Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
30-05-2017
The Coventry UFO 'sightings' reported to police - from bright lights to glowing rockets
The Coventry UFO 'sightings' reported to police - from bright lights to glowing rockets
Coventry has been a hotbed of potential UFO sightings over the years
Twelve UFO sightings have been reported to West Midlands Police in the past four years, new figures show.
But the worried callers will have to wait a while longer to find out if we really are alone in the universe because none of the calls were investigated by officers.
The witness said: “I went for a short walk around 8.15pm behind my accommodation, i.e. Heronbank West, Heronbank, University of Warwick.
“While coming back, I happened to look at this glowing (because of the flame) cylindrical type object in the sky, steering upwards in a somewhat fast motion.
“I was able to take a picture of it. But when I started taking a video, my phones battery died. My first reaction to that was ‘clearly it’s not a shooting star’.
“It could be a rocket launch though. After gazing at it for about a minute, I walked inside my accommodation building.”
On May 13, another spotter saw seven circular objects above the city through binoculars - they then drew them out for Mufon.
Another sighting - again in Coventry - on March 15 involved ‘two bright lights which were ellipses initially but became circles’.
The witness reported: “I was standing outside work having just finished a shift. A storm had just passed over and a beautiful rainbow was showing. I was taking photos of the rainbow and didn’t actually notice the lights in the frame.
“I took a series of photos to catch as much of the rainbow as I could but after transferring to a memory chip I put them away and forgot about them. I was sorting through old memory chips a few days ago when I found these photos.
“The first one showed a couple of ellipses with what appeared to be a solid centre. This was at 15.24 GMT. The next photo showed two large balls of light low to the ground and apparently in front of the lamp post.
“The time of the photo was also 15.24 so the lights had moved very quickly.”
Residents of Nottingham, England were awoken over the weekend to a mysterious noise which seemed to emanate directly from the sky. The sound occurred throughout the night and early morning hours on May 27 and 28 and could be heard throughout the city center and surrounding suburbs. Mystified townsfolk described the sound as a “roaring” or “whooshing” sound and took to Twitter to express their shock and awe:
It sounds like the war of the worlds in Nottingham at the moment. Unknown catastrophically loud noise every two minutes.
Nottingham local Hayley Compton told the BBC that the noise was similar to a giant flame in the sky:
For the last two mornings, I’ve heard a series of noises outside my house in Wollaton which sounds like a giant blowtorch. We went outside and it was really loud, I looked up into the sky expecting either to see flames or a very close aircraft of some sort.
Nottingham police received dozens of similar reports about the noises but have yet to identify their source. On Reddit’s Nottingham subreddit, users began speculating what the source of the sound might be. Some of the more popular theories included UFOs, (naturally), noises generated by industrial machines at nearby factories, or even a hot air balloon. However, the frequency of the noise and timing would suggest that it’s probably not the latter.
There are a few factories nearby, but so far none have come forward as the source of the sounds.
Meanwhile, similar noises were heard around the same time in nearby Derbyshire. With all of the unexplained and strange aerial phenomena being reported in the UK lately, these noises shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sure, there’s likely a prosaic origin of these sightings and sounds involving heavy industry, military testing or the like, but for now, these occurrences all add up to one big English mystery.
Face to face ontmoetingen met aliens zijn een feit. Lees dit bizarre verhaal van een betrouwbare bron
Face to face ontmoetingen met aliens zijn een feit. Lees dit bizarre verhaal van een betrouwbare bron
De Canadese oud-minister van Defensie Paul Hellyer probeert mensen ervan bewust te maken dat we niet alleen zijn en dat er sprake is van een buitenaardse aanwezigheid.
Of zoals voormalig astronaut en Princeton-professor wijlen Brian O’Leary zei: “Er is overvloedig bewijs dat we worden bezocht.”
Waarom worden de uitspraken van dergelijke prominente figuren niet breed uitgemeten in de media?
Eerste
Er zijn inmiddels vele honderden hooggeplaatste militairen, politici en wetenschappers geweest die hetzelfde hebben gezegd als Hellyer.
In 1989 haalden UFO-landingen het NOS Journaal nog. Daarna werden mensen die in UFO’s geloven plotseling gekkies genoemd. Wat is er veranderd?
Hellyer was de eerste minister van een zittende regering van een G8-land die zich openlijk uitsprak over het onderwerp. In onderstaand interview met Motherboard doet hij zijn verhaal.
‘Elk woord klopt’
De oud-minister was in eerste instantie sceptisch, tot hij het boek The Day After Roswell van kolonel Philip Corso besloot te lezen.
Hellyer nam contact op met een gepensioneerde generaal van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht om te kijken of het boek echt was of op fictie berustte.
De niet met naam genoemde generaal zei: “Elk woord klopt en meer nog dan dat.”
Face to face ontmoetingen
Hij zei dat er face to face ontmoetingen zijn geweest tussen Amerikaanse functionarissen en buitenaardsen uit andere zonnestelsels.
The UK is no stranger to crop circle formations. Four more incredible designs have popped up this week with the first design being discovered on the 21st of May in the county of Wiltshire.
The circles were documented via drone footage, thanks to Matthew Williams, via Crop Circle Connector, a website dedicated to documenting crop circle formations all over the world.
Check out the video below for a look at the crop circles.
What could these formations be? Is it depicting some sort of eclipse or celestial event? To look deeper into the subject, this documentary is a great place to start. Keep in mind that there are also many hoaxes out there, clearly the work of a bunch of pranksters. But we shouldn’t let that fact take away from the fact that there have been hundreds of documented formations that are so complex and so unbelievable in their nature that they’ve been subject to scrutiny at the highest levels of science. (See below) Whether or not these particular ones are real or fake should not detract from that fact, and this article is being used to create more awareness about a very real phenomenon that’s been happening for a long time.
According to coasttocaostam.com, “this particular formation, one of the four, appears to depict a solar eclipse and bears a striking resemblance to a 2004 design that also showed such a celestial event…Intriguingly, much like how the 2017 crop circle predates this summer’s solar eclipse by three months, so too did the 2004 formation.”
You can find links and footage to the designs here.
The video footage below is extraordinary, especially with regards to the close up footage where you can the pattern in which the crop has been pushed down, (using some form of heating method, more on that later in the article).
What’s Really Going On Here?
Again, some of these formations are so complex, precise and mind-altering that everyone has taken notice, including the academic world. For example, professor Richard Taylor, who is the director of the Materials Science Institute at the University of Oregon, has suggested that the circles are created using magnetrons, which are found in microwave ovens, or similar technology to complete their detailed patterns in a couple of hours.
What do you expect from the mainstream? Just look at the images in the above video, for example. Do you really think that hoaxers could be out in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night, going completely unseen and leaving no tracks of entrance or escape, with only a few hours, is possible?
The people responsible must have a tremendous amount of resources, people, and money at their disposal, not to mention the skills necessary to make such a large and mathematically perfect design. This is why Taylor believes that “crop circle artists are not going to give up their secrets easily.” He believes that unknown artists are venturing “into the countryside close to your homes” to “carry out their craft, safe in the knowledge that they are continuing the legacy of the most science-oriented art movement in history.”
He published those words in an August 2011 edition in Physics World, and it’s not hard to see why he feels this way. These designs are truly jaw dropping.
Lab Studies
The formations have also been studied in a laboratory setting, and some have indicated that the nodes of some of the stalks were blasted out on one side. It’s not conclusively known how this was done, but the effect has been replicated by highly localized microwave heating. This type of technique causes water inside to vaporize and dislodge. As a result, the stock flops completely over to one side. You can refer to this article for more information about that, and to view some other formations.
One source for this information comes from one of the worlds leading UFO researchers Richard Dolan. It’s also again shown by Taylor and his microwave theory, as well as other scientists who have published results showing strange heating occurrences that some have brushed off as light phenomena.
“There is a mounting body of evidence that suggests that a rare form of electromagnetic energy called an ionised plasma vortex (generally known as ball lighting) is involved.” – Greg Jefferys, historian. (source)
This explanation was originally offered by physicist Dr. Terence Meadon, who believed that these patterns were the result of atmospheric phenomena. He suggested that wind currents and ionized plasmas are the culprit. But given what we now know about the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon, the extraterrestrial hypothesis is very plausible.
Clearly something very sophisticated is going on here.
What On Earth?
What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery, winner of the Best Feature Documentary Award from the UFO Film Congress, is filled with stunning imagery of the circles. It deals with how our scientific materialistic worldview hampers serious investigation of one of the greatest mysteries of our time, and the many indications that the phenomenon is not a human perpetration. It goes on to speculate about what would happen if it were ascertained that the circles do indeed come from another intelligence, whether that be a civilization or something different — how that would help us think as a planet, which would give us our best chance to solve the pressing global problems that challenge us now.
The film was released in 2009. If you’re interested you can find out more about it here.
If you want to view our latest articles on the UFO/ET phenomenon, please click here.
Below is a short segment from the Thrive documentary, which now has more than 100 million views worldwide.
Vier bijzondere graancirkels ontdekt. Kijk hier naar deze unieke dronevideo
Vier bijzondere graancirkels ontdekt. Kijk hier naar deze unieke dronevideo
In Groot-Brittannië zijn vorige week vier indrukwekkende graancirkels verschenen. De eerste werd op 21 mei ontdekt in het graafschap Wiltshire.
De formaties zijn door Matthew Williams van Crop Circle Connector, een website die melding maakt van graancirkels van over de hele wereld, in beeld gebracht met een drone.
De eerste formatie lijkt een zonsverduistering uit te beelden en vertoont opvallende gelijkenissen met een graancirkel uit 2004 die hetzelfde fenomeen leek te tonen, schrijft Coast to Coast AM.
Pendel
De nieuwe formatie is net als de graancirkel in 2004 precies drie maanden voor een zonsverduistering verschenen, aldus de site.
De tweede formatie werd op 22 mei ontdekt in Dorset en de derde, die op 25 mei verscheen, lijkt op patronen die eerder dit jaar zijn gevonden. De vierde graancirkel werd ook op 25 mei gemeld.
Bekijk hieronder de derde formatie:
Tijdreizen
Horace Drew, die jarenlang voor het Australische wetenschappelijke instituut CSIRO werkte, doet al bijna een kwart eeuw onderzoek naar graancirkels.
Dr. Drew claimt dat graancirkels worden gemaakt door aliens of tijdreizigers.
Volgens hem zijn een aantal van deze formaties echt en bevatten ze puzzels die kunnen worden gelinkt aan tijdreizen en buitenaards leven.
Drew zei dat aliens of tijdreizigers graancirkels achterlaten op aarde als boodschappen ‘voor ons of voor zichzelf’.
De buitenste planeet van het stelsel TRAPPIST-1, dat mogelijk leven kan herbergen, draait in negentien dagen rond haar moederster. Dit heeft een internationaal team van wetenschappers, ook van de Luikse universiteit, berekend.
Begin dit jaar stond de wetenschappelijke wereld in rep en roer toen bleek dat er rond dwergster TRAPPIST-1, veertig lichtjaar van ons, zelfs zeven aardeachtige planeten wentelen, een groter aantal dan elders (buiten ons stelsel). Zes daarvan hebben de omvang van onze aarde, en drie een vergelijkbare temperatuur.
Van zes van de zeven was de tijd die zij nodig hebben om een volledige omloop rond de ster te maken, reeds bekend. Maar volgens een communiqué van de Universiteit van Bern bleef men in het ongewisse over de omlooptijd van de buitenste, TRAPPIST-1H.
Maar onlangs gaf het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbureau NASA ruwe data vrij van de expoplanetenjager die de Keplertelescoop is. Onder meer een team van de universiteit van Bern en collega's van onder andere de Universiteit van Luik, stortten zich razendsnel op de tussen december en maart vergaarde gegevens.
-100 graden Niettegenstaande de Kepler niet werkt zoals het hoort, slaagden de wetenschappers er toch snel in de data te ijken. Er was maar één resultaat mogelijk: TRAPPIST-1H draait in 18,764 dagen rond de ster die veel kleiner en kouder is dan onze zon. Terwijl de exoplaneet een iets kleinere straal dan de aarde heeft, bedraagt de temperatuur minus 100 graden.
Voorts bleek, volgens een publicatie in Nature Astronomy, dat de zeven planeten als een "halsketting" rond de ster zijn gealigneerd, en interageren. De dwergster zelf draait in 3,3 dagen rond haar as, en lijkt iets ouder dan voorheen aangenomen.
TRAPPIST is een programma dat op gang is gebracht door Michaël Gillon van de Universiteit van Luik (ULG) en Didier Queloz van de Universiteit van Genève. Gillon behoorde ook tot het Luikse team dat de Kepler-data uitwerkte, samen met Catarina Fernandes, Valérie Van Grootel, Emmanuël Jehin en Pierre Magain.
Een grote openstaande vraag is de samenstelling van de atmosfeer van de planeten rond TRAPPIST-1. Een antwoord kan komen van de opvolger van de Hubble-telescoop, de James Webb, die na jarenlang uitstel eind volgend jaar de ruimte zou ingaan. Dan kan ook duidelijk worden of er op de planeten water- of andere moleculen zijn die leven mogelijk maken.
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THERE HAD IN FACT BEEN FACE TO FACE MEETINGS WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS FROM OTHER STAR SYSTEMS
THERE HAD IN FACT BEEN FACE TO FACE MEETINGS WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS FROM OTHER STAR SYSTEMS
The former Minister of Defence in Canada, Paul Hellyer, has come forward to talk about the fact that aliens do exist and humans are not alone. He also went on to say that the nations on Earth have identified an extra-terrestrial presence.
RELIABLE SOURCE REVEALS THERE HAVE BEEN ALIEN FACE TO FACE MEETINGS
It may be easy to scoff at the words of the Minister of Defence in Canada and class him as being plain crazy. However, Dr. Brian O`Leary, the ex-astronaut, and physics professor have made it clear in the past that there is lots of evidence of aliens having visited Earth.
HIGH RANKING PEOPLE, MILITARY, POLICE, AND ACADEMIA KNOW ABOUT ALIEN EXISTENCE
The doctor went on to say that many high ranking people in the police, military, and academia are coming forward to reveal that aliens do in fact exist. Hellyer is not alone in his thinking and beliefs; he is among the many who roam among the highest levels of defense and government.
A five-star admiral of the Royal Navy and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee said that there is a serious possibility that Earth has been visited for many years by people from other planets and it should not be the subject of rubbishing by tabloid newspapers, but it should be scientifically investigated.
HELLYER IS FIRST AMONG G8 COUNTRIES TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT ALIENS
Hellyer held an interview recently, and he gave details about personal happenings that had involved him along with his nephew. Bear in mind that many high ranking individuals from Defence Ministers to Presidents and all made statements about aliens that have been eye opening. Hellyer is among the first to have spoken up from the G8 countries of the cabinet.
He talked about a conversation that he had with his nephew about the book along with having another conversation with a general of the United States Air Force, in which the general had said that every word of the existence of aliens was true.
OFFICIALS OF US HAD MEETINGS WITH ALIENS FROM OTHER STAR SYSTEMS
Hellyer said that he had called the general on the phone and even before he had been able to identify himself and greet the general, he had said that every word was true and more. He went on to say that there had even been meetings between officials of the United States and aliens from other star systems.
More and more credible people are now coming forward to spread the word to the public, they are not talking about alien movies, they are talking about the real world, a world in which aliens really do exist and have existed on Earth for some time.
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CHINA JUST RELEASED NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN HD IMAGES OF THEIR 2013 MOON LANDING
CHINA JUST RELEASED NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN HD IMAGES OF THEIR 2013 MOON LANDING
Chinese lunar mission has discovered new form of space rock.
The Chinese space agency’s Chang’e 3 lander have made an incredible discovery on the surface of the Moon. In its travels across the lunar surface, the highly advanced lunar lander managed to discover a new type of moon rock which has never been accessed by human beings before. Furthermore, the high-resolution camera capabilities of the lander have managed to capture thousands of astonishing images of the Moon that allows people on Earth to see the natural satellite in its full, bleak glory.
The Chinese launched the Chang’e 3 lander in 2013 and directed it to land in the region known as the Mare Imbrium on the lunar surface. This area was of particular interest to the Chinese scientists as it is believed that water could have once existed in this region of the Moon. The lander explored the region and took thousands of impressive images. Despite the fact that the images were all amassed during 2013, they were not released to the general public until 2015.
Since the images were released, Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society has been meticulously trawling through the immense haul of images in order to present them to the general public in an easily accessible and downloadable way. She said that the Chinese were fairly open about sharing their data from the lunar mission and it was easy for her to access the images as they use the same system as NASA and the European Space Agency. However, she said that her task was made quite difficult as she cannot read Mandarin.
The images have generated a great deal of excitement in the scientific community, particularly the ones which depict the newly discovered form of space rock which was not discovered by American or Russian missions to the lunar surface. “China is trying to reach the top tier and show that they’re a major space power, ” said Kevin Pollpete who is a Defense Group, Inc. Analyst affiliated with the University of California in San Diego. “They’re also contributing real knowledge about the moon that we haven’t been able to get before.”
The Chang’e 3 lander is still functional today, but the Chinese have even more ambitious plans when it comes to exploring the lunar surface. In 2017, the Chinese plan to send another lander to the Moon which will collect and return lunar samples to Earth. It is hoped that these missions will expand the bank of knowledge regarding the geology of the Moon. It is also hoped that the missions may even give scientists an inkling about the origin of the natural satellite which has always been a great scientific mystery.
STRANGE STATUE DEPICTING AN ALIEN UNEARTHED IN MEXICO
STRANGE STATUE DEPICTING AN ALIEN UNEARTHED IN MEXICO
One ancient civilization that is the most fascinating is found within the American Continent, and it has been from here that some myths and legends that are the most mysterious and strange have come from.
The Mayan civilization was well known for the huge cities that they built along with erecting some structures of monolithic proportions back in ancient times. A lot of the treasures left behind by the Mayans still hold a great deal of mystery.
MAYAN STATUE SHOWS ALIEN HEAD LOOKS LIKE GREY ALIEN
One of the most recent of findings has been that of an ancient statute that has the looks of an Alien humanoid that is holding a human head. This strange statue was found by public workers in Mexico in the Maxtaloyan community while improvement work was being undertaken. The statue seems to show a snake that is surrounding a figure and at the top, there is a head that looks to be the face of a Grey alien or perhaps a reptilian entity.
It was said that perhaps the statue is a representation of a God that the Mayans worshiped during that time, perhaps with an origin that is extra-terrestrial and that the head may be a symbol of aliens being above humans as creators.
STATUE DATES BACK TO MAYAN CULTURE DURING 400AD
The discovery of the statue has been said to be an important piece in the Mayan culture, and it is thought that it perhaps dates back to 400AD. The head of the statue was pointed out to have oval eyes, and the statue has four inlays of semi-precious stones, including jade, obsidian, turquoise and shell. The discovery of the statue is said to be a fundamental sample of culture from the Mayan period. It has been suggested that more pieces of the same type may be found in the region during construction works and experts are going to be monitoring the work as it takes place.
PRE-HISPANIC SETTLEMENT MAY BE LOST IF VOLCANO ERUPTS
The director of the museum that is housing the statue is worried that the nearby volcano could erupt and possibly bury forever an entire pre-Hispanic settlement. More than 5,000 important pieces have been located up to now throughout several parts in the municipality, all of which have been put on display in the museum.
Experts at the museum are still unsure of what the new statue is meant to represent, but several theories have arisen from those who have managed to get a glimpse of the statue at the museum. Many have said that the statue clearly shows a Grey alien with a long head and oval shaped eyes, holding a human head, while others have said that the statue may represent an alien deity.
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CLOSE ENCOUNTER -Nasa admits its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter collided with a UFO – but aliens were NOT to blame
CLOSE ENCOUNTER -Nasa admits its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter collided with a UFO – but aliens were NOT to blame
American space boffins claim to have worked out what caused a very unusual glitch in a spacecraft which monitors the lunar surface
By Jasper Hamill
NASA has admitted that one of its spaceships was struck by an unidentified flying object travelling as fast as a speeding bullet.
In October 2014, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was hit by a tiny object – but lived to tell the tale.
An artist’s impression of Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The collision caused a strange glitch in the LRO’s cameras (which you can see in the picture below), causing it to produce images showing “jagged patterns”.
However, Nasa thinks “a small natural meteorite” was to blame for the collision.
This is the strange image snapped after a meteorite smashed into Nasa’s lunar probe
Mark Robinson, a professor at Arizona State University’s school of earth and space exploration, said: “LROC was struck and survived to keep exploring the moon.”
He suggested a tiny meteorite hit the space probe, knocking its cameras so they produced a “wild and jittery” image of the moon’s surface.
“The meteoroid was travelling much faster than a speeding bullet,” Robinson added.
“In this case, LROC did not dodge a speeding bullet, but rather survived a speeding bullet!”
“Since the impact presented no technical problems for the health and safety of the instrument, the team is only now announcing this event as a fascinating example of how engineering data can be used, in ways not previously anticipated, to understand what is happing to the spacecraft over 236,000 miles from the Earth,” said John Keller, LRO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
As a (kind of) follow-up to my article on the controversy surrounding Marilyn Monroe, UFOs, and a questionable document, there is the matter of an equally controversial document that concerns the famous December 1980 UFO event at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England. The most widely accepted scenario within the UFO research community is that extraterrestrials landed/manifested in those dark woods in late December. There is talk of a small, intelligently controlled vehicle moving through the trees, of lights beaming down to a weapons-storage area in the vicinity, of bizarre activity in the woods, and of strange, dwarfish entities seen at close quarters.
Rendlesham Forest alleged UFO landing site
There is, however, absolutely no doubt at all that this particular document is completely and utterly bogus. I mention it, though, in the event that it might catch your attention and provoke a “WTF?!” response. The document is actually a letter, written on British Ministry of Defense paperwork and is undated. It reads (without interruption) as follows:
QUOTE: “Dear [Deleted], As you know, OSI has completed a report on the landing of a craft of unknown origin crewed by several entities near RAF Bentwaters on the night of December 29/30 1980. Interestingly, OSI reports that the entities were approximately 1 1/2 metres tall, wore what appeared to be nylon-coated pressure suits, but no helmets. Conditions on the night were misty, giving the appearance that the entities were hovering above ground level.
“Tape recordings were made on which the entities are heard to speak in an electronically synthesized version of English, with a strong American accent. Similar transmissions intercepted (possible word omitted) irregularly by NSA since 1975. According to OSI, entities had claw-like hands with three digits and an opposable thumb. Despite original reports, OSI said the craft was not damaged but landed deliberately as part of a series of visits to SAC bases in USA and Europe. Reports that craft was repaired by US servicemen or was taken on to the base are not confirmed by OSI.
“Landing is not considered a Defence issue in view of the overt peaceful nature of the contact, but investigations by DS8 are to be continued on [Deleted] authority. Precautionary plan for counter-information at a local level involving [Deleted] and a [Deleted] is strongly recommended.” END OF QUOTE
Well, that’s quite a story! But, a story is all it is.
The document was reproduced in the 1986 paperback edition of a book on the Rendlesham Forest affair titled Sky Crash. The authors were Brenda Butler, Dot Street, and Jenny Randles. In their book, the authors note that the “memo” – sent to the team as a photocopy – was received in early 1984. They added that, “We have investigated it…and our conclusion is that it is a deliberate fake by certain parties, whose identities are strongly suspected by us.” They concluded: “This hoax has clearly been planned to test us or, more likely, to impugn our credibility should we fall for the trick. We call their bluff.”
I recall how several colleagues in Ufology, in the 1990s, sent copies of the “document” to the British Ministry of Defense, asking for an opinion on it. MoD staff did not avoid commenting on it. They were careful to make it very clear that it was what it really is: a hoax. Ironically, because copies of the document were sent to the MoD for comment, they ended up in the MoD’s “Rendlesham File.” And when, years later, that same “Rendlesham File” was finally declassified, people who accessed it saw the fake document in the file! I know from emails I got at the time, that this created a few issues for people who assumed the document was the real deal! It is, perhaps, for this very reason that I know some people still hang onto the possibility that the document is genuine. But, trust me, it ain’t.
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The Most Interesting Science News Articles of the Week
The Most Interesting Science News Articles of the Week
By Live Science Staff
Each week we uncover the most interesting and informative articles from around the world, here are 10 of the coolest stories in science this week.
Mysterious monuments
Archaeologists in England discovered a Neolithic earthwork and burial site that could date back to 2000 B.C.
Credit: Archaeology Warwickshire
A 4,000-year-old henge monument, containing five well-preserved human burials, has been discovered in England, archaeologists announced.
Archaeologists still debate the purpose and the origin of henges, but researchers know that the earthworks started showing up in the British Isles in the third and early second millennia B.C. Most of these monuments contain no traces of everyday activity, and some feature burials or are aligned with cosmic phenomena. So, some researchers believe henges must have had some sort of ceremonial or ritual significance. [Read more about the henge monument.]
2017 hurricanes
The Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite captured this image of Hurricane Matthew at 11:13 p.m. ET on Oct. 6 (03:15 GMT on Oct. 7) as it approached Florida. The thermal infrared image shows the temperature at the top of the hurricane.
Credit: ESA
Stock up on emergency supplies and get those galoshes ready — this year's hurricane season is likely to be a big one.
This year, there is a 45 percent chance of an above-normal season, a 35 percent chance of a near-normal season and just a 20 percent chance of below-normal activity, NOAA reported. [Read more about the upcoming season.]
Expanded boundaries
A scene from the virtual reality experience showing vikings repairing their boats at the camp.
Credit: University of Sheffield
A spot in England where thousands of Viking warriors and their families spent their winter months was bigger than most contemporary English towns.
"These extraordinary images offer a fascinating snapshot of life at a time of great upheaval in Britain," University of York archaeologist Julian Richards said in a statement. [Read more about the Viking wanderings.]
Mysterious cosmic object
An artist's illustration of Boyajian's star, which experiences unexplained changes in brightness. One hypothesis is that a planet has broken up around the star, and the debris is block the star's light.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The perplexing cosmic object known as "Boyajian's star" is once again exhibiting a mysterious pattern of dimming and brightening that scientists have tried to explain with hypotheses ranging from swarms of comets to alien megastructures.
The brightness changes exhibited by Boyajian don't show the kind of regularity that is typical of a planet's orbit around its star, and scientists can't see how the changes could be explained by a system of planets. [Read more about the dimming star.]
Sad state
Four baby squirrels get their tails tangled in Bangor, Maine.
Credit: A Day/YouTube
A quartet of adorable baby squirrels recently got into quite a sticky predicament.
Andrew Day saw the ensemble of squirrels hobbling across the grass with their tails fused "like a giant dreadlock, Day told The Bangor Daily News. After capturing a video of the odd scene, Day took the squirrels to a veterinarian, who liberated them. [Read more about the cute squirrels.]
ER and Drugs
Alcohol and marijuana may be the most commonly used recreational drugs in the world, but "magic" mushrooms appear to be the safest, a new survey finds.
The Global Drug Survey is a London-based research group that's focused on making drug use safer. The results of the 2017 survey were published today (May 24) and included responses from more than 115,000 people from 50 countries. [Read more about the ratings.]
Test success
At a mammoth 302 feet (92 meters) long, the blimp-like Airlander 10 is the largest aircraft currently flying.
Credit: Hybrid Air Vehicles
It's a plane, it's a blimp … it's the world's largest aircraft.
On May 10, the Airlander 10 flew for a total of 180 minutes to test the aircraft's handling, improved landing technology and more, according to Hybrid Air Vehicles. This was only the third flight of the Airlander 10. It first debuted as HAV-304, and successfully flew in 2012 as part of the U.S. Army’s Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle program. The reimagined and modified Airlander 10 made its maiden voyage in August 2016, kicking off a flight test program to assess the aircraft's performance and attempting to fly the airship farther away from its base in Cardington, England. [Read more about the large craft.]
Genetic intelligence
A new study finds 52 genes that are related to intelligence — a rousing success in a field that has often struggled to find correlations between smarts and genes.
These genes "are basically a tip of the iceberg," Posthuma told Live Science. "But there are still a lot more genes that are important for intelligence." [Read more about intelligence genes.]
Deadly outbreak
An illustration of Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria that produces the neurotoxin linked to botulism.
Credit: royaltystockphoto.com/Shutterstock
A botulism outbreak has killed one man and sickened nine other people who ate nacho cheese sauce contaminated with the toxic bacterial protein. Heath officials traced the outbreak to a gas station in California's Sacramento County.
The toxin blocks nerve messages, which, in turn, causes people to lose control of their muscles, Chapman told Live Science. For instance, people who have consumed the toxin may have trouble swallowing, droopy eyelids and difficulty breathing, he said. [Read more about the tainted cheese.]
Healthy babies
Mouse pups derived from sperm that was freeze-dried and stored on the International Space Station for nine months.
Credit: Wakayama et al./PNAS
Mouse sperm preserved on the International Space Station for nine months gave rise to healthy pups, a new study reveals.
This work also raises the possibility of a "doomsday vault" for sperm in space that could help preserve animal species from disasters on Earth, much as the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, does for plant species. The sperm-vault idea is similar to one depicted in a novel by the author of "A Game of Thrones," scientists added. [Read more about the mouse sperm.]
The south pole of Jupiter is seen from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers) in this enhanced color mosaic of images from NASA's JunoCam. Cyclones up to 600 miles wide (1,000 km) are visible.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles SCOTT BOLTON - 3
Juno gets a first look at Jupiter's marvelous poles, the world's largest (current) aircraft goes for a spin, Earth science loses on the proposed NASA budget and two astronauts perform an urgent spacewalk — it's Space.com's top news stories of the week.
Jupiter whirls
The first science results from NASA's Juno probe reveal huge cyclones raging near Jupiter's north and south poles and the workings of is spectacular auroras. Juno is the first spacecraft to get a close look the planet's beautiful and bizarre poles. [Full Story: Mysteries at Jupiter: NASA's Juno Probe Reveals Cyclones, Auroras & Surprises]
Astronauts kept freeze-dried mouse sperm on the International Space Station for nine months — and when brought back to Earth it gave rise to healthy pups. [Full Story: Freeze-Dried Space Sperm Gives Rise to Healthy Baby Mice]
After a computer relay box malfunctioned, NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer went out for a quickly-planned spacewalk to replace the failed part. (Don't worry, a backup took over in the meantime.) Whitson built the replacement from spare parts aboard the International Space Station. [Full Story: Astronauts Restore Space Station to Full Health in Quick Repair Spacewalk]
Clash of the dwarfs
New research suggests that most of the Milky Way's antimatter could come from the collision of two special kinds of white dwarfs — the Earth-size cores of dead stars. [Full Story: Supernova Face-Off May Solve 40-Year-Old Antimatter Mystery]
Mammoth flier success
A massive blimp-like aircraft called the Airlander 10 successfully flew for 180 minutes and landed, testing its improved landing technology and handling. It's the third test flight for the world's largest aircraft currently flying, which is designed to stay in the air for up to 5 days at a time with people on board. [World's Largest Aircraft Completes Successful Test Flight]
Earth science nix
The White House's official 2018 budget request curtails five NASA Earth-science missions, including the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem satellite; the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 experiment; the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory Pathfinder; the Earth-viewing instruments aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft and, now, the Radiation Budget Experiment. [Full Story: Trump's 2018 Budget Request Axes 5 NASA Earth-Science Missions]
The Cassini spacecraft has seen Saturn through the seasons as the planet has orbited the sun, watching its dramatic changes. Now, it's finally the planet's solstice and the end of the spacecraft's second extended mission — just in time for its Sept. 15 Grand Finale dive into the planet's atmosphere. [Full Story: Saturn Solstice: Cassini Gets 'Ringside Seat' to Dramatic Seasonal Changes]
Listening in
The world's most sensitive dark matter detector, XENON1T, has gone online deep beneath a mountain in Italy, completing a 30-day science run hunting for the minuscule fireworks that could be caused by a certain type of dark matter ramming into a xenon atom inside the detector. [Full Story: The World's Most Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Is Now Up and Running]
It's a Phantom
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Boeing to build the U.S. military's new XS-1 space plane. The plane, called the Phantom Express, is designed to launch to the edge of space to deploy a second stage rocket, which would deposit a satellite in orbit. [Full Story: US Military's XS-1 Space Plane Will Be Built by Boeing (Video)]
Should We Try to Colonize Other Worlds or Stay and Fix Earth?
Should We Try to Colonize Other Worlds or Stay and Fix Earth?
As NASA continues to make incredible discoveries about nearby exoplanets, or planets outside of our solar system, it’s easy to wonder “what if?”
What if we made successful manned missions to those planets? What if there was life on any of those planets, and we could make contact? These questions have driven astronomers and science fiction enthusiasts alike for countless years. And, as planning for manned missions to Mars and the search for extraterrestrial life continue, these questions become more relevant than ever.
However, putting aside all the excitement generated by space exploration, it’s important to ask not only if we can, but if we should. According to acclaimed science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, sending humans to nearby exoplanets would be a terrible idea. To discuss his opinions the best way he knew how, Robinson expressed himself in his 2015 novel “Aurora.” In this book, Robinson imagines a capsule-type human society that takes an extended journey to a nearby star on a large vessel built to sustain human, plant, and animal life for centuries.
While Robinson’s book was technically science fiction, it wasn’t all that far from reality. Darpa funded the construction of an ark-like vessel similar to Aurora’s ship around the time the book was written. But instead of reinforcing Darpa’s aspirations, Robinson’s tale highlighted the issues that could potentially arise and compound on each other with such lengthy space travel. And, as his narrative illustrates, Robinson believes that these problems would be too great for humans to overcome.
CLOSE TO HOME
The challenges the fictional crew on the Aurora face paint a picture of the potential issues with space colonization that are rarely discussed. For example, we can clearly see how climate change is slowly but surely wreaking havoc on our planet. Now, imagine that Earth was a smaller, completely contained vessel in which the emissions and gasses produced had nowhere to escape. Even if the ship launched with environmental systems perfectly equilibrated with each other, any changes that occurred over the hundred years in space would throw multiple systems out of balance.
As time goes on, this imbalance would only become more severe, and a trip to even the nearest exoplanet could take an extraordinary amount of time. These scientific concerns of imbalance in long-term, artificial environments are in addition to the sociological issues that are bound to arise.
Terra-forming and space colonization are getting a lot of buzz since NASA announced that a nearby dwarf star named TRAPPIST-1 was discovered with seven surrounding planets, three of which orbit within the “habitable zone.” So, we may be wise to take this discussion about the repercussions of a manned mission to a nearby exoplanet more seriously than we would the latest piece of crazy science fiction. A voyage like this is becoming more and more of a possibility, and it’s important to take a step back and think about obstacles that might not be obvious.
While it will be temping to bound ahead with interplanetary space travel as soon as it becomes more feasible, we might not want to take the leap too soon. The problems we have on Earth will not disappear when we leave — they will follow us wherever we go. So let us remember even while we work towards a technologically advanced future that just because we can doesn’t always mean that we should.
A Quick Rundown: The Five Closest Exoplanets That Could Potentially Support Life
A Quick Rundown: The Five Closest Exoplanets That Could Potentially Support Life
HE HIGH FIVE
Artist interpretation of Proxima b. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Astronomers have long been seeking an Earth-like planet that could support some form of life. One prominent discovery is the Proxima Centauri b, also known as Proxima b, which was found in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri.
Despite these discoveries, there’s still a lot to learn.
“We know very little about these [types of] planets,” Thomas Barclay, senior research scientist and director of the Kepler and K2 missions, told Space.com.
So let’s go over what we do know about five of the closest Earth-like planets to us.
1. Wolf 1061c
Located in the habitable zone of Wolf 1060 in the Ophiuchus constellation, this exoplanet is 4.3 times as large as the Earth, and is believed to have a rocky surface. It is also the second-nearest known exoplanet to us at 13.8 light-years from Earth, second only to Proxima b.
2. Gliese 832c
At five times the size of the Earth, astronomers identified Gliese 832c as a “super-Earth.” It was found 16 light-years away and revolves around Gliese 832 in just 36 days.
3. Gliese 667Cc
Located 22 light-years away in the Scorpius constellation, Gliese 667Cc is also a super-Earth (3.9 times larger than Earth). It takes only 28 days for it to revolve around Gliese 667C.
4. TRAPPIST-1d
40 light-years away from Earth in the Aquarius constellation, TRAPPIST-1d is one among three Earth-like planets orbiting the dwarf star TRAPPIST-1.
5. Gliese 163c
Located 49 light-years away in the Dorado constellation, Gliese 163c is also a super-Earth at a whopping seven times that of the Earth. It takes 26 days for it to orbit Gliese 163.
MILLIONS OF CHANCES FOR LIFE OUT THERE
Using the Kepler Space Telescope, NASA has discovered more than 2,000 planets that could possibly support life, but there’s still so much mystery surrounding these alien worlds. “For some of them, we know an approximate mass or an approximate radius, and we know roughly how far they are from their star — but that’s really all we know.” said Barclay.
And while living on these exoplanets may be possible, it will be an entirely different experience as life forms would have to adapt differently to its unique temperature, climate and environment. On Proxima b, for example,
“The light also isn’t the bright white-yellow light we get from the sun. It would be much more red. So, you would expect biology to evolve differently,” Barclay said, adding that solar flares from red dwarfs could also have a large impact on exoplanets orbiting them.
In the end, we won’t be packing our bags anytime soon to settle on one of Earth’s closest neighbors.
Frank Drake, astronomer and father of SETI, the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, in front of the Green Bank Telescope. Photograph: Stephen Cooter/BBC/Stephen Cooter
The most startling revelation of the year so far came at the end of a BBCHorizon programme called Strange Signals From Outer Space!. I’ve always admired the lads and lasses who produce Horizon; for decades, they have been giving us programmes that stretch our minds and fill them with uplifting concepts about the possibilities of human endeavour. Clearly, though, the producers haven’t been reared in a newsroom environment. If they’d been schooled in the arts of detecting and conveying hard news, they would have stuck this potentially game-changing information at the top of their programme.
It seems astronomers and space scientists have been showing more than a fancy to some bursts of activity in the blue yonder, which they believe might give them a chance of detecting alien messages. They’ve been looking at bursts of radio waves produced by neutron stars to search for unusual signal formations. Basically, these signals happen routinely and intermittently. But if any were to form into a pattern then there’s a decent chance that ET and his chinas are trying to contact us.
This edition of Horizon had been a great wee programme where I got to discover that there was a Scottish connection to another set of signals that, alas, turned out to be less amazing than they’d otherwise promised to be. This was called the Lorimer Burst and can only have been so called in memory of Peter Lorimer’s screamer against Zaire at the 1974 World Cup. That, too, had promised amazing things but, in the end had turned out not to be as Scotland’s challenge ended in glorious heartbreak – just like the Lorimer Burst.
Then, right at the very end, the narrator suddenly says: “Then in 2016 a new burst was detected; the distinctive pulse of radio waves released as the neutron stars collided and were destroyed, followed by nothing – silence – just as the astronomers expected. [At this point, the producers inserted a long pause for dramatic effect.] But then, when they looked again, the signal came back.”
And that was the end of the programme.
Essentially, the narrator was telling us that an alien signal was detected last year from outer space. But then, as soon as he did, the final credits started rolling. They should have put this at the start of their programme and then worked backwards with all sorts of delicious speculation about what it could be and how scientists had reacted. Indeed, the fact that they didn’t is deeply meaningful in itself and slightly unsettling.
Although I don’t own a telescope, I’ve been keeping an eye on space for a good wee while now. And I can tell you that there’s an international executive protocol whenever there is even a hint of aliens sending us messages. Presidents and prime ministers are informed and soon there is a Cobra-like huddle in Geneva or somewhere similar as they determine whether they ought to be alarmed by the signal. Until now, nothing much has happened at these gatherings beyond the Russians getting an opportunity to collect more material for future blackmail operations.
I think that last year’s signal – let’s call it the Archie Gemmill Burst in honour of the wee man’s goal against Holland in 1978 – is even now being scrutinised by international heads of state and their military advisers. What if the Archie Gemmill Burst has alarmed them and that they forbade the Horizon team from saying anything further about it? This in itself concerns me and it’s all because of Donald Trump. Prior to Donald Trump, I suspect that the Archie Gemmill Burst would have elicited a proportionate and considered response. Even if they were uncertain about the nature of the aliens’ communique, they would have tried to establish a dialogue. And this is where the Scots could have come in handy again. You see, this wee country of ours has been undertaking quite a lot of space activity recently.
BBC Scotland even has its very own space correspondent, big Kenneth Macdonald, one of the most experienced and respected of its reporters. According to him, the Scottish space industry is a very vibrant one indeed. While Scotland makes up less than 9% of the UK population, it accounts for 18% of jobs in the UK space industry, while more than 100 private and public organisations have created almost 7,000 jobs and are contributing more than £130m to the Scottish economy. And – get this – in the past two years Glasgow has built more satellites than any other city in Europe. Glasgow has even hosted a conference on how to use the increasing amount of data coming from orbit.
I think that Glasgow has shown it has all the credentials to represent planet Earth in any dialogue with the extraterrestrials over the Archie Gemmill burst. And that way, the world could be assured that this would be friendly and upbeat. “How are youze all?” we would say, before inquiring after the kids and asking if they’d had a long journey. Then we’d invite them down for a cup of tea and “perhaps something stronger”. We’d tell them that our intentions were friendly and that we’d be looking forward to getting to know them.
But we’d also issue a friendly warning not to take any liberties. Any extended period of unwanted scrutiny can make Glaswegians feel a bit edgy. Such behaviour can often be met with the response: “What are you looking at, sunshine?” So it would be friendly and business-like at the same time.
Donald Trump’s presence changes everything though. He’ll breenge his way to the front wearing a ridiculous US military brown leather jacket and daft baseball cap. And you can be certain he’ll have seen yon Independence Day movie where the American president himself leads a global military task force equipped with missiles. He’d immediately assume the aliens were an unfriendly shower and want to build some kind of virtual wall to keep them out. The stupid big bastard would see this as a way of rescuing his failed presidency.
The aliens, though, will have seen him coming and have probably been bugging his hotel rooms and family apartments for years… as well as all the rest of them. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
It may look like much, but it's a new view from our solar system
Imagine that you're standing on an alien world, far out in the galaxy. You look up and see a brilliant bed of stars above you, blanketing totally foreign sky.
But what if you were on a different planet a little closer to home? What would you see then?
A new photo beamed back from Jupiter by NASA's Juno probe, gives us a good idea of what that could be like.
The new Juno image gives us our first view of what it's like to look out from within Jupiter's rings — yes, the huge planet has its own rings — back toward something pretty familiar: the constellation Orion.
"The bright bands in the center of the image are the main ring of Jupiter’s ring system," NASA said in a statement.
An annotated version of the image
IMAGE: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SWRI
"The bright star above the main ring is Betelgeuse, and Orion’s belt can be seen in the lower right."
While the photo may not look like much, it represents a brand new view of our solar system.
Juno is the first spacecraft to take a photo looking out from between Jupiter and its rings.
The spacecraft isn't done reshaping our view of the largest planet in our solar system either. Juno will continue to send back photos showing off Jupiter's cloud tops and storms along with other images of the huge world until its mission ends next year.
Huge cyclones rage near Jupiter's mysterious poles, and the giant planet's powerful auroras are fundamentally different from Earth's northern and southern lights.
Those are just two of the discoveries made by NASA's Juno spacecraft during its first few close passes over Jupiter's poles, mission scientists report in two studies published online today (May 25) in the journal Science.
"What we've learned so far is Earth-shattering. Or should I say, Jupiter-shattering," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. [Photos: NASA's Juno Mission to Jupiter]
"Discoveries about its core, composition, magnetosphere, and poles are as stunning as the photographs the mission is generating," added Bolton, the lead author of one of the new Science studies and a co-author of the other.
Images of Jupiter's north and south poles captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Aug. 27, 2016.
Credit: S.J. Bolton et al., Science (2017)
Lifting the veil on Jupiter
The $1.1 billion Juno mission launched in August 2011 and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Since then, the solar-powered spacecraft has been using eight instruments to study the gas giant's composition, interior structure, and gravitational and magnetic fields. It will continue to do this work, barring some sort of malfunction, through at least February 2018, the end of Juno's primary mission.
The mission's name is a nod to the Roman goddess Juno, who was able to look through the clouds to see her frequently misbehaving husband Jupiter, the king of the gods, who was hiding within. Likewise, the Juno probe is peering beneath Jupiter's thick clouds to learn about the planet's formation and evolution — information that could shed light on the history of our solar system as a whole, NASA officials have said.
Juno makes most of the measurements relevant to this goal during its close flybys, which occur once every 53.5 days and bring the probe within about 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) of Jupiter's poles. (The original mission blueprint called for Juno to maneuver to a less elliptical orbit and make these flybys every 14 days, but an issue with two helium valves in the spacecraft's propulsion system nixed that plan.)
GIF showing infrared emission from Jupiter, as observed by NASA's Juno spacecraft.
Credit: S.J. Bolton et al., Science (2017)
Before Juno, no spacecraft had ever gotten close-up looks at Jupiter's poles. These mysterious regions are beautiful and bizarre, the Bolton-led study reports.Juno has now made five of these data-collecting "perijove passes." The first came on Aug. 27, 2016, and the most recent occurred just last week, on May 19. The two new Science papers report results just from the first few flybys, as well as some measurements Juno made as it neared Jupiter in June 2016.
"When you look over the poles, all of those zones and belts are gone," Bolton said in a Science podcast that was also released today, referring to the striped cloud patterns prevalent at Jupiter's lower latitudes. "You see this bluish hue to it, and there's tons of these cyclone and anticyclonic storms spinning around the poles. It almost looks like meteor craters, but, of course, it's all atmosphere. It's all gas." [Photos: Jupiter, the Solar System's Largest Planet]
It's unclear what, exactly, drives these polar cyclones, some of which are up to 870 miles (1,400 km) wide, or if they're stable over long periods, Bolton said.
"Over the course of the mission, we'll be able to watch the poles and see how they evolve," he said in the podcast. "Maybe these cyclones are always there, but maybe they just come and go."
Juno also has been mapping out the concentration of water and ammonia deep within Jupiter's atmosphere. Data gathered during the first few passes has revealed that ammonia abundances vary quite a bit from place to place — a discovery that surprised the mission team.
"Most scientists have felt that, as soon as you go down a little bit into Jupiter, everything would be well-mixed, and we're finding that that's just not true at all," Bolton said. "There's structure down deep, but it doesn't seem to match the zones and belts. And so we're still trying to figure it out."
Juno's measurements during the first few close passes also show that Jupiter's magnetic field is nearly two times stronger than scientists had predicted. And the probe's gravity data suggest that "there's a lot of strange, deep motions that possibly are going on inside of Jupiter," Bolton said.
"What Juno's results are showing us is that our ideas of giant planets maybe are a little bit oversimplified," he added. "They're more complex than we thought; the motions that are going on inside are more complicated. It's possible that they formed differently than [suggested by] our simple ideas."
The southern lights of Jupiter, auroras at the planet's south pole, glow in this animation of false-color images from NASA's Juno spacecraft. The red hues suggest emissions from deeper in Jupiter's atmosphere, while green and white indicate higher regions.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI
Otherworldly auroras
Earth's auroras result when the solar wind — charged particles streaming from the sun — slam into the planet's atmosphere, generating a glow. (Earth's magnetic field funnels these particles toward the poles, which explains the phenomenon's other name: the northern and southern lights.)
Scientists already knew that the solar wind is a major driver of Jovian auroras, and that the planet's rotation is involved as well. But Juno has given researchers a chance to study the phenomenon in unprecedented detail; no other spacecraft had ever flown close to the planet's auroral regions before, Bolton said.
The second newly published Science study, which was led by John Connerney of the Space Research Corporation and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, details what the Juno team learned about the auroras and Jupiter's magnetosphere from the initial perijove passes. Once again, there were some surprises.
For example, the particles associated with Jupiter's auroras seem to be different than the ones responsible for Earth's most stunning light shows, study team members said.
"We can see that it doesn't work exactly like we expected, or as the Earth does," Bolton said. "We haven’t been able to see particles necessarily going up and down in both directions like we would've expected to cause the aurora. So there's definitely some strange phenomena that we still need to comb through and understand better."
Further close flybys should allow the Juno team to investigate such questions, he added.
"We're at the beginning of the mission, so these first results are sort of telling us some of our models and ideas are wrong and need to be corrected," Bolton said. "And we have some ideas of which way to go, but it really takes some more data to really test whatever theories we put together and see if we're right."
Buitenaardse levensvormen op het ISS. Russische ruimteagentschap doet opmerkelijke aankondiging
Buitenaardse levensvormen op het ISS. Russische ruimteagentschap doet opmerkelijke aankondiging
Het internationale ruimtestation ISS, dat al bijna 20 jaar rond de aarde draait, wordt elke dag geraakt door micrometeorieten en komeetstof dat mogelijk buitenaardse levensvormen bevat.
Dat onthulde de Russische ruimtevaartorganisatie Roscosmos vrijdag in een persverklaring, meldt persbureau Sputnik.
Zelfs op een hoogte van zo’n 400 kilometer vangt het ruimtestation constant grote hoeveelheden microdeeltjes op, waaronder bacteriën, schimmels en zelfs plankton.
Buitenaardse oorsprong
Volgens Roscosmos wordt het ISS ook vaak geraakt door komeetdeeltjes ter grootte van een graankorrel.
“De micrometeorieten en het komeetstof aan de buitenkant van het ISS bevatten mogelijk biogene substanties van buitenaardse oorsprong,” aldus het ruimteagentschap in de persverklaring.
Russische wetenschappers analyseren aminozuren die aan het oppervlak van het ruimtestation worden geproduceerd.
Overleven
Dat is niet eenvoudig, aangezien de monsters erg klein zijn en standaardmethoden niet gelijk resultaten opleveren. Experts werken momenteel aan een oplossing voor dit probleem.
Kosmonauten hebben tijdens ruimtewandelingen in totaal 19 monsters verzameld buiten het ISS. Die monsters zijn overgebracht naar de aarde.
In 2013 bleek dat sommige micro-organismen buiten het ISS kunnen overleven en zich zelfs kunnen ontwikkelen in de ruimte.
Nieuwe bacterie
Ze waren bestand tegen onder meer de extreme temperaturen en kosmische straling. Het is dus mogelijk dat aardse micro-organismen met ruimtesondes zijn meegereisd naar andere planeten.
Op 20 mei lieten NASA-wetenschappers weten een nieuwe bacterie te hebben ontdekt op filters die waren geïnstalleerd in het ISS. De bacterie is vernoemd naar een Indiase oud-president.
De nieuwe levensvorm, Solibacillus kalamii, is op aarde nog niet gevonden.
NASA-functionarissen zeiden het bericht niet te kunnen bevestigen.
With more than 5000 reported encounters, California leads the nation in UFO encounters. UFOs Over California is the first book to present the complete history of the extraterrestrial presence in the Golden State. Documented here are more than 100 years of encounters, starting with early Native American encounters, the 1896 California Airship Mystery, the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles and the 1947 UFO wave. Hundreds of other cases include sightings and landings at California Air Force Bases, sightings over LAX, celebrity sightings, underwater UFOs, face-to-face encounters, sightings by investigators, implant-removal cases, UFO healings, missing-time abductions, UFO crash/retrievals and more. All the classic California cases are covered: the Cisco Grove robot encounter, the Schidel near-miss with a UFO, the Playa Del Rey landing, the Red Bluff wave, the Bluff Creek encounter, the San Fernando angel hair case and more. The book also contains color photographs of UFOs in flight and illustrations by award winning artist Kesara that will leave every reader searching the skies, seeking the truth!
EXCERPT:
The Top Twenty California UFO Encounters By Preston Dennett
In 1995, veteran newspaper reporter Bob Teets published his excellent book, West Virginia UFOs. This was the first book ever to present a state’s UFO history. Teets, I realized, had uncovered an unfilled niche in the UFO literature. Sooner or later, I knew, the other states would eventually have books written about their UFO history. I have been a California-based UFO investigator for almost seventeen years. After investigating hundreds of UFO cases across the state, and writing four UFO books, I decided that I was finally ready. I am now pleased to announce that UFOS Over California: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Golden State has just been released by Schiffer Publishing. California has several unique features that make it stand out from other states. First, it is the most crowded state with an estimated population of 40 million. It is also the nation’s wealthiest state, and is a leader in aerospace and defense, computer technology, oil production, lumber, agriculture, entertainment and tourism. The third largest state, California is actually the leading producer of UFO reports in the United States. In 1977 J. Allen Hynek conducted a study of all the unidentified Blue Book cases. California headed the list with fifty-one cases, or 9.9% of the total number of U.S. reports. More recently, in 2003, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) listed more than 2800 California UFO reports, nearly twice the number of the second leading state of Washington, and nearly three times the third leading state of Texas. For whatever reason, UFOs find California very attractive. With its rich UFO history, it is not surprising that California has had a strong influence in the evolution of ufology. After having studied several thousand Golden State encounters, I have come up with a top twenty list of what are in my opinion among California’s most significant and influential UFO events. Some of the cases are well known, others are probably obscure except to UFO researchers. Each one, however, represents I think an important chapter in not only California’s UFO history, but in that of the world. Each has added to our knowledge or understanding of UFOs, has changed the way we view UFOs or has contributed to the popularization of the subject. Here are California’s top twenty UFO cases. Each of the cases has been summarized because of space considerations.
20. THE CISCO GROVE ROBOT ENCOUNTER On Labor Day weekend in 1965, three hunters in Cisco Grove had a unique encounter with a UFO and its occupants. It may be the earliest authenticated California case involving a robotic UFO occupant. The main witness, Donald Smythe, became separated from his two companions while hunting, and after a long day of hunting, he became lost. When he saw a light darting back and forth above him, he assumed a helicopter had been sent to rescue him. Instead, the object swooped down and hovered silently overhead. Smythe realized it was a UFO and took refuge in a nearby tree. At this point, three figures exited the craft. Two figures were five feet tall and dressed in silvery-gray material. The third figure appeared to be robotic. Then followed an all-night-long ordeal in which the UFO occupants remained at the bottom of the tree, sending up clouds of noxious fumes. Smythe lost consciousness several times and in the morning, the figures and craft were gone. Smythe’s story was not without corroboration. Upon re-uniting with his friends, one of the hunters revealed that he also saw a “bright, large light” swoop down at low altitude and dart across the sky. All three also remarked upon the coincidence that the government was already in the area looking for an alleged “meteorite.” Finally, Smythe’s wife saw him immediately after the incident and confirmed that Smythe was badly traumatized and covered with scratches. Smythe reported his case to the Air Force who suggested that he was the victim of a prank. The case electrified the UFO community. Coral Lorenzen calls it, “The most spectacular report I have ever examined.” Ted Bloecher and Paul Cerny also conducted an onsite investigation. Writes Cerny, “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this incident is factual and authentic.”
19. RONALD REAGAN SEES UFO California is home to many celebrities and it was only a matter of time before some of them came forward with their accounts of seeing a UFO. Today, many have come forth including Sammy Davis Jr., Chad Everett, Jill Ireland, Cliff Robertson and others. Among the most prominent of these is President Ronald Reagan. The sighting occurred when he was governor of California. Says Reagan’s pilot Bill Paynter, “We were near Bakersfield when Governor Reagan and the others called my attention to a big light flying a bit behind my plane. It appeared to be several hundred yards away.” As they watched, the mysterious object quickly accelerated and disappeared in the distance. Reagan later confirmed the details to Wall Street Journal reporter Norman Miller. While Reagan never publicly discussed his sighting, it may have been the spark that ignited his interest in the subject. On several occasions, he made enigmatic statements that seemed to reveal his strong interest in UFOs – quotes that are now famous in UFO history. Said Reagan in 1985, “If suddenly there were a threat to this world from some other species from another planet, we’d forget all the little local differences that we have between our two countries, and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings on the Earth together.”
18. THE BLUFF CREEK ENCOUNTER Some of the many odd patterns of UFO behavior are typified in the following extensive encounter which began in early April 1953. The two main witnesses, John Black and John Van Allen, were working at their titanium mine outside of Bluff Creek when they both separately observed a “metallic saucer” hovering over the area of the mine. Over the next few weeks, the object returned on four occasions. Then, on April 20, Black observed the craft from a distance of only a quarter mile. It was now obvious to the men that the UFO was very interested in their mine. Exactly one month later, on May 20, Black returned to the mine and saw the now familiar saucer hovering only a few hundred feet high. It quickly took off and disappeared. Black approached the area where it had hovered and found several small five-inch footprints. Then exactly one month later again, on June 20, Black was outside the mine when he saw what he thought was a small child with a bucket. Upon approach, however, he saw the large saucer landed on a nearby sandbar. He examined the figure and realized it wasn’t a child, but instead appeared to be an unusual-looking small man wearing unusual clothes and carrying a cone-shaped bucket. The small man heard Black approach and quickly ran into the saucer, which promptly took off. And so began one of the strangest chapters in UFO history. Black alerted the local sheriff, and the story was somehow leaked to the press. Because the saucer had appeared on schedule three months in a row, everyone was predicting a July 20th landing. More than 200 people arrived on the scene including local residents, newspaper reporters, cameramen and saucer enthusiasts. Snack bars and chairs were set up as if the event were a circus performance. Unfortunately, the UFO never showed up and the Brush Creek ordeal came to a sudden end. The case was investigated by several major researchers, including Gray Barker and Paul Spade, both of whom were actually jailed by the Brush Creek Sheriff’s station when they tried to conduct a stakeout for the saucer. Today the case is considered a classic in UFO history.
17. SCHIDEL NEAR-MISS WITH UFO
On April 14, 1954, United Airlines Flight 193 was forced to make an emergency landing after a near miss with a UFO over the city of Long Beach. Says Captain Schidel, “It appeared so suddenly, it was as if it was flying dark and had just turned its navigation lights on…it was in sight just two seconds and made no movement to avoid me.” To avoid Captain Schidel was forced to maneuver the jet into a sudden steep climbing turn. The emergency turn caused havoc in the passenger cabin. One passenger was thrown from his seat and broke his left leg. A stewardess lost her balance and fractured her ankle. According to researcher Donald Keyhoe, “Air force intelligence moved quickly to keep the story quiet.” Nevertheless the press found out and the case became a media sensation. The captains’ sterling reputation, the fact that people were injured as a result of the encounter, and that the fact that the mysterious aircraft was not in touch with any airport control towers all combined to give the case a high level of credibility. Today the case is considered a classic in the annals of airplane-UFO encounters.
16. THE CASE OF MELINDA LESLIE
There are an estimated thousand or more recorded UFO abductions coming from California. Office manager, Melinda Leslie is like most abductees. She experienced early childhood visitations and has been abducted regularly throughout her life. However, at first she was unaware that she was an abductee. She became suddenly interested in UFOs in 1987 after visiting Area 51. Then examining her past, she slowly realized that she had been having experiences her whole life. A missing time encounter in 1989 erased any denials that she was an abductee. Since then, she has experienced the entire range of UFO phenomenon, including medical examinations, emotional testing, baby presentations, warnings of future disasters, and harassment from what appears to be the U.S. Military. In July 1991, Leslie and two friends experienced an abduction while driving along the remote Angeles Crest Highway outside Los Angeles. All three witnesses had full or partial recall of the onboard segment and were able to corroborate each other’s accounts, making it one of the few multiple witness abductions on record. She has also had many other conscious encounters, and has explored many of her memories with hypnotic regression. While Leslie’s case is among the most extensive and complicated of all recorded California abductees, it is otherwise pretty typical. Melinda Leslie, however, is different most other abductees in one particular way: she has gone public with her experiences. In fact, she is one of California’s best known abductees and has remained a permanent fixture on the lecture and media circuit, talking about her experiences, publicizing the abduction phenomenon and contributing greatly to the public education of the subject. Her willingness and ability to interact with all aspects of the public media has helped many people to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a UFO abductee.
15. THE CASE OF MORGANA VAN KLAUSEN The Morgana Van Klausen (pseudonym) case is well known among southern California investigators. In most respects, the case is typical. Starting in December 1986, the mother and son began experiencing regular visitations by gray-type ETs in their southern California home. The husband was skeptical at first, until he too received a visitation. In the next two decades, the Van Klausens experienced numerous close-up sightings and missing-time encounters. What makes the case so compelling, however, is the physical evidence. Besides multiple witness testimony and landing trace evidence, on one occasion, Morgana Van Klausen was healed as the result of a UFO encounter. It is this that makes the case unique. As revealed by investigator Bill Hamilton, Van Klausen was diagnosed with a “non-cystic mass” in her left breast. The evening before she was about to have the tumor removed, Van Klausen experienced a visitation. She went to the hospital the next day and was shocked to find that all traces of the tumor had disappeared. Writes Bill Hamilton, “Both the radiologist and the surgeon confirmed that the previous diagnostic had revealed a solid mass and that solid masses just don’t disappear.” Hamilton has obtained the before and after X-rays. This kind of medical evidence is very rare, and makes this case outstanding in terms of proof of UFO reality.
14. THE CAMARILLO SIGHTINGS In late November and early December of 1996, a UFO appeared over the city of Camarillo for six consecutive days. The first sightings took place on November 28 and 29. Local Ventura MUFON investigators heard about the initial sightings, and knowing that UFOs often appear on consecutive days, they quickly organized an on-site investigation. On December 2, MUFON field investigator Alice Leavy arrived on site with several other investigators. To their amazement, the UFO showed up right on schedule. The researchers clearly observed a “small spherical object” hovering in place. As they observed with binoculars and filmed with video camera and still cameras, the object turned red and ejected a smaller object. The larger object then broke up into several smaller objects which promptly disappeared. Throughout the entire ordeal, the witnesses continued to maintain detailed photographic records. While the video camera didn’t have the resolution to capture the object, the telephoto still photos did. Whitley Strieber calls the case, “one of the best documented sightings in recent United States history…I have seen some of the still photos and can verify their remarkable combination of clarity and impossibility. Being that the object’s actions were witnessed by a half-dozen witnesses, both through binoculars and the naked eye, it is hard to maintain a case that they are anything but unexplained.” What makes this case unique and important is the fact that several MUFON investigators converged on the scene and not only had sightings themselves, but obtained comprehensive photographic evidence. This may the only case of its kind in California history.
13. THE LAX SIGHTINGS The Los Angeles Airport is one of the largest and busiest airports in the entire world, shuttling millions of people across the globe. Unknown to many people, it is also the location of an on-going series of UFO encounters. While UFO-airport encounters are not uncommon in the literature, the LAX sightings are particularly dramatic and consistent. They began in the early 1950s and continue to the present day. The first recorded sighting was on July 15, 1952. For four days, dozens of witnesses observed UFOs approach to within a quarter mile of the control towers. Other dramatic sightings continued on a regular basis, including in 1966, 1973, 1992, 1995, 1997, 2002 and 2003. The sightings involve dozens of witnesses including MUFON investigator Mark Hunziker, videotape footage and possible radar evidence. The 1992 sighting was printed in the usually skeptical magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology, which said in part, “The pilot and copilot…said they saw an unusual aircraft coming directly at them and pass under the 747 by an estimated 500-1000 feet…the several second sighting gave the grew the impression that the other aircraft was a lifting-body configuration, and they described it as looking like the forward fuselage of a Lockheed SR-17….Defense Department and Air Force officials said last week that it was not one of their secret projects.” The LAX encounters show that UFOs display a strong interest in our aviation technology, can easily evade our fastest aircraft, and sometimes have little fear of being observed. The conclusion is undeniable: California’s largest airport is under extraterrestrial surveillance. This fact alone should give rise to serious concerns in regards to airport security.
12. AN UNDERWATER UFO BASE?
While the majority of UFOs are seen either flying in the sky or landed on the ground, a small portion of accounts involve ocean-going UFOs. Sometimes, these craft are seen to actually enter or emerge from the ocean itself. Underwater UFOs are relatively rare, except for one location – a small stretch of coastline off southern California – known as the Santa Catalina Channel. North from Santa Barbara down south to Long Beach, the waters seem to be thick with UFOs. In fact, this section of coastline has produced dozens of cases. The sightings reach back to the 1940s and continue to the present day. The first California underwater UFO was on July 7, 1947 when two San Raphael teen-agers saw a “flat glistening object” emerge from the water, fly around and then dive back into the water 400 yards from shore. Throughout this same year, numerous steamers reported a mysterious “undersea mountain” or a “large mass underwater” which kept appearing and disappearing in various locations in the San Francisco Bay and down the coast. Following this, the sightings came regularly, in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1962, 1964, 1970, 1980, 1990, 1991, 1993, 2004…the list goes on, most from the Santa Catalina channel. The sightings involve many highly credible witnesses including lifeguards, security guards, law enforcement officials, military officers and countless citizens. Numerous southern California-based investigators have uncovered sightings from this area including Bill Hamilton, Yvonne Smith, Ann Druffel, myself and others. Writes Ann Druffel, “The area has for at least thirty years been the scene of UFO reports of all kinds – surface sightings of hazy craft which cruise leisurely in full view of military installations, aerial spheres bobbing in oscillating flight, gigantic cloud-cigars, and at least one report of an underwater UFO with uniformed occupants.” While several theories have been raised to account for this high concentration of reports, the most popular is that there is some type of underwater UFO base off the California coast. In any case, the area is one of California’s most active UFO hotspots.
11. THE CONTACTEE MOVEMENT While some UFO researchers would prefer to forget this strange chapter of UFO history, there is no denying its profound influence on the UFO movement. The contactee movement began in southern California in the early 1950s when amateur astronomer George Adamski claimed to have seen, photographed and been taken onboard a flying saucer piloted by friendly human-looking extraterrestrials. His story touched a nerve and electrified the public. Adamski became an instant celebrity, writing books, giving lectures and attracting wide audiences. Before long, many other contactees converged on southern California, all with similar claims. California became the place to be if you were interested in UFOs. Daniel Fry, Orpheo Angelucci, George Van Tassel, Frank Stranges and others all claimed to have made contact with ETs. They also all wrote books and lectured widely. Each of the stories had the same theme – warnings from the extraterrestrials that humans are too war-like, that nuclear weapons are dangerous, that we must not pollute our environment and other philosophical messages – all of which today remains a prominent theme in modern abduction accounts. The ETs were usually described as human-looking, attractive and originating from various planets in our solar system. Often the stories seemed to contain information that is believed by mainstream science to be false (for example: life existing on the moon and other planets in our solar system.) And yet, the cases also have considerable corroborating evidence, including photos or multiple eyewitness testimonies. One example is the case of Sid Patrick of Watsonville, who experienced a contact with friendly human-like ETs on January 30, 1965. Padrick was taken inside a craft and told that the ETs had a Utopian-like society with no illness or crime. While Padrick’s claims were incredible, he was well known in his community. Also, at the time of his experience the mayor of Monterey George Clemens and numerous park rangers in the area reported UFOs. Padrick was eventually contacted by the Air Force, who interviewed him and asked him to not talk publicly about his encounter. Says Padrick, “There were certain details they asked me not to talk about publicly, but I think in telling it that everything should be disclosed.” While the contactee enigma is controversial and has divided investigators, the movement was extremely popular and is responsible for introducing countless people to the subject of UFOs. The annual Giant Rock conference held annually throughout the 1950s and 1960s in the southern California desert still holds the record for the largest gathering of UFO enthusiasts, attracting at one point more than 5000 people. While many people consider the contactee movement to be a product of the 1950s, it continues today. A good example is Los Angeles reporter Philip Krapf, who has written two recent books about his own experiences with friendly ETs.
10. THE TOPANGA CANYON WAVE On June 14, 1992, the small community of Topanga Canyon experienced an enormous wave of UFO activity involving hundreds of objects. On that evening, at least seventeen independent adult witnesses had incredible encounters throughout the canyon. Ten witnesses in five different vehicles driving along the boulevard that evening were all “buzzed” or “tail-gated from above” by large glowing objects. One driver pulled over and observed dozens of objects coming out of a larger mother ship. Another one of the vehicles was picked up inside a beam of light, causing a period of missing time. The witnesses called the police and reported their encounter. As the driver said, “I’m telling you, I’ve never been more frightened in my life.” Other witnesses were inside their homes where they observed bright beams of light coming from above, or oval-shaped glowing objects darting back and forth across the sky. One couple was woken up from a sound sleep when an object hovered low over their home and lit up the entire interior. Another couple living high in the canyon observed more than 200 objects over a period of three hours. This particular wave was one of the strongest to ever hit California, and it remained strong for at least two more years, producing more than fifty additional reports of all kinds including sightings, landings, UFO-car chases, UFO-helicopter chases, face-to-face encounters, missing time abductions, onboard experiences, possible animal mutilations, cryptozoological creatures and more. While the main wave was from 1992-1994, the area has a long history of encounters starting from 1942. From that point, the cases increased quickly, with two cases in the 1950s, two in the 1960s, fifteen in the 1970s, fourteen in the 1980s, and at least forty-seven in the 1990s. The June 14, 1992 encounter was listed in Timothy Good’s book Alien Update as one of the best reports for the year. Today the area continues to be one of California’s few major UFO hotspots with sightings as recent as 2004.
9. THE CALIFORNIA AIRSHIP MYSTERY
In late 1896, northern California experienced its first recorded UFO waves. In fact, as researcher Richard Dolan writes, it “represented the first UFO wave – though it would be fifty-five years before anyone used the term.” From October to December 1896, thousands of residents of the cities of San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, Oakland observed one or more zeppelin-like objects that glided at low elevations over the city, sending down powerful beams of lights. Several of the witnesses reported seeing human-looking figures on board. Others heard distinct voices. As one witness, Charles Ellis, said, “It hovered effortlessly and looked like a strange bird with four rotor wings, traveling about twenty miles an hour…I didn’t want to believe it was an airship. I had always regarded such reports as a joke. But now I have no choice but to believe them.” The airship mystery is important because people had never been confronted with the idea of extraterrestrials. As Richard Dolan writes, “The idea of spaceships from another world wasn’t popularly considered and would not be until the late 1940s…Most thought they were merely seeing a man-made object.” While the sightings originated in California, they soon spread across the United States. The strange objects became front-page news and caused a media sensation. Interestingly, zeppelins were invented only a few years later. These initial reports, however, remain a mystery. While they have many similarities to modern reports, many investigators are baffled by the dirigible-like appearance of the objects. Some researchers (ie: Jacques Vallee, Jerome Clarke) have pointed to the air-ship wave as evidence that UFOs “track” cultures and have an explanation other than extraterrestrial. Whatever the case, the sightings marked the beginning of California’s involvement with the UFO phenomenon. 8. REX HEFLIN PHOTOGRAPHS UFO
On August 3, 1965, some of the world’s most famous and best-verified UFO photographs were taken by Los Angeles County Highway Investigator Rex Heflin. At that time, the entire United States was experiencing one an intense countrywide wave of UFO activity. While driving outside of Santa Ana, Heflin observed a silent hat-shaped UFO approaching his truck. He radioed his supervisor but then the radio went dead (a fact later confirmed by his supervisor.) As part of his job, Heflin carried a Polaroid camera. He quickly snapped a series of four photos before the object moved away. While he sought no publicity, reporters from United Press International heard about the photos and persuaded Heflin to turn them over. He agreed and UPI photo experts conducted an extensive analysis, even returning to the site of the incident and attempting to restage the event. They declared the photos genuine and they were published in the Santa Ana Register. The photos electrified the public and Heflin’s case became an instant classic. Not surprisingly, the Air Force declared the case a hoax. Heflin, however, later received a visit from two men claiming to be from Norad. The men demanded the photographs and Heflin turned them over. The story gets more complicated from this point. However, numerous other studies of the photos have since been conducted. NICAP photographic analyst Ralph Rankow and a team of other specialists studied the photos in detail and declared them genuine. Journalist Frank Edwards calls the photos “the best UFO photographs in civilian hands.” Today, the photos are still considered genuine and among the most widely-published of all UFO photographs.
7. UFO DESTROYS MISSILE
On September 15, 1964, a crew of 120 military personnel at Vandenburg AFB prepared for the launch of at Atlas F missile. The launch took place as scheduled, however, at about 60 miles of altitude, the missile mysteriously malfunctioned and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. Dr. Robert Jacobs (then a lieutenant) was in charge of filming the missile launch with a telescopic camera hooked to a radar display that kept the viewfinder locked on the missile. The next day, his superiors called in Jacobs to view the film. To his shock, he observed “a round object” hovering next to the missile. Says Jacobs, “It flew right up to our missile and emitted a vivid flash of light. Then it altered course and hovered briefly over our missile…and then there came a second vivid flash of light. Then the UFO flew around the missile twice and set off two more vivid flashes from different angles, and then it vanished. A few seconds later, our missile was malfunctioning and tumbling out of control.” Jacobs was ordered to remain silent about what he saw. He dutifully kept silent for seventeen years, before he finally went public with his story. Despite his sterling reputation, he was immediately attacked by arch skeptics/debunkers Phil Klass and James Oberg. He also received numerous death threats, lost his employment, and his mailbox was destroyed with skyrockets following another threat. Investigators, however, located Jacobs’ superior, Major Mansmann, who, on multiple occasions, confirmed the details of Jacobs account. This account is one of several in which UFOs have shown their capability to affect even our most advanced technology. It also shows evidence of the UFO cover-up.
6.THE CORONADO MASS ENCOUNTER This case was originally uncovered and investigated by UFO researcher Yvonne Smith. In mid-March, 1994, the TRIAD UFO conference was held in Coronado, featuring several leaders in UFO research. A few hundred people were in attendance. Seven of the attendees were staying at the nearby Village Inn in three adjacent rooms. As UFO researchers know, it is very unusual to uncover an abduction case involving more than one or two people. However, in the middle of the night of March 15, these seven witnesses simultaneously experienced a visitation by several gray-type ETs who came into their hotel room and abducted at least two of the witnesses. What makes this case unique is not only the large number of independent witnesses, (all of whom have provided extensive interviews) but the medical evidence. All of the witnesses have a lifelong history of UFO encounters, and each of them has experienced a wide variety of physical symptoms including puncture wounds, cuts, bruises, scratches, flu-like symptoms, high-blood pressure attacks, multiple infections, scoop-like scars and more. One of the witnesses has undergone an operation by Dr. Roger Leir DPM, to have an apparent implant removed. The implant was placed in her leg during their Coronado encounter. An analysis of the object has shown it to contain many unusual properties. Two of the other witnesses, Laurie Angelone and Mike Evans, have gone public with their experiences. Evans has undergone extensive medical examinations including X-rays and MRIs, which show evidence of several foreign bodies in his head and legs. Says Evans, “I have one [foreign body] around my left ear. One around the pituitary, sitting on top of the limbic system. And the other one is in the occipital…I’ve had doctors and radiologists tell me that they don’t know what it is…I have things in my head – things which nobody seems to be able to explain…which I can’t get rid of without major brain surgery. Where does that leave me?” Dr. Roger Leir has examined Evans and verified his post-abduction symptoms. Says Leir, “I have known Mike for many years now and can personally attest to the physical findings such as bruises and scratches on his skin. While this case has not yet been published, it has accumulated an impressive amount of evidence. Says Dr Leir, “The number of mass abductions are sparse in the literature and this case will be ranked high on the scale of importance.” The case is also the subject of a full-length book by Mike Evans and the author of this article, soon to be released by Galde Press.
5. THE TUJUNGA CANYON ABDUCTIONS Among the first abduction cases to be professionally researched and written about are known as the Tujunga Canyon Contacts. The case involved two southern California ladies, Sara Shaw and Jan Whitley, who experienced a missing time episode while staying in their remote cabin in Tujunga Canyon. They later located southern California investigator Ann Druffel, who, along with D. Scott Rogo, Dr Bill McCall and others, conducted an extensive investigation into the case. Today, most of the details of the case are commonly reported such as the medical examination, star-maps, highly technological equipment, telepathic hairless entities...and so on. At the time, however, UFO abductions were considered to be extremely rare events, with only a few recorded cases. Investigators were impressed by the many details that corresponded with other cases that had not been published, such as that of Betty Andreasson case. Some of these details include a strange stillness preceding the encounter, levitation of entities, movement through solid objects, telepathic communication, the medical examination, the appearance of the ETs and many other details. As Druffel and Rogo write, “The similarities are even more striking when one realizes that these two abductions occurred so far apart in time and locale.” Another detail that was first revealed in the Tujunga Canyon case is the fact that encounters can be contagious. As Druffel and Rogo wrote in 1980, “We know of no other case in the archives of ufology typified by the odd ‘contagion’ phenomenon that seems to have spread from Sara and Jan to Emily, and then to Lori and Jo. This fact tends to make the vastly complicated Shaw-Whitley case even more important to our eventual understanding of the UFO mystery.” Today, the many details first revealed in the Tujunga Canyon case and the few others that preceded it have been confirmed numerous times in the hundreds of cases that followed.
4. THE RED BLUFF ENCOUNTER On August 13, 1960, and for the next five days, California experienced one of the most intense UFO waves ever recorded. The wave was centered over the northern California town of Red Bluff, but actually encompassed Willow Creek, Concord, Corning, Eureka, Pleasant Hill, Healdsburg, Santa Rosa, Roseville, Mineral, Dunsmuir, Honeydew and Redlands. It all began at 10:05 pm on August 13, when Deputy Sheriff Clarence Fry of Red Bluff observed a large glowing object over the Red Bluff prison. Two hours later, two other patrol officers observed a large glowing object hovering 200 feet above their vehicle. The officers alerted neighboring sheriff’s stations and took off chasing the object. Meanwhile, law enforcement officers in numerous other cities also observed the same or different objects. At the same time, hundreds of calls poured in from citizens. Researcher Paris Flammonde calls this wave, “One of the most impressive multiple sightings.” Researcher James Harder Ph.D. was so impressed by the case that on July 29, 1968, he delivered an official paper in support of the case to the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, United States Congress. Incredibly, Air Force Blue Book officials labeled the case as “atmospheric inversion” without any investigation. Still, this case remains one of the most intense waves in California history.
3. THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES
In February of 1942, only a few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Los Angeles experienced a visitation by dozens of unknown objects, one large one which hovered over the city for a period of at least six hours. The incident caused an enforced total blackout, and the military was called in to fire upon the strange object. By order of General Marshall, 1430 rounds of ammunition were fired upon the object, which sustained no damage. Numerous searchlights were trained upon the craft, which was also photographed. Six people died of heart attacks, car-accidents or falling debris. The next day, the LA Timesprinted a now-famous photograph of the object on its front page. The military attempted to enact a cover-up, stating that no objects were seen. They then said that balloons were responsible. The incident, however, was witnessed by several thousand people, making it the most widely viewed UFO sighting in California history. It eventually caused the first congressional investigation into the subject of UFOs. A later de-classified memorandum from General George Marshall to President Roosevelt says, in part, “…unidentified airplanes, other than American Army or Navy planes, were probably over LA, and were fired on by the elements of the 37th CA Brigade between 3:12 and 4:15 am.” While the “planes” were suspected to be Japanese, no evidence of this has ever turned up. Nor do the descriptions given by witnesses corroborate with this theory. To this day, the case remains unsolved.
2. THE IMPLANT REMOVAL SURGERIES
On August 19, 1995, one of the most important event in UFO history took place in a small doctor’s office in Ventura, California. At 5:00 pm on that day, Dr Roger Leir DPM performed three surgeries to remove alleged “alien implants” from the bodies of three abductees. The surgeries were successful and the three “implants” were recovered and sent off for scientific analysis. This, however, was only the beginning. Further successful surgeries followed. By 2003, Leir and his team and performed nearly a dozen surgeries. In each case, the procedures were successful and the implants were recovered. Here’s where the story gets incredibly interesting. The studies of the implants are showing remarkable features that may eventually provide conclusive proof of extraterrestrial intervention. Some of the unusual features include a similar or identical appearance of implant from patient to patient, the presence of an electromagnetic field coming from the implants, strong magnetic properties, fluorescence, a composition that is elementally similar to meteorites, a lack of inflammatory or foreign body response in surrounding human tissues and more. The complete story is told in Leir’s groundbreaking book, The Aliens and The Scalpel, though the research is still ongoing. The surgeries have rocked the UFO community. Budd Hopkins writes, “Dr. Roger Leir has finally and dramatically laid his cards on the table. His carefully documented surgical removal of possible alien implants can no longer be ignored. It may well turn out to be of extraordinary importance.” Raymond Fowler writes, “Dr. Leir is to be praised for his pioneering research into the removal and analysis of suspected alien implants. Only peer review and acceptance separate his findings from the proverbial smoking gun of physical evidence for the abduction phenomenon.” Whitley Strieber writes, “Sometimes the whole world knows when a history figure makes his history…Dr. Roger Leir is such a historical figure. The time will come when the extraordinary breakthrough that he has made is noted in every textbook…the evidence is here…so overwhelmingly powerful that a sane person cannot easily deny that it is real.” Dr Leir himself writes, “If these scientifically derived results are not disproven by subsequent analysis, then we can safely conclude that some individuals with abduction histories have artificially manufactured objects in their bodies of a demonstrably extraterrestrial origin. In short, we now have the ‘smoking gun’ of ufology – the hard physical evidence of a continuing alien presence on Earth!”
1. THE EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE VISITATIONS Many California military bases have been associated with UFOs including George AFB, Hamilton, Norton, Miramar, Castle, Alameda and others. Of all of them, however, Edwards Air Force Base (formerly Muroc) tops the list. Located in the vast Mojave Desert, this area has attracted an incredible amount and variety of UFO activity starting in 1947 to the present day. In fact, the events at Edwards AFB are of such a magnitude that they may rival even the Roswell incident. The story begins on July 7, 1947. On that day, the base experienced a series of seven fly-overs by UFOs as witnessed by dozens of military officers and pilots. Listed as Blue Book case number 50 (unidentified), this encounter changed the way the Air Force handled UFOs. As researcher Michael David Hall writes, “Those disk sightings over Muroc on the seventh and eight really shook up the Pentagon [and] were the pivotal event which sprung the United States military into serious action on the saucer mystery…the incident led the United States Army Air Force to issue classified orders requiring reports of any ‘saucer-like’ objects to be given to the Technical Intelligence Division of the Air Material Command.” Researcher Richard Dolan writes, “The Muroc incident continues to provide evidence for military knowledge, interest and secrecy regarding UFOs.” This, however, was only the first sighting. Over the next fifty years, the base would be visited again and again by UFOs, including in 1952, 1954, 1958, 1965, 1967, 1978, 1995, 1998 and more. Several of these sightings were made by extremely reputable witnesses, including Air Force base officers and on one occasion, astronaut Gordon Cooper. In 1958, Cooper was at the base when a UFO landed on the dry lakebed. Base personnel filmed the incident, and Cooper developed and viewed the film. As he says, “Good close-up shots. Nothing like I had ever seen…double inverted saucer shape. It didn’t have any wings on it or anything…There was no doubt in my mind that it was made someplace other than Earth.” Another noteworthy incident occurred on October 7, 1965, during which several jets were scrambled to intercept UFOs which were hovering over the base. As researcher Steven Greer writes, “This extremely important case involves a seasoned Air Force Traffic Controller, an official ‘UFO officer,’ four separate radar stations, lock-on from onboard radar on a jet interceptor, many hours, and many objects over several hours. The debunkers and those who would ridicule the UFO matter need to be able to explain away all of these elements – and the voice tape of the actual event.” While the sightings, UFO-airplane chases and landings are enough to place Edwards at the top of this list, the story doesn’t end there. At this point, things become very controversial. According to a growing number of sources, on February 20, 1954 President Eisenhower visited Edwards AFB where he and other high-ranking officials had an alleged face-to-face diplomatic meeting with extraterrestrials. Numerous researchers have looked into the story and have come back with some surprising confirmation. At this point, however, the whole truth remains obscured. Beyond that (if that isn’t enough) there are also claims crashed UFOs, reverse engineering of UFO hardware, and even actual live aliens working at the base along with humans. While these stories remain on the fringe of UFO research, the stories continue to circulate. Whatever the case, as can be seen, Edwards AFB has an undeniably very close and on-going association with UFOs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As with any list, there are other encounters/events that could just as easily have placed, including the publication of UFO Magazine by Vicki Ecker, the launching of the Black Vault website (www.blackvault.com) by David Greenewalde Jr., the influential investigations of Edith Fiore Ph.D., Richard Boylan Ph.D., Jacques Vallee, James Harder Ph.D. Barbara Lamb MFCC, Yvonne Smith HT, Michael Lindemann, Ann Druffel, Bill Hamilton and many other prominent California researchers, the sightings over several California Air Force Bases, the California-based crash/retrieval cases, the November 16, 1963 San Fernando Valley Angel Hair case, the Antelope Valley sightings, the Kim Carlsberg case, the Licea Davidson case, the Jaoa Buist case, the Clint and Jane Chapin case, the Reverend Harrison Bailey case...the list goes on. Also, another investigator would probably come up with a different and equally valid list. I can only apologize and beg for mercy and the understanding that I am literally neck deep in UFO cases, making it difficult to choose the best ones.
A FEW CONCLUSIONS
All of the above cases and many more are presented in my book in detail. Having researched so many California cases, I have come to some tentative conclusions. Although I’ve been investigating UFOs for years, I am still shocked by how many cases there are. California has approximately 5000 recorded encounters. But as every researcher knows, only about one person out of 100 reports their encounter in any official capacity. In my own experience, the number is even less. Therefore, the actual number of California encounters is at least a half million or more. My next big surprise was just how much evidence there is in support of UFOs. After more than fifty years of citizen and governmental investigations, there are literally mountains of evidence. If one takes the time to examine the evidence objectively, one will find that the proof of UFO reality is now in the public arena. Several of the above cases provide, I think, enough evidence to show that UFOs are real and are probably extraterrestrial in origin. The next tasks are educating the public, particularly the mainstream skeptical scientific community, the continuing fight against the UFO cover-up and, of course, attempting to mount better-funded on-site, real-time investigations.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.