Paul Kimball

Talkin' UFOs on Melanson Live

Back in 2004 (ignore the title card), Stan Friedman and I appeared on a cable show called "Melanson Live" in Fredericton, New Brunswick, to discuss UFOs, and plug "Do You Believe in Majic, which was about to premiere on Space: The Imagination Station. In this clip, I discuss the relationship between sci-fi and interest in UFOs, and the talk a bit about the Robertson Panel.

FYI - I had to cut out the interviewer's opening question. He asked me why I made DYBIM. My critics might appreciate my initial response. ;-)

Paul Kimball

Dad, Where Do UFOs Come From?

Dad, Where Do UFOs Come From?

As always, Greg Bishop is worth a read.

Now, back to my hiatus.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Truth - UFO Hall of Shame

Because for every yin there is a yang, and to every season... well, you know how it goes.

UFO Hall of Shame - Who should be inducted first?
	Frank Scully
	George Adamski
	Dr. Seth Shostak
	George Van Tassel
	Frank Kaufmann
	Dr. Steven Greer
	Linda Moulton Howe
	Silas Newton
	Richard Doty
	William L. Moore
	Philip J. Klass
	Gerald Anderson
	Ray Santilli
	Billy Meier
	Bob Lazar
	Ed Walters
	Todd Zechel
	Budd Hopkins
	Dr. Edward U. Condon
	Marshall Applewhite
Free polls from Pollhost.com

The same rules apply to the Hall of Shame as the Hall of Fame - the top five vote recipients will form the introductory class of 2007. Write-in votes are allowed, either in the comments section or by e-mail to kimballwood@aol.com. One vote per person.

Vox populi.

Paul Kimball

UFOs and the 2008 Presidential Election

From UFOs in the 2008 Presidential Election

As of yet UFOs have not become a part of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Issues still centre on the war in Iraq, and domestic issues that affect daily well being.

Well, d'uh.

Honestly - you try and get folks to take the UFO phenomenon seriously, and then you run into stuff like this. Sure, I have more than a passing interest in UFOs (I have more than a passing interest in a lot of subjects), and think they're worthy of serious scientific study, but compared with Iraq (or foreign policy in general), or global warming / the environment, or the economy, or health care - probably the "big four" topics in the next US election - does anybody really think UFOs rate a mention?

I don't. I would rate human space exploration higher than UFOs - especially if you were to confront a candidate with the "when are you going to release / tell The Truth about the Cosmic Watergate" question, as opposed to a more sensible question, such as"would you commit to government-funded scientific study of unidentified aerial phenomena?"

Who knows? Ask that question, and you might even get a yes from a candidate who doesn't understand that UAP is simply a more precise, accurate and scientific way of saying UFO.

In the meantime, I'm just guessing that Mitt Romney, and John Edwards, and even Governor Richardson have better things to do than answer questions from exopolitical believers about a grand conspiracy to cover up the truth about the "alien agenda".

At least I hope they do.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Truth - UFO Hall of Fame

The "Hall of Fame" concept is nothing new in the world of UFOs and the paranormal. Royce Myers III at UFO Watchdog has had a UFO Hall of Fame (and a Hall of Shame) for years now. Steven Bassett has one with his X-Conference. Tim Binnall, when he was plugging the Brad Steiger episode a week ago, referred to Steiger as a "sure-fire first ballot esoteric Hall of Famer". And so on.

Never one to let a good idea pass me by, I've decided, after over two years here at The Other Side of Truth, to create a UFO Hall of Fame for this blog. Now, no offense to Royce or others who have created a Hall of Fame on their own, but whereas they have basically just picked the members themselves, I'm a big believer in vox populi, i.e. let the people decide. So, without further ado, in much the same way as the baseball Hall of Fame elects its members, here is the first ballot for the Other Side of Truth UFO Hall of Fame.

The first class will have five members, so the five people who get the most votes over the next month are in.

Who belongs in the 1st class of The Other Side of Truth UFO Hall of Fame?
	Dr. J. Allen Hynek
	Major Donald Keyhoe
	Dr. James McDonald
	Captain Edward Ruppelt
	Dr. Jacques Vallee
	Stanton T. Friedman
	John Keel
	James Moseley
	Richard Hall
	Jim Lorenzen
	Coral Lorenzen
	Philip J. Klass
	Brad Steiger
	Jerome Clark
	Major Kevin Randle
	Errol Bruce-Knapp
	Gray Barker
	Nick Pope
	Dr. Bruce Maccabee
	Rev. Barry Downing
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Your call, folks. My vote will just be one of many. Write in votes will also be allowed - you can either leave them as a comment, or e-mail me directly at kimballwood@aol.com.

Voting will stay open until 12:01 am, August 10, 2007.

Paul Kimball

The Roswell Incident (1947 - 2007) - RIP & Rebirth

Amidst all the hoopla and partying in Roswell this weekend, I hope people take a moment to pause and think about what it all means. Because it isn't a celebration of Roswell's 60th anniversary that's going on there - it's both a wake, and a rebirth.

I say a wake, because the "Roswell Incident", as a serious UFO case, is dead. It's been on life support for quite a while now, but it's finally given up the ghost. Oh, sure, as with Elvis, there will always be a few people who think the "case" is still alive and kicking. New "evidence" - like the occassional Elvis sighting - will pop up from time to time to give them hope (the Walter Haut affidavit shows just how desperate some people are to keep it going, as does the fact that Donald Schmitt is still considered a top Roswell researcher). But the truth is that it's over folks. If the "Roswell Incident" was the crash of an alien spacecraft, we'll never know - at least not until the government admits it, or the aliens reveal themselves. If it was something more prosaic, like Project Mogul, or Nick Redfern's theory, or some other super-secret project, then there will always be those who don't accept that explanation, no matter how much proof the government or researchers might show them. The "case" is dead in the water, because there is no resolution in sight that will definitively answer everyone's questions.

Making matters worse, Roswell has been hit by a number of "bullets" in the past couple decades that have wounded it beyond saving. The Alien Autopsy, Majestic-12, Philip Corso, Frank Kaufmann, Glenn Dennis - any one of these things undermined it as a serious "case" worth investigating. The cumulative effect has been fatal.

So, to Roswell the serious UFO case, I say - rest in peace. Better that people focus their attention on better cases, like Tehran, or RB47, or the 1996 Yukon sightings, or Shag Harbour, or yes, even Rendlesham. Even better still, with Roswell dead to all but the most ardent "Elvis" fan, perhaps researchers can get back to the business of investigating modern sightings more thoroughly. In the process, as we have seen with the O'Hare case, they might discover that interest in the UFO phenomenon, which has waned in recent years, could rise again. After all, the maxim that all politics is local at the end of the day applies in a temporal way to the UFO phenomenon - the "here and now" is the "local". A sixty year old case like Roswell is the equivalent of Timbuktu.

What will this mean for the serious study of the UFO phenomenon? I confidently predict that not only will it survive Roswell's passing - in the long run, it will be better off without it.

But I also said that this weekend is a rebirth. Why? Because while Roswell as a serious UFO case might be dead, Roswell as a legend is just really being born, as my good friend Nick Redfern has recently pointed out. And it is as a legend that Roswell will continue to fascinate people for many years to come, much the same way that the insoluble Jack the Ripper case still fascinates visitors to London, or some of the disappearances in the so-called Bermuda Triangle continue to fascinate people, or the various stories about bandits like Billy the Kid still captivate us, even though we'll never really know which ones are true and which ones aren't.

That's good news for the city of Roswell, of course, and for the people there who make money off of the Roswell story. And there's nothing wrong with that - anymore than there's anything wrong with people making money off of Jack the Ripper walking tours in London.

So, here's to the "Roswell Incident". No matter how hard people tried to crack it to everyone's satisfaction, it remained until its dying days a mystery. It left this world (er... no pun intended) the same way it came in - as a ball of confusion, with a wink and a nod, no compromises and no answers.
And here's to the "Roswell Legend". I predict it will have a long, and profitable, life from hereon in.

Call it the "Elvis" of ufology.

Long live the King!

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies and the Paranormal Mainstream

I had a long chat with my good friend Mac Tonnies this evening, which always makes me smile, because when we start talking to each other it feels like a jam session with the old band, where we would just play and play until we were played out (just check out our extended, extemporaneous riffing with Greg Bishop on our 2006 Radio Misterioso gig to see what I mean).

Mac is one of the brightest and most articulate people involved in the paranormal / esoteric field of study, and is always well worth a listen, even when, as is sometimes the case with me, one might disagree with him. It is to the enduring shame of Coast to Coast, that the likes of Richard C. Hoagland and Linda Moulton Howe make regular appearances and pretend that they know what they're talking about, whereas Mac has never been invited to be on the show. The Coast people are shortchanging their listeners - in a big way. So too are most conference organizers, who invite the likes of Michael Horn or Steven Greer, but routinely ignore guys like Mac, who might actually say something worth listening to.

What Coast and these conferences are doing, of course, is preaching to the converted. It was undoubtedly a sound business model in the past, but it will eventually run afoul of the law of diminishing returns, i.e. without some new blood with some new ideas, people will eventually get bored, and stop coming or listening. Given the declining numbers across the board at conferences, it should be clear that this process is already underway.

Of course, Mac isn't the guy you want at your conference or on your show if you just want to reinforce the audience's pre-existing beliefs, or to make them feel better. But if you want to challenge people, and stimulate them, and introduce them to ideas and concepts with which they may not be familiar - and isn't that what you should be doing - then Mac is one of the guys you want on board. But when was the last time that the "mainstream" paranormal / esoteric community actually wanted to challenge anyone with new ideas?

And there's the irony with the situation Mac finds himself in, and Greg Bishop, and others - in a field of study where the weird, wacky and far-out should be the coin of the realm, where ideas should matter, and where an intelligent discourse should be paramount, most people have settled for the familiar, comfortable, and easy-to-digest orthodoxy of the commercialized paranormal establishment. "Same old, same old" is the rule, not the exception. Which is why fewer and fewer people seem to care these days.

Religion may be the opiate of the masses in the general sense (or one of them), but in the paranormal / esoteric world, it's Coast to Coast, and Linda Moulton Howe, and Richard Hoagland, and most conferences, and so forth. The stagnation is palpable. It reeks of complacency.

It's not too late to change that, mind you. A good start would be for one of the Coast producers to give Mac a call, or shoot him an e-mail, and invite him on for a full three hour long show.

In the meantime, if you haven't done so, check out Mac's blog, The Posthuman Blues, which is an always interesting, and often amusing, grab bag of stuff, both paranormal and otherwise.

Paul Kimball

Walter Haut and alien bodies at Roswell

Much ado is being made within ufology these days about statements made by the late Walter Haut, the young lieutenant at Roswell in 1947 responsible for releasing the "we recovered a flying saucer" press release, to the effect that he saw alien bodies. He made these claims in an interview with Wendy Connors and Dennis Balthasar in 2000, and again, in much more detail apparently, in an affidavit he signed for Donald Schmitt and Tom Carey in 2002.

My take?

It's much ado about nothing.

Let's all recall that Haut vouched for Frank Kaufmann, who was shown to be a fraud, and Glenn Dennis, who similarly has been exposed. This stuff about alien bodies, long after there was any reason for him to keep it secret, reads as bogus to me. Indeed, I interviewed Haut and Dennis in 2001 - they sat right next to each other, and Dennis told his story about dead bodies etc., and Haut said not a word about it. Don't tell me it was his "oath" either - he had already talked plenty about Roswell, and broken his oath if he had given such a thing.

It is my considered opinion, which will no doubt make me unpopular in certain quarters again, that there are three possible explanations for this "revelation":

1. Haut may have been manipulated, either intentionally or unintentionally, by unscrupulous or careless and untrained researchers for their own ends.

2. Haut may have told a purposeful tall tale in order to give new life to the Roswell story, which his family still has a financial stake in. A note here - when I interviewed Haut and Dennis in 2001, they both asked for money, even though I was doing a film about their old friend, Stan Friedman. It was only when Stan intervened personally that they dropped their request. They are the only witnesses to any UFO case that I have ever talked to who ever asked to be paid for an interview, and in my case I was talking to them more about Stan and his career than the Roswell incident itself. Charles Halt, Bruce Bailey, and Robert Salas, all veterans, made no such request for the recent Best Evidence film, for example.

3. Haut was simply an old man who had heard so many stories like Dennis' that he came to believe them himself.

The latter is the most charitable explanation I can come up with.

The fact that he insisted that none of this be released until after his death should be a red flag as well - it neatly inculcated Haut from having to answer the tough questions about what he said. As a piece of evidence, this kind of statement is practically worthless regardless of who made it, or the circumstances under which it was made, because the person who made it cannot be cross-examined / questioned by independent researchers.

A final note - if the affidavit was given in 2002, and Haut died in 2005, why is it only now making the rounds within ufology? If true, it is indeed an earth-shattering revelation, and yet it was neatly tucked away for well over a year, until (a) Schmitt and Carey had a book to sell (apparently they had to obtain permission from the Haut family to publish it, but why did it take so long), and (b) Roswell had a 60th anniversary to celebrate.

Consider those further red flags. Big ones. Because if aliens on earth really is the biggest story of the millenium, as Stan Friedman is wont to say, then these people deliberately withheld critical information from the public, for motives that could only be attributed to profit. So much for free and easy "disclosure".

None of this will stop those with financial and emotional interests in Roswell from flogging this story, probably for years to come, and claiming it as proof of crashed alien spacecraft near Roswell in 1947. Don't be deceived, folks. It is nothing of the sort.

Paul Kimball

Talking about Best Evidence on Strange Days... Indeed

FYI, I'm on Strange Days... Indeed with Errol Bruce-Knapp this week discussing Best Evidence in what was, I think, one of my better interviews.

You can tune in here, although if you're not already a subscriber, you'll have to sign up for a nominal fee. But it's worth it for what is perhaps the longest running, and maybe the best, talk-radio show devoted solely to the UFO phenomenon. The shows in the Archives are worth the price of admission all by themselves!

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - The Top 10

I've received a number of e-mails from folks who couldn't see Best Evidence because they don't live in Canada, asking what the final top 10 list was. Here it is, along with the people who appeared in each segment to comment:

10. Nuremberg, 1561 (note - this was actually an editorial decision on my part, as I bumped the case that came in at #10 so I could make the point about the pre-1947 nature of the UFO phenomenon, which a couple of people suggested I do) - Don Ledger, Stan Friedman

9. Skylab III - Brad Sparks, Stan Friedman

8. Yukon 1996 - Stan Friedman (I would have really liked to get Martin Jasek in this segment, and he agreed to do it, but time and budget just didn't allow for us to make it out to BC; Stan filled in admirably)

7. Malmstrom AFB 1967 - Captain Robert Salas, Dick Hall, Stan Friedman

6. Shag Harbour - Don Ledger

5. Santa Barbara Channel, 1953 (the "Kelly Johnson" case) - Brad Sparks, Stan Friedman

4. McMinnville, 1950 (the Trent photos) - Bruce Maccabee, Brad Sparks

3. Rendlesham Forest - Colonel Charles Halt, Dick Hall, Nick Pope

2. Tehran, 1976 - Stan Friedman, Bruce Maccabee

1. RB47, 1957 - Brad Sparks, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Bailey (who also discussed his own RB47 incident over the Gulf of Mexico five years later), Stan Friedman

In the closing segment, it is Mac Tonnies who gets the final word.

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - The Blog

I've set up a blog for information and other material about Best Evidence. I'll still be posting some information about the film here, but more in depth material will now be found over at the new blog, which is located here.

Paul Kimball

A Roswell Explanation Full of Hot Air

Not satisfied with offering wholly unsubstantiated explanations for the RB-47 case and Socorro, the UFO Iconoclast(s) (i.e. the discredited RRR Group) now seem to be offering an explanation for the Roswell incident that is, literally, full of hot air. I suppose, as everyone else is chattering about Roswell this year, they have a right to get their two cents worth in too. It's a free country, after all.

Their suggestion (these guys never actually come out an take a real stand) is that what crashed might have been a US Navy dirigible. Now, as you look at the non-rigid blimps pictured above, one can easily imagine that they may have been the cause of more than a few UFO sightings over the years, whether private or government launched versions - the Navy was using various dirigibles in a number of ways until 1962, for example. Some large radar airships could stay aloft almost indefinitely. One of the ships established the world record for flight endurance of eleven days. In March of 1957, the Snow Bird, commanded by Cmdr. J. R. Hunt, one of the Navy's ZPG-2 airships, flew from Weymouth, Massachusetts to Europe and on to Africa ending at Key West, Florida without refueling or landing. It's not quite Phineas Fogg, but was still quite an achievement at the time.

All very interesting, but what does it have to do with the Roswell incident?

Nothing - but the Iconoclast(s) are suggesting that one crashed near Roswell in July, 1947 (no doubt looking to stir the pot, which is their sole raison d'etre), and that this was what the Roswell incident was really all about. Of course, with them it's all "wink wink, nudge nudge, call us for our secret password to our super-secret bona fide researcher site", which is like playing Texas Hold 'Em with a guy who says he's won, reaches for the pot, but won't show his hand (guess how long he gets to sit at the table doing that).

Anyway, this is hardly an original idea, which should come as no surprise given the past offerings thrown out their by the Iconoclast(s) / RRR Group, who seem to view UFO research / commentary as some sort of Jackson Pollock painting, only without Pollock's sense of over-arching purpose. Speculation of the "dirigible" angle can be found here, for example (scroll down).

Further, as a commenter has pointed out at their blog, they mislead their readers with the picture they've put up, which is not of the kind of non-rigid airship that the US Navy was flying in 1947 (especially the M-class blimps the Iconoclast(s) specifically refer to), but rather of the USS Macon, a rigid dirgible that crashed in 1935. That's the rough equivalent of putting a picture of Ronald Reagan up when you're talking about George Bush.

Here is the interchange between "Hollis" and the "Iconoclast(s)":

If you're going to do blurbs on subjects such as this, at least do a little homework first and not be so misleading. The photo you used is one of the USS Macon, a ZRS-5 class DIRIGIBLE, circi 1931, which is not even remotely related to the M-series NON-rigid BLIMPS of the 1947 era. A blimp is merely a 'gas-bag', such as a hot air balloon, which encloses a volume of lighter-than-air gaseous material such as helium.

And yes, the M series blimps operated out of Almagordo, NM, since a primary helium production plant was located there. (it was a classified secret facility at that time). A lot of testing, including actual flights, was done using various ratios of hydrogen and helium. So of course, any lightning strike to the gas bag could easily cause a catastrophic explosion.

Hollis

RRRGroup said...
Hollis,

We used the blimp picture here for illustrative purposes only.

The one, small picture we have of the Navy blimp you reference shows only the tip of the craft.

We're going through the dirigible photos we've accumulated for the Goodyear series tested by the Navy.

Huh? They're trying to find a picture of an M-class blimp by going through the drigible photos they've accumulated?

Notice how they're trying to pretend they have expertise and resources that perhaps others don't.

Look, guys, it's not that hard - all you had to do was Google "M-Class blimp". Here's what one looks like:

It wasn't hard at all. If the Iconoclast(s) had a clue about what they're talking about, they would have found this photo, or one like it, of the proper airship, in five minutes or so. I'd tell them where to find this photo, but I think it's time they actually did some looking on their own.

Some of the paranormal news services, like the Anomalist, reference the posts of the Iconoclast(s). I can only assume they do so in order to offer a humourous break from the serious stories, because that's all the stuff offered up by the Iconoclast(s) is good for.

Paul Kimball
Addendum: April 26 - The Iconoclast(s) have now changed the photo they had from the USS Macon to the picture shown above. I guess it's a good thing for them that I didn't squirrel the photo away at my super-secret, password protected site for bona fide UFO researchers. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that their Roswell "trial balloon" is anything other than a colossal waste of time. There are photos on the Internet of crashed blimps and dirigibles (look them up yourself, boys), which are immediately recognizable as such to anyone other than a 3 year-old kid, and which would certainly have been recognizable to Major Marcel et al. But all of this does get them attention, and that's what they're all about, which is fair enough, if somewhat sad - they're not the first, and won't be the last, to glom onto a subject like UFOs for that reason. Just don't let them fool you into thinking they're serious about the UFO phenomenon, in any way, shape or form.

In the meantime - look, more M-class blimp photos!

Again, it took me a couple of minutes to find these ones.

P.S. If you want to read an excellent history of the US airship program, which is fascinating stuff in and of itself, you should read "Kite Balloons to Airships: The Navy's Lighter Than Air Experience" edited by Roy A. Grossnick and published by the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare) and the Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, which you can access here - no password required. Who knows - you might even come across a photo of an M-class blimp.

Scientists Discover... Krypton?

Have scientists discovered Krypton, the home planet of Superman?

No, not quite (although they have apparently discovered kryptonite). But it's fairly big news nonetheless.

Potentially Habitable Planet Found

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.

"It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

The results of the discovery have not been published but have been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Alan Boss, who works at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where a U.S. team of astronomers competed in the hunt for an Earth-like planet, called it "a major milestone in this business."

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.

What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.

The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.

The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 1 1/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.

Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said.

However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.

The new planet seems just right — or at least that's what scientists think.

"This could be very important," said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. "It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability."

Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one — simply called "c" by its discoverers when they talk among themselves — will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.

Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer.

But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.

"Liquid water is critical to life as we know it," co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. "Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X."

Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water.

"You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water," said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. "You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back."

The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.

"I expect there will be planets like Earth, but whether they have life is another question," said renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in an interview with The Associated Press in Orlando. "We haven't been visited by little green men yet."

Before you book your extrastellar flight to 581 c, a few caveats about how alien that world probably is: Anyone sitting on the planet would get heavier quickly, and birthdays would add up fast since it orbits its star every 13 days.

Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth's so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds.

But oh, the view. The planet is 14 times closer to the star it orbits. Udry figures the red dwarf star would hang in the sky at a size 20 times larger than our moon. And it's likely, but still not known, that the planet doesn't rotate, so one side would always be sunlit and the other dark.

Distance is another problem. "We don't know how to get to those places in a human lifetime," Maran said.

Two teams of astronomers, one in Europe and one in the United States, have been racing to be the first to find a planet like 581 c outside the solar system.

The European team looked at 100 different stars using a tool called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity for Planetary Searcher) to find this one planet, said Xavier Bonfils of the Lisbon Observatory, one of the co-discoverers.

Much of the effort to find Earth-like planets has focused on stars like our sun with the challenge being to find a planet the right distance from the star it orbits. About 90 percent of the time, the European telescope focused its search more on sun-like stars, Udry said.

A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates.

"Now we have the possibility to find many more," Bonfils said.

Hawking should know better than to state that we haven't been visited by any "little green men" - we have no idea what alien life would look like, and it's pure hubris to imagine that we would be at the top of the intelligence chain when it comes to life and how advanced it might be. So, while it's true that we can't get to the stars yet, there's absolutely no proof that it can't be done - meaning they might have made their way here (key word? "might").

This news will probably provide a little boost for the ETH in the short term, and, as more and more potentially inhabitable planets are discovered nearby (relatively speaking, of course), the possibility that some UFOs may be ET will look more realistic, or at the very least be met with fewer howls of derision.

Which is a long way from proof positive - rather, it's just a shifting of the odds a bit.

Paul Kimball