Bernie Bamford, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer from Chester in England caused a stir last week with his claim to have found the fabled lost City of Atlantis. Mr Bamford spotted a grid pattern on the sea bad 620 miles off the coast of Africa.

On Google Maps

The first mention of Atlantis is by Plato in 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying, "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" or the Straights of Gibraltar.

He claimed Atlantis conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa about 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean, "in a single day and night of misfortune."

The legend of Atlantis has grown since then. The Nazis thought Atlanteans were the ancestors of their master race. New Age legend has Atlanteans with psychic powers responsible for building everything from the Pyramids to Stonehenge. Popular culture places Atlantis in another Galaxy.

So, the discovery what looks like a street pattern on the sea bed caused quite a stir. However, there are a few problems with the picture. The first is scale. The area covered by the grid is 20 times as big as Greater London. The second is that the lines do not actually appear on the seabed but are an artifact of the way the map making process.

In a statement Google said:

"It's true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth -- a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species, a fringing coral reef off the coast of Australia, and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa, to name just a few.

"In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artefact of the data collection process.

"Bathymetric (or seafloor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the seafloor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.

So the fabled Lost City of Atlantis Remains lost, who knows it could be in another Galaxy.

Gliese 581, ESO

The giant RT-70 radio telescope in the Ukraine sent the message on Oct 9. It is now over 100 billion miles from Earth. The target star Gliese 581 lies 20.1 light years from Earth. The Bebo team selected it because it has planets orbiting within the habitable zone. The region from the star where liquid water can exist.

There could be risks involved for the Earth by bringing ourselves to the attention of alien intelligences. Sending signals into space like this has been compared to, “yelling into an unknown jungle.”

On the Message from Earth page, thethe Bebo website the team point out that, “The Earth has been sending unnatural signals into space from military radars and telescopes conducting radar astronomy for decades.” However, there is a great deal of difference between a carrier wave leaking into space and an information dense signal focused on a possibly inhabited planet.

When a similar scheme was proposed two years ago by Yahoo, it caused considerable concern and was abandon when Mexican officials refused to allow a laser transmitter to be mounted on an ancient pyramid.

If there is anyone or anything out there and they reply straight away, we can expect to be poked back in 40.2 years. Anyone for a game of interstellar-vampires?

Was this a good idea?

The summer of 2008 will go down as, "The Summer Aliens (Almost) Invaded the UK."

It started in May, when the British Government released previously secret UFO files to the National Archives. The files included corroborated reports from reputable sources of UFOs hovering over British cities.

In one amazing incident from 1984, air-traffic controllers describe a, "brilliant solid ball of light, bright silvery in colour," land on a runway in front of them, then takeoff in a near vertical climb. These stories appearing in both the national press and on TV caused quite a stir.

What happened next depends on your point of view. In one narrative, worried by their pubic exposure, the UFOs decided to step up their invasion plans, with the UK the center of the attack.

Another point of view has it that once UFOs became newsworthy, UFO stories multiplied. When people saw these reports, things they once dismissed as mundane they now perceived as UFOs. With more sightings publicized, people become more likely to report their own experiences, as they were no longer are worried about being labelled as "weird." It was a self-reinforcing process.

Whatever the reason, by mid-summer, UFO sightings had rocketed (excuse the pun). Malcolm Robinson, the founder member of Strange Phenomena Investigations, told the normally staid Daily Telegraph, "Something very bizarre is happening in the skies over the UK."

The national press ran stories on a "glowing" disc spotted above the M5 motorway, on fleets of objects hanging in the sky above an army barracks and of a police helicopter chasing a UFO.

In one famous story, a man calls the police to report a mysterious light hovering above his house, only to have the Police identify it as the moon when they arrived at the scene.

My hometown, Stevenage, has not been immune. A sighting in August was the first UFO sighting in the town in 32 years. The local Comet reported multiple-sightings of between two and seven orange spheres, travelling silently in a parallel course to the local airport's flight path. One group of 10 people at a barbecue took photos, which also appeared in the paper.

A week later, the paper provided the explanation. Someone had been letting off Chinese lanterns in the town. Chinese lanterns are baby hot air balloons about the size of a dustbin liner. The local airport was not amused. Pointing out that anyone releasing such objects needs to get clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority first.

Not everyone I know accepts this explanation, conspiracy and cover-up are suspected. "I believe," and, "the truth is out there," they mutter.

Now September has arrived, the new soccer season has started and UFO reports have died down. With a new cold war looming and the UK facing its worse recession in 60 years, we may be looking back with fondness to the summer of 08. When all we had to worry about was ET stopping by for some barbecue chicken.

and are peeking through bedroom windows.

Shot in Nebraska on July 17, 2003 via The Independent. The film shows a bobbing head. It was taken by a camera set up by Stan Romanek, after he became concerned that someone was peering in at the window of his teenage daughters' bedroom.

Jerry Hufmann, of Colorado Film School examined the film. He believes that it to be genuine and un-doctored, but has no opinion of what it actually shows.

For themselves

British mediums marched on Downing Street last week to deliver a 10,000-name petition demanding that the government shelve plans to repeal the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951.

This act allows for the prosecution of any medium, clairvoyant or spiritualist who use trickery in attempt to deceive and make money from such a deception. However, the act recognizes and protects "genuine" mediums.