UFO captured on video by drone over North Carolina

A North Carolina witness at Ayden reported discovering a UFO in video shot from a drone, according to testimony in Case 80053 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The 59-year-old witness is retired from the USAF with a 20-year military career who shot the footage at 2:12 p.m. on October 26, 2016.

Cropped and enlarged still frame from the witness video.

(Credit: mjlstudios1)

“I thought I had seen it all,” the witness stated.“This footage took me back. I was flying my aerial camera from Ayden District Park. The skies were clear with unlimited visibility. I did not witness this object first hand; it wasn’t until I reviewed the 4K footage on my 4K TV that I first spotted the object on video.”

The witness explained the footage.

“I shoot in 4K/30fps and you can view this object in 10 frames as it flies towards and passes under my drone. During these 10 frames of viewing, this object travels three-quarter to one mile in one-third of a second – about 10,000 mph. The object appears to be solid and emitting its own light, or reflecting light.”

Cropped and enlarged still frame from the witness video.

(Credit: mjlstudios1)

The file size prevented the witness from uploading the video with his report and it was then posted on YouTube.

MUFON North Carolina Field Investigator Sanford Davis closed this case as an Unknown.

“This anomaly was neither observed or experienced firsthand,” Davis stated in his report.“It was observed as the witness was reviewing aerial drone footage.The whole sighting occurs within a third of a second – a streak arising in the background, streaking across the screen before disappearing in the foreground. The film slowed down, it appears as a white dot, flatting out somewhat into a ‘light disk’ right before it disappears off screen. Our own MUFON photo resource person reviewed the video without a definitive conclusion. A drone flying underneath was considered, then a shadow, then a refection or projection of some overhead object, then a glare, and finally a glitch in the drone camera.  No one explanation stands out.”

Cropped and enlarged still frame from the witness video.

(Credit: mjlstudios1)

Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

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{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

11-05-2017 om 00:47 geschreven door peter  

Emcee Tom O'Key seemed giddy as dozens of guests filed into an outdoor theater in this Mojave Desert town on a recent Saturday night to learn about an icy moon of Jupiter and take a stab at connecting with whatever - or whomever - may be living there.

"We're sending selfies to Europa here tonight, folks," O'Key told those who had gathered in the Joshua Tree Astronomy Arts Theater. "Take a moment to reach out to the cosmos and say, 'We here on Earth care.'"

Sponsored by the Southern California Desert Video Astronomers, the public program featured a documentary, 3-D holographic projections, views through telescopes and what was believed to be the first opportunity to send video selfies to a moon of Jupiter that NASA scientists have identified as one of the likeliest homes of extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

Zerrin Leckey, 9, was among the first to take a few deep breaths, smile, then speak into the lens of a video camera connected to a device that converts audio and visual images into flashes of laser aimed at the moon - only 37 minutes away at light speed.

"Hi, Europa!" he said. "This is Zerrin on Earth. I'm turning 10."

Next up was Jean Mueller, 67, a retired telescope operator at the Palomar Observatory who has discovered more than 30 comets.

"I photographed everything in the sky except you, Europa," she said. "Now, I'm talking to you in person, and that's pretty nice."

The casual tone of these pioneering attempts at intragalactic communication was fine with O'Key, who didn't hesitate to note the limits of the technology in the astronomy club's "Europa is Alive!" event or "the giggle factor involved in all this."

It was O'Key, 63, a retired technical consultant in personal injury litigation cases, and Leonard Holmberg, 62, a retired developer of optics-based products, who put together the selfie-sender: "An instrument comprised of a video camera, a laptop computer, fiber-optics technology and a yellow laser that cost us about $400," O'Key said.

"We like to think we're bringing extraterrestrial adventure to everyday people," he said.

"Of course, we'd need the power of the sun to generate a coherent beam strong enough to hit Europa," Holmberg said. "But at least some of the photons in the transmissions we're sending are reaching their target. No doubt about it."

The project, Holmberg said, suggests how far technology has advanced since charismatic physicist Carl Sagan popularized the possibility of making contact with extraterrestrial life.

Sagan led a team that developed communications materials that were aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes launched in 1977 to make drive-by visits to planets in this solar system and then continue on to explore space. The packages included images of a nude man and woman and musical samplings, including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

O'Key and Holmberg consider themselves "Saganites," inspired by NASA's recent announcement that Europa and Saturn's moon, Enceladus, harbor all the ingredients needed for life to evolve: heat, organic material and vast oceans of water capped by ice.

"What they're doing is fine with me," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the nonprofit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute based in Mountain View, Calif. "But it's fair to say we don't know if aliens are friendly, or if they even exist. If they do, will they be cute and cuddly like the one in the movie 'E.T.,' or will they be like the Kardashians?

"In that case," he continued, "we should keep a low profile. You don't want your tombstone to read: I'm responsible for the obliteration of the human race."

Jim Bell, an astronomer at Arizona State University and president of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, described the Joshua Tree effort as "delightful."

"It's a testament," Bell said, "to the ability of every man nowadays to have access to technology that was only a dream a decade ago."

Scientists have been searching the skies for signs of alien civilizations for decades, mostly based on the premise that they, like us, would use bursts of radio and laser light we might be able to hear or see.

The SETI Institute runs an array of radio telescopes designed to act as an enormous ear capable of scanning more than a million stars over 10 billion radio frequencies. It still has not detected any signal produced by someone else out there.

The Mars lander Phoenix, launched in 2007, carried recorded greetings. A year later, NASA beamed the Beatles' "Across the Universe" at the North Star, Polaris.

In 2012, a now-defunct company leased a huge radio telescope in Carmel Valley, Calif., and offered to transmit personal messages and photos from Earth to various stars for free.

Now, there's the astronomy club led by O'Key, who as a boy liked to shine a flashlight beam at the Earth's moon knowing it would get there in 1.2 seconds.

"The only exceptional thing about our attempt to communicate with an alien world," he said, "is how easy and inexpensive it has become to give it a try."

 Explore further: NASA to reveal 'surprising' activity on Jupiter's moon Europa

{ https://phys.org/ }

11-05-2017 om 00:41 geschreven door peter  

Emcee Tom O'Key seemed giddy as dozens of guests filed into an outdoor theater in this Mojave Desert town on a recent Saturday night to learn about an icy moon of Jupiter and take a stab at connecting with whatever - or whomever - may be living there.

"We're sending selfies to Europa here tonight, folks," O'Key told those who had gathered in the Joshua Tree Astronomy Arts Theater. "Take a moment to reach out to the cosmos and say, 'We here on Earth care.'"

Sponsored by the Southern California Desert Video Astronomers, the public program featured a documentary, 3-D holographic projections, views through telescopes and what was believed to be the first opportunity to send video selfies to a moon of Jupiter that NASA scientists have identified as one of the likeliest homes of extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

Zerrin Leckey, 9, was among the first to take a few deep breaths, smile, then speak into the lens of a video camera connected to a device that converts audio and visual images into flashes of laser aimed at the moon - only 37 minutes away at light speed.

"Hi, Europa!" he said. "This is Zerrin on Earth. I'm turning 10."

Next up was Jean Mueller, 67, a retired telescope operator at the Palomar Observatory who has discovered more than 30 comets.

"I photographed everything in the sky except you, Europa," she said. "Now, I'm talking to you in person, and that's pretty nice."

The casual tone of these pioneering attempts at intragalactic communication was fine with O'Key, who didn't hesitate to note the limits of the technology in the astronomy club's "Europa is Alive!" event or "the giggle factor involved in all this."

It was O'Key, 63, a retired technical consultant in personal injury litigation cases, and Leonard Holmberg, 62, a retired developer of optics-based products, who put together the selfie-sender: "An instrument comprised of a video camera, a laptop computer, fiber-optics technology and a yellow laser that cost us about $400," O'Key said.

"We like to think we're bringing extraterrestrial adventure to everyday people," he said.

"Of course, we'd need the power of the sun to generate a coherent beam strong enough to hit Europa," Holmberg said. "But at least some of the photons in the transmissions we're sending are reaching their target. No doubt about it."

The project, Holmberg said, suggests how far technology has advanced since charismatic physicist Carl Sagan popularized the possibility of making contact with extraterrestrial life.

Sagan led a team that developed communications materials that were aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes launched in 1977 to make drive-by visits to planets in this solar system and then continue on to explore space. The packages included images of a nude man and woman and musical samplings, including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

O'Key and Holmberg consider themselves "Saganites," inspired by NASA's recent announcement that Europa and Saturn's moon, Enceladus, harbor all the ingredients needed for life to evolve: heat, organic material and vast oceans of water capped by ice.

"What they're doing is fine with me," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the nonprofit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute based in Mountain View, Calif. "But it's fair to say we don't know if aliens are friendly, or if they even exist. If they do, will they be cute and cuddly like the one in the movie 'E.T.,' or will they be like the Kardashians?

"In that case," he continued, "we should keep a low profile. You don't want your tombstone to read: I'm responsible for the obliteration of the human race."

Jim Bell, an astronomer at Arizona State University and president of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, described the Joshua Tree effort as "delightful."

"It's a testament," Bell said, "to the ability of every man nowadays to have access to technology that was only a dream a decade ago."

Scientists have been searching the skies for signs of alien civilizations for decades, mostly based on the premise that they, like us, would use bursts of radio and laser light we might be able to hear or see.

The SETI Institute runs an array of radio telescopes designed to act as an enormous ear capable of scanning more than a million stars over 10 billion radio frequencies. It still has not detected any signal produced by someone else out there.

The Mars lander Phoenix, launched in 2007, carried recorded greetings. A year later, NASA beamed the Beatles' "Across the Universe" at the North Star, Polaris.

In 2012, a now-defunct company leased a huge radio telescope in Carmel Valley, Calif., and offered to transmit personal messages and photos from Earth to various stars for free.

Now, there's the astronomy club led by O'Key, who as a boy liked to shine a flashlight beam at the Earth's moon knowing it would get there in 1.2 seconds.

"The only exceptional thing about our attempt to communicate with an alien world," he said, "is how easy and inexpensive it has become to give it a try."

 Explore further: NASA to reveal 'surprising' activity on Jupiter's moon Europa

{ https://phys.org/ }

11-05-2017 om 00:40 geschreven door peter  

Laura Craciun

In a recent interview with France Presse (AFP), #Ridley Scott, the director of "#Alien" talked about his belief in extraterrestrial species who are more advanced. He said there is a possibility that humanity could be threatened by an aggressive alien species. Scott thinks that the conflict between humans and #aliens may become reality because there are probably hundreds of more intelligent and more technologically advanced alien species in the Universe. If one of these species would get in contact with us, humans must prepare for the worst, according to the director of "Alien"..

"Alien" director thinks humanity would lose a war with aliens

Scott thinks that the reality could be worse than many science fiction scenarios. If a conflict between humans and an extraterrestrial species would escalate, humans would almost certainly lose. Scott told AFP that aliens would annihilate us in three seconds if we challenged them.

The filmmaker argued that there are estimates from experts about the possibility of having "100-200 entities" on other planets. These extraterrestrial species could follow an evolutionary model similar to one from Earth. Scott said that if representatives of such civilizations came to us first (before we get to them) then it would be better to for us to run away and hide.

"Alien" was a great success of the science fiction genre

The possibility of the existence of intelligent beings on other planets fascinates and attracts many people. For this reason it's used very often in science fiction scenarios. Ridley Scott made his own contribution to this genre, especially through the series "Alien" — which describes a contact between humans and an extraterrestrial predatory species.

The aliens from this sci-fi horror movie are a species with a remarkable adaptive capacity and with a great morphological flexibility. They are called "xenomorphs", they multiply very quickly and they are extremely effective in eliminating humans.

A new sci-fi horror movie "Alien: Covenant ", the sequel to "Prometheus" and "Alien" will premiere on May 19 this year.

Contradicted by a researcher from Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

Seth Shostak, a researcher from SETI Institute, whose goal is to search and to intercept radio communications from potential alien civilizations, disagrees with the position of the filmmaker. Shostak told Live Science that the estimation of the existence of 100 to 200 intelligent alien species is completely unsustainable.

More, the scenario in which aliens invade our solar system just to steal our resources does not have much practical support, according to the researcher from SETI Institute.

However Seth Shostak, agrees with Ridley Scott at a certain point: if an extraterrestrial civilization is able to build intergalactic vessels to bring them into the Earth's atmosphere, they certainly have a technology far superior to human technology. This means they can be dangerous.

{ http://us.blastingnews.com/ }

11-05-2017 om 00:35 geschreven door peter  

US military declassified UFO files REVEALED for first time

UNSEEN US military UFO documents recently declassified reveal baffling instructions on how to photograph "alien spaceships".

By Douglas Patient 

Speaking to Mysterious Universe, he said: "What's particularly odd about that the table of what to photograph and what not to, is that it doesn’t vaguely say ‘UFOs…’

"It lays out fully both ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ with descriptors, and then ‘Aerial Phenomena…’ with descriptors."

It also blows out of the water the widely held belief the US stopped documenting and researching UFOs after the 1960s ended.

{ http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

10-05-2017 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

National Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico. Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI and Photographer-Kelly Gatlin; Digital composite-Patricia Smiley

ALIENS

We Are on the Verge of Discovering Aliens, According to These Scientists

RACHEL RIEDERER

A fascinating new book seriously tackles the question of extraterrestrial life from the perspective of leading astronomers, astrophysicists, geneticists, and neuroscientists.

Theoretical physics may be difficult and complicated, "but it does have sex appeal." So says quantum physicist Jim Al-Khalili. "It's easy to find an audience for popular science or for a TV documentary about the Big Bang or about black holes," he recently told me. Al-Khalili's work in the field has led to the fascinating new book Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, which explores what he believes is the likely possibility of alien life.

The Iraqi-born, UK-based Al-Khalili's intro opens with an anecdote: The Nobel Prize–winning physicist Enrico Fermi is jokingly discussing flying saucers with some colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory when he poses a simple question: "Where is everybody?" His point, Al-Khalili writes, is that the universe is so massive and contains so many planets, that it makes little sense for Earth to be the only place where life blossomed, unless our planet is "astonishingly and unjustifiably special."

Aliens, out this week from Picador, proceeds in the way that one imagines that Fermi's conversation at Los Alamos might have: serious scientists, in occasionally cheeky dialogue with one another, acknowledging that the question they're pursuing—Is anybody out there?—has long been pursued by kookier personalities, conspiracy theorists obsessed with Area 51, and alien abductions. Instead, Al-Khalili's book offers research-driven essays by prominent astronomers, astrophysicists, geneticists, and neuroscientists, and their pieces offer a wide range of ways to think about the question of extraterrestrial life. Several astrobiologists consider what life requires and which planets and moons might have the right mix: neuroscientist Anil Seth considers the "alien" intelligence of the octopus here on Earth; cosmologist Martin Rees speculates on the possibility of humans merging with machine intelligence and setting out to explore the universe as a new cyborg species.

But for the most part, these experts are weighing in on one fundamental question: Is life special, a unique and almost impossible trick that happened here on Earth? Or is it easy, almost inevitable, a spark that just arises where the conditions are right? It's an age-old question, that, as Al-Khalili explains, we may finally have the technology to answer.

Photo courtesy of Jim Al-Khalili

VICE: What drew you to the questions that the book addresses? Are you someone who has had a lifelong interest in the idea of aliens?

Jim Al-Khalili: It's not so much aliens, but more to do with the question of what is special about life. Probably all scientists find that topic fascinating. There are certain questions in science that we don't have answers to, which we say, those are the big questions: What was there before the universe, before the Big Bang? How did life begin on Earth? How did chemistry turn into biology? What is the nature of consciousness? These are the questions that transcend disciplines. If you get a chemist, a physicist, a biologist, a computer scientist—all of them are going to be fascinated by this.

When I was young, I suppose I was interested in aliens like anyone else. I'm a sci-fi fan. But, for me, the question was really what is so special about life—how did it start on Earth and whether it is unique to Earth.

The book is serious, but the interest in extraterrestrial life has a reputation for being pretty quirky.

Someone once told me that half the internet is devoted to conspiracy theories to do with alien abductions and UFOs. Half is probably too much, but there's so much out there, from X-Files to science fiction in movies, that it is surprising to think that scientists would treat the question of extraterrestrial life seriously at all. And that's what made this so refreshing. The book is highlighting the fact that there are lots of questions that are of interest to scientists that you can actually treat seriously. If you really want to know the possibility of whether there are little green men out there, here are the serious scientific takes on it, from all angles. So, it's meant to be of interest to the wider lay audience but dealt with in a grown-up way.

You mention that there has been a shift within the scientific community toward taking this seriously and away from the era of imagining little green men. Do you have thoughts on when and how that changed?

This shift has come about because of advances in astronomy and space exploration in the last decade or two. We have started to send probes to Mars, to the moons of the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, and we are seriously starting to be able to study the places where there potentially could be life in our solar system. And at the same time, in the past decade, we have discovered planets around stars outside our solar system, exoplanets. Astronomy has been advancing so quickly that what was unthinkable a decade ago is now reality. We can now not only pinpoint which stars have planets going around them, but we can look at those planets and even tell whether they have an atmosphere. Just from the light passing through the atmosphere from the star that they are going around, we can study that light and that can tell us the chemical composition of the atmosphere—and that can tell us what elements, what molecules, what compounds are in that atmosphere, and would they be there naturally or would there have to be life present to have made them. So, these advances in astronomy and space exploration suddenly mean that we can actually address this question. It's got to the point now where I'm quite optimistic that in my lifetime, it's likely that we will discover life elsewhere. 

Wow.

Ten years ago, I wouldn't have thought that. Now, all these things are coming together. One of the contributors in the book, [professor of evolutionary biochemistry] Nick Lane, talks about the building blocks of life. What do you need? Is there anything magical? You get molecules getting more and more complicated, and then eventually you get something that can make copies of itself, and that's the first precursor of life. Well, until recently we thought there was a missing step—"and then some magic happens"—and then you get biology from chemistry! But there seems to be no magical steps necessary. I now reckon that the consensus among most scientists is that it would be quite surprising if we don't find life elsewhere, probably within our lifetime. It might not be interesting life—it won't be men in flying saucers—it will be some form of microbial life. But, hey, for scientists that will be enough.

"Astronomy has been advancing so quickly that what was unthinkable a decade ago is now reality. It's got to the point now where I'm quite optimistic that in my lifetime, it's likely that we will discover life elsewhere."

So on the big question in the book, which is something like "is life on Earth special and unique or is it common?"—and there are great arguments posed for each side—where do you fall on that spectrum personally? 

There's a wide spectrum of opinion among informed scientists. So the fact that I sit somewhere in the middle is because I've been influenced by both sides. My kind of naïve view is that we only know of life happening somewhere: on Earth. We are beginning to see that the conditions on Earth are not unique. Forgive the metaphor, but a lot of stars have to have aligned for that—we have to be the right distance from the sun, we have to have an atmosphere, we have to have a moon that gives us tides, we have to have a big planet like Jupiter that is sucking up the debris so it doesn't bombard us. But there are so many other star systems; there are so many other exoplanets, just in our galaxy alone, that there must be millions, billions of other Earths that have the conditions necessary for life. So in that sense we know we are not unique.

But that doesn't mean that we know how life got started, just because those conditions exist. We know that life began on Earth very soon after Earth cooled down enough for life to possibly exist, almost 4 billion years ago. Now, over 4 billion years ago, the Earth was just a ball of fire. It wasn't conducive to anything. So, as soon as the conditions were right for life, life got started. But it didn't develop into complex life until much, much later. So I'm of the view that life as a simple single cellular form may well be not that difficult. It may be almost ubiquitous in the universe. But multicellular life, life that could then evolve into complex organisms, some of which could develop consciousness and intelligence and civilizations—that actually may be the harder step. How hard it is, we don't know yet.

I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the role of human radio, TV, and satellite communication and how that factors into the search for alien life. Why do people assume that aliens would also use this same kind of signaling?

We're starting with the assumption with the idea that the laws of physics and the forces of nature are the same throughout the universe. We know of four of these forces. Two of them are active inside of atoms, the nuclear forces. And the only other ones are gravity and the electromagnetic force. Gravity is limited technologically, but the electromagnetic force is versatile: Light is the electromagnetic force, and radio waves are the electromagnetic force. So it's a means of sending information from one place to the other. So we're assuming that whatever form life takes elsewhere, even if its not carbon based—it could be something really beyond our imagination—we still think they will make use of electromagnetic forces. It is a potentially universal way of communicating.

So if we are announcing our existence to the rest of the universe, then it may be that life elsewhere that is doing the same thing. Which is why the whole SETI program is about listening out into the universe to hear some electromagnetic signal that we don't think could have just happened naturally. Of course, we've only been announcing our existence to the world for about 100 years or so, when we first developed radio. So our electromagnetic signals have only extended out to a radius of 100 light years. And actually there aren't that many star systems within 100 light years. The universe is vast—there's billions of stars in our own galaxy—but there are only a handful within that range. Of course, an alien civilization may have been announcing their existence to the universe millions of years ago, for all we know, so those signals, if we do receive those signals, they may have traveled across vast distances—it won't mean that we can then say, "Hi, we're here," and then make contact with them. But just the knowledge that there is life out there somewhere would be profound.

Rachel Riederer is co-editor-in-chief of Guernica. Follow her on Twitter.

Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life is available in bookstores and online from Picador.

{ https://www.vice.com/en_us }

10-05-2017 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

3.6-Million-Year-Old Early Human Footprints Have Been Discovered In Tanzania

3.6 million years ago, a group of Australopithecus afarensis went out for a stroll. 40 years ago, a team lead by famed paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey found the footprints of these hominins at a site in Tanzania called Laetoli. And now today, for the first time since Leakey’s original discovery, scientists describe new footprints from the same site that reveal more about the lives of individuals from the same Australopithecus community. 

This research, published today in the journal eLife by a team of scientists from Tanzania and Italy, builds upon research on the first Laetoli footprints discovered in 1976. These original tracks, from an area called Site G, represent three individuals and provided one of the first pieces of direct evidence that humans walked upright 3.6 million years ago. But while this evidence is tantalizing, it is limited.

In 2015, only 150 meters away from Site G, Fidelis Masao from the University of Dar es Salaam and colleagues made a fortuitous find. While doing a survey of the Laetoli area and assessing its viability as a site for a museum, they stumbled on something in a test pit they had not found in decades—footprints from two new early human individuals.

The footprints from these individuals at the newly named Site S were found on the same ash layer as the original Site G footprints, which now combined represent a total of five individuals. Study author Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi from University of Florence was excited about the new find because it meant more data: “Now we have a new series of quantitative data,” he says, “and step and stride length can help us figure out how large these individuals were.”

Estimates of body size from these step and stride measurements were surprising when compared to the other individuals from Site G. One of the individuals in Site S was substantially larger—about 5 feet 4 inches tall compared to the other individuals who were 4 feet 9 inches and under. This range in sizes of Au. afarensis is likely explained by sexual dimorphism, with the females outsized by males. For comparison, the male individual from Site S is nearly 20 inches taller than the most famous Au. afarensis, “Lucy.”

3.6 million years ago this was likely a dry, tropical bushland that was a popular place to hang out. Hominins were not the only living things in this area, as study author Marco Cherin from University of Perugia explains: “The entire locality is completely covered by animal footprints.” He describes over 500 footprints from small cow-like creatures (similar to dik-diks), but also gazelles, giraffes, rhinos and rabbits, conjuring up images of a busy landscape teeming with life.

Discoveries like this inspire the imagination and begin to fill in details about early human life in Laetoli. Now researchers can say with confidence this area contained five individuals of varying sizes and sexes walking on the same wet ash surface, all while surrounded by a diverse community of animals. Finds like this are not only vital for understanding how hominins moved around, but also for understanding how differences in size between sexes developed. Beyond that, Cecchi says, this find is inspiring on a uniquely human level: “We can witness where our earliest relatives took a prehistoric walk, and understand the everyday life of the species.”

Source www.forbes.com

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 23:15 geschreven door peter  

INVENTOR FLYS WITH HOMEMADE ‘IRON MAN’ JET SUIT OVER HARBOR

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Underground City Found In Russia? (VIDEO)

So remote, they are steeped in legends of snow yetis and mysterious monsters devouring all who dare to venture into these remote areas. With strange occurrences such as that of theDyatlov Pass, which have supported such fears for many years.

Maybe even as old as the great sphinx. More and more is being learnt about them, with ever more daring explorations of the ruins being undertaken, a team discovered a vault in one of the stone megaliths, an access fault that led them into an artificially made stone cavern systems.

These underground structures are truly massive, and are undoubtedly constructed by an intelligent builder, hidden for many millennia these caverns are not only massive but constructed using blocks placed upon one another that are over 50 feet in length in some instances, making these stones many thousands of tonnes in weight, seemingly placed effortlessly into the shape of underground walls.

This discovery has not really shed light upon how the ancients built such structures, but rather pushed their apparent capabilities farther from our understanding.

Not only are these structures purpose a vast mystery, but they also contain placed stones bigger than any we have ever discovered, even eclipsing the unfinished stone found at the ancient chinese quarry known as yangshan, a stone can be found here half cut away from the bedrock, in excess of 16,000 tonnes, thought by scholars throughout time, to have been left at the quarry due to them not being able to move it, yet here we have stones placed into a cave system design which even outweigh yangshan.

This not only proves they could move them, but lift them and work them, just how many quote “natural formations”, are really just extremelly weathered once extremelly large stone built structures? Maybe there are many stone granite hills and even maybe mountains that dot our earth, which were, before mellinia of rain, grand structures of a forgotten people.

The first where to start this journey Vottovaara Mountain – the highest point of the West Karelian Upland – 417.3 m above sea level. Mountain area of 6 square meters. km. 
The place is just full of strange artifacts after which you start to think about ancient advanced technologies for stone processing, let’s look at the photo.

Mountain Vottovaara. 
Megaliths scattered blocks.

Middle block cut down at an angle of 90 degrees or a freak of nature? 

As if the laser spent geologists believe that the cracks and fissures are formed by a powerful earthquake around 9000 years ago. Smooth stones same plane – the result of the local properties of the rock – quartzite, whose structure and defines a flat plane as the split.

So all the same nature or man-made? Let’s take a closer look.

More like a perfectly sawed blocks podognanye tightly to each other. It is hard to imagine the ancient ancestor with a copper chisel which is somewhere on Mount grinds such smooth blocks.

Good view, perfectly smooth wall. 

Who lost the ball?) 

There is clearly no high technology for stone processing has not been, or still a freak of nature? 

Mountain Pidan. At first glance it looks like an unremarkable pile of stones cracked rock.

But coming closer it becomes more like a megalithic masonry. 

Peering between the blocks, where the stones were less susceptible to erosion from wind and rain can be seen as the man-made and kept straight faces. 

In a place where the joint units sold can be seen even saw cut, and before us the technology of stacking these blocks.

Stone Town in the Perm region.  According to scientists, Stone Town – is the mouth of the river, a tributary of millions of years ago in the Permian Sea this explains beautifully and smoothly, at right angles, carved stones, masonry and trim them perpendicular to each other “channels”, “mouth”.

Stone Town. 

See how smooth side of megaliths as if cut down.

Again the old method to look into the masonry between the blocks, looking at the long-range block in the center, clean cut across the length of the block.

Say somewhere on the Kola Peninsula is the swimming pool carved into the rock.

In the south of Western Siberia in the mountain Shoria in Mezhdurechensk area there is a small village called Geological Stones. 

In this village lives a few educated talented geologists. This Alexander Bespalov, Vyacheslav Pochotkin and others. These people all his life engaged in research of mountain systems in Western Siberia. One day they came across in the mountains of strange megalithic constructions that for themselves they could not explain. These were the walls, lined with giant stone blocks and a strange construction with vertically mounted stone obelisk. On the Internet, they contacted George Sidorov, since the first expedition was assembled.

Mountain Shoria. Some granite blocks stacked below were red granite, crowned their gray blocks of granite, as above lying polygonal masonry of various blocks as red granite and gray.

Granite in some places oplavilsya from the effects of huge temperatures and flowed under the weight of the upper rows. Kungurov if to say such a thing, it traces the re-flow of a thermonuclear explosion 

Wall composed of polygonal masonry blocks of different color. 

Block sizes are impressive, according to one version, a find – a man-made structure of the age of more than 100 thousand years. 

In the photo Georgy Sidorov, in his opinion all this megalithic structure may be the ruins of an ancient power which translates seismic energy in any other.

Again looking inside masonry where the blocks were less prone to erosion, seen flat straight edge, watching as the two units are tight, man-made, is better visible. 

Polygonal masonry. 

Mountain Shoria. Huge blocks at the Department of Radio Physics at Tomsk State University showed pictures on the screen, telling about the different types of masonry, stone of the castle, which secured the giant granite blocks and no scientist physicist, said that all this is of natural origin. Most of them were surprised, as they could raise the ancient giant blocks of stone to a height of over 1,000 meters and there to set them on a special platform.

Then the Tomsk branch of the Russian Geographical Society, scientists have studied photos of geologists and geographers. And they both came to the conclusion that the presented artifacts are handmade.

Sklyarov was asked to comment on the find. And what did he say? That all artifacts found nothing but a cracked rock at right angles. That there is nothing man-made here. Just a freak of nature, nothing more. After these words, I do not wonder why Laia does not study Russian megaliths.

Between blocks. 

For comparison, the left megalith in Baalbek, in the mountainous right megalith Shoria seems one author 

Shaman Mountain near with. Nizhneleninskoye, Khabarovsk Territory.

Ancient megalithic masonry. 

Again, the best man-made visible between the blocks and straight lines.

A large block of megalith.

A large block of megalith on small stones, so make for better seismic resistance.

Megalithic masonry reminiscent Mountain Shoria.

Kabardino-Balkaria, a cave in the Baksan Gorge. 

First it is necessary to squeeze into the size of 40 by 120 cm hole, and then down on the rope on the narrow vertical shaft.

Its form, two parallel flagstones. At 9 meters – the first “knee”: hole goes away and immediately breaks down again. Already here you will cover the absolute silence – the outside does not get any sound. 23 more meters in depth – and a new “tribe”. 

To reach the bottom of the cave, it is necessary to overcome more than 80 meters, and it will take an hour. But, having passed the “bottleneck”, you will find yourself in a huge room, which the researchers called “jar”. Inside, we see the treated wall of tufa and granite, composed of different-sized, closely matched to each other polished megaliths.

The descent into the cave.

Clearly visible faces of blocks and the seams between them.

Smooth clutch hits and stone seams, well adjusted to each other.

Triangular blocks slightly parted.

Barely visible seams blocks on the left wall and crescent on the wall behind her.

Rotate the cave at an angle of 90 degrees. Two large megalithic blocks are on each other.

“Tuff is a cluster of volcanic emissions products – ash, bits of lava , volcanic glass and, to a small extent, debris that form crater wall. release material when the accumulation was hot and so the solidification cracks were formed separately – that is the whole array of tufa appeared as if broken into blocks. Deepening discovered near the village of Zayukovo, is one of these cracks gravity separation, which is characterized by smooth contact surface”.

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 22:58 geschreven door peter  

Buzz Aldrin to NASA: Retire the International Space Station ASAP to Reach Mars

{ http://www.space.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 22:26 geschreven door peter  

What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?

By Corey S. Powell 

Never mind Star Trek‘s Squire of Gothos; what if we really found an alien civilization at a 16th-century level of technological development? How would we know? How could we make contact–and should we?

(Credit: Paramount)

Readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Quora, because it lets non-experts raise the kinds of speculative questions that don’t normally come up in formal scientific discussions. One frequent theme that comes up is the issue of what we would do if we found intelligent life on a planet around another star. A recent posting in particular caught my eye: “What would we do if we found an Earthlike planet with intelligent life that is 500 years behind us in technology and advancements?”

Well, that’s a fun thought experiment! It’s not one question, really, but a whole set of nested questions about how to find alien life, how to determine the presence of alien intelligence, how to determine the nature of that intelligence, and then how we would study it, or even try to make contact with it. There’s a big moral issue at the end, but a lot of juicy scientific ones along the way. And that got me thinking…

First, how will we find a truly Earthlike planet? Despite all the amazing recent discoveries of planets around other stars, astronomers have yet to find a true Earth twin—that is, an Earth-size planet orbiting a sunlike yellow star at an Earthlike distance. The closest they’ve come is a planet called Kepler 452b. It’s roughly five times the mass of Earth and probably belongs to the class of planets called super-Earths. Habitable, maybe; Earthlike, no. The same goes, even more so, for the recently discovered Earth-size planets around the star Trappist-1. These are extremely exciting worlds to study, and it is possible that some of them could support life. But the Trappist-1 planets orbit a dim red-dwarf star, which means that they are blasted with energetic radiation and are probably tidally locked, with one hemisphere always facing toward the star.

Closer analogs are surely out there, but they are hard to find. NASA’s Kepler space telescope spots planets by the way they blot out a tiny bit of their star’s light when they transit: that is, they pass between the star and us. But for a planet in a one-year orbit (like ours!), that means you see a shadow only once a year, and very briefly. To confirm that the planet is real—and not, say, a random flickering of the star—you want to observe at least three events. So you need to watch a lot of stars, and watch them all for several years. Even then, the only planets you’ll find are the ones that happen to be lined up exactly between us and their star.

Planets in the habitable zones around other stars may not be anything like our own. Kepler-186 (top) is a miniature system similar to Trappist-1. Kepler-452 (middle) is a sunlike star but its key planet is bigger and more massive than Earth.

(Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt)

Second, how would we know if a superficially Earthlike planet is truly habitable? The leading method right now is to look at light streaming through the planet’s atmosphere when it passes between us and the star. That’s an extremely difficult task even for giant planets. Right now, we don’t have the technology to do it for a true Earth twin—if we even had one to study. Another approach is to search directly for other Earths alongside their stars, and then analyze their light. To do that, you need both a very powerful telescope and a highly effective way to block out the glare of the star, since an Earthlike planet would be right alongside it in the sky, but on the order of a billion times fainter!

Astronomers have some clever ideas about how to do that, using either an external light blocker (called a starshade) flying in front of a space telescope, or an internal device (coronagraph) built into the telescope itself to create a kind of artificial eclipse. The upcoming WFIRST telescope will test the coronagraph concept, but it won’t be sensitive enough to observe other Earths. That will take improved telescopes that are unlikely to be built at least until the 2030s.

Bringing other Earths into view won’t be easy. This is the plan for NASA’s upcoming WFIRST space telescope and its starlight-blocking coronagraph.

(Credit: NASA-JPL/G. Blackwood/Noecker et al)

Third, how would we know if there’s intelligent life on the planet? Proving the presence of any kind of life will be hugely challenging, even after we get past steps one and two above. Astronomers will analyze the atmospheres of the planets looking for “biosignatures”–unusual, out-of-balance chemical compositions such as those associated with life on Earth (eg, free oxygen plus methane). SETI searches focus on possible signals sent by alien civilizations, but aliens with 16th-century technology won’t be beaming us any radio messages. We’d have to find them in more subtle ways. For instance, we might detect heavy-metal signatures associated with smelting and other types of simple industry, although that still would not yield unambiguous proof. Some extreme, speculative types of lensing telescopes might be powerful enough to see evidence of cities or geometric clearing of forests; such observations would certainly be a lot more convincing.

Note, by the way, that it would be extremely unlikely to find an alien civilization that is so close to us in technological development, even if intelligent alien life is fairly common. Stars and planets have most likely been forming in our galaxy for more than 10 billion years. Maybe it’s normal for it to take 4 billion years for intelligent life to emerge; maybe not. Regardless, life on other worlds could have begun billions of years earlier or later than life on Earth. Out of that vast range, the odds that an alien civilization would be within 500 years of our stage of development are millions to one—and that assumes that other planets follow the same path as ours, which is a huge leap of faith. But let’s keep digging into the question.

Fourth, what would we do if we really found rock-solid evidence of a pre-industrial civilization on a planet around another star? We couldn’t communicate with them by any currently known method. Unless physicists make some kind of wildly unanticipated new discovery, there is no practical way that humans could travel there, either. Potentially we could send miniature interstellar probes to examine the planet and learn more about its inhabitants. A project called Breakthrough Starshot is exploring the kind of technology needed to do something like that. Such probes would be so small and speedy that the aliens there would have no idea they were being watched.

Assume a best-case scenario (because, why not?). Sometime next decade we find a potentially Earthlike planet around Alpha Centauri A, the closest sunlike star, or maybe we find encouraging information about the Earth-size planet orbiting its companion star, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. In the 2030s we find plausible biosignatures on one of these nearby exoplanets. In the 2050s we image the planet and see plausible indications of an intelligent civilization. What a moment of discovery that would be! We launch interstellar probes there, which arrive in the 2090s. By 2100, we’re convinced not only that the planet is inhabited, but that it is home to an advanced, semi-industrial civilization. So now what?

NASA will crash Cassini into Saturn in September, to make sure the probe doesn’t contaminate one of the planet’s potentially habitable moons. This kind of caution should extend to any future contact with sentient alien beings.

(Credit: NASA-JPL)

That brings us to the fifth and final part. Should we try to establish contact? Potentially we could use interstellar probes to drop coded messages all over the planet. Maybe the inhabitants could respond by setting huge geometric fires that we could observe from space. We would have a lot of time to think about whether making contact is a good idea and, if so, how best to do it. Each back-and-forth message would take about 9 years—and remember, this is for the very nearest star. Suppose we found a civilization on Kepler 452b. It is 1,400 light years away. Each round-trip message would take 2,800 years minimum. A Starshot-style probe would take at least 7,000 years to get there.

But let’s take all of the what-ifs all the way. What if we find this quasi-technological alien civilization, and what if humans develop some kind of faster-than-light technology (currently thought to be physically impossible, but we’re speculating here) so that we could jump in a ship and go visit, Star Trek style? How would we behave?

Right now, NASA has a detailed set of planetary-protection rules to make sure that humans do not contaminate Mars or other possibly habitable worlds. That is part of the reason the Cassini probe is being crashed into Saturn: to make sure it doesn’t contaminate the moons Enceladus or Titan. I like to think that by the time we are smart enough to find life in other planetary systems and advanced enough to travel there, we will have advanced versions of those planetary protection rules to make sure we don’t contaminate other civilizations, either.

On Earth, meetings between technological and non-technological cultures have generally not gone very well. If we ever get to the point where we find a non-technological culture on another planet, I expect that we will have enough good sense to observe from afar and not interfere.

For more on the latest scientific discoveries and debates, follow me on Twitter: @coreyspowell

{ http://discovermagazine.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 22:15 geschreven door peter  

Triangle UFO mystery: Sightings of bizarre craft continue baffling investigators

A MYSTERY about hundreds of "huge triangular UFOs" seen sweeping silently across the US has deepened after a witness reported a very close encounter.

10-05-2017 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

‘Dyson Sphere’ Star Mysteriously and Dramatically Dimming

 Paul Seaburn

The mysterious star with the catchy nickname that refuses to explain itself just got a little more mysterious … and a lot dimmer. Data on KIC 8462852 – aka Tabby’s Star, aka the star that might be surrounded by a Dyson sphere – was analyzed by another set of astronomers and they noticed a 200-day period where it dimmed drastically in comparison to other times. Did the aliens sucking power from the star via the sphere need an emergency energy boost? Did something else temporarily block it from our view? Is this proof it’s some new kind of star? Or what?

KIC 8462852 was nicknamed Tabby’s Star after its discoverer, astronomer Tabetha Boyajian. The erratic behavior of its light, especially the constant dimming, caused speculation that it was partially or fully surrounded by a so-called Dyson sphere of panels absorbing its energy to be used by an alien species for fuel. Farfetched but not yet eliminated as an explanation.

According to a new study, Caltech astronomer Ben Montet and Joshua Simon of the Carnegie Institute measured the light from the star recorded by the Kepler satellite observatory over four years. The dimming occurred at a steady rate of around 0.34 percent per year for about the first thousand days of observation. At that point, the dimming increased dramatically to an annual rate of 2.5 percent for the next 200 days. It then returned to the 0.34 rate for the duration of the Kepler observation. Montet said in an interview with Gizmodo:

The part that really surprised me was just how rapid and non-linear it was. We spent a long time trying to convince ourselves this wasn’t real.

The big dip was real

But it was. What caused the sudden drop in light? Suspecting some cosmic mass (comets, thick dust cloud) may have passed in front of Kepler, Montet and Simon checked the brightness of 500 surround stars and found that only KIC 8462852 took a dip. That means the cause is either in front of, around or inside of Tabby’s Star.

Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it?

These results introduce us to another delightfully unexpected piece of the puzzle.

Tabetha Boyajian has set up a Kickstarter crowdfunding program to raise enough money to use the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network for a year to watch her namesake and catch it in the act of flickering, dimming, Dyson sphere construction, starship fueling or whatever else it might be.

We will keep you all in the loop as things progress, and will soon send out surveys to gather information for reward fulfillment.

What would Galileo think of a Dyson sphere? Would crowdfunding have saved him from church persecution?

For $10, let’s give them a scroll with my picture on it.

 TAGS: 

"Tabby's Star", Astronomy, Dyson sphere, Kepler, Kepler space telescope, modern mysteries, natural world, Science, space, technology

{  http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-05-2017 om 18:26 geschreven door peter  

{  http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-05-2017 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

{  http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-05-2017 om 18:16 geschreven door peter  

10-05-2017 om 18:13 geschreven door peter  

New discovery on Earth might prove alien life existed on Mars

By Margi Murphy, The Sun

Modal Trigger

Spherical bubbles preserved in 3.48 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia provide evidence for early life having lived in ancient hot springs on land.

UNSW

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY:

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Life on Earth kicked off hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought, scientists have claimed.

In a new find, the earliest known living creature popped up about 3.5 billion years ago in a hot spring in Australia.

Well-preserved bubbles and layers of rock formed by microbes signal that life started 580 million years earlier than previous research has indicated.

The clues were found in the Dresser Formation of the North Pole Dome, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. The findings were published May 9 in Nature Communications.

The discovery hints that Charles Darwin may well have been correct in his theory that life on Earth in fact began inside a “warm little pond” and not in the sea, as many modern scientists have hypothesized.

“This may have implications for an origin of life in freshwater hot springs on land, rather than the more widely discussed idea that life developed in the ocean and adapted to land later,” said Tara Djokic, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the University of New South Wales.

And it could help scientists in the hunt for alien life on Mars.

Modal Trigger

The red planet is also believed to have had hot springs 3.5 billion years ago.

Now scientists could focus their attention on these spots to discover whether extraterrestrial organisms ever existed on the Red Planet.

Modal Trigger

“Of the top three potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 rover, Columbia Hills is indicated as a hot spring environment,” Djokic added.

“If life can be preserved in hot springs so far back in Earth’s history, then there is a good chance it could be preserved in Martian hot springs too.”

There has been suggestion that life on Mars was forced underground after devastating solar storms destroyed its atmosphere.

“Our exciting findings don’t just extend back the record of life living in hot springs by 3 billion years, they indicate that life was inhabiting the land much earlier than previously thought, by up to about 580 million years,” Djokic added.

Previously, the oldest known geyserite had been identified from rocks about 400 million years old.

10-05-2017 om 18:02 geschreven door peter  

These crazy photos show a Russian Su-27 Flanker dogfighting with a U.S. Air Force F-16 inside Area 51

You don’t happen to see a Su-27 Flanker dogfighting with a F-16 unless you visit Area 51. Here are the amazing photographs taken near Groom Lake, on Nov. 8, 2016, U.S. election day.

The photographs in this post were taken from Tikaboo Valley, near Groom Lake, Nevada, by Phil Drake, who was lucky enough to observe a Su-27P Flanker-B dogfighting with an F-16, presumably one of the four Groom Lake based -D models in the skies of the famous Area 51.

Although the quality of the pictures is low (the aircraft were flying between 20K and 30K feet) they are extremely interesting since Flankers operating from Groom are not a secret (they have been documented in 2003 – 2004 and more recently between 2012 and 2014) but have rarely been photographed.

The F-16 (bottom – highlighted) and the Su-27 are flying against each other. Both are on a left hand turn.

The two aircraft get closer in the merge.

The two jets almost overlap: the Su-27 is farther, the F-16 is closer to the camera.

The two jets continue to turn as they try to reach the “enemy” 6 o’clock

Here’s Phil’s report of the rare sighting:

“The date was November 8th, US election day, and the sighting was between 1500 and 1525.

I was visiting Nevada hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the latest defense programmes being tested.

On the Monday and Wednesday, Nellis Aggressor F-15s and F-16s were regularly overhead, dropping flares and sonic booms.  It was Tuesday afternoon when the skies went quiet for a couple of hours, and I hoped this may be a sign of something unusual being flown.

Eventually the sound of jet noise caught my attention, and I scanned the clear blue skies ’til I saw the tiny speck of an approaching military jet at high altitude, leaving an intermittent contrail.

It was instantly recognisable as a Russian built Sukhoi 27 Flanker, and carried no national insignia or identifying marks.

I took my camera out and photographed the ensuing dogfight between the Flanker and a F-16.  The sortie seemed to consist of a head on intercept, conducted at descending altitudes from 30 down to 20 thousand feet, and after each intercept a turning dogfight ensued after they had flashed past each other.

The highly manoeuvrable Flanker was a single seat version, a Su-27P, and it pulled out all of its best moves to get behind the F-16.

I watched in awe as the pair fought it out for 25 minutes before they both climbed to altitude and flew back into Groom Lake restricted airspace.

My scanner remained silent throughout the whole encounter.”

What they were testing is difficult to say. We can’t even be sure the Flanker was one of those reportedly flown from Groom or a privately owned one rented to perform some sort of testing. So all we can say is pure speculation.

Su-27 turning left

Bottom view of the Su-27

It was a daylight operation therefore, unless they were trying to assess the visual appearance of a Su-27 in standard Russian Air Force scheme under a specific angle at a certain altitude and so on, it was, most probably, something not related to a “black project” that would be carried out at night, when spotters (that have become a common presence around Area 51 and Tonopah Test Range) would find it hard to ID the types involved and understand what’s happening.

Su-27 turning towards the camera.

Can you ID what pod is this Su-27 carrying?

The daylight dogfight could be related to testing of a specific pod and sensor against a type of aircraft usually replicated by the Aggressors when involved in Red Flag exercises: the F-16s of the Aggressors Squadrons replicate the paint schemes, markings and insignas of their near peer adversaries. In 2014, Lt. Col. Kevin Gordon, 64th AGRS commander, explained the Su-27 Flanker was the type of aircraft they replicated when attacking a Blue Forces F-15 in what was the first time the Flanker was mentioned as an enemy aircraft.

Anyway, the U.S. armed forces have been operating MiG and Sukhoi jets for decades.

In the late 1960s, CIA, U.S. Air Force, Navy and several other agencies were involved in highly classified programs whose purpose was to evaluate MiG fighter jets and study the best ways to face them in air-to-air combat.

Among these programs, “Have Doughnut” was aimed at exploiting a MiG-21 Fishbed-E that the U.S. acquired in 1967 from Israel that had obtained it in Aug. 1966, when an Iraqi Air Force pilot flew it in Israel during a training sortie that was actually a pre-arranged defection.

Have Doughnut saw the MiG-21, using cover designation YF-110, fly over Groom Lake against F-4, F-105, F-111, F-100, F-104, B-66, RF-101, RF-4 and F-5 during offensive and defensive missions that gave the evaluation team the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the U.S. air combat tactics.

Half a century after “Have Doughnut” some Russian planes, in this case a camo Su-27, are still used for some sort of testing and training in the U.S.

Su-27 side view.

By the way be sure to visit Phil Drake’s blog at http://area51trips.blogspot.co.uk.

It has some of the Sukhoi pictures, and also some of a Groom Lake MiG-29 taken in 2009!

Su-27 and the Moon

Image credit: Phil Drake

{https://theaviationist.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 17:51 geschreven door peter  

We Have Rented A Cessna 172 And Skirted Area 51 and Nevada Test and Training Range. Here Is How It Went.

We undertook a very unusual trip over Nevada desert.

Area 51, a myth in the underworld of conspiracy theories, especially for those who believe in alien spacecrafts, flying saucers, UFOs etc, is a highly classified installation in the Nevada desert.

Since the 1950s, the remote site, located south of the dry Groom Lake, has been used to support the development and testing of several aircraft and weapons systems including the famous U-2 Dragon Lady, the Mach 3+ SR-71 Blackbird, or the later F-117 stealth fighter (more precisely its Have Blue prototype).

Its involvement in Black Projects and the secrecy surrounding the operations conducted over there has made Area 51 the most interesting secret airbase in the world for aviation enthusiasts.

Groom Lake airbase is located inside the Nellis Test and Training Range, 200 miles north of Las Vegas, under a dedicated and forbidden airspace identified as R4808N in the aeronautical charts. This place is well protected from prying eyes as the ground perimeter extend to 10 miles from the runways, and a small ridge inside the Area prevent anyone on the Tikaboo valley to see anything.

Most enthusiasts and photographers climb Tikaboo peak. This vantage point is difficult to access, is almost 8,000 feet high which puts it 3,000 feet over the airbase but 50 miles away. You need a powerful telelens to see anything from there.

Being a very long time military aviation fan, both interested in the secret life of Groom Lake and in the larger Nellis Test and Training Range (NTTR) where every Red Flag exercise happen since the 70s, I wanted to see it in real. What made it possible is that I’m a private pilot, and the airspace east of R4808N is “just” classified as a Military Operating Area (MOA). It’s a danger area when it’s active or “hot” (meaning some military activity is scheduled or in progress), but still accessible for anyone at their own risk.

While on vacation in the area, I decided to attempt a flight there, during the weekend to lessen any risk, particularly with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) in the area. I booked a rental Cessna 172 Skyhawk at West Air Aviation in North Las Vegas airport (KVGT) and had an appointment with an instructor for a check ride.

KVGT from above.

On a Friday late afternoon, after having spent the day around Nellis AFB, taking pictures of military jets of all sorts involved in their last day of Red Flag simulated war, I met Jacob for my “flight review”. After one hour of questions/answers about air traffic rules in the US and flight safety, I climbed in the small Cessna 172 cockpit for a short flight.

The sun was really low and it was time for me to prove Jacob that I knew how to handle this wingy thing. Fortunately, I use to fly a Skyhawk at home so I behaved myself at the controls. Slow flight, steep turns and simulated loss of engine: I went through all before heading back to the airfield for pattern work.

After a couple of touch and goes, and the radio work with the tower, Jacob asked me to perform a full stop landing on runway 30L. Back to earth, I was now ready to take to the sky as Pilot in Command. The only unknown thing was how would I handle the Bravo airspace controllers of Las Vegas, as KVGT lays in an easier Delta airspace.

Next morning, I was on the tarmac for the walkaround of N9572H, my 42 years old Skyhawk for the day. No glass cockpit here, just the typical six-pack instruments with a trusty Garmin GNS430 GPS. I also had my iPad with a GPS antenna and a good nav app with all the latest charts in it.

At the commands of N9572H, waiting for departure

After a thorough preflight, I started up, listened to the ATIS and talked to Ground with a request to taxi for a VFR flight to Rachel and Lincoln airfield (1L1), with Mike information. No more info given to the controller about my intended and legal visit close to Area 51. Both 30L and 30R runways were in use and I soon taxied to the runup area. Radio was clear and I was now confident that I could handle the communications with McCarran or Nellis AFB controllers. After my routine tests, dutifully performed in accordance with the checklist, I switched to the Tower and requested take-off. Then again, directions were very concise but clear, and my radio ability reinforced my confidence.

Moments later, I’m lining up for a “rolling take-off” on 30L runway, an expedited departure. Full power, no flaps, 55 knots indicated, no alarm, 2300+ rpm checked, I’m rotating and the wheels leave the ground. I’m very concentrated as I inform the tower that I prefer a 350 heading rather than the proposed 280 heading (where do they want to send me ?). My right turn is approved and I’m soon handed over to Nellis Approach. I’m still below their airspace but I need to request a clearance before entering Bravo airspace. I quickly request it and I hear a fast “72H is cleared thru Bravo airspace” ; this is my passport for a further climb north of Las Vegas.

With the hot weather, the climb is slow and I’m passing Gass peak. Again, as I climb to 8,500 feet, I have no problem understanding the instructions from Nellis and I can copy the traffic information when they tell me that I’ll be overtaken by four F/A-18 Navy jets, 2,000 feet above. I will never see them, even with my cranium turning everywhere inside the Cessna cockpit. Shortly after that, I hear a “resume own navigation” and I settled onto a 8,500 feet cruise, still heading to 350, the direction of my first waypoint, Alamo.

After 10 minutes, Nellis Approach wants me to leave their frequency as I’m reaching the virtual fence of their airspace and I’m left with Los Angeles Center on 134.65. This will be a frequency on which no communication will ever be made with my small Cessna, as it’s overloaded with static. I hear some voices, request “flight following” 5 times and I’ll never get a clear reply.

After a while, I decide to climb a thousand feet more. This may improve radio reception and also give me a better view of the area beyond the long north-south Sheep Range to my left. 5 minutes later, I’m stable at 9,500 feet with, still, no radio contact with LA Center, but with a good view. I know that Blackjack control is the ATC facility managing the whole NTTR

As I’m overhead the Pahranagat lakes, I can see a big dry lake on my right, “Texas Lake” (Delamar), sometimes used as a staging area for aircraft forward operations from unprepared runways.

Texas Lake, named as such due to its shape.

A few minutes later, approaching Alamo I get my first good glimpse at Groom Lake and its buildings. With the naked eye, it’s impossible to distinguish anything other than these big hangars, small metallic dots reflecting the sun. I’ve got my camera on the passenger seat and I take some pictures with my 55mm, an easy lens for photographing while handling the yoke, but not big enough for the distance.

Groom Lake from Tikaboo Peak

I decide to turn left as soon as possible to get closer, while staying well out of the restricted area. I take a 270 heading, not directly towards the airbase as I don’t want to alarm the Blackjack air traffic controllers.

The flight track beside the restricted areas (blue track)

As I enter Tikaboo valley, with the straight ET highway (US 375) going north-west to Rachel and the Black Mailbox trail leading to the Area 51, I get a clearer view of the dry lake, the long runway and the various buildings.

Area 51, aka Groom Lake, as seen from over Tikaboo valley, 9500 feet AMSL

I’m elated as this is something I wanted to see by myself, somewhere I wanted to come to for the last 15 years. And being there in this little Cessna, flying alone and wherever I may think of, it’s a dream come true.

Same view as the previous one, cropped and postprocessed.

It’s now time to turn a bit right to skirt the north-east corner of R4808. Bald mountain to my left hides the dry lakebed, then the main airbase. These are the last seconds for me to have a look at this most secret airbase. I don’t circle in the area because I don’t want to draw more attention. Having an F-16 escorting me away may be great for pictures, but this could be a sign that the sheriff is waiting for me on the ground, so that’s the last thing I want for now.

Approaching Rachel, I recognize Coyote Summit where I spent two long days this same week. And I’m now eager to discover from the air all the geographical report points the military pilots use during their Red Flag sorties. Over Rachel, I’ve got now a good view of No Name mountain, west of Bald Mountain. This lone butte is a good mark showing the northern frontier of Area 51, or the Container as the military pilots call it. They also have no right to penetrate that area and if they do, they’re sent back to their home airbase the next day with a bad grade for their career.

North Groom range with Rachel and No name.

Farther west from No Name is Belted Peak, from where all the air-to-ground activity starts at Red Flag, and beyond it I can distinguish Quartzite Mountain, between the 74 ranges and the 75 ranges. I spent a lot of time studying the NTTR chart and reading about it ; that helps me identifying all these now.

Belted peak with Quartzite mountain behind it.

I now turn east to my destination for the morning, Lincoln Co airport (Panaca town). This brings me just south of that long north-south Worthington range.

Worthington mountains.

After a few minutes and an overhead of the Timpahute range mines, I overfly Irish mountain. This peak is used also by Blue Force pilots during Red Flag to report and prepare their collective and structures ingress towards the FEBA (or Forward Edge of the Battle Area).

Heading east, Approaching Irish peak, with its snowy summit.

I fly east over Hiko, hoping for a good tailwind on the return trip to Las Vegas. I’ve been having a headwind for the main 1.5 hours and the gas supply on the few Nevada airfields is scarce (Alamo and Lincoln has none for example). I now can see without any mistake a large gap in between two ridges : Pahroc Summit Pass, also  known as Student Gap among Red Flag pilots. This is the main passage point for Blue Force pilots when it’s “push time”. It’s a lot better to be here in my Cessna during the weekend than during a Red Flag weekday.

Heading east in view of Student Gap with US93 crossing it. Red Flag pilots usually fly it in the opposite direction, towards the main ranges.

After ten minutes, I see the small Lincoln Co airfield where I’ll have my lunch break, under the wing and in a 10 kts wind. The landing is uneventful and I find myself really alone on that parking. I’m amazed that nobody other than me, seems to enjoy the Nevada desert by plane, specially when you can be so close to where the most secret planes get tested.

The return trip is straight as gas is a bit of a concern for me, having already burnt 1.7 hours, with a total endurance of 4 hrs. 80 miles out of Las Vegas, I get my clearance for the Bravo airspace and after passing the mines and plants of Apex, north of Sin City, I request to overfly Nellis AFB. Nellis Approach grants it and I can approach the base at 6,500 feet. After some pictures, I’m asked to take a westerly heading to North Las Vegas and I comply.

These few seconds allowed me to get a good souvenir of the big military airbase: the cherry on the cake.

Still dozens of airplanes on the tarmac of Nellis, while Red Flag 17-2 is now just over.

Las Vegas as seen from the downwind leg of runway 30L at KVGT.

{ https://theaviationist.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 17:41 geschreven door peter  

UFO Phil

By John Wenz

While you could spend your summertime beach bumming or exploring nature, maybe its time to pursue another true American pastime—visiting weird UFO sites. Although we are a serious journalistic entity and would never support the extraterrestrial theory of UFOs, here are some suggestions for you as you make the cosmic trip of a lifetime.

1. Kecksburg UFO

• In 1965, Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, had its own Roswell when a bell-shaped craft blazed through the late afternoon before crashing into a nearby wood. Of course, it was immediately covered up by the military—or at least the legend goes—but not before the residents saw Egyptian-like hieroglyphics on the side as it was hauled off. 
• There was a protracted legal battle to find out what crashed in those woods, and strangely enough, Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta got wrapped up in the whole thing.  Podesta has had a longstanding interest in UFOs  and had been advocating for the release of Kecksburg documents since at least 2002. 
• Aliens, a failed Russian Venus probe, and even a Nazi aerospace vehicle have been implicated, but a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article points to the research of two Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) member points to an even more mundane explanation: a General Electric Mark 2 Re-entry Vehicle, a spy satellite launched by the U.S. Air Force, went off course, crashing into the woods.
• Today, a replica sits outside a social hall with a gift shop onsite. 

2. Roswell UFO Museum

• Speaking of Roswell, the town of Roswell, New Mexico, is home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a kitschy monument to the 1947 crash of what was likely a spy weather balloon developed under something called Project Mogul, which was basically the Google Loon of highly classified nuclear weapons surveillance. 
• For the "That's what they WANT you to believe" crowd, a couple things to bear in mind: Roswell is near the White Sands Missile Range, aka the Trinity Site of the Manhattan Project. 
• Interestingly, from that day in July 1947 until the 1980s, no one within or outside of the UFO community remembered Roswell much until UFO researcher Stanton Friedman brought it to light. A documentary called Mirage Men puts forth the claim that the government engaged in deliberate disinformation campaigns to cover up weapons testing featuring a shifty reported government spook who claims he was paid to carry it out.
• If you're in New Mexico, you can also visit a reported UFO crash site in Aztec and San Antonio. Even Roswell has allegations of a second Roswell crash. You can also head on over to neighboring Arizona to take the Sedona UFO Sighting Tour hosted by a supposed alien abductee. 

3. Area 51 Tour

• If you believe that aliens crashed at Roswell, then you likely know they were taken to Area 51. The official line is that it's a top secret weapons testing facility, where crafts like the U-2 bomber were first flown. Regardless of what you believe, you blow $200 of your hard earned Vegas-gambling money on an all-day tour around Area 51. Of course, you could skip that and just drive to the Extraterrestrial Highway yourself. 

4. UFO Watchtower

• In a tiny town called Hooper in south central Colorado, there's a platform built for staring skyward. According to the National UFO Reporting Center (visualized here by Max Galka), the watchtower has actually yielded "results." 
• Because the San Luis Valley in Colorado has been hotbed for reported UFO activity, the watchtower was an inevitability. Getting into the watchtower won't cost you an arm and a leg — a single admission fee is $2, a whole car is $5, and you can camp for $10. Be careful camping,  cattle mutilations have been also been reported in the area. 

5. Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport

• In 1994, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into Jupiter, sending up quite a fireworks show in the solar system. The Green River city council in Wyoming wanted to build a refuge for any Jovians wishing to flee, and thus rechristened their tiny blip of an airstrip the "Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport." For the most part, though, it's been used by humans. Sadly, Atlas Obscura says the sign designating it the Intergalactic Spaceport has since been removed (or stolen.) 

6. UFO Welcome Center

• In Bowman, South Carolina, a man named Jody Pendarvis built a trash castle monument to our alien overlords called the UFO Welcome Center. Pendarvis allows visitors to his rickety outsider art project. The idea reportedly struck him in the 1990s (sort of like the potato Devil's Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but made out of sheet metal) and by Memorial Day 1999, it was open for business.

7. Little Green Men Festival

• A farm near Kelly and Hopkinsville, Kentucky was the site of an ambush from above in 1955 when several goblin-like creatures reportedly descended on the house of Elmer Sutton. By the time authorities arrived, the visitors were gone though the occupants of the house were spooked by the encounter. 
• These days, Kelly plays host to the annual Little Green Men Festival, which falls on the third weekend of August every year, the same time as the encounter 62 years ago. This year, the festival happens to fall on the same day as a total solar eclipse sweeping the nation on August 21, the same day as the alleged encounter. Coincidence? Let's see what happens in Kelly that afternoon a few months away. 
• In other UFO/farmhouse related news, McMinville, Oregon, has its own UFO festival as well, aptly called UFO Fest. This year's event is set for May 18-21. McMinville was the site of one of the most famous UFO photos ever taken. 

8.Alien Graves

• In the 1890s, there were a rash of "mysterious airship" sightings, and like all good hokum, some of those allegedly crashed to the ground, including in Max, Nebraska. The good people of Aurora, Texas, reported one such landing, and the townsfolk did what was only right: gave the dead occupants a burial in an unmarked grave. 
• Some small town papers of the time didn't quite have the upstanding journalistic integrity of The New York Times and would, from time to time, throw in a bit of made up entertainment. That may well have been the case both in Max and Aurora, as subsequent investigations of the cemetery have turned up nothing.

9. Betty and Barney Hill

• Betty and Barney Hill were driving through rural New Hampshire on the way back to Portsmouth when something happened. Under hypnosis, the couple claims they were abducted by aliens, becoming one of the first widely publicized cases. 
• Later termed the Zeta Reticuli incident, it's been a contentious story since, though a 1974 Astronomy article tried to take the incident seriously. Current editor-in-chief David J. Eicher tells of the story: "The well-known astronomy popularizer Terence Dickinson, then Astronomy's Editor, penned the article. It probably cost Terry his job, as he was gone from the magazine a few months later. Astronomy was just a year and a half old at the time, and this story set the fledgling magazine's credibility back a long way."
• Though the Hills have since passed away, New Hampshire has erected a historic marker of the couple's encounter with...something. 

10. Futuro House

• In the 1960s, you didn't just have the chance to see UFOs in the sky — for the right price, you could live in one. The so-called Futuro Houses were a Finnish design meant to embrace modernity, but instead were regarding as something more of an eye sore. A few of them still exist today. Atlas Obscura has a map of the homes that still exist today and some remain in better shape than others. 

{  http://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

10-05-2017 om 17:09 geschreven door peter