The Mystery of Time and Space (commonly known as MOTAS ) is a popular online graphic adventure game created by Jan Albartus (LOGAN). The game was produced using Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash ) and was an early influential example of the escape the room genre. There are 20 levels of varying length, some consisting of a single room and others consisting of a large network of rooms. Though advertised as a constant work-in-progress with "new levels coming soon," MOTAS has not been updated since May 2008.
165-485: The game is currently available in 15 languages, including English , French , German , Japanese , and both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese . There is also a moderated chat room available for players to discuss the game. The levels have been noted for their jazz soundtrack, especially the Christmas-themed Level 8 and its jazz representation of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town". Levels 9 and 13 play
330-402: A MIDI version of " The Way You Look Tonight ". As with most games of this genre, the player interacts with the environment within the game by pointing at and clicking the elements within the game's environment in order to solve the game's puzzles, with many of them exhibiting a high technology and science fiction influence. The environment may be "searched" by clicking at various spots within
495-550: A Pew research poll found that 51% in the United States thought that UFOs reported by people in the military were likely to be evidence of intelligent life from beyond the Earth. In August 2021, Gallup , with a question not specific to military reports, only found that 41% of adults believed some UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets. This Gallup poll showed 44% of men and 38% of women believed this. This average of 41% in 2021
660-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that
825-436: A "MOTAS Deluxe box" appears as an item. The credits of the seminal escape the room adventure Crimson Room name MOTAS as an inspiration. Channel 4 has commented on the game, describing it as " a treat " with " intricate problems ", although it also criticized the game for the obscurity and difficulty of its puzzles. Nytimes.com mentioned MOTAS in its article " GAME THEORY; A Little Getaway: Small, Simple, Fast and Fun ". MOTAS
990-507: A 1969 USAF document, known as the Bolender memo, along with later government documents, revealed that non-public U.S. government UFO investigations continued after 1970. The Bolender memo first stated that "reports of unidentified flying objects that could affect national security ... are not part of the Blue Book system," indicating that more serious UFO incidents already were handled outside
1155-428: A 1996 poll by Newsweek , 20% of Americans believed that UFOs were more likely to be proof of alien life than to have a natural scientific explanation. In December 2017, a new round of media attention started when The New York Times broke the story of the secret Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program that was funded from 2007 to 2012 with $ 22 million spent on the program. Following this story, along with
1320-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become
1485-505: A UFO and reported recovered memories of their experience that became ever more elaborate as the years went by. In 1966, 5% of Americans reported to Gallup that "they had at some time seen something they thought was a 'flying saucer'", 96% said "they had heard or read about flying saucers", and 46% of these "thought they were 'something real' rather than just people's imagination". Responding to UFO enthusiasm, there have always been consistent yet less popular efforts made at debunking many of
1650-468: A daily occurrence with one particularly famous example being the Roswell incident in 1947 where remnants of a downed observation balloon were recovered by a farmer and confiscated by military personnel. UFO enthusiasts in the early 1950s started to organize local "saucer clubs" modeled after science fiction fan clubs of the 1930s and 1940s, with some growing to national and international prominence within
1815-555: A decade. In 1950, three influential books were published— Donald Keyhoe 's The Flying Saucers Are Real , Frank Scully 's Behind the Flying Saucers , and Gerald Heard 's The Riddle of the Flying Saucers . Each guilelessly proposed that the extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis was the correct explanation and that the visits were in response to detonations of atomic weapons . These books also introduced Americans to, as Eghanian puts it, "the crusading whistleblower dedicated to breaking
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#17330932601221980-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative
2145-407: A familiar object." The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a "possible threat to the security of the United States" and "to determine technical aspects involved." The regulation went on to say that "it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB's when the object is positively identified as a familiar object" but added: "For those objects which are not explainable, only
2310-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English
2475-404: A manual about cloning left on a table in the eleventh level, which leaves the player wondering about their existence afterwards. There are also subtle hints throughout the game suggesting that the player may be an alien, such as at the end of level eight the player puts on what is described as an "Alien Suit". Depictions of aliens can also be found throughout the game: for example, on the ninth level
2640-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in
2805-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,
2970-427: A phenomenon could, in fact, occur". The research was "being conducted with the thought that the flying objects might be a celestial phenomenon," or that "they might be a foreign body mechanically devised and controlled." Three weeks later in a preliminary defense estimate, the air force investigation decided that, "This 'flying saucer' situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something
3135-610: A possibility of divergence of English dialects into mutually unintelligible languages, most think a more likely outcome is that English will continue to function as a koineised language, in which the standard form unifies speakers from around the world. English is used as the language for wider communication in countries around the world. Thus English has grown in worldwide use much more than any constructed language proposed as an international auxiliary language , including Esperanto . UFO An unidentified flying object ( UFO ), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon ( UAP ),
3300-612: A professor of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina, says that what is seen on a screen, "if it conforms to certain criteria, is interpreted as real, even if it is not real and even if one knows it is not real" and that "screen images embed themselves in one's brain and memories" in ways that "can determine how one views one's past and even determine one's future behaviors". The most notable cases of UFO sightings in France include: UFOs have been subject to investigations over
3465-679: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop
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#17330932601223630-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English
3795-467: A series of sensationalized Pentagon UFO videos leaked by members of the program who became convinced that UFOs were genuine mysteries worth investigating, there was an increase in mainstream attention to UFO stories. In July 2021, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb announced the creation of his Galileo Project which intended to use high-tech astronomical equipment to seek evidence of extraterrestrial artifacts in space and possibly within Earth's atmosphere. This
3960-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide
4125-442: A threat to national security. Officials were concerned about the "risk of false alerts", of "falsely identifying the real as phantom", and of mass hysteria caused by sightings. In 1947, Brigadier General George F. Schulgen of Army Air Corps Intelligence, warned "the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view to causing hysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon." In November 2011,
4290-476: A trail, occasional formation flying, and "evasive" behavior "when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar", suggesting a controlled craft. It was therefore recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up. It was also recommended that other government agencies should assist in the investigation. Project Sign's final report, published in early 1949, stated that while some UFOs appeared to represent actual aircraft, there
4455-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
4620-529: Is Halley's Comet : first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC as a strange and unknown "guest light" in the sky. As a bright comet that visits the inner solar system every 76 years, it was often identified as a unique isolated event in ancient historical documents whose authors were unaware that it was a repeating phenomenon. Such accounts in history often were treated as supernatural portents, angels , or other religious omens . While UFO enthusiasts have sometimes commented on
4785-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than
4950-432: Is LESS to these stories than meets the eye". People have always observed the sky and have sometimes seen what, to some, appeared to be unusual sights including phenomena as varied as comets , bright meteors , one or more of the five planets that can be readily seen with the naked eye , planetary conjunctions , and atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds . One particularly famous example
5115-529: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by
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5280-497: Is also mentioned in an article on TheStar.com : "For lots of gamers, escapism means starting out in a trap - 'Room escape' games, with their endless variations, are booming". PCWorld.com wrote: 'If you liked the Crimson and Viridian rooms, you'll get a kick out of "Mystery of Time and Space," a 12-level game of the same ilk as the "rooms."' The game Bonte Room also references MOTAS in the walkthrough. English language English
5445-403: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English
5610-603: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in
5775-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on
5940-564: Is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained. While unusual sightings have been reported in the sky throughout history, UFOs became culturally prominent after World War II , escalating during the Space Age . Studies and investigations into UFO reports conducted by governments (such as Project Blue Book in
6105-480: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c. 450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as
6270-515: Is certainly familiar to historians of religion, a domain of human existence marked by deep divisions over interpretations of belief", and science too has found itself engaged increasing amounts of "boundary work" (which is "asserting and reasserting the borders between legitimate and illegitimate scientific research and ideas, between what may and what may not refer to itself as science") with regard to UFO questions. Eghigian points out our current "stark divide did not happen overnight, and its roots lie in
6435-511: Is really flying around." A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion. It reported that "the phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious," and there were disc-shaped objects, metallic in appearance, as big as man-made aircraft. They were characterized by "extreme rates of climb [and] maneuverability", general lack of noise, absence of
6600-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in
6765-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English
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6930-550: Is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and
7095-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from
7260-580: The AAAS , James E. McDonald said he believed science had failed to mount adequate studies of the problem and criticized the Condon Report and earlier studies by the USAF as scientifically deficient. He also questioned the basis for Condon's conclusions and argued that the reports of UFOs have been "laughed out of scientific court". J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer who worked as a USAF consultant from 1948, sharply criticized
7425-587: The Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases
7590-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English
7755-611: The Brazilian Air Force 's 1977 Operação Prato (Operation Saucer). France has had an ongoing investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA/ GEIPAN ) within its space agency Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) since 1977; the government of Uruguay has had a similar investigation since 1989. On October 31, 2008, the National Archives of Brazil began receiving from the Aeronautical Documentation and History Center part of
7920-499: The Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it
8085-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today
8250-840: The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI , CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and U.S. Navy , in addition to the Air Force. Following the large U.S. surge in sightings in June and early July 1947, on July 9, 1947, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, began a formal investigation into selected sightings with characteristics that could not be immediately rationalized, such as Kenneth Arnold's. The USAAF used "all of its top scientists" to determine whether "such
8415-532: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of
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#17330932601228580-753: The Falcon Lake incident in Manitoba and the Shag Harbour UFO incident in Nova Scotia. Early Canadian studies included Project Magnet (1950–1954) and Project Second Storey (1952–1954), supported by the Defence Research Board . U.S. investigations into UFOs include: In addition to these, thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs. These agencies include
8745-647: The Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are
8910-556: The Kenneth Arnold incident . "Unidentified flying object" (UFO) has been in-use since 1947. The acronym, "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt , for the USAF. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO". The term UFO became widespread during
9075-731: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on
9240-584: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as
9405-488: The White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited this planet and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response: The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of
9570-577: The conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by the elite in England eventually developed into
9735-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in
9900-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to
10065-443: The '80s and '90s "the floodgates opened, and with them a new generation of UFO advocates". Leaders among them were the artist Budd Hopkins , horror writer Whitley Strieber , historian David Jacobs , and Harvard psychiatrist John Mack . They all defended the "veracity of those claiming to have been kidnapped, examined, and experimented upon by beings from another world", writes Eghigian, as "new missionaries who simultaneously played
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#173309326012210230-409: The 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. Unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) first appeared in the late 1960s. UAP has seen increasing usage in the 21st century due to negative cultural associations with "UFO". UAP is sometimes expanded as "unidentified anomalous phenomenon". While technically a UFO refers to any unidentified flying object, in modern popular culture
10395-554: The 1980s and 1990s, UFO stories featured in such pulp "true crime" serials as Unsolved Mysteries while the 33 Volume Time-Life series Mysteries of the Unknown which featured UFO stories sold some 700,000 copies. Kloor writes that by the late 1990s, "other big UFO subthemes had been prominently introduced into pop culture, such as the abduction phenomenon and government conspiracy narrative , via best-selling books and, of course, The X-Files ". Eghigian notes that, by this point,
10560-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with
10725-503: The Air Force issued a statement to the effect that the book was outdated and cadets instead were being informed of the Condon Report 's negative conclusion. Controversy surrounded the report, both before and after its release. It has been observed that the report was "harshly criticized by numerous scientists, particularly at the powerful AIAA ... [which] recommended moderate, but continuous scientific work on UFOs." In an address to
10890-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through
11055-631: The Arnold incident, reported that over 25% of the U.S. public "believed unidentified flying objects could be from outer space". The cultural phenomenon showed up within some intellectual works such as the 1959 publication of Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky by Carl Jung , a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Starting in 1947, the U.S. Air Force began to record and investigated UFO reports with Project Sign looking into "more than 250 cases" from 1947 to 1949. It
11220-512: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English
11385-525: The CIA Director (DCI) in December read that "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention ... Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such a nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or any known types of aerial vehicles." The matter
11550-896: The Chilean Committee for the Study of Unidentified Space Phenomena, supported even by the Chilean Scientific Society. Currently, the organization changed its denomination to SEFAA and its a department of the DGAC (Chile) which in turn depends on the Chilean Air Force . In Canada, the Department of National Defence has dealt with reports, sightings and investigations of UFOs across Canada. In addition to conducting investigations into crop circles in Duhamel, Alberta , it still considers "unsolved"
11715-520: The Condon Committee Report and later wrote two nontechnical books that set forth the case for continuing to investigate UFO reports. Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book, a USAF investigation that preceded Condon's. According to a 1979 New York Times report, "records from the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other Federal agencies" ("about 900 documents—nearly 900 pages of memos, reports and correspondence") obtained in 1978 through
11880-537: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent
12045-628: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of
12210-543: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in
12375-503: The Freedom of Information Act request, indicate that "despite official pronouncements for decades that U.F.O.'s were nothing more than misidentified aerial objects and as such were no cause for alarm ... the phenomenon has aroused much serious behind‐the‐scenes concern" in the US government. In particular, officials were concerned over the "approximately 10%" of UFO sightings which remained unexplained, and whether they might be Soviet aircraft and
12540-494: The Harvard Medical School initiated a review of his position which allowed him to retain tenure. However, after this review, as the review board chairman Arnold Relman later put it, Mack was "not taken seriously by his colleagues anymore". Claims of alien abduction have continued, but no other clinicians would continue to speak of them as real in any sense. Nonetheless, these ideas persisted in popular opinion. According to
12705-550: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after
12870-457: The UFO problem had become "far more interesting to ponder than to actually solve." Interest was particularly fevered in the 1990s with the publicity surrounding the television broadcast of an Alien autopsy video marketed as "real footage" but later admitted to be a staged "re-enactment". Eghigian writes that "there had always been outlier abduction reports dating back to the '50s and '60s" but that in
13035-476: The US in over 50 years. Another Congressional hearing took place on July 26, 2023, featuring the whistleblower claims of former U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer and intelligence official David Grusch. A Harris Poll in 2009 found that 32% of Americans "believe in UFOs". A National Geographic study in June 2012 found that 36% of Americans believe UFOs exist and that 10% thought that they had spotted one. In June 2021
13200-490: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In
13365-539: The United States and Project Condign in the United Kingdom ), as well as by organisations and individuals have occurred over the years without confirmation of the fantastical claims of small but vocal groups of ufologists who favour unconventional or pseudoscientific hypotheses, often claiming that UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence , technologically advanced cryptids , demons , interdimensional contact or future time travelers . After decades of promotion of such ideas by believers and in popular media,
13530-466: The artificial moon along with the discovery of a planet that is named by the writers as "Terra Prime", and is reported as being called Earth by its inhabitants. This strongly suggests that the writers may be extraterrestrial aliens; the report also mentions hostilities from the inhabitants of the planet after the writers' presence in the Solar System was uncovered, and of the measures taken against it by
13695-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,
13860-449: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of
14025-404: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with
14190-534: The best known government studies are the ghost rockets investigation by the Swedish military (1946–1947), Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge , conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969, the secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute , and
14355-465: The century. By most accounts, the popular UFO craze in the US began with a media frenzy surrounding the reports on June 24, 1947, of a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold who described seeing "a group of bat-like aircraft flying in formation at high speeds" near Mount Rainier that he said were "moving like a saucer would if skipped across water" which led to headlines about "flying saucers" and "flying discs". Only weeks after Arnold's story
14520-444: The claims, and at times the media was enlisted including a 1966 TV special, "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?", in which Walter Cronkite "patiently" explained to viewers that UFOs were fantasy. Cronkite enlisted Carl Sagan and J. Allen Hynek , who told Cronkite, "To this time, there is no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships". Such attempts to disenchant the zeitgeist were not very successful at tamping down
14685-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of
14850-682: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into
15015-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered
15180-708: The distances involved." On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on UAPs. The report found that the UAPTF was unable to identify 143 objects spotted between 2004 and 2021. The report said that 18 of these featured unusual movement patterns or flight characteristics, adding that more analysis was needed to determine if those sightings represented "breakthrough" technology. The report said that "some of these steps are resource-intensive and would require additional investment." The report did not link
15345-467: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and
15510-585: The documentation of the Brazilian Air Force regarding the investigation of the appearance of UFOs in Brazil . Currently, this collection gathers cases between 1952 and 2016. In 1968, the SEFAA (previously CEFAA) began receiving case reports of the general public, civil aviators and the Chilean Air Force regarding the sightings or the appearance of UFOs in Chile , the initial work was an initiative of Sergio Bravo Flores who led
15675-409: The door remains locked. Often, solving one part of the puzzle will reveal items, codes ( passwords ), or pathways that in turn that help solve another part of the puzzle. The aforementioned cupboard, for example, yields a screwdriver, and the screwdriver is used to unscrew the painting, which yields a screw in return, and so on. The player must often apply lateral thinking when trying to find uses for
15840-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially
16005-539: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from
16170-415: The element using the selected item. Taking the key from the previous example, a player can click on it when it is in their inventory, and then click on the cupboard's door again to open the cupboard using the retrieved key. If the item is not meant for the element, then nothing happens. Again using the key as an example: if the player tries to use the key on the door instead of the cupboard, nothing happens and
16335-518: The existential terror of nuclear war to foreign enslavement to loss of bodily control". American entertainment has explored both "hostile aliens" as well as the "benevolent, world-expanding encounters" seen in films such as Steven Spielberg 's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . In her research on the relationship of media to UFO beliefs, Diana Walsh Pasulka ,
16500-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in
16665-498: The fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved." A public research effort conducted by the Condon Committee for the USAF and published as the Condon Report arrived at a negative conclusion in 1968. Blue Book closed down in 1970, using the Condon Committee's negative conclusion as a rationale, thus ending official Air Force UFO investigations. However,
16830-489: The game itself, various notes left behind by persons unknown throughout the game (with one reading "No unauthorised time travel"), and the use of portals and teleportation devices to advance between some levels of the game. MOTAS was created in November 2001. At that time MOTAS was hosted on a free web server and the game featured only one room (level). In February 2002, a counter was added. As of May 2008, MOTAS has 20 levels plus
16995-433: The game's environment itself, rather than involving multiple items and elements within the game's environment; these are usually presented in the form of locks preventing access to other elements or pathways. For example, in one of the rooms on the tenth level, the player must unlock a safe by solving a circular, colourful pie chart -like puzzle, through interaction with the elements of the puzzle itself. Many elements within
17160-418: The game's environments to uncover hidden items; for example, in the first room, the player has to retrieve a hidden key under the bed's pillow. Retrieved items can then be used to interact with elements within the environment to solve puzzles. A player uses retrieved items by clicking on it in their inventory (shown on the upper left corner), and then clicking on the element within the environment to interact with
17325-559: The game, such as many pieces of furniture and some of the puzzles themselves, can be interacted with without using any additional items. For example, unlocked doors can be opened simply by clicking on them, and some chairs can be moved around by clicking on them. As the game advances, the gameplay itself steadily evolves at the same time, the levels and puzzles gradually becoming more complex and multi-layered. Levels begin taking place over multiple rooms at once and eventually ventures into an outside world beyond locked buildings. In later levels,
17490-444: The game. MOTAS begins in a relatively formulaic fashion; as is the convention in escape the room games, the player awakens in a bedroom that is locked from the outside with no memory of prior events. As the game progresses, the player discovers several elements throughout the game's environment that suggest the player is a clone , such as a letter left on a table in one of the rooms on the seventh level regarding an escaped clone, and
17655-710: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of
17820-437: The guestbook/end level. At several points, the game became so popular that bandwidth became a problem, and so the game was moved to another web host. Mystery of Time and Space is considered to be a highly significant escape the room adventure that helped propel the genre to significance as a subset of online games . It has been referenced in other adventure games, such as the similarly alien-themed Cybee's Adventure , in which
17985-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,
18150-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where
18315-467: The human race...no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.... The response further noted that efforts, like SETI and NASA's Kepler space telescope and Mars Science Laboratory , continue looking for signs of life . The response noted "odds are pretty high" that there may be life on other planets but "the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones —are extremely small, given
18480-437: The hypothesis that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft and responded to the "onslaught of credulous coverage" in books, films and entertainment by teaching his students to apply critical thinking to such claims, advising them that "being a good scientist is not unlike being a good detective". According to Fraknoi, UFO reports "might at first seem mysterious", but "the more you investigate, the more likely you are to find that there
18645-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as
18810-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English
18975-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of
19140-400: The items retrieved in order to solve the puzzles. Codes can be in a variety of formats, usually involving simple number sequences but can also be as complex as involving colours, directions and binary ; these must be entered into the appropriate elements inside the game's environment correctly in order to advance through the game. Some of the puzzles may be presented as a single element within
19305-463: The kind of evidence required to solidly support such claims has not been forthcoming. Scientists and skeptic organizations such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry have provided prosaic explanations for UFOs, namely that they are caused by natural phenomena, human technology, delusions, and hoaxes. Beliefs surrounding UFOs have inspired parts of new religions even as social scientists have identified
19470-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
19635-505: The last fifty years, the mutual antagonism between paranormal believers and skeptics has largely framed discussion about unidentified flying objects" and that "it often gets personal" with those taking seriously the prospect that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin dismissing those who consider UFOs to be worth studying as "narrow-minded, biased, obstinate, and cruel" while the skeptics brushed off "devotees" as "naïve, ignorant, gullible, and downright dangerous". Such "mudslinging over convictions
19800-493: The longest ongoing government-sponsored investigation. About 22% of the 6,000 cases studied remain unexplained. The official opinion of GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN has been neutral, stating on their FAQ page that their mission is fact-finding for the scientific community, not rendering an opinion. They add they can neither prove nor disprove the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), but their Steering Committee's clear position
19965-537: The mania. Keith Kloor notes that the "allure of flying saucers" remained popular with the public into the 1970s, spurring production of such sci-fi films, as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien , which "continued to stoke public fascination". Meanwhile, Leonard Nimoy narrated a popular occult and mystery TV series In Search of... while daytime talk shows of Mike Douglas , Merv Griffin , and Phil Donahue featured interviews with alien abductees and people who credulously reported stories about UFOs . In
20130-687: The material and the mental dimensions [of UFOs] are incredibly important to get a sense of the full picture". As Adrian Horton writes "from The X-Files to Men in Black , Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Star Wars to Marvel , Hollywood has for decades provided an engrossing feedback loop for interest in the extraterrestrial: a reflection of our fears and capaciousness, whose ubiquitous popularity has in turn fueled more interest in UFOs as perennially compelling entertainment tropes not to be taken seriously". Horton observes that these "alien movies have generally reflected shifting cultural anxieties, from
20295-607: The narrative similarities between certain religious symbols in medieval paintings and UFO reports, the canonical and symbolic character of such images is documented by art historians placing more conventional religious interpretations on such images. Some examples of pre-contemporary reports about unusual aerial phenomena include: In the Pacific and European theatres during World War II , round, glowing fireballs known as " foo fighters " were reported by Allied and Axis pilots. Some explanations for these sightings included St. Elmo's fire ,
20460-501: The new moniker "unexplained aerial phenomenon" (UAP) to avoid associations with past sensationalism . On 17 May 2022, members of the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held congressional hearings with top military officials to discuss military reports of UAPs. It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in
20625-543: The ongoing interest and storytelling surrounding UFOs as a modern example of folklore and mythology understandable with psychosocial explanations . The U.S. government currently has two entities dedicated to UFO data collection and analysis: NASA's UAP independent study team and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office . During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often called " flying saucers " or "flying discs" based on reporting of
20790-518: The phenomenon include the MUFON , a grassroots organization whose investigator's handbooks go into great detail on the documentation of alleged UFO sightings. Air Force Regulation 200-2 , issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object ("UFOB") as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as
20955-483: The planet Venus , hallucinations from oxygen deprivation , and German secret weapons (specifically rockets ). In 1946, more than 2,000 reports were collected, primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects over the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. The objects were referred to as "Russian hail" (and later as " ghost rockets ") because it
21120-459: The player acquires a device called the Manipulator of Time and Space (MOTAS) device , which takes the player back to previous levels via time travel in order to retrieve items; the player then returns to the current level to solve the puzzles using the items retrieved. Unique among many games of this genre, MOTAS features a plot that changes and evolves as the player advances through the course of
21285-407: The player sees the dead body of an alien lying outside a crashed UFO in the first room. Both possibilities are most strongly hinted at on the sixteenth level. On that level, an encrypted mission report, written by an unknown group of persons aboard an "artificial moon" and left on a computer to be discovered and decrypted by the player, mentions clones being trained in a "Logic Training facility" on
21450-473: The postwar decades, in a series of events that—with their news coverage, grainy images, celebrity crusaders, exasperated skeptics, unsatisfying military statements, and accusations of a government cover-up—foreshadow our present moment". UFOs have been taken up by religious studies scholars in various scholarly books. Jeffrey Kripal, chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University , has said that "both
21615-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it
21780-484: The public Blue Book investigation. The memo then added, "reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose." In the late 1960s, a chapter on UFOs in the Space Sciences course at the U.S. Air Force Academy gave serious consideration to possible extraterrestrial origins. When word of the curriculum became public, in 1970,
21945-657: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from
22110-415: The role of investigator, therapist, and advocate to their vulnerable charges". Eghigian says that Mack "signaled both the culmination and end of the headiest days of alien abduction". When Mack began working with and publishing accounts of abductees—or "experiencers", as he called them—in the early 1990s, he brought a sense of legitimacy to "the study of extraterrestrial captivity". By the late 1990s, however,
22275-464: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout
22440-504: The sightings to extraterrestrial life. The Uruguayan Air Force has conducted UFO investigations since 1989 and reportedly analyzed 2,100 cases of which they regard approximately 2% as lacking explanation. In March 2007, the French space agency CNES published an archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online. French studies include GEPAN/SEPRA/ GEIPAN within CNES (French space agency),
22605-552: The silence over the alien origins of unidentified flying objects". Media accounts and speculation ran rampant in the U.S., especially in connection to the 1952 UFO scare in Washington, D.C. so that, by 1953, the intelligence officials ( Robertson Panel ) worried that "genuine incursions" by enemy aircraft "over U.S. territory could be lost in a maelstrom of kooky hallucination" of UFO reports. A Trendex survey in August 1957, ten years after
22770-478: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to
22935-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and
23100-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into
23265-402: The study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge" and that further time investigating UFO reports "cannot be justified". From the 1960s to 1990s, UFOs were part of American popular culture's obsession with the supernatural and paranormal . In 1961, the first alien abduction account was sensationalized when Barney and Betty Hill underwent hypnosis after seeing
23430-962: The term UFO has generally become synonymous with alien spacecraft . The term "extra-terrestrial vehicle" (ETV) is sometimes used to separate this explanation of UFOs from totally earthbound explanations. Studies show that after careful investigation, the majority of UFOs can be identified as ordinary objects or phenomena. The 1952–1955 study for the USAF used the following categories: "Balloon; Astronomical; Aircraft; Light phenomenon; Birds, Clouds, dust, etc.; Insufficient information; Psychological manifestations; Unknown; and Other". The most commonly found identified sources of UFO reports are: An individual 1979 study by CUFOS researcher Allan Hendry found, as did other investigations, that fewer than one percent of cases he investigated were hoaxes and most sightings were actually honest misidentifications of prosaic phenomena. Hendry attributed most of these to inexperience or misperception. Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi rejected
23595-412: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Though some mention
23760-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during
23925-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by
24090-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,
24255-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with
24420-408: The writers of the report, including the creation of a clone to "hopefully save the planet"; this clone is hinted at the end of the report as being the player. One plot suggestion has been dismissed though: on the eighth level of the game, a figure in a pink alien suit was shown apparently following the player by exiting one of the two doors inside a room after the player has left the level; this figure
24585-605: The years that varied widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Peru, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times. No official government investigation has ever publicly concluded that UFOs are indisputably real, physical objects, extraterrestrial in origin, or of concern to national defense. Among
24750-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century
24915-595: Was called off after the Robertson Panel's negative conclusions in January 1953. Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. J. Allen Hynek , a trained astronomer who served as a scientific advisor for Project Blue Book,
25080-508: Was considered so urgent that OS/I drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the NSC proposing that the NSC establish an investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. It also urged the DCI to establish an external research project of top-level scientists, now known as the Robertson Panel to analyze the problem of UFOs. The OS/I investigation
25245-432: Was followed closely by the publication of Loeb's book Extraterrestrial , in which he argued that the first interstellar comet ever observed, 'Oumuamua , might be an artificial light sail made by an alien civilization. Two government sponsored programs, NASA's UAP independent study team and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office were charged in part by Congressional fiat to investigate UFO claims more fully, adopting
25410-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in
25575-418: Was initially skeptical of UFO reports, but eventually came to the conclusion that many of them could not be satisfactorily explained and was highly critical of what he described as "the cavalier disregard by Project Blue Book of the principles of scientific investigation". Leaving government work, he founded the privately funded CUFOS , to whose work he devoted the rest of his life. Other private groups studying
25740-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by
25905-470: Was not enough data to determine their origin. The Air Force's Project Sign was created at the end of 1947, and was one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect, but the Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report
26070-464: Was not universal in the CIA, however, as fellow NICAP official Donald E. Keyhoe wrote that Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter , the first director of the CIA, "wanted public disclosure of UFO evidence". Official U.S. Air Force interest in UFO reports went on hiatus in 1969 after a study by the University of Colorado led by Edward U. Condon and known as the Condon Report concluded "that nothing has come from
26235-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English
26400-407: Was replaced by Project Grudge up through 1951. In the third U.S. Air Force program, from March 1952 to its termination in December 1969, "the U.S. Air Force cataloged 12,618 sightings of UFOs as part of what is now known as Project Blue Book ". In the late 1950s, public pressure mounted for a full declassification of all UFO records, but the CIA played a role in refusing to allow this. This sense
26565-515: Was reported in 1947, Gallup published a poll asking people in the United States what the "flying saucers" might be. Already, 90% had heard of the new term. However, as reported by historian Greg Eghanian, "a majority either had no idea what they could be or thought that witnesses were mistaken" while "visitors from space were not initially among the options that anyone had in mind, and Gallup didn't even mention if anyone surveyed brought up aliens. Within weeks, reports of flying saucer sightings became
26730-561: Was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF's Project Blue Book. Another highly classified U.S. study was conducted by the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) in the latter half of 1952 in response to orders from the National Security Council (NSC). This study concluded UFOs were real physical objects of potential threat to national security. One OS/I memo to
26895-464: Was revealed in the seventeenth level to be merely the player themselves, the pink colour explained as the result of an accident while attempting to hide behind the door. The version of the player in the pink suit had travelled from the future using the MOTAS device; the item also helps serve to further the game's metafictional elements. Other elements that serve as plot suggestions include a book named after
27060-427: Was thought the mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets , but most were identified as natural phenomena as meteors. Many scholars, especially those arguing for the psychosocial UFO hypothesis , have noted that UFO characteristics reported after the first widely publicized modern sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947 resembled a host of science fiction tropes from earlier in
27225-433: Was up from 33% in a 2019 Gallup poll with the same question. Gallup further found that college graduates went in 2019 from being the least likely educational group to believe this to being on par in 2021 with adults who have no college education. An October 2022 poll by YouGov only found that 34% of Americans believe that UFOs are likely to involve alien life forms. Historian Greg Eghigian wrote in August 2021 that "over
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