The 20 big questions in science

From the nature of the universe (that's if there is only one) to the purpose of dreams, there are lots of things we still don't know – but we might do soon. A new book seeks some answers

What's at the bottom of a black hole? See question 17. Photograph: Alamy

1 What is the universe made of?

Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don't know what 95% of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5%. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised of two shadowy entities – dark matter and dark energy. The former, first discovered in 1933, acts as an invisible glue, binding galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Unveiled in 1998, the latter is pushing the universe's expansion to ever greater speeds. Astronomers are closing in on the true identities of these unseen interlopers.

2 How did life begin?

Four billion years ago, something started stirring in the primordial soup. A few simple chemicals got together and made biology – the first molecules capable of replicating themselves appeared. We humans are linked by evolution to those early biological molecules. But how did the basic chemicals present on early Earth spontaneously arrange themselves into something resembling life? How did we get DNA? What did the first cells look like? More than half a century after the chemist Stanley Miller proposed his "primordial soup" theory, we still can't agree about what happened. Some say life began in hot pools near volcanoes, others that it was kick-started by meteorites hitting the sea.

3 Are we alone in the universe?

Perhaps not. Astronomers have been scouring the universe for places where water worlds might have given rise to life, from Europa and Mars in our solar system to planets many light years away. Radio telescopes have been eavesdropping on the heavens and in 1977 a signal bearing the potential hallmarks of an alien message was heard. Astronomers are now able to scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for oxygen and water. The next few decades will be an exciting time to be an alien hunter with up to 60bn potentially habitable planets in our Milky Way alone.

4 What makes us human?

Just looking at your DNA won't tell you – the human genome is 99% identical to a chimpanzee's and, for that matter, 50% to a banana's. We do, however, have bigger brains than most animals – not the biggest, but packed with three times as many neurons as a gorilla (86bn to be exact). A lot of the things we once thought distinguishing about us – language, tool-use, recognising yourself in the mirror – are seen in other animals. Perhaps it's our culture – and its subsequent effect on our genes (and vice versa) – that makes the difference. Scientists think that cooking and our mastery of fire may have helped us gain big brains. But it's possible that our capacity for co-operation and skills trade is what really makes this a planet of humans and not apes.

5 What is consciousness?

We're still not really sure. We do know that it's to do with different brain regions networked together rather than a single part of the brain. The thinking goes that if we figure out which bits of the brain are involved and how the neural circuitry works, we'll figure out how consciousness emerges, something that artificial intelligence and attempts to build a brain neuron by neuron may help with. The harder, more philosophical, question is why anything should be conscious in the first place. A good suggestion is that by integrating and processing lots of information, as well as focusing and blocking out rather than reacting to the sensory inputs bombarding us, we can distinguish between what's real and what's not and imagine multiple future scenarios that help us adapt and survive.

6 Why do we dream?

We spend around a third of our lives sleeping. Considering how much time we spend doing it, you might think we'd know everything about it. But scientists are still searching for a complete explanation of why we sleep and dream. Subscribers to Sigmund Freud's views believed dreams were expressions of unfulfilled wishes – often sexual – while others wonder whether dreams are anything but the random firings of a sleeping brain. Animal studies and advances in brain imaging have led us to a more complex understanding that suggests dreaming could play a role in memory, learning and emotions. Rats, for example, have been shown to replay their waking experiences in dreams, apparently helping them to solve complex tasks such as navigating mazes.

7 Why is there stuff?

You really shouldn't be here. The "stuff" you're made of is matter, which has a counterpart called antimatter differing only in electrical charge. When they meet, both disappear in a flash of energy. Our best theories suggest that the big bang created equal amounts of the two, meaning all matter should have since encountered its antimatter counterpart, scuppering them both and leaving the universe awash with only energy. Clearly nature has a subtle bias for matter otherwise you wouldn't exist. Researchers are sifting data from experiments like the Large Hadron Collider trying to understand why, with supersymmetry and neutrinos the two leading contenders.

8 Are there other universes?

Our universe is a very unlikely place. Alter some of its settings even slightly and life as we know it becomes impossible. In an attempt to unravel this "fine-tuning" problem, physicists are increasingly turning to the notion of other universes. If there is an infinite number of them in a "multiverse" then every combination of settings would be played out somewhere and, of course, you find yourself in the universe where you are able to exist. It may sound crazy, but evidence from cosmology and quantum physics is pointing in that direction.

9 Where do we put all the carbon?

For the past couple of hundred years, we've been filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide – unleashing it by burning fossil fuels that once locked away carbon below the Earth's surface. Now we have to put all that carbon back, or risk the consequences of a warming climate. But how do we do it? One idea is to bury it in old oil and gas fields. Another is to hide it away at the bottom of the sea. But we don't know how long it will stay there, or what the risks might be. Meanwhile, we have to protect natural, long-lasting stores of carbon, such as forests and peat bogs, and start making energy in a way that doesn't belch out even more.

10 How do we get more energy from the sun?

Dwindling supplies of fossil fuels mean we're in need of a new way to power our planet. Our nearest star offers more than one possible solution. We're already harnessing the sun's energy to produce solar power. Another idea is to use the energy in sunlight to split water into its component parts: oxygen, and hydrogen, which could provide a clean fuel for cars of the future. Scientists are also working on an energy solution that depends on recreating the processes going on inside stars themselves – they're building a nuclear fusion machine. The hope is that these solutions can meet our energy needs.

11 What's so weird about prime numbers?

The fact you can shop safely on the internet is thanks to prime numbers – those digits that can only be divided by themselves and one. Public key encryption – the heartbeat of internet commerce – uses prime numbers to fashion keys capable of locking away your sensitive information from prying eyes. And yet, despite their fundamental importance to our everyday lives, the primes remain an enigma. An apparent pattern within them – the Riemann hypothesis – has tantalised some of the brightest minds in mathematics for centuries. However, as yet, no one has been able to tame their weirdness. Doing so might just break the internet.

12 How do we beat bacteria?

Antibiotics are one of the miracles of modern medicine. Sir Alexander Fleming's Nobel prize-winning discovery led to medicines that fought some of the deadliest diseases and made surgery, transplants and chemotherapy possible. Yet this legacy is in danger – in Europe around 25,000 people die each year of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Our drug pipeline has been sputtering for decades and we've been making the problem worse through overprescription and misuse of antibiotics – an estimated 80% of US antibiotics goes to boosting farm animal growth. Thankfully, the advent of DNA sequencing is helping us discover antibiotics we never knew bacteria could produce. Alongside innovative, if gross-sounding, methods such as transplanting "good" bacteria from fecal matter, and the search for new bacteria deep in the oceans, we may yet keep abreast in this arms race with organisms 3bn years our senior.

13 Can computers keep getting faster?

Our tablets and smartphones are mini-computers that contain more computing power than astronauts took to the moon in 1969. But if we want to keep on increasing the amount of computing power we carry around in our pockets, how are we going to do it? There are only so many components you can cram on to a computer chip. Has the limit been reached, or is there another way to make a computer? Scientists are considering new materials, such as atomically thin carbon – graphene – as well as new systems, such as quantum computing.

14 Will we ever cure cancer?

The short answer is no. Not a single disease, but a loose group of many hundreds of diseases, cancer has been around since the dinosaurs and, being caused by haywire genes, the risk is hardwired into all of us. The longer we live, the more likely something might go wrong, in any number of ways. For cancer is a living thing – ever-evolving to survive. Yet though incredibly complicated, through genetics we're learning more and more about what causes it, how it spreads and getting better at treating and preventing it. And know this: up to half of all cancers – 3.7m a year – are preventable; quit smoking, drink and eat moderately, stay active, and avoid prolonged exposure to the midday sun.

15 When can I have a robot butler?

Robots can already serve drinks and carry suitcases. Modern robotics can offer us a "staff" of individually specialised robots: they ready your Amazon orders for delivery, milk your cows, sort your email and ferry you between airport terminals. But a truly "intelligent" robot requires us to crack artificial intelligence. The real question is whether you'd leave a robotic butler alone in the house with your granny. And with Japan aiming to have robotic aides caring for its elderly by 2025, we're thinking hard about it now.

16 What's at the bottom of the ocean?

Ninety-five per cent of the ocean is unexplored. What's down there? In 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard travelled seven miles down, to the deepest part of the ocean, in search of answers. Their voyage pushed the boundaries of human endeavour but gave them only a glimpse of life on the seafloor. It's so difficult getting to the bottom of the ocean that for the most part we have to resort to sending unmanned vehicles as scouts. The discoveries we've made so far – from bizarre fish such as the barreleye, with its transparent head, to a potential treatment for Alzheimer's made by crustaceans – are a tiny fraction of the strange world hidden below the waves.

17 What's at the bottom of a black hole?

It's a question we don't yet have the tools to answer. Einstein's general relativity says that when a black hole is created by a dying, collapsing massive star, it continues caving in until it forms an infinitely small, infinitely dense point called a singularity. But on such scales quantum physics probably has something to say too. Except that general relativity and quantum physics have never been the happiest of bedfellows – for decades they have withstood all attempts to unify them. However, a recent idea – called M-Theory – may one day explain the unseen centre of one of the universe's most extreme creations.

18 Can we live for ever?

We live in an amazing time: we're starting to think of "ageing" not as a fact of life, but a disease that can be treated and possibly prevented, or at least put off for a very long time. Our knowledge of what causes us to age – and what allows some animals to live longer than others – is expanding rapidly. And though we haven't quite worked out all the details, the clues we are gathering about DNA damage, the balance of ageing, metabolism and reproductive fitness, plus the genes that regulate this, are filling out a bigger picture, potentially leading to drug treatments. But the real question is not how we're going to live longer but how we are going to live well longer. And since many diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, are diseases of ageing, treating ageing itself could be the key.

19 How do we solve the population problem?

The number of people on our planet has doubled to more than 7 billion since the 1960s and it is expected that by 2050 there will be at least 9 billion of us. Where are we all going to live and how are we going to make enough food and fuel for our ever-growing population? Maybe we can ship everyone off to Mars or start building apartment blocks underground. We could even start feeding ourselves with lab-grown meat. These may sound like sci-fi solutions, but we might have to start taking them more seriously.

20 Is time travel possible

Time travellers already walk among us. Thanks to Einstein's theory of special relativity, astronauts orbiting on the International Space Station experience time ticking more slowly. At that speed the effect is minuscule, but ramp up the velocity and the effect means that one day humans might travel thousands of years into the future. Nature seems to be less fond of people going the other way and returning to the past, however some physicists have concocted an elaborate blueprint for a way to do it using wormholes and spaceships. It could even be used to hand yourself a present on Christmas Day, or answer some of the many questions that surround the universe's great unknowns.

The Big Questions in Science: The Quest to Solve the Great Unknowns is published by Andre Deutsch at £14.99 on 12 September. To buy a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

{ http://www.theguardian.com/science }

07-02-2015 om 16:48 geschreven door peter  

Video shows strange glowing cloud rapidly changing shape

A video posted on YouTube of a cloud with a strange glow quickly changing shape has gone viral. Some have speculated that the phenomenon is due to the government’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), others have suggested it is due to ice crystals while others believe UFOs may be to blame.

HAARP is often blamed for atmospheric anomalies and natural disasters. It is a jointly funded project to study the ionosphere funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The program’s focus is to identify new technologies for radio communications and surveillance. Among other things, HAARP has also been blamed for earthquakes, weather modification and mind control.

HAARP antenna array in Alaska. (Credit: Mike Kosch, Department of Physics, Lancaster University)

The Alaska Dispatch is skeptical of these claims, but does feel the project can do more to dispel these rumors. They write, “What makes HAARP susceptible to conspiracy criticism is simple. The facility doesn’t open its doors in the same way as other federally-funded research facilities around the country, and it doesn’t go to great efforts to explain the importance of its research to the public.”

According to The Telegraph, the most likely explanation is that the “dancing cloud” phenomenon is due to the refraction of light through ice crystals. They explain, “These crystals act as prisms and bend the light that passes through them, often prompting a parhelion, a similar phenomenon more commonly known as a ‘sun dog.’”

Sundogs in Fargo, North Dakota. Taken February 18th, 2009. (Credit: Gopherboy6956/Wikimedia Commons)

Theories of any UFO involvement with the cloud in the video are just random comments without much explanation.

{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

07-02-2015 om 16:34 geschreven door peter  

Large Bright UFO Moves Across the Sky Over Hills in Kinlochard, Scotland

Posters Comments
Don't be put off by this film just showing a light moving across the sky. Try to watch all the way through and you will definitely be discounting planes, lanterns etc and like me will be questioning what this large, very bright object could have been.......Read on

What is this? YOU decide. Filmed 5.25pm on 1st Feb 2015 from Kinlochard, Scotland, looking South South West. Very bright large white (reddish) light moves across sky above hills. Filmed for over fifteen minutes this was definitely not a Chinese lantern (too large, too bright and too long in the sky), aircraft (No flight path and too low and slow) or helicopter (would have seen usual flashing green/red lights and heard something but object was silent plus the way it moved tells me not this type of aircraft). It moved slowly and silently. It went behind forest trees on top of the high hills which are approx one mile away and still appeared to be quite a bit further than this but even though it was some distance the size from where I was filming still appeared to be large and very bright. Judging distance and approximate location I would say that it was going over or flying close to Loch Lomond (Here is a rough idea where it may have been flying over: Grid ref – NS 39750-97783, Latitude:56.145741 Longitude: -4.5809916). 

 

Posters Comments Continued

Although it flew over a remote area of the Trossachs National Park others must have seen it and probably with a better view. Would be good to know what this was and if anybody else got to see it. Could it be the planet Venus, as according to astronomy intel this planet was about at this time also? So to re-cap, the object was large, was
emitting a very bright white light with some red light also seen and looked at times to be pulsating. It moved silently and slowly and although I had filmed it for about fifteen minutes it would have been in the sky for longer but I had only noticed it as I was closing the curtains which is when I began to film.
There is some blurring and camera shake on the film as I set the camera to manual focus and also to keep continuity of recording I carry on filming as I go upstairs to get a better view of the object.

{ http://www.educatinghumanity.com/ }

07-02-2015 om 16:21 geschreven door peter  

Why Are Aliens Visiting Earth? The Answer May Surprise You

UFOs Have Been Visiting Earth For a Long Time, Why?

Most people believe that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth to monitor the progress and behavior of humanity.  To a certain extent that might be true, but it is much more likely that they are periodically coming here to examine the health of Planet Earth.
After all, even our scientist are beginning to come around to the idea that planet Earth is a living sentient being. In the greater cosmos, human and extraterrestrial life may be fairly common. On the other hand what little we know about other planets, and the universe at large, indicate that our home planet is an extremely desirable and rare occurrence within the cosmos.

People have wondered for a long time why ET has not made their presence known. If we are not the primary reason why they are here, why would they disclose their existence. The survival of mankind is probably very far down their list of priorities. For that matter survival of humanity may not even be on their list of priorities. Have you ever stopped to consider that Planet Earth has more value to an alien race if there were no humans inhabiting the planet.

Everything we need to sustain life has been provided for us on Planet Earth. We are blessed with an abundance of water, sunshine, breathable air, enough land and food to house and feed 7 billion people. We share Earth with  millions of species of plant, animal and insect life, each playing an important role in the ecosystem, that in itself is remarkable. It makes our planet an astonishing place, a very rare and unusual gem among the stars.

Those that follow UFOs closely, know the largest wave of UFO sightings in modern time coincided with the discovery of splitting the atom and the use of Atomic Energy during WWII. In other words, when we discovered how to manipulate nuclear energy we triggered an unprecedented wave of UFO sightings.

There are well documented cases of UFOs hovering over nuclear military facilities in both the United States and Russia. Reliable witnesses state that the craft were tampering with the nuclear armament control systems. This behavior by UFOs and their occupants was not an accident and it was clearly a message to humanity.

Many people 'want' to believe that if things get out of control and WWIII gets under way our extraterrestrial brethren will step in and save humanity, nothing could be further from the truth. ET may step in and save Planet Earth, but they will have little time and no admiration for a species that never understood how good they had it in the first place. 

 

There is little doubt that Earth's oceans, forest and species of plants and animals are worth saving.
The living, breathing, self-regulating sentient being that we are living on is at the core of their mission. 

 

UFOs have a long and documented history of appearing just after natural or man-made catastrophic events. There is not much question that they are keeping their eye on the prize we call Earth.

{ http://www.educatinghumanity.com/ }

07-02-2015 om 16:08 geschreven door peter  

UFO Government Control Group?

In my book “UFOs, Area 51, and Government Informants” I spent a lot of time looking at the evidence that backed the idea of an inside control group known as MJ-12. 
The idea of this MJ-12 group started to appear in the early 1980s, through a researcher known as Bill Moore. Moore had written a book known as the Roswell Incident which sold many copies and was the forerunner of the modern obsession with the Roswell crash. 
Days after Moore released the book he was contacted by US intelligence which started to tell him the story of MJ-12, the super-secret group that had been established by President Harry Truman to deal with the extraterrestrial presence on earth. 
Moore was fed information by both USAF master sergeant Richard Doty and a second person attached to the CIA that Bill Moore gave the code name Falcon. 
Later 10 more intelligence sources would come forward to provide information to Moore. It is believed that some of these may actually have been ex-CIA directors.

The Moore involvement with the MJ-12 story culminated in a document release made in 1987 by Moore and two other researchers by the names of Jamie Shandera and Stanton Friedman. The document released, marked Top Secret Restricted, purported to be a briefing document presented to then President-elect Dwight Eisenhower about the 12-person group of high level scientists and military officials who made up the elite Top Secret MJ-12 committee.

In “UFOs, MJ-12 and Government Informants” I wrote that I believed the document had been a leak of true and false material that had been authorized by present day MJ-12 type group to desensitize the public about how the flying saucer problem had been handled by the White House.

I also wrote that although some of the material in the document did not appear to be correct (like the failure to mention that there was a live alien recovered at Roswell), there was lots of evidence that indicated that this mythical MJ-12 group mentioned in the document had existed. The reason for altering the document was to avoid breaking the law by releasing classified material and to protect the overall UFO program that needed to remain classified. The evidence indicating that there actually was an MJ-12 group included the following items;

• My co-author T. Scott Crain had come across a woman (USAF NCO) who had been on a 1979 declassification team in Okinawa, Japan. While declassifying documents in a General’s office the team came across a document that she told us may not have been the same document but appeared to contain all the same material. This woman was hassled when we first released the book in 1991.
• In conversations with the former President of Penn State University he confirmed the MJ-12 group. His first confirmation came in 1987 just days after Moore made the MJ-12 document public. Walker said, “Yes, I know of MJ-12. I have known of them for 40 years. I believe that you’re chasing after and fighting with windmills!!”
• Moya Lear, the wife of Lear Jet inventor Bill Lear, phoned her friend four-star General James Doolittle to ask if the group had existed. Doolittle confirmed the group had existed but said that is all he could say. She was prodded to do this by her son John Lear who had just become aware of the MJ-12 document.
• Edgar Mitchell, the Commander of Apollo 14, is another high level person who confirmed that the group MJ-12 did exist based on sources he had.
• General Arthur E. Exon, who was at Wright Field in 1947 when the alien bodies were shipped from the Roswell crash site, said he “was aware of a UFO controlling committee made up primarily of very high-ranking military officers and intelligence people. He did not know the name of the group but called them the “Unholy Thirteen.”
• In July 1989, Bob Oeschler provided some of the most dramatic evidence supporting the existence of a group known as MJ-12 when he taped a conversation on the MJ-12 subject with Bobby Ray Inman. Inman stated “that MJ-12 meant something to him.," and that “he has been aware of a program to ‘indoctrinate the public’ in UFO matters prior to his retirement,” and that he had "some expertise" in the area of UFOs but his information was out of date at the time of the conversation.
• Another person who gave some confirmation to the existence of MJ-12 was an archivist at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, who approached me after a lecture in Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 2005. His job was to declassify documents for release which meant that he worked right inside the classified vault and saw all government documents before their release. He stated that a colleague had reported seeing documents with the MJ-12 designator on them years before doing declassification on Joint Chiefs of Staff documents.
• Harold Stuart, a former member of the Truman administrative. He had been listed as a member of an advisory committee for MJ-12 in Robert Collins’ 2005 book Exempt from Disclosure. In replies to letter from researcher Brian Parks Stuart stated, “. I have a vague recollection of MJ-12, but not significantly specific to make a comment… I was not on the MJ-12 Advisory Board and only have a faint recollection of this project or group. I did know most of the Generals you mentioned in your letter, but sorry I cannot shed any light on your request.”
• Researcher Lee Graham wrote many letters and filed dozens of FOIA requests to try and validate the MJ-12 document. On May 24, 1990, the Defense Investigative Service (DIS) responded to one of Graham’s FOIA requests by sending him back a copy of the MJ-12 document, each page of which was stamped “UNCLASSIFIED” across the lower part of the page. This indicated the document had been declassified. Graham was never able to obtain clarification on who had done the declassification.
• In a 1987 letter written by John Andrews to his good friend Lockheed Skunk Works President Ben Rich, Andrews stated that he had known of MJ-12 for years “even though officially it didn’t exist.” In a discussion with Lee Graham he said he had heard of MJ-12 in early 1984 which was almost a year before researchers Moore and Shandera reviewed copies of the MJ-12 briefing document for President Eisenhower in the mail.

Since the release of the book in January 2013, there have been two new pieces of evidence that help to confirm that there was a MJ-12 UFO control group.

The first piece of new evidence came from a story that was told by Jesse Marcel Jr. who was the son of the intelligence officer at the Roswell Army Air Base that handed the July 1947 UFO crash. Marcel told his story in front of the May 2013 Citizen’s Hearing on Disclosure in Washington D.C.

According to Marcel “a number of years ago” he was called to Washington D.C. by Dick D’Amato for a meeting in a secure room in the Senate Building. D’Amato was chief counsel and chief investigator for Senator Byrd’s Senate Appropriations Committee. When the Area 51 story broke in 1989 in Nevada, Byrd and other senators on the committee (responsible for all budget spending) wondered if they were in fact financing back-engineering of flying saucers at Area 51 without being told what they were paying for. D’Amato was provided the appropriate security clearances and sent to investigate. D’Amato confirmed the alien projects but was not able to penetrate them. He told Steven Greer, “"I've been asked by Senator Byrd and some others to look into these things, and we've gotten close enough to know that these projects do exist. But I'm telling you that with a Top Secret clearance and a subpoena power from the Senate Appropriations Committee, I cannot penetrate those projects. You're dealing with the varsity team of all black projects, so watch out. And good luck."[i]

Marcel stated that he and D’Amato met around a huge conference room table. On the table was a novel that had been written by Whitley Strieber called “Majestic.” The book is about the Roswell crash and the MJ-12 control group that was established to deal with the extraterrestrial appearance on earth. D’Amato said, “I want to tell you something. This (pointing to the book) is not fiction.”

Marcel asked, “When are you going to tell the public?”

D’Amato replied talking about the MJ-12 control group that oversees the UFO cover-up, “If it were up to me I’d have done it yesterday, but it is not up to me. I am just here to investigate the cost of keeping it secret. In reality there is a black government. They have control of the debris. They answer to no one and they are not elected. They have unlimited money to spend. They are the ones who have control over it.”

The second piece of new evidence came from a very unlikely source – Dr. John Alexander. John was a Colonel in the US Army, and had been interested in the UFO mystery since a young boy in 1947. He also had done work on “esoteric projects, specifically in the intelligence community with psychokinesis.”

Alexander wrote a book on his UFO investigations called “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities.” In the book Alexander pointed out that although UFOs are real, they are of no interest to the American government, and therefore there is no cover-up of the facts by American officials.

Alexander is also well known in the UFO community for hosting a Top Secret – Special Access series of meetings in the mid-1980s to look at the UFO problem for a possible new government look at the problem. The group was called the Advance Theoretical Physics Group and interestingly had exactly the same “Top Secret- Restricted Classification” as the MJ-12 document.

In a June 15, 2013 interview with radio show host Nancy Du Tetre Alexander, Alexander suddenly announced that the MJ-12 group had existed.[ii] This sudden disclosure was strange. That is because the MJ-12 controversy is central to the whole government cover-up theory believed by most in the UFO community. Yet Alexander did not talk about the MJ-12 idea in his book which had as its basic premise that there is no government control group dealing with the UFO mystery.

This is the transcript of the interaction;

Alexander: I think that there actually was a group and they were created something known as COG – continuity of government – and it was to prevent nuclear decapitation of the United States. It was really super super sensitive.

Nancy Du Tetre: Well let me ask you this. Does MJ-12 as far as you know exist today?

Alexander: I don’t think so. I had someone whisper to me that it had existed. I didn’t think it had existed at all, but when I looked into it and asked if the names were correct, and they said yes and that should tell me what I need to know to figure it out. That’s how we came up with this particular occupation because most of them were into nuclear warfare. That was one common thread of all the people on the list, and much more so certainly than with UFOs.[iii]

Even though Alexander’s personal opinion of what the group might have been differs from the UFOP control group interpretation, the significance of what Alexander said cannot be emphasized enough. MJ-12 existed and the names on the UFO document that appeared on a film in the mailbox of Jamie Shandera in 1984 were correct.

07-02-2015 om 15:55 geschreven door peter  

UFO mania: Bizarre Strange Sea Creature Found In Persian Gulf

The Iranian navy has located a gigantic mysterious carcass floating in the waters

Photos of the gnarly carcass were posted to a website serving the city of Bushehr in western Iran on the Persian Gulf. Based on the vertebrae and blackened skin of the carcass, Reddit users postulated that it was the remains of a whale.

"The blackened skin and vertebrae are a good giveaway, I wish the pictures were a bit bigger so I could wager a guess at what kind it was, but it's hard to make out!" wrote user Unidan, who is regarded as an expert in biology by members of the social news community.

07-02-2015 om 15:38 geschreven door peter  

Possible Cattle Abductions In Fairfax Vermont

(Before It's News)

POSSIBLE CATTLE ABDUCTIONS IN FAIRFAX VERMONT
DECEMBER 4, 2014   …………..   FAIRFAX VERMONT

 I am in my mid-thirties and live with my wife in Franklin County, Vermont on a hill over looking a small valley of trees and cow pastures, which rests between the towns of Milton, Saint Albans and Cambridge. I am a well educated, rational biomedical laboratory technician. My mother, who lives in a neighboring county, is a PhD research scientist who I would consider to be extremely rational and never prone to hysteria or exaggeration.cto hysteria or exaggeration. My wife is also well educated, and very practical – even stubbornly skeptical – about strange phenomenon and other events which have no bearing on her life. Two years ago, my mother was walking with a friend, who is a radar operator for the Air National Guard. The path they were walking is very near the downtown area in our largest city, about 25 miles south from my house. She tells me the sky that evening was dark, except for the many stars which were at that moment unobscured by clouds. She felt something odd and was compelled to look directly overhead. She and her friend then saw a very large, black, triangular craft with faint orangish lights, one at each corner of the craft. She said that the craft was so dark and so quiet as to seem as if it was absorbing light and sound. They watched as the craft moved slowly from north to south and finally disappeared from view after a few minutes. Apparently, my mother’s friend was at least somewhat familiar with similar objects, but provided no information. My mother told me about this experience immediately after it happened because our close relationship and mutual respect permit this. This week, I had my own amazing experience, and my wife shared it with me.
 On the evening December 4th, 2014 at approximately 9 p.m., I was exercising in our basement and noticed a very bright light which I could see through our basement window. I ran up our first flight of stairs, opened the front door and stood on the porch. Before noticing any detail I felt an intense sense of dread. I looked up toward the sky at a 45 degree angle, directly away from our house, toward Vermont’s highest mountain peak. In the near distance, perhaps a half mile from where I was standing, I saw an extremely bright object, pulsating red and blue lights, bouncing around slightly. I stood for perhaps 30 seconds or a minute watching this object, feeling transfixed but also very fearful. I recalled in that moment some of the stories of abductees who were paralyzed prior to their close encounters, and screamed at myself mentally to turn around and go back inside. I walked quickly inside, locked the door and ran up the next flight of stairs to our living room, where my wife was sitting and watching television. I turned off all the lights and then the TV and told her, “you need to see this.” I brought her to our picture window, oriented precisely eastward in the direction of the object, and asked, “WHAT IS THAT?” She leaned toward the window, squinted her eyes and her mouth dropped open. At the same moment I noticed another similar bright object to the north, but this object became a secondary consideration to us because it was partially obscured by tree branches near our window and appeared to be farther away and at a higher altitude. I asked her to stand there and continue to watch the object for unusual flight patterns if it began to change position. As she did this, I ran to my office to retrieve my Celestron Model #21035 travel telescope. When I returned, I noticed a light on the ground directly below the UFO, in a location that I know to be a patch of cow pasture void of any structures. I quickly found the UFO in my telescope lens. What I saw shocked me down to my core. The object was disc-shaped, bright, colorful, pulsating and bouncing. The pulsating red and blue lights appeared to come from within the craft, passing out through its walls. I then found the light on the ground below the craft and saw that it was cylindrical, orangish-yellow and was illuminating a white angular object which sat closer to my house on the grass. After two or three minutes, I decided that I would not see enough detail in the light and turned the telescope back toward the UFO. When my wife again examined the craft, she asked, “what is that other thing…in the air, closer to us, in the bottom right corner of the view?” I looked and saw the corner of another, mostly black and camouflaged object, perhaps two or three hundred yards closer to us. I watched this object for ten minutes or longer and noticed that it was slowly rocking around and up and down. On several occasions, I could clearly see that the bright, pulsating disc was casting enough light on the angular craft to illuminate two corners of what appeared to be a triangular black craft. My wife paced around the house, communicating irritation with me for looking at these objects with such interest at first, but eventually, after at least a full hour, parked herself on a chair near me saying, “I feel weird…I’m scared…I don’t like this.” At some point, I noticed that the light on the ground had vanished. Then, I noticed that the pulsating disc was calmer – more stationary and less bright. The red light, especially, was mostly or entirely gone and the craft appeared to settle into a lower-energy state. The triangular craft remained in the same position for another thirty minutes. Immediately prior to going to bed, I saw that the disc and triangle had both changed positions. The disc was now higher, perhaps directly above the triangle, which was now oriented with a single corner pointing downward. Suddenly, I saw the full form of the triangle, which was hovering with its underside pointing directly at my window. I saw one faint, circular orange light at each of three corners. The next day, I bumped into a resident who lives on the road directly opposite my house from the previous evening’s activity. This individual informed me that she had see an object that matched my description of the bright object at 9 p.m. on December 3rd and 4th. I knew this meant that the object might return soon, and watched from my window throughout the night of December 5th. Two bright, pulsating objects appeared shortly before midnight, at least one half mile farther from my house than they had been the previous night. I watched for over an hour as they appeared to follow a grid pattern slightly above the tree tops near a river. A quick scan of the internet reveals that Vermont is currently a hotspot for these phenomena. Many people have reported similar objects in my area; MANY more have likely seen them and remained silent.  I would be willing to speak with you by phone, but I must be careful not to allow my name to be associated with my report as it is presented to the public. 

NOTE : The above image is a rendering.
 This case is under investigation by Chief Investigator Ken Pfeifer of MUFON Vermont.

Thanks to www.mufon.com case files

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS
WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG
WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG

Source: http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=9217

07-02-2015 om 15:24 geschreven door peter  

Alien E.T Communication Contact! CIA Insider Explains In This Special Report  (Video)

(Before It's News)

(N.Morgan) The UFO phenomenon has been the focus of intense scrutiny and conspiracy. Is this US government involved in a huge cover up to hide the fact that there is alien life abroad in the universe? Or are the UFOs merely military crafts whose true intent was to be war vehicles? An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon.

Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts).

Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term “UFO” (or “UFOB”) was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a “UFOB” was “any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.” Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to those fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or “technical aspects.”

(See Air Force Regulation 200-2.) During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as “flying saucers” or “flying discs”. The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Reference:

http://goo.gl/8y4I6Q

More Stories Contributed By N. Morgan, Click Here! 

07-02-2015 om 15:20 geschreven door peter  

Oud mysterie voorspelt ineenstorting in september 2015  ( Video)

Het jaar 2015 wordt een bijzonder jaar. Eigenlijk hoef je daar geen helderziende voor te zijn om dat te kunnen voorspellen.

Alle tekenen wijzen erop dat in deze 12 maanden vele zaken tot een climax zullen leiden.

Als dat ook nog wordt ondersteund door een meer dan 3.000 jaar oud mysterie dan is dat bijzonder te noemen.

Een mysterie dat terugvoert naar de tijd van Mozes en wat shemitah heet. Het is een Hebreeuwse uitdrukking en het betekent neerstorten, neervallen, inelkaar storten.

Het wordt in het Nederlands wel het sabbatjaar genoemd en is gerelateerd aan de sabbat, de zevende dag, de rustdag. De shemitah is het zevende jaar, het rustjaar waarbij een stuk land onbebouwd dient te blijven.

Iemand die veel onderzoek heeft gedaan naar de shemitah is de Joodse rabbi Jonathan Cahn. Hij heeft er ook een boek over geschreven dat in no time een bestseller werd, The Harbinger.

In het onderstaande interview hoor je Cahn vertellen over de akelige nauwkeurigheid waarmee de shemitah werkt.

De dag dat het shemitah jaar eindigt, is het moment dat schulden worden kwijtgescholden, kortom dat er wordt begonnen met een schone lei. Oorspronkelijk bedoeld als een zegen, het schoonvegen van de lei, maar omdat het volk Israël zich tegen God heeft gekeerd, veranderd in een vloek.

Hoe iedere ineenstorting van de beurs terug te voeren is naar de shemitah, tot op de dag, het uur en de seconde nauwkeurig. Niet alleen de ineenstorting van de beurs, maar ook de opkomst en ondergang van bepaalde volkeren.

De shemitah komt dus iedere zeven jaar terug en we bevinden ons op dit moment in het jaar van de shemitah. Het is begonnen op 25 september 2014 en formeel eindigt deze op 13 september 2015.

Een lezer (dank!) schrijft het volgende:

Ik heb net een nieuwsbericht gelezen waar ik een vreemd onderbuik gevoel bij kreeg. Op teletekst is te lezen dat de paus op 24 september 2015 het Amerikaanse congres zal toespreken. Het merkwaardige zit hem in de datum en dat dit tevens de eerste keer is dat een paus dit doet.

Het is natuurlijk wel een merkwaardige datum voor de paus om voor de eerste keer het Amerikaanse Congres toe te spreken. Alhoewel het shemitah jaar officieel eindigt op 13 september dit jaar is de 24ste precies de laatste dag van een vol jaar sinds het begin van de shemitah.

Dit is ook tevens de dag van de laatste bloedmaan. Volgens velen zal er op 25 september 2015 het main event gaan plaatsvinden waar we allemaal voor vrezen of waar we op voorbereid zijn. Deze datum heeft alles met de vierde bloedmaan en de laatste dag van de shemitah te maken.

Een beurskrach, een atoombom op New York, er zijn al vele scenario's gegeven op het internet, allemaal gebaseerd op de laatste dag van de shemitah. Uitgerekend deze dag zal de paus in New York het congres toespreken, wie weet wat hem daar gaat overkomen en wat voor effect dit op de wereld zal hebben.

Zal deze paus dan echt de laatste zijn en zal hij bewust of onbewust worden geofferd om het main event te laten starten. Al met al vind ik dit waanzinnig toevallig dat precies deze dag hier voor is uitgekozen, als je precies begrijpt waar de shemitah voor staat dan is dit mind blowing.

Hieronder volgt het interessante verhaal zoals dat wordt verteld door Jonathan Cahn. In de video is de interviewer nogal storend vinden wij omdat hij Cahn alsmaar in de rede valt en het nodig vindt een stuk persoonlijke religie te adverteren.

Afgezien daarvan, een fascinerend verhaal van Jonathan Cahn.

{ www.NIBURU.nl }

07-02-2015 om 15:08 geschreven door peter  

Vreemde lichtstraal uit de hemel  ( Video )

Op 2 februari rond één uur ’s nachts vond er een merkwaardige gebeurtenis plaats in de plaats Escabana in het noorden van de Amerikaanse staat Michigan.

Na een explosie in de lokale energiecentrale verscheen er een vreemde lichtstraal vanuit de hemel.

Volgens het gemeentebestuur zorgde een explosie in de plaatselijke energiecentrale ervoor dat veel mensen zonder stroom kwamen te zitten.

De schade was dermate groot dat het volgens de gemeente dagen zou duren voordat de normale stroomvoorziening weer op gang zou gekomen.

Er zijn daar vreemde dingen gebeurd.

Op een gegeven moment, na de explosie, een geweldige lichtstraal vanuit de hemel die rechtstreeks lijkt te verdwijnen in de geëxplodeerde centrale. 

In de onderstaande video zie je minutenlang vreemde luchten die door de autoriteiten worden verklaard als een naderende trein. Dat is uiteraard totale onzin.

Een explosie in een centrale zorgt niet voor een enorme lichtstraal naar de hemel zoals te zien is op bovenstaande afbeelding.

Wat het wel is, weet niemand.

Het doet trouwens erg denken aan soortgelijke lichtstralen die zijn waargenomen vanuit piramides.

Het heeft in ieder geval niets te maken met de lichten van een naderende trein. De smoesjes van overheden worden met de week idioter.

Bron: Sott Net

{ www.NIBURU.nl }

07-02-2015 om 15:01 geschreven door peter  

Triangle UFO over San Antonio, Texas 17-Jan-2015

 New video of a triangle-shaped craft flying across the night sky above San Antonio in Texas. This happened on 17th January 2015.

Witness report: TRIANGLE U.F.O CRAFT Billy Martinez San Antonio 1-17-15…craft occupying air space in San Antonio airport without doubt!!! This is definitely in a no fly zone, craft had ‘NO RUNNING LIGHTS’ and was completely black. Triangle craft was about 10 to maybe 15′ in height. The consistent steady lights are consistent with known ET CRAFT. Lights do not alternate from color. They are ‘ULTRAVIOLET’ which is why to the naked eye they reflected no light. Only once recorded are you able to see lights. ET craft made absolutely ‘zero noise’!!! I am in direct contact with them!!!

Author (SAUFOTX @ youtube)

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

07-02-2015 om 14:52 geschreven door peter  

1971 UFO Encounter: Ezekiel's Wheel

"I saw a large glowing orange craft over a park near a house we rented in Portland, OR. It was huge and had the appearance of a molten metal disk. It appeared hot (like molten metal would be) but didn't radiate any heat that I could tell. The craft sat in the air unmoving for some time but left very abrubtly moving quickly almost straight up. If the craft had terrestrial qualities it's size and dimensions would have killed me when it left, leaving a crater larger than the park from the suction it would have caused. There was no perceptible effect on my surroundings as it almost instantly went from dwarfing the park to a speck of light in the night sky." - Witness

The Bible talks about an angel (in) a wheel within a wheel. With eyes all around it. Wherever the eyes went that's where the spirit of God went. I'm not trying to claim the craft is biblical in origin or nature, but what I saw somewhat fits the description. Just thought I'd mention it." - Witness

Date of Incident: June 1971
Date Reported: 3/2/2006 9:57:18 AM
Sighting Time: 8:00 PM
Day/Night: Dusk/Evening
No. of Witnesses: 1
Duration: Seemed like 10 minutes or so.

Appearance / Description of Object(s):

It was glowing orange like molten metal, disk shaped like 2 quarters stacked on top of each other but with no seam on the side. The sides of the craft had semi-spherical rivets in two rows that followed the edge of the craft. The rivets also glowed like molten metal but had a darker swirling quality to each one, like oil moved about slowly in water. The bottom of the craft had an irregular box shape in the middle with 4 tubes coming off of it to what appeared to be 4 rotors. The rotors spun but I could not distinguish an opening in the craft. The craft appeared solid and very heavy. If it had been made of molten metal it would have weighed thousands of tons. It's size and shape seemed to defy physics entirely. I could not imagine what forces could keep such a bulky craft suspended in the sky.

Size of Object(s):

From my perspect the craft occupied at least the space of my arms outstretched at my sides and bent upwards at 90 degrees at my elbows. It almost filled my entire field of vision but left some space around the sides where I could see the night sky. I would say it was about 200 yards across the object. The edge of the craft was perhaps 2 stories tall, maybe more. I can't tell for sure though because I don't know how far it was from me, perhaps a hundred feet or so.

Description of Area / Surroundings:

Suburban. Over a park in a Portland. There were houses all along the West and South of the park (which was roughly a square) and a school to the East of the park. There were horse pastures and a small woods to the North of the park.

Full Description & Details:

I was very young and my mom needed to head to a PTA meeting for my school which was across a park to the East of where we lived. It was sometime in summer because the nights were still long. I asked my mom if I could go with her as far as the park and would play on the swings, etc. until she got back. Shortly after she departed I saw a large circular craft above the park. It filled the night sky. I believe it to be roughly the size of the park (if not bigger) which had a baseball diamond in the NE and a playground in the SE. Most of the rest of the park was grassy with trees in the SW. Anyway, the object was huge, glowing orange, with the appearance of swirling molten metal. It was circular and disk-shaped, not spherical. Picture 2 quarters stacked on top of each other with no seams on their edge. The side of the craft had many half-spherical protrusions which looked to me like rivets but were more likely windows or some sort of sensory aparatus. The craft appeared unimaginably heavy and wasn't what I would call aerodynamic. I was puzzled about it's appearance and looked at it as long as I could. I was still standing there looking at the night sky when my mom returned. I was startled that she had returned so soon and I asked her if her meeting had been cancelled. She said no, it went on for about and hour and she mentioned that she had gotten to speak with my teachers and had had some cookies or other sort of refreshments. She asked what I had been doing the whole time and I told her that I had been playing a bit on the swings, which is what I had done prior to my seeing the craft in the sky. Her leaving for the meeting and returning seemed only like a matter of minutes to me. I cannot account for roughly an hour during my sighting of the craft in the sky. I have seen other instances of what I would consider UFO's, stars stair-stepping in the sky then moving off rapidly at an angle, but nothing as detailed or as large as this. I heard reports of a burning weather balloon the following day on the news on the radio but they said that nothing of the balloon was found. What I saw could not have been mistaken by anyone for a weather balloon or anything else. I did remember the report of the balloon though because I associate it with my experience from the previous night.

Can sighting be explained as any conventional man-made or natural object?

Absolutely not. All of the qualities of it seemed contrary to what I would expect from an earthly craft. The only thing that would make it seem to function like anything I've seen before were the rotors. And I couldn't even imagine how those could support such a bulky craft without adversly affecting my surroundings. Not a breeze was stirred up by the craft even as large as it appeared to be.

Witness Background:

Network Administrator for a company of about 120 employees. Some college but no accreditation except an MCSE. I have worked in mostly computer-related positions since college.

Views on UFOs, before and after sighting:

I would say I knew little if anything about UFOs prior to my sighting. I had probably seen a few tv shows or movies about martians and outer space but nothing like what I saw.

Other Comments:

Outside of the sighting itself the thing that puzzles me most is the duration. It appeared to only last minutes and when my mom returned from her meeting I was startled. I didn't expect her to return so soon and could only think she had come back immediately. When she said she had attended the whole meeting and then came back I couldn't figure how a few minutes on the swings plus a few minutes of watching the object would take up more than an hour. I have since then heard about abductions but I don't recall anything but standing there until she returned.

Children of Ezekiel: Aliens, UFOs,  the Crisis of Race, and the Advent of End Time

UFO and the Bible

Alien Worlds: Social and Religious Dimensions of Extraterrestrial Contact

Once Upon A Missing Time

07-02-2015 om 00:24 geschreven door peter  

UFO mania: Are these Alien Lightships

Remarkable photo taken during the Gemini flights.
The photo shows two remarkable objects, what appears to be UFOs.
Are these alien lightships? Or is it just a a classic burn. (The film sticks to itself sometimes during the development process and causes the emulsion to "burn" at the point the two layers are touching.)

Image Link: http://tothemoon.ser.asu.edu/data_g/G05/Unidentified/full/GT5-50603-039_G05-U_f.png

{ Publicada por UFO mania }

06-02-2015 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

Daily UFO Headlines 2/6/15

(Before It's News)

openminds.tv

• Video of UFO spotted above Loch Lomond – Aberdeen Press and Journal
• The Rendlesham UFO Incident review – found footage in the woods – The Guardian
• We can’t be alone in the universe – Northern Star
• ‘Daily Show’ writer brings political satire/alien-invasion story to Kickstarter – Comic Book Resources
• How NASA might discover whether alien life lies beneath icy Europa – Washington Post

The post Daily UFO Headlines 2/6/15 appeared first on Openminds.tv.

Source: http://www.openminds.tv/daily-ufo-headlines-2615/32119

06-02-2015 om 23:12 geschreven door peter  

06-02-2015 om 22:59 geschreven door peter  

06-02-2015 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

Documentary About UFO Sightings Throughout NWT Sets To Finish This Spring

Canadian filmmaker Raymond Yakeleya has not seen alien UFO but believes in extraterrestrial existence. Born in Tulita, a hamlet in the Sahtu Region of the Northwest Territories, Yakeleya plans to make a documentary regarding UFO sightings in the North.

N.W.T. has been flooded with reports of UFO sightings and encounters over the years, including one earlier in January 2015 in Fort Smith.

Yakeleya believes there’s a UFO connection and evidence in Dene legend. The legend tells the story on extraterrestrial visitations where the chief of their kind requested a Dene wife, which did happen.

He says that he often wondered about the legend, asking himself how it is possible that they have alien beings in their legends. Yakeleya firmly believes that their people don’t lie and don’t make any stories like that.

Yakeleya states that he can’t discount many stories from elders who reveal that they have seen UFOs on the area even though he has never experienced alien encounters.

He plans to call his film “UFOs, Aliens and First Nations.” Yakeleya thinks that it’s important to talk about alien sightings and abductions to understand these phenomena.

According to Yakeleya, he and other children in residential schools were hesitant to talk about their culture’s legends. Now, he wants to change it and hopes that people open up about their experiences.

Yakeleya hopes to finish his film this spring and currently working on finding drawings and some photos. He is filming in Albert at the moment and plans to visit the N.W.T. later this month.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

06-02-2015 om 22:42 geschreven door peter  

Coyne Helicopter Incident 

Mansfield, Ohio, United States

October 18, 1973

UFO Evidence

The Coyne case (or "Army helicopter incident") stands out as, perhaps  the most credible (in the "high strangeness" category) of the 1973 wave.  An Army Reserve helicopter crew of four men encountered a gray, metallic-looking, cigar-shaped object, with unusual lights and maneuvers, as they were airborne between Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio.

                      

Classification & Features

Type of Case/Report: MajorCase        
Hynek Classification: CE1        
Special Features/Characteristics: Pilot/Aircrew, Military         

Full Report / Article

Source: Jennie Zeidman, CUFOS       
[go to original source]                

        The Coyne case (or "Army helicopter incident") stands out as, perhaps  the most credible (in the "high strangeness" category) of the 1973 wave.  An Army Reserve helicopter crew of four men encountered a gray, metallic-looking, cigar-shaped object, with unusual lights and maneuvers, as they were airborne between Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio. The crew won the NATIONAL ENQUIRER Blue Ribbon Panel's $ 5,000 award for "the most scientifically valuable report of 1973."  

On October 18, 1973, at approximately 10:30 PM a UH-1H helicopter of the United States Army Reserve left Port Columbus, Ohio, for its home base of Cleveland Hopkins airport, ninety-six nautical miles to the north-northeast.  In command, in the right-front seat, was Captain Lawrence J. Coyne, thirty-six, with nineteen years of flying experience. At the controls, in the left-front seat, sat First Lieutenant Arrigo Jezzi, twenty-six, a chemical engineer.  Behind Jezzi sat Sergeant John Healey, thirty-five, a Cleveland policeman who was the flight medic, and Coyne was the Crew Chief, Sergeant Robert Yanacsek, twenty-three, a computer technician. The helicopter was cruising at 2,500 feet above sea level at an indicated airspeed of ninety knots, above mixed hills, woods, and rolling farmland, averaging 1,200 elevation.  The night was totally clear, calm, and starry.  The last quarter moon was just rising.  

About ten miles south of Mansfield, Healey noticed a single red light off to the west, flying south.  It seemed brighter than a standard aircraft port-wing light, but it was not considered relevant traffic, and he does not recall mentioning it. An estimated two minutes later, at approximately 11:02 PM, Yanacsek noted a single red light on the south-east horizon.  He assumed it was either a radio-tower beacon or an aircraft port-wing light - most likely an aircraft, since it was not flashing - and he watched it "for a long time, a minute to ninety seconds" before calling it to Coyne's  attention.  Coyne, smoking, relaxing, glanced  over, noted the light, assumed it was distant traffic, and told told Yanacsek casually to "keep an eye on it."  

After an estimated additional thirty seconds, Yanacsek announced that the light had turned toward the helicopter and appeared to be on a converging flight path. Coyne verified Yanacsek's assessment, grabbed the controls from Jezzi, and put the UH-1H into a powered descent of approximately 500 feet per minute.  Almost simultaneously, Coyne established radio contact with Mansfield control tower, ten miles to the northwest.  Coyne thought the flight was an Air National Guard F-100 from  Mansfield.  After an initial acknowledgment ("This is Mansfield Tower, go ahead Army 1-5-triple-4"), radio contact failed.  Jezzi then attempted transmission on both UHF and VHF frequencies without success. Although the channel and keying tones were both heard, there was no response from Mansfield; and a subsequent check by Coyne revealed that Mansfield had no tape of even the initial transmission, the the last F-100 had landed at 10:47 P.M.  

The red light continued its radial bearing and increased greatly in intensity.  Coyne increased his rate of descent to 2,000 feet per minute and his airspeed to 100 knots. The last altitude he noted was 1,700 feet. Just as a collision appeared imminent, the unknown light halted in its westward course and assumed a hovering relationship above and in front of the helicopter.  "It wasn't cruising, it was stopped.  For maybe ten to twelve seconds - just stopped,"  Yanacsek  reported. Coyne, Healey, and Yanacsek agree that a cigar-shaped, slightly domed object substended an angle of nearly the width of the front windshield. A featureless, gray, metallic-looking  structure was precisely delineated against the background stars. Yanacsek reported "a suggestion of windows" along the top dome section. The red light emanated from the bow, a white light became visible at a slightly indented stern, and then, from aft/below, a green 'pyramid shaped" beam equated to a directional spotlight became visible.  The green beam passed upward over the helicopter nose, swung up through the windshield, continued upward and entered the tinted upper  window panels.  At that point (and not before), the cockpit was enveloped in green light.  Jezzi reported only a bright white light, comparable to the leading light of a small aircraft, visible through the top "greenhouse' panels of the windshield.  After the estimated ten seconds of "hovering," the object began to accelerate off to the west, now with only the white "tail" light visible.  The white light maintained its intensity even as its distance appeared to increase, and finally (according to Coyne and Healey), it  appeared to execute a decisive 45 degree turn to the right, head out toward Lake Erie, and then "snap out" over the horizon.  Healey reported that he watched the object moving westward "for a couple of minutes." Jezzi said it moved faster than the 250-knot limit for aircraft below 10,000 feet, but not as fast as the 600-knot approach speed reported by the others.  There was no noise from the object or turbulence during the encounter, except for one "bump" as the object moved away to the west.  After the object had broken off its hovering relationship, Jezzi and Coyne noted that the magnetic compass disk was rotating approximately four times per minute and that the altimeter read approximately 3,500 feet; a 1,000 foot-per-minute climb was in progress.  Coyne insists that the collective was still bottomed from his  evasive descent.  Since the collective could not be lowered further, he had no alternative but to lift it, whatever the results, and after a few seconds of gingerly  maneuvering controls (during which the helicopter reached nearly 3,800 feet), positive  control was achieved.  By that time the white light had already moved into the Mansfield area.  Coyne had been subliminally aware of the climb; the others not at all, yet they had all been acutely aware of the g-forces of the dive.  The helicopter was brought back to the flight plan altitude of 2,500 feet, radio contact was achieved with Canton/Akron, the night proceeded uneventfully to Cleveland.  

Apparent ground witnesses to this event have been found by William E. Jones and  Warren Nicholson, independent UFO researchers from Columbus, Ohio.  

Mrs. E. C. and four adolescents were driving south from Mansfield to their rural home on October 18, 1973, at approximately 11 P.M., when they were attracted to a single steady bright red light. flying south "at medium altitude."  They watched for perhaps half a minute until it disappeared to the south over the trees.  

Approximately five minutes later, now driving east on Route 430, approaching the Charles Mill Reservoir, the family became aware of two bright lights - red and green - descending rapidly toward them from the southeast.  When first seen, the angular distance between the lights was about 2 degrees; the red light appeared to be leading. Mrs. C. pulled over to the shoulder of the deserted road and kept the engine and car lights running.  The lights - bigger than point sources - slowed and moved as a unit to the right of the car and the family became aware of yet another group of lights - some of these flashing - and "a beating sound, a lot of racket"  approaching from the southwest.  Two of the children (cousins, both age thirteen) jumped from the car and observed both a helicopter and the object, which they described as "like a blimp," "as big as a school bus," "sort of pear shaped."  The  object at that point subtended an angle equivalent to "a 100-mm cigarette box held at arm's length."  The object  assumed a hovering position over the helicopter, an estimated 500 feet back from the road and 500 feet above the trees. (The ground elevation at the site is almost exactly 1,000 feet above sea level; thus at the noted 1,700-foot altimeter reading, the helicopter was actually about 650 feet above the trees.)  The object's green light then flared up.  "It was like rays coming down," the witnesses said. The helicopter, the trees, the road, the car - everything turned green."  The kids scrambled with fright back into the car and Mrs. C. proceeded apace.  Their estimated total time outside the car was "about a minute."  Neither ground witnesses nor aircrew are sure at what point the two aircraft disengaged; the ground witnesses reported that the unidentified object crossed to the north side of the road behind the car, appeared to move eastward for a few seconds, then reversed its direction and climbed toward the northwest towards Mansfield - a flight path which correlates perfectly the motion of the object established through analysis of the aircrew's report.  

Any theory of the object's being a meteor (UFO skeptic Philip Klass maintains that the object was a "fireball of the Orionid meteor shower") can readily be rejected on the basis of:  (1) the duration of the event (an estimated 300 seconds); (2) the marked deceleration and hard-angle maneuver of the object at closest approach; (3) the precisely defined shape of the object; and (4) the horizon-to-horizon flight path.  

The possibility of a high-performance aircraft likewise is untenable when one examines the positions and colors of the lights with respect to the flight path of the object.  To have presented the reported configurations, and been in accordance with FAA regulations, an aircraft would have had to be flying sideways, either  standing on its tail, tail-to to the helicopter, or upside-down head-on.  Other arguments against aircraft hypothesis are:  (1) a fixed-wing aircraft moving across  the line of sight would appear to move most rapidly when passing directly in front of the observer; (2) a fixed-wing aircraft would not have the capability of decelerating from high velocity to "hover" within a few seconds time; (3) a helicopter would have the capability  of hovering, but would not be capable of the high forward speeds reported; (4) a conventional aircraft, if within 500 to 1,000 feet, would have produced noise audible inside the helicopter; (5) the FAA requires either a strobe or a rotating beacon on either the top or bottom of the fuselage, (6) FAA requires that no aircraft shall fly below 10,000 feet msl at  speeds above 250 knots; (7) some of the features of a conventional aircraft would have been seen, e.g., wings, engine pods, windows, empennage,  numbers, logo.  

Coyne reported that the Magnaflux/Zygio method of nondestructive testing was applied to the rotors the following day and that there was no indication that they had been subjected to fatigue-producing stresses.  Comparable times/distances/directions support the possibility that the red light first seen by the C. family, Healey's red light, and the object of the encounter were all one and the same.  Yanacsek's red light on the eastern horizon was under continuous observation and was unequivocally the object of the encounter.  

The case has maintained its high "strangeness-credibility" rating after extended investigation and analysis.  

Jennie Zeidman 
CUFOS 

Case ID: 104

{ ufoevidence.org }

06-02-2015 om 12:42 geschreven door peter  

UFO mania: Fisherman Records UFO Unexpected Encounter

This UFO was recorded In a remote area of Transnistria (also called Trans-Dniestr or Transdniestria) which is a breakaway state located mostly on a strip of land between the River Dniester and the eastern Moldovan border with Ukraine. The object was recorded in November, 2014 in a place where the witnesses say they love to fish. The UFO appears to be a light orb object and it was recorded by a fisherman while heading back home from a fishing trip. The video was being recorded on a phone, they reported that the smartphone battery dies when the video stops. At times you can see the UFO seemingly hovering, and at the end of the video, the UFO appears to speed up as it flies away from the motorboat. 

06-02-2015 om 12:30 geschreven door peter  

Le nombre estimé de planètes "habitables" dans notre galaxie devient vertigineux

Le nombre estimé de planètes "habitables" dans notre galaxie est encore revu à la hausse ©THE PICTURE DESK/AFP

Dans une nouvelle publication basée sur les dernières données récoltées par le télescope Kepler, des chercheurs estiment qu'elles se compteraient en "centaines de milliards". C'est bien plus que les dernière estimations.

En juin 2014, une équipe internationale de chercheurs estimait, à partir d'un "indice de complexité biologique" qu'il existait dans notre galaxie environ 100 millions de planète potentiellement habitables.

Les nouveaux calculs tablent désormais sur un chiffre 1000 fois plus élevé que cette précédente estimation, puisque les chercheurs de l'Australian National University (ANU) estiment désormais que les planètes "habitables" de notre galaxie pourrait désormais se compter en centaines de milliards.

Pour obtenir cet ordre de grandeur, les chercheurs se basent sur plusieurs éléments. Le premier est le nombre toujours plus important de planètes au delà de notre système solaire, en orbite autour d'autres étoiles. Le télescope spatial a en effet fêté en janvier 2015 la découverte de sa millième exoplanète. Ils constatent ensuite que les observations du télescope spatial Kepler comportent un biais puisque le télescope est particulièrement performant lorsqu'il s'agit de repérer les planètes relativement proches de leur étoile, mais l'est moins pour débusquer celles, plus nombreuses, qui gravitent un peu plus loin. Et notamment celles situées dans la zone "habitable" de leur étoile, c'est à dire une zone dans laquelle la quantité d'énergie reçue par la planète permet à l'eau d'exister sous forme liquide. De ce fait, l'équipe considère que le nombre d'exoplanètes estimé dans notre galaxie est bien plus important que ce que supposaient les études précédentes.

Enfin, ils basent une partie de leurs travaux sur la "loi de Titus-Bode". Une loi empirique uniquement basée sur l'observation et qui permet de prédire approximativement à quelle distance du soleil se calent chacune des orbites des planètes qui composent un système solaire. Une loi qui ne correspond à aucune théorie et qui ne peut être démontrée mathématiquement, mais qui a tout de même une valeur prédictive. Par exemple, elle a permis de déduire la période d'Uranus, ainsi que pour découvrir la planète naine Cérès, rappellent les chercheurs. 

Dans leurs travaux publiés dans la revue Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, ces derniers expliquent être partis d'un échantillon de systèmes planétaires découverts par Kepler, contenant au moins 3 planètes (soit 151 systèmes). Les mesures réalisées au sein de cet échantillon ont été extrapolées grâce à la loi de Titus-Bode de manière prédire la période de 228 planètes supplémentaires et de déduire, de manière statistique, qu'il se trouve, autour de chaque étoile, en moyenne deux planètes situées dans la zone habitable.

Zone habitable (en vert) autour d'une étoile. D'après les auteurs de l'étude, deux planètes en moyenne se trouvent dans cette zone par système solaire. © Australian National University

Dans notre système solaire, la Terre est située dans une telle zone et reçoit environ 1000 Watts par mètre carré d'énergie rayonnée par le soleil. Si l'on s'approche du soleil et que l'on dépasse Vénus, la quantité d'énergie reçue est trop importante et l'eau se vaporise. Si on s'en éloigne et que l'on dépasse Mars, alors l'eau n'existe plus que sous forme de glace. Or, seule l'eau liquide permet à la vie d'exister sous la forme que nous lui connaissons.

Ces conditions physico-chimiques sont un préalable indispensable à l'émergence de la vie. Toutefois, ce n'est pas parce qu'une planète répond à ces critères qu'elle abrite pour autant une vie extraterrestre.

"L'Univers n'est pas forcément rempli d'alien avec une intelligence semblable à la nôtre, capable de construire des radiotélescopes ou des vaisseaux spatiaux analyse Charley Lineweaver, l'un des auteurs de la publication. Si tel était le cas, nous aurions sans doute eu vent de leur existence. Il est possible qu'il y ait d'autres goulets d'étranglement à l'émergence de la vie, à moins que ces civilisations intelligentes n'aient évolué puis disparu" commente-t-il dans un article d'analyse.

{ http://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/ }

06-02-2015 om 12:03 geschreven door peter