VIRGINIA BEACH -- There are reports of UFO sightings everywhere, even in Hampton Roads.
A NASA astronaut wants the Obama administration to open government UFO files.
A Virginia Beach man, Cameron Pack, says he's gotten Virginia Beach's UFO files. He says UFOs exist because he saw one. It was six years ago over a tree near the Virginia Beach amphitheater.
"The thing turns at a 90-degree angle, three white lights in a triangle formation," he recalls.
Pack, a UFO researcher, says Va. Beach Police kept a UFO file for years and he got them in 2004.
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"They contain about 70 reports dating back to 1976. These were all obtained under the Freedom of Information Act," he says.
Va. Beach Police say there is no UFO file.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission and he walked on the moon. He hails from Roswell, New Mexico, the site of the reputed UFO crash in 1947.
"No, we're not alone," he believes.
Among the widely-studied reports of sightings in Hampton Roads are:
July 14th, 1952 -- a pilot says discs flew over Newport News.
July 16th, 1952 -- in Hampton, an aeronautical research engineer said amber lights raced across the sky.
From the Va. Beach files -- In 1985, a squadron member at NAS Oceana reported an object with flashing red lights flew overhead.
Also in those files is an Elvis sighting.
"It depends on their point of view. Usually people who I've engaged in conversation with either have an open mind or they're very closed by their own beliefs. even if they're an astronomer," says Pack.
"I believe reports like that are over-sensationlized," counters Charles Dibbs with the Va. Beach Planetarium.
"People do see things they can't identify, so UFOs are a real phenomena. Whether you see little green men, there's something else," notes Dr. Robert Hitt with the Chesapeake Planetarium.
Charles Dibbs and Dr. Hitt teach astronomy. They don't believe Earth has ever been visited because of the planet's location in the enormous universe.
"Even just the Milky Way galaxy, with an estimated 400 billion suns, if you imagine looking for a place like Earth, it may be truly such a unique place in the universe that you'd never find it," Dr. Hitt notes.
Pack disagrees.
"That's one of the favorite arguments that I have heard and I would have to say they're thinking in terms of our own limited understanding of our own technology," he says.
Hollywood makes movies and TV shows about UFOs, but the argument continues about whether close encounters are a fantasy or if, in fact, there has been contact.
Pack says he knows some people don't believe him, but he knows what he saw.
"It was shocking to me," Pack contends.
For Dr. Hitt and other scientists, only facts will do.
"Hopefully, get a picture of one that would give us some ironclad proof," he says.
Both Hitt and Dibbs say they could be swayed.
NASA has launched the Keppler telescope to find planets similar in size to Earth that also have stars. They say Earth-sized planets can sustain life and if Keppler finds any out there, the next step will be to find an atmosphere with those planets.
They say if that happens, space might be a different frontier.
