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 ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 1 MONTH.
ON 06/07/2024 MORE THAN 2.101.500
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...
14-04-2016
Is this the best UFO sighting recently? Burning orbs over Graz, Austria
Is this the best UFO sighting recently? Burning orbs over Graz, Austria
Check out this really interesting UFO video of a bright orbs flying across the sky above Graz in Austria. It looks like they combine into one and then vanish away.
That's 25.6 trillion miles! To put that in perspective — if we magically shrank space to the point where the sun was just the size of a ping-pong ball, Alpha Centauri would still be nearly 800 miles away.
The biggest obstacle to achieving this journey so far has been that we don't have a spacecraft that can go anywhere near fast enough.
The New Horizons probe that NASA just sent past Pluto is traveling at an eye-watering 36,000 mph, but it would still take it 70,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri.
So that’s why — according to Hawking — we’re going to build new spacecraft. Tiny spacecraft.
Yuri Milner holding an example of one of the chips that could be the brains of each probe. Image from Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
Instead of one large ship, the plan is to launch thousands of small gram-sized probes. The idea relies on computer chips becoming increasingly smaller and more powerful over time — a trend that so far has held true.
We're going to build tiny spacecraft ... powered by LASERS.
Each probe would fly behind lightweight reflective sails — known as lightsails. The lightsails would catch light from big arrays of lasers here on Earth, which could provide propulsion (the probes themselves, meanwhile, could be powered by small radioactive batteries).
These tiny spacecraft powered by lasers could — theoretically — get from Earth to Alpha Centauri IN JUST 20 YEARS.
The lasers could accelerate the craft to speeds over a thousand times faster than what any current spacecraft are capable of, says Breakthrough. They predict they could get the mini-probes traveling up to about 20% the speed of light.
Of course, yes, it'll take time to get this project up and running — about 20 years just for that — and then another 20 years for the craft to get to Alpha Centauri, followed by a nail-bitingly agonizing at least four-year wait to send any pictures the probes take back to Earth.
The price tag on this project? A cool $100 million.
Getting these mini-craft working won't just be cool — they could help prove that lightsails are a good idea.
There are many challenges ahead for Breakthrough's mini-craft, like how to actually even send signals back to Earth from such a distance, but if the project is successful, it has a couple benefits.The mini-craft could take pictures of alien worlds, for instance.
But the biggest benefit could be the proof-of-concept test of the lightsails. If they work, they could become commonplace, helping us explore the solar system and the universe beyond.
But for today, the most important part of the announcement is that it’s about always reaching for the stars — and that's a very good thing indeed.
Image from Jemal Countess/Getty Images.
"Earth is a wonderful place, but it might not last forever," said Hawking in a statement reported by ABC News, “Sooner or later, we must look to the stars. Breakthrough Starshot is a very exciting first step on that journey.”
'Starshot' Interstellar Probes May Hunt for Alien Life Close to Home
'Starshot' Interstellar Probes May Hunt for Alien Life Close to Home
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
Jupiter’s icy, ocean-harboring moon Europa, as seen by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
The tiny robotic spacecraft that Stephen Hawking and his colleagues plan to send between the stars could also revolutionize the hunt for alien life in Earth's own solar system.
Today (April 12), Hawking, several other scientists and billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million initiative to develop the technology required to accelerate postage-stamp-size, sail-equipped "nanocraft" to 20 percent the speed of light using powerful ground-based lasers. (Milner is bankrolling the project.)
"As a preliminary step, we will visit targets within the solar system," Avi Loeb, who chairs Harvard University's astronomy department and the Breakthrough Starshot advisory committee, said during a news conference today.
Loeb cited Saturn's moon Enceladus, which harbors an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell, as a good target for Starshot probes. Geysers erupt continuously from Enceladus' south polar region, blasting material from the hidden ocean far out into space.
"One can imagine flying such a small spacecraft through the plume and detecting molecules that might be indicative of life, fingerprints of life," Loeb said.
Visiting another icy moon that has an underground ocean — the Jovian satellite Europa — would make sense as well, said Breakthrough Starshot advisory committee member Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey.
"Supposing there are fish swimming in [Europa's] ocean, occasionally there will be an asteroid impact or a comet impact splashing huge amounts of water out onto the surface, so there should be lots of freeze-dried fish lying around," Dyson said during a phone call with reporters today after the press conference.
Provided the Starshot initiative manages to develop and prove out the required technology — a process that will likely take a number of years — there should be plenty of chances to explore Enceladus and Europa, as well as a number of other objects throughout the solar system, team members said.
Each individual nanocraft will be relatively cheap to manufacture, and many of them could be launched in a short amount of time, Starshot representatives said. Different probes could carry different instruments, together gathering (and beaming home) a diversity of scientific information about a target object or system. Indeed, the Starshot team aims to send hundreds or thousands of nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, for the sake of redundancy and to increase the scientific return.
And, after liftoff, solar system missions will provide almost immediate gratification: A laser-blasted nanoprobe traveling at 20 percent the speed of light would reach Pluto in just three days, Loeb said. (It took NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which performed the first-ever flyby of Pluto last July, more than nine years to reach the dwarf planet.)
"In addition to the very important mission to Alpha Centauri, we're going to explore everything in between, and hopefully detect life," Breakthrough Starshot Executive Director Pete Worden said during the call with reporters.
The 17th annual Isaac Asimov Debate at New York's American Museum of Natural History sold out in just 3 minutes online, host Neil deGrasse Tyson told the audience. The debate featured five experts chewing on the idea of the universe as a simulation.
Credit: AMNH/R. Mickens.
NEW YORK — Is the universe just an enormous, fantastically complex simulation? If so, how could we find out, and what would that knowledge mean for humanity?
These were the big questions that a group of scientists, as well as one philosopher, tackled on April 5 during the 17th annual Isaac Asimov Debate here at the American Museum of Natural History. The event honors Asimov, the visionary science-fiction writer, by inviting experts in diverse fields to discuss pressing questions on the scientific frontiers.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum's Hayden Planetarium and host of this year's event, invited five intellectuals to the stage to share their unique perspectives on the problem: Zohreh Davoudi, a nuclear physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT whose recent book probes the universe as mathematics; James Gates, a physicist at the University of Maryland who discovered strange, error-correcting codes deep in the equations of supersymmetry; Lisa Randall, a physicist at Harvard University who thinks the simulation question is more or less irrelevant; and David Chalmers, a philosopher at New York University who regularly questions the reality that conscious minds perceive. [7 Surprising Things About the Universe]
How can we tell?
Humanity might never be able to prove with certainty whether the universe is simulated, Chalmers said.
"There's certainly not going to be conclusive experimental proof that we're not in a simulation," he said near the start of the debate. "Any evidence we could ever get would be simulated!"
But other panelists said that, if the simulated universe has similar physical limitations to our perceived real universe — in which something infinitely complicated cannot be modeled without infinite resources — signs of shortcuts and approximations may lurk in our own world, the way an image breaks up into its constituent pixels when you get close enough to a screen.
Some scientists theorize that our universe is fake, and actually a simulation. Do you think we're trapped in an epic computer simulation?
Yes, we are trapped in the Matrix, Neo.
No, our universe is clearly a real, physical realm.
Davoudi proposed a possible way to spot one of these shortcuts: by studying cosmic rays, the most energetic particles scientists have ever observed. Cosmic rays would appear subtly different if space-time were formed of tiny, discrete chunks — like those computer pixels — as opposed to continuous, intact swaths, she said.
"The more I learned about [reality] later on, as a physicist, the more struck I was that, when you get deep down into how nature works, down into looking at all of you as a bunch of quarks and electrons […] if you look at how these quarks move around, the rules are entirely mathematical, as far as we can say," Tegmark said. If he were a character in a video game or simulation, he'd begin to realize that the rules were rigid and mathematical in just that way, Tegmark said.
While Davoudi proposed searching for concrete evidence of computation in nature, Gates, a physicist who works on superstring theory (an effort to describe all the universe's particles and forces with equations involving tiny, vibrating super-symmetric strings), has found something suspiciously like computation in the theoretical equations that govern how the universe works.
He discovered what looked like error-correcting codes, which are used to check for and correct errors that have been introduced through the physical process of computing. Finding that type of code in a universe that is not computed is "extremely unlikely," Gates said.
"Error-correcting codes are what make browsers work, so why were they in the equations that I was studying about quarks, and leptons, and supersymmetry?" he said. "That's what brought me to this very stark realization that I could no longer say that people like Max [Tegmark] are crazy."
"Or, stated another way, if you study physics long enough, you too can become crazy," he added.
But Randall noted that a universe in which errors were able to spread would quickly break down. So isn't it logical, she said, that the stable universe we find ourselves in could incorporate that type of feedback? The researchers pointed out that a similar error-correction process works during the replication of DNA; organisms whose genetic material got too mangled would not survive. [5 Reasons We May Live in a Multiverse]
Kinds of simulation
The debate also probed different possible simulations and the effects they'd have on our world. For example, Tegmark discussed a famous "world as simulation" argument by philosopher Nick Bostrom: If it's possible to simulate a universe in our world, and humanity gets around to it, it's vastly more probable that we're in a simulation than in real life — there would be far more simulated people "in existence" than real people.
But the argument strikes Tegmark as flawed. For one, he asked, what would prevent an infinite chain of universes each simulating another below it?
A universe simulating ours used different physics than those in our universe, or contained an active being changing the simulation as it went (rather than being a universe run from first principles, as in the simulations Davoudi builds), the question would become, how much could we figure out about the greater universe from within our own? In other words, it would be like Tegmark's video game character trying to understand the operating system his game runs on.
Chalmers added that, if the simulation were perfect, it'd be impossible to get information about the world outside. Only if it were buggy, or interactive, would we be able to find out anything about it. But he'd "refuse to worship" the simulation's creator, regardless of its origin, Chalmers said.
Gates pointed out that such a simulation would mean reincarnation was possible — the simulation could always be run again, bringing everybody back to life.
"It starts to break down a very funny barrier between what people often think is the conflict between science and […] faith," he said.
"If you're not sure, at the end of the night, whether you're actually simulated or not, my advice to you is to go out there and live really interesting lives, and do unexpected things, so the simulators don't get bored and shut you down," Tegmark said. How Computers Simulate the Universe (Infographic))
What it would mean
When pressed, most of the researchers gave their predictions on how likely the world-as-simulation scenario was. Davoudi wouldn't guess, Tegmark said it was 17 percent likely, Gates said there was just a 1 percent chance, Randall said effectively zero and Chalmers said 42 percent. (These estimates reflected a slightly higher likelihood than the guesses they gave just before the debate.)
Tyson likened understanding the universe to trying to figure out the rules of a chess game by just watching the pieces, as originally described by famed physicist Richard Feynman. "Pretty easily, you can say, 'Well, this piece moves this way; this one moves diagonal. You get that," Tyson said. "But later on, that little piece that jumped two reaches the other end of the board and becomes a whole other piece! That's kind of freaky. It's rare, but it happens, and it's an important rule of the game that, most of the time, you don't see. So I'm wondering, how much of a chess game without the instruction manual is the very universe in which we live?"
The question of the universe as a simulation might be more fundamentally about the extent humans can understand their universe from the inside out — that goal is much more essential than getting to the bottom of the simulation question, the researchers agreed.
"We don't know the answer, and we just keep doing science until it fails," Randall said.
Thinking about the world as a simulation is only useful in that it suggests interesting ways to explore the world scientifically, or encourages scientists to further hone their observational skills, she added.
"To the extent that it gives us an incentive to ask interesting questions […] that's certainly worth doing, to see what's the extent of the laws of physics as we understand them," Randall said. "We are trying to figure it out to the extent we can."
You can watch the whole debate on YouTube (and embedded above), courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
EXCLUSIVE: 'Plain proof' - 'UFOs' snapped over London are the 'real deal'
EXCLUSIVE: 'Plain proof' - 'UFOs' snapped over London are the 'real deal'
A SERIES of snaps of odd lights captured over the capital are likely to be "proof alien space crafts flew over London", two seasoned UFO investigators have sensationally claimed.
Scott C Waring, a self-style ufologist with a following of tens of thousands online, and Tony Topping, who has appeared on TV as a UFO expert, concluded pictures of bright lights in the skies around Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf were probably emitted by flying saucers or other extra terrestrial crafts.
They studied the photographs after they were shown to them by Express.co.uk.
We sent the images taken in March to five established UFO investigators for their feedback as part of an investigation into why so many images of bright lights or other anomalies are being hailed as proof of alien visitations by so-called online UFO experts.
The images were, in fact, just photographs of planes leaving or descending to London City Airport taken by an Express.co.uk reporter from the roof of the Northern & Shell building in Lower Thames Street at night last month.
JONAUSTIN
One of the pictures of a plane (circled) that two UFO experts believed was an alien craft
The resulting pictures, which were unedited, appeared as blobs of light, similar in appearance to many of the alleged UFO captures which have previously been hailed as strong evidence for alien visitations.
They were sent to the UFO experts, who were not informed they were pictures of planes, to investigate what conclusions they would reach.
Two of the experts concluded they were likely to be conventional aircraft, while another, a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator added they could also be Chinese lanterns or crane lights.
However, Mr Waring and Mr Topping deduced that aliens had probably flown over London.
JONAUSTIN
Another plane snapped by our reporter created this odd shape often used as a UFO sighting
UFOCASEBOOK
A similar looking object which went viral online after being described as a UFO in the Australian ou
Scott C Waring [USD•FACEBOOK•SWARING]
These were their verdicts:
Scott C Waring is a US ex-pat living in Taiwan and editor of website UFO Sightings Daily.
The site has daily updates on alleged UFO footage and other alien-related posts.
He regularly claims to have obtained conclusive proof aliens exists in his blog posts and appears to be a firm believer that they, not only visit Earth regularly, but have underground bases here:
He said: "I tried to see if I could alter the photo to make out a helicopter or wings, but there is nothing there.
"It's not a helicopter and it is not a plane. It is not a drone, because it is much too big, it looks car sized.
"It does look like it is two separate glowing objects that are flying together. When I put them in negatives format, I can see it has no other structure but the glowing light around it.
"No drone can do that. This has a high probability of being a UFO.
"London is a city that has preserved hundreds of years of architectural marvels. The beauty of those old structures could easily draw the attention of aliens. They seem to be highly interested in learning about human history."
Scott Waring altered the colour of our plane pics to decipher them and concluded them as alien craft
Tony Topping [YouTube]
Tony Topping, 45, from Selby, North Yorkshire, is a UFO expert who tours conferences and gives interviews on TV and radio.
He claims to have first had an alien encounter aged two and to be monitored by security services.
He said: "It is quite surreal. I had a dream about UFOs over this location a few months back.
"These images are pretty good. For your interest the MoD did a document called Project Condign funded to the tune of ££s the conclusion was in some cases that plasma discharge was responsible for this type of UFO.
"Turn your attention to the Indian Press a few years ago and appearing in the India Daily was all kind of surreal information about UFOs. Real unusual as if an information leak was occurring from some kind of think tank and it was getting into the press.
"The conclusion was the UFO is alien and might be a bio plasma type craft, they were detecting them with sonic booms. the craft is self replicating and intelligent.
"I point this out to you as I find the contrast of information about this type of UFO interesting between two countries.
"As for me I do think it is a UFO non human in origin. I have no doubt in my mind more will be seen in that area."
NAUSTIN
A crane light appeared like a floating red orb in our pictures
Nick Pope [YouTube]
Nick Pope, 50, worked for the MoD from 1985 to 2006, and between 1991 to 1994, investigated the potential threat of alleged UFOs.
Now based in the US, he tour conferences and comments on the subject in the press.
He said: "These don't strike me as being particularly spectacular and I suspect that what we're looking at here is either aircraft or helicopter lights, a Chinese lantern, or even a light from one of the cranes, reflected onto low cloud - which can occur in certain meteorological/atmospheric conditions.
"Zooming in with pictures like this can be counter-productive, because one loses resolution and distortions increase, leading to a misleading impression that something is more structured than is, in fact, the case."
Scott Brando's Facebook profile picture [FACEBOOK]
Italian Scott Brando, 40, runs website ufoofinterest.org which exposes hoax UFO sightings and reports. He set out to find evidence of aliens, but after investigating thousands of cases, says there has not yet been an alien craft captured on film.
Mr Brando initially asked for more on the location and timing of the sighting before saying simply: "In my opinion they are navigation lights by planes."
He also provided a graphic showing how to identify aircraft lights at night including an image which looked like one of those we sent out.
LUFOS.NET
A graphic provided by Scott Brando showing plane navigation lights at night
Nigel Watson [Nigel Watson]
Nigel Watson, 61, from Plymouth, Devon, is an author of several UFO books, including the UFO Investigators' manual, which explains how to carry out the research.
He does not believe that a photograph has yet been taken of an alien craft.
He said: "Since the images are out of focus and the motion of the lights is hard to determine.
"Even without that information I'd say the lights from an aircraft - these consist of a green light on the right wing tip and a red light on the left wing tip along with three bright white landing lights.
"If it is not on a steady course it could be a helicopter or even a drone carrying lights."
Before publishing we contacted each of the experts for their reaction to our findings.
Mr Watson said knee-jerk assumptions were muddying the water for real UFO investigators.
He said: "There are ufologists who are quick to brand anything unusual seen or photographed in the sky as evidence of an alien spacecraft visiting our planet.
"On the other hand, there are sceptics who are equally quick to brand any UFO sighting or report as rubbish and come up with a suitable 'explanation' for them, which later proves as unlikely as the alien theory.
"What we need to do is look at each case on its own merits before making a knee-jerk reaction."
Mr Brando added: "Unfortunately, the trend is to establish or assume that any visible light in the sky is of alien origin.
"It happens all over the world. I live in Italy and here too there are many self-proclaimed UFO researchers who, for their own interests, prefer to give an unconventional explanation because it's more fascinating, attracting more readers of books, magazines.
"People have no interest to listen who speaks about aircraft lights (planes, helicopters) or chinese lanterns, nor to buy hypothetical books about lens flares, satellites and birds mistaken for UFOs.
"As long as these self-styled ufologists prepend their interests to serious UFO research, the UFO phenomenon will always be treated as a joke."
Mr Topping said: "My experiences are based on accurate footage I have filmed and analysis of that footage the UFO you sent me reminded me of sightings in Vietnam and of the Project Condign research.
"it is correct that I had brilliant visions of UFOs in the Canary Wharf area. I do wonder if some are plasma discharge.
"Based on that one wonders why there is an anything but syndrome to deny the existence of them by journalists.
"Mistakes do happen of course but you have to walk in another's shoes to know that my conclusions are based on some very strange experiences.
"And so here I am nursing a pint kicking myself that, I did not know the difference between a UFO and a plane on approach and take off but I shall forgive myself.
"You can become obsessed with it and the world of UFOs is a journey to hell.
"I don't know if I have answered your question but behind the scenes there is a brutal secrecy the public do not see and journalists far too busy taking the Mickey, not that you are I think your on a quest to find the truth - the trauma the UFO experience causes is complex."
SpaceX Mars Rocket Engine (Image Courtesy www.gputechconf.com)
SpaceX was founded in 2012 with the express purpose of developing the technology needed for a Mars mission. SpaceX’s work to date for NASA and private companies has simply been the initial steps to gearing up for the Mars mission.
The point of the Mars mission is to make the human species interplanetary to increase its likelihood of surviving indefinitely.
Transporting & Sustaining a Human Colony on Mars
The SpaceX simulation and analytics group has been working on large-scale simulations of rocket processes in rocket engines. Relevant fields of engineering include computational fluid mechanics and plasma physics. SpaceX is in the process of identifying and developing technologies to transport and sustain a human colony on Mars.
Some of the rocket engines under development are based on particle accelerated design, simulation of combustion devices for chemical rocket propulsion, and high-density power generation systems.
“SpaceX is designing a new, methane-fueled engine powerful enough to lift the equipment and personnel needed to colonize Mars. A vital aspect of this effort involves the creation of a multi-physics code to accurately model a running rocket engine. The scale and complexity of turbulent non-premixed combustion has so far made it impractical to simulate, even on today’s largest supercomputers. We present a novel approach using wavelets on GPUs, capable of capturing physics down to the finest turbulent scales.”
Following is a discussion of the full-scale simulation of the SpaceX Mars Rocket Engine by Chris Burns:
The next video is a full presentation on the SpaceX Mars Rocket Engine lasting 46 minutes but is chock full of high-tech, cutting-edge information.
David Russell Schilling
David enjoys research and writing about cutting edge technologies that hold the promise of improving conditions for all life on planet earth.
In his book, Dr Ellis Silver points to a number of physiological features to make his case for why humans did not evolve alongside other life on Earth
A U.S. ecologist has claimed that humans are not from Earth but were put on the planet by aliens tens of thousands of years ago.
Dr Ellis Silver points to a number of physiological features to make his case for why humans did not evolve alongside other life on Earth, in his new book.
They range from humans suffering from bad backs - which he suggests is because we evolved in a world with lower gravity – to getting too easily sunburned and having difficulty giving birth.
Dr Ellis says that while the planet meets humans’ needs for the most part, it does not perhaps serve the species’ interests as well as the aliens who dropped us off imagined.
In his book, HUMANS ARE NOT FROM EARTH: A SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF THE EVIDENCE, the ecologist writes the human race has defects that mark it of being ‘not of this world’.
‘Mankind is supposedly the most highly developed species on the planet, yet is surprisingly unsuited and ill-equipped for Earth's environment: harmed by sunlight, a strong dislike for naturally occurring foods, ridiculously high rates of chronic disease, and more,’ he told Yahoo.
Dr Ellis says that humans might suffer from bad backs because they evolved on a world with lower gravity.
He also says that it is strange that babies’ heads are so large and make it difficult for women to give birth, which can result in fatalities of the mother and infant.
Dr Ellis says that humans might suffer from bad backs (illustrated) because they evolved on a world with lower gravity. He also says that it is strange that babies' heads are so large and make it difficult for women to give birth, which resulted in fatalities in earlier times
No other native species on this planet has this problem, he says.
He also believes humans are not designed to be as exposed to the sun as they are on Earth, as they cannot sunbathe for more than a week or two – unlike a lizard – and cannot be exposed to the sun every day without problems.
Dr Ellis also claims humans are always ill and this might be because our body clocks have evolved to expects a 25 hour day, as proven by sleep researchers.
‘This is not a modern condition; the same factors can be traced all the way back through mankind's history on Earth,’ he says.
He suggests that Neanderthals such as homo erectus were crossbred with another species, perhaps from Alpha Centauri, which is the closest star system to our solar system, some 4.37 light years away from the sun.
He also believes humans are not designed to be so exposed to the sun as they are on Earth, as they cannot sunbathe for more than a week or two ¿ unlike a lizard ¿ and cannot be exposed to the sun every day
THE 'EVIDENCE' TO SUGGEST HUMANS CAME FROM SPACE SO FAR
Bad backs suggest humans evolved in a world with lower gravity
Sunburn hints humans were not designed to be exposed constantly to the sun
The size of babies' heads present a problem for women when giving birth - difficulty not shared by other species on the planet
Humans are always ill, perhaps beacuse their body clocks have evolved to expect a 25 hour day - unlike Earth's
People just feel like they are not at home on our planet
Dr Ellis said many people feel that they don’t belong and feel at home on Earth.
‘This suggests (to me at least) that mankind may have evolved on a different planet, and we may have been brought here as a highly developed species.’
‘One reason for this … is that the Earth might be a prison planet, since we seem to be a naturally violent species and we're here until we learn to behave ourselves,’ he said.
Dr Ellis said the book is intended to create debate, instead of being a scientific study and hopes it will lead to people getting in touch with him with further suggestions of 'evidence'.
While other scientists have said some bacteria arrived on Earth from space, Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA, said that to jump to the conclusion that it is alien life is ‘a big jump’.
Was this home? Dr Ellis suggests Neanderthals such as homo erectus were crossbred with another species, perhaps from Alpha Centauri. Star Proxima Centauri is pictured in the star system, which is the closest to our solar system some 4.37 light years away from the sun
Professor Wainwright from the University of Sheffield plans to investigate further, and believes that life is constantly arriving from space that did not originate on Earth.
Dr Ellis says that while his idea is an extreme evolution of that idea, it is intended to be thought-provoking and he claims to have had a largely positive response to it.
He is interested in whether humans came to Earth separately, perhaps by arriving on meteors and comets, before evolving into the species we know today.
‘My thesis proposes that mankind did not evolve from that particular strain of life, but evolved elsewhere and was transported to Earth (as fully evolved Homo sapiens) between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago,’ he says.
Using official photographs from space crafts, Artist Michael Benson's recreates photos of the universe in true color - just as how the naked eyes would see it.
AN OUT OF THIS WORLD VIEW
If there’s one word that the latest space tourism projects are hyping to try to get more tourists to drop some serious cash (as much as $150,000 per ticket) for a trip to the edge of space, it’sview.
From crafts that have dozens of windows lining the rocket’s sides and ceiling to the ability to “roll the vehicle” using thrusters—all space tourism programs promise their passengers an unobstructed view of the cosmos beyond Earth.
But for those not leaving Earth anytime soon, this exhibition is probably the closest one can ever get to seeing such an ‘out of this world’ view with their own eyes.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Dr. Paul Geissler
WHERE SCIENCE MEETS ART
“I feel like if these places are so alien to our direct experiences anyway, then they should be colored the way they would be seen,” says Benson, referring to his process in creating the true color prints.
He takes raw data from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) missions and painstakingly, in his words, translates them into something that human eyes can recognize.
Because cameras aboard spacecrafts like New Horizons and Cassini capture images showing visible light (reds and blues) as well as invisible light (ultraviolet and infrared), most of the images available online aren’t in ‘true color.’
Benson takes all photos shot through visible light filters – light which the eyes can see – and tiles them together to create a true color composite.
“Astronomy is about our position in the universe, and that doesn’t just belong to science,” he says. “I am making the case that this is art.”
The VC200 is a 18 rotor drone-hybrid personal flight vehicle. At full power, it can go 95 km/h (60 mph), and it just carried its first human passenger.
MEET VOLOCOPTER
Experts have long talked about using multiple rotors on electric helicopters as an alternative method of personal transport. And today, the company responsible for creating an 18-rotor electric helicopter just managed to successfully complete its first manned test flight—which means our dream of using multicopters just moved one step forward.
The Volocopter VC200 is the world’s first certified multicopter, and while may not be the most impressive or ambitious demonstration of the technology, it show remarkable stability and ease of use. The device doesn’t require constant monitoring of controls, which makes it ideal for users new to the technology.
Check out this video of of its maiden flight in the video below.
VC200 GOES AIRBORNE
Eventually, the VC200 is expected to go up to 95 km/h (60 mph); however, the team behind the tech has yet to test the copter at its full capacity. But with the recent demonstration, designers are confident that they will be able to accept pre-orders for the final product by the end of the year.
It’s likely that early adopters of the device will be exclusively composed of drone enthusiasts, but they hope that the aircraft will one day be used as a reliable means of transportation.
The VC200 is not only easy to operate, it also doesn’t require fuel—which makes it an ideal alternative for personal flights—maybe even one day replacing our traditional road vehicles with multicopter air taxis.
Evidence for the existence of a “new” Ninth Planet, 10 times the Earth’s mass and lurking on the outer rim of the Solar System, just got a little bit firmer with the announcement of a new KBO.
But this distant world would be no pipsqueak, like the other icy, planetary embryos that we’ve discovered in the Kuiper Belt.
In fact, Brown and his team calculated a mass for the object of approximately 10 times the Earth’s, suggesting that it was the incipient core of a giant planet (like Jupiter or Saturn) that was jostled in the early phases of the Solar System’s formation, and rudely ejected into an astonishing 149 billion-kilometer (92 billion-mile) orbit, or nearly 75 times more distant than Pluto.
That means the hypothetical planet’s “year” can last anywhere from 10,000-20,000 terrestrial years.
Now, the evidence for the existence of such an object is indirect—specifically, the effect it seems to be having on neighboring outer Solar System bodies, called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). Six of these objects had been detected with wildly eccentric orbits, including the large planetoid Sedna, with an orbital period of 11,000 years.
Image of a slide showing the orbits of the KBOs suspected of betraying the presence of a Planet Nine. The orbit of the newly discovered, seventh KBO is the largest (“uo3L91”). Credit: OSSOS via Mike Brown’s Twitter feed.
“Hey Planet Nine fans, a new eccentric KBO was discovered. And it is exactly where Planet Nine says it should be,” Mike Brown tweeted. Furthermore, he says, the new object “takes the probability of this being a statistical fluke down to ~.001% or so.”
Whether this hypothetical, 10 Earth-mass planet is the famed “Nemesis” object, said to be responsible for cometary influxes that cause mass extinctions on Earth, remains to be seen (though astronomers are, understandably, skeptical); but with the detection of uo3L91, the case for something massive lurking in the outer Solar System, and affecting the orbits of distant planetoids, just got a little bit stronger.
But we’ll have to wait and see. Perhaps more such detections will let us nail down the giant planet’s orbital path; maybe then we’ll be able to snap a picture of it with some next-gen Earth-based telescope.
Till then, keep your eyes peeled for more eccentric KBOs.
BRILLIANT VIDEO UFO INVASION UK OR MILITARY EXERCISE? WATCH THIS 2016
BRILLIANT VIDEO UFO INVASION UK OR MILITARY EXERCISE? WATCH THIS 2016
BRILLIANT VIDEO UFO INVASION UK OR MILITARY EXERCISE? WATCH THIS 2016 Quote from Eyewitness Alan Deacon “This happened end of June 2015, Lansdown, Bath, UK… just before I got camera on the lights, they had formed into two parallel lines and then out again. They kind of form into one straight line here and then out again… it was much more obvious “in the flesh”… I was very conscious of shaking, so tried to put the camera on a fence post, but by the time I got there the lights had pretty much dispersed…:
An Indiana witness at Trafalgar reported watching and photographing an oval-shaped UFO crossing the sky for about 25 minutes, according to testimony in Case 75601 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
Witness image #1. (Credit: MUFON)
The witness first noticed the object in the southwestern sky at sunset while heading west on SR 252 towards SR 135 in Trafalgar about 8:30 p.m. on April 3, 2016.
“The object appeared much brighter than the eight airplanes that could be seen in the sky at the same time,” the witness stated.“The object appeared to be the size and brightness of Venus, and it appeared to get brighter. It did not have a tail/trail when first seen.”
Witness image #2. (Credit: MUFON)
But as the witness drove two miles further west to the Dairy Queen parking lot at 1 Trafalgar Square, it was noticed that the object had developed two tails/trails coming off of what was now identified as the source of light/reflection.
“The object was oval-shaped like a football traveling sideways. It was now not as bright as before, but the two tails were growing in length and diameter. The tails/trails came off the pointed ends and the body of the object would flicker with a silver light.”
In the same sky there were several airplanes that could easily be seen and were quite different in speed, brightness, height, and tail consistency.
Cropped and enlarged view of Witness image #2. (Credit: MUFON)
“The object in question was much higher, slower, brighter, and had two very pronounced tails that looked thicker and were not being quickly dispersed by the wind. The sky was clear and there was plenty of light from the setting sun. We observed the object until it disappeared in the southwestern sky about 25 minutes after first being seen. There were four witnesses and a few pictures taken by cellphone (iPhone 4s and iPhone 6).”
Cropped and enlarged view of Witness image #2. (Credit: MUFON)
Indiana MUFON Field Investigator Patrick O’Brien closed this case as an Unknown.
Trafalgar is a town in Nineveh and Hensley townships, Johnson County, Indiana, population 1,101. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.
TWO UFOs LIGHT Over Graz Austria (VIDEO) Feb 10, 2016, UFO Sighting News.
TWO UFOs LIGHT Over Graz Austria (VIDEO) Feb 10, 2016, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Feb 10, 2016
Location of sighting: Graz, Austria
Source: MUFON #75777
These glowing UFOs were seen over Austria back in Feb, but recently posted to MUFON site. The two UFOs seem to be watching out for one another...similar to USAF pilots that have a wingman. Also these UFOs are below the clouds, its a cloudy day and their is no blue sky. These are defiantly UFOs, I just wish we had some radar confirmation from the local airport to back it up.
April 2016 UFO ORB captured traveling NE over San Antonio,Texas, Video, UFO Sighting News.
April 2016 UFO ORB captured traveling NE over San Antonio,Texas, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 4, 2016 Location of sighting: San Antonio, Texas, USA Source: www.saufotx.com This excellent footage was taken this week in Texas and what I love about it is that it was taken during the day. Daytime footage gives us much more detail and information that night footage. This UFO is white, like the clouds and is easily seen against a blue sky. This is the perfect conditions for catching UFOs. Because often they are white, you need a blue background to actually see 95% of them. Scott C. Waring www.ufosightingsdaily.com
SAUFOTX of Youtubestates: April 2016 U.F.O Orb was captured on video traveling over San Antonio,Texas..This day i manage to capture a U.F.O's and its flight pattern's.With some reference points such as telephone pole..Glowing orb of energy seem to be traveling on its own power.Not blown by the wind object is clearly not aircraft/weather balloon/satellite...
There is another Sun and human civilization Inside the Earth
There is another Sun and human civilization Inside the Earth
For several years the scientists preserved the secret of the shocking data of interpretation of photographs of our planet from space. In the ice of the North Pole area a huge hole could be clearly seen.
Soon a similar hole was discovered in Venus. Astronomers were shocked and questioned if these planets are hollow inside and what they have in their cores.
New Physics, new Geography
Russian Physicist Fedor Nevolin became famous after composing the theory of "New Physics". In other words, he explained the birth of the Earth in a different way.
First our planet was a huge cold lump wandering in the Universe. Being influenced by the Sun and the Universe energy, it was heated up to lava state and then started cooling up.
The crust covered the Earth. Meanwhile, the stuff under the crust continued boiling turning into gas, Nedelin believes. Gas expands when being heated. In the core of our planet hollow space aroused, and a part of gas went outside.
Big gas throwing out took place in the North and South Poles. Deep big holes aroused there.
Nedelin is sure the Earth is absolutely hollow inside and can even have a small Sun there.
The Sun energy penetrates there through the holes in the Poles and accumulates in the center.
If one supposes that the Earth is hollow inside and has its small Sun, there can be life as well.
This idea was indirectly confirmed by the report on an American high rank military commander to the North Pole. The report was made secret, and its details became known to the world press only recently.
The man who flew inside the hole.
In 1947 Vice-Admiral of the US Navy Richard Bird went for a research flight over the North Pole. Near the Pole he noticed an unusual spot colored in mixture of yellow, red and violet.
On approaching the spot the pilot could see something like a mountain chain. Bird flew over it and saw (this was his first impression) a mirage v forests, rivers, meadows with animals resembling mammoths.
He could also see weird flying machines and - a city with buildings built from rock crystal. He realized himself to be a second Columbus discovering a new continent! The air thermometer scale began lifting and stopped at +23 degrees Celsius. This was impossible for the North Pole. Radio for the connection with the air base did not work.
Bird's wife who read his register for the flight, told that Vice-Admiral contacted the representatives of the underground civilization who overtook us for one thousand years of development.
The inner planet surface residents resembled people in appearance, but were more beautiful and had the look of spirituality. They had no wars, they found new sources of energy which allowed to use vehicles engines, receive food and light from nothing.
Those people told Bird they tried to contact the outer surface of the Earth residents, but all their attempts were rejected, their flying machines were shot. Finally they decided to assist human beings only when they will be on the brink of self-destruction.
"Inner" Earth residents showed Bird all their civilization achievements and then escorted the pilot to the Pole hole to let him out to our outer word. On return home he discovered that the plane used the fuel for extra 2750 kilometers of flight.
The authorities recommended Vice-Admiral never tell anybody about the world he saw and put him under strict control for the rest of his life.
It appears that Snowden has testified about a well-known legend of Agartha in the form of UFO information.
Snowden’s testimony was as follows:
“The highest levels of government don’t know what to do about UFOs, and the official story that they are all merely weather balloons or natural phenomena has been clearly dismissed. If anything, these documents speak about UFOs as if they are surely guided by an intelligence beyond our own. As it turns out, the most credible and inexplicable sightings are of vehicles that have been spotted leaving the sea floor at hydrothermal vents and directly entering solar orbit.
“Because ballistic missile tracking systems and deep-sea sonar are kept as state secrets, scientists don’t have access to data about these objects. However, most of the contractors at DARPA are sure that there is a species more intelligent than homo sapiens living in the mantle of the Earth. It makes sense, if you think about it, because that is the only place where conditions have been more or less stable for billions of years. Extremophiles may live at different temperatures than us, but they have been able to thrive and develop intelligence at a seemingly accelerated rate. That’s not true, because they’ve simply evolved at the same rate, but without many of the vicissitudes which set back surface life . . .
“The president receives daily briefings about their activities. Analysts believe their technology to be so far advanced that we stand little chance of survival in any potential war. The general sentiment is that we are but ants from their perspective, so there is little chance they would empathize or attempt to communicate with us, and the current contingency plan is to detonate nuclear weapons in deep caverns to ‘sting’ the foe we have no hope of destroying in hopes it would discourage further attacks.”
Critics may allege that what the 30-year-old former NSA and CIA contractor can state with authority about our ultraterrestrial neighbors is already well-known. But the Ground-Penetrating Radar, or GPR, scans, which The Internet Chronicle has shared and confirmed with sources within intelligence community, will only serve to underscore popular bitterness over strategically timed earthquakes and tsunamis.
Just as PRISM shined a new light on goings-on in NSA’s ECHELON computer systems, revealed in the 1990s, the vast complexes of underground cities – laser-etched from pure diamond – apparent in the GPR scans will transform public debate about the balance between liberty and security.
Illustration by Bob Silberg. Figure of man riding flying carpet is from 1880 painting by Viktor Vasnetsov.
NASA
IN BRIEF
The Space Solar Power Initiative (SSPI), a collaboration between Caltech and Northrup Grumman, has developed a system of lightweight solar power tiles which can convert solar energy to radio waves and can be placed in orbit to beam power to an energy-thirsty Earth.
SOAKING IN THE SUN’S RAYS
One of the greatest challenges facing the 21st Century is the issue of power—how to generate enough of it, how to manufacture it cheaply and with the least amount of harmful side-effects, and how to get it to users.
The solutions will have to be very creative—rather like what the Space Solar Power Initiative(SSPI), a partnership between Caltech and Northrup Grumman, has devised.
Prototype of the “multifunctional tile.” Credit: Caltech
“What we’re proposing, somewhat audaciously, is to develop the technology that would enable one to build the largest-ever-built space structures,” says Harry Atwater, a Caltech professor and member of SSPI.
The idea, for beaming solar energy to Earth from space, is ingenious, simple, and may just work—given the needed investment and financial backing. SSPI has engineered a modular approach which ensures low-cost and redundancy. The basic unit is a “multifunctional tile,” a lightweight photovoltaic segment that measures 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 in), is only 3 cm (1 in) thick, weighs about 0.8 gram (0.03 oz.), and can flatten when assembled for launch.
400 of these basic tiles are assembled into panels, with 900 panels per satellite. Each of these “carpet” satellites can be folded into a small space for launch, and unfurl once in orbit to its full size, about two-thirds the size of a football field.
The concept involves 2500 of these satellites flying in a close formation, forming a solar power surface of 9 square kilometers (3.5 square miles). Each tile is capable of converting solar power into transmissible radio energy, which can be beamed to (and received on) Earth.
POWER FOR ALL
SSPI’s design for modular, space-based solar power. Credit: NASA
The beauty of this system is that there is no need for a costly energy infrastructure on the Earth. This means remote and impoverished regions, lacking a groundwork for energy transmission, are easily furnished with this space-based solar power. Simple antennas and receiving stations are all that’s needed.
Meanwhile, the lightweight tiles—which are cheaply manufactured—mean for a more robust space system. The usual wear and tear of long-term spacecraft, such as solar flare or micrometeorite damage, might knock out a tile or two, but wouldn’t be catastrophic to the spacecraft as a whole.
It’s an intriguing concept, and one well worth the investment. With enough interest, and a mobilization of the electronics industry to build the tiles, and the private space industry to transport them to space, it may just be the future of energy.
An Infant, Rogue Planet Has Been Found Lurking in Our Solar Neighborhood
An Infant, Rogue Planet Has Been Found Lurking in Our Solar Neighborhood
TNS / SETI Institute / Danielle Fuselaar and Franck Marchis
IN BRIEF
Astronomers from Carnegie and the University of Western Ontario have detected the youngest free-floating planet found to date, and it's only 95 light-years away.
THE WANDERER
A team of astronomers has detected a giant, free-floating planet some 4 to 8 times the mass of Jupiter in our neighborhood. The planet is kind of a missing link on the evolutionary scale, existing somewhere in between planets and the “failed stars” known as brown dwarfs.
The object is a “planet” in the truest sense of the word, as the term is derived from the Greekplanētes, “wanderers.” It bears the unromantic mouthful 2MASS J1119-1137 for a name, and it is located some 95 light-years away, which is practically next door from a galactic perspective.
Spotting 2MASS J1119-1137, and recognizing it for it was, took a little detective work. Astronomers have been fooled before—sometimes, something that seems planet-like and nearby turns out to really be nothing more than an old, dying red star, far away in some distant quarter of the galaxy, emitting its final gasps of radiation in the cool infrared.
A COSMIC NEWCOMER
Uncertain of what they had actually found, the team immediately ran the object’s spectrum through the FLAMINGOS-2 spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile—akin to getting its full DNA profile.
And the results proved that 2MASS J1119-1137 was no distant red giant; it was indeed nearby, and quite small and young. And that was the other half of the problem—determining its age.
They knew 2MASS J1119-1137 must be quite young, since it shone so brightly in the infrared, a pretty sure sign the tiny object retained the latent heat of a recent birth. Through a sophisticated series of line-of-sight measurements, the team determined that the planet was moving with an identical motion and velocity to a cluster of stars called the TW Hydrae association.
This cluster was known to be only 10 million years old; therefore, 2MASS J1119-1137 must be of the same age. Which means it’s pretty young—infantile, in fact, considering our aged Sun clocks in at a great-grandfatherly 4.5 billion years. It’s the youngest free-floating planet known, beating out the previous record-holder, an object called PSO J318.5-22, which, at 23 million years old, is over twice the age of the new champion.
“Discovering free-floating planet analogs like 2MASS J1119-1137 and PSO J318.5−22 offers a great opportunity to study the nature of giant planets outside the Solar System,” observes Kendra Kellogg, lead author of the study.
Note this is an unedited version. It may be slightly different from the published version
The outer door slammed shut and a deathly hush descended on the tiny soundproofed room. Half an hour in here, lying in a kind of dentist's reclining chair, might have seemed a restful prospect - except for the converted motorcycle helmet on my head. Embedded in either side of it, just above my ears, were sets of solenoids. Soon these would be delivering pulses of a magnetic field designed to mimic the firing patterns of neurons in the temporal lobes of the brain.
Welcome to the laboratory of Michael Persinger, a neuro-scientist at Laurentian University of Sudbury, Ontario. Persinger has long claimed that mystical experiences, out-of- the-body excursions and other psychic experiences are linked in some way to excessive bursts of electrical activity in the temporal lobes. It is known that people vary in what is called "temporal lobe lability''. People with high lability have very ''unstable'' temporal lobes with frequent bursts of electrical activity that can be seen on an EEG (electroencephalograph). Such people tend, he claims to be anxious and judgmental as well as artistic. People with low lability, by contrast, rarely show bursts of activity in their temporal lobes and are much less imaginative.
Researchers don't need expensive EEG tests to measure temporal lobe lability. Instead they can use questionnaires designed to test a wide range of experiences and beliefs, from deja vu to headaches. In a series of studies of this kind, questioning about several hundred people in all, Persinger has found that people with high lability more frequently report sensations of floating, flying or leaving the body as well as mystical and psychic experiences. At the extreme end of the scale are people with temporal lobe epilepsy Their temporal lobes produce the violent, synchronized electrical activity associated with seizures - and sometimes they too report deja vu, mystical feelings, odd sensations or hallucinations just before a seizure.
One final connection may be that abnormal temporal lobe activity can occur in response to a lack of oxygen. Persinger is one of several scientists who have argued that this is why people who come close to death experience tunnels, lights and sensations of leaving the body.
In the end, however, these observations are nothing more than correlations They don't prove that neural activity in the temporal lobes causes psychic experiences -or even that it is an effect of psychic experience. What has been missing is a direct demonstration that specific experiences can be created by specific firing of neurons in this part of the brain. Hence the soundproofed room, helmet and magnetic pulses. Persinger believed that by applying magnetic fields across the brain he could cause bursts of firing in the temporal lobes - bursts just like those associated with the odd experiences. If he could produce the experiences this way, the link with the temporal lobes would be certain.
The reason I was willing to subject myself to this procedure was not just idle curiosity The BBC's science programme Horizon had asked me to investigate the origin of the latest American craze in crazy experience - abduction by aliens. The details vary. Not everyone claims to have been taken from their bedroom. Some report abductions from their cars or in the street. And many abductees, although not all, say that they saw children or babies while they were "away". Despite that, the stories are more remarkable for their consistency than their differences. A typical report might run as follows.
"I woke up in the middle of the night and everything looked odd and strangely lit. At the end of my bed was a 4 feet high grey alien. Its spindly, thin body supported a huge head with two enormous, slanted, liquid black eyes. It compelled me, telepathically, to follow and led me into a spaceship, along curved corridors to an examination room full of tables on which other people lay. I was forced to lie down while they painfully examined me, extracted ova (or sperm) and implanted something in my nose. I could see jars containing half-human, half-alien fetuses and a nursery full of silent sickly children. When I eventually found myself back in bed, several hours had gone by."
Some abductees recall their experiences in full detail, but for many the "memories" emerge only when they take themselves to a therapist for hypnotic regression. These tales are easy to mock. Why do the aliens always pick Americans? How come they are clever enough to teleport through walls, and to read and erase our memories - but all we have to do to defeat them is a little hypnosis? And if they really put implants in people's noses, how come these always seem to be sneezed out?
Mind works
Maybe abduction accounts are merely the delusions of the disturbed or the mentally ill. This is easy to counter. Studies of abductees have shown that they are of at least average intelligence, from a wide range of social classes and show no particular signs of mental disturbance or pathology. So what is the explanation? Are alien abduction stories telling us sometime about the way the mind works?
The fundamental question for neuroscience is the precise relationship between subjective experience and neural firing. In some cases things are relatively simple. A flash of light, for example, produces a cascade of electrical responses at the back of the cortex, while listening to someone speak produces a burst of activity in the left hemisphere. Far less obvious, though, is how patterns of brain activity produce complex subjective states - such as the sensation of having been abducted by an alien.
Things are complicated by the fact that some abductors only ''recall'' their experiences under hypnosis. Maybe the hypnotists implanted the ideas, creating "memories" of things that never happened. This takes us to the broader issue of false memories (see "When memory plays us false", New Scientist, 23 July). The key thing here is that ''false memories" are not so different from "true memories''. In a sense, all memories are false. There is no tape recorder in the brain. Rather, research suggests that we use stored information to reconstruct accounts of past events When we retell those events, it is easy to recall our own retelling more clearly than the original experience - even if we've exaggerated it a bit along the way. How, then, can we decide which memories were "real" and which imagined? There is no magic way to the right answer, and some theorists think it just depends on how readily available an image is. If it is clear and detailed and easy to bring to mind, it will be remembered as "real".
When memory is seen this way the phenomenon of false memory seems less bizarre. Take recent experiments by Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist from Seattle, Washington. She invited volunteers into her laboratory and tried to implant in them the "memory'' of being lost in a shopping mall as a young child. The subjects had never actually been lost this way (as far as anyone knew) but their relatives took part by 'reminding'' them of the event. Afterwards the subjects ''remembered'' the events clearly and, even when Loftus tried to debrief them, some remained convinced that it had happened.
What does this tell us about alien abductions? First, we must not be diverted by the red herring of hypnosis. Not all abductees are hypnotised, and "false memories'' can be created without hypnosis. If you come up with a fantasy of an abduction, then you may well recall it as though it is real whether or not hypnosis is involved.
However, false memory cannot be the whole story. In general, we are quite good at distinguishing fantasy from reality, in spite of the blurred edges, and we do not create false memories entirely out of the blue. Even if false memory plays a role in alien abduction episodes, wouldn't there have to be some kind of core event to build the fantasies around? If so, what might this event be?
One suggestion is sleep paralysis. During normal REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when the majority of dreams occur, the skeletal muscles are paralysed. This is presumably so that we do not act out our dreams, as animals have been shown to do when the brain centres controlling sleep are suppressed Normally, we are unaware of this, but occasionally we can become mentally alert while the paralysis persists. Waking up this way can be extremely unpleasant. Yet it is quite common, surveys show that about 20 per cent of people have experienced sleep paralysis at some time or another.
Trying to move - and failing - makes it worse and often provokes the sense that there is someone or something trying to squash, strangle or suffocate you. Sexual arousal during dreams is common and may add a particularly powerful edge to the experience.
Some cultures have built elaborate myths around sleep paralysis. Fabled demons, the incubus and succubus, come to have sex with their unwilling victims in the dead of night, and during the Middle Ages many a virgin or nun was reputedly visited by the evil incubi who came to tempt them. In myths common in Newfoundland, the Old Hag comes and presses on sleepers' chests, suffocating them and preventing them from moving. And the hill people of Laos and Vietnam talk of a Grey Ghost who paralyses victims in the dark.
Alien abductions may just be a modern equivalent of a sleep paralysis myth. It makes sense that in late 20th century Western culture the spaceship and the alien would form its basis. But why the odd lights and other consistent features?
Eerie lighting is common in another kind of sleep disturbance - the false awakening - in which you dream you have woken up. Although you are convinced you are awake, things don't look quite right and familiar objects can seem lit from within. In this state anything is possible because you are still dreaming, but the apparent familiarity of the environment means that the experiences are more likely to be interpreted as real. This is one variety of what Celia Green, a parapsychologist with an independent laboratory in Oxford, refers to as a "metachoric experience'' where the perceived world is replaced by an imagined replica.
A link between sleep disturbance and apparent abductions is lent some support by the research of the late Nicholas Spanos and his colleagues at Carleton University in Ottawa. They compared groups of people who had had intense UFO experiences, such as abduction, with those who had had less intense experiences and found that the former were more often related to sleep.
Floating or flying
But even if sleep phenomena are part of the answer, that doesn't explain the sense of being taken away bodily, of flying or floating and going on a journey. Enter Persinger and his idea that abduction-like experiences are caused by complex patterns of atoms in the temporal lobes. He argues that people with very labile temporal lobes will naturally have such experiences from time to time. These are particularly likely to occur during sleep and so these people might easily wake up with odd bodily sensations and feelings of floating or flying.
In addition, magnetic effects from earthquakes could be strong enough to set off the necessary firing. To test this he looked for, and found, a strong link between the dates of seismic events and claims of UF0 sightings, abductions and other strange phenomena from past centuries. Nor can hysteria and fear be the sole explanations, he argues. Reports of strange experiences peaked in the weeks and months before earthquakes, says Persinger, when magnetic changes might have been happening, but little else to suggest an imminent seismic event.
Those who believe that abductions really happen have tried to counter this theory by showing that abductees do not score higher on measures of temporal lobe lability. But arguments have raged over whether enough people were tested, and whether their experiences were really abductions. Now, in a bid to settle the issue, Persinger is turning to direct simulations. And this is where my experiences in the lab chamber come into the picture.
I was wide awake throughout. Nothing seemed to happen for the first ten minutes or so. Instructed to describe aloud anything that happened, I felt under pressure to say something, anything. Then suddenly my doubts vanished. "I'm swaying. It's like being on a hammock.” Then it felt for all the world as though two hands had grabbed my shoulders and were bodily yanking me upright. I knew I was still lying in the reclining chair, but someone, or something, was pulling me up.
Something seemed to get hold of my leg and pull it, distort it, and drag it up the wall. It felt as though I had been stretched half way up to the ceiling. Then came the emotions. Totally out of the blue, but intensely and vividly I suddenly felt angry - not just mildly cross but that clear-minded anger out of which you act - but there was nothing and no one to act on. After perhaps ten seconds, it was gone. Later, it was replaced by an equally sudden attack of fear. I was terrified - of nothing in particular. The long term medical effects of applying strong magnetic fields to the brain are largely unknown, but I felt weak and disoriented for a couple of hours after coming out of the chamber.
Of course, I knew that it was all caused by the magnetic field changes, but what would people feel if such things happened spontaneously in the middle of the night? Wouldn't they want, above all, to find an explanation, to find out who had been doing it to them? If someone told them an alien was responsible and invited them to join an abductees' support group, wouldn't some of them seize on the idea, if only to reassure themselves that they weren't going mad?
One last thought. Persinger applied a silent and invisible force to my brain and created a specific experience for me He claimed that he was imitating the basic sequences of the processes of memory and perception and that, by varying those sequences, he could control my experience. Could he have done it from a distance? Could it be done on a wider scale? Suddenly prospects of magnetic mind control seem an awful lot worse than the idea of being abducted by imaginary aliens.
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 73 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.
Earth or Mars? Amazing Nasa animation reveals what the red...
