Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
25-03-2016
Television News Catch Formidable Glimpse of Yet Another Floating City Over China
Television News Catch Formidable Glimpse of Yet Another Floating City Over China
Another floating city appeared over China, but this time it’s not over the clouds how you would have expected.
This bizarre phenomenon was seen over the sea at Port of Dalian, China, and contrary to the previous sightings, the city appears to be hovering over the sea instead of the clouds. The incredible view has been witnessed by many residence of the city including the Chinese news CCTV, who also recorded a crystal-clear shot of this rare apparition.
CCTV China stated the following in their report: “A stunning mirage depicting a group of buildings was seen above the sea along the port of Dalian in northeast China’s Liaoning Province on Friday. Seen from the land, it appears as though the buildings were looming in the fog, resembling a fairy city on the sea. Take a look at this splendid scene.”
So what could be the cause of this fantastic sighting? Is this a natural phenomenon, or rather a holographic image projected by a secret military institution known as ‘Project Blue-Beam’?
According to most analysts, the floating city is extremely likely to be a mirage also known as a ’Fata Morgana,’ an optical phenomenon named after Morgan le Fay, a powerful sorceress from King Arthur’s legends. A Fata Morgana can usually be seen on land or at sea, in polar regions or in deserts, and it can involve almost any type of distant object, including boats, pieces of land, and even bits of a city as seen in the above video and the previous cases.
Dailymail gave a brief explanation of how a Fata Morgana manifests: “This is a type of mirage that distort distance objects, and can be seen on land or sea. It’s caused when the sun heats up the atmosphere above the land or oceans, which creates a gradient of temperatures. The air close to the surface is relatively cool and above that are layers of warmer air.”
“When light hits a boundary between two layers of the atmosphere – and as a result different densities – it bends and travels at a different angle. Our brain assumes that light travels in a straight path, so when it bends, we think the object is where it would be if the light’s path runs straight.”
On the other hand, a more controversial explanation (but not impossible) is “The Blue Beam Project,” where the world elites will try to bring a new religion and implicit a new world order through computer-simulated holograms projected worldwide. It will make use of the sky as a holographic projection screen for space-based laser-generating satellites. These projectors will transpose simultaneous images to the four corners of the world, and in every language based on the region.
The system has apparently already been tested over remote areas of the desert where holographic projections of Christ had been witnessed. Project Blue Beam also involves computer-generated images of alien crafts, cryptids, aliens, angels and other otherworldly apparitions. The mysterious floating cities are also pointing towards this hypothesis, proving that this secret project, if it exists, has no boundaries or limitations in its holographic imagery.
The floating city from China’s Liaoning Province is the fourth apparition of this kind since 2011. There have been many similar sightings across the world, but since only tabloid publications reported them, they didn’t receive the required attention and have ultimately been debunked as fakes.
In a world where people are being slowly controlled through various means, it’s easy to understand how such a daring and futuristic plan will be accomplished by the elites. I do not deny the possibility of all these being just mirages, but since we’re living in the 21st century it’s likely that the technology evolved to such a point where Project Blue Beam is not a phantasmagorical concept anymore. You can find more insight into this project HERE.
Very little was known about UFO investigations in Russia and the republics of the former USSR during the communist era. UFOs were officially labeled “capitalist propaganda” in the 1950s and 1960s. A few scientists such as Professor Felix Zigel and Yuri Fomin documented UFO incidents, but their results were rarely published and circulated mostly in samizdat form. Ufology began to prosper in the early 1980s when “Commissions on Anomalous Phenomena” were established under the patronage of a few academicians.
Stories of secret military UFO investigations began to spread with glasnost, increasing with the break-up of the USSR. Retired military and intelligence officers were now speaking up and offering documents. One collection, covering a 10-year period of military UFO investigations between 1978 and 1988, was sold by its former director, Colonel Boris Sokolov, to American journalist George Knapp and to ABC News.124 In 1991, the Committee of State Security (KGB) declassified 124 pages of documents of “Cases of Observations of Anomalous Occurrences in the Territory of the USSR, 1982-1990,” covering a total of 17 regions.
Drawing by Ensign Voloshin of UFO with beam seen over a Russian missile base in Kapustin Yar in July 1989. (credit: Hesemann)
Reconstruction of the event published in the Moscow magazine Aura-Z. (credit: Hesemann)
KGB document on the Kapustin Yar case.
One of the most interesting cases in the KGB file is a multiple-witness CE-I (Close Encounter of the First Kind) at an army missile base in the district of Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan Region, on the night of July 28-29, 1989. The file is surely incomplete, but still offers an interesting glimpse into the maneuverability of UFOs.
The dossier consists of the depositions of seven military witnesses (two junior officers, a corporal and four privates) plus illustrations of the object by the observers, and a brief case summary by an unnamed KGB officer. (Neither the author nor the department are identified, but the document is at the beginning of the KGB file on the Kapustin Yar incident). It states in part:
“Military personnel of the signal center observed UFOs in the period from 22:12 hrs. to 23:55 hrs. on 28 July 1989. According to the witnesses’ reports, they observed three objects simultaneously, at a distance of 3-5 km. [2-3 mi.].”
A nearby base reported the UFO from 23.30 hrs. on July 28 until 1.30 hrs. on July 29. The report continues:
“After questioning the witnesses, it was determined that the reported characteristics of the observed UFOs are: disc 4-5 m. [13-17 ft.] diameter, with a half-sphere on top, which is lit brightly. It moved sometimes abruptly, but noiselessly, at times coming down and hovering over ground at an altitude of 20-60 m. [65-200 ft.]. The command of [censored] called for a fighter… but it was not able to see it in detail, because the UFO did not let the aircraft come near it, evading it. Atmospheric conditions were suitable for visual observations.”
The KGB file on the case is obviously incomplete, since there is no data on the jet scramble mission or whether ground or airborne radar detection was also reported. Nevertheless, the hand written descriptions by the seven witnesses from the signal center do provide interesting reading about the flight behavior exhibited by the UFOs.
The most detailed communication was submitted by the Officer-on-Duty, Ensign Valery N. Voloshin. A Captain from the telegraph center informed him at 23:20 hrs. that “an unidentified flying object, which he called a flying saucer, was hovering over the military unit for over an hour.” After confirming the sighting with the operation signal officer on duty, Ensign Voloshin and Private Tishchayev climbed the first part of an antenna tower. According to his deposition:
“One could clearly see a powerful blinking signal which resembled a camera flash in the night sky. The object flew over the unit’s logistics yard and moved in the direction of the rocket weapons depot, 300 meters [1,000 ft.] away. It hovered over the depot at a height of 20 meters [65 ft.]. The UFO’s hull shone with a dim green light which looked like phosphorous. It was a disc, 4 or 5 m. [13-17 ft.] in diameter, with a semispherical top.
“While the object was hovering over the depot, a bright beam appeared from the bottom of the disc, where the flash had been before, and made two or three circles, lighting the corner of one of the buildings… The movement of the beam lasted for several seconds, then the beam disappeared and the object, still flashing, moved in the direction of the railway station. After that, I observed the object hovering over the logistics yard, railway station and cement factory. Then it returned to the rocket weapons depot, and hovered over it at an altitude of 60-70 m. [200-240 ft.]. The object was observed from that time on, by the first guard-shift and its commander. At 1:30 hrs., the object flew in the direction of the city of Akhtubinsk and disappeared from sight. The flashes on the object were not periodical, I observed all this for exactly two hours: from 23:30 to 1:30.”
Private Tishcahayev essentially confirmed Ensign Voloshin’s testimony. The guard-shift of Corporal Levin and Privates Bashev, Kulik and Litvinov basically tell the same story. They were all alerted by 1st Lt. Klimenko and they all saw up to three UFOs performing fantastic acrobatics in the sky, such as:
“Suddenly, it flew in our direction. It approached fast and increased in size. It then like divided itself in three shining points and took the shape of a triangle. Then it changed course and went on flying in the same sector.”
“After veering, it began to approach us and its speed could be felt physically. (It swelled in front of our eyes). Its flight was strange: no aircraft could fly in this manner. It could instantly stop in the air (and there was an impression that it wobbled slightly up and down); it could float (exactly that: float, because the word ‘fly’ would not be adequate, it was as if the air was holding it, preventing it from falling).
At all times that I observed it, it was blinking, blinking without any order and constantly changing colors (red, blue, green, yellow). The point itself was not blinking but something above it.”
“Here is what I observed: there was a flying object, resembling an egg, but flatter. It shone brightly alternating green and red lights. This object gathered a great speed. It accelerated abruptly and also stopped abruptly, all the while doing large jumps up or down. Then appeared a second and then a third object. One object rose to low altitude and stopped. It stayed there in one place and was gone. Later a second object disappeared, and only one stayed. It moved constantly along the horizon. At times, it seemed it landed on the ground, then it rose again and moved.”
All the testimonies coincided with the appearance of a jet fighter attempting to intercept the UFOs. The fighter made a first pass above the object apparently without seeing it. Then, according to Lt. Klimenko’s deposition, “the airplane, which could be identified by its noise, approached the object, but the object disengaged so fast, that it seemed the plane stayed in one place.”
It is difficult to make a final evaluation of the Kapustin Yar CE-I, since no information about the scramble mission and possible radar tracking has been released by the KGB.
But the detailed testimony of seven military witnesses, who were familiar with rocket launches and various aircraft because of their post (Kapustin Yar is somewhat equivalent to the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico), appears to confirm the unusual flight characteristics and extraordinary maneuverability displayed by UFOs in many instances. Moreover, as in the SAC flap of 1975 and the Bentwaters affair in England in 1980, the UFOs seemed capable of “demonstrating a clear intent in the weapons storage area,” as described in a 1975 declassified teletype concerning Loring AFB in Maine.
One of the official milestones of Soviet/Russian ufology occurred less than a year later, as a result of a radar-visual and jet scramble incident on the Pereslavl-Zalesskiy region, east of Moscow, on the night of March 21, 1990. A statement issued by Colonel-General of Aviation Igor Maltsev, Chief of the Main Staff of the Air Defense Forces, was published in the newspaper Rabochaya Tribuna. Unit commanders compiled “more than 100 visual observations” and passed them on to Gen. Maltsev, who stated:
“I am not a specialist on UFOs and therefore I can only correlate the data and express my own supposition. According to the evidence of these eyewitnesses, the UFO is a disc with a diameter from 100 to 200 meters [320 to 650 feet]. Two pulsating lights were positioned on its sides… Moreover, the object rotated around its axis and performed an ‘S-turn’ flight both in the horizontal and vertical planes. Next, the UFO hovered over the ground and then flew with a speed exceeding that of the modern jet fighter by 2 or 3 times… The objects flew at altitudes ranging from 100 to 7,000 m. [300 to 24,000 ft.]. The movement of the UFOs was not accompanied by sound of any kind, and was distinguished by its startling maneuverability. It seemed the UFOs were completely devoid of inertia. In other words, they had somehow ‘come to terms’ with gravity. At the present time, terrestrial machines could hardly have any such capabilities.”
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Op jacht naar een mysterieuze planeet: Wetenschappers speuren aan de rand van ons zonnestelsel naar Planeet X
Op jacht naar een mysterieuze planeet: Wetenschappers speuren aan de rand van ons zonnestelsel naar Planeet X
Astronoom Scott Sheppard (40), verbonden aan het Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington DC, speurt naar verre objecten in ons zonnestelsel. Eén van die objecten is mogelijk de mysterieuze Planeet X. Dat schrijft Nature.
Sterrenkundigen hebben meer dan 2000 exoplaneten rond andere sterren ontdekt, meestal door middel van indirecte methodes die veranderingen in het sterlicht detecteren. Toch weten we relatief weinig over de buitenste regionen van ons eigen zonnestelsel. De technieken die worden gebruikt om exoplaneten te vinden, werken niet in onze eigen stellaire omgeving.
Sheppard zoekt met een aantal collega’s naar werelden die achter Pluto zouden staan. Theorieën over Planeet X bestaan al meer dan 100 jaar. In 2014 stelde Sheppard dat de omloopbaan van extreem verre objecten wordt beïnvloed door een groot hemellichaam. In januari berekenden twee astronomen van Caltech waar deze planeet, die ze ‘Planeet Negen’ noemden, zich mogelijk bevindt.
Herder
Scott Sheppard (CIS)
Verschillende wetenschappers zijn nu op jacht naar Planeet Negen of andere superaardes die nog niet ontdekt zijn. “Als zo’n groot object echt blijkt te bestaan, verandert onze perceptie van het zonnestelsel,” zei Sheppard.
Toen Sheppard en zijn collega Chad Trujillo van de Gemini Observatory op Hawaï hun zoektocht begonnen, hoopten ze in de voetsporen te treden van andere legendarische astronomen. In 1846 ontdekte Johann Galle Neptunus, de achtste planeet, en in 1930 vond astronoom Clyde Tombaugh Pluto.
Op basis van de omloopbanen van planetoïden 2012 VP113 en Sedna concludeerden Sheppard en Trujillo dat op zo’n 250 AE (astronomische eenheden) een onbekende superaarde staat. Konstantin Batygin en Mike Brown van Caltech argumenteren dat deze onbekende planeet de verre objecten als een soort herder bijeen drijft. Ze berekenden dat de planeet vijf tot 10 keer zo zwaar moet zijn dan de aarde en op 200 tot 1200 AE staat.
Speld in een hooiberg
Lopende projecten, zoals de Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) en de Cassini-missie, kunnen helpen bij de zoektocht. Renu Malhotra van de Universiteit van Arizona in Tucson en haar collega’s hebben objecten in de Kuipergordel onderzocht en suggereren dat de onbekende planeet iedere 17.000 jaar om de zon draait.
“Het is nog erger dan het zoeken naar een speld in een hooiberg,” zei Malhotra. “Het is alsof je zoekt naar een afgebroken speldenknop in een hooiberg.”
Als Planeet X bestaat weten we dat de omloopbanen van Sedna en 2012 VP113 niet vaststonden, maar tot op de dag van vandaag worden beïnvloed. Theoretici zouden dan met nieuwe ideeën moeten komen over de manier waarop de vele werelden in het zonnestelsel met elkaar interacteren.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has revealed marvelous sights on dwarf planet Ceres during its first year in orbit, including the mysterious bright spots in the Occator Crater.
The Occator Crater, measuring 57 miles (92 kilometers) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, contains the brightest area on Ceres, the dwarf planet that Dawn has explored since early 2015.
What stands out is a strange spot next to the crater. The object in the spot appears to have a rectangular structure with in the middle something that looks like it has been artificially created, like a dome on top of the structure. (See images).
The video below shows the latest amazing images taken from 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface of Ceres including the mysterious bright spots in the Occator crater.
Triangle-shaped craft in the sky above Arroyo Grande, California 24-Mar-2016
Triangle-shaped craft in the sky above Arroyo Grande, California 24-Mar-2016
Check out this interesting video of a triangular-shaped UFO with a flashing lights. This was seen and recorded over Arroyo Grande, a city in San Luis Obispo County, California on 24th March 2016.
Witness report:I live out in the country there’s a large eucalyptus trees all around I’ve seen these trees many times before and never noticed any flashing lights I was on my deck taking my laundry downstairs to do it and noticed two blue flashing lights I got closer and I noticed two red flashing lights in my line of sight there was one blue light at 12 o’clock one at 6 o’clock when I got closer underneath the tree I saw one red light at 12 o’clock and one red light at 6 o’clock The blue lights one on top was flashing the bottom was not both red lights where not flashing. I thought to myself it might be a drone that landed in the treetop or possibly a bird nested with something that was making these lights. I watch these objects for three hours from 7 PM to 10:30 PM March 24, 2016 about 10:26 they disappeared and it’s now 11:19 and still looking out for the lights I will continue As a follower of Mufon I understand and believe in this to be fact and I’m alway on the lookout for such. I attached some videos that I took with my cell phone I apologize for the swearing
UFO crossing the Chem Trail over Mudgee, Australia 23-Mar-2016
UFO crossing the Chem Trail over Mudgee, Australia 23-Mar-2016
This new footage of a fast unidentified flying object was seen and recorded in the sky above Mudgee, a town in the central west of New South Wales, Australia. This happened on 23rd March 2016.
Green Aurora Lights Up the Minnesota Night in Skywatcher Photo
Green Aurora Lights Up the Minnesota Night in Skywatcher Photo
By Nina Sen, Space.com Contributo
Capturing this stunning aurora took only a night’s patience for astrophotographer Matthew Moses. Moses took this image from Brighton Beach along the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota on March 6, 2016.
Capturing this stunning aurora took only a night's patience for one Minnesota-based astrophotographer.
Photographer Matthew Moses took this image from Brighton Beach along the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota on March 6.
"I knew the aurora display had been active across Europe all day and just had to wait until it got dark enough in Northern Minnesota to get out and try to get photos," he wrote in an email to Space.com. [Poll: What's the Most Amazing Skywatching Sight?]
Auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun (the solar wind) that interact with the Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 50 miles, or 80 km), causing a glow. The particles are drawn to Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field resulting in aurora borealis, or northern lights, and its southern counterpart the aurora australis, or southern lights.
For Moses, auroras are just something he's grown fond of capturing on camera.
"I just enjoy the views of the night sky," he wrote. "I'm a regular aurora chaser when we have potential for a display."
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, send images and comments in to spacephotos@space.com.
Rolls-Royce has released their vision of the future of shipping, which will see the continued evolution of that ongoing trend toward automation and “unmanned autonomy.”
Image credit: Rolls-Royce
SAILING INTO THE FUTURE
On Tuesday, Rolls-Royce—a name that is more famous for luxury cars than maritime contributions—rolled out a slick new video detailing a number of projected innovations in containerized shipping. The company hopes to someday make these innovations a reality, and if they do, it will mean a revolution in the way we ship goods across the seas.
In the film and pictures released by the company, we see a team of impossibly good-looking young coffee-drinking model types going about the business of controlling and monitoring seagoing vessels from the comfort of a shore-based, remote operations center—what Rolls-Royce calls the “oX operator experience concept.”
Check it out in the video below:
The goal for Rolls-Royce is to incrementally evolve their “ship intelligence” program, by developing increased ship-to-shore connectivity, automating as much of ship operations as is safely possible, and eventually (in the longer term) creating a fleet of autonomous ships.
OVERSEAS TRADE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The research—which was undertaken as a collaboration between Rolls-Royce, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and the Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction (TAUCHI)—seeks not to replace human operators altogether, but to streamline containerized shipping, reduce unnecessary personnel, and just generally make the process that much better.
“We’re living in an ever-changing world where unmanned and remote-controlled transportation systems will become a common feature of human life,” observes Iiro Lindborg, general manager at Rolls-Royce for Remote and Autonomous Operations.
“They offer unprecedented flexibility and operational efficiency. Our research aims to understand the human factors involved in monitoring and operating ships remotely. It identifies ways crews ashore can use tools to get a realistic feel for what is happening at sea.”
Safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness are the cornerstones of Rolls-Royce’s vision for the future—it will mean circumventing piracy, reducing the costs of training and maintaining crews, and automating containerized shipping from loading and unloading containers at the docks, to drone ship transportation on the open seas, and even guiding vessels into harbor.
But it means another nail in the coffin of that old-time romance of the seas.
A glimpse of a remote operations center of the future. Credit: Rolls-Royce
London to NY in 3 Hours: Boom & Virgin Set to Make Supersonic Planes a Reality
London to NY in 3 Hours: Boom & Virgin Set to Make Supersonic Planes a Reality
IN BRIEF
With all these major partners already in place and ready to lend a hand to make Boom's vision a reality, we could soon be travelling from New York to London in record time.
BOOM
As far as startups go, Boom’s vision is pretty out there. They don’t intend to build a new app or create the newest social media craze—they’re building planes. And not just any ordinary plane—fast ones.
Boom’s plan is to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that can shuttle people from New York to London in just 3 and a half hours, or San Francisco to Tokyo in four and a half hours.
Does it seem like the start up is over reaching? Maybe. At this point, the company is still in the very early stages of achieving this goal, which could arguably be one of the most ambitious design projects for a passenger aircraft...ever. Right now, Boom is still working on designing the first prototype, eying late 2017 to start testing it out.
Image Credit: Boom
POSSIBILITY
Yet, in spite of how elaborate and complex the development of this advanced tech might seem to be, it’s worth noting that the team behind Boom might actually have the talent to see this project through. Its team is composed of employees who once worked with NASA, Lockheed, and Boeing. This team has been part of a host of prestigious aircraft projects, such as the autopilot system on the 787, the development of fighter plane engines, and even the flight dynamics on SpaceshipTwo.
In addition, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group just announced their involvement in the project.
In an announcement made by Boom, Virgin has apparently optioned 10 planes—a deal valued at $2 billion. This is on top of the 15 planes optioned by another European carrier that has yet to be announced, adding up to a total of $5 billion optioned planes.
Best Evidence of UFOs Hovering Over Sao Paolo, Brazil
Best Evidence of UFOs Hovering Over Sao Paolo, Brazil
Brazil has been a hotbed for UFO sightings ever since the 1900s, and there are numerous reports highlighting their presence, either through video footage, testimonies and even objects detected on ground radars and pursued by the military.
A group of UFOs was filmed over Sao Paolo, Brazil, in August, 2014. The objects are hovering over a populated area of the city, changing altitude and performing a few brisk turns; they vary in size and have an unusual glow that’s making them visible throughout the night sky. All of them appear to slowly pulsate and are ‘playing’ above the city undisturbed by the fact that locals could be filming them.
After a couple of minutes, the unidentified objects descend upon the ground with haste, making them unlikely to be helicopters or drone devices. So are these UFOs extraterrestrial in nature? What earthly device could otherwise imitate their performance?
While skeptics consider them to be drones, their bizarre characteristics make them likely to be otherworldly in nature. Many countries admitted and declassified their UFO files, indicating that this phenomenon is real, but it either remains unexplained or partially classified, the reasons for it being debatable. The flying objects from the video above could be organic in nature because of the complex moves they execute, but there is also the possibility of them being artificial crafts. After all, there are numerous cases of such objects detected by the ground radars, or even pursued by military jets or helicopters.
Brazil, where the above sighting occurred, has other documented cases involving UFO presence on ground radar. On May 19, 1986, a wave of unidentified flying objects appeared over the country and the Brazilian air-force had to send a few jets to inspect the anomaly caught by the radar. Here is what the Brazilian Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Octavio Moreira Lima had to say about it:
“At least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn’t have optical illusions. We can only give technical explanations and we don’t have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It’s very remote and it’s not the case here in Brazil. It’s fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear.”
If the objects appear on radar clearly points towards their artificial nature, and since this incident happened back in the 80s, a drone scenario remains highly unlikely. But are there any reports of downed or captured UFOs? The official information we have at our disposal only shows a distant perspective of the UFOs, and there are no reports of recovered crafts either, but there is no denial the phenomenon is real.
Another case from 2014 shows how a flying device is chased by a Black Hawk helicopter belonging to the Aguadilla Cost Guard across the airport and all the way to the ocean, where the speeding craft descends into the water unaffected by the hydrodynamic forces. Judging by these intriguing reports, it’s logical to assume that alien technology, if this is the case, is far more advanced than what we have at our disposal, thus making their pursuit a rather complicated if not impossible task.
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Packers Quarterback Shares His Close Encounter of the First Kind
Packers Quarterback Shares His Close Encounter of the First Kind
Aaron Rodgers was the first-round pick in 2005, but he has another first – a weird one. The Packers quarterback had a mysterious incident known as Close Encounter of the First Kind. Rodgers recalled the strange event recently on the You Made it Weird podcast with comedian Pete Holmes.
The UFO sighting apparently took place in February 2005, the night before the football player was to make an appearance on Cold Pizza, now First Take, of ESPN. The former Cal quarterback went to the East Coast for the interview and stayed with the family of former Cal teammate Steve Levy while he was there.
Rodgers, together with Steve and family, were winding down at dinner. All of a sudden, they heard a strange siren in the distance, so they went outside to check that out. Rodgers described the night as snowy and bright. The next thing that happened was the appearance of a strange object in the sky. The Packers quarterback was fully convinced he spotted a UFO.
He went on to describe the object. According to him, it was a large orange, left-to-right-moving UFO. While it is hard to make out because of the overcast nature of the night, the snow and it was behind the clouds when they saw it; Rodgers was nearly sure it was large in the evening sky, moving from left to right.
The encounter apparently took place at around 12:30 a.m. and Rodgers, Steve, and his brother witnessed it – a total of three witnesses.
Rodgers said that the object remained on their sights for about 30 seconds, but it was like five minutes to them. They were all got shocked, said Rodgers. The group then apparently heard about four fighter jets flying above them, and they knew they were fighter jets because of their sound.
It has been 11 years since it happened, but Rodgers clearly remembered they heard an alarm from 30 miles away, and later realized it was from a nuclear power plant that had its alarm went off. The Packers quarterback did not want to share his UFO story at first, probably afraid to be ridiculed, but after he had started to tell about it, it was like the moment he clearly remembered, even though it has been more than a decade since it transpired.
Rodgers started talking about his Close Encounter of the First Kind around 14:40 mark in the two-hour podcast.
*MUST SEE* Triangle UFO over Sumter, South Carolina 23-Mar-2016
*MUST SEE* Triangle UFO over Sumter, South Carolina 23-Mar-2016
TR-3B over Sumter?
Check out this amazing video of a possible TR-3B craft flying across the sky above Sumter, the county seat of Sumter County, South Carolina. This was filmed on 23rd March 2016.
Witness report:I was out in my backyard with a fire due to the nice weather. Looking at the stars and satellites. Noticed triangle shaped object, no sound, white constant lights in corners and red strobe in center that pulsated. Tried to figure out what type of aircraft but no sound and no wings, etc. Just dark triangle shape that creeped along. Went and got wife to look so that I wouldn’t be the only one to see it. I looked to be about 3000 feet in altitude and traveled 210 course then 40 minutes later came back reverse course 030. I was ready for the return and got footage with phone and night vision I use for hunting coyotes. I live next to an Air Force Base and use to seeing aircraft. This was different and hope others saw it tonight.
Ancient Egyptian Glyphs Found in Australia Could Rewrite History!
Until receiving a phone call from Nina Angelo (OAM), I knew nothing of neither the struggles involved in protecting the land around Kariong (near Gosford) nor that part of this land was now on the market. When on-site I had seen a lot of tagged trees, and a for sale sign somewhere along a main road, but being unfamiliar with the whole region, nothing registered.
The land for sale contains the Gosford Glyphs, located near Kariong, about 60 km north of Sydney. This site features little known carved ‘ancient Egyptian’ hieroglyphs that were brought to light by various researchers in past decades.
We are convinced that close to this site, and never before seen by non-Aboriginals until discovered very recently, is a rock platform covered with a set of sacred engravings of considerable significance. On this large platform we saw a fish, serpent, massive dolphin or whale, circles and a variety of shapes and symbols.
Without doubt, it is an impressive gallery of ancient Aboriginal rock art deserving of protection. There is one life-sized engraving of Durramullan (son of Creation Spirit Biamie) that is so unique, utterly unexpected, and obviously sacred, decisions had to be made as to how it can be publicly described.
There is nothing remotely like it anywhere in Australia. And that’s it.
That is all we have agreed to reveal. The photographs taken late in the afternoon on this site, and in particular those of Durramullan, should never be reproduced or published through any form of the media but…
Owing to the real possibility this land, irrespective of the credentials for or against the Gosford Glyphs, could be sold then developed, a different approach is compulsory.
It has been our agreed stance to categorise all the sites/relics we are sharing as being ‘found within 2 hours of Sydney’, but that generalised approach doesn’t apply in this location. Those engravings, and other related platforms (one is actually located within this block) are now directly under threat.
The distance between this unique site and that of the Gosford Glyphs is far too close for coincidence or comfort. As to determining the bona fides of this supposed Egyptian site, we have one advantage. According to Dr. Hans-Dieter von Senff, who has produced a draft paper on the site:
These Hieroglyphs are real and have existed for some 4,500 years in Australia. In order to prove that these Proto-Egyptian glyphs are not graffiti, as claimed by various “Experts” and “Egyptologists,” but are the written record left by pre-historic man, written in a coherent and understandable language that makes sense even 4,500 years later. This site is no hoax, but a genuine archaeological discovery; as is proven by the newly discovered second set of glyphs.
The critics who dispute the origin of these engravings numbering over 300 are not sensitive to the bigger picture, and if proven to be engraved by Egyptians, these glyphs form a pivotal and historic epitaph to an Australian history very few suspect.
The engravings were first properly translated by Ray Johnson, claimed to be proto-Egyptian and accepted “as correct by the General Director of Cairo Museum, Dr. Dia’ Abou-Ghazi.” [1]
However, despite the endorsement of the resident expert in Cairo, Australian academics with less impressive credentials are adamant this is an elaborate hoax.
The site includes an engraved Ankh (see image above courtesy of Steve Strong), an essential accompaniment to Thoth, placed alongside an Ibis footprint (Thoth’s recent animal counterpart) and what we believe to be the ‘River of Life’. Two Ibis-men engraved into rock, both in profile with the head of an ibis and body of a human, seem to resonate to the same ancient Egyptian theme.
What really surprised us was that not only are the ibis and Thoth synonymous, but originally Thoth was depicted in ape-form. And it is this more ancient representation that is found twice in Australia, extending the horizons considerably.
A statue found at Gympie, said to act as one of five sentries guarding the controversial seven-stepped pyramid at Gympie, is a depiction of Thoth in his more primal ape-like form and has been argued over and often ridiculed.
The recent discovery of an engraving of Durramullan, again in profile, is less open to debate. The pronounced long forehead and protruding lips is reminiscent of a baboon or one of the larger apes, and so out of context when carved into a continent lacking ape or monkey.
The engraving is ancient, carved by an artist aware of an African animal and Egyptian deity supposedly unknown until the British invasion. In what only adds to the quality and quantity of this cross-cultural partnership, there are two sets of Aboriginal engravings, one containing 31 separate and distinct human characters and the other five figures, of which three have human bodies and what appears to be crocodile heads.
It is for these reasons, and many others, we are in complete agreement with Robert Lawlor, author of the highly regarded Voices of the First Day, when noting the same origin and sequence.
“The Egyptian religious practices, zoomorphic pantheon of gods, concepts of death and rebirth, sorcery, magic and medicine all have their origins in the primal culture of the First Day.” [2]
We see the presence of Egyptians in Australia beginning at around 5,000 years ago, entirely in keeping with a global history that saw, for a variety of reasons too complex to discuss now, the Australian Aboriginal mariners and explorers finally return to Australia at around the same time.
We believe the glyphs and other Egyptian remains found ‘within two hours of Sydney’ bear testimony to a spiritual sabbatical to the place where Egyptian religion and culture began.
That the Gosford Glyphs are so close to the sacred Durramullan site suggests an agreement between the first Australians and people from a distant continent. The Durramullan platform is undeniably special, and the Glyphs are an integral part of this arrangement, unique not only in Australia but the world.
The Egyptian crypt and engravings, dedicated to the memory of the son of a Pharaoh, was constructed close to the Durramullan rock platform and could only be created with the consent of the local Aboriginals.
Of course, if Australian Aboriginals did sail the globe in ancient times this journey is dependent upon ocean-going boats being constructed in Australia. Up at the Top End there are many engravings and paintings of boats which are mistakenly claimed to be inspired by Maccassan boats fishing for trepan.
No such claims can be made for the engraving of an ocean-going boat found in the northern section of the Gosford site. The boat’s design, with a steep prow and stern, has one primary function: to sail through large waves.
It would be a waste of time, effort and resources to construct a boat according to the shape and proportions engraved into the rock, if the vessel sailed in stiller waters. More importantly, this engraving goes a long way towards establishing the claims made by Ramindjeri Elders.
If indeed, as they insist, their ancestors circumnavigated the globe in a figure eight then this sophisticated design would serve that purpose.
That engraving and the Ramindjeri account provide answers to a series of unresolved questions that mainstream academia are unable to appreciate. The presence of Australian Aboriginal people in America was the focus of Issue 35 of the highly respected science magazine Cosmos.
The front cover carried the following caption:
“Did Aborigines discover America? Startling new finds suggest Australia’s first people made it all the way to South America more than 11,000 years ago.” [3]
Of course, America was merely one port-of-call when the First Australians set sail.
“Dr. Raghavendra and researchers from the Indian-government backed Anthropological Survey of India project found unique genetic mutations were shared between modern-day Indians and Aborigines.” [4]
They “identified seven people from central Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tribes who shared genetic traits only found in Aborigines.” [5]
These facts, along with newly discovered Australian genetic links to a hominid in Siberia referred to as Denosovan, necessitate the same means of transport: a boat.
However, the plan of a boat is insufficient. Also required are both the tools needed to construct such a vessel and navigational skills before sailing to India, America, Asia, Egypt or any other destination. An axe is an essential prerequisite if building a vessel capable of sailing across oceans.
In keeping with all other firsts, it should come as no surprise that the oldest axes yet found are located within Sahul (the greater Australian continent which includes PNG, Tasmania, etc).
The oldest axe was found at Huon Terrace (PNG) and is dated at 40,000 years, followed by an axe found in Jawoyn land (N.T.) claimed to be 35,500 years old. Remaining within Australia, an axe was discovered at Sandy Creek (QLD 32,000 years) and another at Malangangerr (N.T. 23,000 years).
In what confirms the antiquity of Australian axe technology, and by association boats, Angel John Gallard has in his possession a hand-held chopper (the precursor to the axe) which he believes to be no less than 60,000 years old, with the real possibility it is over 100,000 years old. The oldest axe discovered outside Australia was found at Niah Cave (Sarawak) and is thought to be 15,500 years old.
For such an epic journey to succeed, especially if circumnavigating the world in a figure eight, Aboriginal mariners must have navigated by the stars. Once again it all begins here. As announced by a team of scientists from the CSIRO, the oldest astronomical construction was found at Wurdi Youang (Victoria). “The strange stone arrangement” has “two points set in perfect alignment with the setting sun on a midsummer’s day.” [6], [7]
CSIRO experts are of the opinion the “ancient Aboriginal sundial could be upwards of 10,000 years old.” [8]
Nor do these rocks stand in isolation – there are two sets of walls recently found in the Snowy Mountains, the first is aligned east-west, marking out the conjunction of planets and contains no less than 10,000 rocks. The second is at least four times bigger and runs down an extremely steep slope.
Within ‘two hours from Sydney’ is a perfectly aligned five-rocked compass and another construction that is far more enigmatic, which for obvious reasons, we call ‘mini-Stonehenge’. It is made up of 46 stones in the inner circle and 18 rocks forming what we feel are clusters of stars.
The four directions are marked out by arches with a horizontal stone supported by stone pillars. All four constructions, although separated by hundreds of kilometres, serve the same purpose: charting the heavens.
There is one pattern exhibited by these sites that seems to openly contradict an artistic maxim we assumed held fast throughout Australia. It was our belief that traditional Aboriginal art was region specific. Within this area we have found over 25 styles/techniques, many of which are claimed to be created in one tribal estate.
We found evidence of the following Aboriginal artistic styles: Panaramitee; X-Ray; Figurative; Mimi; Lightning Brothers; Wandjina; Papunya; Hand stencils (two types); Representational; Rock engraving; Rock Pecking; Stone Arrangements; Bands across the body; Egyptian symbols; Bird prints; Engraved shield design (found throughout Australia); Profiled spirits; and others we could not identify.
Where does that leave us? Relying on textbooks and academics ‘dazed and confused’… Or there is an alternative route. We are convinced the First Australians are completely separate to the Africans and were the first homo sapien sapiens.
It was from Australia, not Africa, the first migration originated, and it is from Australia that religion, gender equality, astronomy, burials, sailing, music, art, democracy and all the nobler pursuits began.
And it is in Australia, in particular the area ‘within 2 hours from Sydney’, that proof of this global legacy can still be found.
With so many stars in the universe, science suggests we may not be alone
20th Century Fox
In "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a remake of the 1951 science-fiction classic, an alien named Klaatu (played by Keanu Reeves, right) visits Earth to save us humans from ourselves. The story is a work of science fiction, with the emphasis on fiction, says Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute and a technical adviser on the film. For example, to be able to detect a dangerous buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and come save us from global warming, an alien that could travel at light speed would have to reside no more than about 50 light-years away. "I doubt that there are any aliens that close," Shostak says. And even if there are, "they might not care about our problems."
Scientific accuracy aside, Shostak says the film could hook a new generation on space science, just as the original film helped direct his career, which is dedicated to the search for E.T. As kids stumble out of the theater, they might ask, do aliens exist?
Click the "Next" arrow above to explore the evidence, from the scientifically plausible to the incredible.
With so many stars, alien life is probable
NASA
Shostak notes that there is no direct proof for any life beyond Earth, but the universe is home to a lot of stars. And as research over the past decade has shown, perhaps at least 50 percent of those stars harbor planets. Shostak estimates there are 1 trillion planets in the Milky Way alone. "Surely some of them have undergone what Earth has undergone and developed life, and eventually what we call sentient life," he says. The argument, he notes, is simply one of probability. "If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, or for that matter in the universe, then we are truly a miracle," he says. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a cluster of young stars in the Milky Way.
Water worlds abound in our solar system
NASA/jpl/space Science Institute
Water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. And liquid water, it turns out, is fairly common in our local solar system. For example, evidence is mounting that liquid water may flow underneath the surface of Mars. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, appears to have a liquid ocean. So too might the Jovian moons Callisto and Ganymede. Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus, shown here, may be watery. Even Venus might have a bit of liquid water in its atmosphere. "There you already have seven other worlds that might have liquid water, just in our backyard. So that's kind of encouraging news," Shostak says.
Life evolved 'quickly' on Earth
Abigail Allwood
Scientists estimate that planet Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The earliest evidence for life comes from 3.4 billion-year-old mats of bacteria called stromatolites in Australia. Since even bacteria are biologically complex, scientists think they arose from life forms that got a foothold on Earth even earlier. "That suggests it wasn't terribly improbable, the evolution of life, because it happened very quickly," Shostak says. The caveat, of course, is that Earth could have won the evolutionary equivalent of the lottery, and no place else is quite so lucky.
Life thrives in extreme environments
G. Wanger / JCVI / G. Southam /
Almost everywhere scientists go on Earth, they find life: the cold, dark depths of the oceans; snuggled up to piping-hot hydrothermal vents; buried under the Antarctic ice; and in South America's parched Atacama Desert. "Life can adapt to really tough conditions and, of course, most of the universe is going to be filled with habitats that are tough," Shostak says. For example, Mars is a harsh environment, but some of the microbes found on Earth, including the one shown here found deep in a mine, could survive beneath the surface of the Red Planet, he notes. These findings of so-called extremophiles have allowed scientists to scale back their list of requirements for extraterrestrial life. "We just say it has to have some liquid water, and maybe that's it," Shostak says.
E.T. might be calling from afar
Courtesy of Jerry Ehman / Bigear
Shostak and his colleagues at the SETI Institute frequently harness some of the world's largest radio telescopes to home in on distant stars for a telltale signal of alien communications. Although their searches have raised a few alarms, the signals have been dismissed as human-caused interference, such as noise from a passing satellite. Contact remains elusive. Undaunted, the scientists keep searching. Meanwhile, a signal detected on Aug. 15, 1977, during a search with Ohio State University's Big Ear Observatory, continues to pique interest because it has never been explained. "It was impressive enough to encourage the astronomer who found it to write 'Wow!' on the printout," says Shostak. Follow-up experiments to detect it again, however, have failed. "You can say it was E.T. and then he went off the air. You may never know," Shostak says. "But it is not science to say it was E.T."
Some see evidence that 'aliens' have visited
Justin Norton / AP
Somewhere around half the people in the U.S. believe that aliens have already visited us. To back their claims, witnesses have presented snapshots of flying saucers and debris from crash landings. None of the evidence, however, convinces Shostak. Nor does he buy into theories that the world's governments are coordinated and efficient enough to collectively keep what would be the world's biggest secret. "That's hard for me to believe," he says. Such doubt does little to stop the tide of tourists coming to places such as Roswell, N.M., the site of a purported UFO crash more than 60 years ago. This fake alien at a museum is a commonly photographed attraction.
Sumer, or the ‘land of civilized kings’, flourished in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, around 4500 BC. Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods. According to the ancient texts, each Sumerian city was guarded by its own god; and while humans and gods used to live together, the humans were servants to the gods.
The Sumerian creation myth can be found on a tablet in Nippur, an ancient Mesopotamian city founded in approximately 5000 BC.
The creation of Earth (Enuma Elish) according to the Sumerian tablets begins like this:
When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, And the primeval Apsu, who begat them, And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both Their waters were mingled together, And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; When of the gods none had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained; Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven, Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being…
Sumerian mythology claims that, in the beginning, human-like gods ruled over Earth. When they came to the Earth, there was much work to be done and these gods toiled the soil, digging to make it habitable and mining its minerals.
The texts mention that at some point the gods mutinied against their labour.
When the gods like men Bore the work and suffered the toll The toil of the gods was great, The work was heavy, the distress was much.
Anu, the god of gods, agreed that their labour was too great. His son Enki, or Ea, proposed to create man to bear the labour, and so, with the help of his half-sister Ninki, he did. A god was put to death, and his body and blood was mixed with clay. From that material the first human being was created, in likeness to the gods.
You have slaughtered a god together With his personality I have removed your heavy work I have imposed your toil on man. … In the clay, god and man Shall be bound, To a unity brought together; So that to the end of days The Flesh and the Soul Which in a god have ripened – That soul in a blood-kinship be bound.
This first man was created in Eden, a Sumerian word which means ‘flat terrain’. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Eden is mentioned as the garden of the gods and is located somewhere in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Sumerian tablet depicting Enki in the creation myth. (world-myth.com)
Initially human beings were unable to reproduce on their own, but were later modified with the help of Enki and Ninki. Thus, Adapa was created as a fully functional and independent human being.
ExoMars: Inside Europe's Quest to Land a Rover on the Red Planet
ExoMars: Inside Europe's Quest to Land a Rover on the Red Planet
By Megan Gannon, Space.com Contributor
An artist's illustration of the ExoMars 2018 rover on the surface of the Red Planet.
Credit: ESA
DARMSTADT, Germany—The successful launch of Europe's first ExoMars mission last week set the stage for a much more ambitious second act: arover landing on the Red Planet. But the timing on that mission may not be so certain.
On March 14, the European Space Agency (ESA) and its Russian partners launched the ExoMars 2016 mission, an orbiter and lander that serve as a precursor to a full-blown rover slated to launch as early as May 2018. But funding issues and technical delays could push that ambitious follow-up mission to 2020.
Rolf de Groot, ESA's coordinator of robotic exploration, told Space.com that it's going to be "very challenging"to have the mission fully prepared for its 2018 launch window but that program managers will know soon whether they'll have to start seriously thinking about a 2020 launch instead. [ExoMars Takes Flight: Amazing Launch Photos]
"We have very clever engineers trying to see if we can try to reform some of the testing procedures and cut corners, without adding additional risk to the mission," de Groot said. "I would say, within the next month, the decision will be taken to see whether we can go forward with 2018. I'm still hoping that we will be able to find ways to do it."
In regard to a possible delay for ExoMars 2018,Thomas Reiter, a former astronaut and ESA's director for human spaceflight and robotic exploration, also said, "We are currently doing a very intense review of the project, and we will do everything to maintain the launch date."
Blast Off! ExoMars Mission Launches Aboard Proton Rocket | Video
The European Space Agency's ExoMars project involves an orbiter, lander and rover, launched on two separate Proton rockets (infographic)
Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist
A long time to get off the ground
ExoMars has experienced several delays —and several mutations —since it was conceived more than a decade ago as one of the flagship missions of ESA's Aurora program, an initiative intended to pave the way for human missions to Mars.
The rover was originally supposed to launch in a single mission on a Soyuz rocket with a more modest payload, de Groot said here at ESA's Space Operations Centre during a presentation for the March 14 launch event. In 2005, the rover got bigger, and the mission became "Enhanced ExoMars."The mission split in two—with a Mars satellite and rover to launch separately —as the project expanded and NASA signed on as an international partner in 2008. [How Europe's ExoMars Mission to Mars Works (Infographic)]
NASA had planned to provide the Atlas launcher for both missions, as well as its sky crane delivery system —like the one it used in its Mars Curiosity mission —to safely land the ExoMars rover. But then, in 2012, NASA dropped out of ExoMars because of budget issues, and ESA had to reconfigure the mission yet again.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, stepped in as a partner and agreed to provide the Proton rockets to get ExoMars off the ground. The Russians contributed some of the instruments in the scientific payload for ExoMars 2016, but the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the landing capsule Schiaparelli were largely European products, Reiter said. Roscosmos will have a much bigger role in 2018 —which will require a lot more technical and industrial coordination between the partners.
"The carrier module and the rover will be built in Europe, but the lander is a Russian product,"Reiter said. "That means that the cooperation between the Russian industry and the European industry will significantly intensify."
Sometimes, Russian space managers have a different style than their European partners. For instance, de Groot pointed out, the Russians don't like to work with backup launch dates, whereas that's a normal practice for the Europeans.
A Russian Proton-M rocket launches the European Space Agency's ExoMars 2016 mission toward the Red Planet from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 14, 2016.
Credit: Stephane Corvaja/ESA
Space News reported that ESA Director-General Johann-Dietrich Wörner even used 2020 for the date of the ExoMars rover launch during his slide presentation when speaking at Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the recent launch. Wörner reportedly said he didn't want to "disappoint people if, under certain circumstances, we have to move it."
Launch windows to Mars only open about every 26 months, though sometimes, there are two windows in short order. ExoMars 2016 was supposed to blast off during a three-week launch opportunity in January, but it was delayed until the March 14-25 window after a problem with the lander was discovered.
"We were extremely lucky that, this year, there was a double window," de Groot said.
If ExoMars misses its opportunity in 2018, it would have to launch in the summer of 2020 —the same window in which NASA plans to send its next life-seeking rover to the Red Planet as part of its $1.5 billion Mars 2020 mission.
Funding could be another challenge. The European budget for the entire two-phase mission is 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion). Reiter said that although the major part of ExoMars has already been funded, ESA members will have to decide on some additional funding that would be needed to complete the mission at the next meeting of their ministerial congress in December.
But ESA might need the funds sooner. According to Space News, ESA officials have said ExoMars needs another 200 million euros ($220 million) by this June at the latest, to pay for the 2018 hardware production and operations.
Onlookers watch a demonstration of a prototype Mars rover for the European Space Agency's ExoMars 2018 mission during a 2010 industry presentation in Turin, Italy.
Credit: Thales Alenia Space-Italy
Clearing the way for a rover
The outcome of ExoMars 2016 when it arrives at the Red Planet in mid-October could also have implications for the rover mission.
ExoMars 2016 will be conducting some important science experiments in its own right. The TGO could help scientists better understand where methane, a possible sign of life, comes from on Mars. And Schiaparelli, a 1,300-lb. (600 kilograms) landing capsule, will measure environmental conditions and, for the first time, Mars'sandstorm-fueling electric fields, after it touches down on the Red Planet’s surface.
But the most important goal of ExoMars 2016 might be proving out technology that will make a future rover landing possible —an unprecedented task for Europe.
It's notoriously difficult to land on Mars. Just look at spacecraft like NASA's Mars Polar Lander, the British-built Beagle 2 and Russia's Mars 2, all of which made the long journey from Earth to Mars, but ended up losing communication with Earth after rough landings.
The major obstacle to a successful landing is Mars'thin atmosphere. When you land a spacecraft on a body with no atmosphere, like Earth's moon, you only need to fire a landing engine; this will bring you smoothly and softly to the surface, said ExoMars lander engineer Olivier Bayle. By contrast, a thick atmosphere like the Earth's provides enough friction for spacecraft to slow down and make a soft landing with the help of a parachute (like Russia's Soyuz capsules, which deliver astronauts back to the ground).
But Mars' atmosphere isn't thick enough to slow down spacecraft so that they don't crash. To put Schiaparelli—and eventually, a rover — on Mars, ESA will use a combination of a heat shield, a big parachute and landing engines, all of which need to work perfectly in a daunting sequence of events that Bayle explained here in a presentation.
Schiaparelli will separate from TGO three days before reaching Mars. Then, it will go into hibernation mode to save its battery life, only waking up an hour before landing. The heat shield will help the spacecraft withstand temperatures of up to about 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit (1,700 degrees Celsius) as it decelerates from about 12,400 mph to 930 mph (20,000 km/h to 1,500 km/h).
After about 3 to 4 minutes of this fiery entry, the lander's parachute will deploy and the front shield will be released. Then, the radar altimeter beneath the lander will measure the spacecraft's velocity and altitude in relation to the Martian surface below. Using that data, Schiaparelli will decide when it's time to separate from the parachute and will start firing its landing engines.
"All the systems have to run like clockwork to make sure we have a successful landing,"Bayle said.
And testing those technologies will be key to sending the much more complicated second mission to land the ExoMars rover and surface platform safely in the Russian-built descent module. What's more, TGO will be a crucial link in relaying information from the rover back to Earth.
If the entire mission is successful, the scientific payoff could be huge.
The ExoMars rover stands apart from previous Mars rovers mostly because of its drill. Previous drilling robots on Mars have been able to reach depths of only about 4 inches (10 centimeters). By contrast, the ExoMars rover will be able to extract samples of dirt from up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) below the surface, where ESA officials hope to have a better chance of finding life that's been spared by brutal solar and cosmic radiation on the Martian surface.
My daughters were at a sleepover on March break at my parents house. I had the flu so I decided to sleep in my eldest daughters bed so as not to get my partner sick. I had the blinds open to let the moonlight in and had noticed at about 11:15pm what I thought was an airplane flashing through the sky through the branches of a tree in our yard. It was a very clear night so I watched it for about a minute and thought it was flashing strangely but that I was probably just seeing it weirdly through the branches. I rolled over to go to sleep but after about 30mins I couldn’t sleep so I rolled back over. The bright flashing light was still there and I knew that if it was an airplane or a satellite it would have moved to another position in the sky or passed out of view by now. I got out of bed and grabbed my phone which was charging. I started to film. You can see the street light in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, then I zoom in on the light. I steadied the phone on the window sill and once I zoomed in on the light it began to move around until my phone suddenly died. I bent down to plug my phone in to continue charging but when I looked back up the light was gone. I have seen this exact light once before in my life when I was a girl, back in the late 90’s my mum, dad, sister & I were watching a huge meteor shower in our backyard in St. George and when the meteor shower drew to a close, a light exactly like this hovered high above our house did the exact same movements.
The night I filmed these lights my eldest daughter and her best friend saw several bright balls of light in their bedroom at my mother’s house. None of us felt scared or reacted in any way other than wonder. We aren’t into paranormal stuff and don’t know a ton of stuff about UFO’s. We just know that we see weird lights and weird stuff happens around us sometimes. We haven’t felt well lately. Both my daughters are on wait lists for ENT’s (ear nose & throat specialists) at McMaster Hospital. I am on a wait list for an allergist. We all have upper respiratory infections and chronic sinusitis, my eldest daughter has nosebleeds and has woken up with bruising and blood on the palate of her mouth.
My youngest daughter has a weird triangular mark on her shoulder and I have a weird scar on my right calf. There are other odd health things too but that’s probably enough for now. I can provide medical documentation and photos of everything. I would just like to know if there’s something going on here?
Nick POPE investigated UFOs for a now-defunct British Ministry of Defence division. He argues it’s time for the programme to re-launch – for reasons that have nothing to do with small green men.
By Nick Pope
In 1950, Sir Henry Tizard, the Chief Scientific Adviser in the Ministry of Defence (MOD), became intrigued by newspaper stories about UFO sightings. Sir Henry told MOD officials that the subject shouldn’t be dismissed without first undertaking a proper scientific study. A small committee was set up at his urging. Its name: the Flying Saucer Working Party.
The committee reported in June 1951, concluding that UFO sightings could be explained as misidentifications, hoaxes or delusions. The recommendation was that no further government resources be used to investigate.
But the very next year, Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and other military personnel witnessed UFOs during a NATO exercise. These UFOs appeared to be capable of extraordinary speeds and manoeuvres; some were tracked on military radar. By 1953, the MOD decided all UFO reports should be investigated.
Not, however, out of concern about little green men.
I worked for the MOD for 21 years. From 1991 to 1994, I was posted to a division where my duties included undertaking these investigations. It was a fascinating job, to say the least.
A UFO, it’s worth remembering, refers to any unidentified flying object – not necessarily an extraterrestrial one. While the MOD investigations were aimed at determining whether there was evidence of any threat, we were thinking more about Russians than Martians. The theory was that some sightings might involve Soviet spy planes or bombers probing our air defences to try to evaluate the effectiveness of our radar systems, aircraft and pilots. The British government’s position was virtually identical to that of the US, where UFO sightings had been investigated by the United States Air Force (USAF) since 1947, in what later became known as Project Blue Book.
What it meant in practice to work on these real-life X-Files varied. One moment I might be drawing up “lines to take” for the MOD press office to use in response to a query from a journalist. The next I might be sending a child some information for a school project or plotting out UFO sightings on a map, looking for patterns. We would drop everything if a Member of Parliament asked about the subject – extensively briefing defence ministers so that they could respond in a polite, factual, but dismissive way.
It was less Men in Black and more Men in Grey
The day-to-day business revolved around investigating the newly-reported sightings: interviewing witnesses, checking radar tapes, and analysing photos and videos if we were lucky enough to get them – these were the days before everyone carried a mobile phone. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as sci-fi movies imply: it was less Men in Black and more Men in Grey.
We looked for conventional explanations for sightings, trying to correlate them with weather balloon launches, meteor showers, rocket re-entries and a whole host of other things that people misidentify as UFOs.
Alien encounters
Although the MOD did not want to be perceived as hunting for extraterrestrials, that’s exactly what happened, thanks to pop culture.
Over the years, books, movies and other media rendered the term “UFO” synonymous with “extraterrestrial spaceship”. Many people believed that governments were covering up the truth about UFOs. This, coupled with the fact that the MOD is an inherently secretive organisation, led people to think that we were involved in a sinister conspiracy.
While the MOD certainly downplayed the true extent of its interest and involvement in the subject, I’m afraid we don’t have any crashed UFOs hidden away somewhere.
Of around 12,000 sightings that the programme investigated, approximately 5% remained unexplained
That’s not to say that we didn’t have some fascinating cases in our files. Of around 12,000 sightings that the programme investigated, approximately 5% remained unexplained. We were particularly interested when UFOs were seen by police officers, military personnel and pilots, especially if there was some corroboration in terms of radar evidence, or films and photos that could be analysed by our technical staff.
The UK’s best-known UFO sightings took place over a three-day period in December 1980 and are collectively known as the Rendlesham Forest incident. A UFO was seen near to the Bentwaters and Woodbridge airbases, and at one point landed in the nearby forest. The MOD concluded that radiation levels at the landing site seemed “significantly higher than the average background”. Separate MOD and USAF investigations (Bentwaters and Woodbridge were US bases) proved inconclusive.
Another fascinating case, usually called the Cosford Incident, took place on 30 and 31 March 1993. Multiple sightings came in from around the UK over a period of six hours overnight; witnesses included military police at one airbase and the meteorological officer at a second. The latter described seeing a vast triangular-shaped craft flying slowly over the base, making a low-frequency humming sound, before suddenly accelerating away, many times faster than a military jet.
The meteorological officer described seeing a vast triangular-shaped craft flying slowly over the base before suddenly accelerating away, many times faster than a military jet
Despite these (and other) unexplained cases, we remained sceptical about extraterrestrials.
An alternative theory was set out in a highly-classified intelligence assessment codenamed Project Condign. Condign was the one area where conspiracy theorists were right – though not for the reasons they believed. The UK government – and other governments too, I suspect – were indeed hiding information on UFOs, but not about aliens. "No evidence exists to suggest that the phenomena seen are hostile or under any type of control, other than that of natural physical forces,” said the report, which was completed in 2000 and made public in 2006.
Rather, we might be dealing with exotic atmospheric phenomena – and MOD scientific and technical intelligence personnel believed that, if harnessed, these might be able to be militarised. As the Executive Summary of Project Condign’s final report says: “It is recommended that further investigation should be [made] into the applicability of various characteristics of plasmas in novel military applications.”
This is the ultimate dirty secret about UFOs, since a natural phenomenon that could be weaponised would be hugely attractive to the military of any nation.
In 2009, after nearly 60 years of official research and investigation, the MOD axed its UFO project in a wider series of defence cuts. No public announcement was made. Instead, the news was slipped out by altering a statement on the MOD website that had told people how to report UFO sightings.
The new wording stated: “The MOD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life. However, in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.”
The statement went on to say that UFO research was now considered “an inappropriate use of defence resources”, and that from 1 December 2009 investigations would cease. The MOD would no longer even reply to people reporting UFOs.
A new season for the X-Files?
With no official point of contact, some UFO witnesses now go to the media, others reach out to civilian groups such as the British UFO Research Association – but many won’t report their sightings at all. Whether they favour astronomical, meteorological or psychological explanations for people’s sightings and experiences, any scientists or academics who want to study the subject find that the lack of a central database makes such an endeavour difficult, if not impossible.
Drones can be used in espionage, while some security analysts have expressed concerns that terrorists could use them to carry explosives
Academic study aside, the ubiquity of drones is a timely reminder that we ought to be aware of everything in our airspace. Drones can be used in espionage, while some security analysts have expressed concerns that terrorists could use them to carry explosives, or slam them into passenger aircraft.
More generally, whether we’re believers or sceptics about alien visitation, we should be curious about a mystery that has endured for nearly 70 years. Our desire to seek knowledge for knowledge’s sake makes us human. What fascinating incidents are currently getting only a cursory glance from amateur hobbyists, or not being reported at all?
A new UFO project could be more focused than the previous one and might filter cases rather than investigating everything – quickly weeding out, for example, the hundreds of Chinese lantern sightings that bedeviled the MOD in the final years of the old UFO project. In parallel with investigating the best new reports, classic cases such as Rendlesham Forest and Cosford could be reinvestigated, in the same way the police undertake cold case reviews. It should be possible to do all this from within existing resources because the MOD already has all the capabilities needed to investigate UFOs, whether military radar systems or imagery analysis expertise.
There is huge public interest in this. When the UK got its Freedom of Information Act, the MOD received more requests about UFOs than any other subject. Prompted by this interest, an ongoing project to declassify the MOD’s UFO files has resulted in the release of nearly 60,000 pages of documentation, including sighting reports from the public and formerly-classified MOD papers. Each time a batch of UFO files is released, it makes headline news around the world. The final batch of files will be made public this year.
Without a place people can go to when they observe something strange, we can’t be fully apprised of what’s going on in our airspace. And, after all, even if we are alone in the Universe, we’re not alone on Earth.
Follow BBC Future onFacebook,Twitter,Google+andLinkedIn.This story is a part of BBC Britain – a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to theBritain homepage; you also can see our latest stories by following us onFacebookandTwitter.
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24-03-2016 om 10:30
geschreven door peter
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:News from the FRIENDS of facebook ( ENG )
Verborgen geheimen van de mensheid: “Alles wat ons verteld is over onze geschiedenis, is een leugen”
Verborgen geheimen van de mensheid: “Alles wat ons verteld is over onze geschiedenis, is een leugen”
De Zuid-Afrikaanse onderzoeker en politicus Michael Tellinger heeft een nieuw programma op Gaia: Hidden Origins. “Eén van de populairste boeken op aarde, de Bijbel, vertelt ons dat er ooit reuzen waren op aarde,” zegt hij tijdens de allereerste aflevering. “Als je daar tijdens een gesprek over begint, gaan mensen vaak lachen en denken ze dat je een grapje maakt, maar toch staat de Bijbel vol met verwijzingen naar reuzen.”
Tellinger verwijst naar de nephilim in onder meer Numeri 13:33: “Ook zagen wij (de verspieders) daar de reuzen, Enakieten, die tot de reuzen behoren, en wij waren als sprinkhanen in onze eigen ogen en ook in hun ogen.”
Op verschillende plekken op aarde zouden reuzenskeletten zijn gevonden. Zo zouden in de kluizen van de Universiteit van Witwatersrand in Johannesburg botten worden bewaard van een reus die 3,5 meter lang was. De resten zouden in de jaren zestig in Namibië zijn gevonden door mijnwerkers. Ook het Amerikaanse Smithsonian Institute zou in de 19e eeuw al reuzenskeletten hebben ontdekt.
Bij de eerste uitzending schrijft Tellinger verder: “Alles wat ons verteld is over onze geschiedenis, is een leugen. De verhalen die onze samenleving zoals we die kennen hebben gevormd, zijn verzinsels van de overwinnaars van de vele oorlogen. Bewijzen die in oude teksten en op heilige vindplaatsen zijn gevonden laten een heel ander beeld zien.”
Bekijk de aflevering ‘Humanity’s Hidden Origins’ hieronder in zijn geheel:
UFOs over South America are actually more common than in North America for some reason. Perhaps its the difference in weather or the mountains areas, but I am stumped at why UFOs are seen so frequently. Here is an excellent case and of course the press tries to push it off as falling space junk. What ever it is, its huge. Scott C. Waring www.ufosightingsdaily.com
News states: Alleged unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have been seen over the Venezuelan cities of Caracas and Barquisimeto in recent days, generating reactions in the communications media and the population at large. Are we being visited from otehr worlds. The phenomenon was seen in Barquisimeto and recorded on a video. According to the El Impulso website, a phenomenon was seen this Wednesday over the city. "An orange wake could be seen descending in a southwesterly direction. Experts claim it could be the break-up of a meteorite or a satellite falling from orbit. "Around 06:20 in the afternoon on Wednesday, journalist from this newspaper witnessed an object with a slow trajectory, descending toward the southwestern part of the city," says a web article. Likewise, journalists from this news organization contacted the pertinent authorities. "In a telephone conversation with Gilber Sanchez, director of Inter-Institituional Relations of the Asociación Larense de Astronomia (ALDA), explained that these could be meteor fragments that scatter when they enter the Earth's atmosphere. The expert's other theory indicates that it could be a satellite that went astray in its trajectory or was burning up upon reentry," they said. Similar Lights Seen in Caracas The Ovni Venezuela blog reported on alleged lights over the Waraira Repano National Park. "Ivan Figueroa reported that the time was approximately 07:45 PM, when he saw - from the balcony of his home in Candelaria Parish in downtown Caracas - some blue flashes over the mountain while listen to the "Ellos-Los Visitantes del Espacio" radio show (Them - Visitors from Space) hosted by Carmen Padrón every Sunday over YVKE Mundial. "There were several very bright lights, blue in color, but they appeared and disappeared. They did not move," was the witness's description.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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