Mysterieuze sterfgevallen: “UFO-onderzoekers omgebracht door mannen in zwart”

In korte tijd zijn twee UFO-onderzoekers dood gevonden onder ‘mysterieuze omstandigheden’. Gevreesd wordt dat ze zijn omgebracht door geheime agenten van de overheid om te voorkomen dat de waarheid naar buiten komt.

Max Spiers, een paranormale onderzoeker, werd vorige maand dood aangetroffen in Polen. Hij claimde dat hij ooit onderdeel was van een geheim overheidsproject. Sommigen zijn ervan overtuigd dat hij vermoord is.

Gaurav Tiwari

Deze maand bleek dat UFO-onderzoeker Gaurav Tiwari uit India dood was gevonden. Volgens de autoriteiten heeft hij zelfmoord gepleegd. Familieleden van Tiwari, die de directeur en oprichter was van de Indian Paranormal Society, zeggen echter dat hij pas was getrouwd en geen reden had om uit het leven te stappen.

137 UFO-onderzoekers

Complottheoretici stellen dat UFO-jagers die te dicht bij de waarheid komen, worden opgejaagd door de geheime diensten of zogeheten mannen in het zwart. Door de jaren heen zouden ‘tientallen’ andere UFO-onderzoekers onder mysterieuze omstandigheden zijn overleden.

Nigel Watson, schrijver van de UFO Investigations Manual, zei: “Al in 1971 claimde onderzoeker Otto Binder dat tenminste 137 UFO-onderzoekers sinds de jaren zestig onder mysterieuze omstandigheden waren gestorven.”

Max Spiers (Facebook)

“Hier kunnen overheidsagentschappen achter zitten, maar het lijkt me nogal extreem om mensen te vermoorden, aangezien er gemakkelijkere manieren zijn om UFO-onderzoekers in diskrediet te brengen,” vervolgde hij.

Kennedy

“Een andere theorie is dat de mysterieuze mannen in het zwart of de aliens erachter zitten, om iedereen die te dicht bij de waarheid komt over hun operaties uit de weg te ruimen,” zei hij.

Watson wijst erop dat wordt beweerd dat de CIA president Kennedy heeft vermoord omdat hij UFO-geheimen wilde delen met de Sovjet-Unie. Marilyn Monroe zou daarnaast zijn gedood omdat ze te openlijk over UFO’s sprak.

Philip Schneider

“Op de avond voor haar dood sprak ze met tv-persoonlijkheid Dorothy Kilgallen over de Roswell-crash in 1947,” aldus Watson. “Kilgallen stierf op 8 november 1965 onder mysterieuze omstandigheden.”

Hij geeft aan dat het puur toeval zou kunnen zijn, maar dat er ook zeker een aantal vreemde incidenten zijn geweest. “UFO-onderzoeker Philip Schneider vreesde bijvoorbeeld voor zijn leven; hij werd gevolgd door ‘busjes van de overheid’ en ook werd hij een aantal keren van de weg gereden,” zei Watson. “In januari 1996 trof een vriend hem dood aan in zijn appartement. Later bleek dat hij was gewurgd, hoewel de officiële lezing zelfmoord luidde.”

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[Metro, Express]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

23-07-2016 om 12:57 geschreven door peter  

Alien Remains in Antarctica, Three new elongated skulls uncovered in Antarctica, July 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 2016
Location of discovery: La Paille, Antartica
News source: 

http://helenastales.weebly.com/blogue/alien-remains-in-antarctica-three-new-elongated-skulls-uncovered-in-antarctica

Aliens in Antartica...not so far fetched actually. Antarticas climate has changed a lot every 10.000 years, so yes its easy for an alien culture to live there and not freeze to death. Sure, its unusual that elongated skulls were found, especially since there have been many such discoveries in Peru, thousands of miles across the ocean. Overall, a great discovery.
Scott C. Waring
www.ufosightingsdaily.com

News states:
Smithsonian archaeologist Damian Waters and his team have uncovered three elongated skulls in the region of La Paille, Antarctica. The discovery came as a total surprise to the world of archaeology as they are the first human remains uncovered from Antarctica, thought never to have been visited by humans until the modern age. We just can’t believe it! We didn’t just find human remains on Antarctica, we found elongated skulls! I have to pinch myself every time I wake up, I just can’t believe it! This will redefine our view of mankind’s history as a whole!” excitedly explains M. Waters. Elongated skulls have been found in Peru and in Egypt, proving past civilizations made contact long before history books want to acknowledge. But this discovery is plain incredible. It shows there was contact thousand of years ago between civilizations in Africa, South America and Antarctica. Elongated skulls are thought to have been a common deformation done upon children of the elite in many ancient cultures tells us a spokesman of the Smithsonian Institute of New York. It was done by wrapping a cloth around the infant’s head when the skull is not yet in a solid state. This characteristic was used to amplify differences of traits between higher ranking classes of society and lower classes . These elongated skulls are much, much larger than normal human skulls would be. Purposeful cranial deformation can change the shape of a skull, but it cannot increase the volume of the skull. In addition, these skulls have quite a few other important physical characteristics that greatly set them apart from normal human skulls. This knowledge is incredibly important, regardless of what these skulls end up being, human or otherwise, it is still important for unraveling the history of our past. These are obviously an incredibly mysterious group of people.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

23-07-2016 om 12:45 geschreven door peter  

Tall Whites ETs Have UFO Escorts For Incoming Ship To Tall Whites Base Inside Old Firing Range At Nellis AFB.

Date of sighting: July 21, 2016
Location of sighting: Nellis AFB, Nevada

Charles Hall worked at the Tall Whites base in Nellis AFB, its located at the end of the old firing range...the location of these UFOs seen in the video below. What we are seeing, is several Tall White UFOs going out to meet and safely escort in, an important Tall Whites ship entering the base. Much like a military escort of sorts, since the Tall Whites will always be a bit concerned about the safety of their children when near humans...and US military has the armaments to cause them a significant threat. 

Oh...message to Tall Whites, come to Taiwan,  I want to meet you guys. 
Scott C. Waring
www.ufosightingsdaily.com 

Steven Barone states:
I shot this video from my backyard in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, Nevada on the night of July 20, 2016. Red Flag is the U.S. Air Force's premier air-to-air combat training exercise and is happening from July 11 through July 29, 2016, this year so I have eight more days where unusual things like this can happen. Participants often include both the United States and allied nations' combat air forces. The exercise provides aircrews the experience of multiple, intensive air combat sorties in the safety of a training environment. Of course, this can happen whether Red Flag Exercises are happening or not. This most likely happened out on the Nellis Test Range. Very strange indeed!

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

23-07-2016 om 12:41 geschreven door peter  

The UFO Alien Cyborg Invasion

Presented in this movie is a new novel perspective on the UFO ET paradim. Has technologies back-engineered from the Roswell UFO crash debris served as a covert trogen horse for an Artificial Intelligence take-over of Earth Humanity? We can not assume that all extraterrestrial invaders must be biological organisms. We are now in the midst of a new technological revolution promising to engineer the human species into immortals. But is this wondrous program of biological modification actually the end game of a diabolically subtle extraterrestrial take-over of planet Earth? Is the human race being assimilated by a “Cyborg Invasion”?

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

23-07-2016 om 12:30 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Aliens: The New Evidence S11E04

Ancient Aliens – The New Evidence
History Channel, Season 11, Episode 4
27th May 2016

Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true? This is the question Ancient Astronaut theorists have posed since Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods was first published in 1968; examining scientific, archaeological, astronomical, and historical evidence to find the answer. In recent years, more new evidence has been revealed than ever before that suggests there was extraterrestrial intervention on Earth in the distant past. Satellite images have exposed geoglyphs resembling Nazca lines in Kazakhstan. Ground penetrating radar has detected remnants of ancient technology in Machu Picchu. And thermal scanning has uncovered hidden chambers behind King Tut’s tomb that may hold the remains of extraterrestrial beings. Could we be at the tipping point where the overwhelming evidence outweighs any last shred of doubt?

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

23-07-2016 om 12:27 geschreven door peter  

AMAZING strange object hovering above Concord, California 15-Jul-2016

New footage of a bright unidentified flying object hovering in the daytime sky above Concord in California. This happened on 15th July 2016.

Witness report: White dot moving through high clouds sometime after 6pm. Noticed still there 7:30. Got cell phone to video. Filmed 4 times. 7:29, 8:03, 8:40, 8:49pm. Moved about 10°, northbound in aprox 3hrs then was gone.
On July 15th around 6pm I took my kids to the neighborhood pool to swim. Sometime around 7:15 I happened to notice a small white ball approaching slowly Andy Northwest Direction. I didn’t pay it much mind as it looked kind of like a balloon. However after a few minutes of playing in the pool with my kids I happened to notice that it was still in the same general area now moving through the clouds so I kept my eye on it for a moment and realized it looked unusual. I decided to get out of the pool and try and take a picture with my cell phone that I had in my backpack. I dried my face and hands and got my phone out of my backpack and tried to take a couple pictures. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t tell if the pictures were coming out very well so I decided to videotape it with my cell phone. But again the sun on my screen made it difficult to see if I was capturing it or not since it was a white dot in the sky I filmed where I thought it was but couldn’t tell if it was in Focus or not so I decided to go home and try with my video camera. I got my video camera but the battery was nearly dead and only filmed for a few seconds. I didn’t want to waste time trying to charge it so I decided to film with my cell phone again. The clouds that it was hovering around had moved on but it was still in the same place, my estimation is about 20-40 thousand feet high. For a moment I thought maybe it was a supernova or some event in space that was shining through the atmosphere since it was still daytime and very bright. I had to film it intermittently since I was feeding my kids dinner and trying to get them ready for bed. The first time I filmed it from home was at 8:03 p.m. and it was bigger and brighter as if it had descended a few thousand feet. The second time I filmed it was at 8:4pm and I noticed it had moved slightly to the north. I filmed it again at 8:49 and the sun had se. I noticed it had moved even farther north about 90 degrees off the horizon now and almost directory above me. When I first saw it it was around 45 to 50 degrees off the horizon around 7:30 p.m. It was moving very slowly to the North while all of the stars and Moon where moving West as they should. I came outside again at 9pm to film it and it was gone. Around 8pm I called my brother and told him where to look in the sky to see it so I could get his opinion. He used his binoculars to view it and was silent for about a minute. Which gave me goosebumps. He then said, “wow, that IS interesting”. He then described it as “perfectly round and glassy looking”. He said “I can see the side that’s facing the Sun is reflecting the light and the other side looks like glass… it looks like a Christmas bulb”. Even through the binaculars he had no idea what it could be. He also told me that just about an hour earlier he was hiking on Mt. Diablo and saw something white and bright near the clouds by the top of the mountain and thought it might have been a super bright radio tower light but when he went further and looked for the source there was nothing there and no tower. He wondered if thus was the same thing that he saw. This could be possible since when I first saw the object it was coming from the direction of Mt. Diablo right about the time after he had finished his hike. NOTE: in the video I say I saw it starting around 6pm, that is a mistake. I was thinking we had gone to the pool sometime after 6pm and didn’t realize how long we were there before I first filmed it on y phone. I realized that I was saying the wrong time when I noticed the timestamp on my phone video. The duration was approximately from 7:15 p.m. to about 8:50 p.m.

Author (source: MUFON)

Note: Watch in full screen!

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

23-07-2016 om 12:25 geschreven door peter  

This Robot Is Part Sea Slug

We usually think of cyborgs as part human, part machine, but roboticists don't limit themselves that way. Researchers have developed a hybrid robot built with body parts from a novel source: sea slugs.

The new robot combines a Y-shaped muscle from the mouth of a California sea hare (Aplysia californica) with a 3D-printed skeleton.

Researchers surgically removed the so-called "I2" muscle from the mouths of sea slugs and glued them to flexible, 3D-printed plastic frames. When the muscles were subjected to an external electric field, the resulting contractions produced a deliberate clawing motion that was able to move the tiny robot up to 0.2 inches (0.5 centimeters) per minute. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]

The robot was modeled after the way sea turtles crawl, because the researchers wanted to create something that could move with only one Y-shaped muscle, study lead author Victoria Webster, a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, told Live Science in an email. But, it should be possible to apply similar techniques to create more complex robots with different movement styles, such as the inchworm-inspired version that the team is working on now, she added.

With a few more developments, the scientists said, teams of robots could be deployed for tasks such as searching for toxic underwater leaks or finding an airplane's "black box" flight data recorder after it has crashed into the ocean.

And one day, the designers would also like to make entirely biological robots by replacing the plastic parts of the new hybrid bot with organic material.

"We're building a living machine — a biohybrid robot that's not completely organic — yet," Webster said in a statement.

Sea slugs live in a wide range of temperatures and conditions, so theirmuscles can function in myriad environments. This natural versatility is key to developing biological machines that are capable of operating in different environments.

"By using the sea hare as our material source, we have obtained materials which are more robust than the cells which have been used in the past," Webster said.

The team is now experimenting with including the ganglia, or nervous tissue, that controls the I2 muscle. "They respond to direct chemical stimulation or to stimulation of the sensory system nerves," Webster said. "By stimulating the nerves, we may be able to steer the robot in the future."

The scientists also developed a method to mold collagen gel from the sea slugs' skin into "scaffolding" for completely organic machines. These nonhybrid robots would be inexpensive, nonpolluting and biodegradable, the scientists said, enabling them to release many robots without having to worry if some of them are lost.

"Our hope is to continue developing these devices to include organic controllers, sensors and skeletons," Webster said.

The study's findings were published online July 12 in the journal Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

• Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature
• Image Gallery: Catalogue of Strange Sea Creatures
• Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

23-07-2016 om 01:35 geschreven door peter  

Een miljoen gigabyte in een geheugen zo groot als een zandkorrel. Een revolutionaire uitvinding van de TU Delft en IBM maakt het mogelijk. Vandaag is hun onderzoek gepubliceerd in Nature Nanotechnology.

Onderzoekers van de TU Delft hebben samen met IT-moloch IBM een nieuw dataopslagsysteem ontwikkeld dat losse atomen als computerbits gebruikt. Het systeem kan in theorie een petabyte – oftewel een miljoen gigabyte – aan gegevens opslaan in een kubus met een doorsnede van slechts 0,1 millimeter.

Wetenschappers proberen al jaren losse atomen in dataopslag in te zetten als bits: de enen en nullen die de basiseenheden van computerinformatie vormen. Acht bits vormen samen één byte, terwijl een byte op zijn beurt één letter of cijfer vertegenwoordigt. De huidige harde schijven gebruiken miljarden atomen voor enkele tientallen bits.

Onder leiding van Sander Otte hebben de Delftse onderzoekers nu voor het eerst een systeem ontwikkeld met een groot aantal enkelatomige bits. Hun geheugen bevat 8128 bits (1 kilobyte) en is slechts 96 bij 126 nanometer groot – ongeveer een duizendste van de dikte van een haar.

Toren van cd-roms

Het geheugen bestaat uit chlooratomen op een koperen oppervlak met putjes. Een zogeheten scanning-tunnelingmicroscoop (STM) plaatst de losse atomen in de putjes of haalt ze eruit. In elke put komt de aan- of afwezigheid van een atoom overeen met een 1 of een 0.

Een kilobyte aan gegevens is niet bijster veel – niet meer dan een handvol tweets. Volgens het team is er echter geen natuurkundige belemmering voor het bouwen van veel grotere atomaire geheugens. In theorie zou het geheugen dan een twee kilometer hoge toren van cd-romschijven (zonder doosje) kunnen reduceren tot een kubus van 0,1 millimeter in doorsnee.

Feynman en Darwin

Om het geheugen te testen, maakten de onderzoekers een nieuwe versie van de 8-bit-ASCII-codes die losse karakters in tekstbestanden aanduiden. Met de nieuwe ASCII-codes plaatsten ze een deel van een lezing van Richard Feynman uit 1959 in het geheugen. In deze lezing speculeert de beroemde natuurkundige dat we op een dag in staat zullen zijn losse atomen te verplaatsen.

De onderzoekers toonden tevens aan dat het geheugen herschreven kan worden. Dat deden ze door Feynmans tekst te overschrijven met een deel van Darwins On the Origin of Species.

Gevoelig geheugen

Het systeem heeft nog wel enkele praktische tekortkomingen. Het werkt alleen bij een temperatuur van -196 °C. Bij een hogere temperatuur gaan de atomen samenklonteren. Daarnaast is het geheugen bijzonder langzaam. Het uitlezen van een blokje van 8 bytes duurt ongeveer een minuut, en overschrijving daarvan twee minuten. Bovendien kunnen kleine verstoringen de atomen of de gevoelige STM-punt aantasten, waardoor bits onleesbaar worden. Dat leidde bij de test tot enkele ontbrekende letters en woorden.

Zelfs met deze beperkingen is het werk een grote stap voorwaarts, stelt Franz Himpsel van de University of Wisconsin-Madison in de VS. De compactste geheugens die momenteel in omloop zijn, hebben plaats voor 6 tot 12 terabits per vierkante centimeter. Een atomair geheugen kan meer dan 3000 terabits per vierkante centimeter bevatten.

Volgens Himpsel is opschaling naar een geheugencapaciteit van een gigabyte geen sinecure, maar wel mogelijk. ‘Het is net als met siliciumtechnologie: als je eenmaal weet hoe het moet, kun je opschalen, opschalen en nog eens opschalen.’

Altijd op de hoogte blijven van het laatste wetenschapsnieuws? Meld je nu aan voor de New Scientist nieuwsbrief.

Lees verder:

• Geheugen-reset voor marsrover Opportunity
• Dataopslag in bacterie-DNA
• Het mysterie van de 101-jarige meesterpianiste met dementie
• Wetenschappers herstellen geheugen van muizen

{ http://www.newscientist.nl/ }

23-07-2016 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

What If the Moon Disappeared Tomorrow?

Ah, yes, the moon. To it, over it, shooting for it. Blue, green. Pies, faces, shines, lighting. And I haven't even gotten to all the Luna-based concepts. Earth's moon plays a significant role in our culture, language and thoughts.

But does it … you know … matter? If it disappeared in the blink of an eye tomorrow (and for discussion's sake let's assume it does so nonviolently), would we even notice? Would we even care?

Well, it depends ….

Do you like tides?

Gravity — at least the Newtonian kind — is pretty straightforward: The closer you are to something, the stronger its pull of gravity. So stuff that's closer to the moon gets a stronger gravitational tug, and stuff that's farther away gets a weaker one. Easy-peasey. When looking at the effects of the moon on the Earth, you can essentially boil it down to three parts: The Earth itself, the ocean-close-to-the-moon and the ocean-far-from-the-moon. [50 Interesting Facts About the Earth]

On any given day, the ocean closest to the moon gets a bonus gravitational pull, so it rises up slightly, reaching out in watery embrace to what it can never reach. And since the ocean is so big, all the water from one horizon pushes up against water from the other, resulting in a fantastic tidal bulge.

OK, tide on one side of our planet, done. But what about the other? The solid rocky bits of the Earth are closer to the moon than the ocean on the far side, so the Earth too gets a little more snuggly with the moon, leaving the far-side ocean behind. Result? Tides on the far side. From the perspective of someone standing on Earth, it looks like that ocean is rising up, but really it just doesn't get to join the party. And there you have it: two tides on opposite sides of the Earth. [Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit]

If the moon disappeared, we wouldn't be totally out of tidal luck; the sun also stretches and squeezes the Earth, so our surfing opportunities wouldn't be completely eliminated.

Do you like 24 hours in a day?

The Earth used to spin on its axis faster than it does today. As in, wayfaster. After the hypothetical giant impact that led to the formation of the moon (which is the topic for a completely different article, sorry, but at least you can watch me explain it in this video), the Earth's day was as short as 6 hours. How did it get to a leisurely 24?

That's right, it was the moon! The moon makes some pretty nice tides, but the Earth is also spinning on its axis. That spinning physically drags the tidal bulges around the planet. So instead of the tides appearing directly beneath the moon, they're slightly ahead of it, orbitally speaking.

So you've got a big lump of extra ocean water in a place where it's not supposed to be. Since gravity is a two-way street, that lump pulls on the moon. Like tugging a reluctant dog on a leash, that tidal bulge yanks on the moon bit by bit, accelerating it into ever-higher orbits.

By the way, the moon is slowly getting farther away from Earth. And that energy to accelerate the moon has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the Earth itself: Day by day, millennium by millennium, the Earth slows down, converting its rotational energy into the moon's orbital energy.

If you took away the moon, itꞌs not like this process would reverse, but it wouldn't keep going. That might or might not be a good thing, depending on how much you like the length of your workday.

Do you like seasons?

The Earth's axis is tilted, and that tilt can change with time. No biggie, all the planets do it; it's fun. But what'snot fun is when the tilt changes rapidly. What would happen if Antarctica pointed straight at the sun for 24 hours a day, plunging North America and Europe into permanent darkness? And then a few hundred thousand years later it flipped over? We take the long-term regularity of our seasons for granted, and we might have the moon to thank for it.

Those kinds of crazy wild swings in the axial tilt are due to resonances, or unlucky interactions with distant objects in the solar system. For instance, letꞌs say that one day in its orbit the Earth's axis just happens to point away from the sun, and Jupiter is hanging out in that direction at the same time. And let's say that happens again … and again … and again. Every time Earth's axis and Jupiter line up, it gets a super-tiny gravitational pull. At first it's nothing. But over millions of years it can add up. Before you know it, the accumulation of tugs has flipped the Earth over like a pancake.

What might stabilize this is the moon: it's really, really big (at least compared with the Earth), and orbits us pretty fast. All that angular momentum (rotational energy) prevents the other planets from playing any axial shenanigans.

[Watch: I explain how the moon affects the seasons in this video.]

Or not.  The moon may actually be hurting us in the long term, since it's slowing us down, which makes us more susceptible to the intrigues of the outer planets. But that's a billion-year problem anyway, and if the moon disappeared tomorrow, our seasons would still be seasonal for a really long time.

So, besides the tides, would we notice a disappeared moon? Well, yes, because it's really big and bright, and there'd be nothing to howl at anymore. But would it affect us? Not really. So as for the moon … I'm over it!

Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series Space In Your Face. 

Learn more by listening to the episode “What if the moon disappeared?” on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutterandfacebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

Editor's Recommendations

• What If? 22 Crazy Hypothetical Questions (and their Answers)
• Stop the Lunacy! 5 Mad Myths About the Moon
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{ http://www.livescience.com/  }

23-07-2016 om 01:18 geschreven door peter  

Why Did NASA Send a DNA Sequencer to Space?

A DNA sequencer that was just delivered to the International Space Station can test not just known Earthly organisms. Turns out, the little device may also be able to analyze samples taken from alien life, NASA said.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule met up with the International Space Station (ISS) early yesterday morning (July 20), after being launched aboard the Falcon 9 rocket on July 18. Among the goods delivered was the MinION — a palm-sized sequencer with a lot of promise that weighs just 120 grams (0.27 pounds).

"This one piece of equipment might do a lot for us, in terms of exploration, research and crew health-related issues," said Sarah Wallace, a NASA microbiologist and member of the team working on the MinION experiment, in a recent conversation with Live Science.

Alien DNA?

There are quite a few special features of the MinION — pronounced with emphasis on the "ion," not like the little yellow creatures from "Despicable Me." One that stands out: its ability to examine alien life-forms. [Greetings, Earthlings! 8 Ways Aliens Could Contact Us]

According to a NASA statement, others sequencers that are being considered for use in space will only test for known and targeted organisms. The MinION, on the other hand, will provide analysis of an entire sample, such as all microorganisms in that sample or a full genome. It has very small pores, called nanopores, that allow ions (electrically charged particles) to pass through, creating a current. If other molecules, such as DNA, pass through these channels, they reduce this current in particular ways. The reduction in current is then analyzed and can reveal the sequence of the sample.

"It doesn't actually have to just be DNA that could pass through that pore," Aaron Burton, space scientist and lead on this experiment, told Live Science. "All you really need is a polymer that will block the pore going through it." This means that it may have the ability to detect alien life that is similar but not quite the same as our own.

Burton explained that experts generally believe that, if there is life on Mars, it probably shares some basic features with our own. Mars had water, it used to have more of an atmosphere and our worlds have traded meteors. This means that, whatever life-forms each planet has, those organisms are likely to have a common ancestor. Mars may not have DNA-based life, but, if it has something close, MinION might be the best bet at finding it.

Even now, researchers at several institutions are experimenting with a faux-DNA material, dubbed XNA (xeno nucleic acid). This is a synthetic version of DNA that uses the same bases as DNA (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine) but has them attached to sugars that are different from the ones we see in DNA.

Clean it up

Beyond searching for alien life, the MinION will also be used to evaluatethe ISS environment and crew. As much as NASA tries to make sure everything is spic-and-span before sending a delivery to the station, microbes are inevitable. [Infographic: The International Space Station: Inside and Out]

"We try to put things up there as microbially clean as possible, but we don't sterilize the crew, of course," said Wallace. "So, they take their microbiome and that becomes the ISS microbiome." Her lab already does quarterly microbial monitoring of the surfaces and air of the ISS. The water is sampled once a month because it's made of recycled urine and condensate, which includes sweat and exhaled breath. This recycling process increases the likelihood that the crew could ingest potential pathogens.

In the past, they've found the kinds of microbes that are expected around humans, including Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas, Streptococcusand Klebsiella. Wallace also mentioned that a cloth-like wall in the Russian section of the ISS once grew green and fuzzy from astronauts bungee-ing their wet towels to it in order to dry. To battle grime or illness on the ISS, NASA supplies and resupplies a wide variety of antibiotics, disinfectants and biocides; but the best method of attack isn't known until a sample of the problem-causing microbe is analyzed.

Currently, all of the samples taken from the  and the occupants of the ISS have to be stored and then sent back to Earth for sequencing. The hope is that MinION will allow these samples to the sequenced in real time. This will eliminate the need for long-term storage of samples, which Burton said would be implausible for an extended mission, such as a proposed 500-day journey to Mars. Being able to sequence samples immediately to identify causes of disease or uncleanliness will also provide NASA with valuable information about the kinds of microbes these future missions should anticipate. With the limited space that comes with extended missions as well as the necessary supplies required for such journeys, everything that’s brought along needs to have a purpose.

No adjustments were made to the MinION for use in zero gravity, but Wallace said they did optimize the protocols for use in order to cut down on the time the crew would need to spend on this work. The lack of modifications to MinION means that even the simplest of lessons learned during this experiment can have effects that go beyond the space program. "If we can make something work on the ISS, in microgravity, then, any changes or advances we have to make to work it there have benefits on Earth as well," said Burton.

Lessons learned in space may also translate into knowledge for other "low-resource" environments, where resources are limited. Researchers have already used the MinION in Liberia for rapid sequencing of Ebola.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

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{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

23-07-2016 om 01:11 geschreven door peter  

Jupiter's Auroras Create a Rhapsody in Blue Before Juno's July 4 Arrival (Time-Lapse Video)

23-07-2016 om 00:38 geschreven door peter  

New Kind of Black Hole Glimpsed in the Early Universe

International School of Advanced Studies (ISSAS)

IN BRIEF

Strange signals coming from the galaxy CR7 were observed last year and could prove a theory stating that the heat of the early universe gave birth to giant stars that consume all the gas and dust around them, leading themselves to an early grave and leaving a black hole "seed."

DEATH BY OVEREATING

In 2003, Avi Loeb, chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University and Volker Bromm of the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) theorized the existence of black holes that result from a process referred to as “direct collapse.”

In this process, an environment that is so hot, such as the early universe, would promote the growth of a single massive star instead of forming several clumps of thousands of smaller stars. And because heavier elements were not as spread out in the early universe, stars made up of almost purely helium and hydrogen lack the elements that would have helped cool them down.

Stars born under these circumstances quickly consume all the gas and dust around them, growing around 1 million times bigger than normal stars, but ultimately driving themselves to an early grave.

When such a star dies, it may implode and form a black hole which may start out medium-sized but would eventually grow into supermassive black holes from constant feeding.

“The special aspect of this (direct-collapse) process is that it leads to the formation of a very massive ‘seed’ black hole in one go,” Loeb says. “It is difficult to make such a giant black hole over such a short time if they start from low-mass seeds.”

POSSIBLE EVIDENCE OF THIS THEORY JUST CAME UP

Astronomers observed a strange signal coming from a galaxy known as CR7 last year. This galaxy is one of the most luminous objects in the early universe and its temperature is assumed to be over 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite evidence of helium ionization detected from the galaxy, there were no signs of other elements, such as heavier elements.

It is not certain, however, whether the irregularities were caused by a direct-collapse black hole, or first-generation stars.

“That makes the galaxy that we have discovered really unique, and ticks all the boxes for predictions for both first-generation stars, or a direct-collapse black hole,” says David Sobral, an astrophysicist at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

“Regardless, the actual material—pristine gas, to make either first-generation stars or a direct collapse black hole is essentially the same, and it is extremely exciting to finally start asking actual physical questions about the nature of the very early galaxies,” Sobral said. “This goes way beyond the traditional approach of simply counting distant galaxies.”

More observations will be conducted to confirm what it is exactly that is causing the strange signals from CR7. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are up to the task, as well as other research teams using computer simulations.

Space Universe Documentaries 2016 | The Strangest Black Holes Galaxy || Science Film Full Lengths

https://youtu.be/jZQsIYiV3Ak

Scientists get first glimpse of black hole eating star, ejecting high-speed flare

https://youtu.be/x7ZX10UbMus

Source: Cbsnews

{ http://futurism.com/ }

23-07-2016 om 00:19 geschreven door peter  

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/category/filers-files/ }

22-07-2016 om 23:41 geschreven door peter  

Filer’s Files #30 -2016 – Is not an alien force already among us? - PART II

Sightings in the United States

California Triangle

I have become a bit of a sky watcher, and have seen many odd things in the last year, but I have never seen a triangle-type craft, until I reviewed the footage from my modified ‘ghost’-pro (a full-spectrum night vision camera), that I had collected on July 12-13 2016. Although I expected a possible few meteors, I caught two hours of some of the most anomalous lights I had ever seen.

My camera is tripod mounted, and I keep a known UV light source in frame; it’s a security camera mounted on the corner of the roof on the second story. That way I can review the security camera, if I believe the ghost-pro has been moved. The video will show the event, un-retouched, then enhanced video/stills. I will continue to report the night vision anomalies, as they happen. Thanks to MUFON CMS

 Florida Orbs and Cylinder

 Indialantic — I am sitting on the beach with my dogs and all of a sudden I see two balls of light over the ocean. It looked like they were coming closer, but they had stopped. They hovered for a while, but they went down and disappeared into the ocean. I have a picture on my Facebook. I too would like to know what is going on with these lights. My cousin saw the same thing three years ago in Sebastian. I Goggled balls of light in Sebastian, and up came a bunch of the same sightings always seen either over the ocean or the river. Response from Witness to Investigator Questions: My sighting was on April 21, 2016, and it was around 8:00 PM. It is a photo of the two lights over the ocean’s surface. Note: This sighting was reported to Brian Vike (UFO blogger) who forwarded the case to me. The photo appears to show two sets of two lights. The photos were taken with low resolution so the enlargements are fairly grainy. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Website

Boca Raton — My fiancé and I were recording odd skywriting on July 7, 2016, while my car was serviced at Tires Plus. We were on the sidewalk on State Road 7 just south of the intersection at SW 18th Street (Marina Blvd) looking east. While recording, an object it flew through the sky in front of where I was recording from the south to north.

I could not make out what it was until I checked the still shots of the video. It was the fastest moving thing I have ever seen. See attached video approx 5-6 sec in. It zips by in a fraction of a second. I also attached a screen shot of it. It appears to be a dark colored craft with some sort or energy below it, and what could be a cockpit type hatch on the top. It made no noise whatsoever. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Kentucky Lights

 Winchester – On July 13, 2016, at 11 PM. my wife and I were sitting in our garage and she noticed a light in the sky and asked me if it was a plane. I said, “The army depot is that way.” She said, “It’s moving too fast to be a plane.” I looked at what she was looking at and it covered a distance that made me think it was a drone that was close by. I had to run out of the garage to follow its path, which would stop and reverse then go forward and return about every two seconds. It would change from white light to red and back again. We timed the object which we now knew wasn’t a drone or plane because it shot straight up into a cloud with lightening. It covered a distance in 28 seconds that covered miles, then came back and went into the lightning clouds!  I tried to record. Thanks to MUFON

Michigan Orbs

Potterville — On July 9th 2016 at 11:30 PM, I noticed an orange ball in the sky. I went outside and noticed there were actually five of them hovering. They would drop down then rise back up. To my west were the white ball and an orange ball next to it and one orange ball directly above us. I couldn’t judge the distance, but the white ball looked real close. I watched them for about an hour. The white ball with the orange one left at the same time. The three to the south and one above remained. One of the three in the south then went west. The other two just kept hovering and then they also went west. The orange sphere looked like a comet and bright white ball. The sky was clear and the moon was only a sliver. I can’t zoom much with a phone. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Website

Nevada Light

Las Vegas — There were two sightings of this “thing” on two separate nights. My brother was visiting and we were up late on July 8, 2016, at my house. We went outside around 1:30 am. He looked up at the sky and pointed out a strange glowing “thing”. It was faintly changing color, pulsing, and twinkling red and green, but predominantly golden yellow. It was hovering over the trees to the west. It was very low in the sky and hovered in one spot too long to be a helicopter. It wasn’t a plane as they don’t hover. My brother said it looked like a UFO not more than 500 feet away.

The next night it was not there but I went outside again at 12:35 a.m. it was in exactly the same spot in the sky as before. I texted my brother and got my husband to look and he was mystified as well. The UFO kept changing shape and was flying west in a straight line and slowly disappeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New Jersey Disc

On September 22, 2015 around 9 pm, my fiancé woke me up to say, “There are weird lights outside.” So I went outside on my apartment balcony to look, and sure enough I am still not sure what I saw. There were three objects going by every five minutes. We both took videos. After that I pretty much brushed it off until April, I was watching YouTube videos and they reminded me of my videos. So I decided to do a frequent snapshot between both videos.  I zoomed in, and could not believe what I think I captured. One “vehicle” had two beings sitting inside of an acorn shaped object; the one in the front, you can see his eyes and the top of his head. The one in the rear, you can see his whole face. The other object was even weirder. Is was significantly bigger and seemed transparent in the snapshot. A door can also be seen.  I only know what I saw. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New York Lights

Brentwood –On Saturday night, July 16, 2016, at 9:20 pm, when my fiancée and I were driving down the street, we saw two yellow-orange colored bright lights ascending towards the sky.

At first, we thought they were just couple of balloons or a helicopter of some sort. We watched for a good couple of minutes, our thoughts altered. so we have decided to record it.  Thanks to MUFON CMS

North Carolina Streaks

Wendell — Late one afternoon, I think it was June 29, 2016; a thunderstorm was brewing so I grabbed my digital camera to take several pictures of the clouds. The second picture I took had streaks of light that shot through my field of vision just as I clicked the shutter. I almost deleted it, but was glad I didn’t.
It was around 6-7 pm, on my deck which is facing southeast and looking at the clouds. I’m always on the lookout for tornado-looking clouds and these looked like that, low, flat, very dark gray, and whitish underneath. These three bright beams of light startled me as they streaked across my eyes.
They seemed to originate from underneath the clouds. I’ve had a few other people look at the photo and they don’t know what the streaks are either. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Oregon Lights

Springfield –I observed 5-7 objects in the sky while I was outside for a smoke break on April 5, 2016. I had a sense they were UFO’s (I have had previous encounters with them). The objects stayed in the same place. I kept going outside to check on them. When I went outside again around midnight they were gone.
I was alarmed. The sighting brought back fears I had from previous encounters. After the birth of my 6th child, the medical doctors wanted to study my blood in order to research components of my blood that would be able to help other mothers with the length of time they were pregnant before delivery. Maybe the aliens are interested in my blood for the same reason. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Virginia Orbs

Virginia Beach — My fiance’ took a picture of the last rays of sunlight in a strip of shops just north of the mall on July 1, 2016. It wasn’t until I was looking at the pictures that I noticed a diamond shaped series of lights, Three white/blue and one at the tip was reddish.

It was so far off, we never saw the object, but captured it on film. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Washington Disc

Bellingham — I had just applied for a job at the local University and decided to stop to get a nice view of the bay on July 6, 2016. It was raining lightly and inside the plumes of smoke was a rectangle-shaped dark patch that was moving away. I watched it with curiosity because of the odd, dark rectangle shape. I thought it might be, coming in for landing. I noted the slowness with which the object moved across the sky. After 15 minutes, the object was lined up with the airport. The rectangle would also slowly drift halfway to its starting position and back again. I zoomed in on my phone camera and filmed a few shots of the object. After filming, I saw a jet take off from Bellingham International Airport and watched it transit the rectangle. The jet was almost as big as the object, but clearly closer to me, showing me the object was much larger than the jet. I saw the object drift slightly west one last time, and slowly vanish. In conclusion, all of its behaviors and drifting patterns defy explanation. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Worldwide UFO Sightings

Australia Fast Objects

I am in Mordialloc, Melbourne and just witnessed on July 17, 2016, at 4:11 am, two super fast flying objects [silent] moving across the sky fairly distant but moving at the same speed from north east to south west. The stars were static so I know I wasn’t mistaken. Thanks to Linda Roberts [mayo.chan.roberts@gmail.com]

Canada Sphere

Scarborough, Ontario — On July 8, 2016, I was on afternoon break with some co-workers looked north of our position about a mile away noticed a roundish dark flashing object couple of hundred feet at 3:14 pm. It was moving from the east heading west at maintaining the same altitude. Its movements appeared strange as a bright flashing white light. I alerted my friend and we both ran through the parking lot north at about seventy yards and stopped and looked.

It was now straight north of us hovering and I started to film and pointed the object out to my co-worker who could see it hovering. Then it started to rise vertical then stop and continue to climb straight up higher. Another co-worker witnessed this strange round object. Every minute it continued flashing and climbed higher stopping at intervals. The object climbed so high we could all no longer see it! The sighting ended at 3:27 pm. Thanks to Paul Shishis.

Mexico Lights

 Monterrey — I was outside on the balcony looking at 10:40 pm at the sky and Jupiter, when suddenly I saw like a shooting star switching colors blue red and white on June 24, 2016. It made a sudden change of direction to 15 degrees northwest towards the Leo Constellation, but making different short turns, like deciding where to go. The event took about 13 seconds then camouflaged as the light dimmed down fast. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Poland Object

Kudowa Zdrój — I made three photos of the moon and saw this object to the right of the moon. I zoomed in and saw this object on the first picture. On the second in the shadow it looks like a triangle shape. On the third picture it is a light in ring. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Russia Space Light

Unidentified objects were filmed over the Ural Mountains with the night vision camera. During simulation, the sky and the time any satellites at this location was not in accordance with Stellarium program. There were three UFOs, one flew south, and it was the first UFO. The second object in the sky which flew under the star Altair was similar to the brightness of the star and moved to the north. Thanks to MUFON CMS

UK/England Alien Creature

Newton Abbot Devon — Today in the early hours of the morning on July 17, 2016, I had an incredible sighting. It was 4:30 AM and I had just woken up and I was thirsty, so I decided to get up and get a drink from downstairs. As I was passing my large window I looked out and saw something that gave me a fright. There was the back of a grey alien right outside standing next to a rose bush. The head of the Alien was totally out of proportion to its body. I could clearly see its grey skin there was no hair on its head. The alien looked 5 feet tall and was wearing a tightly fitted black looking one piece jumpsuit. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing I slowly moved past the window and upstairs to the bedroom where I had my camera. I grabbed my camera and slowly went back to the window but the being was no longer there. Then I heard a car alarm go off down the road like something had bumped into one of the cars. It was dark but there was some light as the sun was just coming up over the horizon. In the morning I took a photograph of the spot where the alien grey had been standing and there were two rose petals on the garden. NOTE: The above image is CGI. Thanks to the witness John Mooner chief photographer for www.worldufophotos.org

Canvey Island Essex — Sitting in my garden in Essex on July 19, 2016, I was taking a photo of the sky. This object was not in the screen view as I took the photo. It appeared and I looked straight up and it was gone. Thanks to MUFON CMS

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22-07-2016 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

What Would Happen If Comet Swift-Tuttle Hit the Earth?

Shooting stars may fill you with child-like wonder, but these celestial showstoppers are also reminders that Earth is hardly alone in space, and some of those cosmic objects can be downright dangerous.

The Perseid meteor shower, which appears every year in mid-August, occurs when Earth passes through a trail of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle. In 1973, based on calculations about the object's orbit using limited observations, astronomer Brian Marsden at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics predicted that Comet Swift-Tuttle could collide with Earth in 2126. The catastrophic prediction was later retracted, but what would happen if Comet Swift-Tuttle smacked into our planet?

"We have to be clear that it's not going to happen," Donald Yeomans, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and author of "Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us" (Princeton University Press, 2012), told Live Science. [Perseid Meteor Shower 2016: When, Where & How to See It]

When Swift-Tuttle was last seen in 1992, Yeomans was among those who produced revised models for the comet's motion, making the complicated calculations to account for the gravitational effects of the sun and planets on the space rock's orbit. The 1992 sighting, along with data from 1862 and 1737, provided astronomers with enough information to rule out the possibility of a collision in 2126.

Even still, Comet Swift-Tuttle isn't just another space rock.

Universe Sandbox 2 - Swift Tuttle comet hitting Earth and Perseid shower

https://youtu.be/ga0jB0ZselQ

What would happen if the Moon hit Earth? | Universe Sandbox 2 Simulation

https://youtu.be/yzAIkYJhZZQ

Discovery Channel - Large Asteroid Impact Simulation

https://youtu.be/bU1QPtOZQZU

Comet Swift-Tuttle is "certainly one of the largest" objects that crosses paths with the Earth, Yeomans said. The cosmic object measures about 16 miles (26 kilometers) across, and when it passes close to the Earth, roughly every 130 years, it's hurtling through space at about 36 miles per second (58 km/s), or more than 150 times the speed of sound.

If the comet were to strike the planet, the impact energy would be about 300 times that of the asteroid collision that was thought to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction that killed the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, according to Yeomans. "It would be a very bad day for Earth," he said.

But the size of a comet or asteroid isn't the only thing to consider with cosmic collisions, said Gerta Keller, a geoscientist at Princeton University.

A comet strike on land or in shallow seas would be "rather destructive" regionally, but the real damage would likely come from gases put into the stratosphere, the part of Earth's atmosphere where the ozone layer is located, Keller told Live Science. Sulfur dioxide would initially cause cooling, and then carbon dioxide would lead to long-term warming, she added. An event like this would likely cause the planet's climate to change drastically, leading to mass extinctions around the globe. [Crash! 10 Biggest Impact Craters on Earth]

But Keller also pointed out that most of Earth's surface is covered in ocean. An impact in the deep ocean could trigger earthquakes and tsunamis, but based on what scientists know about the effects ofunderwater volcanic eruptions, the atmospheric effects likely would be mitigated by the ocean, she said. In this case, Keller said it's unlikely that a comet colliding with Earth would cause mass extinctions.

Scientists calculate that Swift-Tuttle's next approach to Earth will be on Aug. 5, 2126, when it will come within about 14 million miles, or 23 million km, or about 60 times the distance from Earth to the moon, Yeomans said. Current models don't expect the comet to ever get any closer than about 80,000 miles (130,000 km) to Earth's orbit, but as time passes, those predictions become less and less certain. So although Yeomans is sure that Earth faces no threat in 2126, he said 10,000 years from now, "you can't rule out the possibility, but it would seem to be very unlikely."

Part of that slim uncertainty is due to small influences on the comet that change its orbit ever so slightly each time it swings around the sun. For example, as comets pass near the sun and heat up, expanding gases act like jet thrusters, slightly altering the trajectory. For Swift-Tuttle, that effect is very small, likely due to the comet's tremendous mass, Yeomans said. But over thousands of years, these minute, unpredictable effects make it more difficult to predict the orbit of cosmic objects.

And there are plenty of other objects out there to be aware of, Yeomans said. "We have a long, long list of asteroids for which we haven't completely ruled out a collision, but the impact probabilities are so small that it's not really worth worrying about," he said.

Original article on Live Science.

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

22-07-2016 om 21:48 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Logbook Documenting Great Pyramid's Construction Unveiled

A logbook that contains records detailing the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza has been put on public display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in honor of the pharaoh Khufu (reign ca. 2551 B.C.-2528 B.C.) and is the largest of the three pyramids constructed on the Giza plateau in Egypt. Considered a "wonder of the world" by ancient writers, the Great Pyramid was 481 feet (146 meters) tallwhen it was first constructed. Today it stands 455 feet (138 meters) high.

The logbook was written in hieroglyphic letters on pieces of papyri. Its author was an inspector named Merer, who was "in charge of a team of about 200 men," archaeologists Pierre Tallet and Gregory Marouard wrote in an article published in 2014 in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology. [In Photos: Inside Egypt's Great Pyramids]

Tallet and Marouard are leaders of an archaeological team from France and Egypt that discovered the logbook at the Red Sea harbor of Wadi al-Jarfin 2013. It dates back about 4,500 years, making it the oldest papyrus document ever discovered in Egypt.

"Over a period of several months, [the logbook] reports — in [the] form of a timetable with two columns per day — many operations related to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza and the work at the limestone quarries on the opposite bank of the Nile," Tallet and Marouard wrote.

Merer recorded the logs in the 27th year of Khufu's reign. His records say that the Great Pyramid was near completion, with much of the remaining work focusing on the construction of the limestone casing that covered the outside of the pyramid, Tallet and Marouard wrote.

The limestone used in this casing, according to the logbook, was quarried at Tura near modern-day Cairo, and was brought to the pyramid site by boat along the Nile River and a system of canals. One boat trip between Tura and the pyramid site took four days to complete, the logbook notes.

The logbook also says that in Khufu's 27th year, the construction of the Great Pyramid was being overseen by the vizier Ankhaf (also spelled Ankhhaf), the half- brother of Khufu. (A vizier was a high official in ancient Egypt who served the king.)

The papyri also reveal that one of the titles Ankhaf held was "chief for all the works of the king," Tallet and Marouard wrote in the journal article.

Though the logbook said Ankhaf was in charge during the pharaoh's 27th year, many scholars believe it's possible that another person, possibly the vizier Hemiunu, was in charge of pyramid building during the earlier part of Khufu's reign.

In the press release museum representatives did not specify how long the logbook will be on public display.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

• Image Gallery: Glitzy Discovery at Giza Pyramids
• Photos: Amazing Discoveries at Egypt's Giza Pyramids
• Why Is the Great Pyramid So Sloppy?

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

22-07-2016 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

Why UFO sightings spike like crazy in the summer

Summertime is about relaxation, barbecues, and warm weather.

And, apparently, UFOs.

In a series of memos dated all the way to the late 1940s, top CIA officials detail their mounting concern over extraterrestrial life descending upon us. One strange trend quickly emerged to those officials, and one that has remained constant in the 67 years since. Today, as they did in 1949, UFO sightings spike in the summer.

There are several theories about why this happens.

A CIA memo from 1949 captures the agency’s growing concern over UFO activity. CIA

Cassidy Nicholas is the chief archivist for the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, an organization started in 1969 that looks into reported UFO sightings. She is perhaps the foremost expert on UFO sightings data, having handled thousands of investigations within the last several years.

Nicholas passed the MUFON data along to Tech Insider, which include sightings since 1960.

The trend is hard to notice at first, mostly because there only a few dozen reports each month for most of the 20th century. But between May and August the numbers do tend to climb.

It’s a trend that has gotten even easier to spot within the last decade, as more people have heard of MUFON and reported their UFO sightings.

Nicholas’ go-to explanation for this summer spike is pretty straightforward.

“[People] are noticing the weather, hiking, camping, doing outside activities,” she tells Tech Insider. “And there seems to be an increase in live events” like concerts, fireworks, and other community gatherings.

In other words, people are simply outside more in the summer, rather than hunched over their phones.

Other possible reasons include blockbuster movies and UFO-related TV shows released during the summer months. This could prime people to label a radio tower or a remote-controlled drone a UFO.

Source www.techinsider.io

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

22-07-2016 om 21:16 geschreven door peter  

9 of the most surreal UFO documents from the CIA archive

Summer is officially here, which means UFO sightings are bound to spike until late September, as they have for roughly the last 65 years.

In honor of the summer ritual, Tech Insider dug through the mountain of CIA documents related to UFO sightings, which the agency declassified nearly 40 years ago. Many of the sighting reports date back to the early 1950s, at a time when political tensions were high and flying objects were seen as national security threats.

Here are some of the most interesting.

1. A memo on national security and the ‘vulnerability to air attack’ from flying saucers

CIA

On October 2, 1952, the Assistant Director in the Office of Scientific Intelligence sent a memo to the Director of the entire CIA with the subject “Flying Saucers.”

As the AD wrote, “‘Flying saucers’ pose two elements of danger which have national security implications. The first involves mass psychological considerations and the second concerns the vulnerability of the United States to air attack.”

The AD recommended more research be conducted to explore the “implications of the ‘flying saucer’ problem.”

(If you listen closely enough, you can almost hear them typing the word “drones” decades ahead of time.)

2. Uzbekistan’s mysterious light show

CIA

The late 1940s in the Uzbekistan capital city of Tashkent saw more unidentified light shows than it could count.

“From May to September 1947,” a CIA information report reads, “three light phenomena happening at intervals of about 15 minutes were seen almost every night between 9 and 10 p.m. local time.” At its highest point, the light seemed to be roughly a fifth the diameter of a full moon.

As the report details, the light always began as a bright red ball. Within seconds it would grow a fiery tail and then morph into a green, then white, mass.

“Smoke trails, noises, or detonations were not noticed.”

3. Fiery disks looming over Belgian uranium mines

CIA

A daily newspaper in Vienna, of all publications, reported on a peculiar sighting of “two fiery disks” hovering over uranium mines in mid-August, 1952.

As the report explains, the two objects supposedly tore through the airspace in a highly erratic fashion. At one point they would be soaring vertically away from the onlookers, and the next they’d be diving down “to within 20 meters of the tree tops.”

Commander Pierre of the local airfield took off in his own fighter plane to wrangle the unknown aircraft. However, “Pierre had to give up pursuit after 15 minutes since both disks, with a loud whistling sound which he heard despite the noise of his own plane, disappeared in a straight line toward Lake Tanganyika.”

Pierre later estimated the disks were traveling more than 900 miles per hour.

4. The CIA begins to have its doubts about UFOs

CIA

With all these reports coming in, it didn’t take long for the CIA to get suspicious. In August 1952 (keep in mind, still two months ahead of its memo on those two national security concerns), the Deputy Assistant Director of the Scientific Intelligence officereleased a memodiscounting the threat posed by UFOs.

“Of 1000 to 2000 such reports received by ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center), a large percentage are clearly ‘phoney,'” the report reads. In fact, many of the reported flights were easily explained as known missions using US equipment, the report went on.

Owing to the agency’s uncertainty, however, the Deputy AD recommended CIA surveillance continue on the mysterious “flying saucers” under the cover of darkness.

“It is strongly urged … that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public,” the report read, “in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as ‘confirmatory’ of the soundness of ‘unpublished facts’ in the hands of the U.S. government.”

5. Flying objects passing over Casablanca

CIA

In early September 1952, multiple sightings were reported of various UFOs over Casablanca, Morocco. Residents of the town, which was made famous by the 1942 film, saw two flying saucers that were “elongated in shape” and “followed by a trail of white light.”

On a separate occasion in July, two other people reported seeing a “blue-green, ball-shaped object” just before midnight “moving at a high rate of speed.” The mysterious object disappeared after only three or four seconds, however, “as though it had literally melted into the sky.”

The very next morning, another couple observed a mysterious object around 9 a.m. for roughly 30 seconds. Several more accounts, all with differing details, emerged that summer.

6. The East German flying saucers of 1952

CIA

The CIA published this internal document reporting on one German man’s fantastic account of a 45-foot-wide disk he spotted in a forest when his motorcycle broke down.

Accompanied by his 11-year-old daughter, the man approached the strange-looking object to find two men in “shiny metallic clothing” kneeling over the disk, which had a cone-shaped capsule on top.

Once the two men realized they were being watched, the man says, they hopped into the capsule and the disk began to leave the ground. Eventually, it rose high above the trees and took off.

“I had never heard of the term ‘flying saucer’ before I escaped from the Soviet Union into West Berlin,” the man later said. “When I saw this object, I immediately thought it was a new Soviet military machine.”

7. A year later, the unidentified aircraft is spotted in Morocco again…

CIA

On the night of September 2, 1953, residents of a small town southeast of Casablanca known as Oued Zem reported hearing a thunderous noise. The next morning, a pair of shepherds claimed to have seen a flying object that was “lighted in many colors and flying at great speed.”

The sightings followed two other incidents in July and August, one over Greece and another over Spain. Witnesses in Madrid described the UFO as “flying like a jet plane” but emitting a red reflection and creating no noise.

In Drama, Greece, residents said they saw a rocket-shaped object at low altitude, which stayed stationary for three to four minutes before disappearing into the night.

8. Europe can’t agree about what people are seeing in the sky

CIA

In the span of a month between April 15 and May 13, 1954,five separate reports from France and Sweden each described UFOs of a different size and shape.

The first, on April 15, involved an elongated, cone-shaped object with two red and green lights at its base. It flew at a high altitude.

The next, on April 26, was a “cigar-shaped object” observed by a group of people walking through France’s Sare region, near the Pyrenees border. The object was traveling at a high altitude — roughly 6,500 feet, the observers claimed — and heading toward Spain.

The final event took place the morning of May 13, in Sweden. Three people separately reported seeing a “brilliant, silver-colored sphere with a tail.”

9. Three Norwegian guys walk into a forest…

CIA

In mid-November 1952, three men working in a forest in Kirkenes, Norway spotted a flat, round object just hovering roughly 1,500 feet in the air.

“The object appeared to have a diameter of 15-20 meters (50-65 feet),” the CIA report stated. “After the workers had observed the object for a while, it suddenly flew away at great speed in a northwesternly direction.”

They were the only people who reported seeing the object, unfortunately for them. “They swear, however, that their report is true.”

Source www.techinsider.io

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

22-07-2016 om 21:05 geschreven door peter  

The Most Mysterious Star in the Galaxy

The object known unofficially as Tabby’s Star dims every so often in a chaotic pattern—and nobody knows why.

Late last year, the PlanetHunters group of citizen-scientists found a perfectly ordinary star behaving very weirdly—fading in brightness every so often, by very different amounts, in a chaotic pattern. In a skillful paper, Tabatha (“Tabby”) Boyajian at Yale pointed out the horrible dilemma posed by the star, which is tucked up under the western wing of Cygnus the Swan. So instead of calling it by its forgettable catalog name, KIC 8462852, everyone now refers to it as Tabby’s Star. (Tabby herself tried to give the star the nickname “WTF Star,” as an acronym for “Where’s The Flux?” The more common usage of “WTF” is also appropriate.) She’s even done a TED talk about it.

I first heard about Tabby’s Star when a smirking colleague came in to the lunchroom and passed around some of Tabby’s plots. All I could do was look perplexed and open-mouthed. Between the astro-professors in the room, we had incredibly wide and deep experience, and none of us had ever seen anything even vaguely like this.

Tabby’s basic plot is a light curve, a measure of brightness as a function of time. Her 4-year light curve came from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, already legendary for the accuracy and reliability of its light curves. The Kepler plot was basically flat, meaning that the star had a constant brightness, aside from a miniscule periodic modulation as typical of rotating stars that have starspots.

The kicker was that Tabby’s Star shows occasional dips in the light curve, and these are unlike anything ever seen. That is, the star’s brightness faded by a bit for, typically, one day at a time. About ten times, the star faded by 0.2 percent to 8 percent. Twice the dips dimmed the star by 16 percent and 21 percent. The basic dips had a duration of 1-3 days or so, but there is structure in the light curve up to ~100 days long. The dips are not periodic.

Now, Tabby’s star is otherwise a common F3 main-sequence star. That is a bit hotter (6750°K) than our Sun (5800°K), and a bit larger (1.58 times larger than our Sun). The spectrum shows no emission lines, and only the ordinary expected absorption lines. Tabby’s Star has no nearby binary companion that we can detect. This is just a plain normal everyday star. Except for the dips…

Astronomers understand big flaming balls of gases very well, and there is very high confidence that lone F3 main-sequence stars cannot have variations of more than 0.01 percent on any time scale shorter than millions of years. (Well, except for superflares, which these are not.) Further, the light curve dips are not modulated by the known stellar rotation. So the dips aren’t from the underlying star.

This forces us into thinking that they could only be due to something passing across the line of sight, blocking the background starlight (the technical term is “occulting”). After all, the PlanetHunters were explicitly looking for exactly this case, where some orbiting planet occults the star as it passes in front (the term for that is “transits”). But planet transits are always very small in amplitude (less than about one percent or so) and periodic. Whatever it is that is randomly passing in front of Tabby’s Star is not a planet.

The deepest dip dims the star by 21 percent, so whatever was covering up the starlight must have been covering at least 21 percent of the star’s area. This implies that the body, or cloud, or structure must have just under half the radius of the star—which makes it 70 percent the size of our Sun. Whatever it is, it might be solid (like a planet), gaseous (like a star or a gas cloud), or something like a cloud of dust.

The trouble is that any such idea requires that all of these things should be emitting large amounts of infrared light. It should be bright enough to be readily seen above the normal expected infrared light from the primary star. In astro-jargon, Tabby’s Star does not have any excess of infrared light.

So what is blocking out the light from Tabby’s Star? Well, an astronomer’s kneejerk reaction is to try to concoct some model that might explain the observations. We’ve all been tossing out ideas. The trouble is that our ideas founder on the lack of infrared excess. We can imagine accretion disks with flaring edges, or complex multiple star systems with improbable orbits, or vast streams of super-giant comets, or dusty asteroid-asteroid collisions. But all of these require an infrared excess. This includes the suggestion that the dips in brightness might be caused by some partially-constructed artificial “Dyson Sphere” built by a very advanced civilization around the star. But any hypothetical large-scale structures around the star must also emit a lot of light in the infrared, since they must radiate away the huge influx of energy that they intercept from the primary star. The laws of thermodynamics apply to them too

So the remaining viable models are now down to … none. Astronomers have no reasonable idea as to how to explain the dips in Tabby’s Star. But we know the dips are real because of the extraordinary accuracy and reliability of the Kepler spacecraft. So we have a mystery. And I have thought long, and I cannot come up with any other star more mysterious than Tabby’s Star.

When confronted with such an anomaly in very-well-established theory (that F3 main-sequence stars should not have such dips), the possibility arises that we are seeing the first example of some entirely new and unexpected phenomenon. And this is always exciting to astronomers. Who knows what startling wonders are being pointed at by Tabby’s Star?

So how to proceed? Well, looking at the star when there isn’t a dip going on is unlikely to tell us anything more than the background information that we’ve already worked out. So the only way to advance is to catch Tabby’s Star in the middle of a dip.

What I’d most like to see is a good spectrum of Tabby’s Star at mid-dip. The starlight, spread out into fine gradations of color, should tell us about the nature of whatever is producing the occultations. If the occulter is some sort of a dusty cloud, then the dimming will be greatest for blue light and least for red light, with the relative dimming across the colors being in a known and characteristic pattern. If this dust cloud has gas mixed in, then we should also see characteristic absorption lines at known colors, giving us the composition of the gas, and revealing the origin and nature of the cloud. If the light-blocker is solid, then all of the colors will dim by exactly the same amount. And we might even see some emission lines if there is some sort of stellar activity on the primary star. So all it takes is one good spectrum during a dip, and we’ll know the nature of the occulter.

There is a real practical problem here, however as Tabby’s Star has been in dip for only a total of a few weeks out of the four years of observations by Kepler. The dips are chaotic in time, so we cannot predict when any upcoming dip will happen. So the only way to get a spectrum during a dip is to have nearly continuous monitoring of the star’s brightness— and, when it starts to go into a dip, send out a worldwide alert. With such an alert, some observatory somewhere will be able to get a good spectrum within a day or so.

So this problem reduces to monitoring Tabby’s Star continuously, at nearly the hour-by-hour level, until it goes into another dip. That program takes a huge amount of telescope time. This is now only realistic for robotic telescopes spread out around the northern hemisphere.

Fortunately, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope(LCOGT) network is perfect for the case. LCOGT has wonderful robotic telescopes at four sites in the northern hemisphere (two sites near their headquarters in Santa Barbara California, one on Haleakala in Hawaii, one on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and one at McDonald Observatory in Texas). With this kind of coverage, Tabby’s Star can be monitored near 24/7 for most of the year.

But it takes money to purchase time on LCOGT. Such a monitoring project does not fit in well with the usual program capabilities of the science support coming from NASA or the National Science Foundation. Government funding has been what has been driving the excellence in American science for many decades. But monitoring Tabby’s Star is a risky proposal, with no guaranteed return, because maybe there won’t be any dips for a long time to come.

So, being a modern person, Tabby has sought alternative, modern funding sources. This has led her to start a Kickstarter campaign. The idea is to crowd-fund the LCOGT monitoring program. She is seeking $100,000 before June 17. (I won’t benefit personally from any contributions, since they won’t fund any of my own research.)

If you want to help solve the mystery of Tabby’s Star. I urge you to consider helping with the Kickstarter program. I’ve already contributed.

Source blogs.scientificamerican.com

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

22-07-2016 om 20:50 geschreven door peter  

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22-07-2016 om 18:51 geschreven door peter