WHAT YEAR ARE WE IN?

            After listening, watching and reading the latest news headlines from the past week, or so, it appears to be “throwback” time on good old planet Earth. Disappearing planes, UFO sightings and a new Cold War heating up are just a few of the items that caught my attention recently. Sounds pretty familiar to this old Baby Boomer.

            The disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is still a mystery at the time of this writing. No wreckage or sign of the aircraft has been found yet. The disappearance of the plane reminded me of the old “Bermuda Triangle” stories regarding ships and planes that mysteriously disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean in an area that formed a triangle between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the southern most tip of Florida.

Flight 19 is perhaps the most famous disappearance of aircraft in the Bermuda Triangle. In December of 1945 five United States Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared while on a training mission in the Bermuda Triangle. All fourteen airmen on the flight were lost, as were thirteen crew members of a Mariner flying boat which was on a rescue mission in search of Flight 19. The remains of Flight 19 have still never been confirmed found.

Another news report stated that a recent survey showed that last year Canadians reported the second-largest number of UFO sightings in history. There were 1,180 UFO sightings reported in 2013, or about three each day, according to the Canadian UFO Survey, an annual survey released by Winnipeg-based UFOlogy Research of Manitoba.

UFOlogy Reseach director, Chris Rutkowski, says there are several theories for the surge in reports with the first one being that there are more Unidentified Flying Objects present and physically observable to witnesses; classified military exercises and overflights are occurring over populated areas; people are more observant; and access to the Internet and portable technology has made reporting easier.

Of note, Ontario had more than 40 per cent of all Canadian UFO reports, 14 per cent of all reports were classified as unexplained and the typical sighting lasted approximately 13 minutes. Also of note, UFO’s have been credited with the disappearance of Flight 19 and other Bermuda Triangle losses.

Vladimir Putin’s Russian aggression in the Ukraine, or more specifically in the Crimea region of the Ukraine, and the West’s objections to the Russian’s actions brought back many memories of the 1950’s and 60’s relations between the United States and the old USSR. It’s reeks of the “Cuban Missile Crisis” all over again. Maybe it's not quite that extreme...yet.

I am too young to remember the 50’s but I lived the 60’s and it was a frightening world at times. There was a very real threat that World War III could breakout at any time and nuclear war was but a button push away. And, unfortunately, it seems that it’s still the same. Life repeats itself and humanity can’t seem to learn from history.

Now I’m getting all nostalgic and I think I will Netflix an old James Bond movie, when Sean Connery played 007, and watch the good guys beat the bad guys and hope that history will be repeating itself.

“Life is a wheel, and if you wait long enough, it always comes back around to where it started.”- Stephen King (1947-).