US sending C-130s for humanitarian relief to Libya

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. government stepped up its humanitarian relief effort for Libya on Friday, sending two C-130 military transport planes loaded with supplies to neighboring Tunisia.
Each aircraft carried three pallets of aid supplies, including 2,000 blankets, 40 rolls of plastic sheeting and 9,600 10-liter water cans, according to a statement from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The supplies, meant to help up to 2,000 people, will be handed off to Tunisia's Red Crescent organization for distribution, the statement noted.
The relief operation -- designed to help those who have fled the Libyan violence -- is named Odyssey Dawn, Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said.

American authorities are considering multiple ways to assist in the crisis, but are currently focused primarily on humanitarian efforts, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters. The Obama administration remains deeply "concerned with the ongoing violence ... initiated and perpetrated" by the government of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, she said.
Clinton noted, however, that there is currently "a lot of confusion on the ground" in Libya that makes it tough to understand exactly what is happening there.

Addressing reporters on Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated the administration's position that Gadhafi needs to step aside.
"Col. Gadhafi has no legitimacy and should step down and should cease all violence," Carney said. "We believe that that would result in a more peaceful Libya."

The violence in Libya escalated Friday as pro-government forces took control of Zawiya, a city near Tripoli, according to state TV. One source reported the deaths of 15 people and injuries to at least 200 others.

A doctor at a hospital in Zawiya told CNN "there is a river of blood" where the wounded were being treated. He described the situation as "very bad," with the facility running out of medical supplies.

Brits release UFO files and videos ...

By IBTimes Staff /Huffington Post



The Ministry of Defense United Kingdom has released thousands of files with details of UFO sightings and an "alien abduction." These previously classified files document sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) by the military and members of the public dating back to the 1950s.

The files contain around 8,500 pages mainly covering the period from 1997 to 2005 and include photographs, drawings and descriptions of flying saucer sightings, as well as letters the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sent eyewitnesses in response to their accounts, the Sky News and The Telegraph reported.

In a startling revelation made months before the September 11 attacks, 15 unidentified aircrafts were detected on radar approaching the UK and one was detected on the actual day.

Other disclosures in the 35 files include the story of a family capturing on film a flashing red and white lights zig-zagging their way through the sky during the early hours in 2003, Sky News reported.

The phenomenon of extra-terrestrials has fascinated people for centuries and the files also detail in full the Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and letters from "persistent enquirers" that led to the MoD opening up its files for the first time in history.

Dr David Clarke, author of the book The UFO Files, told Sky News that information on the UFOs were the top three most popular FOI requests received by the MoD.

"You can see from the files that I wasn't the only one interested in the subject, with the phenomenon discussed at the highest level of government right across the globe," Clarke is quoted as saying.

The files contain pages of UFO sightings and reports, color photographs and drawings, UK Royal Air Force investigations, unusual radar detections, briefings to lawmakers and documents on the government's policy on UFOs discolsed for the first time.

Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defense UFO claim investigator, states that 95% of the reports are ordinary occurrences that people have misidentified or mistaken.

He adds, "But a small percentage of cases--perhaps 2-3%--are very interesting, are genuinely unexplained, and even those of us at the MoD who worked on this issue were puzzled genuinely saying, 'Well, we dont know what it is.'"

One such example is a man who claimed he saw a UFO then subsequently got sick and developed a skin condition on the same day.

However, some UFO-related documents will never be released. Pope says the Freedom of Information Act does not allow the release of reports that expose defense, national security and intelligence information. Some conspiracy theorists believe that these restrictions keep the truth of aliens and UFOs from ever being found.

One thing the documents do expose is how numerous UFO sightings are, and how enthusiastic some people are about UFOs. Pope mentions the file title "Persistent Correspondent," which Pope reveals is "MoD code for 'This person is becoming a nuisance.'"

Failure to launch ...

(CNN) -- The unmanned Glory spacecraft and the Taurus XL rocket, which lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California early Friday, will not reach orbit, NASA said.
"Glory Launch: It looks like we have a problem with launch. Standby," NASA posted on its Twitter account. "The launch team is working through its launch contingency plan, including collecting data from the launch."

NASA went into contingency mode about six minutes into the launch at 5:09 a.m. ET. Initial data indicated that the rocket fairing did not separate, slowing the rocket down and making it unable to achieve orbit.
The mission was designed to collect data that scientists plan to use to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect the Earth's climate.