Chilling declassified CIA file reveals aliens committed 'revenge massacre' after UFO was shot down

• READ MORE:  Aliens MUST exist beyond Earth, leading scientist insists

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A bone-chilling document declassified by the CIA has exposed an alleged massacre by aliens from a crashed UFO who turned an entire military unit into stone.

According to the report, Soviet troops shot down a flying saucer hovering over the Soviet military unit in Siberia roughly 35 years ago, and what happened next was truly terrifying.

In the document, summarizing a 250-page top secret file acquired by US intelligence agents, eyewitnesses said five aliens climbed out of their wrecked craft, combined themselves into one creature, exploded in a burst of intense energy, and turned 23 soldiers into solid rock.

One CIA official referred to the shocking battle as 'a horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one's blood freeze.' 

The agency added that the 'extremely menacing case' proved the aliens who visited Earth possessed weapons and technology far beyond the US government's 'assumptions' - suggesting they were already aware of the aliens' existence.

The unearthed document, declassified in 2000, was recently the topic of the AI or Evil podcast, where host Josh Hooper revealed that two of the soldiers at the UFO crash site actually survived the encounter.

However, the 23 'petrified soldiers' could not be saved. Their remains and the debris from the spacecraft were reportedly moved to a secret research base near Moscow.

An even more concerning detail of the CIA file is the description of the aliens reportedly involved in this massacre, who have been mentioned in UFO reports and sightings for nearly 80 years.

A declassified CIA document revealed details of an alleged battle between Soviet forces and an alien spacecraft, which ended with 23 soldiers dead

During a training mission in Siberia, the Soviet military reportedly shot down a low-flying UFO carrying at least 5 aliens who then turned the soldiers into stone

The subject of the document states: 'Paper reports alleged evidence on mishap involving UFO.'

This extraordinary tale was also published in the Ukrainian newspaper Holos Ukrayiny on March 27, 1993.

The incident, which a Canadian newspaper believed took place between 1989 and 1990, was only uncovered by the CIA after the fall of the Soviet Union and its 'secret police' organization, the KGB. 

The CIA document explained that the alleged alien craft was flying low and quietly above the Soviet unit while they were engaged in a training mission.

Officials wrote that 'for unknown reasons' the Soviets launched a surface-to-air missile at the UFO, sending it crashing to the Earth near the unit's position.

According to the only two soldiers who survived, when the soldiers approached the craft, the five aliens freed themselves of the debris and came close together near the wreck.

Moments later, the soldiers said the group of aliens 'merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape.' In simpler language, the aliens beings somehow morphed into a giant ball.

That's when the new ball-like alien began to buzz and hiss before igniting into a brilliant white light.

The description from the CIA report matches the decades-long description of an alleged race of beings UFO researchers call 'the Greys'

With the soldiers still looking on, the ball of light erupted like a giant flare of energy, turning 23 of the 25 Soviets into 'stone poles.'

The report stated that the only reason two of the men survived was because they were standing in a shaded area at the time of the alien energy blast.

Testing of the soldier's bodies showed the alien flare had somehow changed living tissue into a substance that closely resembles limestone.

The CIA document added that 'a source of energy that is still unknown to Earthlings' was responsible for the blast which fatally transformed the Soviets.

Even in 2025, the science behind such a shocking transformation is still difficult to explain medically and technologically.

According to the Journal of Applied Physics, it is possible to use high-energy radiation or electromagnetic pulses to change normal matter into plasma - a form that's not a liquid, solid, or gas.

In the report, the CIA described the aliens as short humanoids with 'large heads and large black eyes.'

The account matches who UFO researchers, alleged alien abductees, and others who believe in alien life refer to as a race called 'the Greys.'

Their features have become the classic image the public thinks of when discussing aliens from outer space - a small, skinny, grey-skinned alien, with an oversized head and large black eyes with no iris.

The Greys would eventually become linked to the infamous Roswell Incident of 1947, as CIA documents would later suggest that alien beings were pulled from the alleged wreck in New Mexico.

These strange creatures would also go on to represent alien life in countless science fiction shows and movies, including Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Despite their prominent place in extraterrestrial research, this disturbing incident appears to be the first time humans have alleged that these beings could have accomplished such terrifying feats.

 { https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html }

03-03-2026 om 22:09 geschreven door peter  

A crashed flying saucer? No, an aeroshell for NASA’s Voyager-Mars program tested in the desert.

(credit: NASA)

All’s well that’s Roswell

by Dwayne A. Day

On February 19, the president stated that he had directed the government to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).” In the mid-1990s, political pressure resulted in the release of information and the production of two reports on the so-called “Roswell Incident” of 1947. These reports added substantively to the historical record of Cold War aerospace programs. Hopefully, the new efforts will also be productive in opening up the history.

The infamous “flying saucer” headline in the local newspaper in 1947.

The Roswell Incident

In 1947 there was a report of debris found by a rancher near Roswell, New Mexico. It was soon publicly reported that the Air Force had captured a “flying saucer.” Within a day or so, the military stated that the debris was actually from a “weather balloon.”

In 1994, following political pressure from Congress, the Air Force announced that what had crashed at Roswell was not a weather balloon, but a different kind of balloon, from a top secret program.

Despite the fact that Roswell has now been in the public consciousness for decades (there were even two fictionalized TV series about aliens set in Roswell), it was not until 1980 and the publication of the book The Roswell Incident that the event gained a mass audience. The book by Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore alleged that not only had the US government recovered debris from a flying saucer, but it may have recovered “alien bodies.” Sensational paranormal pseudoscientific stories were Berlitz’s bread and butter: he had previously written a book about the Bermuda Triangle (which unfortunately does not exist) and claimed that a US Navy ship had been involved in time travel experiments (which did not happen, but may still have not happened when time travel is invented, or not).

In 1994, following political pressure from Congress, the Air Force announced that what had crashed at Roswell was not a weather balloon, but a different kind of balloon, from a top secret program called Project Mogul. Mogul was an effort to fly microphones to very high altitudes to listen for the sound of nuclear explosions. Scientists believed that the sounds of such explosions could be trapped between layers of the atmosphere and would reverberate over long distances. In the late 1940s, the United States government was concerned that the Soviet Union might develop an A-bomb, and Mogul was designed to listen for the big boom. A big boom eventually happened when the first Soviet A-bomb was detonated in August 1949.

After the initial Air Force revelation about Project Mogul, in 1995 the Air Force published The Roswell Report – Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, a thick book that included documentation supporting the Project Mogul explanation for the Roswell incident. On June 24, 1997, the Air Force published The Roswell Report: Case Closed. This second report addressed the claims that bodies had been recovered in the desert, noting that the Air Force had conducted many tests in the desert involving instrumented dummies dropped from aircraft and later recovered on the ground. It also noted that NASA had performed drop tests of various reentry vehicles over the desert, and some of these had saucer shapes. These activities, conducted over many decades, often at an Air Force base at Roswell, could have contributed to the mythology of Roswell and aliens.

The two reports released by the US Air Force in 1995 and 1997 about what happened in Roswell.

Case closed?

Of course, the tinfoil hat-wearing crowd was not convinced, and the term “case closed” only stirred up their bile. There was already a cottage industry of hucksters and grifters willing to take advantage of the true believers, and they had no interest in Air Force or NASA history that didn’t titillate the masses. They held their UFO conferences and sold energy crystals and fold-up pyramids to the faithful, and denounced the Air Force’s explanation for Roswell.

But setting aside the issue of extraterrestrials, the two Air Force reports of the mid-1990s were important contributions to historical scholarship, revealing new and declassified information and documents. Up to the time of the Air Force revelation about Project Mogul, that program had not been acknowledged or even hinted about. For example, historian Curtis Peebles had written a 1991 book The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons over Russia. Peebles shed considerable light on the subject of reconnaissance balloons but had been unaware of Project Mogul. Other historians had been digging into the history of aerial reconnaissance programs and had not uncovered Mogul. The information on Mogul had been sitting in government archives for decades until it was forced into the open. Certainly a few people in the government still knew about it, and some had probably seen the documents, but there was no reason for them to reveal the truth about what happened at Roswell until a government order to declassify and publish that information.

Similarly, although the information in the Case Closed report did not reveal any highly classified programs, it was revelatory. It shone a light on obscure areas of aerospace research that had been overlooked by many historians, like high-altitude drop tests. The report included photos of NASA Voyager-Mars and Viking aeroshells that had been tested in the desert. It also included photos of other unusual balloon-carried research payloads, including Discoverer satellite reentry vehicles. Very few people had ever paid attention to the history of aeromedical research and testing during the Cold War, but the report demonstrated that many such tests had been performed for decades.

The Air Force reports on Roswell revealed testing NASA did of aeroshells for future Mars missions, like Viking.

(credit: NASA)

Sunshine days

The 1990s was an era of increased openness about Cold War era activities, sometimes resulting from presidential direction, sometimes from congressional direction, and sometimes at the initiative of senior government officials. The existence of the National Reconnaissance Office was revealed in 1992, and following executive order 12951 the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program was declassified in 1995. In a December 1993 press conference, Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary announced the largest declassification of information in the Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) history. That included acknowledging many nuclear tests, as well as nuclear weapons accidents during the Cold War. Additional major declassifications were announced at openness press conferences in June 1994 and February 1996. For example, in 1996 DoE released a complete inventory of US production, acquisition, use, and distribution of plutonium from 1944 to 1994.

The CIA began declassifying millions of pages of documents on Cold War operations. These included an official history of the U-2 reconnaissance program as well as (in coordination with the National Security Agency) revealing the Venona communications interceptions of the 1940s. CIA documents revealed details of what the US Intelligence Community knew about Soviet missile and space programs. One example was an early effort to “kidnap” a Soviet spacecraft during an international exhibition in the early 1960s to examine it. This author was the first to discover and report on the CIA operation after uncovering a newly declassified CIA publication in the National Archives. The CIA also created a declassification program that released millions of pages of documents as part of the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST). Much of our current understanding of intelligence collection about Soviet weapons systems is due to the work done for CREST. That effort was highly productive into the early 2000s, when it was curtailed and the number of documents being declassified annually dropped dramatically. As a result, we have very good understanding of many aspects of the Cold War up until the early 1970s, but after that the historical record is much thinner.

The 1990s were the beginning of a new era of revelations about historical American air and space programs. Certainly, much remained classified, but much more was revealed than in previous decades. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were the beginning of the end of this period of openness. Government agencies retrenched, new bureaucracies and layers of secrecy were created, and new politicians and government leaders had far less interest in revealing past secrets. Whereas CORONA was declassified in 1995, the follow-on GAMBIT and HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite programs were considered for declassification in 1997, but this ultimately did not happen until 2011. Today, official government declassification efforts are underfunded, meager, and sporadic.

The truth is out there… and so are the lies

It has long been known that when the U-2 spy plane began flying in the mid-1950s it was regularly being reported as a flying saucer at high altitude, and the government did nothing to dispel those stories. But the government’s involvement goes beyond simply not correcting the false stories to creating its own false stories. In June 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US government had actively used disinformation to conceal highly classified aerospace programs. (See “Pentagon Fueled UFO Mythology, Then Tried Coverup,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2025, print edition.) As the government was investigating reports of unidentified aerial phenomena (the modern euphemism for UFOs), a retired Air Force colonel admitted that in the 1980s he had taken doctored photos of flying saucers to a bar in the Nevada desert and given them to a bartender to put up on the walls. This was to help obscure the fact that the Air Force was testing stealth aircraft nearby. Somebody who saw an F-117 flying in the dark might tell the story to somebody else who would say that it resembled the flying saucer photo in the bar. People would chase aliens instead of secret aircraft.

Other officers who were assigned to a highly classified program office were shown a photo of what they were told was an alien craft, part of a project called Yankee Blue, and told that it had provided the government with antigravity technology. They were ordered to never mention it again. But this was actually a joke, a long-standing hazing ritual within the secretive community. In spring 2023, the Secretary of Defense sent out a memo ordering the practice to stop immediately, but by this time hundreds of people retired, and in the active duty military, believed the government had inherited technology from aliens. Distrust and misinformation was now firmly embedded into the secretive culture.

The Journal also recounted a disturbing story about a 1967 incident that had been reported as an alien “attack” on an ICBM command post in Montana by a glowing reddish-orange oval. What really occurred was a highly classified test of a system to determine if missile command complexes were vulnerable to Soviet electromagnetic pulse attacks. The test identified significant security vulnerabilities, and that information was so sensitive that it was highly classified for half a century, even though one Air Force officer in that command post believed it was aliens.

Some of my own research has hinted that misinformation was part of the fielding of the first operational near-real-time reconnaissance satellite in December 1976, the KH-11 KENNEN. A cryptic note in a declassified history indicates that the Soviet Union did not realize the satellite was capable of reconnaissance until summer of 1978. But I have also heard that an Air Force officer, possibly without official sanction, was deliberately spreading disinformation about American satellites during this period.

Two years ago, Peter Merlin published Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51 (see “Review: Dreamland”, The Space Review, December 4, 2023.) It is an exhaustive history of secret projects developed at the Groom Lake airfield. But it also essentially stops by the early 1980s, even though the Groom Lake facilities expanded significantly in the following decade. What went on in those big new hangars? Throughout the 1980s there were rumors of other aircraft being tested there, and one retired test pilot confirmed that he flew something during the 1980s that remains classified. Maybe the story of the “Blackstar” air-launched spaceplane had some basis in truth (although I have my doubts: “Six blind men in a zoo: Aviation Week’s mythical Blackstar,” The Space Review, March 13, 2006). Maybe that colonel giving out photos of flying saucers to protect projects at Groom Lake was seeking to hide something other than the F-117 stealth fighter. Maybe we’ll now learn.

But probably not.

We’ll have to wait and see what, if anything, is declassified from this new order. So keep watching the skies, but don’t hold your breath while doing so.

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03-03-2026 om 17:36 geschreven door peter  

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03-03-2026 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Kenneth Arnold en het begin van het moderne ufo-tijdperk

©The Daily Digest

Onderdeel van de populaire cultuur
De fascinatie voor ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten (ufo's) groeide binnen de moderne cultuur vanaf 1947, het jaar waarin de term 'vliegende schotel' bekendheid verwierf na een gerapporteerde massale waarneming in de Verenigde Staten.

©The Daily Digest

Wat is een ufo?
Een ufo, oftewel ongeïdentificeerd vliegend object (van het Engels), verwijst naar elk object in de lucht waarvan de aard niet door de waarnemer of de wetenschap kan worden verklaard. De hedendaagse betekenis van deze term is verbonden met meldingen die na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn gedaan.

©The Daily Digest

24 juni 1947: een beslissende dag
De eerste breed uitgemeten waarneming vond plaats op 24 juni 1947, toen piloot Kenneth Arnold iets zag dat niet overeenkwam met een bekend vliegtuig uit die tijd.

©The Daily Digest

Wie was Kenneth Arnold?
Kenneth Albert Arnold (midden op de foto) was een Amerikaanse ondernemer en burgerpiloot met ervaring in zoek- en reddingsvluchten, iemand met diepgaande kennis van de luchtvaart, wat hem in staat stelde om zijn ervaring gedetailleerd te beschrijven.

©The Daily Digest

Vlucht boven Washington
Arnold bestuurde een klein CallAir A-2-vliegtuig nabij Mount Rainier in de staat Washington toen hij vreemde objecten waarnam.

©The Daily Digest

Een beeld dat bijblijft
Volgens zijn eigen relaas zag Arnold in totaal negen heldere objecten in formatie vliegen, die zich met hoge snelheid en ongewone bewegingen voortbewogen die niet eenvoudig uit te leggen waren.

©The Daily Digest

Ongelooflijke snelheid
De ervaren Amerikaanse piloot schatte dat deze objecten sneller gingen dan 1200 mijl per uur, wat ongeveer 1932 kilometer per uur is, een snelheid die veel hoger lag dan die van de destijds bekende vliegtuigen.

©The Daily Digest

Als een schotel op water
Bij het beschrijven van de bewegingen verklaarde Arnold in een interview met Edward R. Murrow van CBS op 7 april 1950 dat de objecten zich bewogen "als schotels die over het water stuiteren", een omschrijving die bepalend werd voor de populaire benaming van ufo's.

©The Daily Digest

Vliegende schotel: een blijvende term
Na zijn eerste verklaringen over de waarneming begonnen tal van media in de Verenigde Staten en Canada – en zelfs daarbuiten – de term 'vliegende schotel' te gebruiken, geïnspireerd door Arnolds woorden. Al snel werd deze uitdrukking wereldwijd een synoniem voor ufo.

©The Daily Digest

Media-aandacht
Het verhaal werd breed verspreid door nieuwsdiensten als Associated Press, waardoor zijn verslag niet alleen in de Verenigde Staten, maar ook daarbuiten bekend werd.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het ontstaan van het ufo-mythos
Dit voorval markeerde het begin van het moderne tijdperk van ufo-waarnemingen, met honderden vergelijkbare meldingen in de dagen na de bekendmaking van de Amerikaanse piloot.

©The Daily Digest

Grote invloed op de cultuur
Na Arnolds waarneming nam de belangstelling voor ongeïdentificeerde objecten aan de hemel sterk toe, wat invloed had op boeken, films en de populaire cultuur van vele landen, en dat tot op de dag van vandaag.

©The Daily Digest

Officiële onderzoeken
De waarneming trok de aandacht van het leger en inlichtingendiensten, die later officiële programma's opzetten om dit soort verschijnselen te onderzoeken.

©The Daily Digest

Wat waren het echt?
De verklaringen over wat Arnold die dag zag, verschillen afhankelijk van de deskundigen die de zaak hebben onderzocht. Van optische illusies tot natuurlijke fenomenen, geen enkele uitleg is voor alle waarnemers volledig overtuigend geweest.

©The Daily Digest

De erfenis van Arnold
Hoewel sommigen denken dat Arnold mogelijk vogels of andere natuurlijke verschijnselen zag, blijft zijn verslag het gedocumenteerde beginpunt van de hedendaagse interesse in ufo's.

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03-03-2026 om 16:15 geschreven door peter  

Cigar Craft Over Capestrano hospital, San Juan, Puerto Rico Feb 18, 2026, UFO UAP Sighting News

Above screenshot has added contrast to see details. 

Date of sighting: February 18, 2026

Location of sighting: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Source: NUFORC

 

This is interesting. A long cigar shaped craft was seen standing upright...like a light entity mimicking human appearance. When I added contrast to a screenshot, it turns out it appears like a pillar of light. Seen for 3 hours by five eyewitnesses this is something special. This seems to be a sign, an energy entity, possibly a spiritual being trying to inspire someone of importance. Someone who has things they want you to complete in the future. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

03-03-2026 om 15:32 geschreven door peter  

Waarom De Oude Chinese Piramides In De Schaduw Van Mysterie Zitten

China is een land vol mysteries. De geschiedenis van de Oude Chinese Piramides, die effectief door de Chinese overheid verborgen worden gehouden, blijven een van de grootste geheimen die nog moeten worden ontrafeld. Deze intrigerende monumenten roepen vragen op over de oude beschavingen die ooit in dit immense land bloeiden en over de motivaties achter het verbergen ervan. In dit artikel duiken we dieper in de mysterieuze piramides in Noordwest-China, de redenen waarom ze nog steeds bedekt zijn met geheimen en wat de recente ontdekkingen ons kunnen vertellen over hun ware aard.

De Mysterieuze Piramides van Noordwest-China

China blijft de wereld boeien met zijn rijke geschiedenis, indrukwekkende economische groei en complexe politieke structuren. Naast deze bekende aspecten, herbergt het land ook vele verborgen schatten uit het verleden, waaronder de mysterieuze piramides in Noordwest-China. Deze oude monumenten, die dateren uit verschillende historische periodes, blijven voor velen een fascinerend en onbegrepen fenomeen. Wat deze piramides zo bijzonder maakt, is niet alleen hun leeftijd, maar ook het feit dat ze lang verborgen zijn gebleven voor het publiek en zelfs voor de meeste onderzoekers. Het Chinese gouvernement heeft deze bouwwerken bewust afgesloten van de publieke kennis om diverse redenen, waaronder het beschermen van de sites of mogelijk vanwege politieke of culturele overwegingen.

De piramides in Noordwest-China liggen vaak op afgelegen locaties, weg van de grote steden en toeristische trekpleisters, wat de ontdekking en studie ervan bemoeilijkt. Pas in de 21e eeuw, met de komst van geavanceerde technologieën zoals satellietbeelden, drones en 3D-scanning, werd het mogelijk om deze geheime sites te identificeren en in kaart te brengen. Wetenschappers ontdekten dat deze piramides niet alleen unieke architectonische structuren zijn, maar dat ze ook mogelijk een belangrijke rol spelen in de oude cultuur en rituelen van de regio. Sommige archeologen geloven dat ze verband houden met de oude stammen die in het gebied leefden, terwijl anderen speculeren dat ze mogelijk verbonden zijn met de Zijderoute en handelsnetwerken uit de oudheid.

De exacte leeftijd en functie van de piramides blijven echter onderwerp van debat. Sommige dateringen wijzen op een leeftijd van meer dan 2.000 jaar, terwijl andere theorieën suggereren dat ze nog ouder kunnen zijn. Onderzoek naar de gebruikte bouwmaterialen en de artefacten die bij de piramides zijn gevonden, wijst op een complexe samenleving met geavanceerde bouwtechnieken en uitgebreide handelsnetwerken. Het ontbreken van uitgebreide schriftelijke bronnen maakt het echter moeilijk om definitieve conclusies te trekken.

De recentelijke ontdekking van deze piramides heeft niet alleen het wetenschappelijke wereldje verrast, maar ook het publieke bewustzijn over de rijke en gevarieerde geschiedenis van China verhoogd. Er wordt momenteel gewerkt aan het behoud en de studie van deze archeologische schatten, met het oog op toekomstig onderzoek en mogelijke openstelling voor toeristen onder strikte voorwaarden om de sites te beschermen. Het blijft een fascinerend mysterie dat de nieuwsgierigheid van historici en avonturiers uitlokt, en dat zeker nog vele jaren onderwerp van studie en discussie zal zijn. Met de voortdurende technologische vooruitgang zal hopelijk meer inzicht worden verkregen in de ware geschiedenis en betekenis van deze oude piramides.

De piramides die nabij de oude stad Xi’an in de provincie Shaanxi liggen, vormen een fascinerend en mysterieus onderdeel van China’s rijke historisch erfgoed. Deze piramides bevinden zich in een gebied dat bekend staat om zijn vele oude begraafplaatsen en archeologische vindplaatsen, en worden vaak beschouwd als de rustplaatsen van oude koninklijke dynastieën en prominente historische figuren. In tegenstelling tot de bekende piramides van Egypte, die uit monumentale structuren bestaan die bedoeld zijn om hun farao’s voor altijd te eren, lijken de Chinese piramides meer op natuurlijke heuvels of glooiende begraafplaatsen die in het landschap zijn geïntegreerd.

De Chinese piramides zijn meestal bedekt met gras, struiken en bomen, waardoor ze op het eerste gezicht niet meteen opvallen, maar eerder op natuurlijke heuvels die deel uitmaken van het landschap. Dit natuurlijke uiterlijk heeft geleid tot veel speculaties en mysteries over hun ware aard en gebruik. Sommige archeologen geloven dat deze structuren oorspronkelijk bedoeld waren als grafmonumenten voor belangrijke leiders en aristocraten, terwijl anderen suggereren dat ze mogelijk ook ritualistische of ceremoniële functies hadden.

Volgens westerse experts worden er momenteel meer dan 40 piramides geschat in China, maar de Chinese overheid beweert dat er meer dan 400 bestaan. Deze grote discrepantie roept vragen op over de werkelijke omvang van dit piramide-landschap en over de manier waarop deze structuren in de loop der eeuwen zijn geïnterpreteerd en gerestaureerd. Het kan zijn dat veel van deze piramides nog niet volledig zijn ontdekt of dat ze door de tijd heen zijn bedekt met natuurlijke begroeiing, waardoor ze moeilijk te identificeren zijn.

Het onderzoek naar deze piramides is nog in volle gang, en veel archeologen en historici zijn gefascineerd door hun mysterie. Sommige onderzoekers vermoeden dat ze dateren uit de Qin- en Han-dynastieën (ca. 3e eeuw v.Chr. tot 3e eeuw n.Chr.), en dat ze een belangrijke rol speelden in de begrafenisrituelen en het religieuze leven van die tijd. Daarnaast blijven vragen bestaan over de technieken die werden gebruikt voor de bouw en de functies die deze structuren hadden binnen de oude Chinese samenleving.

De Chinese piramides vormen niet alleen een fascinerend stukje geschiedenis, maar ook een bron van discussie en onderzoek voor archeologen en historici wereldwijd. Ze bieden een unieke inkijk in de oude Chinese cultuur en begrafenispraktijken, en blijven een mysterie dat nog voor veel nieuwe ontdekkingen en interpretaties vatbaar is. Door hun natuurlijke uiterlijk en hun locatie nabij Xi’an, blijven ze een intrigerend voorbeeld van de oude Chinese architectuur en de manier waarop deze samenleving haar leiders vereerde en herdacht. Kortom, de Chinese piramides vormen een onmisbaar onderdeel van het wereldwijde erfgoed en blijven een boeiend onderwerp voor verdere studie en verkenning.

Een van de meest fascinerende en mysterieuze structuren uit de geschiedenis is de zogenaamde Witte Piramide. Deze indrukwekkende bouwwerk staat bekend om zijn onvoorstelbare omvang en ondoorgrondelijke geheimen. Volgens diverse geruchten zou de piramide wel twintig keer groter zijn dan de beroemde Grote Piramide van Giza in Egypte, en zou de hoogte meer dan 300 meter bedragen. Deze indrukwekkende afmetingen maken het een van de grootste en meest intrigerende archeologische mysteries ter wereld. Echter, de locatie van de piramide en de exacte details blijven voor het grootste deel onontdekt, omdat de Chinese overheid strenge restricties heeft opgelegd voor onderzoek en toegang.

Omdat onderzoekers en archeologen geen officiële toegang krijgen tot de site, zijn er talloze complottheorieën en speculaties ontstaan over de ware aard en doelstellingen van de piramide. Sommigen geloven dat de Witte Piramide een krachtig energiecentrum is, mogelijk gerelateerd aan oude beschavingen die veel verder gingen dan de huidige kennis toelaat. Anderen denken dat het een soort opslagplaats voor waardevolle artefacten of zelfs een toegang tot ondergrondse tunnels naar geheime ondergrondse bases zou kunnen zijn. Er zijn ook theorieën dat de piramide onderdeel is van een grootschalig overheidsgeheim, mogelijk gerelateerd aan militaire of bovennatuurlijke doeleinden.

Officieel geven Chinese functionarissen aan dat de restricties te maken hebben met traditie en het risico op schade aan de monumenten of de rust van de overledenen. Ze benadrukken dat het beschermen en respecteren van de begrafenissen prioriteit heeft. Volgens de officiële verklaring zou het openstellen van de site aan toeristen en wetenschappers te riskant zijn, niet alleen voor het behoud van de structuren, maar ook uit respect voor de begrafenisrituelen die eeuwenoud zijn. Daarnaast wordt gesuggereerd dat de piramide mogelijk een belangrijke culturele en religieuze betekenis heeft binnen de Chinese geschiedenis, en dat het openen ervan zonder de juiste procedures schadelijk kan zijn.

De Witte Piramide van Xian

Desalniettemin blijven de geruchten en theorieën bestaan, mede gevoed door het gebrek aan officiële informatie en de geheimzinnigheid rond de site. Sommige onderzoekers vermoeden dat de Chinese overheid bewust informatie achterhoudt om politieke of strategische redenen, gezien de potentiele waarde en het mysterie dat de piramide omringt. Er zijn zelfs geruchten dat de piramide verbonden zou kunnen zijn met oude beschavingen die veel verder gingen dan de bekende Chinese dynastieën.

In samenvatting blijft de Witte Piramide een symbool van mysterie en overheidsgeheimen. Hoewel de officiële standpunten wijzen op respect voor traditie en archeologisch behoud, blijven de vele onbeantwoorde vragen en de theorieën over verborgen kennis en macht de nieuwsgierigheid van ontdekkingsreizigers en onderzoekers voeden. De ware aard en doelstellingen van de piramide blijven een intrigerend raadsel dat mogelijk voor altijd verborgen zal blijven, tenzij de geheimen op een dag ontsluierd worden.

Meer dan een eeuw na de eerste ontdekking van deze mysterieuze piramides zijn er slechts twee die volledig zijn uitgegraven en uitgebreid bestudeerd door archeologen. Deze beperkte onderzoeksinspanning betekent dat veel van de structuur en de inhoud van de andere piramides nog altijd grotendeels onontdekt en onbegrijpelijk zijn. Sommige van de piramides zijn omgevormd tot nationale parken of toeristische attracties, waardoor het publiek de monumenten kan bewonderen, maar verdere archeologische opgravingen blijven vaak achterwege. De redenen hiervoor zijn onder meer politieke en culturele overwegingen, die het belang benadrukken van het behoud van het erfgoed zonder te verstoren.

Veel van de piramideheuvels lijken bewust aangeplant met bomen en struiken, wat het moeilijk maakt om de volledige omvang en interne structuur onder het oppervlak te bepalen. Deze begroeiing kan zowel een natuurlijke als een door de mens gemaakte ingreep zijn, bedoeld om de geheimen van de piramides te beschermen of te maskeren. Het feit dat de meeste van deze monumenten niet volledig zijn blootgelegd, roept vragen op over de ware aard en functie ervan. Het is mogelijk dat er onder de aarde nog oude schatten, hiërogliefen of technologieën verborgen liggen die momenteel nog niet toegankelijk zijn.

De Chinese autoriteiten lijken bewust de geheimen onder de grond te willen bewaren, mogelijk uit respect voor de overledenen of uit angst voor de gevolgen van het blootleggen van oude kennis. Het onderdrukken of beperken van archeologisch onderzoek kan ook voortkomen uit politieke overwegingen, bijvoorbeeld om nationale trots te beschermen of om het verhaal over de geschiedenis van de regio niet te verstoren. Daarnaast kan het beperken van opgravingen ook te maken hebben met het beschermen van het toeristische potentieel, omdat grootschalige archeologische activiteiten mogelijk de stabiliteit en het imago van de regio kunnen beïnvloeden.

Kortom, de piramides in China blijven voor het grootste deel een mysterie. De beperkte opgravingen en de bewuste bescherming van de ondergrondse monumenten zorgen ervoor dat veel vragen onbeantwoord blijven en dat de ware geschiedenis van deze oude bouwwerken nog altijd grotendeels verborgen is onder een deken van geheimhouding en natuurlijke begroeiing. Toekomstig onderzoek zou kunnen leiden tot nieuwe ontdekkingen die ons meer inzicht geven in de cultuur en technologie van de oude beschavingen die deze piramides hebben gebouwd, maar vooralsnog blijven veel van de monumenten een fascinerend mysterie.

De Mysterieuze Uitlijning Van Chinese Piramides

Hoewel de precieze locaties van alle Chinese piramides nog steeds onbekend zijn, hebben moderne technologieën zoals satellietbeelden en GPS-analyses enkele fascinerende patronen blootgelegd die ons inzicht geven in de oude Chinese beschaving. Een opvallend fenomeen is dat de piramides in twee duidelijke uitlijningen staan: één groep ligt precies uitgelijnd met de kardinale richtingen (noord, oost, zuid, west), terwijl een andere groep een afwijking vertoont van ongeveer 14 graden ten opzichte van het ware Noorden. Deze afwijkingen laten zien dat de oude bouwers mogelijk beschikten over geavanceerde kennis van sterren en hemellichamen. Het wordt aangenomen dat de piramides in de eerste groep mogelijk gericht waren op belangrijke sterren of hemellichamen, zoals de Noordster (Polaris), die een centrale rol speelde in de Chinese astronomie en kalenderkunde.

De afwijking van 14 graden in de andere groep zou kunnen wijzen op een complexe astronomische observatie- en uitlijningsmethode, waarbij de oude Chinese astronomen sterrenkijkers gebruikten om de piramides nauwkeurig te positioneren. Dit zou betekenen dat ze niet alleen eenvoudige bouwtechnieken hadden, maar ook een diepgaand begrip van de bewegingen van hemellichamen en de wisselwerking tussen sterren en aarde. Het feit dat deze uitlijningen mogelijk al duizenden jaren geleden plaatsvonden, wijst op een indrukwekkend wetenschappelijk inzicht dat verder gaat dan tot nu toe werd aangenomen over de oude Chinese beschavingen. De exacte reden achter deze verschillende uitlijningen blijft een mysterie, maar het bevestigt dat de oude Chinese ingenieurs en astronomen beschikten over een hoge mate van kennis en precisie. Het ontdekken van deze patronen opent nieuwe perspectieven voor het begrijpen van de oude Chinese cultuur en haar kennis van het heelal. Het blijft een boeiend onderwerp dat uitnodigt tot verder onderzoek en discussie onder archeologen en astronomen.

Waarom Zijn De Piramides Zo Geheimzinnig?

De piramides in China, vooral die in de regio van de Wei River-vallei en de bijbehorende begraafplaatsen, vormen al sinds jaren een fascinerend mysterie voor archeologen, historici en liefhebbers van het onbekende. Hun geheimzinnigheid wordt door velen gevoed door de beperkte toegang die de Chinese overheid verleent en door de onduidelijkheid over de ware aard en oorsprong van deze monumenten. Maar waarom blijven deze piramides zo lang gesloten en waarom worden ze zo zorgvuldig beschermd? Er zijn verschillende theorieën en speculaties die proberen een antwoord te geven op deze vraag.

Een belangrijke reden die vaak genoemd wordt, is de angst voor het blootleggen van oude kennis en technologieën die mogelijk de hedendaagse geschiedenis kunnen herzien. Sommige onderzoekers stellen dat de piramides niet zomaar graven zijn van koningen of heersers, maar dat ze mogelijk geavanceerde technologische of wetenschappelijke kennis bevatten die verloren is gegaan in de loop der eeuwen. Het openbaar maken hiervan zou kunnen leiden tot grote culturele en wetenschappelijke schokken. De Chinese overheid zou daarom aarzelen om deze kennis vrij te geven, uit angst voor maatschappelijke onrust of het ondermijnen van het nationale verhaal.

Daarnaast speelt het beschermen van de rust en de integriteit van de overledenen een grote rol. In de Chinese cultuur wordt het koesteren van de rust van de voorouders en het respect voor hun grafplaatsen als uiterst belangrijk beschouwd. Het openen van de piramides voor toeristen of onderzoekers zou de rust verstoren en mogelijk leiden tot beschadiging of vernietiging van de monumenten. Bovendien zijn sommige piramides mogelijk nog niet volledig onderzocht of veilig bevonden voor publiek, vanwege de complexiteit van de ondergrondse structuren en de risico’s op instortingen.

Een andere intrigerende theorie suggereert dat de piramides deel uitmaken van een groter, nog onbekend netwerk van oude monumenten, die mogelijk buitenaardse invloeden of technologieën bevatten. Sommige onderzoekers geloven dat deze structuren niet alleen voor begrafenisrituelen dienden, maar ook als knooppunten in een oud wereldwijde communicatiestructuur of als energiestations. Deze theorieën worden vaak aangevuld met speculaties over buitenaardse betrokkenheid, waarbij de piramides worden gezien als bewijzen van een oude, geavanceerde beschaving die contact had met buitenaardse wezens.

Tot slot kan de geheime aard van de piramides ook te maken hebben met politieke en nationale belangen. Het beschermen van deze monumenten versterkt het nationale erfgoed en het gevoel van trots onder de Chinese bevolking. Door de piramides gesloten te houden, wordt ook een aura van mysterie en prestige gecreëerd, wat het internationale aanzien van China op het gebied van archeologie en geschiedenis kan vergroten.

Kortom, de geheimzinnigheid rond de Chinese piramides wordt door een combinatie van culturele, religieuze, technologische, en politieke factoren gevoed. Het blijft een intrigerend mysterie dat nog vele jaren de aandacht zal vasthouden van onderzoekers en nieuwsgierigen wereldwijd. Het is wellicht slechts een kwestie van tijd voordat nieuwe ontdekkingen meer licht zullen werpen op deze oude, mysterieuze monumenten.

Wat Betekent Dit Voor De Toekomst?

Met de voortdurende vooruitgang in technologie en archeologische methoden, is het waarschijnlijk dat we in de komende jaren meer zullen ontdekken over de Chinese piramides. Satellietbeelden, LIDAR-technologie en ondergrondse scans kunnen helpen om de geheimen onder het oppervlak te onthullen zonder de monumenten te beschadigen. Het gebruik van satellietbeelden maakt het mogelijk om grote gebieden vanuit de ruimte te onderzoeken, waardoor we patronen en structuren kunnen identificeren die met het blote oog moeilijk zichtbaar zijn. LIDAR-technologie, die laserstralen gebruikt om de topografie van het terrein te meten, kan onder vegetatiedek en aardlagen kijken, waardoor verborgen piramides en ondergrondse gangen worden blootgelegd. Ondergrondse scans en geavanceerde geofysische technieken kunnen inzicht geven in de structuur en opbouw van deze bouwwerken zonder dat ze fysiek moeten worden geopend of beschadigd.

Daarnaast is het waarschijnlijk dat de Chinese overheid in de toekomst meer openheid zal tonen over deze mysterieuze bouwwerken. Tot nu toe zijn veel van de piramides bedekt gebleven onder een laag geschiedenis en geheimzinnigheid, deels door het ontbreken van gedetailleerde documentatie en deels door politieke overwegingen. Echter, met toenemende internationale belangstelling en wetenschappelijke samenwerking, kunnen we een meer open en transparante benadering verwachten. Internationale teams van archeologen, historici en technologische specialisten zouden worden uitgenodigd om samen te werken aan opgravingen, onderzoek en publicaties. Dit zou niet alleen de kennis over de piramides vergroten, maar ook de interculturele dialoog en samenwerking stimuleren.

Het onthullen van de ware aard van deze piramides kan onze kennis van de oude Chinese beschaving aanzienlijk verrijken. Het zou kunnen leiden tot nieuwe inzichten over de sociale structuur, religieuze praktijken en technologische vaardigheden van de oude bewoners. Bovendien kunnen de ontdekkingen de geschiedenis van de mensheid in bredere zin beïnvloeden, door te laten zien dat oude beschavingen wereldwijd hun eigen indrukwekkende bouwwerken en mythologieën ontwikkelden. Deze nieuwe kennis zou ook kunnen bijdragen aan het toerisme en de cultuurbeleving in China, waardoor meer mensen de rijke geschiedenis en erfgoed van het land kunnen waarderen.

Kortom, de toekomst van de Chinese piramides ziet er veelbelovend uit. Dankzij technologische innovaties en internationale samenwerking kunnen we binnenkort meer ontdekken over deze mysterieuze structuren. Deze ontdekkingen zullen niet alleen onze kennis verdiepen, maar ook onze waardering voor de oude beschavingen en hun prestaties vergroten. Het is een spannend tijdperk waarin wetenschap, technologie en cultuur samenkomen om de geheimen van het verleden te onthullen, en dat zal ongetwijfeld grote invloed hebben op ons begrip van geschiedenis en menselijke innovatie.

Conclusie

De Chinese piramides blijven een van de meest intrigerende mysteries van de oude wereld. Hun verborgen aard, de enorme omvang en de mogelijke astronomische uitlijningen wijzen op een geavanceerde beschaving die veel meer wist dan wij nu kunnen begrijpen. De geheimen onder de grond en de restricties van de Chinese overheid voeden de speculatie en het mysterie rondom deze monumenten. Terwijl technologie ons dichterbij brengt om deze mysteries te ontrafelen, blijft de vraag hangen: wat weten de oude Chinese piramides werkelijk, en waarom worden ze zo zorgvuldig verborgen gehouden? Het antwoord op deze vragen kan onze kijk op de menselijke geschiedenis voorgoed veranderen.

{ PETER2011 }

02-03-2026 om 22:18 geschreven door peter  

The structure under Antarctica that satellites keep detecting remains a scientific mystery

In the icy interior of East Antarctica, satellite instruments have picked up something buried far below the surface. There are no unusual features visible on the ground above. No exposed rock. No mountain chain. Just a flat stretch of ice in a region called Wilkes Land.

Yet whenever gravity-mapping satellites pass over this area, they register the same signal: a dense, circular mass hidden beneath more than two kilometers of ice. It doesn’t resemble any known geologic formation in Antarctica. 

Scientists call it the Wilkes Land Gravity Anomaly.

What lies beneath is still unknown. Some believe it could be the remnants of a massive asteroid impact, far older and larger than the one linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Others think it might be a buried uplift in the crust, or even the core of an ancient tectonic structure that predates the breakup of Gondwana.

Whatever it is, the anomaly has kept showing up in satellite data for more than two decades. And the more we learn about it, the stranger it seems.

A gravitational fingerprint hidden below the surface

The anomaly was first brought to attention during Earth gravity surveys conducted by NASA’s GRACE satellites in the early 2000s. GRACE, which stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, works by measuring minuscule shifts in the distance between twin satellites as they pass over different regions of Earth. Where gravity is stronger, one satellite is pulled slightly more than the other. This data reveals the distribution of mass below Earth’s surface.

When GRACE passed over Wilkes Land, something unexpected happened. The satellites accelerated in a way that could only be explained by an enormous mass buried beneath the ice. Further measurements confirmed it was not an error. The same pull was detected again and again.

This region became known as the Wilkes Land Gravity Anomaly, a name that now represents one of the most enduring geological puzzles on Earth.

What could create such a massive signal?

Scientists quickly developed theories to explain the readings. One of the leading ideas is that this structure under Antarctica might be a buried impact crater, the scar left behind by an asteroid or comet that struck Earth over 250 million years ago. If this is true, the object responsible would have been twice the size of the one that created the Chicxulub crater, which contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The implications would be enormous. An impact of that scale could have unleashed global tsunamis, ignited wildfires across entire continents, and triggered a chain reaction of volcanic activity. Some geologists have even speculated that it might be linked to the Permian–Triassic extinction, the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history.

However, direct evidence of an impact is still missing. No shocked quartz, no melted glass, no layers of iridium have been recovered, mostly because no drilling has ever reached the suspected site. The entire theory rests on remote sensing data and gravitational modeling.

Not just gravity, but radar and magnetic signals, too

The mystery deepens when other datasets are taken into account. Airborne radar and magnetic mapping missions have also detected anomalies in the same region. These instruments show irregular magnetic patterns and unusual reflectivity beneath the ice. The readings are consistent with either a massive slab of denser-than-usual rock or a geophysical structure unlike anything previously seen in Antarctica.

Some scientists have proposed that the anomaly may be the result of an ancient geological uplift, formed by tectonic forces long before the continent froze over. Others suggest that it could be a remnant of a supervolcano whose cone has long since collapsed and disappeared beneath layers of compacted ice.

Still, none of these ideas explain why the anomaly is so round, so dense, and so isolated from other known features.

Why no one has drilled into Wilkes Land

The biggest barrier to understanding the structure under Antarctica is the ice itself. At Wilkes Land, the ice sheet is more than 2,500 meters thick. That’s deeper than the Grand Canyon. No existing drilling project has come close to penetrating this depth in such a remote and harsh environment.

Antarctic logistics are among the most difficult in modern  science. The region sees some of the coldest temperatures on Earth, with high winds and no infrastructure. Getting a team of scientists, drilling equipment, and support personnel into Wilkes Land would be a multi-years.

Even ground-penetrating radar, which has successfully mapped subglacial lakes and ancient riverbeds in other parts of Antarctica, provides only partial data here. The anomaly remains just out of reach, a ghost in the numbers.

Satellites still circle back to it

Despite the lack of direct access, Wilkes Land continues to be a focus for Earth observation missions. It is routinely used to calibrate instruments on new satellite platforms because its gravitational signal is so intense and consistent.

GRACE was retired in 2017, but its successor, GRACE-FO (Follow-On), is still monitoring changes in Earth’s gravitational field, including over Antarctica. Other satellites — such as ESA’s CryoSat and NASA’s ICESat-2, pass over the area regularly, measuring ice elevation and surface movement.

What they all share is a need to account for the pull from Wilkes Land. It affects radar returns. It adds noise to magnetometers. And yet, it has no face. The anomaly exerts influence without revealing its source.

Remote sensing

This situation highlights a broader challenge in geophysics. Remote sensing tools can measure gravity, magnetism, and radar reflections with exquisite precision, but they cannot tell us exactly what lies underground. The data must be interpreted, and interpretations always depend on models, assumptions, and what we expect to find.

In the case of the structure under Antarctica, nothing about it aligns with conventional expectations. It is too dense, too wide, too circular. If it is an impact crater, it is one of the most perfectly preserved ever detected, and yet there are no signs of a crater rim, ejecta, or deformation in the overlying rock layers.

That leaves us with a persistent anomaly, real enough to move satellites, yet invisible to the human eye.

What scientists hope to learn next

Some scientists believe it’s time to take a closer look at Wilkes Land. There have been proposals to send long-range radar drones across the ice, or even to drill down using equipment similar to what was used at Lake Vostok. But the logistics are difficult, and the cost is high.

Others think the answers might already be buried in the data we have. With better tools for processing satellite measurements and more advanced models of the Earth’s crust, they believe we may be able to piece together what lies below without setting foot on the ice.

What’s at stake is more than just an explanation for an unusual gravity signal. If this is the scar of an ancient impact, it might hold evidence of a global catastrophe, perhaps even one that shaped the evolution of life. If it is something else, it could reveal parts of Earth’s interior that have been hidden for hundreds of millions of years.

{ https://curiosmos.com/category/unsolved-mysteries/ }

02-03-2026 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

Did A Massive Comet Impact Destroy an Advanced Civilization on Earth 13,000 Years Ago?

An extremely advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was wiped off the face of the planet about 13,000 years ago by a massive collision with a comet, and the ancients have left us a warning for future events, researchers claim.

As the best-selling author and researcher Graham Hancock explains in his book “Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth’s Lost Civilization”, at the end of the last Ice Age, 12,800 years ago, a giant comet shattered into numerous pieces. Some of them collided with Earth, causing a global cataclysm of unprecedented proportions since the extinction of the dinosaurs. At least eight of the debris hit the North American ice cap, while other debris hit the northern European ice cap.

The one-and-a-half-kilometer-wide collisions with the comet’s debris, approaching more than 150,000 kilometers per hour, generated huge amounts of heat that instantly liquefied millions of square kilometers of ice, destabilizing the Earth’s crust and causing a global flood remembered in myths around the world.

For years, the claims of writer Graham Hancock were ignored by scientists, who argued that it is impossible for a developed civilization to have inhabited the Earth tens of thousands of years ago.

Hancock’s Theory and the evidence of a Comet Impact in the ancient monument of Gobekli Tepe

Considered by many to be a dreamer and by many others to be a deluded author, much of his work was ignored by “experts” who refused to accept anything beyond what they firmly believed in – a timeline of Earth’s history, shattered from those same specialists who cannot fully explain the many historical enigmas that cast a shadow over our origins.

But suddenly, when experts from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering published an interesting scientific paper, Hancock’s words, long ignored, suddenly became less absurd to the scientific community.

According to scientists, the intricate stone carvings found on Gobekli Tepe – the oldest temple on Earth – are evidence that a comet collided with Earth about 11,000 BC. This collision led to cataclysmic events that wiped out civilization on Earth.

Research has determined that the oldest layer of Gobekli Tepe dates around 9600 BC. Therefore, it is 6,500 years older than Stonehenge and 7,000 years older than the Pyramids.

As Hancock explained, there is evidence around the world that speaks to such a massive collision. This flaming cosmic rock has crashed into our planet, hitting the earth’s crust with the force of several atomic bombs exploding simultaneously. This cataclysmic event wiped out several large animal species and nearly wiped out humanity.

Interestingly, this is exactly what Dr. Martin Suetman from Edinburgh discovered when he examined some of the stone pillars of Gobekli Tepe in present-day Turkey.

“One of the pillars of Gbekli Tepe seems to have served as a monument to this devastating event – probably the worst day in history since the end of the Ice Age.”

The intricate carvings found on Gobekli Tepe depict a man without a head – a graphic symbol of human bloodshed. The so-called Gobekli Tepe’s “Vulture Stone” illustrates interesting symbols that tell an incredible story.

Experts found images of animals carved on the Vulture Stone and found that the animals were in fact astronomical symbols. Using sophisticated computer software, the scientists linked the symbols to motifs in the sky and found that they were related to an event that occurred around 10,950 BC.

As scientists explain, the symbols carved on the stone pillars have to do with a cosmic event believed to have been the collapse of a massive comet from the inner solar system, just during the period known as the Younger Dryas. This period is considered a turning point for humanity, as it coincides with the emergence of agriculture and the first Neolithic civilizations.

But how is it at all possible that the builders of Gobekli Tepe – more than ten thousand years ago – carved intricate astronomical symbols on stone pillars? According to experts at the time, humans were “savages”, hunter-gatherers, no more developed than the caveman, without any knowledge of engineering or mathematics.

Clearly, something in the story has to be quite the opposite. Hancock notes that the stone slabs of Gobekli Tepe not only describe an ancient cosmic collision but also predict another one that is yet to come.

Hancock claims that the ancient collision, recorded on the Vulture Stone of  Gobekli Tepe, was in fact with massive remnants of the Taurid meteor shower – a belt containing millions of cosmic rocks. Astronomers believe that inside this belt is a massive planetoid, a superheated rock – something like a massive space hand grenade.

Many of the remains hidden in the belt could be three to four times larger than the one that collided with Earth 65 million years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Hancock also notes that we are expected to cross the Taurid meteor shower in 10 years, around 2030.

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{ https://curiosmos.com/category/unsolved-mysteries/ }

02-03-2026 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Giant 'spiderwebs' on Mars contain tiny egg-like structures that scientists 'can't quite explain,' NASA rover reveals

{ https://www.livescience.com/space   }

02-03-2026 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

I communicated with non-human intelligence... and what they told me proves God's existence

• READ MORE: Wife of Apollo astronaut reveals husband's untold encounters with UFOs that convinced him we're not alone 

By ROB WAUGH

A resurfaced military interview presents extraordinary claims about extraterrestrial intelligence, the scientific confirmation of a single creator, and technology that may blur the boundary between life and death.

The account came from Clifford Stone, a longtime US Army sergeant who, over the course of his life, alleged direct involvement in classified encounters with non-human intelligence during his military service. 

Until his death in 2021, Stone consistently maintained that his claims were rooted in firsthand encounters rather than speculation, describing them as experiences that had permanently changed his understanding of religion, mortality, and humanity's place in the universe. 

According to Stone, some of those encounters involved telepathic communication with an extraterrestrial entity he described as calm, curious and technologically advanced. 

He said the being, which he called 'Korona,' expressed interest in human belief systems and conveyed information that, if true, would upend long-standing debates about the relationship between science and faith.

Stone claimed that Korona's civilization had reached what it considered a scientific conclusion about the existence of a creator, not as a matter of belief, but as an empirically established reality.

Scholars of religion and philosophy have long debated whether scientific inquiry can ever address metaphysical questions such as the existence of God. 

Stone claimed that belief in a singular creator is 'no longer a faith-based ideal,' and argued that science from advanced intelligence now supports the existence of what many people call God.

The account came from Clifford Stone (pictured), a longtime US Army sergeant who, over the course of his life, alleged direct involvement in classified encounters with non-human intelligence during his military service 

Stone further alleged that this same intelligence possessed technology capable of facilitating communication between the living and the dead, though he stressed that such interactions were tightly constrained.

'They even have the means to communicate with their loved ones. It's not some parlour trick,' he claimed. 'They really have the means to do it. But there are forbidden questions that you can't ask about what happens after death.'

That restriction, Stone claimed, was not presented as a technical limitation but as an enforced boundary, one that prevented deeper inquiry into the nature of death itself. 

He suggested that certain knowledge may either be dangerous, destabilizing or simply inaccessible to human understanding at this stage of development.

Beyond theology and mortality, Stone made one of his most controversial assertions. He claimed that non-human beings are not distant visitors, but active observers already present on Earth. 

He claimed they move quietly among humans, studying behavior, emotion and belief in an effort to better understand the species.

Stone did not explain how such beings might conceal themselves, nor did he provide physical evidence to support the claim. 

He framed the idea instead as a long-term observational effort, similar to anthropological fieldwork conducted by a more advanced civilization.

According to Stone, some of those encounters involved telepathic communication with an extraterrestrial entity he described as calm, curious and technologically advanced

Born on January 2, 1949, in Portsmouth, Ohio, Stone joined the US Army in 1969. 

His official military records list his primary role as an administrative and legal specialist, a position he held while serving for more than two decades.

Over time, however, Stone asserted that his duties extended far beyond clerical work. 

He claimed he was quietly reassigned to classified recovery operations involving unidentified craft and, in some cases, non-human biological entities - these assertions have never been independently verified.

The Department of Defense has never confirmed Stone's involvement in any program related to extraterrestrial recovery or communication, and no declassified documents substantiate his account. 

Critics have long pointed out this absence of evidence, noting that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

Still, Stone remained steadfast throughout the interview, presenting his experiences as factual rather than speculative. 

He frequently cited his military service as a basis for credibility and insisted that his silence during active duty was enforced by secrecy protocols rather than lack of evidence.

During his lifetime, Stone became a recognizable figure within UFO research circles, where supporters viewed him as an insider willing to speak openly after years of silence. Skeptics, by contrast, argued that his claims relied too heavily on personal testimony and unverifiable experiences.

The renewed attention surrounding Stone's interview arrives amid heightened public interest in unidentified aerial phenomena.

It follows recent acknowledgments by US government agencies that objects of unknown origin have been tracked performing maneuvers beyond known human technology - though, the government has stopped short of attributing them to extraterrestrial intelligence.

That shifting landscape has prompted renewed scrutiny of historical testimonies that were once dismissed outright, including Stone's. 

For some, his account now appears less fringe; for others, it remains firmly outside the boundaries of evidence-based inquiry.

Whether interpreted as testimony, belief or speculation, Stone's claims occupy a volatile space where science, religion and the unknown intersect. 

His account challenges conventional frameworks by suggesting that humanity's most profound questions - about God, death and existence itself - may already have answers that lie beyond current human comprehension.

What remains unresolved is whether those answers exist only in belief, or if they are waiting, as Stone claimed, just beyond the limits of what humanity is allowed to know.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html  }

02-03-2026 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious UFO hotspots uncovered around underwater canyons off US coasts

• READ MORE: I communicated with non-human intelligence... and what they told me proves God's existence

By ROB WAUGH

New research has suggested that UFOs could be clustering around underwater canyons off the US coastline, raising fresh questions about whether mysterious craft could be operating beneath the ocean. 

An analysis of more than 80,000 reports found concentrated clusters of sightings near steep submarine canyon systems, particularly along the West Coast. 

The findings stem from an independent study testing the so-called 'cryptoterrestrial hypothesis,' which proposes that unidentified aerial phenomena could originate from hidden non-human intelligence on Earth rather than distant planets. 

Using publicly available UFO sighting data and detailed ocean depth maps, the report identified correlations between reported sightings and deep underwater terrain features. 

The analysis also uncovered a striking geographical anomaly, with clustering patterns appearing on the West Coast but not on the East or Gulf coasts. 

Three regions, La Jolla, Mugu Canyon, and Monterey Canyon, showed unusually high concentrations of sightings compared with population-based expectations. 

The report suggested sightings could occur in temporal bursts rather than being evenly distributed over time. 

While the findings stop short of proving any underwater origin, they add data-driven support to growing scientific interest in unexplained objects moving between air and sea.

Using publicly available UFO sighting data and detailed ocean depth maps, the report identified correlations between reported sightings and deep underwater terrain features

The study was conducted by Antoni Wędzikowski, a Warsaw-based lawyer and independent researcher who analyzed 80,000 UFO reports from the nonprofit National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) and compared them with bathymetric data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

The cryptoterrestrial hypothesis has gained renewed attention in recent years due to several high-profile military encounters involving objects that appeared to transition between air and sea. 

One of the most famous incidents occurred in November 2004, when US Navy pilots aboard the USS Nimitz detected multiple unidentified objects descending from 80,000 feet in less than a second during training exercises off Southern California.

Cmdr. David Fravor later described seeing a white, capsule-shaped craft, dubbed the 'Tic Tac,' that appeared to intelligently respond to the pilots' maneuvers. 

Wędzikowski's study found that UFO sightings near submarine canyons did not occur randomly but tended to cluster in bursts over short periods. 

'First, the analysis did find a statistically significant spatial association between submarine canyon features and UAP report density along the US West Coast,' he said.

'These are not trivial numbers. The association also correctly predicted 4 out of 5 top hotspot cells.'

'But the second surprise was equally important: the effect is absent on the East and Gulf Coasts. It is not a universal pattern. It concentrates in specific West Coast regions, primarily Puget Sound and the San Diego canyon system, and does not generalize across the full US coastline.'

Three regions, La Jolla, Mugu Canyon, and Monterey Canyon, showed unusually high concentrations of UFO sightings compared with population-based expectations

Each of the three major clusters of sightings was associated with deep underwater topography. 

In these areas, the number of sightings far exceeded what would be expected based on population distribution alone. 

La Jolla recorded 820 sightings, compared with an expected baseline of just 55, according to the researcher's model.

However, Wędzikowski cautioned that the results do not prove that unidentified craft are emerging from the ocean. 

He acknowledged that social factors could explain some clustering, such as increased reports following widely publicized sightings.

Still, he argued that the geographic patterns warrant further investigation using independent datasets and additional methods, including sonar analysis. 

By comparing sonar records with UAP sighting clusters, he said it could help determine whether unexplained underwater activity coincides with reported hotspots.

Wędzikowski now has plans to publish his methodology and data for peer review and urged other researchers to replicate the findings.

Using the AI tool Claude Code, he corrected for population density and other confounding variables, then examined whether sightings clustered near steep underwater terrain.

In November 2004, Navy pilots aboard the USS Nimitz were conducting training exercises off the coast of Southern California when radar detected multiple unidentified aerial objects

'The specific hypothesis, that UAP report density might correlate with submarine canyon features along the coastline, came from noticing that several well-known hotspot areas sit above unusually steep underwater topography,' Wędzikowski told Daily Mail.

'Rather than treat that as evidence of anything, I wanted to test it properly: population-controlled, with confound checks, temporal replication, and clear documentation of what survives scrutiny and what doesn't.'

Wędzikowski said he was surprised that no one had previously conducted such a systematic geospatial analysis of the publicly available data.

'I've followed the UAP topic for years, and what consistently frustrated me was the gap between the data that actually exists and the way the subject is typically discussed, which tends to rely on individual case narratives or speculation rather than systematic analysis,' he explained.

'There are tens of thousands of geolocated sighting reports in public databases like NUFORC. The data has been sitting in public databases for decades. The tools to test it are standard geospatial statistics. The surprising thing is not the result. It's that nobody looked.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html }

02-03-2026 om 20:25 geschreven door peter  

I hacked NASA's systems and finally found the truth about UFOs… the cover-up is astonishing

• READ MORE: Mystery as UFO vault with 3.8 million files is wiped clean hours after Trump demands alien docs released

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

A British computer hacker has stepped out from the shadows to retell his discovery of an alleged UFO photo while accessing NASA's systems.

Gary McKinnon was accused of perpetrating the 'biggest military computer hack of all time' after breaching 97 government sites in 2002. 

Though he has long insisted he was not searching for aliens, McKinnon said he was looking for evidence of suppressed energy or propulsion technology when he allegedly infiltrated NASA’s Johnson Space Center. 

That is when, he claimed, he found a high-resolution image of a cigar-shaped craft hovering above Earth. 

'Then there's like slowly a hemisphere started appearing, and I'm thinking that's a planet. What the hell? And then suddenly there's a big, straight kind of silvery line, cigar-shaped object, McKinnon said while speaking on the American Alchemy podcast with Jesse Michels.

He also claims to have discovered a spreadsheet labeled “non-terrestrial officers,” suggesting the individuals listed were not based on Earth. 

Moments later, he said, someone appeared to take control of his screen. 'They right-clicked, disconnected and boom, that was it. I was cut out,' McKinnon recalled. 

Following the hack, McKinnon faced a decade-long extradition battle with the US, where he was threatened with up to 70 years in prison, but the British government ultimately blocked it. There is still a live arrest warrant out on McKinnon, placing him on the Interpol red list so he cannot enter the US. 

Gary McKinnon was accused of perpetrating the 'biggest military computer hack of all time' after breaching 97 government sites in 2002

McKinnon told Michels that his interest in UFOs began in childhood, inspired by family stories and a sighting he experienced at age 12. 

'I saw this kind of reddish orange glowing light, and it was moving in an arc from there to the horizon,' he said. 

Years later, after reading the Disclosure Project book by Steven Greer, he decided to test whether US government systems were as secure as officials claimed.

The hack began in March 2001 when McKinnon scanned vast ranges of IP addresses for government computers protected by blank passwords.

'If you cast far enough a wide net, you know, something's going to come in,' he said. 

According to McKinnon, some highly sensitive systems had no password protection at all. 

He ultimately gained access to networks belonging to the NSA, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and NASA.

He described conducting the intrusions late at night while living in London. 'I was in my dressing gown up till like four in the morning, smoking weed, drinking beer, just like ride of my life really,' he said. 

He allegedly accessed NASA's Johnson Space Center, finding a high-resolution image of a cigar-shaped craft hovering above Earth before his access was abruptly cut off (STOCK)

From there, he used commercially available tools to escalate his access to the administrator level and ran keyword searches across thousands of machines.

His focus, he said, was not extraterrestrials but advanced propulsion and free energy. 

'What I was interested in was the energy and the propulsion,' he explained.

The hacker believed secret technology might exist that could ease energy poverty. 

'To have something that was free, it was just too juicy not to have a go at finding,' he said.

But what he found inside Building 8 at NASA's Johnson Space Center stunned him.

McKinnon said he had read testimony from former NASA contractor Donna Hare, who claimed that while working in the same building in the late 1980s or early 1990s, she was shown an image of a large white disc casting a shadow on Earth. 

According to McKinnon, Hare alleged that such anomalies were removed before images were sold to the public. 

'Well, we always have to airbrush them out before we sell them to the public,' he quoted her colleague as saying.

Intrigued, McKinnon searched NASA's network for computers assigned to Building 8 and gained access to several. 

The alleged sighting predates by several years the 2004 encounter by US Navy pilot David Fravor with a so-called 'tic tac' object off the coast of California, footage later acknowledged by the Pentagon as authentic 

He said the desktops were sparse, containing folders labeled 'raw' and 'processed.' 

Inside, he encountered a proprietary NASA image format that required running specialized software to view.

Using a 56k dial-up connection, he lowered the color resolution to speed up the transfer. 

The image appeared slowly, line by line. 'There's like blackness, then there's like slowly a hemisphere started appearing, and I'm thinking that's a planet,' he said. As more detail rendered, he saw what he believed was Earth,  and then the object.

'This thing looked very smooth on the outside. There were no lines… no screws and bolts and stuff,' he said.

He described it as white or silvery and positioned laterally relative to the planet. 'It was definitely white, silvery,' he said. He did not observe antennas, seams or visible propulsion.

Moments later, his session ended abruptly when someone appeared to manually disconnect him. 

'I see the mouse move… someone else is at the computer themselves,' he said. 

McKinnon maintains he does not know whether the object was extraterrestrial.

Gary McKinnon spoke to Jesse Michels, host of American Alchemy, about what he saw in NASA's system

'It wasn't your normal space stuff, so I knew that,' he said. But he stopped short of claiming proof of aliens, suggesting it could have been secret human technology.

McKinnon's activities came to an end in 2002 when he grew careless, connecting directly without proxies and using free AOL CDs. 

The alleged sighting predates by several years the 2004 encounter by US Navy pilot David Fravor with a so-called 'tic tac' object off the coast of California, footage later acknowledged by the Pentagon as authentic. McKinnon noted the similarity in shape.

Arrested in his sleep by the UK's National High-Tech Crime Unit, he and family members, including a 12-year-old, were detained. 

UK authorities initially told him he faced perhaps six months, but after US meetings, the tone changed dramatically. 

The US sought extradition under a revised treaty, charging him with damage on every machine and threatening 70 years, ten years per count under seven charges, potentially in a secret military tribunal with Guantanamo-style restrictions. 

'I bought potassium chloride… and I was just going to swallow it and have a heart attack and die,' McKinnon admitted to his despair. 

In 2012, then-Home Secretary Theresa May blocked extradition, stating: 'Mr. McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life… I have therefore withdrawn the extradition order against Mr. McKinnon.

'McKinnon remains on the Interpol red list with an active US warrant. During the interview, his phone mysteriously hard-reset despite his finger on the power button, an event he said had 'never happened before.' 

He described a prior unexplained incident of two perfectly circular holes appearing in his left heel after a sharp pain.

 Now living in the UK, McKinnon continues exploring anti-gravity and free-energy concepts, including plans to replicate the Biefeld-Brown effect in his garden shed using a hydraulic press, furnaces, and custom calcium copper titanate discs. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html }

02-03-2026 om 18:40 geschreven door peter  

UFO Distracts Driver In Mountains Victor, Colorado USA Feb 13, 2026, UAP Alien paranormal Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 13, 2026

Location of sighting: Victor, Colorado, USA

Source: NUFORC

 

This recent video just came in from NUFORC today. Eyewitnesses were driving when they noticed glowing objects moving across the sky right in front of them. It doesn't get any more real than this. This is what I have been talking so much about with Colorado...it's a UFO hotspot. Those Rocky Mountains hold and underground base with tens of thousands of aliens...and of many different species. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

 

Eyewitness states: 

Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Changed Colo Slowly moving large object of orange red and yellow light with brighter white light dots around it moving from south to North We were driving to Victor from Cripple Creek when this was spotted in the night sky.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-03-2026 om 18:14 geschreven door peter  

Strange Disk Over Home Caught On Security Cam, Feb 15, 2026, Philadelphia, PA, USA, UFO UAP Sighting News

Date of sighting: February 15, 2026

Location of sighting: Philadelphia PA, USA

Source: NUFORC 

 

Now this is really cool. This disk craft was recorded by two security cams that clearly show this is a wingless craft, one that flies silently and has stealth flying low over the homes, clearly this is alien technology at its best. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-03-2026 om 18:07 geschreven door peter  

Sphere seen moving over Japan on March 1, 2026, UFO UAP Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 1, 2026

Location of sighting: Japan

Source: https://x.com/GaBuLiEM

This is a rare catch of white rectangle over Japan today. This object was recorded passing over a neighborhood and was caught for 45 seconds on video. Japan as seen its share of UFOs over the past and this is a great example of such a craft. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-03-2026 om 18:00 geschreven door peter  

As the sun rose over the German city of Nuremberg on April 14, 1561, residents looked to the sky and witnessed something extraordinary, an event many described as an aerial battle unfolding above their heads. 

According to historical accounts, the sky appeared filled with movement. Witnesses reported seeing hundreds of spherical objects, along with cylindrical craft from which smaller spheres seemed to emerge and dart rapidly through the air. 

A massive black triangular shape was also said to hover overhead, moving erratically. Some claimed that dark, spear-like ufos streaked across the sky, while smoke trailed behind falling spheres that appeared to descend toward the earth. 

So what really happened in the skies above Nuremberg more than four centuries ago? 

Modern ufologists have speculated that the objects described that morning may have been extraterrestrial craft engaged in combat. But the true nature of the 1561 Nuremberg event remains one of history’s most puzzling sky mysteries.

  

RELATED 

{ https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

02-03-2026 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

Hoe zou religie reageren als we buitenaards leven zouden ontdekken?

Naarmate wetenschappers dichterbij komen om bewijs te vinden voor het bestaan van buitenaards leven, begint de vraag te rijzen: hoe zou onze religieuze wereldbeeld veranderen? Wat zou de impact zijn op de grote wereldreligies als we daadwerkelijk zouden ontdekken dat we niet alleen zijn in het universum? Deze vraag raakt aan diepgaande kwesties over geloof, wetenschap, en de plaats van de mens in de kosmos. In dit artikel onderzoeken we hoe verschillende religies mogelijk zouden reageren op de ontdekking van buitenaards leven, en welke implicaties dat zou hebben voor onze spirituele overtuigingen en onderlinge relaties.

De vooruitgang in de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven

De afgelopen decennia hebben wetenschappers een stevige basis gelegd voor het zoeken naar leven buiten onze planeet. Dankzij technologische innovaties en astronomische observaties kunnen we nu beter dan ooit detecteren of er andere werelden bestaan die mogelijk leven herbergen. Hoewel we nog niet direct met buitenaardse wezens kunnen communiceren, is de verwachting dat we aan het einde van deze eeuw weten of we echt alleen zijn in onze Melkweg of dat er biologische gezelschappen bestaan. Een ontdekking dat wij niet de enigen zijn, zou een van de meest ingrijpende gebeurtenissen in de menselijke geschiedenis zijn.

Bron: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library

Wat betekent het bestaan van buitenaards leven voor onze religieuze overtuigingen?

Het feit dat we buitenaards leven kunnen ontdekken, zal ongetwijfeld invloed hebben op hoe gelovigen hun eigen geloof begrijpen. Het is belangrijk op te merken dat de aanwezigheid of afwezigheid van buitenaards leven niet per definitie een bewijs is voor of tegen een bepaald religieus systeem. Toch kan het weten dat er andere bewuste wezens bestaan, de manier waarop wij onze religieuze overtuigingen interpreteren, ingrijpend veranderen. Bovendien kan de ontdekking van intelligent leven elders in het universum onze houding ten opzichte van mensen van andere religies op aarde beïnvloeden.

De laatste grote theorie die religie uitdaagde was de oerknalcosmologie.

Bron: BSIP SA / Alamy Stock Photo

Hoe zou een buitenaards wezen religie begrijpen?

Stel dat er één almachtige god is die het hele universum bestuurt. Zou die god hetzelfde zijn op elke planeet? Zijn de regels voor het leven volgens goddelijke principes universeel? Wat als het leven op een andere planeet ontstaan is via panspermie, waarbij organismen door het heelal zijn verspreid? Zou mijn religie nog steeds logisch zijn voor een buitenaards wezen dat geen kennis heeft van onze aardse cultuur en geschiedenis?

Veel christenen geloven dat de God die zij aanbidden, de schepper is van het hele universum. Het idee dat Christus het hele heelal heeft getransformeerd en verheven, impliceert dat ook buitenaardse wezens kunnen worden betrokken in dat kosmische heilverhaal. Guy Consolmagno, een Amerikaanse astronoom en directeur van het Vaticaans Observatorium, stelt dat “het hele heelal door Christus is getransformeerd en verheven.” Dit betekent dat niet alleen mensen, maar alle schepselen in het universum, een rol kunnen spelen in het goddelijke plan.

Maakt het dopen van buitenaardse wezens theologisch gezien zin? Zou je een alien kunnen dopen?

Bron: Kseniya Ovchinnikova / Getty Images

De uitdaging van communicatie en begrip

Stel dat we buitenaardse intelligentie ontdekken. Hoe zouden wij hen vertellen over Jezus, zijn geboorte en opstanding, die ongeveer 2000 jaar geleden op aarde plaatsvonden? Zou het mogelijk zijn om dit in een redelijke tijd over te brengen, bijvoorbeeld via berichten met de snelheid van het licht? Of zouden we high-tech raketten sturen met de boodschap van het evangelie?

De wetten van de fysica maken het moeilijk om snel en effectief te communiceren met buitenaardse beschavingen. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, een Franse jezuïet en filosoof, stelde dat “de aarde niet willekeurig gekozen is voor de verlossing,” en dat het universum niet beperkt is tot onze planeet. Toch is het vragen of buitenaardsen kunnen begrijpen en accepteren dat Jezus de verlosser is, een grote uitdaging.

Voor katholieken en protestanten ligt de nadruk op de menselijke ervaring en de geschiedenis van Jezus op aarde. Als we buitenaards leven ontdekken, zou dat betekenen dat onze verhalen en geloofsbelijdenissen mogelijk niet relevant zijn voor andere bewuste wezens die geen aardse geschiedenis delen.

Hoe zou nieuws over de geboorte van Jezus christenen op andere werelden hebben bereikt?

Bron: iStock

Hoe reageren andere religies op buitenaards leven?

1. Christendom

Het christendom, net als de andere Abrahamitische religies, ziet de schepping als een door God geschapen universum, waarin de mens een bijzondere plaats inneemt. Volgens de Bijbel, met name in het boek Genesis, is de aarde het centrum van Gods schepping en is de mens bedoeld om over de aarde te heersen. De gedachte dat buitenaardse wezens mogelijk bestaan, roept vragen op over de universele aard van Gods schepping en de rol van de mens daarin.

Veel christenen geloven dat Gods schepping oneindig groot is en dat er mogelijk meerdere werelden of levensvormen bestaan buiten onze planeet. Sommigen zien buitenaards leven niet als een bedreiging, maar als een uitbreiding van Gods scheppingskracht. Anderen vragen zich af of buitenaardse wezens, die misschien geen kennis hebben van de Bijbel of menselijke religieuze tradities, zich toch kunnen verbinden met God op hun eigen manier. Het idee dat God universeel en alomtegenwoordig is, ondersteunt het geloof dat ook buitenaardse wezens door God gekend en geliefd kunnen worden.

Daarnaast wordt er binnen het christendom ook nagedacht over de mogelijkheid dat Jezus Christus mogelijk een universele verlossingsboodschap bevat, die niet beperkt zou zijn tot de aarde. Sommige theologen stellen dat Gods plan voor de schepping veel groter en complexer is dan wij kunnen bevatten, en dat het mogelijk is dat buitenaardse levensvormen onderdeel zijn van dat goddelijke plan. Dit opent de deur naar een brede interpretatie van de universele liefde en verlossing, waarin alle schepselen, ongeacht hun locatie in het heelal, een rol kunnen spelen in het goddelijke verhaal. Kortom, het christendom biedt ruimte voor het idee dat buitenaards leven mogelijk deel uitmaakt van Gods schepping en dat de liefde van God zich uitstrekt tot het hele universum.

2. Islam

De islam benadrukt dat alles in het universum onder de soevereiniteit van Allah staat. Volgens de Koran “zijn alles in de hemelen en op de aarde van Allah,” wat betekent dat alle schepselen onderworpen zijn aan zijn wil en controle. Deze overtuiging wordt ondersteund door de islamitische theologie, waarin wordt gesteld dat geen enkel wezen buiten de invloed van Allah valt. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, een vooraanstaande islamitische filosoof, legt uit dat “alle wezens in het universum moslims zijn, dat wil zeggen, zij onderwerpen zich aan de wil van Allah.” Dit impliceert dat niet alleen mensen, maar alle levende wezens en zelfs niet-levende dingen de schepping en de wil van Allah erkennen en naleven, op hun eigen wijze.

De vraag rijst hoe buitenaardse wezens, die mogelijk geen kennis hebben van menselijke religieuze praktijken of islamitische tradities, hun religieuze of spirituele overtuigingen kunnen uitdrukken. Het is mogelijk dat zij hun eigen profeten, leiders of gidsen hebben die hen helpen hun weg te vinden in hun wereld en hun relatie met het goddelijke te definiëren. Dit zou betekenen dat het universele concept van onderworpenheid aan een hogere macht niet beperkt is tot de mensheid, maar een universeel principe kan zijn dat overal in het universum bestaat.

De islam zou hierdoor kunnen verruimen en verdiepen, door te stellen dat elk wezen in het universum, ongeacht zijn vorm of intelligentie, een relatie heeft met het goddelijke. Het idee dat alle schepselen onderworpen zijn aan Allah en dat zij hun eigen weg vinden naar zijn wil, opent de deur naar een kosmisch perspectief waarin religieuze overtuigingen universeel en inclusief worden. Dit zou de islam niet beperken tot de menselijke ervaring, maar juist uitbreiden tot het hele universum en haar mogelijke bewoners, waarmee de religie een bredere, meer universele dimensie krijgt.

Zouden buitenaardsen de islamitische godsdienst kunnen beoefenen zonder in staat te zijn de richting van Mekka te bepalen, of de vereiste pelgrimstocht te maken?

Bron: iStock

3. Jodendom

Het jodendom is een oude religie die nauw verbonden is met de geschiedenis van het Joodse volk en de stad Jeruzalem. Deze band met de aarde en zijn tradities vormt een kernaspect van het geloof. Veel joodse geleerden vragen zich af of buitenaardse wezens, die mogelijk geen toegang hebben tot onze religieuze rituelen en tradities, zich toch kunnen identificeren als joods. Dit roept vragen op over de universele aard van het jodendom en de manier waarop het zich zou verhouden tot andere levensvormen in het universum.

In de praktijk speelt gebed een centrale rol in het dagelijks leven van orthodoxe joden. Zij geloven dat het drie keer per dag bidden essentieel is voor het naleven van hun religie. Dit ritueel helpt hen verbonden te blijven met God en de gemeenschap. Echter, op een planeet met een dagduur van slechts 90 minuten, zou het praktisch onmogelijk zijn om deze gebeden volgens de traditionele tijdschema’s uit te voeren. Dit benadrukt de uitdaging van het aanpassen van menselijke religieuze praktijken aan buitenaardse omstandigheden.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, een invloedrijke joodse denker, suggereert dat de menselijke rol in het universum breder is dan alleen de aarde. Hij stelt dat God groot genoeg is om zich met al zijn schepselen bezig te houden, en dat menselijke missie niet beperkt hoeft te blijven tot onze planeet. Volgens Lamm kunnen mensen mogelijk een belangrijke rol vervullen in het universum, zonder dat zij de enige schepselen zijn die door God bedoeld zijn. Deze visie opent de deur naar een bredere interpretatie van het jodendom, waarin de relatie tussen God, mens en de gehele kosmos centraal staat.

Een voorouderlijke band met Jeruzalem is een belangrijk onderdeel van het joodse geloof.

Bron: Ilan Rosen / Alamy Stock Photo

4. Hindoeïsme

Hindoeïsme is een van de oudste en meest complexe religies ter wereld en onderscheidt zich op verschillende manieren van de Abrahamitische religies. Een belangrijk kenmerk is dat het hindoeïsme niet gebonden is aan een specifiek land of geografisch gebied. In plaats daarvan beschouwt het hindoeïsme de kosmos als een immens, dynamisch en ingewikkeld systeem waarin de aarde slechts een klein onderdeel vormt.

Dit wereldbeeld benadrukt dat het universum uit meerdere lagen, werelden en dimensies bestaat, waarin de menselijke ziel, of atman, niet beperkt is tot één aardse incarnatie. Volgens hindoeïstische leer is de ziel eeuwig en onverwoestbaar en ondergaat zij een voortdurende cyclus van samsara, dat wil zeggen geboorte, dood en wedergeboorte. Deze cyclus strekt zich uit over alle werelden en dimensies, niet enkel de fysieke planeet aarde. De ziel kan in diverse vormen van leven reïncarneren, inclusief mogelijk buitenaardse levensvormen, wat het universele en kosmische karakter van hindoeïsme onderstreept. Het geloof in de verbondenheid van alle levende wezens met het goddelijke en de voortdurende spirituele reis zorgt ervoor dat hindoes het wereldbeeld niet beperkt zien tot de aarde, maar dat het zich uitstrekt tot het heelal en mogelijk daarbuiten.

Deze universele visie onderstreept dat de zoektocht naar spirituele verlichting en verbondenheid met het goddelijke voor iedereen toegankelijk is, ongeacht hun locatie in het universum. Het hindoeïsme erkent dat de kosmos een oneindige en mysterieuze plaats is waar de ziel zich kan blijven ontwikkelen en reïncarneren in talloze vormen en werelden, waardoor het een spirituele traditie is die zich niet beperkt tot een geografisch gebied, maar universeel en kosmisch van aard is.

5. Buddhisme

Het boeddhisme is gebaseerd op de leringen van Siddhartha Gautama, die bekendstaat als de Boeddha. Een kernaspect van het boeddhisme is de zoektocht naar nirvana, een staat van ultieme bevrijding waarin het lijden dat inherent is aan het bestaan wordt beëindigd. Volgens boeddhistische leerstellingen is het universum enorm, oud en gevuld met talloze bewuste wezens die elk hun eigen pad naar verlichting volgen. Ondanks dat de menselijke positie binnen deze uitgestrekte kosmos soms als klein en onbeduidend wordt ervaren, blijft de zoektocht naar verlichting universeel en voor iedereen toegankelijk.

Het boeddhisme benadrukt dat het lijden en de weg naar het beëindigen daarvan niet beperkt zijn tot de aarde, maar zich uitstrekken tot het hele universum. Bewuste wezens, ongeacht op welke planeet of in welke dimensie zij zich bevinden, kunnen door meditatie, ethisch gedrag en inzicht de verlichting bereiken. De principes van mededogen, inzicht en ethiek zijn universeel toepasbaar en bieden een spiritueel pad dat zich niet beperkt tot één locatie, maar zich uitstrekt tot alle uithoeken van het kosmos en mogelijk verder.

Deze universele benadering onderstreept dat de zoektocht naar verlichting en het bevrijden van lijden voor alle bewuste entiteiten mogelijk is, ongeacht hun plaats in het universum. Het boeddhisme ziet het universele karakter van het lijden en de mogelijkheid tot verlichting als kernwaarden, waardoor het een spirituele weg is die zich niet beperkt tot de aarde, maar openstaat voor alle wezens in het kosmos.

Wetenschappelijke revoluties en religieuze verandering

Historisch gezien heeft de wetenschap grote invloed gehad op religieuze wereldbeelden. De copernicaanse revolutie bijvoorbeeld, ondermijnde de opvatting dat de aarde het centrum van het heelal was. Later zorgden de ontdekkingen van de evolutietheorie en de Big Bang voor nieuwe inzichten die het religieuze denken uitdaagden.

In de 21e eeuw staan we op het punt van mogelijk een nieuwe paradigmashift, nu door de ontdekking van buitenaards leven. Het is belangrijk te beseffen dat de wetenschap en religie niet per definitie in conflict hoeven te zijn. Veel gelovigen zien wetenschap als een manier om de schepping beter te begrijpen, en het bestaan van buitenaards leven zou dat inzicht kunnen verdiepen.

Wat betekent dit voor onze toekomst?

De ontdekking dat we niet alleen zijn in het universum, zou onze kijk op het leven fundamenteel veranderen. Het zou vragen oproepen over de aard van onze relatie met andere bewuste wezens, over onze plaats in het kosmische geheel en over de universele geldigheid van onze religieuze verhalen.

Het is essentieel dat we ons voorbereiden op deze mogelijke realiteit door open te staan voor nieuwe ideeën en door onze geloofsovertuigingen te heroverwegen. Of we nu christen, moslim, jood, hindoe of boeddhist zijn, de universele zoektocht naar waarheid en begrip blijft centraal staan.

Conclusie

De ontdekking van buitenaards leven zou een transformerende gebeurtenis zijn voor de mensheid en haar religies. Het zou ons dwingen om onze overtuigingen te herzien en nieuwe manieren te vinden om ons spirituele pad voort te zetten. Hoe we daarop reageren, zal bepalen hoe wij als mensheid verdergaan in een universum dat mogelijk veel groter en complexer is dan wij ons ooit konden voorstellen. Wat zeker is, is dat wetenschappelijke vooruitgang en religieuze overtuigingen elkaar kunnen verrijken, mits we bereid zijn om open te staan voor de mysteries van het heelal.

• OPMERKING PETER2011 - it artikel bevat een uitgebreide verkenning van hoe verschillende religies mogelijk zouden reageren op de ontdekking van buitenaards leven, en benadrukt het belang van openheid en dialoog in het licht van nieuwe kosmische ontdekkingen.

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{  PETER2011 }

01-03-2026 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

Barack Obama says aliens are real. This scientist agrees with him

More on alien life

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• Aliens' technology could be giving them away
• Why E.T. life might not be so 'alien' after all

Popular interest in the topic of alien life rarely wanes, but it certainly got a boost in the headlines this week after former US President Barack Obama said aliens "are real".

To clarify, what the former president actually said was "They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility"

Obama was speaking to American podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, and responding to a simple question: "are aliens real?"

The idea of a former US President publicly declaring "aliens are real", unsurprisingly, took the internet by storm.

It precipitated a surge in online debate as to whether or not Obama was confirming the existence of a government conspiracy to keep secret the existence of intelligent alien beings.

Unsurprisingly, Obama felt the need to clarify, once the podcast had aired, and subsequently posted on his official Instagram channel:

"I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify.

"Statistically, the Universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.

"But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"

Is alien life really likely?

Obama, it seems, was referring to some pretty startling statistics that have been concluded by scientists and astronomers over the past few decades.

Firstly, we know that life does exist in the Universe, in the form of us, human beings, and all our co-inhabitants of planet Earth.

And if life does exist on one rocky world orbiting a very ordinary star, couldn't life exist – or once have existed – elsewhere in the Galaxy, let alone the wider Universe?

Since the field of exoplanet study exploded in the 1990s, astronomers now have confirmed over 6,000 exoplanets: planets orbiting stars beyond our Solar System.

In fact, scientists now say that, for every star you can see in the night sky, there's likely at least one planet in orbit around it.

There could be up to 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and ours isn't even a particularly enormous galaxy.

Some scientists say this makes the chances of life existng beyond Earth – even if it's simple, microbial life – quite high. Others say no conclusions can be made unless direct evidence is found.

But one astrophysicist has weighed in on the debate following Obama's comments, to say she does think it likely that alien life could exist out there in the cosmos.

Could Obama be right about aliens?

Dr Sara Webb is an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

"I agree with Barack Obama, and I immediately understood what he meant," she says.

"As a scientist, I’ll say this with confidence: I think aliens exist. Not because we’ve seen them. Not because we’ve met them. And not because we have direct, tangible evidence (yet). But because of the odds."

Dr Webb points to the fact that the observable Universe contains at least two trillion galaxies.

Each of these galaxies has hundreds of billions of stars, and most of those stars very likely host planets.

So if life could flourish on Earth in extreme environments at the bottom of our oceans, in Antarctica, within acidic lakes and even in nuclear reactors, couldn't life have evolved on other temperate, rocky planets?

Even in our own Solar System we find habitable conditions in liquid oceans beneath the frozen surface of icy moons, such as those orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.

So while there's been no confirmed detection of life elsewhere in our Solar System, astronomers have found that conditions for life do exist beyond Earth, even within our minuscule corner of the Galaxy.

"If life happened here, in this vast cosmic lottery, it feels statistically improbable that we are the only winning ticket," Dr Webb says.

"The Universe has had 13.8 billion years to run that experiment over and over again."

Making contact

Finding microbial life in on an icy moon is one thing, but could we really expect to ever make contact with intelligent life?

Some astronomers use enormous radio telescopes to search for signals from technologically advanced alien species across the Galaxy. It's known as SETI, or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Dr Webb notes the vastness of the Universe, and how our communication with any potential intelligent alien species is restricted by the speed of light.

That makes receiving and sending communications very difficult, and likely impossible to do within one human lifetime.

"Do I think we’ll shake hands with extraterrestrials anytime soon? Probably not," she says.

"Do I think we’ll find evidence – microbial, atmospheric, or something unexpected? I hope so. Maybe even in our lifetime.

"Somewhere, under another sky, orbiting another star, there may be a civilisation looking up at their version of the night sky… wondering if they are alone too."

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

A US historian looked at the history of UFO sightings. This is what he found.

BY Iain Todd

• Find out why people believe in UFOs and the objects commonly reported as UFOs.

So what happens when you take a scientific, empirical look at reports of UFOs and flying saucers?

What patterns emerge, and do they tell us anything about the cultural or geopolitical trends at the time the reports were made?

Greg Eghigian is Professor of History and Bioethics at Penn State University in the United States and has written a book called After The Flying Saucers Came.

It's just that: a history of UFO reports and what they can tell us about belief in the extra-terrestrial.

We spoke to Greg to find out more about the flying saucer craze.

What made you decide to look into the history of flying saucers?

I’m an historian of science and medicine by speciality, and over the years have looked primarily at the history of how scientific and medical establishments and governments have understood ideas, feelings, people and thoughts that were marginal, or deemed to be outside the mainstream.

I was led to the topic of flying saucers and UFOs in part by those interests, though it does deviate from what I normally work on.

I was always fascinated with this stuff when I was growing up.

I was a really voracious reader and consumer of anything about aliens and outer space visitors and things like that, though that interest waned as I got older and I grew interested in lots of other things unrelated to this.

But I was talking with a colleague of mine, an historian who was working on a book project that involved looking at the renaissance of the occult right after World War II in Europe.

I asked her: “was that whole flying saucer thing a craze in Europe at the time?”

She said “I don't know, you ought to look into it and write something about it.”

And I just dismissed it out of hand.

But one summer I was ill, so I couldn't do traveling as I normally do, and I started going through digital databases of newspapers in Germany in the late 1940s and 50s.

And bam: all these headlines about flying saucers.

I wrote an article on it and I thought there must be so many historians who have done work on this.

I found one. One sole book on the history of the subject in 1975 by a historian who, by the way, later becomes a subject in my own book because he becomes a true believer and a major figure in the alien abduction phenomenon.

And that's how I got hooked. I thought, okay, I'm diving in.

You don't have to believe the reports are true in order to  factually catalogue the history of it, do you?

No, I come at this from that very perspective.

I make it very clear from the start, I'm not here to try to present evidence that aliens have been visiting us.

But I also don't come from the perspective of the debunker who's here to tear down every opinion.

I wanted to take the general ethos of most historians and say, I'm here to chronicle the way we've come to think about and talk about and debate this subject.

Especially in this day and age with a lot going on when it comes to discussions about exoplanets and SETI and things like that.

It seems to me it's the time to revisit that history and think about how we got to the point where we are now.

Does it all begin with Roswell?

No, it doesn't begin with Roswell! In fact, Roswell is a blip, a really minor blip. It's a very tiny footnote.

When you look at it in the wider perspective, it actually starts a little earlier than that with a private pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold, who's flying around Washington State, around Mount Rainier, looking for a crashed plane.

And he sees these strange pan-shaped objects flying at high speeds.

He comes back, lands on the ground and tells people he’s seen some weird stuff, and reports it to the authorities and also the media.

And the media starts asking him questions about it. They ask him, how did these things fly? How would you describe it?

He said they flew like a saucer might if you skipped it over water.

And a very enterprising journalist knew a headline when they saw one and called them flying saucers.

Within 6 weeks, a survey said 9 out of 10 Americans had heard the term flying saucer.

Roswell pops up as a story for about 2 days and then disappears and is never heard of again, until you get into the late 1970s and early 80s.

When you hear a report like that from a pilot, someone who’s an expert in aviation, do you find yourself struggling to remain neutral?

Yeah, reports like that pop up all the time and there are lots of head scratchers.

And there are times you read something and you say, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

When you're talking about historical cases where you can't talk to anybody anymore, you're left saying, geez, I wish there was a little more information about this, or I wish somebody had a camera at the time.

But when you hear seasoned pilots, for instance, who are very knowledgeable, talk and describe things that they see, that is really arresting and it makes you pause.

The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung put it really, really well. He said "things are seen in the sky, but we don't know what".

And even the authorities, whether it's the UK Ministry of Defence or the United States Air Force, all have historically fully admitted there are cases we can never explain.

They make us scratch our heads; we're sort of left with a big question mark.

How do you approach a topic like this as an historian?

There are a couple of things that it's important to keep in mind.

One is that the language that's often used in the UFO world, if you will, is often very sloppy.

Just think of something like the term ‘UFO’: Unidentified Flying Object.

Even though it sounds precise, it was meant to replace ‘flying saucer’, because ‘flying saucer’ was seen as a kind of biased term.

‘UFO’ is biased in its own ways.

Is that really an object? Flying implies piloting and it implies design.

It's fair to say the same thing holds true with the distinction between sightings and reports.

A sighting is an experience that someone has, but we know that the vast majority of people who see something odd never say anything, not to officials, to the media, the police or the Air Force.

Something has to lead somebody to actually report it to some institution – it might be a UFO group, it might be authorities – and they then write it down in some form.

It could be in a messy form, it could be a police officer who's ho-humming it all the time.

So what I'm interested in is reports, these documents that we have.

They oftentimes aren't very detailed. So as an historian we are ultimately left with trying to work with records and documentation.

That can be a recording, that can be an interview, but it oftentimes it’s self reports and also reports by others.

How do we discuss reports of flying saucers? How have different institutions and different groups grappled with it?

And how have they made that into something that they see as worthy of a conversation, and sometimes worthy of some sort of action on the part of people who can take action?

Do you find any narrative consistency throughout reports of UFOs?

What's interesting is that's one of the things that changes.

When you look particularly in, say, the first decade or decade and a half of the phenomenon, there is a lot of diversity, in terms of what's reported.

The most common thing that people see are lights. Maybe it's different colors. Maybe they flash off and on, but lights: very vague, very blurry.

Not much more detail than that.

You hear people talking about cigar-shaped things, saucer-shaped things, globes, hexagonal objects.

But you really see the diversity when people say they actually saw the occupants of these vehicles.

In the 1940s and 50s into the early 60s, it's a very wide range, very diverse group of beings that are talked about.

Everything from little men under four feet tall, sometimes as small as under 12 inches.

Other times they're large, hairy monsters that sort of look like Sasquatch.

There are robots, there are males, there are females, there are androgynous beings, there are bulbous heads.

Some are absolutely gorgeous and look like fashion models, all sorts of things.

What happens over time, and this is what's interesting to me, is that those images start to winnow down, and there becomes a kind of a homogeneity to it all, kind of a standardisation, if you will, in descriptions.

And that to me, in part, is something that signals a role that culture is increasingly playing in terms of helping to shape those images into images that are familiar to everyone.

Did you find correlation between the language that's used at the time of a report and current movies, songs, popular culture?

Well, again, what I love about this history is it confounds every preconception I had.

I, like most everybody else, was ready to think there must be so much influence of pop culture on UFO sightings and reports and the way people describe things.

And in part there is. There's no question that the pulp science fiction of the first half of the 20th century had a direct impact on the early alien visitor story, the way people engaged with it.

It's not a surprise that most all of those first few years of people pushing the UFO narrative, there seems to be inspiration from the pulp science fiction world.

But where you see something that doesn't quite connect that way is with film.

The idea has been always that films must have a real profound influence on, say, upticks in the number of sightings.

And that doesn't really bear out. You have a very big wave of sightings and reports in the United States, for instance, in 1952.

But there's no major big UFO film from that time period that takes place.

Or you could take something like Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters.

I talked to one of the folks who leads one of the big organizations that were looking into UFOs at the time, and I asked him about it.

And he said, what we saw at the time was not an uptick in new sightings.

People weren't seeing UFOs right after the film, but what they did see an uptick in was the number of people coming forward saying "five years ago, or three years ago, I saw something that seemed like that".

So it triggered that.

And we know from the UK, for instance, that following Spielberg's film E.T., there was actually a downward movement in the number of UFO sightings.

So it doesn't neatly map on to popular culture as much as we like to think at times.

You hear people say it's not a coincidence it all kicked off during the Cold War and Space Age.

I definitely would argue that the Cold War plays a critical role in this.

The UFO as we know it is unimaginable without the Cold War, and it's a spectre that haunts the entire history.

People are constantly making references to UFOs.

For instance, in those early years, one of the questions that comes up is, okay, the flying saucers are here, they're aliens.

Why are they here in 1947, 1948? Why now and not five years earlier, 500 years earlier?

And the argument that starts being put forward is, well, the aliens have seen the atomic bomb explosions.

They've seen that we have unlocked the key to atomic energy and they are scared.

They're either scared for us or they're scared of us, but they realise we have reached this level of civilisation that makes us a qualitatively different species.

What I don't see is a lot of what some people have argued is the case, that bad times promote more flying saucer panics or flying saucer reports.

That seems to me a bit of a problematic argument because it seems to me prone to cognitive bias.

Pick up a newspaper from any time period you like, and outside of maybe when the Berlin Wall fell, you will see mostly bad news.

Journalists are very good at reporting bad news and sometimes have a hard time knowing how to make good news interesting!

Do you find a large majority of sightings and reports are from the US? And does that suggest it's to do with the culture of the society?

I would say the evidence shows that the United States plays a very critical role. It's a hub.

It's a hub in that the news emanating out of the United States is what triggers the UFO phenomenon.

Throughout the history of flying saucers and UFOs, whenever there's a new development, like the events occurring since 2017, it is something that gets reported everywhere else.

That said, it's very clear within a few years that there are hubs popping up throughout the world and other places, and the influence actually goes in the other direction at times.

There are places in Europe, in South America, where you see a really pronounced concentration, not only of sightings and reports, but also activities by UFO organisations.

So I would say in Europe, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain all played a very, very big role.

Whereas in Germany, for instance, it was a much more muted phenomenon.

In South America, Brazil and Chile, Argentina play major roles.

And my argument would be, it has to do with whether or not you have a civilian UFO organization infrastructure.

In places where that gets built up and is sustainable, that's where you see this ability to articulate these narratives and lay out these programs to study the phenomenon, but also to have an impact worldwide on how these things are understood and viewed.

Did you come across attempts to  explain the strangest cases away?

Oh, I see that all the time.

Over the years I've been working on this, I've gotten to know lots and lots of 'ufologists', as they're called, UFO researchers of various kinds, and talked with people who say they've had experiences having contact with aliens or other kinds of beings.

It's a pretty diverse group of people.

I think there's a lack of appreciation just how many diverse perspectives there are when it comes to the flying saucer and UFO phenomenon in terms of how people approach it.

A lot of folks I know are not really altogether different from the people, say, over in the UK defence ministry who were very sceptical about this.

They themselves will tell you 95% of sightings, if not more, are easily explained.

And in fact, many UFO investigators I talk with, this is one of the things they do all the time.

They get a phone call or they get an email, they look into the case and they find out it's a rather mundane explanation.

Somebody was floating Chinese lanterns or somebody saw Starlink satellites which, if you see those things in the sky and don't know what that is, I would call that a UFO sighting.

One of the things I talk about in the book is the motivation for why people get involved in this stuff.

It’s that ability to be a detective, to crack a case.

It's really not altogether different from your favourite true crime podcast where everybody's invited to chime in and crack the case.

It keeps you going in the hope that maybe one day, a case is going to come along that makes you think “this is not going to go away”.

After you finished the book, was it hard to leave the subject alone?

Yeah, it is hard to leave it alone. I won't be leaving it alone because now I get a lot of people wanting to talk with me and contact me about discussing it.

And I'm going to be working on a new project, writing a book about the controversy surrounding the alien abduction phenomenon that was particularly lively in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

So no, once you've met the UFOs, they don't leave you alone!

What do you think about the argument that smartphones mean we should have irrefutable proof by now?

The ‘everyone carries a camera now’ argument is one I've heard a lot, and it's actually convinced some old-time UFO investigators that maybe there is not much to this anymore.

I've gotten a response from other UFO researchers who say, we know our smartphones are good at taking a picture of nice food at a restaurant or your friends at a party.

It's not a very refined or precise instrument for tracking something as complicated as a UFO.

How do you feel about more recent reports like those that have occurred since 2017 with the US Navy footage and Pentagon briefings in the US?

First of all, the fact that intelligence officials in the United States have come forward to say unequivocally, these pilots saw real objects, these are not computer glitches, these are not optical illusions, something is there.

That's unusual. That you didn't tend to get over the decades, that kind of admission.

And also their admission that they have maybe been derelict in taking seriously the reports of pilots, that they've ridiculed them, that a certain amount of peer and hierarchical pressure has really influenced people not to report things.

From my position as an academic, what I really find exciting and interesting is NASA's intervention.

NASA getting this independent UFO panel and saying okay, we think this deserves and warrants investigation, let's go about this in a serious fashion.

Because, you know, NASA is about civilian science, it's not about classified projects.

So adding that legitimacy to me seems to be the really unprecedented step.

That's the thing that I think opens the pathway for people from all sorts of disciplines to begin having conversations about what research projects might look like.

I think we'll see over the next, say five to 10 years, where this takes us.

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 21:03 geschreven door peter  

Is space really silent? Turns out the answer's not as simple as you think

We're told there's no sound in space; that it's silent. But is that strictly true?

Is space silent? Well, you’re not going to need ear-defenders, put it that way!

The simple answer here, of course, is yes: space is silent because it’s a vacuum.

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After all, what our ears perceive as 'sound' is just a pressure wave that passes through a medium, be that medium a solid, liquid or gas, and agitates the molecules within it.

When that pressure wave hits our ears, it causes small hairs and bones within them to vibrate, which sends an electrical signal to the brain that we interpret as sound.

But in a vacuum, where there are no molecules of liquid, solid or gas to agitate, that can’t happen – so there is no sound.

But when you’re talking about space, the simple, easy answer is seldom entirely correct – and that’s the case here, too.

That’s because space isn’t actually a vacuum at all.

Yes, huge regions of it are, particularly in interstellar and intergalactic space.

But within galaxies and nebulae are huge, swirling clouds of gas and dust, and the molecules within those clouds are just as capable of being agitated and so passing on a pressure wave – ie, sound – as their counterparts here on Earth.

As if to prove the point, in 2022 NASA released a sound recording of a black hole, extrapolated from observational data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

It turns out black holes make a low-pitched warbling sound that sounds (appropriately enough) like something from the soundtrack of a 1950s sci-fi B-movie.

It’s such a low-pitched sound that your ear wouldn’t be able to hear it naturally, so NASA used a process called ‘sonification’ to render it audible.

Gravitational waves and plasma waves (such as the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that’s constantly being emitted by our parent star) also present a medium through which sound is able to travel.

Not loudly enough that you’d be able to hear it were you there, but clearly enough for it to be detected by Earth-based radio telescopes.

So yes, space is mostly silent – but not truly silent.

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{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 20:31 geschreven door peter  

Artemis 3 Won’t Land Astronauts on the Moon as NASA Shifts Lunar Mission

NASA has canceled the Artemis 3 moon landing, shifting its focus to testing key technologies and aiming for a safer, more reliable return to the Moon in 2028.

Written by Lydia Amazouz

© Credit: SpaceX

NASA has decided to revise its Artemis program, significantly altering its mission architecture and delaying the anticipated Artemis 3 astronaut landing on the Moon. The decision follows concerns over the readiness of key spacecraft components, such as the Human Landing System (HLS), as detailed in a report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). Space.com reported this groundbreaking update, noting that NASA aims to reduce mission complexity and avoid rushing the process. As a result, the first crewed lunar landing is now expected with Artemis 4 in 2028, rather than in the originally planned Artemis 3 mission.

NASA’s Shift in Strategy: A Move Toward Simplicity and Safety

NASA’s decision to cancel Artemis 3’s astronaut landing marks a significant turning point for the Artemis program, which was initially designed to return humans to the Moon by the mid-2020s. One of the main reasons for this shift is the need to reduce the complexity of the mission architecture, according to NASA officials.

“We want to reduce complexity to the greatest extent possible,” said Isaacman during a briefing. “We want to accelerate manufacturing, pull in the hardware and increase launch rate, which obviously has a direct safety consideration to it as well.”

This change in approach will help ensure that NASA can meet its goal of returning astronauts to the Moon safely, without compromising mission objectives.

One of the most important aspects of this decision is how it addresses the concerns raised by the ASAP report, which flagged issues related to the readiness of the Human Landing System (HLS) vehicles. These vehicles, which NASA had contracted from private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, are not yet ready to safely transport astronauts to the lunar surface. The delays in meeting critical milestones for these spacecraft, particularly SpaceX’s Starship, led to the decision to reevaluate the timeline and mission structure. The upcoming Artemis 3 mission will now focus on testing key technologies in low Earth orbit, setting the stage for a future crewed lunar landing with Artemis 4.

What Does This Mean for Artemis 3 and the Future of Lunar Exploration?

The cancellation of Artemis 3’s planned Moon landing has serious implications for the overall timeline of NASA’s lunar exploration ambitions. As originally envisioned, Artemis 3 was meant to be the first mission in the program to land astronauts on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. However, NASA’s new strategy aims to take a more cautious, measured approach to ensure that the technology and hardware are fully ready before they are used in a high-stakes mission. In a briefing with Space.com, Isaacman expressed his confidence that this approach is aligned with the recommendations from the ASAP report:

“I think what we’re doing is directly in line with what ASAP asked us to do,” he said. “I think it should be incredibly obvious you don’t go from one uncrewed launch of Orion and SLS, wait three years, go around the moon, wait three years and land on it.”

By emphasizing incremental testing and readiness, NASA hopes to avoid the pitfalls that could undermine a mission of this magnitude.

The new timeline, now targeting Artemis 4 for the first crewed landing in 2028, reflects NASA’s focus on thorough preparation rather than rushing through steps. This delay, while disappointing for some, could ultimately lead to a safer, more successful return to the lunar surface. NASA’s decision underscores the need to ensure that the various components of the mission, including the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, work seamlessly together. With these changes, NASA hopes to replicate the success of previous space programs by increasing the launch cadence and gaining more experience before landing astronauts on the Moon again.

{ https://dailygalaxy.com/category/space/ }

01-03-2026 om 19:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Caught Crackling Sounds on Mars. Researchers Think It Was Electricity

Two separate NASA missions detected unusual signals on Mars, a strange sound on the surface and a rare reading from orbit, and scientists are still trying to understand what they mean.

Written by Melissa Ait Lounis

© Credit: Shutterstock

Two NASA spacecraft have detected different signals that point to possible lightning on Mars. One clue comes from orbit, the other from the planet’s surface, together strengthening the case that electrical discharges flicker through the Red Planet’s dusty skies.

Lightning has already been observed on Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. Mars, by contrast, has remained ambiguous territory. Its atmosphere is thin, and its magnetic field exists only in small, scattered patches, conditions that make any lightning harder to detect and likely very different from the bright bolts seen on Earth.

Scientists have long hypothesized that if lightning occurs on Mars, it would resemble faint electrical sparks generated by swirling, electrostatically charged dust. Now, recent findings based on data from NASA’s MAVEN orbiter and the Perseverance rover suggest those sparks may indeed be real.

A Rare Radio “Whistler” Detected by MAVEN

The most recent evidence comes from a study published on February 27 in Science Advances. According to the research, scientists identified a possible lightning signature in data collected in June 2015 by NASA’s Mars atmosphere and volatile evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.

Schematic representation of the conditions and processes that produce a whistler signal.

Credit: Science Advances

The team, led by Ondřej Santolík of the Czech Academy of Sciences, searched for radio signals known as “whistlers.” When lightning strikes, it heats and ionizes surrounding air, allowing radio waves to travel through the atmosphere and into space. On a receiver, these waves produce a characteristic whistle-like tone. Researchers reviewed 108,418 data snapshots from MAVEN. Santolík explained that:

“That needs to be done visually because it’s very hard to do it by a machine because of the noise features in the data”. Out of that extensive dataset, the team identified only one candidate signal. “It’s very surprising that we found it at all.”

The scientists then spent a year confirming that the signal matched what would be expected from lightning. NASA has reportedly been out of contact with MAVEN for nearly three months, leaving open questions about whether similar observations will be obtained in the near future.

Perseverance Hears Crackling During Dust Storms

A few months earlier, a separate group of researchers presented another form of evidence based on recordings from a microphone aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.

The team identified dozens of crackling sounds produced by small electrical discharges during dust storms near the rover. These sounds likely reflect localized electrical activity within charged dust clouds rather than large-scale lightning bolts.

Spectrogram showing the frequency evolution of electromagnetic waves detected by MAVEN.

Credit: Science Advances

Karen Aplin, a space physicist at the University of Bristol who was not involved in either study, said the two findings together give “a feeling that we’re closing in on Mars lightning.” She noted that on Earth, different types of electrical discharges exist, ranging from thunderstorm lightning to the glow known as Saint Elmo’s fire, suggesting that Mars could host varied electrical phenomena as well.

A Discovery With Bigger Implications Than It Seems

Electrical discharges also influence atmospheric chemistry. As reported by Scientific American, lightning has been shown to spark chemical reactions that may contribute to the development of life. Understanding whether similar processes occur on the Red planet could help scientists interpret the planet’s chemical environment.

For Santolík, the findings are bittersweet. He was part of a team that developed a dedicated lightning detector for the Russian-made lander of the Rosalind Franklin rover, part of the European Space Agency (ESA) program. The mission, initially planned for 2022, was disrupted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

ESA is now building its own lander for a 2028 launch but chose not to include instruments on the platform to speed construction. The lightning detector has since been returned to its creators and is not expected to fly to Mars.

At this stage, a single orbital “whistler” and crackling sounds detected at the surface stand as the strongest hints yet that the Red Planet may host elusive, dust-driven sparks in its skies.7

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{ https://dailygalaxy.com/ }

01-03-2026 om 18:50 geschreven door peter  

Researchers have identified powerful Martian electrical discharges, similar to lightning, and strong enough to be observed from orbit, in new research bringing this extraterrestrial phenomenon to light.

Mars and Earth feature very different environments—namely, the Red Planet lacks a global magnetic field and possesses only a thin atmosphere. As a result, lightning does not form in rain clouds as it does on Earth; instead, intense activity in dust storms and dust devils produces the electrical charge that generates Mars’ lightning-like electrical discharges.

MAVEN Observes Martian Lightning

NASA’s MAVEN orbiter made the crucial observation a decade ago, but only in December 2024 did the significance of the signals become clear. Recently, Czech researchers completed their analysis and revealed the findings in a new paper published in Science Advances.

“I went through data from the beginning of the mission, and after automatically filtering records measured outside areas of strong magnetic fields or at excessively high altitudes,” František Němec of Charles University said in a press release. “I found only a single electromagnetic lightning signal—a so-called whistler—among thousands of possible records.”

“Based on previous calculations, laboratory experiments, and observations of lightning in the dust plumes of terrestrial volcanoes, we all expected electrical discharges in the Martian atmosphere, but until that moment, no one had recorded them,” said Ondřej Santolík of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

01-03-2026 om 16:30 geschreven door peter