30-06-2017 om 14:46 geschreven door peter  

STRANGE DIAMOND SHAPED OBJECT SPOTTED NEAR TORNADO OVER VIRGINIA

Garcia Doores was driving along Route 28 in Virginia in the USA on June 23 this year when something strange appeared in the sky causing Doores to stop and pull over. She then took some photographs of what seemed to be a tornado in the sky with an object that was shaped like a diamond next to it.

TORNADO SEEMED TO BE SPAWNED FROM DIAMOND SHAPED OBJECT IN SKY  

It would be very unusual for a cloud to take on the perfect shape of a diamond she said. As seen in the photographs it certainly does look like a perfect diamond shape. Other people have said the same thing and they have said that perhaps what she captured on the photo was a man-made object that was perhaps used for manipulating and altering the weather.  

Other people have suggested that perhaps it is a weather weapon that has the ability to be able to make, steer and even trigger tornadoes, but why would someone want to do such a thing?

WEST VIRGINIA IS POPULAR PLACE FOR UFO SIGHTINGS

West Virginia seems to be a popular region for UFO reports. In January of this year in Parkersburg, a man was out and about looking at the stars with a new telescope and he took a break after trying to focus in on a different star. He then saw a black object that was diamond shaped which had three yellow lights that were static and the craft was moving slowly over the sky at about 9.30pm. Many more sightings of strange objects in the sky have been reported in the West Virginia region, including in Buckhannon, Saint Albans, Clay County and Bluefield.

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{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

30-06-2017 om 14:35 geschreven door peter  

THIS RUSSIAN SATELLITE WILL BE THE BRIGHTEST STAR IN THE SKY, LAUNCH ON JULY 14, 2017

A Russian satellite with the name of Mayak, which when translated into English means Beacon, will be launched into space in just two weeks’ time and when it does it will be the brightest star up in the sky at night.

SCIENTISTS AND ASTRONOMERS THINK SATELLITE COULD HAVE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

The goal of Russia is to make the satellite unique and they have done this by using a material that is reflective. However, there are some scientists who have given out warnings that the coating may have some negative consequences.  

The Russian satellite is only about the size of the typical loaf of bread and it is a CubeSat. Russia is going to launch the satellite on a Soyuz 2.1v vehicle on 14 July and it will be sent from Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is in Kazakhstan and it will be a secondary payload.

SATELLITE PROJECT RAISED $30,000 ON CROWDSOURCING WEBSITE

The project had been headed by the Moscow State Mechanical Engineering University and they managed to raise over $30,000 on Boomstarter, a crowdfunding website in Russia.

Once the satellite is in orbit, which will be around 600 kilometers, it has been designed to unfurl a huge solar reflector that is a giant pyramid shape. Russia said that the goal of the satellite is for it to shine much brighter than any star currently in the night sky. To ensure that it does they made a reflector out of Mylar and it spans 16 square meters. The Mylar reflector is about 20 times thinner than the hair on the head of a human. The satellite's mission is also going to show off technology, this is a test of how to brake a satellite once it is in orbit and then de-orbiting it.

The leader of the project Alexander Shaenko said that they wanted to be able to show that exploring space is both interesting and exciting; along with the fact that today space exploration is open to anyone who is interested. The sole mission of Mayak is to shine brightly in the night sky and remove satellites from the orbit of Earth that is defunct.

SATELLITE COULD BE AS BRIGHT AS THE MOON

The project is at risk of scientific and environmental group backlash; depending of course just how bright the satellite really is when in orbit. Some have suggested that perhaps it could be as brightly shining as the Moon. If it were to be excessively bright then it may cause trouble for astronomers as they rely on a dark sky to be able to view the universe. One astronomer and former deputy director from the Northumberland Kielder Observatory said that astronomers fight hard for dark skies around the globe. He went on to say that the possibility of it potentially being ruined by ridiculous crowdfunded nonsense turns his heart to despair.

While there may be many who are skeptical about the launch of the satellite, they will not keep it from being launched. The Mayak satellite is going into space on 14 July and for now, the only thing astronomers can do is pray that it will not be too bright.

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{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

30-06-2017 om 14:22 geschreven door peter  

Image of strange blue orb over Merrimack, New Hampshire confuse witnesses

A photograph that shows a strange blue orb has people questioning what that strange light in the sky over Merrimack in New Hampshire.

Trish Wilson sent in the above photo to NH1 News asking, "What is this?" NH1 meteorologists took a look at the photo and said it looked like some sort of refraction of light from the sun interacting with the clouds.

Along with NH1 News, Wilson also sent the photo over to UFO Sightings Hotspot. They said the object was most likely a lens flare, pointing out that it looks very similar to one captured on a NASA camera on June 11. It can be seen in the video below around the 31 minute mark, reports NH1 News.

Indeed, I have discussed with Trish about this sighting and as NH1 News reported, in my opinion rather than a UFO sighting the blue orb is a typically lens flare, characteristic by the white dots visible especially in these kind of lens flares.

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

30-06-2017 om 14:07 geschreven door peter  

Zimbabwe UFO Child Conactee Speaks Publicly For The 1st Time

https://youtu.be/jaLvp-BkqAo

Emily was only a few feet away from the beings and believes she was given messages.

{ http://earthmysterynews.com/ }

30-06-2017 om 01:48 geschreven door peter  

Was Mars like Earth before it was Nuked? Scientist Says “Yes!”

SCIENTIST: Civilizations on Mars NUKED Into Oblivion! Totally WIPED OUT! Nukes On Mars? Dr. John Brandenburg called a “Pseudoscientist” swears it’s true! Is DR. JOHN BRANDENBURG the king of pseudoscience? Many people think so, but what’s interesting is that DR. JOHN BRANDENBURG has impressive credentials yet he is way out there. He was speaker at the SECRET SPACE PROGRAM CONFERENCE 2015 – a conference that asks: “What’s going on?” That’s a good question! ‘The Martian surface is covered with a thin layer of radioactive substances including uranium, thorium and radioactive potassium – and this pattern radiates from a hot spot on Mars,’ Dr. John Brandenburg told Fox News at the time. And bizarre as it sounds he believes that ancient Martians known as Cydonians and Utopians were massacred in the attack! ‘A nuclear explosion could have sent debris all around the planet.’

He gave a talk at 2014 Annual Fall Meeting of the American Physical Society in Illinois on this very subject.
“Scientists used to think it was a naturally occurring explosion, but Brandenburg says that nuclear isotopes in the atmosphere resembling hydrogen bomb tests ‘may present an example of civilization wiped out by a nuclear attack from space.”

Dr. Brandenburg has dedicated his career to problems of space, energy and national defense. He is the author of “Life and Death on Mars: The New Mars Synthesis” in which in the words of one reviewer, “But the drama of Brandenburg’s book is his discussion of the nuclear catastrophe that turned the once ‘earth like’ planet into a wasteland…”

 He has studied the ‘high concentration’ of Xenon-129 in the Martian atmosphere, and uranium and thorium on the surface, spotted by Nasa’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Scientists have previously pointed about that the appearance of these elements is not surprising, as they are natural elements found everywhere.

John E. Brandenburg is a plasma physicist at Orbital Technologies in Madison Wisconsin, working on space plasma technologies and space propulsion.

On the blog BAD Science entitled “Exposing PseudoAstronomy” Stuart Robbins challenges his credibility : “One of the more unique things about Dr. Brandenburg among pseudoscientists is that one of his major claims of evidence that his ideas are correct is that he claims he presents at scientific conferences, and no one challenges him. I have heard him make that claim multiple times in practically every interview I have heard him give.”

Stuart Robbins has a point. Listen to what Dr Brandenburg said at the conference: ‘The earlier result of a nuclear massacre stands,’ he said. “However, for this conference paper I chose to focus on the most important part of the hypothesis, the enormous nuclear explosions, which is the most extraordinary new evidence of past intelligent activity on Mars. My goal is establish the reality of the explosions to the scientific community, and their non-natural origin, and then focus on their targets. Rest assured the whole hypothesis will be discussed tomorrow. I will be waving around copies of my book: Death on Mars.’

Dr Brandenburg also claims he came up with the hypothesis that Mars was once covered in an ocean, which Nasa recently announced. ‘This is a fine old blood feud on Mars,’ he added about NASA!

From his website here are his credentials: 

DR. JOHN BRANDENBURG is a plasma physicist working as a consultant at Morningstar Applied Physics LLC and as a part-time instructor of Astronomy, Physics and Mathematics at Madison College, and other learning institutions in Madison, Wisconsin.

He previously worked at Orbital Technologies on space plasma technologies, nuclear fusion, and advanced space propulsion. He is the principle inventor of the MET (Microwave Electro-Thermal) plasma thruster using water propellant for space propulsion. He has worked on: SDI, the Clementine Mission to the Moon, Rocket Plume-Regolith Interactions on the Moon and Mars, Vortex theory of Rocket engine design and the combined Sakharov-Kaluza-Klein theory of Field Unification for purposes of space propulsion and Mars science.

Dr. Brandenburg has authored the popular science books Life and Death on Mars (2010), Beyond Einstein’s Unified Field (2011) and Dead Mars, Dying Earth (1999) with Monica  Paxson. He has written two science fiction novels under the pen name “Victor Norgarde”: Morningstar Pass The Collapse of the UFO Coverup and Asteroid 20-2012 Sepulveda.

From the SECRET SPACE PROGRAM CONFERENCE 2015 website:  a conference that asks: “What’s going on?”

Is there a Secret Space Program being developed outside the public eye using funds allocated by congress for purposes of creating a completely separate economic system? Where are the missing budget trillions? What is the UFO phenomenon? Is it a series of military projects using this advanced technology developed in underground bases around the globe or does it represent something completely unknown and alien to human reality? Discover the new evidence and shocking findings that show why, as public space programs like NASA languish in debt, delays and failure, the development of space rages on by an untouchable, elite cabal unhindered by public accountability or congressional oversight. 

From his book jacket: 

Now the whole truth about Mars can be told: Mars once lived as the Earth now lives, and became the home of a humanoid civilization. Then, apparently, someone else, far more advanced, came and destroyed Mars utterly with a massive nuclear blast, that left a “radiation scar” on Mars, filled the atmosphere with telltale isotopic residues, and irradiated its surface with high energy neutrons. That is the best hypothesis that can be made now. We must go to Mars and find out, in depth, what exactly happened there and how to avoid it happening to our own Earth. Life and Death on Mars is the story of this “great and terrible discovery of the age,” how it was made in the icy depths of the Cold War, its basic evidences, and what this discovery now requires of us.

{ http://sciencevibe.com/ }

30-06-2017 om 01:39 geschreven door peter  

We Haven't Found Extraterrestrial Life, Says NASA

Yesterday we brought you the rather odd news that hacking group Anonymous thought NASA was going to announce they’d found intelligent alien life.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense hopefully quickly realized there was nothing to this story. And note, it probably wasn't even the “official” Anonymous group, if there is such a thing. But for good measure, NASA has come out and debunked it anyway.

“Contrary to some reports, there’s no pending announcement from NASA regarding extraterrestrial life,” Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said on Twitter.

“Are we alone in the universe? While we do not know yet, we have missions moving forward that may help answer that fundamental question,” he added in another tweet.

Of course, if you’re one to believe alien conspiracy theories, you’re probably not going to believe this statement from Zurbuchen. So take our word for it that this is all just some weird baloney spread by some guy or girl claiming to be part of Anonymous.

Zurbuchen is right, though. Whether we’re alone in the universe is still an open question. But we’re getting closer to answering it. In our own Solar System, we’ve found a few places – oceans under the surface of Europa and Enceladus, for instance – that might be good places for microbial life.

Elsewhere, we’re finding more and more planets that could be habitable. In the coming years, we’re going to be able to study the atmospheres of some of these planets, and hopefully find out if they have any biosignatures.

And there are also several searches underway for intelligent alien life. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been looking for signals for decades. More recently, the Breakthrough Listen project – funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner – has also joined the hunt.

The fact is, though, that we simply haven’t found anything yet. There’s no NASA-funded project looking for intelligent life, so if we did stumble across a signal, it would be one of the two aforementioned private endeavors.

That we haven’t found any life is a bit of a quandary, known as the Fermi Paradox. Planets seem to be pretty abundant in the universe, so why haven’t we found any other life yet? The answer is either we’re alone, or we haven’t looked hard enough yet.

No intelligent aliens are going to be making their way undetected into the Solar System anytime soon, though. If an alien ship does arrive on our doorstop, we’ll probably know about it. For now, we’re alone – and that’s kind of terrifying in its own right.

{ http://www.iflscience.com/ }

30-06-2017 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s starship could reach Alpha Centauri in just two weeks

Published on Sep 21, 2016

It took the Voyager 1 spacecraft over three decades to leave the solar system (and scientists still aren’t sure when it did). We need a new method of propulsion that will transport spacecraft faster than ever before. NASA is one of a few agencies developing a new way to sail through space, on the power of the solar wind.

{ http://www.businessinsider.com/ }

30-06-2017 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

U.S. fighter pilot: 'I was ordered to fire 24 rockets at UFO flying over East Anglia' ( 2008 )

By Rebecca Camber for the Daily Mail

Former US Air Force fighter pilot Milton Torres is convinced he had an encounter with an alien spaceship in the skies over England in the 1950s.

He was warned to keep quiet about the incident, but eventually talked about it 31 years later, the newly-released Ministry of Defence files show.

On the night of May 20 1957, Dr Torres, then aged 25, was on standby at RAF Manston in Kent when he received an urgent order to scramble.

He was told to intercept a UFO with "very unusual flight patterns" over East Anglia that ground radar operators had been tracking for some time.

It was so cloudy he could not see anything, but the object showed up clearly on his radar as similar in size to a B-52 bomber.

He was then ordered to fire a full salvo of 24 rockets at the object - something that came as a sobering shock to him.

American fighter pilot Milton Torres was ordered to shoot down a suspected UFO in 1957 over East Anglia

But before he could carry out this instruction the UFO suddenly darted off and disappeared from his scope in a matter of seconds.

The next day a man claiming to be from the US National Security Agency threatened him with losing his flying status if he told anyone what happened.

Dr Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, Florida, said he was flying at about Mach 0.92, while the UFO was travelling at over Mach 10.

He said: "I think it was an alien spacecraft. It had a propulsion system that was beyond us - either magnetism or anti-gravity."

Until 1967 the MoD had a policy of destroying UFO files every five years because they were considered of "transitory interest".

This means the incident could have vanished without a trace had Dr Torres not been moved to mention it at a USAF veterans reunion in 1988.

The retired civil engineering professor urged people with more information about the strange encounter to come forward.

"There are people who are still alive on Earth who know about this. I'm talking about the RAF, USAF, whatever," he said.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer, suspects the US military may have been testing a top-secret machine designed to project phantom aircraft on to Soviet radar.

"I think the most likely explanation is that he was basically a pawn in some sort of exercise involving electronic spoofing warfare," he said. 

Close encounters: Numerous UFOs have been sighted above the UK skies

But Dr Torres remains convinced what he saw on the radar came from beyond our solar system, insisting: "This is something that's not man-made."

Secret MoD documents released for the first time also show how the captain of Flight AZ 284 had a similar close encounter to Milton Torres.

As the pilot began his descent into Heathrow, he saw something alarming overhead.

Shaped like a missile, the object suddenly veered across the airliner's path causing the pilot to shout 'Look out!' as he attempted to avert a mid-air collision 22,000ft above the Kent countryside.

Travelling at an estimated 120mph, it passed less than 1,000ft from the passenger jet before disappearing from radar screens, leaving the pilot and accident investigators baffled. 

Enlarge   

Sketch of a UFO: This picture has just been released by the National Archives

The documents reveal that Ministry of Defence staff accept that an Unidentified Flying Object zooming above Lydd caused the near miss.

The incident took place at 7.58pm on April 21, 1991, and was investigated by the Civil Aviation Authority and military experts.

Having ruled out the possibility of it being a missile, weather balloon or space rocket, the MoD was forced to conclude that it was a genuine UFO and close the inquiry.

The unexplained close encounter is one of many recounted in military UFO documents released today by the National Archives.

The Alitalia aircraft was on a routine flight from Milan to Heathrow with 57 people on board when the ten-foot long object, which had no exhaust flame, was spotted by pilot Achille Zaghetti. 

He told accident investigators: 'I saw for about 3.4 seconds a flying object, very similar to a missile, light brown coloured.

'At once I said, "Look out, look out" to my co-pilot, who saw what I had seen.

'As soon as the object crossed us I asked the ACC (area control centre) operator if he saw something on his screen and he answered, "I see an unknown target 10nm ( nautical miles) behind you".'

Enlarge   

Another sketch of a UFO seen by a member of the public

At 10.25pm that night there was a report to Brentwood police in Essex of a dark flying object in the sky which had no engine noise or lights.

Southern TV also broadcast a story about a 14-year-old boy who reported seeing a missile flying at low level before climbing through the cloud and disappearing on the same evening.

Radar images of the object showed that the UFO was initially labelled 'cruise missile??' but checks on Army firing ranges and U.S. and British naval ships established that it was not a military weapon or 'space related' activity.

On July 2 a secret MoD report concluded: 'These departments have not been able to confirm the identity of the object sighted by the Alitalia crew.

'In the absence of any clear evidence which could be used to identify the object, it is our intention to treat this sighting like that of any other Unidentified Flying Object and therefore we will not be undertaking any further investigation into the sighting.' 

Other incidents recorded in military files the same year include a 'wingless projectile' seen on June 17, 1991.

Enlarge   

Four passengers on board a Boeing 737 saw it pass beneath the airliner as it climbed from Gatwick Airport headed for Hamburg.

Gatwick air traffic controllers were alerted but said they were 'unaware of anything unusual occurring at that time'.

A weather balloon had been released in the area around this time, but the description and timing did not match the wingless object, according to military files.

On July 15 the crew of a Britannia Airways 737 descending into Gatwick at 14,000ft reported seeing a 'small black lozenge-shaped object' travelling at high speed just 100 yards from the aircraft.

Air traffic control confirmed a 'primary contact' visible on the radar ten nautical miles behind the 737 travelling at 120mph.

Immediately air traffic controllers warned a following aircraft to turn left to avoid the object, although the pilot said he never saw it.

An investigation completed in April 1992 was unable to explain the incident but suggested the unidentified object could have been an escaped balloon.

The files are available online for the first time at http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/.

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

30-06-2017 om 00:48 geschreven door peter  

Something unusual was happening in the skies over Scandinavia in the summer of 1946.

The July 12, 1946 edition of the London Daily Telegraph featured a report on this curious new phenomenon, which read as follows:

“For some weeks a fair number of ‘ghost rockets’ going from south-east to north-west have been reported from various parts of the eastern coast of Sweden. Eye witnesses say that they look like glowing balls and are followed by a tail of smoke more or less visible. So many reports cannot be put down to pure imagination in the matter. As there is no definite evidence that the phenomena are of meteoric origin, there is growing suspicion that they are a new kind of radio-controlled V-weapon on which experiments are carried out.”

Of course, it might be assumed that one variety of these unusual aerial objects had already begun to turn up prior to the end of the war. Colorful reports of strange lights that dogged aircraft over parts of Europe would soon be known as “Foo Fighters,” of which at least a majority of reports could have entailed things like lightning sprites observed by pilots.

However, while the “ghost rocket” craze was well underway in Europe and Scandinavia, a very different kind of rocket was being seen in other parts of the world.

One of the most remarkable incidents involving an unidentified flying object, which occurred prior to the subject’s popularity coinciding with Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting, involved Captain Jack Puckett, the assistant chief of flying safety, Tactical Air Command. On the morning of August 1, 1946, Puckett was piloting a twin engine C-47, and had left Langley Field for MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Florida.

Puckett was thirty miles from his destination when what appeared to be a long, brightly illuminated object nearly collided with his C-47. Puckett filed an incident report after he landed, according to which he stated:

“[The aircraft] continued toward us on a collision course, at our exact altitude. At about 1,000 yards, it veered to cross our path. We observed it to be a long, cylindrical shape approximately twice the size of a B-29 bomber, with luminous portholes.”

Puckett and his crew aboard the C-47 watched the object in amazement, until it disappeared over the horizon, traversing an estimated 100 miles over the course of three minutes.

In my book The Ghost Rockets: Mystery Missiles and Phantom Projectiles in Our Skies, I note the rocket like functions of this unusual aircraft, in relation to rocket technologies that were being developed in Germany during the war:

The object Puckett witnessed also produced a strange, sparkling tail, much like a rocket would; this detail would certainly present a lot of confusion among aviation officials at the time, in addition to increasing speculation about new kinds of technologies that might be under development elsewhere in the world. The technical information about rocketry advancements spearheaded in Nazi Germany during World War II, along with many of the leading experts in this field, were acquired by the British, Soviet, and American governments during and immediately following the war. America had previously gained access to V-2 rocket technology the Allies recovered at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp near Nordhausen, where an underground German rocket base known as the Mittelwerk factory, had been located. British forces managed to take away a wealth of information prior to the later Soviet occupation of the area. By late 1945, this information formed the basis of what became Operation Backfire, a program where British V-2 rockets were built and launched for purposes of demonstrating their capabilities.

The significance of Puckett’s encounter goes beyond the mere recollection of a “mystery aircraft” for a number of reasons. For one, as mentioned earlier, this sighting took place well in advance (by almost a year) the sighting of objects over Mount Rainer, Washington, that sparked the eventual “flying saucer craze.” In addition to the sighting taking place prior to the swelling of reports that accompanied Kenneth Arnold’s initial UFO sightings over the northwest, the fact that the assistant chief of flying safety with Tactical Air Command would report an aircraft of this sort, and only months after the conclusion of the Second World War, would likely have been considered to be of sincere concern as far as national security; to have fabricated such a report would have meant severe repercussions for Puckett and his crew.

Additionally, the object in question had initially been considered a meteor by Puckett and his crew, while still at a fair  distance from them. “This object continued toward us on a collision course at our exact altitude,” he continued in his incident report. “At about 1000 yards it veered to cross our path. We observed it to be a long, cylindrical shape approximately twice the size of a B-29, with luminous portholes.” It would seem unusual indeed that the pilot and crew would see a meteor, and then mistake the meteor as it traversed their altitude for being a massive aircraft of some kind, adorned with “luminous portholes”.

Finally, the idea that the object had been a misidentification of some variety of natural phenomenon seems unusual, since Puckett and his crew’s description matched a number of similar UFO reports that would follow, most notably the famous 1948 Chiles and Whitted UFO encounter (dramatized in the image above), along with a similar observation that occurred shortly afterward in France.

Granted, by the time the Chiles and Whitted sighting occurred, the “UFO craze” was already well underway. Indeed, Captain Jack Puckett’s unusual observation of a weird, “ghost rocket” over the American Southeast remains one of the most unusual, and perhaps significant observations of unexplained aerial activity in the modern era.

30-06-2017 om 00:39 geschreven door peter  

Proof UFOs exist? ‘ET saucer’ spotted hovering over city

AN amateur photographer has captured an image of a flying saucer-shaped UFO hovering in the night sky.

By Ross Kaniuk 

“They said straight away it looked like a UFO”

Carole Middleton

She said: “I didn’t notice until I got home and showed it to my friends. They said straight away it looked like a UFO.

“We were trawling along on the boat and I was just taking pictures and hoped for the best.

“Because it was so dark and floodlit I didn’t notice it at the time.”

{ http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ } 

30-06-2017 om 00:22 geschreven door peter  

A hidden world of caves lies underground, providing scientists with plenty of opportunities for exploration. 

BUDINARENDRA/ISTOCKPHOTO

The largest crystals on Earth can be found in a cave in Mexico, buried 300 meters (about 1,000 feet) below ground. The biggest of these giants is about as long and wide as a school bus. These crystals crisscross within the cavern. They look like translucent white trees that have fallen in an alien forest. Smaller ones cluster like mineral bushes on the walls and floor.

The crystals within the Cave of Crystals, in Chihuahua, Mexico, host microbes that have been living in extreme circumstances for thousands of years.

Alexander Van Driessche/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

This is the Cave of Crystals, and it might be one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. It’s not the most comfortable, though. Temperatures here soar to 58° Celsius (136° Fahrenheit). Humidity hovers around 90 percent. People who enter the cave risk heatstroke. They must wear protective suits just to avoid suffocating. Thieves have died trying to steal slivers of the crystals.

The dazzling cave might seem like the last place on Earth to look for life. But it doesn’t seem that way to Penelope Boston. She’s a speleologist (SPEE-lee-OL-uh-gizt) — a scientist who studies caves. And her specialty is life existing in extreme environments.

Scientists have found organisms in plenty of hostile places — some of the hottest, coldest, darkest, deepest and most remote sites on Earth. To find such organisms, however, scientists must travel far and venture into unfriendly places. Including caves. 

Some caves have been carved by underground streams. Others have formed during earthquakes or from volcanic activity. Now these sites provide windows to the inner workings of our planet. Protected from the surface, they change slowly — if at all. And this preserves a record of the past and represents one of Earth’s last unexplored frontiers. So to speleologists, caves are natural laboratories, full of possibilities.

A tough place to call home

Boston conducts research below ground. But she started by looking in the opposite direction: to outer space. She’s always wanted to know if life exists on other planets. And she's always wanted to go to Mars. In graduate school, she helped found The Mars Society. This organization is dedicated to getting people to the Red Planet — and settling there. She is also a past president of the Association of Mars Explorers, a group of scientists and others who are passionate about exploring “the frontiers of Mars.” That includes thinking about where to look for microscopic life on the planet. (If scientists do find microbes, these germs would be the first known Martians!)

The surface of Mars is cold, dry and bombarded by radiation from the sun. It wouldn’t be a pleasant place to live. Boston thinks a better spot to find life would be beneath the Martian surface. Images from orbiting spacecraft have revealed holes in planet's surface.  Scientists suspect these could be natural skylights, leading to underground caverns. Those images from space also show curving troughs on the planet’s surface. These look like collapsed lava tubes, which are underground channels formed by flowing lava.

Traveling to Mars to search for life in these places would be tough. But Earth also has lava tubes and caves. And they are a lot closer than Mars. So scientists like Boston study extremophiles — organisms that live in Earth’s most hostile places — to get an idea of what Martians might resemble, if they exist.

Boston has spent decades looking for microscopic organisms in extreme places. “Over the years, we’ve developed a good eye for [finding] this stuff,” she says. That’s why she went to that hot, humid and spectacular cave in Mexico. She wondered whether anything could be living inside those crystals.

Penelope Boston talks about what it’s like to search for life inside caves.

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

All crystals, big or small, develop defects as they grow. These defects are small pockets. Some defects in the Cave of Crystals aren’t empty, though. They contain fluid. Those crystal defects become “little time capsules,” Boston says. She thought their liquids might hold fossils of long-dead bacteria.

To find out, she used a tiny drill to reach the pockets and extract the fluid. When she looked at this liquid under a microscope, she did find fossils. She also found microbes that posed something of a mystery. You see, she couldn't be sure they were actually dead.

As she toiled in the hot cave, Boston knew she might never return. The cave is owned by a mining company, and, she notes, “The mining company was tired of us being around.” She placed the microbes into a heated dish containing microbe food. Then she rushed them back to her lab at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. There she ran a cave-studies program.

To her surprise, the microbes began to grow in the lab. That meant they were alive!

Nine years later, bacteria from 45 of her original 60 samples are still alive.

To figure out the age of these microbes, she had to know the age of the crystals. Luckily, other scientists had been working on this.

A crystal grows by accumulating new mineral on its outside. The innermost parts are the oldest. Scientists have figured out how fast crystals grow, so Boston could estimate the age of the microbes based on how deeply they had been buried in a crystal. Her colonies of microbes likely are between 10,000 and 50,000 years old, she reported earlier this year at a science meeting.

These microbes may not be aliens, but they are definitely strange. They stay alive without sunlight. For food, they rely on minerals or fluids in the crystal. And they don’t mind the heat or humidity of the cave.

Boston and her team are still studying the samples. They haven’t published their data yet because they want to be sure they’re correct. Other scientists need to look at these data, too, to check the findings.

Still, Boston is excited. For the past year, she’s directed NASA’s Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, Calif. (NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) Astrobiology is the study of how life begins and thrives in the universe. Astrobiologists help plan missions to search for life on other planets, such as Mars. Boston’s research will now help guide those missions.

She doesn’t expect to find the same organisms on other planets. Her research, however, shows that life finds a way in the most unexpected places. And if critters can thrive in the Cave of Crystals, then maybe others are thriving on Mars, or even more distant planets and moons.   

Climate clues written in stone

Much of Greenland is covered in ice and snow, which makes getting to caves on the island difficult.

Paolo Gardino/Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

For speleologists, getting to work is often the hardest part of the job. They may have to scale cliffs or waterfalls on ropes. They may end up very wet. And their path may be lit only by lamplight. And that’s once they get inside. Just getting to the entrance can be tricky, too. Gina Moseley knows that firsthand.

She’s a speleologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Moseley studies caves to learn about Earth’s past climate. Climate refers to the weather patterns in a particular area over a long period.

In 2015, Moseley’s research led her to caves in Greenland. This island sits mostly above the Arctic Circle. Because it’s so far north, much of Greenland is covered by ice. The island and its ice are sensitive to changes in temperatures. Scientists study Greenland to better understand how Earth’s climate is currently changing.  

No one had ever visited the caves that Moseley's team were headed to before. And for good reason: They’re hard to reach.

The researchers had to hire a small airplane to fly them up Greenland’s East Coast. The plane dropped them off on the edge of a lake. Then they inflated a boat to cross the frigid lake. Once on the other side, they hiked three days to reach the cave. After collecting samples from inside it, they made the long journey back to bring those samples home.

Some samples came from flowstones. These are mineral sheets formed by water dripping from the ceiling. That water is special, Moseley says. It has traveled from the surface and through the soil and rock above the cave. Before that, it fell from the sky as rain. And before that it was in the ocean. In other words, caves are plugged into the water cycle.  

Over time, elements and minerals accumulate in the water like souvenirs from its travels. “That water contains a chemical signature of the ocean and the atmosphere and the soil,” Moseley notes. Those chemical souvenirs include a mineral called calcite (KAL-syte). Over tens or hundreds of thousands of years, calcite piles up into stalagmites and flowstones. Stalagmites are rock formations that rise from the floor of a cave like giant candlesticks. These mineral towers trap information about the past climate.

“When you take one and cut it open, you can see the different layers in there — a lot like tree-ring studies,” says Moseley. Scientists can read the layers like a history book of the region’s climate. During warmer eras, thicker calcite layers grow. During cooler eras, thinner layers form.  By measuring carbon, an element found in all living things, researchers can tell if plants had been growing during a particular time period.

Moseley says her team’s research helps show what’s happened to Greenland in the past. Combined with other climate research, her studies add to a bigger picture of how that part of the planet has changed.

Scientists already have studied deep ice samples from Greenland dating back 130,000 years. That means they have a record of warming and cooling periods going all the way back to the beginning of the last Ice Age. But Moseley says she and her team will use cave samples to look back even farther in time. 

“Caves are another important cog in a much bigger system,” she says.  

Islands of time

Francesco Sauro, too, has studied caves the world over. He’s a speleologist at the University of Bologna in Italy. In recent years, he’s been traveling to caves in northern Venezuela. These South American caves are in mountains called tepuis (TEH-pwee), which rise from the jungle below like tabletops. They may look a little familiar — they inspired Paradise Falls in the movie Up. 

Nothing is easy for explorers of the tepuis. The entrances to many caves look like cracks on the side of a cliff. To get there, cavers must first hire a helicopter to carry them to the top of the cliff. But the tepuis are often blanketed in clouds. Fast winds can whip around them. On many days, helicopters can’t fly safely. So Sauro and his team may wait weeks for the conditions to become just right.

Once they reach the top, things get even trickier. The cavers must climb or rappel down to the cave’s entrance, carrying all their equipment in tow. After going to that much trouble, Sauro says, they want to stay. So in 2016, he and his team spent 40 days exploring one cave in the tepuis. 

Francisco Sauro talks about caves and the hidden worlds within them

TED

Many caves form in limestone, a type of rock that easily dissolves in water. But caves in the tepuis form from quartzite sandstone. This material also dissolves in water, but much more slowly than limestone does. That means the tepui caves are much older than ones in limestone formations. In fact, caves within the tepuis might be the oldest on Earth.

Like Boston, Sauro is interested in learning how rocks and life intersect. He studies the microbes that live inside these caves. He also studies the tepuis to better understand the processes that shape Earth. And he uses lasers to map the inner passages of the caves that he explores.

Francesco Sauro has studied caves in many places across the planet.

Stefan Walter – Rolex Award

A tepuis cave is unusual, “different from any other,” Sauro says. Quartzite is pink. That colors the caves’ passages pink, too. Water inside them run red. And the stalagmites and stalactites (which form on cave ceilings) have strange shapes. Some look like marshmallows stuck to the cave’s roof. Others look like fragile bones.

Many of those formations likely host microbes that scientists have not yet identified. Some formations might even owe their creation to microbes, Sauro says. 

He has become savvy about finding caves. He knows where to look for clues. To find a cave in the tepuis, he studies satellite maps and looks for sinkholes. He says mountains are a good place to look. If a mountain has no streams or rivers, that means all of its water is going underground. “That is an indication the mass contains some underground network,” he says. In other words: caves.

One of the most interesting things about cave exploration, Sauro says, is that there’s no end in sight. “Not all caves have access to the surface,” he says. That means it’s likely that most of the caves in the world still remain undisturbed. They lie hidden, their secrets awaiting discovery.

Power Words

(for more about Power Words, click here)

alien     (in astronomy) Life on or from a distant world.

Arctic Circle     The northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice.

astrobiology     The study of life everywhere in the universe, including on Earth and in space.

calcite     A type of extremely white and not terribly hard mineral that serves as the basis of many types of rock. It is the main ingredient in both limestone and marble, for instance. It’s chemical formula is CaCO₃.

carbon     The chemical element having the atomic number 6. It is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.

chemical     A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H₂O. Chemical can also be used as an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds.

climate     The weather conditions prevailing in one area, in general, or over a long period.

crystal     (adj. crystalline) A solid consisting of a symmetrical, ordered, three-dimensional arrangement of atoms or molecules. It’s the organized structure taken by most minerals. Apatite, for example, forms six-sided crystals. The mineral crystals that make up rock are usually too small to be seen with the unaided eye.

dissolve     To turn a solid into a liquid and then disperse it into that starting liquid. For instance, sugar or salt crystals (solids) will dissolve into water. Now the crystals are gone and the solution is a fully dispersed mix of the liquid form of the sugar or salt in water.

extremophile     A microorganism that lives in conditions of extreme temperature, acidity, alkalinity or concentrations of chemicals.

fossil     Any preserved remains or traces of ancient life. There are many different types of fossils: The bones and other body parts of dinosaurs are called “body fossils.” Things like footprints are called “trace fossils.” Even specimens of dinosaur poop are fossils. The process of forming fossils is called fossilization.

graduate school     A university program that offers advanced degrees, such as a Master’s or PhD degree. It’s called graduate school because it is started only after someone has already graduated from college (usually with a four-year degree).

Greenland     The world’s largest island, Greenland sits between the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic. Although it is technically part of North America (sitting just east of Northern Canada), Greenland has been linked more politically to Europe. Indeed, Vikings arrived in Greenland around the 10th century, and for a time the island was a colony of Denmark. In June 2009, Greenland became an independent nation. Ice covers roughly 80 percent of Greenland. Indeed, the Greenland ice sheet is the world’s largest. If its frozen water were to melt, it could raise sea levels around the world by 6 meters (about 20 feet). Although this is the 12th biggest nation (based on surface area), Greenland averages the fewest people per square kilometer of its surface area.

humidity     A measure of the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. (Air with a lot of water vapor in it is known as humid.)

ice age     Earth has experienced at least five major ice ages, which are prolonged periods of unusually cold weather experienced by much of the planet. During that time, which can last hundreds to thousands of years, glaciers and ice sheets expand in size and depth. The most recent ice age peaked 21,500 years ago, but continued until about 13,000 years ago.

laser     A device that generates an intense beam of coherent light of a single color. Lasers are used in drilling and cutting, alignment and guidance, in data storage and in surgery.

lava     Molten rock that comes up from the mantle, through Earth’s crust, and out of a volcano.

limestone     A natural rock formed by the accumulation of calcium carbonate over time, then compressed under great pressure. Most of the starting calcium carbonate came from the shells of sea animals after they died. However, that chemical also can settle out of water, especially after carbon dioxide is removed (by plants, for instance).

Mars     The fourth planet from the sun, just one planet out from Earth. Like Earth, it has seasons and moisture. But its diameter is only about half as big as Earth’s.

microbe     Short for microorganism. A living thing that is too small to see with the unaided eye, including bacteria, some fungi and many other organisms such as amoebas. Most consist of a single cell.

mineral     The crystal-forming substances, such as quartz, apatite, or various carbonates, that make up rock. Most rocks contain several different minerals mish-mashed together. A mineral usually is solid and stable at room temperature and has a specific formula, or recipe (with atoms occurring in certain proportions) and a specific crystalline structure (meaning that its atoms are organized in certain regular three-dimensional patterns).

National Aeronautics and Space Administration     (or NASA) Created in 1958, this U.S. agency has become a leader in space research and in stimulating public interest in space exploration. It was through NASA that the United States sent people into orbit and ultimately to the moon. It has also sent research craft to study planets and other celestial objects in our solar system.

network     A group of interconnected people or things.

organism     Any living thing, from elephants and plants to bacteria and other types of single-celled life.

planet     A celestial object that orbits a star, is big enough for gravity to have squashed it into a roundish ball and has cleared other objects out of the way in its orbital neighborhood. To accomplish the third feat, the object must be big enough to have pulled neighboring objects into the planet itself or to have slung them around the planet and off into outer space.

quartzite      A type of metamorphic rock made of quartz. It tends to develop within sandstone. Like its name suggests, sandstone forms from sand — tiny crystals of silica. Quartzite forms when that sandstone undergoes metamorphic changes due to heat, pressure and chemical reactions. These changes alter the sand grains and the mineral that cements them together to form a rock. The interlocking bits of quartz give this mineral incredible strength.

rappel   To travel down a cliff by sliding along a rope while periodically kicking off against the surface with your legs.

sandstone     A type of sedimentary rock. It formed as sand-size grains of mineral grit became compacted or glued together over time.

satellite     A moon orbiting a planet or a vehicle or other manufactured object that orbits some celestial body in space.

savvy     The quality of possessing useful and clever knowledge.

sinkhole     A body of water that forms when a patch of ground opens up, revealing a rocky cavern below. That rocky structure then accumulates rainwater because there no opening below that allows the water to easily exit. Some sinkholes develop naturally. Others can result from the overpumping of any groundwater that may have collected in the rocky underground cavern. Sinkholes can be as small as a meter across or as large as a big lake.

speleology     The study of caves. Someone who studies or explores caves is called a speleologist.

stalactite     A mineral formation found in caves that forms in much the same way that icicles do. Liquid water slowly drips down from a surface. But if the water evaporates before the drop falls to the ground, any minerals in the water may solidify to form rock. Over time, the stalactites may grow to a meter or more across and many, many meters long.

stalagmite    A mineral feature that can develop in moist caves. Water that drips down from the cave ceiling can very slowly evaporate, leaving behind an upward-growing mound of mineral deposits, or rock. Most of these structures, which resemble upside down icicles,have rounded or flattened tips.

tepui      Flat-topped mountains in the highlands of southeastern Venezuela. Then tend to be made of sandstone. Some can rise as much as 1,000 meters (almost 3,300 feet).

translucent     The property of letting light through, but not being transparent. Usually, things viewed through a translucent material (such as frosted window glass) appear as hazy shapes with no detail.

Readability Score:

6.1

Citation

Meeting: P. Boston. The Astrobiological Exploration of Earth and Mars. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2017. February 17, 2017. Boston, Mass. 

Journal: F. Sauro. Structural and lithological guidance on speleogenesis in quartz–sandstone: Evidence of the arenisation process. Geomorphology. Volume 226, Dec. 1, 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.07.033.

Further Reading

Questions for 'Cool Jobs: Bringing caves' dark secrets to light'

Wordfind (click here)

{ https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/ }

29-06-2017 om 22:33 geschreven door peter  

By Daily Mirror 

If aliens do exist, would they have a skeletal structure like humans do?

Online conspiracy theorists believe they know the answer after spotting what appears to be set of bones on the surface of Mars.

See also: Chippy sends fish and chips into space

See also: New multi-million pound telescope will hunt for new planets

The "discovery" was made after poring through pictures beamed back from NASA's Curiosity rover.

The rover is currently exploring the rocky surface of the distant planet and makes all its images free to view in the public domain.

But a particular pair of shots has caught the interest of the alien-hunting community after appearing to show decaying bones lying in Mars' red dust.

The images began circulating after they were featured in an online video entitled "Fossilized Bones, Petrified Wood, Fungus & Lichen, Growth & Movement, Life on Mars."

It was the Martian Archaeology channel and immediately seized on by those believing extra terrestrials could have once lived on the planet.

"After years of research and study, I'm convinced now, more then ever, that there much more to Mars then what NASA admits to," posted a user named TJ Devereaux.

"I'm certain life, including water, and intelligent life forms, once occupied the planet, and... big leap here... that both still exist, in much smaller quantities."

As well as just believing the images show bones, alien hunters are convinced that the dark patches are evidence of lichen growing on them.

Although NASA has growing ambitions to visit the red planet in the near future, it is certain there is no longer any intelligent life left on the planet.

These "bones" are far from the first objects allegedly spotted on Mars.

Strange domes and rock outlines resembling human-like items are often picked up on as evidence of pareidolia: when the brain is tricked into seeing familiar sights in strange objects.

{ http://www.aol.co.uk/?icid=nav-travel }

29-06-2017 om 22:18 geschreven door peter  

Are Aliens Real? NASA Telescope Finds A Ton Of Planets, So Probably Yes

29-06-2017 om 21:22 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Debate If We Should Be Sending Messages to Alien Worlds

(AP)

By Jason Devaney   

29-06-2017 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

BY MAGGIE MALACH

ISTOCK

Long before Leonardo da Vinci sketched a flying machine or the Wright Brothers took flight at Kitty Hawk, there were reports of aircrafts soaring through the sky. Though some of those stories of Unidentified Flying Objects (or UFOs) may date as far back as Ancient Egypt, they are firmly ensconced in today's pop culture and accounts of their sightings remain fascinating for believers and skeptics alike. Here are 12 of the most intriguing incidents of alleged UFO sightings.

1. EGYPT // MID-1400S BCE

According to the Tulli Papyrus—the reported writings of Thutmose III, who reigned in the 1400s BCE—something unexplainable was spotted. An excerpt from the annals detailing the incident reads:

In the year 22, in the 3rd month of winter, in the sixth hour of the day, the scribes of House of Life noticed a circle of fire that was coming from the sky. From the mouth it emitted a foul breath. It had no head. Its body was one rod long and one rod wide. It had no voice. And from that the hearts of the scribes became confused and they threw themselves down on their bellies, then they reported the thing to the Pharaoh. … It was recorded in the scrolls of the House of Life.

His Majesty was meditating upon what happened. Now after some days had passed, these things became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shone more in the sky than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of the heavens … Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the Pharaoh looked on with him in their midst. It was after supper. Thereupon, these fire circles ascended higher in the sky towards the south … The Pharaoh caused incense to be brought to make peace on the hearth … And what happened was ordered by the Pharaoh to be written in the annals of the House of Life … so that it be remembered for ever.

The validity of these writings remain uncertain. The original papyrus was lost and only copies of copies of it remain.

2. ROME // 218 BCE

One of the earliest reported UFO sightings can be traced back to about 218 BCE. Around 200 years later, Roman historian Livy recorded a number of strange incidents, likely using some lost list of those earlier sightings. One of the historian's writings included “A spectacle of ships (navium) gleamed in the sky” in Rome. In a report on UFOs [PDF], NASA’s Richard Stothers deemed these sightings "trustworthy and accurate," due to the time-consuming and costly nature of investigations into omens during this era.

3. SPAIN // 1433

On January 5, 1433, the entire court of King Juan II of Castile allegedly claimed to have seen a UFO. Fernán Gómez de Cibdarreal, the king’s physician, reportedly detailed the sighting in a letter. While its authenticity is uncertain, here is a excerpt:

I shall not tire your lordship with this narration, since we had just arrived [to Ciudad Rodrigo] when, walking on Wednesday the 5th of this month of January [1433], we suddenly saw a great flame of yellow fire attached to the sky move from one end to the other; it had inside like a black root and all its borders were more whitish than the middle; and it left with a great roar, causing horses and mules to ran in fear, and my own mule didn’t stop until it touched another mule.

4. NUREMBERG, GERMANY // 1561

BY HANS GLASER, 1561. IMAGE CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS // PUBLIC DOMAIN

This famous alleged UFO sighting is documented not only in words, but in a woodcut by Hans Glaser. The piece shows the sky full of strange objects and “immense” smoke rising from the earth. Glaser and many others reportedly claimed to have witnessed the occurrence in Nuremberg on April 14, 1561.

The artist included a description with his work as well as a message to skeptics. He wrote: "Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness."

5. TEXAS // 1897

"Texas’ most famous UFO crash" occurred in April 1897. On that day, a cigar-shaped object reportedly crashed into a windmill in Aurora, a small town just north of Fort Worth. The legend has conflicting claims. Some say the alien inside the craft survived, while others believe it died and the residents of the town gave it a Christian burial.

At the time of the crash, E.E. Hayden (sometimes reported as S.E. Haydon), a reporter from the Dallas Morning News, wrote that the spaceship “collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went into pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden. The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world."

6. MISSOURI // 1941

One 20th-century incident became a hidden family secret. In April 1941, Rev. William Huffman of Red Star Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri was asked to minister at the site of a plane crash. There, Huffman said, he found a saucer with three alien bodies. His granddaughter later recounted the story to local news outlet KFVS, claiming that her grandfather had been sworn to secrecy after the incident.

7. WASHINGTON // 1947

Kenneth Arnold’s reported 1947 sighting is well-known for many reasons, including coining the phrase "flying disc." Just weeks before Roswell—one of the most famous incidents of all time—Arnold was flying his plane near Mount Rainier in Washington state when he said he observed a line of crescent-shaped objects in the sky. He estimated that they were clocking 1700 MPH and described their movements as being like "a saucer if you skip it across water."

8. ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO // 1947

Wikimedia Commons

Arnold’s sighting was the first in a series, which also includes the famous Roswell UFO report. According to CNN, the Air Force initially claimed to have found remnants of a flying saucer at the site in New Mexico. Later, they claimed the debris were from a weather balloon and then, much later, that it was an apparatus to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Today, the sighting has cult status, inspiring movies and TV, including the show Roswell. Conspiracy theorists consider it to be one of the most famous UFO cover-ups in history.

9. WEST VIRGINIA // 1952

From UFO reporting to urban legend: As the tale goes, on September 12, 1952, a fireball reportedly fell from the sky and a monster with fiery eyes was found at the crash site in Flatwoods, West Virginia. Descriptions of the Flatwoods Monster vary, though it’s believed to be 10 feet tall, with a glowing green body.

10. BRAZIL // 1957

Antonio Vilas (sometimes spelled "Villas") Boas’ report is one of the first recorded abductions in the modern age. On October 16, 1957, Boas, a Brazilian farmer, was working alone in a field when he says a reddish light in the sky zoomed toward him. He ran toward his tractor, but four small figures lifted him off the ground.

He gave a long, detailed description of the encounter, including the way the creatures communicated: "No resemblance whatever to human speech ... I can think of no attempt to describe those sounds, so different were they from anything I have ever heard before ... Those sounds still make me shiver when I think of them! It isn't even possible for me to reproduce them ... my vocal organs are not made for it."

He also claims to have had sexual relations with a naked female in the aircraft, although the two did not kiss. He reportedly was returned to his field about four hours after the abduction and was found to have suffered from radiation poisoning.

11. NEW HAMPSHIRE // 1961

Married couple Barney and Betty Hill also claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Under hypnosis, the pair shared similar accounts of the incident. Betty said, "I was taken on board. Barney was taken into one room and I was taken into another. The one who did the testing we called 'The Examiner.' First, they put me on a stool and they checked my eyes, ears, nose, throat. They put me on a table and said they wanted to check my nervous system. Then, they tried to insert a needle-like instrument in my navel, which caused pain so they stopped doing it. Barney's exam was very much like mine in the beginning except they were interested in his bone structure."

Betty also claims the creatures showed her a star map depicting where they came from. She even redrew it under hypnosis, but at the time, it didn’t correlate with any known area of space. However, years later, statistician David Saunders claimed her drawing resembles the Zeta Reticuli system in the constellation Reticulum, confirming (at least in the eyes of her supporters) some of Hills’ story.

12. KENTUCKY // 1976

On January 6, 1976, three women claimed to have been abducted from a car. In 2010, Mona Stafford, the only living witness, recalled her story to Central Kentucky News. She claimed the three women were driving when they thought they saw a plane crash. Wanting to help, they drove closer, only to find an object in a treetop. The car seemed drawn toward the craft, and hours later the women came to the Hustonville city limits. Their eyes and skin were burning, and the hood of the car had bubbled up.

Separated, the women each detailed identical accounts of the incident. And under hypnosis, they recounted the same tale of being removed from the car and examined.

In the years that followed, Stafford claims she and one of the other women were unable to use the telephone. The women were drawn to high places and often watched the sky, with Stafford explaining, "I still feel like that. Like something’s calling me, and I go out. I’m not a prophet, I’m not predicting nothing, but there’s something in me that says something’s going to happen this time."

{ http://mentalfloss.com/ }

29-06-2017 om 21:04 geschreven door peter  

29-06-2017 om 20:46 geschreven door peter  

On a bright, sunny morning in the summer of 1973, Ron and Paula Watson, two farmers in Springfield, Missouri, witnessed something that changed their lives forever.

It was an alien abduction, they say. But not of a human – of cattle.

They said they saw a 'green, cone-shaped craft' – next to which two 'silver little beings' were standing over a large black cow.

'I told Ron, 'My god, they got a cow! What are they doing to it?' Paula said. 'It had its eyes open and its tongue was like, hanging out a little bit. But it just laid there and it didn't move.'

She described in detail how she saw the aliens running their hands over the cow and then inspecting their long fingers before they 'floated' it into their large ship in the distance.

Their neighbors never believed their story, though one did admit to having one black cow left unaccounted for.  The Watsons' story sounds like something out of an early science-fiction film – but it became one of many stories of alien and UFO sightings used to explain the thousands of cow mutilations reported across the United States in the 1970s. 

Since the 1970s, bizarre murders and mutilations of cattle have been reported across the nation, primarily in the Midwest. In this photo (left) of a cow in Saguache County, Colorado in 1975, a female cow's utters have been removed with surgical precision. In the image on the right, a cow was found with its tongue removed in July 2013 on a farm in Missouri

News reports make up the bulk of the FBI's 32 page report on the subject, which is prefaced by a brief explanation that their investigation was hindered by a lack of jurisdiction in most cases

Within the depths of the FBI's database of unsolved mysteries lies the graphic tale of these cattle murders, which outraged and petrified farmers for decades, and is still continuing today.

Speculation surrounding who – or what – might be responsible for the killing and mutilation of thousands of cows has ranged from satanic worshipers, government agents, and even aliens.

The most curious aspect is not that the cattle have died, but the way in which they did. Since the early 1970s farmers have discovered their treasured (and expensive) animals dead with various organs excised – including eyes, noses, tongues, hearts, livers, anuses, and genitalia removed with laser precision.

Though many theories have been offered it's a phenomenon that no one – not even the FBI – have ever been able to solve. 

In 1974, newspapers started to catch wind of these bizarre mutilations, which first took place primarily in extremely rural farmlands in the Midwest. Instances were reported across the nation but were mostly scattered among South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, and Nevada.

The news reports make up the bulk of the FBI's 32 page report on the subject, which is prefaced by a brief explanation that their investigation was hindered by a lack of jurisdiction in most cases.

The FBI told DailyMail.com that this was due to the fact that at the time there was no federal law declaring animal mutilation a federal crime, which didn't allow the department to continue investigating.

Many residents reported seeing helicopters circling the areas where cattle later turned up dead and sliced up with seemingly surgical accuracy. This prompted concerns that the mutilations, nicknamed 'mutes' by those familiar with the subject, were being propagated and covered up by the government.

in this image on the left, the cow's heart was excised with expert care - and was the third of three cattle mutilated on the same farm in Missouri beginning in 2011. Theories of who, or what, might be responsible have ranged from satanic cults, aliens, and the government. In the image on the right, ranchers found an animal with its sex organs and anus removed

Linda Moulton Howe is a former Miss Idaho turned investigative journalist and regional Emmy-winning filmmaker who has been a primary proponent of the 'alien argument'

This was around the same time of the height of alien paranoia in the United States – when UFOs, or balls or discs of floating light, were being spotted in similarly rural areas, often preceding or following the cow mutilations.

Many who have dedicated their lives to the subject believe, in fact, that aliens are responsible for the mutilations and that the government has been attempting to cover up their crimes (and existence) for years.

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One such person is Linda Moulton Howe, the regional Emmy-winning filmmaker who the Watsons shared their story with for her documentary Earth Mysteries: Alien Life Forms. She has been one of the most steadfast supporters of the alien argument.

Her research conjures the images of what we picture as the stereotypical alien abduction – flying saucers beaming animals up into space with light.

At least two people even reported being abducted by aliens at that time – including one woman named Judy Doraty and her daughter Cindy.

In a 1990 symposium proceeding Howe wrote: '…I found in so many eyewitness accounts of orange glowing objects the size of football fields hovering above pasturelands where mutilated animals were later found. Or beams of light observed shining down from 'silent helicopters' that lighted pastures 'brighter than daylight' and the next day mutilated animals were found. And eyewitness reports of strange craft and/or non-human creatures involved with animals.

'There was Judy Doraty who in 1973 watched a brown and white calf rise in a pale beam of yellow light. Inside the craft, she saw tissue cut from the eye, tongue and testicles by two small grey-skinned creatures. They had four fingers, instead of five, and those long, thin fingers tapered into dark nails. Their eyes had vertical pupils like a cat or a crocodile's.

'Judy's daughter, Cindy, also described in a 1990 hypnosis session seeing a calf rising in a beam of yellow light.'

In a rare winter mutilation, this calf was found in Hooper, Nebraska in 1975 with its jaw completely cut out all the way  up to its right eye socket. Eyewitnesses often reported seeing beaming lights or suspicious helicopters near where mutilated cows were later found 

US Senator Floyd Haskell from Colorado pleaded with the FBI to become involved with the mutilations in August 1975 after receiving more than 130 cases in the state alone, and farmers had taken to arming themselves out of fear 

Supernatural explanations were the only ones that made any sense at the time – given that the technology of the era was not advanced enough to have performed what appeared to be the use of localized lasers.

The areas surrounding the excisions, often around the anus of the murdered animals, had a blackened and burned appearance to them – suggesting the use of a high-powered laser. Other researchers, however, proposed different conclusions.

Christopher O'Brien, an author and investigative journalist on the subject, said that in his 200 cases of dealing with cattle death, about 40 of those were done by 'something with intelligence'.

Christopher O'Brien, an author and who has investigated the subject for decades, said that in his 200 cases of dealing with cattle death, about 40 of those were done by 'something with intelligence'. He is pictured researching left in 1993 and right in 2012

This Hooper, Nebraska calf also had its anus cut in a 10-inch wide diameter and 18-inch deep. O'Brien told DailyMail.com that he didn't believe aliens were responsible - because 'who would fly thousands of light years to collect cow butts?'

He is more skeptical of the alien explanation – saying that Howe's research doesn't incorporate many of the scientific findings that have been made.

He told the DailyMail.com that when a cow decomposes, the vegetable matter contained in one of its four stomachs makes the animal bloat. As the moisture leaves the body it then starts to deflate – causing the exposed edges of the animal to stay hard and darkened.

'To someone who doesn't know what they're looking at – it looks like a burn,' he said.

O'Brien feels that the alien argument is one used to sensationalize the topic and are only looking at a small portion of the total data.

He can't deny, however, how disturbing the number of 'high strange' cases are that he's seen – the ones that involve otherworldly circumstances.

On one occasion which O'Brien calls his 'strangest case' – he was called to the scene of a mutilated calf in Del Norte, Colorado. 

'It was really freaky, it wouldn't rot,' he said. 'It was found in a complete pristine, five inch snow field without one drop of blood on the snow. All the blood had been taken from the animal. The heart and liver had been expertly excised and left in the body cavity.

'The chief medical veterinary pathologist said "it wasn't an animal that did this",' he continued.

In O'Brien's book, Stalking the Heard, he writes that the month-old calf was also missing its spine from the hips to the skull and the brain was gone. It's right front leg was also gone, and the vast majority of its ribs, both eyes, ears, intestines, reproductive tract, and lungs had been removed. Its rectum was also mutilated.

Two witnesses also reportedly saw a large beam of light near the house the previous evening before the calf was found. 

O'Brien's 'strangest case' was this month-old calf that was missing its spine from the hips to the skull and the brain was gone. It's right front leg was also gone, and the vast majority of its ribs, both eyes, ears, intestines, reproductive tract, and lungs had been removed. Its rectum was also mutilated and its heart and liver were excised but left inside the body cavity

He hits on another popular argument for the cattle deaths – though arguably the least plausible explanation. Many believe that the excisions were being done simply by other animals – scavengers such as vultures or coyotes.

O'Brien is quick to discredit this based off of his own experience.

'The first thing I look for is cut hair follicles,' he said. 'When birds or coyotes rip they rip between the lines of hair they don't cut the hair. If I find a 2-3 inch section of cut hair follicles I know that someone or something with a sharp implement did that. It wasn't done by birds or scavengers.'

These 'high strange' cases are less likely to be reported by ranchers, according to O'Brien.

'The freakier the case the less likely the rancher is to report it – they're so freaked out they won't even tell their family or neighbors. He doesn't want people in the community to think he's been singled out and victimized by some supernatural thing. That's why they're very reluctant to come forward.

'It's only when they see the hundreds and hundreds of helicopters being reported around these sites – mostly military helicopters – it's only when they see that that they feel like they've been targeted or victimized by their government and that pisses them off.'

Though the occurrences in the United States have considerably slowed down since they were at their height in the early 1970s, they certainly haven't stopped. O'Brien notes that they have seen a consistently high number of cases in South America, especially Brazil and Argentina.

O'Brien says that throughout his decades of studying mutilations, he's noticed that there's been a shift to South America, where he believes they've had more than 4,000 cases since 2002. A news report included in an FBI briefing stated that more than 1500 cattle in 22 states were killed and mutilated from 1973 to 1976 in the United States 

He claims that since 2002, there have been more than 4,000 cases of cattle mutilation in South America - and are still reporting anywhere from three to a dozen cases a week.

Back in the United States, just before the New Year in 2016, and again a few days afterwards, two cows were mutilated in nearby rural towns in Kansas.

In McPherson County, Carla and John Shearer discovered one of their pregnant cows dead with one eye removed and both her top and bottom eyelids and eyelashes excised.

'We lose animals, but not like this,' Shearer told the Kansas Agland. The couple believes whoever killed their $4,000 cow used a tranquilizer or stun gun to immobilize it before killing it.

'She died in motion – she was walking and she just went straight down,' Shearer added.

Carla and John Shearer on McPherson County, Kansas discovered one of their pregnant cows dead with one eye removed and both her top and bottom eyelids and eyelashes excised in January 2017 

The bull found in nearby Harvey County was found dead with its genitals removed – also cut with surgical precision.

It is O'Brien's opinion that the mass mutilations – of which there were thousands reported in the 1970s alone – are a part of a secretive government effort to research animal plagues such as mad cow or prion disease.

'We've seen this many, many times throughout history – where one case will happen and then within a week there will be a dozen. I think they're looking for something – that's the best explanation I can give. And I think they're looking for something within the food chain.

'Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is the most horrendous affliction that you could possibly imagine. It's 100% fatal – it produces large holes in the brain tissue and creates holes like Swiss cheese in the neuron system and the brain synapses start to misfire. You forget to breathe and your autonomic system starts to break down.

'That I think is the basic underpinnings of it – we're dealing with a group that is interested in keeping an eye on the food chain. The beef industry is the largest, most powerful industry that you never hear about. I think we're dealing with something that's being protected by some quasi-governmental group,' he said.

Though tempting to indulge in the possibility of space creatures invading the planet to study our animals, O'Brien finds this explanation a bit too impractical.

'It sounds like bad science fiction,' he said. 'Who would fly hundreds of light years to come and gather cow butts?' 

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

29-06-2017 om 19:17 geschreven door peter  

Aliens in Newcastle? UFOs filmed hovering over the North East decades after Roswell mystery first gripped the world

On the 70th anniversary of the Roswell incident, questions still surround the possibility of extraterrestrial life

BY DAVID MORTON, ANDREW COLLEY

For decades the mystery surrounding UFOs has gripped people across the world - but if aliens really do exist, what to do the look like and where would they go?

It appears that the answer to that might be Newcastle.

This year is the 70th anniversary of the infamous Roswell incident , when a balloon crash in New Mexico went on to spark decades of conspiracy theories.

And the Newcastle area, as this amateur video footage shows, has had its fair share of UFOs, Chronicle Live reports .

The North East has its very own list of X Files and with dozens of UFO sightings being reported over the years.

In 1977, a Flight Lieutenant based at RAF Boulmer reported seeing “bright objects hanging over the sea” including an object that was “luminous, round and four to five times larger than a helicopter”.

In 2004, a Gateshead vicar photographed a bright object hovering in the night sky.

He said: “It was hovering from left to right, and was extremely smooth. Then the light just turned off as if it was still there, but hidden.”

In 2015 Craig Lowther from Tynemouth managed to film a dome-shaped object with pulsating lights hovering over the North East coast.

Countless other clips have also been collected, including video from North Shields were three bright lights are filmed in a triangle formation above the town.

It comes as rumours swept the internet this week that NASA was about to make an announcement concerning the existence of alien life.

However, NASA science chief Thomas Zurbuchen said in a Twitter post on Tuesday: “Contrary to some reports, there’s no pending announcement from NASA regarding extraterrestrial life.”

{ http://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

29-06-2017 om 18:58 geschreven door peter  

COSMIC CAFE: Unearthing the Crop Circle Phenomenon

29-06-2017 om 18:12 geschreven door peter