Filer’s Files #24 – 2017 The UFO Codebook - PART II

13-06-2017 om 01:02 geschreven door peter  

Best Space Stories of The Week!

13-06-2017 om 00:30 geschreven door peter  

Here Is The UFO Sighting Video Near Brainerd, Minnesota

For those who have not yet visited Highways 210 and 371, do it if you have a chance. They come together in Brainerd, a town in a north-central Minnesota with roughly 13,000 residents.

Brainerd is known as the setting for some major events in the movie Fargo. And now the town is put into the spotlight once again after a video, which is said to have been recorded at the Highway 210/371 junction, was posted online showing several bright objects.

YouTube username SuspectSky uploaded the five-minute clip that initially shows a single bright object before several others appear. Cars zooming can be heard in the background continuously, but not enough to drown out the music that SuspeckSky has piped in to give the video an added effect.

From one light, it became two, then three, and then four. In the middle of the event, the car system announces “GPS signal lost.”

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

13-06-2017 om 00:14 geschreven door peter  

UFO Hunter Claims This Incident Is Stranger Than Roswell

A UFO hunter has shared an incident in which he referred as even stranger than Roswell in a new online video. In 1947, an unidentified flying object crash landed in the desert close to the town of Roswell, New Mexico in the U.S. The military, however, insisted that the mysterious object was not that strange at all as it was just a downed weather balloon. Despite the statement, many did not believe the official version of the incident. Many have claimed that the object was an extra-terrestrial craft.

After over 50 years, the event is still a mystery to many as they believe the government has been covering the first alien visitation.

Now, UFO researcher Tyler Glockner claims to have discovered the similarly disturbing event that took place just a month before the Roswell Incident.

Glockner made a video claiming that the crash has the same mystery and strangeness as Roswell. The video recalls the story of Maury Island Incident wherein Fred Crisman, and Harold Dahl claimed to have seen falling black debris from the skies over Maury Island in Puget Sound in Washington.

It was reported that the event involved one or more UFOs that had either crashed and disintegrated or dropped something. Crisman’s boat allegedly got damaged by the fragments, even killing a dog and according to some versions, they also hurt someone.

Accounts of the alleged extraterrestrial incident remain controversial until today. Some say that Crisman and Dahl are telling the truth, but others believe the story is a hoax.

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

13-06-2017 om 00:06 geschreven door peter  

Comet Likely Didn't Cause Bizarre 'Wow!' Signal (But Aliens Might Have)

By Jesse Emspak, Live Science Contributor 

12-06-2017 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Alien life could be discovered within the next decade, says astronomer

Humans may find microbial life beyond Earth within the next 10-15 years but it may not be intelligent.

 By India Ashok

{ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ }

12-06-2017 om 23:46 geschreven door peter  

UFO group hopes government 'reconsiders' pulling their taxpayer funding

 By A Current Affair

Social Services Minister Christian Porter has ordered a review into why a NSW Central Coast UFO enthusiast group has pocketed nearly $6000 in taxpayer funds since 2013.

When A Current Affair attempted to attend a meeting of the Tuggerah Lakes UFO Group at Wyong RSL Club, group coordinator Joann Kanda was reluctant to talk on camera.

"Some things have happened that I don't want to go public about at the moment," Ms Kanda said of her belief in extra-terrestrials.

Despite the group having more than 1,000 Facebook followers, less than a handful of people showed up to the meeting

One of the presentations given at the meeting

Despite her desire to keep her reasons for believing private, Ms Kanda has managed to persuade the government to give her group nearly $6000 from the public purse.

Ms Kanda is "in two minds" about the review into taxpayer funding ordered by Mr Porter and would like the government to "reconsider".

"I also understand the public's perception and, you know, it's just that all the equipment we bought with our original funding, it needs repairs," she said.

Group coordinator Joann Kanda believes the funding should be kept

Wyong RSL Club, where the group host their meetings

"The laptop had extra memory so you could take photographs and analyse them.

"We bought an amplifier, which is acting up a bit, and it's got a tripod and the wireless gadget that goes with it."

Ms Kanda believes that had she named the group something else, the public purse strings would not be closing.

"I felt a bit let down. Like, I could have called it something else, you know ... basket-weaving, you know. No one would have blinked an eye," she said.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter does not believe the group deserved the taxpayer funding they have received since 2013

But Mr Porter is unlikely to reconsider his opposition to the group receiving any further funding.

"I'm sure they're all very good people, I'm sure they're all volunteering in a way that's constructive for them. But I'm just not entirely sure this meets the common sense test," Mr Porter said.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2017

• NATIONAL
 
• NEW SOUTH WALES
 
• POLITICS

{ http://www.9news.com.au/ }

12-06-2017 om 23:38 geschreven door peter  

(VIDEO) AN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER REVEALS THAT AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL WAS SHOT & KILLED

12-06-2017 om 23:22 geschreven door peter  

12-06-2017 om 23:15 geschreven door peter  

The U.S. military is developing a new class of weapons which can deliver kinetic projectiles made of large rods of solid heavy metals. Even more worrisome: they’re testing how to deliver them from space – essentially making them man-made meteorites. According to a report published by military and veteran news site Task and Purpose, leading U.S. Army officers gave a presentation at a recent defense industry conference touting the destructive potential of these weapons, some of which are already being tested in battlefield conditions.

So-called “Rod of God” kinetic bombardments have been discussed for years.

Major General William Hix, Director of Strategy, Plans & Policy for the U.S. Army, presented the status of the Army’s development of such weapons at the 2017 Booz Allen Hamilton Directed Energy Summit, a conference devoted to “developing and fielding new directed energy capabilities.” A prettier way of saying “blowing stuff the hell up.” Booz Allen Hamilton is an ambiguously-titled “management consulting firm” in Washington D.C. which has shadowy links to American defense and intelligence organizations. Anonymous accused Booz Allen Hamilton of manipulating public opinion through social media in 2011, and Edward Snowden was a Booz Allen Hamilton employee when he leaked the details of U.S. classified mass surveillance and data collection programs to The Guardian in 2013. If anyone is ever involved with secretive behind-the-scenes military industrial complex intrigue, it’s Booz Allen Hamilton.

DARPA has been developing hypersonic kinetic weapons for some time.

At their conference, Major General Hix told attendees that already, the ship-mounted railgun versions of these new weapons are capable of a new level of battlefield violence:

Think of it as a big shotgun shell. Not much can survive it. If you’re in a main battle tank, if you’re a crew member, you might survive but the vehicle will be non-mission capable, and everything below that level of protection will be dead. That’s what I am talking about.

DARPA is already testing orbital weapons which can deliver kinetic payloads at hypersonic speeds – and so are China and Russia, of course. With all the strange satellite activity, secretive spacecraft testing, NASA playing asteroid strike war games, and even the White House paying public lip service to the threat of deadly near-Earth objects, it makes you wonder: could it be possible for a use of these weapons to be blamed on a meteorite strike? Conspiracy theories of a similar nature surrounded the apocalyptic 2015 explosions in Tianjin, China, as some rather imaginative sources accused the U.S. of testing kinetic space weapons on the Tianjin industrial site.

Even just a few grams of aluminum can inflict great damage when dropped from a high altitude.

I suppose like most things, it is possible, but perhaps not probable. Very few members of the public have access to primary sources of data about asteroid and meteor orbits, though. Furthermore, unseen asteroids pass dangerously close to the Earth all the time, sometimes with just a few days’ warning. A random act of the universe would be the perfect alibi for dropping a continent-ruining mass of molten tungsten onto your enemies from space. But naaaah, that stuff doesn’t actually happen. There’s no way our overlords could be that malevolent. Right?

…right

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

12-06-2017 om 23:03 geschreven door peter  

FBI Director’s Statement May Imply Contact with ETs

Paul Seaburn

While everyone else was looking for hints on what’s been going on between the Trump administration and Russia, the UFO community was excited about something former FBI director James Comey said during his Senate testimony that had nothing to do with politics.

… I have had many conversations with humans over the years …

That’s right, the former FBI director gave Senator John McCain that strange answer to a question about a conversation he had with the president. Ears perked up across the country on anyone with a conspiracy gear in their brain. Why did Comey add those two words … ‘with humans’? Has he had other conversations with non-humans? Was he leaking (again?) that some U.S. or world leaders he’s had conversations with were aliens … possibly reptilians? If David Icke was playing a drinking game involving doing shots every time someone hinted at the existence of reptilians, he probably ordered a triple for that one.

OK, you say, maybe Comey was making a little joke. Really? Does he look like the kind of guy who jokes around? He majored in chemistry and religion before getting his law degree and at one time helped prosecute the Gambino mafia family.

All right, he’s not a joker. Has he ever indicated an interest in UFOs, aliens or X-files? Well, there’s that period from 2005 to 2010 when Comey the General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed Martin. Yes, THAT Lockheed Martin. The one with the Skunk Works and the secret manufacturing and testing at Area 51. Why didn’t Senator McCain, or any other senator for that matter, ask him about THAT? To his credit, McCain did bring up Hillary Clinton in the next question. Was he bringing up emails or was he doing his own sly hinting at her and John Podesta’s own promises to release classified UFO documents if elected?

Are those dots too far apart to connect? Here’s one that’s even farther out. Some people speculate that the 6-foot-8 Comey, who seemed to tower over everyone in pictures of the hearing and his meetings at the White House, may actually be a tall white alien in disguise. Remember the story from 2014 from the Iranian news agency FARS that a document leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that tall white space aliens have taken over the United States? Is Comey one of them? If he’s not, maybe all of those others are so short because they‘re small grey aliens in disguise. OK, that dot may be WAY too far out.

Or is it? In 2016, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said this in an interview:

I have gathered and listened to several leaders from other planets.

Was this really a mistranslation as some have suggested or another security slip? Is he someone else who has to remember to differentiate between conversations with humans and aliens?

Is this another cover-up that’s slowly crumbling under scrutiny? Will this drive Trump to be the first president to open the UFO files?

Dots farther apart than these have already been connected. Stranger things have already happened. Is disclosure next?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

12-06-2017 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

Northern Territory

Northern Territory in dry spell for UFO sightings

12-06-2017 om 21:51 geschreven door peter  

Train passenger says six 'mothership UFOs' were beaming light down to earth

UFO investigators are looking into claims that a train passenger saw six huge objects in the sky beaming light down to the ground.

12-06-2017 om 21:43 geschreven door peter  

UFO hunters spot 'weird orb' while lost in hills near Boston

Three UFO hunters snapped a photo of a mysterious object while they were lost in the Blue Hills near Boston last week, according to reports.

Ramona DiFrancesco and her friends were lost for several hours Thursday night and had to be rescued by state police, WHDH-TV reported.

View image on Twitter

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Adam Bagni 

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Here's a photo of the alleged UFO in Blue Hills Reservation tonight. State police had to rescue the 3 hikers/UFO hunters. @7News

5:23 AM - 9 Jun 2017

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DiFrancesco, 18, of Plymouth, told the station she and her friends spotted UFOs they had never seen before Thursday night.

“Well, we saw these two ships that had these like bright spotlights and then we saw this like weird orb that was like a spotlight, sort of,” she told the station.

She showed a WHDH reporter a photo of the mysterious object she said had been taken with a Nikon camera.

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Adam Bagni 

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BREAKING: Only on @7News: @MassStatePolice had to rescue 3 hikers in Blue Hills Reservation tonight who were hunting for...well...UFOs.

5:13 AM - 9 Jun 2017

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They got lost on Buck Hill, The Boston Globe reported.

“Our phones were dying,” the paper quoted DiFrancesco as saying. “We didn’t have any flashlights. We were a little unprepared."

A state police helicopter spotted them and officers led them down a trail on foot.

They were not hurt.

{ http://www.foxnews.com/ }

12-06-2017 om 01:30 geschreven door peter  

Comet claim for mysterious Wow signal sparks controversy

Keith Cooper

A controversial claim that the famous ‘Wow!’ signal was produced by comets and not extraterrestrial intelligence has been met with scepticism by radio astronomers and comet experts, sparking a fresh debate about the nature of this mysterious signal.

The saga of the Wow! signal dates back to 1977, when a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) survey being conducted at the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University Radio Observatory detected a powerful but unexplained burst of radio waves coming from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The signal was at 1420MHz, which is the frequency of the 21cm wavelength radio waves emitted by neutral hydrogen in space. So the logic goes, any intelligent life out there transmitting signals for us to hear would know that our astronomers will be studying galactic hydrogen at 21cm and therefore be guaranteed to detect their signal. Hence, the Big Ear’s survey was conducted at 1420MHz/21cm.

Now Antonio Paris of St Petersburg College in Florida and the Center for Planetary Science, which is a non-profit research organisation based in the United States, has published new results which he argues proves that the Wow! signal was actually produced by a comet that was in the vicinity at the time. Paris followed up on this comet, 266/P Christensen, and performed radio observations with a dedicated ten-metre radio telescope to test his theory. Writing in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, he confirms that his experiment did indeed detect a signal of 1420MHz from the comet.

However, not everyone is convinced. Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University Belfast who specialises in studying comets, dismisses Paris’ conclusion as “rubbish.” Aside from the fact that 1420MHz emission has never been detected from a comet before, Fitzsimmons points out that 266/P Christensen is a fairly quiet comet even at perihelion (its closest point to the Sun, which in Christensen’s case is over twice as far from the Sun as Earth, or 2.3 astronomical units).

“[Paris] has targeted a comet that has little activity when at perihelion,” Fitzsimmons tells Astronomy Now. “When he observed the comet it was over four astronomical units from the Sun, which means it would have been effectively inactive. There would have been no hydrogen coma to detect and therefore he could not have seen the comet.”

Seth Shostak, who is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California, agrees with Fitzsimmons. “I don’t know of any detection of the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen from a comet, and as I used to study galaxies in the neutral hydrogen line, I probably would have heard of that,” he says.

Paris is not troubled by this. “Astronomers have not detected hydrogen emission from comets because there has not been much research specifically on this subject,” he says. “While there has been a handful of studies, I suspect we are the first to build a ten-metre telescope to specifically look at this type of Solar System body.”

Another problem with the comet theory is that on 15 August 1977, the day that the Wow! signal was detected, the comet was in the wrong place. Bob Dixon, who was Director of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory at the time the Wow! signal was detected, points out that 266/P Christensen’s location was RA 18h 32m 15s, Declination –27º 22’, whereas the Wow! signal was either located at RA 19h 25m 31s, Declination –26º 57’, or RA 19h 28m 22s. Either way, 266/P Christensen would have been visible to the Big Ear 55 minutes earlier instead.

A signal that switched off

The uncertainty in the right ascension coordinates comes from the peculiarities of the Big Ear telescope. Rather than a traditional dish-like telescope, the Big Ear was composed of two reflectors stood on their sides, one flat and tilting, the other paraboloidal, either side of an aluminium plane on the ground that was larger than three football fields. The sky would rotate overhead in right ascension and radio waves would bounce off the reflectors and into two ‘feed horns’ that were the telescope’s detectors. Because the two feed horns were separated by 40 arcminutes in angular distance, a radio source passing overhead in the sky would appear in one horn, then disappear for 70 seconds of time, before reappearing in the second horn.

Curiously, the Wow! signal was only detected by one of the feed horns and, because of the way the data was collected and analysed, it was impossible to tell which feed horn that was. This means that the signal either switched itself on or off during those 70 seconds that it was between horns. Either it was a transient signal from some unknown astrophysical phenomenon, or the aliens turned their transmitter on or off during that 70 seconds gap.

Paris admits that this comet theory cannot explain why the signal was only seen in one feed horn. Although comets are constantly moving through the sky, unlike fixed objects such as stars, they do not move fast enough to have moved out of the line of sight of the Big Ear in just 70 seconds.

“The issue with the feed horns is something no one can explain, including me,” says Paris. “There is some data out there to suggest the issue is at the telescope end and not the phenomenon itself.”

Bob Dixon strongly disputes the idea that there was a technical fault. “Our telescope was working perfectly normally at the time and other radio astronomical objects on the same day were observed in both beams [into both horns],” he tells Astronomy Now.

Fact versus folklore

Despite the triple whammy of comets not being known to emit at 1420MHz, the unexplained detection by only one feed horn and the fact that 266/P Christensen was not in the correct location for the Wow! signal, Paris is nevertheless pushing ahead with his theory. He describes his work as a three-stage project. The first stage was the development of his hypothesis, the second stage was his radio observations that he has now published, and his third stage, which he hopes to publish in 2018, is an explanation of a mechanism describing why we would detect such strong neutral hydrogen emission from a comet, particularly one as inactive as 266/P Christensen.

Regarding the criticisms of his theory, the unflappable Paris is not concerned. “I suspect that SETI, who have used the Wow! signal as a source of revenue, are nervous,” he says. However, this is disputed by the fact that Shostak and his fellow scientists in the SETI community have frequently talked down the importance of the Wow! signal, pointing out that their experiments find signals like the Wow! signal, in that they are transient and never seen to repeat, all the time.

This August will see the fortieth anniversary of the Wow! signal, a milestone that will bring this mysterious signal, which has entered SETI folklore, into the media spotlight once again. Part of its enduring allure is the possibility that we will never really find out what it was, whether it was extraterrestrial intelligence or an unknown astrophysical phenomenon.

For now, Paris has work to do to convince other scientists like Seth Shostak that his theory is correct. Says Shostak, “I don’t think the idea that the Wow! signal was due to comets makes much sense.”

{ https://astronomynow.com/ }

12-06-2017 om 01:11 geschreven door peter  

Comet claim for mysterious Wow signal sparks controversy

Keith Cooper

A controversial claim that the famous ‘Wow!’ signal was produced by comets and not extraterrestrial intelligence has been met with scepticism by radio astronomers and comet experts, sparking a fresh debate about the nature of this mysterious signal.

The saga of the Wow! signal dates back to 1977, when a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) survey being conducted at the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University Radio Observatory detected a powerful but unexplained burst of radio waves coming from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The signal was at 1420MHz, which is the frequency of the 21cm wavelength radio waves emitted by neutral hydrogen in space. So the logic goes, any intelligent life out there transmitting signals for us to hear would know that our astronomers will be studying galactic hydrogen at 21cm and therefore be guaranteed to detect their signal. Hence, the Big Ear’s survey was conducted at 1420MHz/21cm.

Now Antonio Paris of St Petersburg College in Florida and the Center for Planetary Science, which is a non-profit research organisation based in the United States, has published new results which he argues proves that the Wow! signal was actually produced by a comet that was in the vicinity at the time. Paris followed up on this comet, 266/P Christensen, and performed radio observations with a dedicated ten-metre radio telescope to test his theory. Writing in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, he confirms that his experiment did indeed detect a signal of 1420MHz from the comet.

However, not everyone is convinced. Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University Belfast who specialises in studying comets, dismisses Paris’ conclusion as “rubbish.” Aside from the fact that 1420MHz emission has never been detected from a comet before, Fitzsimmons points out that 266/P Christensen is a fairly quiet comet even at perihelion (its closest point to the Sun, which in Christensen’s case is over twice as far from the Sun as Earth, or 2.3 astronomical units).

“[Paris] has targeted a comet that has little activity when at perihelion,” Fitzsimmons tells Astronomy Now. “When he observed the comet it was over four astronomical units from the Sun, which means it would have been effectively inactive. There would have been no hydrogen coma to detect and therefore he could not have seen the comet.”

Seth Shostak, who is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California, agrees with Fitzsimmons. “I don’t know of any detection of the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen from a comet, and as I used to study galaxies in the neutral hydrogen line, I probably would have heard of that,” he says.

Paris is not troubled by this. “Astronomers have not detected hydrogen emission from comets because there has not been much research specifically on this subject,” he says. “While there has been a handful of studies, I suspect we are the first to build a ten-metre telescope to specifically look at this type of Solar System body.”

Another problem with the comet theory is that on 15 August 1977, the day that the Wow! signal was detected, the comet was in the wrong place. Bob Dixon, who was Director of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory at the time the Wow! signal was detected, points out that 266/P Christensen’s location was RA 18h 32m 15s, Declination –27º 22’, whereas the Wow! signal was either located at RA 19h 25m 31s, Declination –26º 57’, or RA 19h 28m 22s. Either way, 266/P Christensen would have been visible to the Big Ear 55 minutes earlier instead.

A signal that switched off

The uncertainty in the right ascension coordinates comes from the peculiarities of the Big Ear telescope. Rather than a traditional dish-like telescope, the Big Ear was composed of two reflectors stood on their sides, one flat and tilting, the other paraboloidal, either side of an aluminium plane on the ground that was larger than three football fields. The sky would rotate overhead in right ascension and radio waves would bounce off the reflectors and into two ‘feed horns’ that were the telescope’s detectors. Because the two feed horns were separated by 40 arcminutes in angular distance, a radio source passing overhead in the sky would appear in one horn, then disappear for 70 seconds of time, before reappearing in the second horn.

Curiously, the Wow! signal was only detected by one of the feed horns and, because of the way the data was collected and analysed, it was impossible to tell which feed horn that was. This means that the signal either switched itself on or off during those 70 seconds that it was between horns. Either it was a transient signal from some unknown astrophysical phenomenon, or the aliens turned their transmitter on or off during that 70 seconds gap.

Paris admits that this comet theory cannot explain why the signal was only seen in one feed horn. Although comets are constantly moving through the sky, unlike fixed objects such as stars, they do not move fast enough to have moved out of the line of sight of the Big Ear in just 70 seconds.

“The issue with the feed horns is something no one can explain, including me,” says Paris. “There is some data out there to suggest the issue is at the telescope end and not the phenomenon itself.”

Bob Dixon strongly disputes the idea that there was a technical fault. “Our telescope was working perfectly normally at the time and other radio astronomical objects on the same day were observed in both beams [into both horns],” he tells Astronomy Now.

Fact versus folklore

Despite the triple whammy of comets not being known to emit at 1420MHz, the unexplained detection by only one feed horn and the fact that 266/P Christensen was not in the correct location for the Wow! signal, Paris is nevertheless pushing ahead with his theory. He describes his work as a three-stage project. The first stage was the development of his hypothesis, the second stage was his radio observations that he has now published, and his third stage, which he hopes to publish in 2018, is an explanation of a mechanism describing why we would detect such strong neutral hydrogen emission from a comet, particularly one as inactive as 266/P Christensen.

Regarding the criticisms of his theory, the unflappable Paris is not concerned. “I suspect that SETI, who have used the Wow! signal as a source of revenue, are nervous,” he says. However, this is disputed by the fact that Shostak and his fellow scientists in the SETI community have frequently talked down the importance of the Wow! signal, pointing out that their experiments find signals like the Wow! signal, in that they are transient and never seen to repeat, all the time.

This August will see the fortieth anniversary of the Wow! signal, a milestone that will bring this mysterious signal, which has entered SETI folklore, into the media spotlight once again. Part of its enduring allure is the possibility that we will never really find out what it was, whether it was extraterrestrial intelligence or an unknown astrophysical phenomenon.

For now, Paris has work to do to convince other scientists like Seth Shostak that his theory is correct. Says Shostak, “I don’t think the idea that the Wow! signal was due to comets makes much sense.”

{ https://astronomynow.com/ }

12-06-2017 om 01:11 geschreven door peter  

The Most Interesting Science News Articles of the Week

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.

Before Stonehenge

An aerial view of the site where two massive wooden palisades once stood of the landscape. Arcaheological excavations have revealed that around 3300 B.C., anicent people built huge wooden enclosures, then burnt them down to the ground, near what is now Avebury, England.

A massive, wooden, eyeglass-shaped monument in Avebury, England, that was set alight in ancient ceremonies may be 800 years older than it was thought to be, new research suggests.

Workers in ancient times likely constructed the site first by digging large ditches and then placing oak posts into sockets in the earth, Whittle told Live Science. Then, they used the dug-out earth to backfill and cover the base of the posts and create a huge palisade. [Read more about the strange site.]

Sequencing a Mummy

Scientists sequenced DNA from mummies from the settlement of Abusir el-Meleq, south of Cairo, and were buried between 1380 B.C. and A.D. 425.

For the first time, researchers have successfully sequenced the DNA from Egyptian mummies. The findings reveal that these ancient people were more genetically similar to populations living in the eastern Mediterranean — a region that today includes Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Iraq — than people living in modern-day Egypt.

Worldwide, the remains of thousands of mummies from ancient Egypt have been excavated, but obtaining intact, undamaged DNA from the bodies has proved challenging. [Read more about the mummy DNA.]

Measuring a Star's Mass

The mass of Stein 2051 B, a white dwarf star located about 18 light-years from Earth, has been a subject of some controversy for over a century. Now, a group of astronomers has finally made a precise measurement of the star's mass and settled a 100-year-old debate, using a cosmic phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein.

Einstein's theory of general relativity hypothesized that space is flexible rather than fixed, and that massive objects (like stars) create curves in space, sort of like a bowling ball creating a curve on the surface of a mattress. The degree to which an object warps space-time depends on how massive that object is (similarly, a heavier bowling ball puts a deeper imprint on a mattress). [Read more about the experiment in relativity.]

'Thinking' Flora

Plant seeds may use miniature "brains" to help them decide whether to sprout or stay dormant, new research suggests.

The idea that plants can feel, hear or see is not new; researchers have shown that seedlings arc toward sounds of certain frequencies or hasten their growth when a competing species is planted nearby. And plants can communicate with each other when danger is nearby, according to a 2007 study in the journal Oecologia. [Read more about the plant's brain.]

Older Than We Know

The oldest known bones of our species, dating back around 300,000 years, have been discovered in a cave in Morocco.

Archaeologists uncovered the human fossils, including a partial skull and a lower jaw, during excavations at the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco that began in 2004. But the site has a much earlier excavation history: Scientists first found some of the remains of these same individuals, along with stone tools, in the 1960s during mining operations. [Read more about the oldest fossils.]

Hunting Snakes

When cave-dwelling Cuban boas fancy a meal, they band together to hunt for bats by concealing themselves along the cave entrance and forming a wall of deadly snakes before launching their coordinated strikes, according to a new study on the rare occurrence of snakes hunting in packs.

And coordination among snakes to catch prey has never been proved, said study author Vladimir Dinets, a professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, who specializes in animal behavior. [Read more about the snake packs.]

Lost Mind of St. John Bosco

When pilgrims lined up in a church in northern Italy to pray before the relic of St. John Bosco, the revered founder of the Salesian religious order, on Saturday (June 3), they encountered a sign with an unexpected message: "Closed. Under construction."

As pressure mounted over the puzzling sign, the church revealed a shocking truth: Someone had stolen preserved brain bits of a saint. [Read more about the missing aircraft.]

Herbs and Mental Risks

A man in Italy who had developed psychosis — meaning he lost touch with reality — did so after consuming an herbal tea made with St. John's wort, according to a recent report of this case.

The case in Italy involved a 25-year-old man who was admitted to the hospital after two of his friends, who accompanied him to the hospital, told the doctors that he had been acting strangely in the past few days. The man behaved as if he were under the influence of an illegal drug, the friends said. [Read more about the unusual case.]

Instinct vs. Problem Solving

For more than a millennium, scholars have noticed a curious correlation: Atheists tend to be more intelligent than religious people.

But why does this association exist? Dutton set out to find answer, thinking that perhaps it was because nonreligious people were more rational than their religious brethren, and thus better able to reason that there was no God, he wrote. [Read more about differences.]

Novel Approach to Addiction

As heroin-related deaths soar in the United States, a group of researchers said they may be one step closer to developing a vaccine that could block the drug's addictive high.

Heroin produces a high by activating the opioid receptors in the nervous system, triggering feelings of euphoria. The danger is that the drug can also cause the body's systems to become too relaxed, causing a slowdown in breathing. A common cause of death among people who overdose on heroin is respiratory arrest. That is, the person stops breathing and dies. [Read more about the vaccine.]

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12-06-2017 om 00:32 geschreven door peter  

Photographer accidentally captures large UFO over Copper Mountain, Colorado

I was a front-seat passenger riding on HWY 70, a few miles North East from Copper Mountain, Colorado on June 1, 2017

We exited onto exit 190, near the Vail Pass Rest Area to take photos of the snow and the semi-frozen lake (Black Lake).

As we approached Black Lake on the service road, I began snapping photos of the lake. 4 passengers in our vehicle proceeded to exit the vehicle and take additional photos of the snow in the area and also Black Lake.

Once we were on our way back onto Hwy 70, I began to view all of my photos, and to my surprise, I had captured a UFO.

After much review of the photo, I have ruled out that the object captured in my photo could be a smashed bug on the windshield, a light from inside/outside the vehicle, an airplane, or any other reasonable object. We did not hear a sound before, during, or after the photo.

At this time of day (6:25pm) the sun was to my East (left in the photo) and you can clearly see the sun light on the top the UFO and a shadow below the UFO.

While I was snapping the photo, I was only looking at my phone screen and at the Black Lake to ensure I was centered on the lake. The driver was not looking in the direction of the UFO to notice it, and the 2 passengers were looking at their respective phones at the time that I snapped this photo.

So, there was no one that saw the UFO at the moment the photo was taken. The photo was simply taken at the exact moment this UFO was passing over the tree tops and across Black Lake. Mufon case 84246.

Link to original large sized image:

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

11-06-2017 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

Earth Faces an Increased Risk of Being Hit by an Asteroid, Astronomers Warn

Earth may be threatened by a newly discovered branch of a stream of meteoroids, increasing the risk that the planet will be struck by a meteoroid or asteroid.
 
A team of astronomers from the Czech Academy of Sciences announced the findings on Tuesday after studying the Taurid meteoroid stream. The stream produces a meteor shower that usually has a long period of activity in October and November and produces a low number of meteors. The meteors — light phenomena that are seen when a meteoroid enters the planet’s atmosphere and vaporizes, also referred to as “shooting stars” — occur when Earth’s orbit plows into the stream of debris left behind by Comet Encke.
 
Most of these particles are quite tiny and pose no threat whatsoever, but the Czech astronomers have tracked a new branch of the stream from which particles are intersecting with the planet. The branch includes two asteroids with diameters of between 200 and 300 meters (roughly 650-1000 feet). These asteroids are not themselves on a collision course with Earth, but their identification suggests that there may be other asteroids of this size or larger lurking undiscovered within this stream.
 
As such, the astronomers are urging a concentrated search for more Taurid asteroids, to see if any potentially threatening ones exist.
 
“Since asteroids of sizes of tens to hundreds meters pose a threat to the ground even if they are intrinsically weak, impact hazard increases significantly when the Earth encounters the Taurid new branch every few years,” they write in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Further studies leading to [a] better description of this real source of potentially hazardous objects, which can be large enough to cause significant regional or even continental damage on the Earth, are therefore extremely important.”
 
It’s worth noting, however, that no threatening objects have yet been discovered.Though the prospect of continental damage and regional catastrophe coming from space is alarming, more observations will be needed before drawing conclusions based on the Czech team’s research.

RELATED: What to Do With Nukes? Blow Up Dangerous Comets, of Course

NASA is regularly working to anticipate the possible collision of a massive cosmic particle with Earth and assess any potential impact risks. It operates a collision monitoring system called Sentry that routinely scans for asteroids and determines the likelihood of impact over the next 100 years. It also freely catalogs these rocky bodies at the JPL Small-Body Database Browser.
 
The debris stream from Comet Encke is influenced in part by the gravity of Jupiter, a massive gas giant planet that is known to influence the orbits of comets and asteroids in that region of the solar system. As such, from time Jupiter’s gravity can redirect the debris so that more particles hit the Earth.

A bright Taurid fireball is recorded at the NASA All Sky Fireball Network station in Tullahoma, Tennessee, in 2014.

During one of these “enhanced” Taurid meteor showers in 2015 caused by Encke’s redirection, the astronomers from the Czech Academy of Sciences analyzed 144 Taurid fireballs — meteors that produce a large flash when they hit the atmosphere. Observations were taken from the European Fireball Network.
 
Of the analyzed fireballs, about 113 of them have common characteristics, including sharing approximately the same orbit. The astronomers concluded, based on previous showers, that these fireballs come from a new branch of the Taurid stream being redirected by Jupiter’s gravity.

RELATED: We're Planning to Shoot an Asteroid to See What Happens 

Next, the astronomers analyzed the orbital paths of asteroids 2015 TX24 and 2005 UR. Due to their similarities to the newly discovered path of the Taurid fireballs, the astronomers in turn argued that these two asteroids — each about 200-300 meters in diameter — are also members of the new branch.
 
Analysis of the fireballs suggests that the large asteroids are weak in structure, although at larger sizes they would not break up easily in the Earth’s atmosphere.
 
A few years ago, NASA created a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to bring together the observations of all US networks looking for near-Earth asteroids, and to help come up with plans in the unlikely chance that the Earth is under threat. You can read more about the office’s work at its website. Other countries, such as the European Union, have similar asteroid observation networks in place.

Original article on Seeker.

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11-06-2017 om 22:18 geschreven door peter  

'Burst of light' burns through sky above stunned drivers at notorious UFO hotspot

A DRIVER filmed the moment a gigantic flaming ball fell from the sky in front of him in astonishing footage.

By Zoe Drewett 

The fireball was said to be so big it was visible in skies above Maryland, Washing DC and Virginia, US.

The bizarre burst of light was thought to be a shooting star but was later determined to be a meteor.

It appears bright because it is burning up as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere.

This fireball or meteor was reported to the American Meteor Society 28 times.

If a fireball or meteor were to reach Earth's surface, it would be called a meteorite.

Small meteors pass through our atmosphere almost every day, but most go undetected.

But UFO hunters believe this isn’t the first time the sky above Maryland has been visited by an unknown object.

There were actually six UFO sightings reported in Maryland in December alone last year, with four more in January 2017 alone.

TWITTER

STUNNED: The drivers couldn't believe their eyes

{ http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

11-06-2017 om 22:07 geschreven door peter