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 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 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...
21-06-2016
Palpa Lines: Are They Created Before Nazca Lines For Years?
Palpa Lines: Are They Created Before Nazca Lines For Years?
One of the many reasons why some people believe in aliens and some extraterrestrial creatures is the existence of mysterious objects or works of art that appeared centuries ago. According to them, these works were naturally made, as opposed to man-made which can easily be debunked. According to recent studies of archaeological, the first Nazca lines drawings were created in the Valleys of the Rio Grande and Palpa. It was 3000 years ago that our ancestors utilized the flat surface of the mountains. Of course, they also used slopes of the hills just to create high and human representations and geometric figures. Today, archaeologist believes that the data were set up to please ancient gods, who allegedly were supposed to control the forces of nature, such as the floods, drought, and earthquake. Today, visitors may observe all these wonderful features of the past, soaring over the zone on small aircraft, specially built for excellent comfort and huge panoramic windows to take great pictures.
Though not as famous as the Geoglyphs and Nazca Lines, those at Palpa are equally intriguing because they were just recently contended of being the earlier lines existed in this world. Made by the Paracas culture possibly thousand years ahead of the Nazca Lines, there are more than 1600 Geoglyphs and Palpa Lines. No one knows what Nazca lines are. The only debatable fact is that they can be found in South America, specifically at the plateau of the Nazca Desert in the Peru’s southern part. Scattered across the plateau, these lines are massive geoglyphs portraying nature and geometrical objects. They have been carved about 40-50 cm deep and 135 cm wide on the ground. The existence of Palpa lines was believed to be associated with the presence of extraterrestrial beings. At the point of dimensional arguments, the contentions were still hypothetical because there was never a conclusion that cameas a final answer.
Netizens capture photos of ‘UFO’ in sky above Tsing Yi
Pictures of an unidentified flying object (UFO) spotted above Yin Lai Court in Lai King emerged on the internet on Sunday, Metro Daily reported Monday.
Some netizens suggested it might simply be a drone or an aircraft caught in thick fog.
The object seen in the pictures look quite a bit like a flying saucer.
Other netizens reported they saw lights flashing in the sky above Maritime Square in Tsing Yi.
Headline Daily reported that the Facebook post containing the pictures attracted almost 2,000 likes and nearly 300 comments.
Szeto Wah-koon from the Hong Kong UFO Club said the object captured in the extended-exposure pictures wasn’t a star, which would have left behind a star trail.
He said that if the pictures were taken from indoors, the reflection of lights from within the building could be superimposed onto the image, creating mysterious spots of light.
The industrial Swedish town of Norrköping, nestled along an inlet of the Baltic Sea, was once known for its booming textile industry. Now, decades after outsourcing muffled the city’s industrial buzz, Norrköping is known primarily as a quiet student town, dotted with repurposed factories and the snaking waterways that interweave them.
In such surroundings, it seems strange to find the world’s largest open UFO archive. Yet there it is, just a five-minute tram ride from the city center.
The Archives for the Unexplained, formerly known as The UFO Archives, are scattered throughout 10 storage facilities in the housing quarters of Ljura, a neighborhood in the city's south. These facilities are located in the cellars of colorful, structural-functionalist apartment complexes.
As co-founder and administrative manager Anders Liljegren gives me a tour of the first storage unit, we cross paths with several young students exiting the apartment’s double-doors. Do they realize that century-old collections dedicated to the obscure and unexplained reside just beneath their feet? “Most likely not,” Liljegren laughs when I ask him. “They probably think we’re doing a really bad job of hiding a drug operation or something when we bring huge boxes to the units.”
Co-founder and administrative manager Anders Liljegren in the Archives.
Though the Archives for the Unexplained now boasts over 20,000 collections of animalistic phenomena from all around the world, it had very humble, local beginnings. It all started in 1973 when Anders and his two friends Hakan Blomqvist and Kjell Jonsson founded the Work Group for Ufology, a predecessor to the UFO Archives. Curious about unexplainable objects in the sky, the then 23-year-old and his colleagues ran a library out of their student apartments, hoping to create a dialogue about UFOs in Scandinavia. Over time the library expanded and the group officially became known as the Archives for UFO Research in January of 1980.
Anders Liljegren and Håkan Blomqvist at a press conference.
Despite assumptions that the organization is comprised of staunch believers in all things extraterrestrial, Liljegren and his coworkers prefer to take a more academic approach to their archival project. “We’ve had some bad experiences with fanatics," he says. “It is best to have people working here who are more sociologically interested.” Liljegren has been personally involved in a wide array of research regarding Scandinavian “close encounters” and was one of the first to gain access to theretofore-secret government documents detailing the Swedish “ghost fliers” and “ghost rockets” that caused a commotion in the 1930s and 1940s.
At work in the archives.
From ancient alien theories to more contemporary hypotheses, the archive in Ljura seems to have it all. Liljegren shows me the archives’ most recent acquisition, donated by the Spanish group Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios (CEI). It is, as is written on the group’s homepage, “one of the finest and rich report files anywhere in the world with 120 large black file folders and another 30 files of cross-indexes by region.”
While I am in awe over the wealth of material from Spain, I am more taken by an old book from the USSR. As UFO research was then a banned topic, books on the subject were painstakingly put together by hand, complete with carefully composed drawings of UFO sightings. Liljegren points to a child-like drawing of an object hovering above a house. “These sightings were actually just Russia’s missile tests, but nobody knew that then. They had noidea.”
A flying saucer artifact in the archives.
For years Liljegren and the board of the UFO Archives struggled to keep the archives streamlined to exclusively UFO-related material but as of April 2013, the organization has broadened its scope. “We get calls from random benefactors every once in a while,” he says. Somebody will call and say that they have their father’s UFO collection, for instance, and need a place to keep it safe.”
Oftentimes people offer to donate money with a caveat. “We’ll have somebody call in and offer a certain sum if we include ‘x’ and ‘y’ in the archives,” says Liljegren. Now officially known as the Archives for the Unexplained, the organization embraces material regarding anything that can be called into question, from the Loch Ness Monster, to fairies, to parapsychology, and more. They have struggled to find a place to consolidate their extensive collections and are still in search of a fitting locale. “We’ll probably stay in Norrköping,” he says, “there’s just too much to transport.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 4/5 - (1 Stemmen) Categorie:News from the FRIENDS of facebook ( ENG )
UFOs, climate change and missing airliners: how to separate fact from fiction
UFOs, climate change and missing airliners: how to separate fact from fiction
by Michael J. I. Brown, The Conversation
UFO or lens flare? Credit: Vladimir Petkov/Flickr, CC BY-SA
If you've been on social media then perhaps you've seen the "Ancient Aliens" meme; a wild-haired alien aficionado Giorgio A. Tsoukalos attributing all manner of things to aliens.
Attributing the pyramids to aliens is absurd. But taking something very real and being completely wrong about its cause is all too common, particularly in media reporting. Unfortunately, these attribution errors are often taken more seriously than Tsoukalos' aliens.
Fortunately, scientists have some strategies in their arsenal for avoiding such attribution errors. And you don't require a PhD and research lab to use the strategies.
Searching for MH370
The search for missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 has been marred by false alarms. Many of these false alarms were preventable, using techniques often employed by scientists.
Some searches relied on visual inspection of satellite images, including images that have been digitally altered in the hope of identifying relatively small pieces of debris.
While some searchers were cautious, predictable false alarms arose. Many debris sightings were linked with MH370, when in all likelihood they had nothing to do with the missing jet. There's a lot of fish in the sea, and a lot of rubbish too. Further, people using digitally enhanced images may have misidentified image artefacts as debris.
Giorgio A. Tsoukalos is a well known speculator about alien visitation to Earth. Credit: History Channel
The false alarms could have been reduced using control samples (some searches may have used control samples, but this has gone largely unreported). For example, if satellite images from inside and outside the search area were inspected, one could estimate the number of debris sightings not associated with MH370. In a sense, this happened inadvertently when initial searches unfortunately focused on the South China Sea instead of the Indian Ocean.
Searching for known objects may have also reduced the false alarms. For example, there are claims online that MH370's contrails are visible in satellite images. If this were true, satellite images should also show contrails from other jets with known flight paths crossing the Indian Ocean on the same day. This cross check (among others) is largely absent from online discussions of MH370.
UFOs and Einstein
If I want to quickly find unconvincing UFO stories, the Science section of the UK's Daily Express is a good place to start. (And the Daily Mail isn't that far behind.)
Many UFO snapshots are patterns of light created by lens flares and reflections off windows. These artefacts are well known to astronomers, professional photographers and film director J.J. Abrams, but are perhaps unfamiliar to some tabloid journalists.
Scientists often gain understanding, including correctly interpreting data, by collaborating with relevant experts. And such collaborations shouldn't be limited to scientists.
Searches for MH370 using satellites has been marred by false alarms. Credit: AAP/SASTIND
Last year I was emailed by someone who witnessed a star brighten and then rapidly disappear. Fortunately she recorded the time and location of the event, and I recognised it was an "iridium flare" produced by an orbiting satellite. Someone unfamiliar with iridium flares could believe they saw a UFO or an exploding star, but collaboration demystified the initially strange and inexplicable.
Many Daily Express' alien stories discuss rather elaborate theories about the mundane. A Mars rock that looks a bit like a person (or just about anything) is evidence for aliens. Shadows on the moon aren't just lumps and bumps on the lunar surface, but evidence for a giant insect. Nope.
There may well be aliens somewhere in the universe, but if you are looking at a rocky planetary landscape, you are probably looking at rocks and shadows, not aliens.
Mundane explanations aren't just for debunking tabloid UFO stories. In 2011, the OPERA experiment hinted that neutrinos could travel faster than light. However, even the OPERA scientists were cautious about this result, given it was at odds with Einstein's theory of relativity.
In the case of the speeding neutrinos, a dodgy connection in the experiment was found to be producing erroneously fast measurements. The mundane trumped the headlines.
The Daily Express may think this is science reporting, but I have my doubts. Credit: Google image search
Bed sheets and ski resorts
"Correlation is not causation" is a great victory of science communication. Millions now know that two sets of data can line up very nicely just by random chance.
This is all fine and well, but how do you tell meaningful correlations from the spurious correlations? Indeed, pseudo scientists will invoke "correlation is not causation" to dismiss vaccines or climate science. The answer is science doesn't stop at simple comparisons of data on plots.
For example, the rise in global temperatures is correlated with the rise in atmospheric CO₂. But the science doesn't end there. One can look at temperature rise as a function of location, altitude and time of day. Theory predicts more CO₂ increases the absorption of infrared light, thermal expansion of the warming oceans contributes to sea level rise, and natural impacts on climate aren't ignored. Science is more than a plot correlating two sets of data.
When it comes to pseudoscience, the analysis often stops with the simple plots. Online I've argued with the climate "sceptic" blogger Joanne Codling about her climate claims, which have been publicised by Miranda Devine in the Daily Telegraph.
Is there a lethal connection between bed sheets and ski resorts? Credit: Tyler Vigen
Even a cursory look at measurements of atmospheric particulates shows volcanoes injected far more dust into the air than nuclear tests. Volcanoes had a greater impact on climate than nuclear tests, correlation isn't causation, and science is more than lining up data on graphs.
We live in a data-rich world. We can upload camera phone images in an instant, or download data and examine it with a spread sheet. Understanding the origins of what we see is harder. But with a little bit of scientific method we can all avoid the worst attribution errors.
Through NASA's Cassini rocket, scientists caught "mini-jets" in the act of blowing out particles from the Saturn's F ring, leaving a trail of imperfection in the supposedly flawless discrete ring.
SMEARED OUT OF PERFECTION
Scientists recently found a smeared section on Saturn’s outermost ring, known as the F ring. The “vandalism” was caught using NASA’s Cassini rocket.
But apparently, this isn’t uncommon. In fact, the F ring is Saturn’s most dynamic ring, and scientists can actually see the F ring continuously changing in as short as a few hours and researchers have been observing trails left by objects punching through the particles for years.
Sacrilege! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
In 2012, researchers began scouring through and magnifying thousands of photos in a mission to investigate themysterious behavior of the F ring. “The F ring has a circumference of 550,000 miles (881,000 kilometers), and these mini-jets are so tiny they took quite a bit of time and serendipity to find,” said Nick Attree, an imaging associate for the Cassini. “We combed through 20,000 images and were delighted to find 500 examples of these rogues during just the seven years Cassini has been at Saturn.”
Saturn’s F ring is its narrowest ring, which is a 30-300 feet wide layer made of trillions of dust, rock, and ice particles and has a circumference of about 550,000 miles (881,000 kilometers).
And while it’s a very pretty sight, make no mistake: these particles travel at violent speeds, with some moving at thousands of miles per hour. And these particles range between sizes as small as a grain of sand, to masses bigger than a skyscraper.
WHAT’S THE CULPRIT?
The disruptions are believed to be caused by some objects embedded within the ring and interact with some of the other objects in it, and with the influence of Saturn’s moonPrometheus, producing “mini-jets” that blow some of the particles out of formation.
“[Prometheus] acts as a cosmic shepherd, sculpting the F ring as it makes its orbit around Saturn,” National Geographic writes. “But the moon’s route isn’t perfectly circular, and its uneven pull can create clumps inside the ring that then shoot out as jets.”
The recent collision observed through the Cassini on April 8 happened within a day or so of being caught in the act, and the particles have pretty much put themselves back into order within two months.
In many ways, Saturn’s rings are perfect for leaving clues about cosmic events around it, since any collisions leave trails of particles from the rings.
“You get to expecting in planetary science for things to have happened millions of years ago, and you don’t think to ever get to observe things actively happening,” Weiss said. “But that’s the kind of funky thing with Saturn’s rings. You can actually see evidence of things that happened yesterday or the day before.”
Star Trek Tricorder: Medical Device Can Scan DNA, Diagnose Illness
Star Trek Tricorder: Medical Device Can Scan DNA, Diagnose Illness
A newly developed handheld device can scan for disease, which is a feat previously featured only in science fiction.
After nearly a decade of development, a real life "Tricorder" has been developed to scan for sickness and disease.
(Photo : Getty Images)
The "Tricorder," a medical device used on the famed sci-fi space show "Star Trek," has become a real working device, with the ability to scan DNA and detect multiple diseases within the human body, according to Daily Mail.
Jonathan O'Halloran, a 39-year-old inventor who has been working on the device for eight years, believes that the device can conduct complex lab analysis quickly and easily, saving time and money. O'Halloran is the co-founder of QuantuMDx, a company that is working on bringing simple handheld solutions to doctors all over the world.
One of their headlining inventions, the QPOC, mirrors the abilities of the infamous Tricorder.The device can take samples of blood, check for specific diseases and deliver pinpointed analysis in about 10 to 15 minutes.
"Trying to explain a handheld DNA test in the background of everything that's out there at the moment is very tricky," said O'Halloran. "We're trying to get to a point where we can do in-field diagnosis."
Right now, the current models of the QPOC are being handmade in Singapore for around $88, according to The Kernel.
The company is at work to improve the device and make it more cost effective.
He said: "He's interested in crop circles, too, so I send him my crop circle calendars and magazines that I buy and keep him informed. I'm his crop circle counsellor."
In 1991 Prince Charles was reported to have called in a crop circle expertCREDIT: TIM GRAHAM/GETTY
"He's just a human soul like you or I, but he's been born into this incredible fate," the actor told Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.
"We had a wonderful meeting and then he came to the Globe several times. He is a great lover of Shakespeare – and I met him another time to talk about Shakespeare.
Steven Spielberg and Mark Rylance talk about new film The BFGP
"I still call him 'sir' in respect for his extraordinary fate. He's just a human soul like you or I, but he's been born into this incredible fate and so I respect him as I would respect anyone who has had an extraordinary fate given to them."
Self-styled researcher Colin Andrews was said to have been asked to meet with the Prince, but the meeting was cancelled after a tabloid newspaper revealed the plan.
A crop circle in Wiltshire in 2010CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER JONES
Mr Andrews later wrote: "Prince Charles had crop circles on one of his estates as did other members of Royalty and his interest was high.
"Prince Charles wanted me to explain the features we were convinced at the time were of a genuine phenomenon. Although a plan was set for such a meeting to take place an unfortunate leak to the media scuttled our meeting."
Air Force Plans Flight Tests Of Hypersonic Vehicle
Air Force Plans Flight Tests Of Hypersonic Vehicle
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
A joint U.S. Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project is moving speedily along--intended to fly to Mach 20, plus some.
The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle program is exploring high-speed air vehicles designed for rapid, around-the-world reach. Project goals are to develop hypersonic technology for a glided or powered system, as well as advance small, low cost, and responsive launch vehicles.
A Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-1 (HTV-1) is now on the books for a less than one-hour flight in September 2007. Attaining Mach 19 (19 times the speed of sound), the glided air vehicle will briefly exit the Earth's atmosphere and reenter flying between 19 and 28 miles above the Earth's surface. This inaugural voyage of HTV-1 would end in the Pacific Ocean.
The Falcon HTV program is geared to showcase the ability of a craft to attain hypersonic speeds - ranging from 6,000 to 15,000 miles per hour (Mach 9 to Mach 22), and reach altitudes between 100,000 to 150,000 feet. To do so will necessitate an airframe structure designed to survive intense heat and pressure.
There are other partners participating in the demonstration program: NASA, the Space and Missile Systems Center, Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Air Vehicles and Space Vehicles Directorates.
Critical technologies
Work is now underway to build the Falcon HTV-1's flight hardware components. The test vehicle will be integrated at a Lockheed Martin facility in Valley Forge , Pennsylvania.
AFRL's Space Vehicles directorate, located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, is specifically focusing on technologies for the glided system and issued a January 25 background release on the hypersonic work. Technologists there are helping to develop a thermal protection system for the HTV structure to withstand 3,000-degree temperatures and extreme exterior pressures - 25 times those experienced by NASA's space shuttle orbiter.
Other critical technology to be investigated in the Falcon HTV work includes an all carbon aeroshell. This outer casing must tolerate crushing pressures and intense heat. To keep the vehicle interior cool, an advanced multi-layer insulation is being fabricated for long duration flights. In addition, researchers are designing tools for enhanced HTV navigation and maneuverability.
Trio of flights
A second glided flight is slated for 2008 or 2009. That HTV-2 test would feature a different structural design, enhanced controllability, and higher risk/performance factors during its high-speed journey. Like its predecessor, the system will reach Mach 22 speed, and then finish its one-hour plus mission in the Pacific Ocean.
Amazing Super Hypersonic Test Flight (Falcon Project)
Also scheduled is a third and final flight of a Falcon HTV. That test shot is planned for 2009 and will be a departure from the previous two demonstrations.
This time the reusable hypersonic glider will lift off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia.
Screaming out of the area, the HTV-3 would be recovered in the Atlantic Ocean an hour later. In addition, the HTV-3--flying at a maximum Mach 10 speed--would achieve high aerodynamic efficiency and validate external heat barrier panels that will be reusable.
"We have made great progress and are on track for the first glided hypersonic test vehicle flight in 2007," said Russ Partch, Falcon HTV-1 project manager in the AFRL release. "It will enable a revolutionary capability to quickly respond to events anywhere around the world."
Partch added that the HTVs will prove technologies for global reach vehicles that can get a payload to the area of interest quickly in support of the joint warfighter.
The results of the trio of HTV experimental flights are viewed as having a significant impact in the development of future affordable, adaptable, and responsive military delivery platforms and launch systems.
According to AFRL, the Falcon HTV program is expected--during the next three to four years--to tackle challenges related to hypersonic flight by in-flight validation of technologies while demonstrating operationally responsive space lift.
It seems the moon is not Earth's only cosmic companion.
The newly discovered asteroid 2016 HO3 orbits the sun in such a way that the space rock never strays too far from Earth, making it a "quasi-satellite" of our planet, scientists say.
"One other asteroid — 2003 YN107 — followed a similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since departed our vicinity," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statementWednesday (June 15).
"This new asteroid is much more locked onto us," Chodas added. "Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth's companion for centuries to come."
Indeed, 2016 HO3 is the best example of an Earth quasi-satellite ever found, scientists said.
The asteroid was discovered on April 27 by scientists using the Pan-STARRS 1 survey telescope in Hawaii. 2016 HO3's exact size is unknown, but researchers think it's between 130 feet and 330 feet wide (40 to 100 meters).
The newfound asteroid 2016 HO3 has an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a constant companion of Earth.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As the space rock circles the sun, it loops around Earth as well, zooming ahead of the planet half of the time and trailing behind the other half, NASA officials said. 2016 HO3's orbit is tilted slightly relative to that of Earth, so the asteroid also bobs up and down through our planet's orbital plane.
The path of 2016 HO3 tends to twist and drift over time, but Earth's gravitational pull keeps the asteroid contained: It never comes closer than 9 million miles (14.5 million kilometers) to our planet, and it never gets more than 24 million miles (38.6 million km) away, researchers said.
"In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a little dance with Earth," Chodas said.
This dance is not dangerous: 2016 HO3 poses no threat to the planet, NASA officials said.
There can be very few people within the field of UFO research who haven’t heard accounts of significant material on UFOs going “missing.” We’re talking about the likesof certain files on the Rendlesham Forest UFO event of 1980, and on the Roswell controversy of 1947. There’s also a very intriguing – but far less well-known – affair from the 1950s. It’s one that I have taken a personal interest in, but which still remains unresolved.
The late Ralph Noyes retired from the British Ministry of Defense in 1977. In an interview with UFO investigator Timothy Good, Noyes revealed that, back in the 1950s, the Royal Air Force had secured “gun-camera” footage of UFOs over the UK. The footage – seen by Noyes at the MoD in 1970, along with a dozen or so other individuals – wasn’t overly spectacular (Noyes described it as “unimpressive”). But, it certainly showed something anomalous and fast-moving. Noyes (whose account you can find in Good’s 1987 book, Above Top Secret) confirmed that he saw the footage while in the employ of the MoD, as did representatives from the Meteorological Office, the Director of Air Defense, and a number of personnel from the Air Staff. A theory was offered that the phenomenon may have been “something obscure meteorologically.”
Nick Pope
In the latter part of 1993, I approached the Ministry of Defense and inquired about the then-current status of that same gun-camera footage. Certainly, it was not available for study at the National Archives. So, where was it? That’s a good question. One of those I spoke with on this matter was Nick Pope. Between 1991 and 1994, Pope worked in one particular Ministry of Defense office that handled UFO reports, Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a.
Pope told me: “I liaised with our archivist people, who are the sort of middlemen between us and [the National Archives]. They made a number of checks and, basically, a check was made of any place where this material might have ended. Now, that includes [the National Archives]. It also includes anything that might have got lodged in a halfway house of archiving. They checked the Imperial War Museum and, I think, the RAF Museum.”
Pope continued: “No-one is disputing that Ralph Noyes saw this footage and that it existed. That’s not in dispute, as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s unfortunate, but I suspect that one of two things happened. Either it got lost or destroyed somewhere, because it wasn’t seen as being of public interest at that time. Or, old film deteriorates; it becomes unstable and you have to destroy it before it becomes a health and safety hazard. But, I think Ralph himself said that the footage wasn’t that spectacular. We did have a thorough look for it and unfortunately it didn’t turn up. Given that we’ve now had a proper look, I think it’s unlikely it will turn up. All I can say is, we gave it our best shot.”
While I have absolutely no doubt that Pope was being entirely honest and sincere in his statements, I find it odd that such footage would have been routinely destroyed – and without copies being made for possible, future reference. After all, whether it was a craft from “somewhere else” or, as Noyes suggested, a strange meteorological phenomenon, the fact is that it was caught on film by a military pilot (or pilots), in British airspace, and remained unidentified.
A study of the available and now-declassified UFO reports of the Ministry of Defense shows that, across the decades, it preserved thousands of reports submitted by the general public. Many of those reports described nothing stranger than sightings of mere lights in the sky. Yet, they were all carefully kept on file. But, evidence obtained by the military was seemingly destroyed. To me, that doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, there’s another explanation: that, to this day, the footage remains classified and far away from the prying eyes of Ufologists. And even from employees of the Ministry of Defense, too.
In 1997 there occurred in and around Exeter, Devon, England a strange wave of paranormal activity. It included numerous sightings of UFOs, encounters with strange and out-of-place creatures (such as so-called “black panthers”), animal mutilations, and much more. It’s a story chronicled in the pages of The Rising of the Moon, a book penned by Jon Downes and Nigel Wright. It was while he was hot on the trail of the Devon events of 1997 that Wright uncovered a fascinating story concerning the Men in Black.
Wright had decided to spend a day looking through the newspaper archives of the local Exeter Public Library, in an effort to determine if there had been other waves of paranormal activity in the area, in years long gone. It was while doing so that Wright stumbled on the May 21, 1909 edition of England’s Exmouth Journal newspaper. It contained an article titled “Invasion Scares – Queer Stories from Humberside.” The article reads as follows:
“A strange story was told to the Yorkshire Post, Grimsby correspondent by workmen from Killingholm near Immingham new dock works on Tuesday night. They declared that they were seated at noon on the roadside at Killingholm, when a large motor car drove up and two men alighted who walked to the bank on which the workmen were seated and asked if any airships had been recently seen near. The workmen replied: ‘No’, whereupon the motorists asked the distance between Killingholm and Spurn, and whether any mines were laid in the Humber between the two places. The workmen referred their interrogators to a coastguard, saying he would be able to answer them. ‘It does not matter,’ replied the motorists, and, after enquiring the way to the nearest refreshment house, they jumped into their car and drove quickly away.”
This is typical behavior of the Men in Black, pulling up in a car, asking questions about unusual aerial vehicles, and driving off again – except for the fact that it’s a rarity to find pre-1947 reports of such activity. It may well have been Wright’s persistent digging into such matters, and specifically into the matter of the MIB, that led to a dreaded knock on the door from a WIW: a Woman in White.
In 2015, Wright told me: “It was right when we were in the middle of that huge UFO wave, and I had gone to an evening meeting of Jon’s [Downes] Exeter Strange Phenomena research group. And my wife, Sue, was in the flat we lived in, in Exmouth. There was a knock at the door, Sue went to answer it. And when she opened the door, there stood a lady in all white. It was a lovely, sunny, early evening, and the woman was dressed in a long, white coat, white trousers, white headscarf with a little bit of a black fringe poking through, and huge black sunglasses that wrapped right around, and very pasty-looking skin. Which was rather weird, to say the least, with it being hot and sunny.
“Sue said something like, ‘Hello can I help you?’ And she asked if I was there. Sue said, ‘No, he’s out at the moment.’ The woman then said, and I’m working from memory now, of what Sue told me when I got home that night: ‘This thing he is doing with UFOs, tell him to stop it, right away!’ Sue asked why, and this woman didn’t say another thing – at all. She just stared for a moment, then turned and walked down towards the gate.
“Then something strange happened: the road we lived on was a long, dead straight road, about 150 to 200 yards in each direction. As the woman went down the path, Sue turned to pick up our youngster, who was crying, and when she turned back again, about ten seconds later, there was no sign of her in either direction. Sue went to the road and looked both ways and there was no-one, for as far as Sue could see. She had just vanished. It was very odd because just the night before this all happened, I had a hypnotic regression done on a blocked experience from when I was a kid, in which I think I was taken on-board a UFO. And, I actually discussed all this at Jon’s meeting – which would have been the same time the woman was visiting the house. That warning to keep off sounds terribly familiar,doesn’t it?”
It was an event that Wright still cannot banish from his mind, almost two decades later. Such is the lasting, traumatic effect that these sinister characters have on those whose lives they intrude upon. We should also note that the visit to the family home followed Wright’s day spent at his local library, and where he came across the 1909 MIB report cited above. We have seen connections between libraries and both the WIB and the MIB on no less than two, previous occasions, and in relation to (A) a 1967 affairinvolving a Woman in Black and a woman using the name of “Jane” (but who was actually one Jaye Paro); and (B) a 1980 saga in which Peter Rojcewicz had a bizarre encounter with a MIB at the Library of the University of Pennsylvania.
Do the Women in Black (and in white) and the MIB have a particular liking for books and libraries? Maybe so.
One of the great frontiers of human experience and the unknown is that of what happens to us when we inevitably die. It is perhaps the final frontier we face, and certainly the most mysterious. What happens to us when we pass on? Do we simply blink out of existence? Are we reborn into new bodies? Does our soul transfer to another plane of existence? Do we even have a “soul” as we like to think of it at all? These are some of the many questions concerning the afterlife which mankind has pondered since time unremembered. The realm of death is a complete cipher to us, a place into which we can only make a one way journey and which lies in an obscured, unexplored territory more inaccessible than the highest mountain or deepest undersea abyss, indeed more remote than the furthest edges of the solar system and even the edge of the universe as we know it. What becomes of us after death remains a complete mystery to us which we have long been frustratingly unable to explore to any appreciable degree without making that one way journey for ourselves.
Yet, with the advent of science and technology, and our increasing abilities to explore the outer fringes of our understanding, there has arisen a new question: can we scientifically prove and verify what happens to us after death? Can we use our advanced knowledge and technology to settle the age old debate of scientists, philosophers, and lay men alike once and for all? In this era of discovery, where we are ever relentlessly unlocking the secrets to our planet and the universe, pushing out into the boundaries past all that was known before, there have indeed been attempts to scientifically study what lies beyond our demise. These are the efforts of those who would penetrate that last frontier and come back with the answers we seek.
Those who would scientifically attempt to delve into the afterlife have long been plagued by dogma, ridicule, and misunderstanding. In one 1982 poll, it was found that a mere 16% of top scientists from various fields questioned believed that there was an afterlife at all, and only 4% thought we would ever be able to conclusively prove it. This general dismissive attitude and air of disinterest by the scientific community has hampered efforts for those who would seriously try to study the afterlife, as funding is rarely granted for such projects and those who pursue this avenue of research risk ridicule and derisive scorn from their peers. Interestingly, the rate of belief in an afterlife among medical doctors is significantly higher, with a 2005 poll showing that 59% of American medical doctors believed in an afterlife, which is a dramatically higher percentage than any other scientific profession.
Perhaps this stronger belief in something going on beyond the domain of life has to do with medical doctors’ experiences dealing with those who have experienced what are called near death experiences, or NDEs. These are reports by people who have claimed that after clinical death they have retained some form of awareness, no matter how tenuous, and have often reported similar phenomena in this state, regardless of religion or whether they believe in any kind of afterlife or not. These experiences are reported by a staggering number of people, around an estimated 200,000 people per year in the United States alone and untold millions worldwide. Commonly reported NDE experiences include leaving one’s body to observe the room and their own form, seeing a bright light, a feeling of peace or love, or even meeting long dead friends or relatives.
Although reports of NDEs may seem to be wholly subjective and the result of mere hallucinations, the remarkable similarities between them, as well as the sheer number of people who report them hint at an underlying phenomena with elements that may be possible to be objectively and scientifically measured and quantified. One serious study conducted by a team of scientists led by a Dr Berthold Ackermann collected reports of NDEs from hundreds of patients and came to the conclusion that the uncanny parallels between a vast number of accounts from people of all walks of life claiming to have retained consciousness after death suggested that the phenomenon was worth further study. Ackerman said of these similarities:
Most common memories include a feeling of detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of an overwhelming light.
The presence of these visions in people who were clinically dead, and which remained fairly consistent across faiths and ideals, has convinced some groups of researchers that there is something going on beyond current paradigms, and that it could possibly even point to the existence of some currently unknown duality between the physical brain and consciousness itself, or at the very least some physical process which we have yet to understand. This points squarely at a scientifically provable answer that merely lies beyond our grasp and current tools to fully quantify.
Many of the studies that have delved into observing and objectifying NDEs, and therefore understanding more about life after death, have relied on investigating victims of cardiac arrest. After all, these are people who are at the mercy of a fully controllable environment, and stand a chance of being pulled from the clutches of death. One such study conducted by lead researcher Pim van Lommel, of the Hospital Rijnstate in the Netherlands, in 2001 and published in the British medical journalLancet, focused on 344 patients who had suffered heart attacks to the point of being clinically dead, and then being successfully resuscitated. The study meticulously and methodically questioned patients within a week of dying and being brought back to life, and found that 18% of these patients were able to describe some form of awareness from the time when they were declared clinically dead, meaning that their brain had completely shut down due to lack of blood flow and therefore making it technically not physically possible for them to be conscious of anything. 12 percent of those in the study reported classical NDE experiences such as tunnels of light or seeing dead friends and relatives. The extremely sharp, lucid, vivid, and detailed recall of these events seemed to point at factors other than that they were some sort of hallucination or false memories.
Although the study did not make any concrete proclamations of the existence of an actual soul or an afterlife, nor does it lay out a precise way to measure the existence of a life after death, it does suggest that something very strange is going on. The people in the study had been technically brain dead, meaning that they should not have had any memories of anything at all, and if the phenomena had been caused by a purely physical effect, such as cerebral hypoxia, also called anoxia, which is damage to the brain caused by prolonged lack of oxygen, then it should have been reported by a higher percentage of patients in the study, if not all of them. This convinced van Lommel that there was perhaps something more going on than a purely physical or cellular effect, saying of these NDEs in a Washington Post interview:
Compare it with a TV program. If you open the TV set you will not find the program. The TV set is a receiver. When you turn off your TV set, the program is still there but you can’t see it. When you put off your brain, your consciousness is still there but you can’t feel it in your body.
Another similar study was carried out in 2003 by a Dr Peter Fenwick, a neuro-psychiatrist and senior lecturer at at King’s College, London, who investigated the experiences of cardiac arrest patients in England with the Institute of Psychiatry. During the study, over 60 cardiac arrest patients at Southampton General Hospital’s coronary care unit were interviewed about what they had experienced while technically temporarily brain dead. Of these patients, 7 of them recalled having classic NDE experiences, such as out of body experiences, entering a realm of peace and love, meeting lost loved ones, or journeying through a mysterious tunnel of light. In these cases, the patients had been clinically dead for up to several minutes, which hints that these sensations were not the result of mere normal physical processes or tricks of the brain. Fenwick explained the significance of this thus:
After a cardiac arrest you lose consciousness within eight seconds; within 11 seconds the brain’s rhythms become flat, and within 18 seconds there is no possibility of the brain creating a model of the world – so the brain is down.Yet whenever we asked people when their near-death experiences occurred, they said it was during unconsciousness. If that’s true, their experience was occurring when there was no blood flowing through the brain – and consciousness would appear to exist outside the brain.
Fenwick came to the conclusion that there was something unusual going on that went well beyond a purely physical explanation, and even suggested that it could be potential evidence that the mind in some form operates outside of and independent of the physical brain. He likened this connection to a TV playing programs transmitted over airwaves. He said of his findings:
There is now convincing evidence to challenge the current theory that consciousness can only exist inside the brain – and if you can have consciousness without associated brain function, that is enormously important for our understanding of the mind.
Another extremely ambitious scientific study was launched in 2008, and called the AWARE study (“AWAreness during REsuscitation”). Led by Sam Parnia, an assistant professor of medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and frequent collaborator with Dr. Fenwick, the study was aimed at trying to use the unique perspective of those who had stepped over to the other side and come back to tell the tale in order to peak through the window of the unknown to determine the existence of some form of life after death, or at least clues to the true connection between body and mind. The largest study of its kind ever attempted, 2,060 people who had suffered from major cardiac arrest were examined over a period of 4 years at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria. Throughout the whole study, strict scientific methodology was observed as much as was reasonably possible in order to weed out claims that were based merely on impressions and thus insufficient for use as evidence, and to maintain as much objectivity as was possible.
Of the victims surveyed, 40% of those who had been resuscitated and had survived the cardiac arrest reliably reported some form of consciousness after they had been declared technically dead and had ceased to display any clinical signs of being conscious. Despite this complete lack of any measurable brain activity, these patients were reporting a lingering awareness and consciousness, which should have been impossible. The form this consciousness took varied somewhat from individual to individual, with some describing a sense of awareness but no specific memory, while others reported bright lights, the sensation of floating or conversely sinking, or the feeling of being dragged through water, as well as heightened senses and the sense of time slowing down or speeding up. Many of the patients described an overall sense of peacefulness throughout the ordeal. In the more dramatic accounts, patients described the images of animals, family members, or some form of “mystical being.” There appeared to be little measurable difference between ages or genders when it came to these experiences.
Additionally, 13% of those examined claimed to have separated from their bodies during their deaths, with some of these accounts being rather striking. In one case, a 57-year-old social worker reported that he had floated around the room and witnessed hospital staff trying to bring him back to life. So vivid was his recollection of these events that he even keenly remembered the physical appearance of the doctors and nurses, as well as the distinct beeping and noises of the various different types of machines in the room. Interestingly, the man had been declared dead for 3 minutes at the time, which should have made any awareness completely impossible and rule out the possibility that it could have simply been hallucinations, yet during this time the man was apparently well aware of the scene around him from outside his body.
Parnia suspects that although only 40% of the patients reported any sort of after death consciousness, it is quite possible that the others had indeed experienced these phenomena, but were simply not able to remember them due to the effects of sedatives, drugs, or brain damage. Although the study is unable to unequivocally rule out the possibility that the reports were subjective, and not able to concretely prove that these things really happened or what actually caused them, Dr. Parnia believes that the sheer size of the sampling and the findings of the study are significant, have shed light on the phenomenon, and shown that it warrants a need for further investigation. Of the completed study, Dr. Parnia has proclaimed:
The evidence thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated. Whether it fades away afterwards, we do not know, but right after death, consciousness is not lost. We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating. But in this case conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped. This is significant, since it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to death are likely hallucinations or illusions, occurring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience corresponding with ‘real’ events when the heart isn’t beating.
The presence of a form of consciousness or awareness separate from the physical brain is a recurring theme of such experiments. In another study conducted by a Dr. Alexander Batthyany at the University of Vienna, it was found that in some cases patients with advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease briefly returned to a state of complete lucidity just before death, despite suffering symptoms so severe that their brains had been rendered more or less practically incapable of functioning at all. The study covered 227 patients, and in 10% of the cases, people who had up until that point been completely lacking any mental functionality at all had displayed briefly before death a sudden bright flash of awareness and memories from before, which should have been impossible if there was no “soul” that existed beyond simply the physical construct of the brain.
In the future, ever innovative technologies may allow us to not only observe these NDEs and other phenomena, but actually venture forth into the land of the dead, much as astronauts have journeyed into the far reaches of the cosmos. This is a theme that has been covered in popular culture before, most notably the 1990 film Flatliners, in which 5 medical students conduct secret experiments to induce death and explore what lies beyond, along with its mystical near death experiences. Such an outlandish idea is perhaps not so far from reality, and we are on the cusp of technology that may allow us to not only study NDEs, but to experience them for ourselves.
Researchers at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have developed a revolutionary procedure to put animals in a state of limbo between life and death, a sort of state of suspended animation fluttering over the abyss on the edge of death. In the experiments, dogs are drained of all blood and their veins filled with a frigid saline solution. Their body temperatures lowered to around 7 degrees Celsius (37 F), the animals cease all biological activity and are for all purposes technically dead. After 3 hours in this state, the blood is replaced and a mild shock administered, which jolts them back to the land of the living. The process is not without its problems, as some of the dogs have been reanimated with serious physical or behavioral aberrations, which have caused some critics to accuse the team of creating soulless “zombie dogs.”
Nevertheless, the team has grand plans to one day test the procedure on humans, which could be groundbreaking in the field of putting victims of serious injuries, especially those incurring massive blood loss, into a type of stasis while they await treatment. Such a tool could be invaluable in places like faraway battlefields, or other situations where immediate medical care is not available. Regardless, there have been considerable moral questions raised, such as the idea that any humans subjected to the experiments may wake up without souls, with an essential, key part of them missing. However, the research has mostly been seen as hopeful, with one of the directors saying they are merely pushing back the boundaries of what is considered dead, stating:
The definition of death depends on the technology you have to revive the subject. As medical technology gets better, the limits to being dead are pushed into more extreme physiological states. Death is really when a doctor says: ‘I can’t do any more.
One can most certainly see how such a procedure would be alluring for those who want to research what happens past the veil that separates us from death. Imagine what could be gleaned about the afterlife from someone who spent hours there or even more. We can only wait to see if there is ever a trial on human beings, but one team of psychologists and medical doctors associated with the Technische Universität of Berlin have claimed that they have already done something similar. The researchers have claimed that by using a sophisticated mixture of potent drugs such as epinephrine and dimethyltryptamine, they have managed to induce clinical death in patients for intervals of up to 20 minutes, after which they are revived with a specially designed CPR machine without any ill effects. The process has already been allegedly tested on around 944 volunteers over 4 years, with some people reportedly dead for up to 40 minutes to an hour. It is unclear what sort of NDEs any of these people may have experienced, but it definitely offers an avenue of pursuit for anyone brave enough to try and find out. Are we on the cusp of having the know-how and abilities to allow adventurous souls to make this once one-way journey into realms unknown and allow them to come back, just as astronauts delve into space to plummet back to Earth with wondrous stories to tell? It is an intriguing notion to be sure.
For all of the promising research done on NDEs so far, and all of the potential ways our technology may allow us to further and more deeply explore this mysterious phenomenon in the future, there is still a lot of skepticism aimed at this type of study. For many, the results found so far don’t count because they are adamant that any sort of awareness after death is indicative that the person was never really truly dead at all, despite any measurable amount of brain activity. Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, has said of the matter:
There’s a reason that these events are called ‘near’ death experiences. The people who have [near death experiences] are not actually dead. In that murky grey area between life and death, the brain is still functioning on some level and can therefore experience something.
This sentiment has been shared by others, who say that there is very little concrete evidence to suggest that any of the NDEs actually occurred at a point when the brain was fully non-functional. Therefore, they say, the studies of NDEs thus far are deeply flawed. Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital has said:
We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened. It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all.
The idea that these experiences are caused by merely a malfunctioning brain has been somewhat corroborated by the discovery in recent years of what has been deemed “The God Spot.” In 2000, Swiss researchers at at the Geneva University Hospital were presented with a 43-year-old woman who was admitted for surgery for profound epileptic seizures. An interesting effect was noticed when electrical stimulation was applied via electrodes to the area of the brain responsible for spatial cognition, called the angular gyrus, found in the right cortex. Neurologist Professor Olaf Blanke and colleagues accidentally found that by stimulating that area of the brain, the woman reported having vivid out of body experiences, in which she reported floating about the room above her own body. Blanke concluded that OBEs, and thereby NDEs in general, could be possibly explained by some malfunctioning of the brain rather than an actual soul leaving the body. It nevertheless shows that OBEs are a very real physical phenomenon that deserves further study, no matter what the cause.
A similar physical induction of classical NDE effects has been shown through the use of the drug ketamine, which affects receptors in the brain for the neurotransmitter glutamate. This uncontrolled, totally legal drug can, in the right doses, produce an altered state of consciousness and many of the reported experiences of NDEs, such as out of body experiences, communing with mystical beings, reliving of life events, and traveling through tunnels of light, to the point that one researcher has deemed the use of ketamine to be “experiments in voluntary death.” This has caused skeptics to conclude that all NDEs must be purely the result of misfrings of brain chemistry, but those who have experienced true NDEs are adamant that this is something more. Regardless of who is right, this is yet another case that shows that NDEs are a real phenomenon worthy of further scientific study and not a complete fabrication.
Skeptics remain convinced that these after life experiences are solely the realm of the physical, some last desperate firing of a dying mind. To them this is just psychedelic dreams and euphoria conjured up by chemicals in the brain during death, to which we give unreasonable spiritual weight if we survive the ordeal to return to life. This could describe all of the events of NDEs, including the ubiquitous tunnels of light, which skeptics say could be caused by frantically firing brain cells reacting to a lack of oxygen. Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol and notable NDE skeptic says of the phenomenon:
I think what’s happening is that people are trying to validate their experience by making these paranormal claims, but you don’t need to do that. They’re valid experiences in themselves, only they’re happening in the brain and not in the world out there.
Interestingly, some of these skeptics have come around once they experienced life after death for themselves. Cell biologist Joyce Hawkes was once just such a skeptic, and did not put much thought into the possibility of an afterlife, until one fateful accident changed her mind forever. Hawkes fell out of a window and sustained life threatening injuries that put her into a state of clinical death. During this time, she claims that she had an experience that did not fit any of her preconceived paradigms and which she remains at a loss to explain. Hawkes said of the incident:
I think that part of me — that my spirit, my soul — left my body and went to another reality. It just was not part of the paradigm in which I lived as a scientist. It was a big surprise to me to have this sense of something different than the body — a consciousness different than the body — and to be in this wonderfully healing, peaceful, nurturing place.
So is there anything to these NDEs? Is this a peek into realms unknown or merely the physical effects of a gasping, dying brain; our last feverish dreams before slipping into nothingness? What lies beyond the curtain of the death that awaits us all, and will we ever be in a position to scientifically find out waits beyond? It seems in a world in which we are finding ways to detect ever more bizarre and weird phenomena such as quantum physics and the strange particles and inner working of our universe there may soon come a time when we may conquer the answers to the perplexing questions of the afterlife as well. Perhaps at some point we will delve out into these badlands just as we journey out into space or the farthest reaches of the deep blue seas, and embark on a journey that will bring with it wondrous discoveries of the unknown which lie on the fringes of our understanding. Until then, we are confined within these flesh prisons of ours, waiting for it to finally be revealed where that final journey will take us.
For all the people who have been waiting anxiously for a definitive explanation for those mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres, the latest word from NASA is good news for those with sore feet. No, it’s not lights directing aliens to the offices of a podiatrist who specializes in reptilian appendages. The answer from NASA is that the light is a reflection off of hydrated magnesium sulfates, which is a form of the compound better known on Earth as Epsom salt.
New photos of the infamous bright spot (located in what is now called the Occator Crater) and other areas taken by the Dawn spacecraft during a flyover from an altitude of 4,400 km (2,700 miles) were analyzed by a team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. Using a new exposure technique that better differentiated between the dark and light areas, the team found a total of 130 bright spots that were almost always in craters. From this they determined that whatever was causing the spots was brought to the surface by asteroid impacts.
An image of the Occator Crater combined with a digital terrain model to show a 3D version of the crater and light
What those asteroid impacts uncovered was identified by spectral analysis to be hydrated magnesium sulphates, which is the main ingredient in Epsom salt on Earth. This finally confirmed the popular theory that Ceres has a subsurface area made of briny water and ice.
While looking at the bright spots, the researchers found something else … ammonia-rich clays. This means that Ceres, which is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, probably came originally from an area loaded with ammonia and nitrogen, like the outer part of the solar system near the orbit of Neptune where nitrogen ice is abundant.
The combination of these two new findings, outlined in the current edition of the journal Nature, indicates that Ceres is not quite an asteroid and not quite a comet but something in between. More details on what this means could come later this month when Dawn, currently in its final orbit at 385 km (240 miles) takes pictures with a resolution of 35 meters (120 feet)
That resolution may be good enough to identify any aliens soaking their feet in a crater of Epsom salts.
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Are Crop Circles Encrypted Messages Assembled by Otherwordly Beings?
Are Crop Circles Encrypted Messages Assembled by Otherwordly Beings?
Throughout the years, people involved in researching crop circles have found that these complex designs may sometimes offer hints of different universal aspects. In other words, crop circles are seen as a message interpreting bits of our human existence, where our journey had begun and where it will come to an end.
Other than a hidden meaning, some crop circles are known to possess potent electromagnetic energies that pose a clear threat to any mechanical equipment approaching them. Reports tell how cameras suddenly malfunction, and when they do work, the images provided frequently appear overexposed, blurry, or even mat black.
Video equipment is no exception to the rule, as cameras experience interferences whenever recording; batteries seem to hold a lot less, and sometimes phones fail to work whenever inside a crop formation. The odd thing is that, whenever pulled outside of the crop, the affected equipment turns back to normal.
One of the most notable crop formation was discovered back in 1991 at the Barbury Castle, England. Researchers consider the formation to be “the ‘Rosetta Stone’ to the understanding of the geometric nature of the dimensions in the universe.
On top of the complex design, locals of the neighboring village of Broughton recall that the night before the crop formation appeared, a sudden blackout engulfed the village. With no available electricity, residents went outside to find the cause of the problem, but they only had their dilemma deepened, as the sky revealed sparkling spheres of various colors that emanated a low rumbling noise as they hovered over the field.
The next day when locals dared approach the area, they found the mesmerizing crop formation that seemed to defy any rational explanation.
It’s a well-established fact that most crop circles, if not all, are man-made and appear either during a night or in plain daylight. The consideration is based on present experiences which involve people either trying to express themselves in an exclusive manner or trying to play a prank on the gullible villagers. But the history of crop circles offer a different kind of perspective that’s far more mysterious and hard to explain.
On July 29, 1880, a paper was published in Journal Nature which depicted a crop circle formed under mysterious circumstances after a powerful storm. In 2000, the account was reprinted in Journal of Meteorology and included a full report of amateur scientist and photographer John Rand Capron who depicted the event in detail:
“The storms about this part of Surrey have been lately local and violent, and the effects produced in some instances curious. Visiting a neighbour’s farm on Wednesday evening (21st), we found a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots.
Examined more closely, these all presented much the same character, viz., a few standing stalks as a center, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle round the centre, and outside these a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered.
I sent a sketch made on the spot, giving an idea of the most perfect of these patches. The soil is a sandy loam upon the greensand, and the crop is vigorous, with strong stems, and I could not trace locally any circumstances accounting for the peculiar forms of the patches in the field, nor indicating whether it was wind or rain, or both combined, which had caused them, beyond the general evidence everywhere of heavy rainfall. They were suggestive to me of some cyclonic wind action, and may perhaps have been noticed elsewhere by some of your readers.”
He suggested the crop circles were made as a result of the powerful storm, due to “some cyclonic wind action” without any other possible reasons crossing his mind other than a paranormal scenario. At that time however, the notion of flying saucer or UFO were yet to be invented. Since there was no UFO phenomenon to accuse at that time, we can only blame the weather, but what meteorological phenomenon can lead to perfectly designed crop circles?
As of 1990, the situation changed drastically. Crop circles begun to spring worldwide as they were treated like tourist attraction. A wave of crop formations sprang over Europe, with 1990 alone recording over 500 such appearances. The following years brought thousands of them, thus ending the paranormal label that had governed this intriguing phenomenon in the past.
Today, it is hard to interpret the exact origins of these enigmatic patterns. The authentic ones are known to possess electromagnetic energies and are believed to hold important cryptic knowledge sent to us by some higher dimensional beings or from within the presumed simulated reality we live in.
Curiosity Rover Beams Back Photo of Stalking Mechanical Robot on Mars
Curiosity Rover Beams Back Photo of Stalking Mechanical Robot on Mars
It’s a rock…it’s a natural formation…No, it’s just a giant robot that’s peeking on NASA’s unaware Curiosity rover.
Mars seems to (unofficially) have it all. From liquid water, to living creatures that crawl over the rocky surface, to flying unidentified objects, and even dusty relics reminding of a complex culture that had once flourished in the now desolate highlands of the Red Planet.
Why the renowned space agency doesn’t make a stand in disclosing these truths remains a matter of debate, but silence tends to be an answer in itself. Since there’s an abundance of information originating from NASA, UFO hunters across the world have taken matters into their own hands and are now trying to elucidate the mystery posed by the numerous presumed relics found on the neighboring planet.
Although most finds remind of a former Martian civilization, there is evidence pointing towards the idea of a still-active form of intelligence that’s operating on the Martian terrain, and they don’t seem to be ancient at all.
A peculiar photo released by NASA towards the end of 2015 has once again caught the attention of the general public after a group of UFO hunters enhanced the image and came up with a wild theory as to what the strange object from the frame could be.
On the right upper side of the photo, a massive silhouette appears to be watching the rover. After further zooming in, the characteristics of the object become clear. It appears to be enveloped in a metallic shell, with a rigid surface that only proves its artificial nature.
Paranormal Cruciable who stumbled over the intriguing photo believe it could be some kind of mechanical robot that’s checking on Curiosity. Their analysis show possible turrets stacked on top, and a metallic leg that appears to sustain the superior weight of the object. Notice how there’s a spacing between the leg and the hill, making the possibility of it being nothing but a natural phenomenon extremely unlikely. The Paranormal Cruciable team expressed their point of view on this:
Is it possible that weaponized robotic machines roam the Martian surface?Advanced mechanical devices possibility built and operated by an off world extraterrestrial species? Or perhaps by an indigenous Martian populace? If it is, than this image is compelling evidence that an intelligent life force does indeed exist on the Red Planet.
Although the above are only speculative concerns, there’s still a good chance for the sighting to be authentic. Other traces of flying unidentified object racing over the Martian sky have surfaced in recent months, along with an intriguing silhouette of a presumed astronaut that’s fixing the rover.
If there’s indeed an intelligent species operating on Mars, why haven’t they revealed to us by now?
According to UFO enthusiasts, it could be because NASA already knows of their presence and are keeping this secret because of a secret pact the two parties have agreed upon. Little by little, governmental agencies have started to reveal this ‘reality’ that for many seems to be just a conspiracy.
The first step was making public classified reports of UFOs on Earth from the past decades, and this year NASA has secretly financed a study with over $1 million to see how a global extraterrestrial disclosure would impact religion.
It’s clear that, for many people, the ‘UFO fantasy’ presented as reality by an official authority could be life shattering, that’s why the matter shouldn’t be treated lightly. Until disclosure day arrives, we should keep our eyes and minds open to interpreting such unusual sightings that one day may prove to be palpable and real. Official NASA Link HERE
Strange UFOs with Multiple Glowing Lights Vanishing over Poland, June 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Strange UFOs with Multiple Glowing Lights Vanishing over Poland, June 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: June 12, 2016 Location of sighting: Poland Here is a cool looking UFO that glows brightly as its moving about. Such UFOs have been seen around the world and glowing lights are the #1 most common kinds typically seen. These are flying over a secluded forest in Poland, where few people could see them, but lucky for us, someone noticed them. This is a great video brought to us byFindingUFOs of Youtube. Scott C. Waring www.ufosightingsdaily.com
Here we have a UFO cloaked in a cloud, but the UFO is lowering from the cloud to the mountain, and it makes another disk cloud every time it pushes downward. UFO base are often below oceans, mountains and volcanos because its the one place on Earth humans really don't want to be. Aliens can most of the people most of the time, but they sure as hell can't fool me. Thats a cloaked UFO over that mountain...probably dropping off supplies and people. Scott C. Waring www.ufosightingsdaily.com News states: A mysterious cloud, which appeared like a UFO, was seen hovering over Mt Etna in Sicily Italy on June 18, at around 4:50 pm. Due to its shape, residents mistook it for a UFO, with numerous people reacting with amazement. The massive cloud appeared as if suspended over the volcanic mountain raising alarms to the residents of Sicily, Italy who assumed it was alien-like. Images posted on other sites show a big lenticular cloud hovering on top of the mountain. (More at source).
In deze sterrenhoop wemelt het van de reuzenplaneten
In deze sterrenhoop wemelt het van de reuzenplaneten
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Wetenschappers hebben ontdekt dat in de sterrenhoop Messier 67 opvallend veel Jupiters te vinden zijn: veel meer dan ze hadden verwacht.
Astronomen bestudeerden gedurende enkele jaren tientallen sterren in de sterrenhoop Messier 67. Ze waren met name benieuwd of er onder deze sterren exemplaren waren die ‘schommelden’. Zo’n schommeling kan er namelijk op wijzen dat een zwaar object dat in een nauwe baan rond de ster draait – een hete Jupiter – aan de ster trekt. De onderzoekers ontdekten drie van deze ‘schommelende sterren’. Eerder waren in dezelfde sterrenhoop al aanwijzingen gevonden voor de aanwezigheid van enkele andere planeten.
HETE JUPITER
Hete Jupiters zijn grote exoplaneten (hun massa moet minstens net zo groot zijn als een derde van de massa van Jupiter). Daarnaast zijn ze ‘heet’, omdat ze op kleine afstand rond hun moederster cirkelen. Doordat de planeten dicht bij hun ster staan, hebben ze maar weinig tijd nodig om een rondje rond de ster te voltooien (minder dan tien dagen).
Heel veel “Het nieuwe resultaat betekent dat er rond ongeveer vijf procent van de onderzochte sterren in Messier 67 hete Jupiters aanwezig zijn,” vertelt onderzoeker Anna Brucalassi. “Veel meer dan bij sterren buiten sterrenhopen, waarbij dit percentage dicht bij één ligt.”
Verklaring Sterrenhoop Messier 67 bevat dus opvallend veel reuzenplaneten. Hoe is dat te verklaren? Dat is nog niet helemaal duidelijk, maar onderzoekers hebben er wel ideeën over. Zo vermoeden ze dat de hete Jupiters – die heel dicht om hun sterren draaien – niet op hun huidige locatie zijn ontstaan. Waarschijnlijk ontstonden de reuzenplaneten op grote afstand van hun ster en zijn ze gaandeweg naar hun ster toe gereisd. Daarbij zijn de planeten – doordat de afstand tussen de planeet en ster kleiner werd – steeds warmer geworden. Maar waarom bewegen de planeten naar hun moederster toe? Waarschijnlijk komt dat door ontmoetingen met naburige sterren of zelfs planeten van deze sterren. In Messier 67 staan de sterren dicht bij elkaar en is het dus aannemelijker dat dergelijke ontmoetingen plaatsvinden. En dus is het ook aannemelijker dat in de sterrenhoop veel hete Jupiters worden aangetroffen.
Deze artistieke impressie laat een hete Jupiter in Messier 67 zien.
Afbeelding: ESO / L. Calçada.
“Tot een paar jaar geleden was nog niet één hete Jupiter in een open sterrenhoop ontdekt,” vertelt onderzoeker Luca Pasquini. “Maar in drie jaar tijd is het heersende beeld dat zulke planeten daar helemaal niet voorkomen compleet gekanteld. Het tekort is veranderd in een overschot.”
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.
