Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
07-12-2016
UFO Hunters Claim USAF Secretly Testing Night Vision Alien Technology In Nellis Air Force Base
UFO Hunters Claim USAF Secretly Testing Night Vision Alien Technology In Nellis Air Force Base
Some UFO hunters have come up with video evidence that the U.S. Air Force is allegedly conducting night vision alien technology tests at the Nellis Air Force Base. This followed sighting of UFO’s at the training range of the high security area.
( David McNew | Getty Images )
The U.S. Air Force is conducting late night tests of alien UFO technology in secret at the Nellis Air Force Base, according to UFO hunters who reported heavy UFO activity in the military area near Las Vegas in southern Nevada.
UFO hunter and eyewitness Steven Barone, who — in Nov. 16 — uploaded on YouTube a video that he shot from his backyard on the night of Nov. 15, said he saw alien UFOs circling in the night sky above the Nellis AFB.
Barone asserts it as a clear case of stealth UFO activity at the base and a trial of "night vision technology".
The highly secretive Area 51 base of the USAF is located at the Nellis AFB's Test and Training Range.
Eye Witness Claim Endorsed By Veteran
The claim of the eyewitness on UFO activity was corroborated by veteran UFO hunter Scott C. Waring. He said that the video was explicit and three alien UFO crafts were indeed flying over the Nellis base.
"These objects are flying over a USAF base in that area so no one can travel over there to take a look," Waring said in a blog post of UFO Sightings Daily on Dec. 4.
He also said that the USAF was testing alien technology procured from extraterrestrial allies.
"It looks like the USAF is testing some of the alien craft that was given to the USAF in good faith."
He also recalled the crash of a similar craft in 2008 at Needles, California and wondered why the USAF still has not gained the expertise in flying them.
The vast military area is spread over more than 5,000 square miles in the southern Nevada desert.
Reverse-Engineering Plan Of Propulsion Technology
Meanwhile, some UFO researchers said that Pentagon has been recovering UFOs from crash sites for reverse engineering. A case in point was the crash site outside Roswell in New Mexico, where an alien saucer crashed in the late 1940s.
Some UFO hunters also allege that the restricted area in the Nellis AFB houses a secret community of technologically advanced aliens called Tall Whites.
They say the Tall Whites are in a pact with the U.S. government for exchanging advanced aerospace technology in lieu of other resources.
They also allege Tall White Aliens are living in an underground base at the Nellis AFB and the alien scientists, engineers, and technicians are backing Pentagon's aerospace projects.
Warin said the alien UFOs were given by the Tall Whites who are now operating from a secret base at the Nellis AFB.
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RENDLESHAM MYSTERY: UFO key witness speaks for FIRST TIME and says object WAS alien
RENDLESHAM MYSTERY: UFO key witness speaks for FIRST TIME and says object WAS alien
A KEY witness in the UK's most baffling mass UFO sighting has gone on record for the first time about what he saw hovering over an air base 36 years ago.
Steve Longero (pictured) has spoken publicly for the first time about the Rendlesham UFO.
The Rendlesham mystery has been dubbed Britain's Roswell after the mystery and infamous UFO crash that allegedly happened outside the town in New Mexico, USA in July 1947.
The UK alien sighting happened when three US officers based at RAF Bentwaters claimed a "triangular shaped craft" landed in neighbouring woods in the early hours of December 26 1980.
The case was later investigated by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), but it concluded there was no evidence of alien visitations or any national security risk, and the sightings were most likely the result of beams of light from a nearby coastal lighthouse.
Steve Longero, a former US Airforce military police officer based at the airbase at the time, has remained tight-lipped about what he saw in Rendlesham Forest ever since.
But, now in a magazine interview, he has revealed he believes what he saw came from outer space and could have been aliens.
He said: "I think it was something not from this world.”
Mr Longero was guarding the weapons storage area when the alarms started going off.
He said: "While on duty that night we had a very sophisticated alarm system and everything just went off.
“And then I could see these lights over the treetops, and I was thinking, what’s going on?
He is the latest in a line of former military personnel to speak out over the case, including retired Colonel Charles Halt, 76, who was base deputy commander at the time and features in a newly-published book about the case.
Mr Halt claimed the officers who first saw the lights then a UFO "on the floor", could not account for a 40 minute period while searching in the woods when their communication systems went "off air".
The three officers - John Burroughs, Bud Steffens, and James Penniston, told the MoD of feeling "static" as they observed the object's flashing lights and hieroglyphic-like markings.
Mr Halt then said on the evening of December 27 1980 that officers had shouted "It's back, the UFO's back".
Mr Halt went to investigate with a team who found three 1.5inch "impact holes", damage to the canopies of trees and "higher radiation levels" in the "landing" area.
A plaster cast was later taken of one of the holes, but mysteriously disappeared from a box it was stored in.
Mr Halt said soon after they saw a mysterious object in a field between the woods and a farmhouse with "a red light moving."
JONAUSTIN
Charles Halt at a Rendlesham UFO conference in 2015.
He said: "It came towards us into the forest, moving, bobbing up and down in the trees. It was oval, about 100 to 150 yards away, with a dark centre and red around it."
He claimed there were "sparks" coming from it and after a minute it "exploded and disappeared."
They then spotted objects in the sky, 3,000 to 4,000ft up.
In May, a documentary revealed the testimonies of two former military technicians who claimed a UFO WAS caught on radar and seen from the control tower of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge as well as in Rendlesham Forest, near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, at the time of the sightings.
UFOs and Nukes: The Secret Link Revealed, which is available to view online on Vimeo, revealed the accounts of Jim Carey and Ike Barker who were said to be manning the radars and control tower at the time.
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Gold UFO Comes Within 100 meters of the space station, Dec 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Gold UFO Comes Within 100 meters of the space station, Dec 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: December 5, 2016
Location of sighting: Earths orbit, at space station
Wow! This golden cigar UFO was seen on live space station cam yesterday. It was caught by the watchful eye of Streetcap1 of Youtube. As proof to this being a real object, the UFO is slightly touching the light...lighting up one end of the UFO (above photo). That is proof that this is a solid object and its shadows are due to the light from the sun. Awesome catch, and I wonder what aliens are doing up there...investigating the thoughts of the astronauts, or were they invited guests that came aboard the ISS?
Scott C. Waring
Streetcap1 states:
This is an unidentified flying object near the ISS. It eventually just disappears. You may notice some very fast red flashes near it. I have uploaded it just as was broadcast so many people must have seen it too. Streetcap1.
Despite an MOD investigation the Rendlesham Forest incident remains unexplained (stock image)
Steve Longero has remained tight-lipped for more than three decades
But now the retired U.S. Airforce police officer has gone on the record for the first time and said: “I think it was something not from this world.”
The incident – dubbed the British Roswell – took place over three nights between 26 and 28 December, in 1980.
Military personnel from nearby RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, including the deputy base commander, witnessed strange lights in the forest and hovering above the twin NATO airbases which were on high alert as the Cold War was at its peak.
Steve, who served as a police sergeant in the USAF, was guarding the weapons storage area when the alarms started going off.
He said: “While on duty that night, we had a very sophisticated alarm system and everything just went off.
“And then I could see these lights over the treetops, and I was thinking, what’s going on? Then they started sending people out there and at first it was hard to believe, all these bright lights. It was hard to take in.
"Well from what I remember the lights, fluorescent lights, kind of a glow, like a reddish glow. I remember going out there.”
The Rendlesham Forest incident: Britain’s most famous UFO sighting
The Rendlesham Forest incident took place in December 1980 over a series of at least two nights. On December 26, 1980, military personnel at the twin bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk saw a strange light in Rendlesham Forest, which lies between the two bases. Three men were sent out to investigate where two of them encountered a small, triangularshaped craft. One man, Jim Penniston, got close enough to touch the side of the object. He and another of the airmen present, John Burroughs, made sketches of the craft for witness statements Two nights later Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt and his team then encountered the UFO. He said later: "Here I am, a senior official who routinely denies this sort of thing and diligently works to debunk them, and I'm involved in the middle of something I can't explain."
Despite an MOD investigation the Rendlesham Forest incident remains unexplained.
GETTY IMAGES
A UFO trail sign at Rendlesham Forest, which has become a tourist hotspot
ALAMY
The Rendlesham Forest incident took place in December 1980 and has been dubbed Britain's Roswell
Steve went out into the forest where he remembers seeing a large group of other military personnel had already gathered including Staff Sgt Jim Burroughs, Airman First Class Edward Cabansag and Airman First Class Larry Warren.
Describing the UFOs, he said: “They looked like fluorescent coloured lights, like red and green, glowing lights and that’s what they looked like.I could see them hovering over the treetops like an eye that was almost following everybody.”
He added: “It was real kind of quiet and this thing hovering over the trees, and you were like kind of tracking it and like ‘what is this?’. And it was like following, it was like watching us, that’s what it looked like to us. It seemed like something watching us.
“From what I remember it was like aglow, it was really glowing like a reddish, greenish light. It was really glowing, like something was really hot and it was just glowing.”
JONNY DILLON
This letter is the MOD's response to Rendlesham Forest UFO incident
He also recalled seeing Colonel Charles Halt there, who made a tape recording describing how beams of light were being shone down by the UFO. He has written an explosive new book called The Halt Perspective describing his close encounter.
Mr Longero said: “Col Halt came afterwards, after all that was called in. I remember him turning up, that’s when they kind of gathered everyone around and said this is what we are going to do, and everybody kind of dispersed and did what they were told to do.
"I remember we had a little briefing right there and everybody was just like, we just could not believe what we were seeing. Your adrenalin was flowing and I remember people saying like ‘what is that?’.
NOT KNOWN
A drawing of the craft seen during the unexplained incident Rubbishing theories that the lights in the woods were caused by a lighthouse on the east coast, he laughed: “I don’t think so. Not unless the lighthouse could move. Unless they could float that thing in the air.
“And then, as people were getting close to this thing it kind of came nearer to us and then it would go forward and then go back and all of a sudden it just disappeared, like something out of Star Trek, it was like warp speed and we were all ‘what was that?’ it was gone and then that’s when they started doing all their investigations. After we secured the area they said okay, you’re gone, get out of here.”
Steve said he was debriefed a few days later and was told not to talk about what he saw as the base had nuclear weapons on site.
UFO investigator Philip Mantle, who interviewed Steve for Outer Limits Magazine, said: “Steve does not claim to be anything special but he wanted to emphasise that there were a lot of others involved who were witness to the events in question, many of whom have yet to add their voice to these events.
“Steve has confirmed the open secret that nuclear weapons were stored at RAF Bentwaters at the time although he did not personally witness any lights being shone onto the WSA.
“He has confirmed much of what Colonel Halt has already said on the record and he is in no doubt that Larry Warren was there.
“What is clear is that despite the best efforts of some this case will continue to be hotly debated for many years to come.”
When your bike or car needs a tune-up, it’s easy enough to bring it down to a repair shop. But if your vehicle is hurtling through orbit, hundreds of kilometers above the planet, it’s a lot trickier to arrange a maintenance check or refueling operation.
NASA intends to tackle this challenge with its Restore-L spacecraft, which is designed to grasp, repair, gas up, and re-deploy its fellow orbiting robots. On Monday, the agency announced that it would award a $127 million contract to the private satellite company Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California, to build this orbital helper bot in time for a projected launch in 2020. This maiden flight of the Restore-L will test out the spacecraft’s ability to rendezvous with and subsequently service a government asset in orbit.
"It introduces new ways to robotically manage, upgrade, and prolong the lifespans of our costly orbiting national assets. By doing so, Restore-L opens up expanded options for more resilient, efficient, and cost-effective operations in space," he added.
If successful, Restore-L could also lend its talents to other endeavors, like cleaning up space debris or testing out asteroid capture platforms. It’s also the latest example of NASA partnering with the private sector to reduce operation costs and diversify America’s spacefaring portfolio.
Released in US theatres just a week ago, Arrival is quickly shaping up to be the science fiction movie of the year, a turn of events that almost no one—including the author himself—would’ve guessed based on its premise.
The story follows linguist Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams) and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner) as they attempt to communicate with a pair of extraterrestrials whose spacecraft has just landed in Montana. For most of us, Arrival was just another entertaining alien flick, but for a handful of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) researchers who are actually tasked with figuring out how to communicate with extraterrestrials, the film felt more like a documentary than a drama.
“I am so envious of Louise Banks because she gets to have a face to face with ET,” Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) International president Douglas Vakoch told Motherboard. “But in the scenarios that SETI and METI folks deal with there’s no possibility of that. Our idea of a snappy exchange with extraterrestrials is a decade—and that only works if the nearest star is populated.”
Prior to becoming the president of the recently founded METI International, which focuses on the controversial science of sending messages into space, Vakoch was the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute in California. For a large part of his career, he has been trying to figure out how to communicate with an intelligent extraterrestrial species when you don’t even know the first thing about them and a message takes decades to reach its destination.
Although Amy Adams’ character makes it look easy in Arrival, the real art and science of talking to aliens—known as astrolinguistics or METI—is much more complicated, involving a healthy mix of linguistics, mathematics, physics, and imagination.
In Arrival, Renner’s character ribs Adams for her approach to communicating with the aliens, telling her that she does linguistics “like a mathematician.” Although this throwaway comment was made in jest, in real life that’s more or less how it’s done. As Vakoch pointed out, one of the luxuries enjoyed by Adams in the film is that she is able to communicate in real time with the aliens. But for the METI researchers sending messages into the cosmos, they are expecting decades—if not centuries—to elapse between sending a message and receiving a response, which fundamentally changes the way they think about constructing a message.
In the first place, it means that a message sent into the cosmos needs to be incredibly robust and ideally entirely self-referential. Unlike Arrival, Earthlings don’t have the ability to teach the recipients of their messages anything about it because the delay in communication is so long. So not only do METI researchers have to send the content of the message, but they also have to send instructions for how to read it, and these instructions must somehow be intelligible to the aliens as well.
What this means is that rather than trying to figure out how the structure of an alien’s language might uniquely shape their worldview (the theoretical basis of Arrival known as linguistic relativism) and basing a message off of that, METI researchers go in the opposite direction.
“We're looking for a cosmic Rosetta stone,” said Vakoch. “But the question is: What do us and the extraterrestrials both have in common?”
As you might expect, this question leads most METI researchers to languages rooted in mathematics and physics, which one would expect to be known to an alien civilization capable of mastering the technology to receive our message in the first place.
When a 20th century Dutch mathematician named Hans Freudenthal created LINCOS, the first language expressly designed for communicating with extraterrestrials, he used mathematical principles to discuss everything from the nature of time to what it means to love. In 2013, a Dutch mathematical astronomer named Alexander Ollongren created a second version of LINCOS, which communicates similar ideas couched in the language of symbolic logic and lambda calculus. In both of these instances, the lingua cosmica is self-contained and rooted in supposedly universal principles (mathematics and logic)—but it still might be unintelligible to an alien.
“Even if humans and extraterrestrials both have math and science, they're not necessarily interchangeable,” said Vakoch. “Maybe science starts out at different places depending on the biology or particular needs of the organism. There is a subtle truth that Arrival points toward, and that is the way we construct and talk about the world may reflect something idiosyncratic about our species.”
To illustrate his point, Vakoch cites the emergence of non-Euclidean geometry in the 19th century. For two millennia, Euclid’s view of a flat universe reigned supreme and pivoted on his fifth postulate, which states that two parallel lines will never intersect. But when a handful of European geometers in the 1800s replaced this axiom with its opposite—that two parallel lines actually can intersect—they fundamentally changed our view of reality by making space curved instead of flat.
The important point is that both geometries are internally consistent and have been used for innumerable scientific and mathematical discoveries. So just because we’re speaking the language of science or math to aliens doesn’t necessarily mean we’re talking about the same science and math.
With this in mind, Vakoch advocates for exploring dozens of different ways of trying to communicate with ET. He thinks that the idea of trying to create a self-contained message that can be delivered all at once is a product of the human desire to see a send and reply happen within one generation. If we abandon this idea and accept that interstellar communication is likely to happen over the course of centuries or millennia, it opens up radically new ways of attempting to establish communication with aliens.
The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico was used to send the first message into space.
In the half a century that elapsed between the first and second versions of LINCOS, there have been no shortage of ideas for how to talk to extraterrestrials. Some have relied on aural or visual components, such as the Voyager spacecraft which contained sound and images on a record. Likewise the first radio communication intended for aliens, known as the Arecibo message, was also an image which depicted pixelated humans and the Arecibo telescope. Unfortunately, these types of messages are banking on the idea that aliens will have aural and visual systems like us—but given that sight has independently evolved dozens of times on Earth alone, this idea might not be as farfetched as it seems.
Other common ideas take the form of massive data dumps or sending out computer programs that will be capable of being run by the aliens once they’ve got a basic grip on human coding paradigms. This was the idea behind CosmicOS, a computer program that would essentially use a role-playing game to teach aliens about Earth and that one time the entirety of Craigslist was sent into the cosmos (more of a publicity stunt than anything, but maybe aliens need a new divan?). Other strategies go back to hard science, like the RuBisCo Stars message which sent the DNA sequence for the protein used in plants for photosynthesis.
Whether any of these signals will ever reach or be intelligible to extraterrestrials is impossible to say, which is why Vakoch and his colleagues at METI International are focusing on exploring as many different message constructions as possible in the meantime. They hope to begin transmitting messages into the cosmos by the end of 2018, but for now the important thing is to have an open mind and active imagination, which for Vakoch is one of the main takeaways from Arrival.
“The thing I most liked about Arrival is that it captures the sort of openness to a new way of understanding the nature of reality that we need to be capable of to understand another civilization,” said Vakoch. “That's what we hope for in SETI and METI: that over the course of decades or centuries we’ll be able to come to understand how another civilization understands and talks about its world.”
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Flying Robotic Ambulance Completes First Solo Test Flight
Flying Robotic Ambulance Completes First Solo Test Flight
By Jesse Emspak, Live Science Contributor
Urban Aeronautics' robotic flying vehicle is designed to carry people or equipment without a human pilot on board.
Credit: Urban Aeronautics
A new automated, flying ambulance completed its first solo flight, offering a potential solution for challenging search and rescue missions.
Completing such missions in rough terrain or combat zones can be tricky, with helicopters currently offering the best transportation option in most cases. But these vehicles need clear areas to land, and in the case of war zones, helicopters tend to attract enemy fire. Earlier this month, Israeli company Urban Aeronautics completed a test flight for a robotic flying vehicle that could one day go where helicopters can't.
On Nov. 14, the company flew its robotic flyer, dubbed the Cormorant, on the craft's first solo flight over real terrain. The autonomous vehicle is designed to eventually carry people or equipment (as reflected in its former name, the AirMule) without a human pilot on board. [9 Totally Cool Uses for Drones]
Urban Aeronautics said the test was "a significant achievement for a student pilot, human or nonhuman," and said the company is "proud" of the vehicle's performance.
The Cormorant uses ducted fans rather than propellers or rotors to fly. These fans are effectively shielded rotors, which means the aircraft doesn't need to worry about bumping into a wall and damaging the rotors. Another set of fans propels the vehicle forward, according to Urban Aeronautics.
The robotic flyer pilots itself entirely through laser altimeters, radar and sensors. The system is "smart" enough to self-correct when it makes mistakes, company officials said. In a video released by Urban Aeronautics, the Cormorant tries to land, stops itself and then corrects its landing position.
The vehicle is effectively a decision-making system that can figure out what to do if the inputs from the sensors are off in some way, the company said. If the Cormorant detects a potential issue, the drone's robotic brain can decide what to do: go home, land and wait for more instructions, or try a different flight path, Urban Aeronautics said.
Despite the completion of this month's flight test, Urban Aeronautics still needs to refine some parts of the technology, the company said. For one, the test flight wasn't very long, lasting only a minute or two. And though the terrain was irregular (as in, not completely flat), it was still an open field without any real obstacles on either side. Further tests will look to improve how smoothly the aircraft goes from takeoff to level flight, and to increase speed and maneuverability, the company said in a statement.
There are potentially thousands of exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. In the spirit of Halloween, scientific YouTube channel DNews lays out just a few alien exoplanets that sound "horrific" to us, Earthlings.
For starters, the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is oozing with poisonous liquid. About 40 light years away, it's known as a "super Earth," about eight times larger the mass of our home planet and much hotter because it's so close to its star. In fact, the high heat of the planet has made it so that water and other liquids are unable to exist in their regular liquid state, pushing them to "supercritical" states under the pressure. The fluids become exotic, oozing non-liquids, also gleaming with the poisonous hydrogen cyanide, oozing below the surface of 55 Cancri e.
Similar to Jupiter, except larger and hotter, is exoplanet CoRoT-2a. The planet orbits very close to its star, so it’s now bloated due to extreme heating. Powerful ex-rays perpetually explode from the star, which cause five million tons of material to blast off the planet and into space every second.
Another exoplanet, Kepler-19b might have a ghost—okay, probably not, but the planet doesn't have a consistent orbit, which is anomalous. The planet will occasionally speed up and then slow down seemingly on its own, whereas it would seem that the planet would need some external force causing the abnormal orbit speeds. It could be, according to the video, that a "ghostly alien world" is tugging at Kepler-19b from afar.
The last of these scary, spooky exoplanets listed was Fomalhaut b, within the Fomalhaut star system. The planet resides in dusty debris 25 light years from Earth, making images of it look like the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.
While none of these exoplanets would be pleasant to Earthling senses, the way aliens react to them is a different story. It's not clear what kind of life exists on these planets, if any, but if they're out there, they're probably much tougher than we are.
06-12-2016 om 23:56
geschreven door peter
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Christo Roppolo was eight years old when he was contacted by aliens for the first time.
He was at home with his younger brother when a creature that looked like Bullwinkle emerged from a glowing ambulance and pressed itself against the window of his bedroom. When he regained consciousness, his parents were in the room arguing with one another and his younger brother had smeared soiled diapers all over the living room window, as if in attempt to keep something out.
“[The alien] told me it was going to give me a little bite on the nose, but when I woke up everything would be okay,” Roppolo told Motherboard. “For a long time after that, I didn’t even want to go to sleep, but as a kid I didn’t place too much significance on what had happened. As I got older, I started to realize that it wasn’t just a dream.”
Today, Roppolo is 57 years old and resides in Monterey, California, an idyllic coastal city about 6 hours north of Los Angeles. Although thousands of miles and five decades separate Roppolo from his childhood home in the suburbs of Cleveland, the extraterrestrial encounters never stopped. But instead of freaking out that the aliens were trying to contact him, Roppolo did what any filmmaker would do—he grabbed his video camera and started shooting his encounters.
When Roppolo reached out to Justin Gaar, a filmmaker newly arrived in Los Angeles, he had dozens of hours of UFO footage he had filmed around Monterey. Roppolo was trying to make a movie out of this footage, but was dissatisfied with the cut that had been given to him by his previous editor. He found Gaar through the friend of a friend who worked as a sales rep at the company from which Roppolo would order synthesizers to make his otherworldly electronica music.
“I honestly watched maybe an hour’s worth [of Roppolo’s footage] and was like what is this?” Garr told Motherboard. “It's really just hours and hours of him going 'what the fuck is that fucking shit?' and pointing at blinking dots in the sky. My mind wasn't entirely open to what it was.”
Garr told Roppolo he didn’t see anything in the footage and made some suggestions for how he could improve his filmmaking, but didn’t really anticipate getting involved in the project. Yet as Garr continued to received new footage from Roppolo, some of it featuring himself, he was eventually persuaded to meet with Roppolo in Los Angeles to discuss his UFO sightings.
It’s their experiences together that make up the footage of Gaar’s latest film, Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs, which was released on Tuesday.
Christo Roppolo in Monterey.
Image: Virgil Films
“We went to dinner and the whole time [Roppolo] is looking up at the sky for stuff,” said Garr. “He’d keep talking about UFOs and aliens as if they're right there with us in the room. The he told me about his family and I knew there was a narrative here.”
Roppolo’s troubled past really began when his dad was killed in a drunk driving accident while Roppolo was working his way through culinary school. His father was the only person Roppolo ever felt close to in his family and was the person who had originally sparked his passion for filmmaking when he took Roppolo to see the Godfather in theatres.
"He’d keep talking about UFOs and aliens as if they're right there with us in the room. The he told me about his family and I knew there was a narrative here."
After the accident, Roppolo and his brother came into a significant sum of money as a result of the settlement. His brother squandered it on land in the American south and soon went bankrupt. Roppolo spent a portion of his money on filmmaking equipment and with $10,000 produced his first major film, a remake of the classic 1964 gore film, The Flesh Eaters.
The film was decently well received, but shortly after its release Roppolo learned that his brother had stolen $129,000 from his bank account and disappeared. Amazingly, this would soon turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg on Roppolo’s downward slide.
After a series of increasingly tragic events, Roppolo’s life was a mere fragment of what it had been only a decade before—and that’s when the UFOs really started showing themselves to him.
“[The frequency of their appearances] depends on whether or not I’m signaling them,” Roppolo explained. “That’s something I just started doing after studying the footage I had on camera and saw [the UFOs] were blinking at each other. If you signal them with prime numbers and do it in sets of three, they’ll show up.”
Yet for Gaar, there seemed to be a different sort of connection between the sightings.
“Whenever [Roppolo] was having emotional trauma in his life, it was always reflected in his ability to find the UFOs,” Gaar said. “I sort of hypothesized that maybe some of this is psychological, but then also I don't know what the fuck that stuff is that he's videotaping. Some of it you can immediately write off and some of it is really hard to reason through.”
Although Gaar was only able to find breaks from work to visit Roppolo on occasion during the two years it took to film Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs, he was still treated to a few UFO sightings himself. The strangest sighting, which is detailed in the film, is still inexplicable to Gaar and he has little interest in trying to get to the bottom of it.
Christo Roppolo and one of his dogs.
Image: Virgil Films
“I didn't end up pursuing this, but I had a theory about a couple of the sightings,” said Gaar. “There are military installations near [Roppolo] and Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks—a pretty secret experimental aviation place—is located only so far south of Monterey. So I was going to get kind of scientific with it, but decided not to. The film was never about that.”
After everything is said and done, Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs is a documentary that is less about unidentified flying objects than the man who spends his nights looking up at the cosmos. Remarkable for the depth of its comedy and tragedy, it is one of the most poignant documentaries to be released this year. Although Gaar remains a skeptic about UFOs and leaves the legitimacy of the sightings up to the viewer to decide, for Roppolo there was never an option not to believe.
“Until the last breath of my life I will be making sure that people know this is no bullshit,” Roppolo said. “From the bottom of my heart: it’s all real.”
Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs is available on DVD and iTunes on Tuesday, December 6.
In 1905, a 26-year-old Albert Einstein changed physics forever when he outlined histheory of special relativity. This theory outlined the relationship between space and time and is founded on two fundamental assumptions: the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same.
Over the last century, Einstein’s theories of relativity (both special and general) have withstood the trials of experimental verification and been used to explain a number of physical processes, including the origins of our universe. But in the late 1990s, a handful of physicists challenged one of the fundamental assumptions underlying Einstein’s theory of special relativity: Instead of the speed of light being constant, theyproposed that light was faster in the early universe than it is now.
This theory of the variable speed of light was—and still is—controversial. But according to a new paper published in November in the physics journalPhysical Review D, it could be experimentally tested in the near future. If the experiments validate the theory, it means that the laws of nature weren’t always the same as what we experience today and would require a serious revision of Einstein’s theory of gravity.
“The whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light,” Joao Magueijo, a cosmologist at Imperial College London and pioneer of the theory of variable light speed, told Motherboard. “So we had to find ways to change the speed of light without wrecking the whole thing too much.”
"The whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light."
According to Magueijo, the variable speed of light (VSL) theory emerged as a solution to a longstanding inconsistency in cosmology known as "the horizon problem" which arises when the speed of light is considered to be a constant.
If light has an invariable speed limit, then that means that since the Big Bang it could only have traveled approximately 13.7 billion light years, because approximately 13.7 billion years have elapsed since the Big Bang. The distance that light is able to travel since the Big Bang creates the ‘horizon’ of the visible universe—this is about 47 billion light years (although light has only been traveling for 13.7 billion years, this number takes into account the expansion of space that is occurring as light is traveling).
So imagine sitting in the center of a sphere (the universe) with a diameter of 47 billion light years. The edge of this sphere, aka the horizon of the universe, is the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—radiation from about 400,000 years after the Big Bang and our earliest snapshot of the universe—and no matter where you are in the universe, when you observe the CMB today it is 13.7 billion light years distant.
Here’s where the problem arises: although any point in the universe is always 13.7 billion light years from the cosmic microwave background, the distance separating one side of the horizon of the cosmic microwave background from the other (let’s call this the "diameter" of the universe) is approximately 27.4 billion light years. In other words, the universe is too large to have allowed light to travel from one end of the other during its existence, which is necessary to account for the homogeneity observed in the CMB.
The horizon problem. Image: Taylor Lewis/VICE
When cosmologists observe the cosmic microwave background it is remarkably uniform: its temperature is approximately -270 C no matter where it is measured with minuscule variance (one part in 100,000). Yet if light, the fastest "thing" in the universe, isn’t able to travel from one side of the universe to the other over the course of the universe’s entire existence, this uniformity that is observed in the CMB would be impossible.
To understand why this is the case, imagine a bathtub with a faucet at either end, one spigot producing cold water, the other would produce hot water. If you turn both of these faucets off, eventually the water in the bathtub will reach a uniform temperature as the hot and cold water mix. But if while the faucets are running you stretch the tub out in every direction so fast that the hot and cold water will never meet, one side of the tub will always be way hotter than the other side instead of a single uniform temperature.
This is what happened during the Big Bang, except that rather than seeing parts of the early universe in the CMB that are way hotter or cooler than other parts, it’s perfectly uniform. So what gives?
The most widely accepted resolution to the horizon problem is called inflation, which basically states that the uniformity we observe in the CMB occurred while the universe was still incredibly small and dense, and it maintained this uniformity while it expanded. In this example, the hot and cold bath water reached a uniform temperature before the bathtub started its crazy fast expansion in every direction.
Although this inflationary theory preserves a constant speed of light, it also requires accepting the existence of an "inflation field," which only existed during a brief period of time in the early universe.
According to proponents of variable light speed however, this problem can be solved without recourse to inflation if the speed of light was significantly higher in the early universe. This would allow the distant edges of the universe to remain "connected" as the universe expanded and would account for the observed uniformity in the CMB.
Yet for theoretical physicists who prescribe to the inflationary model of the universe, allowing for variable light speed instead of constant light speed is a way of “flipping the sign” of a fundamental term in the theory of special relativity.
“In most cases, flipping such a sign is a recipe for certain disaster as the resulting theory would cease to be physically and internally consistent,” David Marsh, a senior research fellow at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology who was not involved with the paper, told Motherboard. “Afshordi and Magueijo have addressed some of the challenges coming with this sign flip, but it appears that much work remains in establishing that the model is theoretically healthy. If that can be done, this model may have a host of far-reaching consequences also for the rest of physics beyond cosmology.”
So just how much faster was light speed just after the Big Bang? According to Magueijo and his colleague Niayesh Afshordi, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo, the answer is “infinitely” faster.
The duo cite light speed as being at least 32 orders of magnitude faster than its currently accepted speed of 300 million meters per second—this is merely the lower bounds of the faster light speed, however. As you get closer to the Big Bang, the speed of light approaches infinity.
On this view, the speed of light was faster because the universe was incredibly hot at the beginning. According to Afshordi, their theory requires that the early universe was at least a toasty 1028 degrees Celsius (to put this in perspective, the highest temperature we are capable of realizing on Earth is about 1016 degrees Celsius, a full 12 orders of magnitude cooler).
As the universe expanded and cooled below this temperature, light underwent a phase shift—much like liquid water changes into ice once the temperature reaches a certain threshold—and arrived at the speed we know today: 300 million meters per second. Just like ice won’t get more "icy" the colder the temperature gets, the speed of light has not been slowing down since it reached 300 million meters per second.
If Magueijo and Afshordi’s theory of variable light speed is correct, then the speed of light decreased in a predictable way—which means with sensitive enough instruments, this light speed decay can be measured. And that’s exactly what they did in their latest paper.
"Varying speed of light is going back to the foundations of physics and saying perhaps there are things beyond relativity."
According to Afshordi, galaxies and other structures in the universe were only possible due to fluctuations in the early universe’s density. These density fluctuations are recorded in the cosmic microwave background as a "spectral index," which might be imagined as the “color” of the early universe. The neutral baseline of the spectral index is a value of 1, which would be a universe with the same magnitude of gravitational fluctuations on all scales. Above this value the universe is "blue" (representing shorter wavelength fluctuations) and below this value and the universe is "red"(representing longer wavelength fluctuations).
Although the inflationary model of the universe also would have a "red" spectral index, it is unable to calculate a precise value of the index and as a result the exact gravity fluctuations in the early universe. In their new paper, Magueijo and Afshordi pegged the spectral index at a value of 0.96478, just slightly red, which is two orders of magnitude more precise than current measurements of the spectral index (about 0.968).
Now that they’ve used the variable light speed theory to put a hard number on the spectral index, all that remains to be seen is whether increasingly sensitive experiments probing the CMB and distribution of galaxies will verify or overturn their theory. Both Magueijo and Afshordi expect these results to be available at some point in the decade. But Marsh and other physicists aren't so sure.
“Compared to inflation, Afshordi and Magueijo’s model is at the present very complicated and poorly understood,” Marsh said. “However, the understanding of inflation has developed over 35 years and there are still important open theoretical questions to address in that framework. It is certainly possible that given more time and research, the theoretical setting of this model will be much better understood and its predictions may appear more elegant.”
If their theory is correct, it will overturn one of the main axiom’s underlying Einstein’s theory of special relativity and force physicists to reconsider the nature of gravity. According to Afshordi, however, it is more or less accepted in the physics community that Einstein’s theory of gravity cannot be the whole story, and that a quantum theory of gravity will come to replace it. There are a number of competing quantum gravity theories, but if the variable light speed theory outlined in this paper is proven to be correct, it will significantly narrow the range of plausible theories of quantum gravity.
“If you really want to open up quantum gravity to observation, you're better off without this idea of inflation,” said Magueijo. “Inflation leaves fundamental physics completely untouched [and] is a mechanism of insulating the observable universe from physics beyond relativity. Varying speed of light is going back to the foundations of physics and saying perhaps there are things beyond relativity. This is the best position to open up new ideas and new theories.”
Correction:This story originally stated that the "horizon" of the visible universe was 13.7 billion light years, when in fact it is 47 billion light years. We've updated the reference and regret the error.
Gears Made of Metallic Glass Could Be Ideal for Space Missions
Gears Made of Metallic Glass Could Be Ideal for Space Missions
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer
Bulk metallic glass, formed by melting and then rapidly cooling metal, doesn't get brittle in extreme cold. Two new research papers examine the effectiveness and cost of making gears for spacecraft from bulk metallic glass.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A material known as metallic glass, created by liquefying and then rapidly cooling metal, might be an ideal material for making gears for spacefaring robots, according to new research.
The two new research papers focused on the use of bulk metallic glass (BMG) as a material for crafting gears for space-based missions. Metallic glass is called BMG when it is used to manufacture products larger than 0.04 inches (1 millimeter).
To make BMG, engineers first melt metal. Solid metals have a well-organized, crystalline atomic structure. But when the metal is melted, the atoms lose that structure and become randomly arranged, according to a statement from NASA. If the metal cools slowly, the atoms will go back to the crystalline arrangement. But if the liquid metal is cooled extremely rapidly — about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) per second — then the disorganized atomic structure remains. [Video: NASA Tests Robotic Refueling Tech]
These rapidly cooled metals are also known as amorphous metals, and "by virtue of being cooled so rapidly, the material is technically a glass. It can flow easily and be blow-molded when heated, just like windowpane glass," NASA scientists explained in the statement.
Metallic glass was first developed at the California Institute of Technology in the 1960s, and "has been used to manufacture everything from cell phones to golf clubs," NASA said in the statement.
To find out if BMG might be a good material for making gears for spacecraft, Douglas Hofmann, a technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the lead author on the two new research papers, made gears from BMG and tested them at very low temperatures. One of the new papers, published in the journal Advanced Engineering Materials, shows that the gears demonstrate "strong torque" and smooth operation without lubricant at temperatures reaching minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius).
An example of a strain wave gear, also known as a harmonic drive — one of the most expensive types of gears used in high-precision robotics. As the gear turns, the flexible ring inside it squeezes, becoming an oval shape.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The gears' ability to function at very low temperatures is important for two reasons. First, some materials (including some metals) become brittle at cold temperatures, but that isn't the case with metallic glass.. That means there's less risk that a gear tooth will break during operations, according to the statement.
The second benefit has to do with power consumption. "Being able to operate gears at the low temperature of icy moons, like [Jupiter's] Europa, is a potential game changer for scientists," said R. Peter Dillon, a technologist and program manager in JPL's Materials Development and Manufacturing Technology Group. "Power no longer needs to be siphoned away from the science instruments for heating gearbox lubricant, which preserves precious battery power."
Other benefits of BMG gears may result from low cost and ease of manufacturing. Parts made from BMG can be cast using injection-molding technology, according to the NASA statement, which means the material is liquefied and injected into a mold. This technique is also used to manufacture plastic parts.
The second paper by Hofmann and colleagues demonstrates that BMG gears might be more cost-effective than so-called strain wave gears, which are "ubiquitous in expensive robots," according to the statement. In particular, these gears include a flexible metal ring that is "tricky to mass-produce and ubiquitous in expensive robots," NASA officials said in the statement. BMG gears can be manufactured for less, according to the paper.
"Mass-producing strain wave gears using BMGs may have a major impact on the consumer robotics market," Hofmann said. "This is especially true for humanoid robots, where gears in the joints can be very expensive but are required to prevent shaking arms. The performance at low temperatures for JPL spacecraft and rovers seems to be a happy added benefit."
Scientists in Greenland excavating rocks that may hold 3.8-billion-year-old evidence of life.
Credit: Laure Gauthiez
Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients forlife on Earth, and some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, are capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species can use.
Nitrogen fixation, as the process is called, involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create molecules such as ammonia, which is a building block of many complex organic molecules, such as proteins, DNAand RNA.
With organisms playing such a crucial role in the chemistry of nitrogen on Earth, scientists are examining nitrogen in ancient rocks to decipher its potential as a biosignature of life on other planets. New findings in this area of research appeared recently in a paper titled "Nitrogen in Ancient Mud: A Biosignature?" which was published in the journal Astrobiology. [6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System]
This study identifies nitrogen abundances as a potential tool to detect remnants of life on Mars," said one of the study's authors, Eva Stüeken, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington at Seattle and the University of California at Riverside.
An illustration of nitrogen fixation.
Credit: Julie McMahon
However, there are mechanisms other than life that can fix nitrogen. These abiotic nitrogen fixation processes include lightning, volcanism, shockwaves from cosmic impacts and chemical reactions inside hydrothermal vents. As such, it is uncertain whether high nitrogen levels seen in certain ancient rocks on Earth are indeed biogenic (biological) in origin.
Stüeken focused on 3.8 billion-year-old rocks from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland. Previous researchers interpreted organic carbon molecules in those rocks as biogenic, a controversial finding because the widely accepted scientific date for earliest life has been a younger 3.5 billion years.
"It is possible to make organic carbon even in the absence of life,” Stüeken said. “So those studies have been viewed with skepticism by some researchers, and an independent biosignature was needed."
Stüeken set out to see if nitrogen could serve as a biosignature instead, focusing on the relatively high nitrogen levels found in the mineral biotite, which is present in the Isua rocks.
"The nitrogen concentrations are close to what one would find in modern mud," Stüeken said. "So I asked myself if this amount of nitrogen could possibly result from abiotic sources."
In Earth's earliest history, abiotic processes may have been much more important to nitrogen fixation than biological ones, but nobody had tested the hypothesis, Stüeken said. "I was determined to find out when life began to dominate the global nitrogen cycle," she added.
Stüeken developed a model of abiotic nitrogen processes that could have played a role in early Earth. The results showed that such abiotic processes alone could not explain the nitrogen levels seen in the Isua rocks.
"Under abiotic conditions, it is impossible to accumulate so much nitrogen in sediments," Stüeken said. "Life, on the other hand, can easily accumulate so much nitrogen." As such, "the results provide more evidence of an early origin of life on Earth — before 3.8 billion years ago," Stüeken said.
This research suggests that analyzing nitrogen levels could help detect signs of life on Mars, Stüeken said. "Nitrogen abundances are relatively easy to measure by a rover, making this a useful tool for upcoming Mars missions."
Financial support was provided by the NASA postdoctoral fellowship program.
New observations from a NASA spacecraft could help solve a persistent mystery — why the sun's atmosphere isso much hotter than its surface.
While the sun's visible surface is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,538 degrees Celsius), its upper atmosphere, known as the corona, has temperatures in the millions of degrees.
NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft looks at the transition region between the sun's surface and the corona. The satellite recently saw evidence of "heat bombs," which occur when magnetic fields cross in the corona and realign, much like the process that causes solar flares.
"Because IRIS can resolve the transition region 10 times better than previous instruments, we were able to see hot material rushing up and down magnetic fields in the low corona," Paola Testa, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the research, said in a NASA statement. "This is compatible with models from the University of Oslo, in which magnetic reconnection sets off heat bombs in the corona."
This isn't the only way that the corona is heated, but it's one of the contributors. Another factor is when plasma waves from the sun smash into the corona, moving energy into the outer atmosphere.
IRIS, which launched in June 2013, could be a step toward understanding coronal heating, which has puzzled astronomers for decades, NASA officials said. One benefit of the observatory is that it looks continuously at the sun, allowing scientists to see quick-moving events such as the heat bombs.
"The problem of coronal heating was first discovered in the 1940s," Bart De Pontieu, a solar physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory, said in the same statement. "The problem involves a variety of complex physical processes that are difficult to directly measure or capture in theoretical models."
New Pyramid in Antarctica? Not Quite, Say Geologists
New Pyramid in Antarctica? Not Quite, Say Geologists
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
This Antarctic mountain bears a striking resemblance to a pyramid.
Credit: Google Maps
An Antarctic mountain with a unique, pyramid-like shape is suddenly internet-famous, with countless theorists contemplating its origin. Some are wondering whether an ancient civilization created the rocky, pyramidal structure, and others are pointing toward outer space, speculating about the involvement of aliens.
But Occam's razor — the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the right one — points to a far more mundane cause: Those steep, pyramid-like sides are likely the work of hundreds of millions of years of erosion, experts told Live Science.
"This is just a mountain that looks like a pyramid," Eric Rignot, a professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, told Live Science in an email. "Pyramid shapes are not impossible — many peaks partially look like pyramids, but they only have one to two faces like that, rarely four." [Photos: The World's Weirdest Geological Formations]
The pyramidal mountain, which doesn't have a formal name, is one of the many peaks that make up Antarctica's Ellsworth Mountains, which were discovered by the American aviator Lincoln Ellsworth during a flight on Nov. 23, 1935, according to a 2007 research paper that was published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
More specifically, the unnamed mountain — located at 79°58’39.25"S 81°57’32.21"W — is in the southern part of the Ellsworth Mountains in an area called Heritage Range, which is known for its extraordinary fossils, including those of Cambrian-period trilobites from more than 500 million years ago, according to a 1972 USGS report.
The mountain isn't that tall by planetary standards — just 4,150 feet (1,265 meters) — or a little less than one-fifth the height of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, according to Google Earth. The mountain may not have Denali's height, but its unique pyramidal shape sets it apart, said Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts.
Freeze-thaw erosion likely led to its pyramid-like shape, Pelto said. This happens when snow or water fills up cracks within a mountain during the day. When night falls and temperatures drop, the snow freezes and expands, turning into ice. The expanding ice causes the cracks to grow, Pelto said.
This freeze-thaw erosion happens countless times, leading to the creation of larger cracks that can, eventually, cause entire rock sections to break off, he said. These forces likely also shaped other pyramidal mountains, including the Matterhorn in the Alps, he said.
A pyramid-shaped peak called Matterhorn in the Alps.
Credit: Ekaterina Grivet, Shutterstock.com
Three of the mountain's four sides appear to have eroded at about the same rate. "It suggests, since it came out so evenly, that the rock type is fairly uniform," Pelto said. "You don't have any rock layers that are harder to erode."
In other words, the nameless mountain is likely "all in one rock layer," Pelto said. "It's not a very big mountain, so it's not that surprising."
However, the eastern ridge of the mountain is decidedly the black sheep of the family. Instead of descending downward like the other ridges, that fourth side extends east, rising toward even higher terrain, Pelto said.
"The erosion probably wasn't as uniform [on the eastern side]," he said.
Pelto added that although some news outlets are saying that the mountain is newly discovered, that's very unlikely to be the case. There's a research base for climate scientists to the south of the mountain in an area known as the Patriot Hills.
"You can actually probably see this mountain from up there in the Patriot Hills," Pelto said.
As for the conspiracy theorists who are wondering about the mountain's pyramidal shape, "at least they're thinking about something," he said. "In the end, maybe they'll learn something in the process."
'Mythical' Sea Blob Finally Spotted a Century After Its Discovery
'Mythical' Sea Blob Finally Spotted a Century After Its Discovery
By Tia Ghose, Senior Writer
A giant larvacean, Bathochordaeus charon, surrounded by its inner "house" (the rounded globular object in the middle of the photo) and it's outer "house (the large yellowish mucus net)
Credit: (c) 2013 MBARI
A mysterious sea blob that looks like a psychedelic Slinky has finally been spotted, more than a century after it was first described.
The translucent, sea-dwelling invertebrate, called Bathochordaeus charon, was identified recently off the coast of Monterey, California, by scientists using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Though B. charon was first discovered a century ago, no one had managed to confirm its existence in all those years, Rob Sherlock, a scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who found the creature, told Live Science in an email. [See Photos of the Translucent Sea Blob]
Mysterious sea creature
B. charon belongs to a group of sea creatures known as larvaceans — normally teensy, millimeter-size creatures whose bodies resemble a tadpole's, with a large "head" (actually a trunk) and a tail, Sherlock said.
A giant larvacean, Bathochordaeus charon, that has discarded its mucus feeding filters and is swimming freely in the open ocean.
Credit: (c) 2007 MBARI
Though the sea is teeming with tiny larvaceans, the larger versions, which can have bodies extending up to 3.9 inches (10 centimeters), are much less common. To eat, the sea blob filters food through its shimmering, parachute-like mucus "house" almost 3.3 feet (1 m) in length. By waving its tail, it stirs the water and pulls particles directly into its house. Large particles get trapped and form a fine dusting of marine "snow" on the house, while the smaller particles pass through, concentrating and then funneling into a feeding tube that goes into the mouth, Sherlock said. (The tiny larvaceans also don mucus homes, but they're smaller.)
If a passing squid or fish crashes through the house, or big particles clog the feeding tube, larvaceans simply move on and build another house. Without their houses, they cannot eat, Sherlock said.
First sightings
The first report of B. charon's existence came in 1899, when professor Carl Chun of Leipzig University came across one in the south Atlantic Ocean while leading the Valdivia Expedition, a German mission aimed at exploring the deep sea. Chun believed the creature welled up from the deepest depths of the ocean, so he named the larvacean after Charon, who in Greek mythology ferries the souls of the dead across the river Styx, the researchers reported Aug. 16 in the journal Marine Biodiversity Records.
In the decades that followed, several other naturalists reported spotting giant larvaceans, though only a few were captured alive and described thoroughly. In 1936, for instance, British marine biologist Walter Garstang collected a set of giant larvaceans that differed from Chun's, and they were classified as a new species, Bathochordaeus stygius. [Marine Marvels: Spectacular Photos of Sea Creatures]
Because the two sets of specimens were similar and Chun's originals were lost to history, scientists eventually began to wonder whether Chun's originally described B. charon was actually the same species as B. stygius. One famous larvacean expert even suggested combining the two species names, Sherlock said. Part of the difficulty in capturing these creatures is that they don't fare well in the trawling nets typically used to collect specimens, Sherlock said.
Hiding in plain sight
Sherlock and his colleagues happened upon the new species when the team's ROV, called Doc Ricketts, was exploring the waters of Monterey Bay. As soon as they saw it, the crew carefully collected it in a sealed, thermally insulated container.
"Since the vehicle was recovered some tens of minutes later, the animal was alive, in fantastic shape, and we preserved it right away in order to send it to the Smithsonian," Sherlock said. "We had no idea, until we looked more closely at the specimen, that we had actually found B. charon, the species first described over a hundred years ago."
Genetics and analysis of physical features confirmed the find, Sherlock said. It was official: There really were two distinct species of giant larvacean — B. stygius and B. charon.
"It felt like Chun had finally been vindicated after years of doubt," Sherlock said.
When the team went back over videos from Monterey Bay from the past 25 years, they realized the creature had been spotted many times in the bay. Whether they dwell in places between Monterey Bay and the South Atlantic, however, remains to be seen.
Still, this mythical sea blob is fairly rare; over the course of the past few decades, biologists have seen hundreds of B. stygius, but captured footage of only a dozen B. charon individuals, Sherlock said.
A huge fireball in Siberia has turned night into day as comparisons with a scene from the apocalypse sweep the internet.
The spectacular night sky event was seen across regions of the Republic of Khakassia and South Siberia on Tuesday evening.
The meteor which burnt in the atmosphere before hitting the ground was witnessed by locals as it shook buildings and set of alarms.
One witness said: “We saw a flash, and in about two minutes our houses vibrated and we heard thunder, and car alarms went off”.
A local woman added: ‘I went for a walk with my friends. We stopped by the shop and my friend screamed when she saw a bright flash, and then there was an explosion.
‘All the car alarms immediately went off. We were so scared. My father said windows were vibrating. We think it was a meteor.’
The Meteorite came as sky watchers worldwide were observing on a night billed as ‘Night of the Comet’ by BPEarthWatch who offered his explanation of incoming activity over the coming days before the Siberian event took place.
BpEarthWatch is well renowned on YouTube with over 246.000 subscribers to his channel.
BpEarthWatch said: “Comet 45P/Honda (45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková) was discovered the year Israel was announced as a nation.
“There’s going to be a lot of things happening this year, there is something else about the Comet 45/p Honda.
“It’s coming in we start t see visibility again around new years, February 11th 2017 is the Comets closest approach to our planet but before that close approach it’s going to be between us and the Sun for a few weeks so we are going to have to watch it closely during that period of time”.
People were skating on Ice as the night sky turned to day in Siberia at around 6.50pm local time and people were fast to react in disbelief.
A young witness said: ‘It was as bright as daytime. I did not understand at first what it was.
‘Then an explosion followed and the boom came from a long distance away.
‘I’ve seen shooting stars before, but nothing like this.
Could the event be tied to debris from incoming Comet 45P/Honda’s tail?
BpEarthWatch suggested we will so keep our eyes to the skies.
Most people who use social media have figured out that Facebook and Google are in cahoots with the government. For those who are well aware of the issues, it’s high time you switched over to Seen.life.
Seen.life is a website that is similar to Facebook but without all the censorship. Firearm friendly, you may buy sell or trade anything allowed by site TOS rules.
Summary:Dr. Greer is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence and is the founder and international director of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). Dr. Greer, as director of CSETI, has led research teams throughout the world investigating the existence of ETI and on several occasions has successfully established preliminary contact and communication with extraterrestrial spacecraft at close range.
Dr. Greer is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence and is the founder and international director of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). A lifetime member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the nation’s most prestigious medical honor society, Dr. Greer is an emergency physician and former chairman of emergency medicine at Caldwell Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Greer, as director of CSETI, has led research teams throughout the world investigating the existence of ETI and on several occasions has successfully established preliminary contact and communication with extraterrestrial spacecraft at close range. He has met with and provided briefings for senior members of government, military and intelligence operations in the United States and around the world, including senior CIA officials, Joint Chiefs of Staff, White House staff, senior members of Congress and congressional committees, senior United Nations leadership and diplomats, senior military officials in the United Kingdom and Europe and cabinet-level members of the Japanese government, among others,
Dr. Greer has been seen and heard by millions world-wide on shows such as the Larry King Show, CBS, the BBC, NTV in Japan, “Sightings” and “Encounters” TV programs in the US , the Art Bell show, the Armstrong Williams radio show and dozens of other TV and Radio Programs.
He has addressed tens of thousands of people live at conferences and lectures around the world including the international convention of MENSA, the high IQ group, the Institute of Noetic Sciences Board of Directors, and the Sierra Club.
He brings a unique combination of scientific knowledge, credibility , vision, humor and inspiration to his lectures. Dr. Greer relies on first hand knowledge of extraterrestrial activity world wide and has direct sources for information regarding covert operations dealing with the subject.
Supporters of his world are as diverse as Apollo astronaut, Dr Edgar Mitchell, who walked on the moon in Apollo 14, to benefactor and philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller, to former British Ministry of Defense Head and five star admiral, Lord Hill-Norton, to folk legend, Burl Ives.
Dr. Greer is married. He and his wife have four daughters and reside in the Charlottesville , VA area.
Most people who use social media have figured out that Facebook and Google are in cahoots with the government. For those who are well aware of the issues, it’s high time you switched over to Seen.life.
Seen.life is a website that is similar to Facebook but without all the censorship. Firearm friendly, you may buy sell or trade anything allowed by site TOS rules.
Check out more contributions by Jeffery Pritchett ranging from UFO to Bigfoot to Paranormal to Prophecy
NASA’s All-Sky Cameras caught a cloaked UFO which illuminates the night sky in New Mexico on December 2,2016.
The object’s luminous/shimmering appearance seemed to resemble a kind of spacecraft.
Whether the object is a secret man-made or an alien spacecraft remains unclear, but it seems to fly very smoothly gliding effortlessly through the air using a cloaking technique allegedly used by UFOs.
Most people who use social media have figured out that Facebook and Google are in cahoots with the government. For those who are well aware of the issues, it’s high time you switched over to Seen.life.
Seen.life is a website that is similar to Facebook but without all the censorship. Firearm friendly, you may buy sell or trade anything allowed by site TOS rules.
Check out more contributions by Jeffery Pritchett ranging from UFO to Bigfoot to Paranormal to Prophecy
I was in my backyard taping the moon. A shooting sound together with a swish pulled my attention but all I’ve seen was a trail of a shooting star. I first thought it was a meteor. When I went to watch the video I noticed a yellow red orange object with some symmetrical characteristics, and also it changed direction. I may be wrong, but my impression is that the object could be a kind of spaceship. Unfortunately the object was too fast for my to get a longer video, it was only a coincidence if I got at lest less then a second. I’m uploading also a short video and pics of anew lighting object that I thought it was an helicopter but the sound was different.
REVEALED! THE 2017 NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTIONS AIM FOR TERRIFYING TIMES!
REVEALED! THE 2017 NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTIONS AIM FOR TERRIFYING TIMES!
For many years we have heard about people with the ability to predict future events. Some people are just lucky when it comes to predictions, but others seem to be the real deal.
Some of the most fulfilled prophecies originated from a distant era, during 16th century, France. The extraordinary seer in question is the well known Michael Nostradamus, who has predicted many important and catastrophic events. He foresaw the rising of Adolf Hitler to power and the war he bought upon the world, he also foresaw the fall of the Twin Towers which became known as the "9/11".
But his prophecies are far from over, he also predicted the recent outcome of the US elections with Donald Trump becoming current president of the US.
He has more for the upcoming years! With 2017 at our doorstep, he has a new batch of predictions to tease us before next year.
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.