(This post contains spoilers for Alien: Covenant.)

One of the strange side effects of the rise of superheroes in Hollywood, as well as the borderline superheroes who populate franchises like The Fast and the Furious, has been a lack of equal opposition: The villains in these movies can’t hold a candle to the protagonists. Marvel in particular has taken a lot of guff for its villain problem, but the issue extends beyond just the MCU; in general, the new stress on cinematic universes and endlessly iterative properties puts the onus on continuity, and the agents of continuity are the heroes. There’s no better example of the problem at work than the recent decisions by both the MCU and Fast and Furious to pit the heroes against each other.

Meanwhile, one franchise is showing it’s still possible for a modern blockbuster to have a great villain. In Alien: Covenant, David — the android played by Michael Fassbender, first introduced in Prometheus — comes into his own as a fleshed-out, dynamic, and genuinely striking antagonist, one who isn’t just an equal match for the heroes, but even becomes the central thread of the series. He’s a huge part of what makes Alien: Covenant work, and you can rest assured he’ll play a major role in whatever happens with the next two installments Ridley Scott has teased.

In addition to his importance to the Alien series, though, David offers a few useful lessons that other franchises can take away in trying to solve their own particular villain problems.

1. Give the villain a coherent philosophy

Over the course of Alien: Covenant, we slowly learn David’s worldview. At first, he seems simply scientifically interested in the aliens, but as our understanding of David evolves, we come to recognize him as a much more complex, and insidious, figure. He’s the enlightened monster, the educated, urbane intellectual who should be familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of 20th-century history. Like Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, David is a eugenicist and murderer who couches his philosophies in Nietzschean rhetoric about furthering the species, complete with quotes from Romantic poets like Lord Byron — except in this case, the species is the terrifying, parasitical Xenomorph.

While there are plenty of dangers in basing something as relatively innocuous as a baddie in a popcorn film on horrific real-world analogues — at another point, David annihilates the indigenous life forms of a strange planet he lands on, which has definite shades of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — it’s also what gives the film its resonance and meaning. It’s just as true now as ever that an elegant sophisticate can be a great perpetrator of evil, and that the urge to create can be used for terrible ends as well as good. David is a far more relevant and instructive villain than, say, Marvel’s generic Ultron, who’s basically a less interesting version of HAL 9000, or the ultracartoonish Cipher of Furious 7, a hacker whose entire plan seems to based on a freshman-level understanding of game theory. If you believe that big films as well as small can aspire to the achievement of art and meaning, then the interrogation of themes like these is a welcome sight.

2. Let the villain do stuff

Similarly, David gets to actually play a physical role in the plot of Alien: Covenant. He welcomes the gang to his lair, climaxing with a fascinating moment in which he rages at one of the crew for shooting and killing a Xenomorph, and, like any good villain, he gets the film’s most interesting dialogue, including a strangely touching scene in which he teaches the other android, Walter — also played by Fassbender — to play music. That might seem an obvious thing for a villain to do, but you’d be surprised how many modern blockbuster villains don’t pass that test. Instead, they often spend their entire films separated from the main characters, hiding behind faceless minions who get killed by the thousands.

Not David. He’s constantly doing stuff in the film: reciting poetry, making art, cutting his hair, lurking. He is active within the fabric of the film, not just a catalyst that makes it happen. And the way he does factor into the end is another major factor:

3. Let the villain win — or at least give him a chance

The biggest problem with the villains of most contemporary studio movies is that they never stand a chance. Their plans are always so hysterically large — destroy Earth! enslave all humans! turn all living matter into an extension of themselves! — that their success wouldn’t just mean the end of the main characters, but also the end of the franchise, the cinematic universe, and, well, everything, in general. Since a big-budget tentpole movie can’t end like that, their villains are hopelessly neutered.

Alien, of course, has a huge advantage, in that the main draw are the aliens, not necessarily any one hero or group of heroes. (Although the fact that the series still produced a hero as emblematic as Ripley is also worth noting.) But that didn’t require Covenant to pull off the coup that it did, in which David ultimately gains the upper hand, taking over the ship while the helpless heroes look on. And beyond that, the mere thought that this could happen makes David a drastically more compelling figure than your average villain: He’s actually dangerous, not just a convenient conduit for stunts and CGI battles who will be disposed of by film’s end. Like many of the best movie bad guys, including Hannibal Lecter and Seven’s John Doe, he represents a demon that even his total defeat couldn’t fully banish.

4. Let the star be a star

Of course, none of this matters without Michael Fassbender. Fassbender is so good in Alien: Covenant, so fully committed and clearly happy to be playing the role, that it’s hard to imagine the part without him. Actors playing blockbuster villains are often obviously showing up for the paycheck, or else so bereft of material to work with that they end up lending the character distracting and unnecessary affectations. But in David, Fassbender has a disturbing, and disturbingly complete, mindset to work with, and he plays the part with relish, never more than in the classic moment at which he kisses himself.

More than just about any other type of role, villains allow actors to leave their stamp on a character — which is why they’re so much harder to play than heroes. In a heroic role, particularly a superheroic one, you basically just have to reflect the arc of the audience, an arc that’s pretty much identical in the vast majority of contemporary blockbusters. Play a villain, on the other hand, and you always run the risk of looking like Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending: You’re giving 110 percent to the movie, but the movie has nothing to give you back. With the best villainous performances, the film will instead nurture and reflect the actor’s performance, as The Dark Knight does for Heath Ledger, Mission: Impossible III does for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Skyfall does for Javier Bardem. Sure, those actors can’t win — but they’re such an integral part of the movie that it doesn’t really matter.

That’s what Scott’s latest Alien iteration has managed to achieve with Fassbender. And totally apart from what happens with the Xenomorph, the esoteric mythology of the series, and the fate of Katherine Waterston’s Daniels, it’s David who’s worth returning to for another go-round of the franchise.

TAGS:

• MOVIES
• ALIEN COVENANT
• MICHAEL FASSBENDER
• VILLAINS WE LOVE

{http://www.vulture.com/news/alien-covenant/ }

23-05-2017 om 22:35 geschreven door peter  

‘Unacknowledged’: New Alien Documentary Implies Marilyn Monroe Was Killed for Knowing Too Much

By Kayla Cobb  @kaylcobb

Auroris Media

Are we alone in the universe? It’s been a question that’s haunted scientists, civilians, and sci-fi writers alike for hundreds of years. Unacknowledged, a new documentary about the existence of aliens, may not have definite proof about whether or not aliens exist, but it certainly offers enough of a compelling argument to make even the most skeptical Scully raise an eyebrow.

Following Dr. Steven Greer, Unacknowledged makes the claim that the United States government has been covering up the existence of aliens for decades. However, the documentary’s biggest strength is its extensive list of subjects. Rather than just focusing on a couple of key figures, director Michael Mazzola’s documentary offers dozens of talking head interviews, all of which claim to have seen an alien or UFO, been in contact to an alien, or have seen classified information that proves the existence of aliens. Additionally, most of these interviews come from former military personnel rather than civilians, adding another layer of authenticity to the documentary’s claims. Initially the theories Unacknowledged propose sound insane, but after a nonstop parade of testimonies and footage from JFK and both Bill and Hillary Clinton talking about alien life, it starts to toe the line of possibly believable. And if it’s not that, then it’s at least entertaining.

However, no alien documentary is worthwhile without a crazy conspiracy theory, and Unacknowledged is no different. At one point, the documentary proposes that Marilyn Monroe didn’t die of an overdose. Instead, she was killed to prevent her from leaking the government’s secrets, which included the U.S.’s ties to aliens. Greer initially poses the theory as coming from singer Burl Ives before pointing to a document that was filed a couple of days before Monroe’s death and calling it a “virtual death warrant.” The alleged document says that after Monroe was forced to end things with both Kennedy brothers, she threatened to host a press conference where she would tell everything. That everything supposedly included top government secrets as well as knowledge of a secret air base that was designed to examine “things from outer space.” Greer’s implication is that Monroe’s death a few days later happened as a result of the threat she made. You can watch Greer’s explanation of the Monroe conspiracy theory on Gizmodo.

Of course, there’s no telling whether or not that conspiracy theory is true. It’s also just an anecdote in an hour and 45 minute documentary that’s primary purpose is to expose the existence of aliens. However, Unacknowledged is nothing if not an interesting watch even if you don’t believe its other worldly claims. It’s a documentary about aliens that’s relatively well-reasoned and has a much higher production value than other documentaries on the subject, but it still maintains the fast pace most conspiracy theories videos are known for.

Whatever side you fall on in the alien debate, Unacknowledged will likely won’t change your mind. For believers, the documentary stands as a well researched and structured argument about the existence of life on other planets — qualities most specials on this subject typically lack. For people who don’t believe, it’s a fun-to-watch documentary filled with conspiracy theories. Either way, it’s definitely worth pouring yourself a drink and pressing play.

{ http://decider.com/what-to-watch/ }

23-05-2017 om 22:27 geschreven door peter  

Orbit of Earth-Size Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1h in Alien Solar System Nailed Down

23-05-2017 om 22:20 geschreven door peter  

Detecting Life In Space: The Red Edge

NASA

The universe's "most interesting star" just started acting up again.

Known as KIC 8462852, or the WTF star (for "Where's The Flux"), this sun became famous a few years ago for its strange short-lived dips in light output. Its behavior was weird enough that astronomers added "alien megastructures" to the long list of possible explanations for WTF star's changes in brightness. My twitter feed was lighting up this weekend as WTF star started, once again, to show a pronounced diminution.

The excitement over WTF star is, ultimately, about finding evidence for life on other planets. But even without alien megastructures (which are probably not going to be the explanation), WTF star highlights the remarkable range of ways astronomers might be able to find evidence for life on distant planets.

Since we'll be staring hard at thousands of these worlds over the next few decades, each kind of life detection method is exciting in its own right. That's why today I want to introduce you to "The Red Edge" (which, also, just sounds pretty cool).

The story starts with one of space exploration's greatest tragedies.

Back in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during launch, killing the entire crew. The loss was devastating for so many reasons, but one of its consequences was that the Galileo mission to Jupiter was left without a launch vehicle. The plan had been for it to ride a shuttle into space, where a powerful booster would then send it on to a half-billion-or-so-mile ride to the solar system's largest world. In the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, NASA scientists were forced to launch Galileo using a less powerful booster, placing it onto a complicated trajectory that used the gravity of a number of planets to slingshot the spacecraft out to Jupiter. In particular, Galileo first headed inward to Venus and then back to Earth — twice — picking up speed with each gravity "assist." It was during these Earth-return fly-bys that scientists came to the novel idea of viewing our planet as if it were an alien world.

The idea was, in part, Carl Sagan's. As Galileo passed by Earth, it trained its instruments on our planet and recorded the light it reflected from the sun. In this way, scientists could run an experiment to see if Earth's light "signal" could reveal the presence of life.

Of all the features the scientists found in the Earth-light, one of the most important came in the form of a sharp change in our planet's reflectance just past the wavelengths of red light. Reflectance means how much of the sunlight falling on the planet gets bounced back into space. Low reflectance means much of the light is being absorbed, while high reflectance means the opposite. The Galileo data showed that Earth's reflectance depended strongly on the light's color (meaning its wavelength). Most of the light in the visible spectrum was strongly absorbed. But around the wavelength of red light (past a half of a millionth of meter) the reflectance shot up. This wall in the reflectance curve was known from remote sensing studies and was called The Red Edge. In a paper titled "A Search for Life on Earth From The Galileo Spacecraft," Sagan and his co-authors highlighted the planet's absorption and reflection properties as one of four critical pieces of data that confirmed Earth was, in fact, a living world.

But what causes the Red Edge and why might it be a cosmic life-detector? The answer lies within even the most lowly houseplant.

Almost all of the world's vegetation will strongly absorb light in the blue and green parts of the spectrum. Much of this is due to photosynthesis, since these are the wavelengths of light plants absorb to make sugars and power their metabolism. At longer wavelengths, the leaves have no need to absorb sunlight, so they've evolved to reflect this light back into space. So what Galileo was seeing as it flew by Earth was the combined absorbing power of an entire planet's worth of vegetation.

Of course, Sagan and other astronomers knew that what works for Earth may work for alien worlds, too. Maybe we could detect Red Edges in the spectra from other worlds. If so, wouldn't that be proof of alien life and, even better, of full alien biospheres?

Astronomers are now deep in their "exo-planet" revolution. That means they're learning how to probe the light from these worlds in ways that, in principle, mimic what Galileo did for Earth. The crucial difference, of course, is distance. These planets are light-years away. That means we get just a minute fraction of the light they reflect from their stars. Astronomers must be extremely clever in how they go about their searches for exoplanet Red Edges. That's a challenge they're already working to overcome.

One early example of of these efforts is a well-regarded paper from 2005 by Sara Seager and collaborators titled Vegetation's Red Edge: A Possible Spectroscopic Biosignature of Extraterrestrial Plants. The team laid out arguments for how the Red Edge might be detected in light from other worlds. They also made the important case that evolution on any planet might lead to some kind of feature like the Red Edge. As they put it, " ... while extraterrestrial 'light-harvesting organisms' have no compelling reason to display the exact same red edge feature as terrestrial vegetation, they might have similar spectroscopic features at different wavelengths than terrestrial vegetation." Thus a Red Edge of some kind, may, perhaps be universal.

For years now, movies and TV have taught us that the only way to find life in the universe was to directly detect purposeful signals from intelligences on those worlds. With the advent of the exo-planet revolution, a new era has opened. The WTF star raised the issue that we may detect intelligence by the artifacts they leave. Even more important, and more likely, is that we might find evidence of less-evolved forms of life by the imprints they leave on the planet as a whole. The lesson of the Red Edge is that life — even plants — can change planets in ways that might be visible from across the depths of space.

---

Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science." You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter:@adamfrank4

{ http://www.npr.org/ }

23-05-2017 om 22:03 geschreven door peter  

'This is not a drill': Scientists scramble to observe mysterious Tabby's Star

By Nick Whigham

The possible existence of an alien megastructure orbiting a mysterious star in the Milky Way is one of the more far fetched theories banded about by imaginative stargazers — but it's not going away.

Over the past weekend astronomers were rushing to fix their telescopes on the mysterious star which spawned the theory because it was, once again, acting strangely.

Known as Tabby's Star, or KIC 8462852, the odd pattern of light emitted from the star located about 1500 light years away continues to leave scientists puzzled since it's strange luminosity was noticed in recent years.

The star's observed brightness dips by about 20 per cent, an unexplained phenomena that has led to a number of theories, some more sensational than others.

On Friday night astronomer Jason Wright from Penn State University — the same academic who recently wrote a paper about the hypothetical existence of an indigenous alien species in our solar system before humans — noted that the brightness of Tabby's Star was dipping again.

The star is named after astronomer Tabetha Boyajian who first reported on the star's seemingly strange behaviour after analysing data from the Hubble Telescope.

She has been posting recording of the star's dimming over the past few days with great excitement.

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the newest light curve for #TabbysStar from LCO 0.4m scopes shows it has a complex shape. And its not over yet!@LCO_Global

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#TabbysStar is dimming right now - join our live chat with @astro_wright @BerkeleySETI https://youtu.be/eYpIGZS8nJc  via @YouTube

8:30 PM - 19 May 2017

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But we still have no idea why the star appears to be flickering.

One of the most favoured explanations for seemingly random light fluctuation is that a swarm of comet fragments is periodically blocking light from the star. Another very similar theory contends it could be the debris of a destroyed planet that is blocking the star's rays, however such a theory struggles to explain the irregularity of the dimming.

Another technically possible explanation that has been banded about — and gained much attention in the media — is the idea that an alien megastructure has been responsible for blocking the star's light.

It's a notion that has its origins in an idea put forth by physicist Freeman Dyson who proposed that a massive orbiting array of solar collectors (which has become known as a Dyson structure) would be a perfectly rational thing for an alien society to build to meet its energy needs.

Of course, scientists think that's hugely improbable.

Last year SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial life Institute) announced it was going to focus on the star in a bid to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Dan Werthimer, a chief scientist at Berkeley SETI, was quick to dismiss the wild theories of an alien megastructure.

"I don't think it's very likely — a one in a billion chance or something like that — but nevertheless, we're going to check it out," he said.

- news.com.au

{ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ }

23-05-2017 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

UK Government To Release “Secret Dossier” Of All British UFO Sightings After Election Next Month

Katy Evans 

Copy Editor

In a plot that sounds straight out of, if not Bond, then perhaps Kingsman (or even Jonny English), the British government is set to release previously unpublished information it holds on UFO sightings in the UK, once the general election is over in June, a German website has exclusively claimed.

According to Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell, a “newsblog on frontier science and the paranormal”, the secret dossier will reveal previously unpublished reports of UFO activity spanning 50 years collected by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Back in 2013, the MoD released what it said was all of its UFO-related files via the National Archives, although in 2014 it admitted it had held back 18 documents, due to identifying some content that needed to be re-examined before it could be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.

This, of course, prompted claims of a cover-up of the existence of alien life by men with a penchant for dark clothing. 

The MoD then announced it would be releasing these files in 2015, which got pushed back to 2016, then summer 2016, then March 2017, and now apparently June. According to a letter to the German site from a spokesperson for the National Archives, the current delay is due to the general election that will be held in the UK on June 8.

“Due to the upcoming election here in the UK and the rules relating to government departments during the pre-election period, the files will not be released until after the election,” the letter reads. “We are working to ensure that the files are ready for release as soon after this period as is possible: hopefully around the middle of June.“

Paranormal “researchers” and alien hunters are hoping for proof of extraterrestrials, conspiracies laid bare, and government cover-ups worthy of the more outlandish episode of X-files, but even if it doesn't deliver on that count (#sorrynotsorry), the documents should hold some interesting information, dating back to the 1970s.

“There's no smoking gun in these files that will confirm the existence of aliens, but there are plenty of fascinating UFO reports and MoD policy documents, so these really are the real life X-Files,” Nick Pope, a former MoD investigator into UFO sightings, told the Daily Mail.

“The delay has been a comedy of errors though, I think it's more bureaucracy than conspiracy,” he added.

Amongst the files expected to be released are documents on "Britain's answer to Roswell", the Rendlesham Forest incident of 1980, where multiple people reported seeing an unidentified flying object landing at close range near the military RAF-bases Bentwaters and Woodbridge.

Coincidence that Mulder and Scully returned to our screens last year after a 14-year absence? We'll see.  

[H/T: RT]

{ http://www.iflscience.com/ }

23-05-2017 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

13 Famous People Who Believe in Aliens

Credit: lassedesignen/Shutterstock

0. I want to believe

Are we alone in the universe? It's a question that humanity has long grappled with. But while astronomers continue to scan the cosmos for signs of alien life, imaginations are free to run wild here on Earth. From pop stars to Hollywood actors to politicians, here are 13 famous people who believe in aliens.

Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty

1. Winston Churchill

History remembers Winston Churchill for his political prowess and his leadership during a complex time in Britain's history, but a relatively unknown part of the statesman's legacy — one in which he confronted the idea of alien civilizations — was recently uncovered.

Churchill penned an 11-page essay on alien life in 1939, revealing his curiosity about the universe and outlining his definition of life and its most important ingredients.

"I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures," he wrote in the newly uncovered essay, "or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."

Churchill's essay was described in an article published in the journal Nature in February 2017.

Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty

2. Khloe Kardashian

It can be hard keeping up with the Kardashians' exploits, but when it comes to aliens, at least one member of the famous family is a believer. In 2015, Khloe Kardashian saw strange lights in the sky and tweeted "Kendall and I are spazzing out!!!!!! #UFO." 

Though the U.S. Navy later said the unusual lights were part of a pre-planned missile test, Kardashian stuck to her guns.

"What do we expect people to say? Obvi they are going to say it's a meteor shower. I'm such a conspiracy theorist let me enjoy this," she responded.

Credit: Hagen Hopkins/Getty

4. Zayn Malik

Singer Zayn Malik told Glamour in July 2016 that the first time he realized he wanted to leave the boy band One Direction and go solo was after a paranormal encounter. "An alien spoke to me in a dream," he told the magazine.

Malik is in a relationship with model Gigi Hadid, who recently posed for a space-themed photo spread for Harper's Bazaar. "My boyfriend's really into aliens," Hadid told the interviewer from Harper's Bazaar during the photo shoot at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty

5. Gigi Hadid

It's always better when two people in a relationship are on the same page about important issues. For model Gigi Hadid and her boyfriend, singer Zayn Malik, their shared belief in aliens makes them a match made in … the cosmos?

In a recent, space-themed photo spread for Harper's Bazaar, Hadid posed at the controls of a spacecraft, in front of massive rockets and rocket engines, and on what's made to look like the lunar surface. In the Harper's Bazaar interview, Hadid revealed that she and Malik both believe that life exists beyond Earth.

"My boyfriend's really into aliens," she told the magazine.

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty

6. Ariana Grande

Singer Ariana Grande has described herself as "obsessed" with aliens, and in a 2013 interview with Complex magazine, the pop powerhouse said, "We'd be so stupid to believe we are the only people here." 

Grande's music video for the song "Break Free" featured her battling aliens and dancing on a spaceship. But Grande told Complex she has never seen a real extraterrestrial (though she said she did have a ghost and demon experience once at a haunted castle in Kansas City). 

Credit: 20th Century Fox

7. Ridley Scott

Film director Ridley Scott is no stranger to the concept of alien invasions and hostile encounters with extraterrestrials. His 1979 movie "Alien" explored the scary concept of an aggressive extraterrestrial that targets the crew of a spaceship. The film spawned a franchise with three sequels and two prequels, including "Alien: Covenant," which opens in theaters in the U.S. on May 19, 2017.

While promoting the new film, Scott warned that hundreds of alien species are "out there" and cautioned that humans likely won't fare well if these cosmic interlopers ever decide to pay a visit to Earth.

"If you are stupid enough to challenge them, you will be taken out in three seconds," Scott told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Credit: Araya Diaz/Getty

8. Gillian Anderson

Actress Gillian Anderson is best known for playing FBI Special Agent Dana Scully on the hit sci-fi series "The X-Files." But while Anderson spent nine seasons investigating paranormal phenomena on the small screen, does she believe in aliens in real life?

"I do to the degree that the universe is obviously vast and the thought that we are the only planet full of living beings doesn't make sense," Anderson said in an interview with The Guardian in 2012. "That doesn't necessarily mean that there are aliens, but there could be. If we're talking about an advancement of technology, that they'd be potentially further along than us is as conceivable as their existence. So I wouldn't rule it out."

Credit: Capitol Records

9. Katy Perry

In a 2014 interview with GQ, pop star Katy Perry spoke about her wide range of beliefs.

"I see everything through a spiritual lens," she told GQ. "I believe in a lot of astrology. I believe in aliens. I look up into the stars and I imagine: How self-important are we to think that we are the only life-form?"

At the time, Perry said she might even take her questions about alien life to then-President Barack Obama.

"I mean, if my relationship with Obama gets any better, I'm going to ask him that question. It just hasn't been appropriate yet."

Credit: Nicholas Hunt/Getty

10. Nick Jonas

In an interview with the British talk show "The Morning," singer Nick Jonas described his own close encounter.

"I was in my backyard in L.A., and I looked up at the sky and [saw] three flying saucers," Jonas said. "I looked at my friend and said, 'Are you seeing this or am I losing my mind?'"

Jonas said he looked online and saw three similar reports from two weeks earlier. The U.S. Navy later claimed responsibility for the seemingly out-of-this-world display, saying the lights were from a Trident missile test. But Jonas has other ideas.

"I'm obsessed with UFO stuff in general, so I'm all over this," Jonas said. "That blue light freaks me out in the best way possible."

Credit: Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty

11. William Shatner

As the most recognizable face of the "Star Trek" franchise, actor William Shatner is probably used to fielding questions about his extraterrestrial beliefs. But in a 2010 interview for Montreal Gazette, the man who brought Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise to life explained why he thinks intelligent beings must be out there.

"There is no doubt that there is life out there; the mathematics of it lead you to that absolute conclusion. In my mind, there is no doubt that the universe teems — teems! — with life in all its forms."

Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty

12. Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking has repeatedly warned that humans should be wary of contacting alien civilizations. In 2016, in a documentary called "Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places," the famed theoretical physicist said humanity may one day receive a signal from a potentially habitable alien world, such as Gliese 832c.

"But we should be wary of answering back," Hawking said in the 26-minute documentary. "Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well."

That's not the first time Hawking has expressed such a concern. In 2015, he cautioned that visiting aliens may be in search of resources to plunder, as they roam the cosmos colonizing other worlds.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach," he said in an interview with El País at the time.

Still, Hawking said it's not likely that humanity will find intelligent alien life in the next 20 years. "The probability is low, probably," said Hawking, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is paralyzed, but "speaks" with the assistance of a computer.

Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

13. Demi Lovato

During an appearance on the talk show "Late Night with Seth Myers," singer Demi Lovato insisted that aliens are real. "How self-centered would we be, as humans, to believe that we are the only living things in the universe?" she said.

23-05-2017 om 21:31 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious illuminated winged object appears after huge burst in the sky over Bundoora, Australia

On May 20, 2017 at 7.40 pm a strange event occurred in the sky over the Northern suburbs, East of Bundoora, Australia.

Images of the flash and winged object. With permission of author Brad Morris / YouTube Channel.

While using his all night camera Brad Morris recorded a huge bright flash that suddenly came out of nowhere directly followed by an unidentified illuminated winged object that then moved away at an incredibly high speed.

Brad said “It might be a meteor but it does not explain the winged object.”

However, if it was a typical meteor then it produces a streak of light, both from the glowing object and the trail of glowing particles that it leaves when it passes through the atmosphere but this is not the case here.

In this case we see a sudden burst of light from which an object emerges that then moves away at high speed before it disappears in the night sky.

Image of the winged object. With permission of author Brad Morris / YouTube Channel.

Editor’s note: Even though I have no clear answer to this strange event but could it be something that arrived through a portal from another dimension or the winged object is something that arrived via unknown Time Travel or Teleportation methods?

In the next video you can see the moment when the flash/winged object appears, including Brad’s analyze of the event.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

23-05-2017 om 20:54 geschreven door peter  

Aliens are using Free Energy similar to Tesla’s Free Energy Theory to power their UFOs?

The new documentary "Unacknowledged" was created to bring out hidden information about UFOs, alien intelligence and Free Energy covert by illegal operations within the Military-Industrial-Financial complex.

One of the secrets explored in the documentation is Tesla’s ‘Free Energy’ theory which could power manufacturing and agriculture in a clean, sustainable way, but …we do not use it!

Then WHY we not use free energy for little or no costs here on Earth?

Because free energy is suppressed by government, powerful oil corporations or advocacy groups whose business model would be threatened. Even they have suppressed, harassed or killed individuals like Thomas Henry Moray, Stanley Meyer and Eugene Mallove for their research on this issue, only to retain their dominant position.

It could also explain how UFOs travel such long distances as it is suggested the aliens use free energy for the drive of their UFOs by harnessing the space all around us that could be converted into energy needed to power the UFOs.

Just imagine how Tesla's Free Energy could have changed the World!

Below the trailer of the film ‘Unacknowledged’ and a short clip, uploaded by Inverse and taken from the documentation, in which they are talking about Tesla’s free energy theory.

  

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23-05-2017 om 20:50 geschreven door peter  

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23-05-2017 om 20:38 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Find Mysterious Magnetic ‘Bridge’ Between Galaxies

 Brett Tingley

An international team of astronomers has discovered a mysterious magnetic ‘bridge’ linking our two nearest neighboring galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) which are each close to 200,000 light-years away from Earth. The magnetic bridge stretches for over 75,000 light-years between the two galaxies and is roughly one millionth of the strength of Earth’s magnetic field.

Astronomers used the Australia Telescope Compact Array to discover the bridge.

Astronomers discovered the field, known as the Magellanic Bridge, by examining distant radio signals which switched polarity when passing between the LMC and SMC galaxies. This effect, known as Faraday rotation, happens whenever radio waves pass through a magnetic field. While such fields have long been speculated, this is the first direct observation of one. The researchers’ findings have been published in the open-source journal arXiv.org.

The presence of the field is indicated by changes in the polarities of neutral hydrogen atoms between the two galaxies.

In a press release, lead author Jane Kaczmarek from the University of Sydney states that these magnetic ‘bridges’ remain a relatively unknown astrophysical phenomenon that might help scientists understand the origins of the universe itself:

There were hints that this magnetic field might exist, but no one had observed it until now. In general, we don’t know how such vast magnetic fields are generated, nor how these large-scale magnetic fields affect galaxy formation and evolution. Understanding the role that magnetic fields play in the evolution of galaxies and their environment is a fundamental question in astronomy that remains to be answered.

The researchers speculate that such magnetic bridges might form from the leftovers of smaller galaxies as they are absorbed by larger ones, but this is still a hypothesis. Magnetic fields and magnetism throughout the universe remain somewhat of a mystery even though magnetic fields are ubiquitous in space. These fields can only be detected through their interactions with other matter or energy, making them difficult to discover.

Magnetic fields help to keep cosmic radiation at bay, but their origins remain unknown.

 TAGS: Astronomy, cosmic magnetic fields, galaxies, magnetic field, magnetic fields, origin of universe

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23-05-2017 om 20:32 geschreven door peter  

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23-05-2017 om 20:25 geschreven door peter  

23-05-2017 om 20:18 geschreven door peter  

23-05-2017 om 20:15 geschreven door peter  

The Beginning: UFO Encounters over Washington D.C. - Open Minds Magazine

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23-05-2017 om 20:08 geschreven door peter  

RESEARCHERS REVEAL A HIDDEN WORLD UNDER ANTARCTICA

There is a hidden mysterious world hidden away under Antarctica and researchers have revealed the giant wetlands that are 800 meters beneath the ice.

The Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling, or WISSARD for short, a project that was financed by National Science Foundation, has taken researchers that step nearer to discovering just what lies underneath the ice that covers the majority of Antarctica.  

LAKE WHILLANS IS UNDER 800 METERS OF ICE IN WESTERN ANTARCTICA

Reports have indicated that Lake Whillans, which was first located in 2007 and which covers more than 20 square miles, is under the 800 meters of ice that is found in Western Antarctica and researchers have said that this is very similar to the wetland. The researchers are hoping that more studies will mean they can understand better how the level of the sea rises and how the ice is behaving in response to the global warming.

RESEARCHERS ARE EXCITED ABOUT RICH DATASET OF LAKES

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Helen Amanda Fricker from Scripps Institute said that it was amazing to think that people did not know that the lake was in existence until just a decade ago. It was Fricker that had first found sub-glacial Lake Whillans from satellite data back in 2007. She went on to say that it was exciting to be able to see the lakes rich dataset and that the new data is helping them to understand the function of the lakes as a part of the ice-sheet system.

The sub-glacial Lake is fed by ice which has a small amount of seawater in it from the ancient marine sediments that are on the lakes seabed. The lake's water drains periodically into the ocean through channels that are connected to the lake, but they do not have energy enough to carry much of the sediment.

NEW DATA WILL LEAD TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF MECHANICS OF LAKE WHILLANS

Researchers have said that the new data should give them a much better understanding of the mechanics and biogeochemistry of Lake Whillans. It was also said that the data is going to help them to improve the current models and tell them more about how the sub-glacial lake systems in Antarctica interact with any ice that is underneath the surface along with the sediments that are found under it.

In January 2013 three different papers analyzed the studies following the WISSARD project having managed to drill successfully down into the sheet of ice to reach subglacial Lake Whillans, to get some samples of sediment along with water samples that had been isolated from any direct contact with the atmosphere of the Earth for many thousands of years.

The Geology and Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal published two of the more interesting of the papers. Alexander Michaud from the Montana State University and the lead author said that data had come from the 15-inch long core lake sediment so that the water chemistry along with the sediment could be characterized.

LAKE WATER MOSTLY COMES FROM MELTING ICE AT BASE COVERING LAKE

Researchers found that the water in the lake originates mostly from the melting ice at the base of the sheet that covers the sub-glacial lake and that there had been very little contribution from any seawater, trapped under the ice in the sediment during the last inter-glacial period.

A second paper had been published by lead author Timothy Hodson from the Northern Illinois University in which he along with colleagues took a look at the core sediment that had been retrieved from the lake with the hope of trying to find out more about the ice sheet and the relationship with the sediments under it and the subglacial hydrology. Their discovery found that many floods had passed through the lake but that the floods flow was lacking in energy when it came to eroding the extensive drainage channels.  

The researchers came to the conclusion that the environment underneath Antarctica is similar to that of wetlands in the coastal plain that is found in other parts on the planet. Antarctica of course, broke away from Gondwana around 25 million years ago; around 170 million years ago it had been part of the Gondwana supercontinent before breaking away.

Research shows that Antarctica has not always been the very dry and cold region that we know to be covered in sheets of ice. Throughout its long history, it was further to the north and this meant that it experienced a climate that was either tropical or temperate, which would have meant that it had been covered in forest, along with being home to many ancient life forms.  

Originally published by:

http://www.ancient-code.com/hidden-world-antarctica-researchers-reveal-lies-beneath-ice/

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23-05-2017 om 19:57 geschreven door peter  

NEW ALIEN HUNTING TELESCOPE HAS ALREADY FOUND 3 RARE MYSTERY SIGNALS

The radio telescope array, the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, was turned on just four days ago and already it has made huge leaps forward as it had found its first fast radio burst.

The radio signals are a space mystery that is unsolved, they last only milliseconds and very rarely do they repeat, which makes them extremely difficult to locate or predict. That is until the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP for short began to scan the skies. Up to now on, 23 have been located and many of them had been previously identified in data that had been recorded. 

THREE FRBS LOCATED USING JUST 8 OF 36 DISHES

The ASKAP has found not just one fast radio burst, it has located three and only eight out of the thirty-six dishes had been used. Keith Bannister from the CSIRO, leader of the research, said that with the ASKAP it is possible to find an FRB every couple of days. He went on to say that the number would increase fast now that they have got the technology working.

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In Late 2018 Bannister went on to say that the key to the discovery was the new radio telescope technology used, which has the name of phased array feed. He said that with many of the telescopes they only look at a single area of sky at any one time. The phased array feed, however, has cameras that are made up of 188 receivers and this means that the researchers are able to look at a region of sky that is 240 square degrees by pointing the dishes in different directions. The researchers hail from the Curtin University along with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.

SQUARE KILOMETER ARRAY COMING IN 2020 MADE OF THOUSANDS OF DISHES

Thanks to the wide field of view the ASKAP and the Square Kilometer Array, which is said to be revealed in 2020 and which is made up of thousands of dishes, it has an edge on the detection of FRBs.

HUGE APPLICATIONS FOR NEW TELESCOPE

The new telescope has huge applications from astronomers from all over the globe. The first of which are the statistics of the population of the FRB, the ratio of the signals that are bright to the ones that are faint. It will be able to help to show if the FRBs are close by or whether they have been affected by the universe`s age. Another factor is that the team is going to add in an extra mode to try to help to pinpoint with far more accuracy just where the FRBs come from, which may help to explain why they occur.

NO THEORIES BEHIND WHAT HAS BEEN OBSERVED

Bannister said that at the moment there is no theory that has been able to explain what they have observed. He went to say that in order to make a fast radio burst and make it visible, it has to be extremely bright as it has come from a long way away. With arriving from so far away the biggest question is how something can make something as bright so that it can be seen from such a distance.

Bannister does have some ideas; he said that there are some things that do generate emissions that are similar, pulsars and magnetars, for example. However, these cannot be detected in other galaxies. But they have detected FBRs and he said that they thought they did come from other galaxies. This leads the researchers to think that it was not due to magnetars or pulsars that are normally seen and if it is not these then what could it be.

The first FRB that was found had the name of FRB170107 and it has been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The other two have not yet been published, but they along with others are coming said, Bannister. He said that this is just the star for the ASKAP and it should give a lot more during the next 12 months.  

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23-05-2017 om 19:42 geschreven door peter  

THE GREAT COSMIC WEB HAS BEEN FOUND: ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED

There has been a long hypothesized theory by scientists that a connection called the Magellanic Bridge, a huge stream of neutral gas that stretches around 75,000 light years, is in existence between the two closest galactic neighbors of our galaxy, the large and small Magellanic Clouds.

HINTS OF MAGNETIC FIELD THAT UP TO NOW HAS NOT BEEN SEEN  

Now there has been confirmation of the Magellanic Bridge by way of research from the University of Toronto and the University of Sydney. Jane Kaczmarek, the lead researcher for the University of Toronto, said that there had been hints that the magnetic field does exist but up until now it has not been seen by anyone.

She went on to say that the radio emission from the galaxies in the distance served as flashlights in the background that shine on the Bridge. She went on to say that the magnetic field changes its polarization of the radio signal and how the light that has been polarized is changed has told the researchers about the magnetic field that is intervening.

FIELD IS A MILLION TIMES THE STRENGTH OF SHIELD SURROUNDING EARTH

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Researchers have found that the field is around one million times stronger than the magnetic shield that is surrounding Earth. However, just how the connection came to be, or whether it was ripped from the interaction between the two dwarf galaxies is not known.  

Kaczmarek said that researchers do not understand how such large magnetic fields can be generated, or how the large scale magnetic fields are able to affect the formation or evolution of the galaxy. The LMC along with the SMC are the closest neighbors, so being able to understand just how they have evolved might be able to help researchers understand just how the Milky Way Galaxy is going to evolve.

THE SKY IS FULL OF MAGNETISM

The entire galaxies are said to be magnetic, along with this faint, delicate threads that are joining the galaxies are also magnetic. Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and co-author of the paper, Prof. Bryan Gaensler said that wherever they look into the sky, there is magnetism.  

Electric currents produce magnetism, and a magnet is able to produce an electric current. Every electron in all of the atoms is surrounded by an electric field. It is when the electron moves that a magnetic field is created, just like on Earth along with all the other celestial bodies.

It was said that in order for the Theory of Relativity to work a constant had to be created and that medium would be made up of many electrons and positrons. It was said that this is why the God Particle, Higgs Boson, is as important as it is. The discovery of it confirmed that there was a Higgs field, an infinite energy field extending through the universe.

The universe is not simply an empty vacuum of space; in fact, we are existing in an electric universe.  

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23-05-2017 om 19:30 geschreven door peter  

Did UFOs cause Marilyn Monroe's death? Documentary claims proof

File photo: The official poster of the 65th Cannes Film Festival featuring U.S. actress Marilyn Monroe is seen on the facade of the Festival Palace in Cannes May 14, 2012. (REUTERS/Eric Gaillard)

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23-05-2017 om 19:12 geschreven door peter  

Alien base in the Antarctic? ET hunter claims this is a crashed UFO at the South Pole

THIS dark object poking out of snow and ice in the Antarctic is the tip of a 1,900-ft UFO, it has extraordinarily been claimed.

23-05-2017 om 19:08 geschreven door peter