Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
17-08-2017
Shining A Light On Fermi's Paradox
Shining A Light On Fermi's Paradox
Al Cooper, Home Country
Back on June 4th, 2017 I wrote about the West Virginia county where Cell phones and other electronic appliances give way to a giant telescopic “ear” with which earthlings listen for interstellar messages. Since then I have given much thought to some of the possible implications of Fermi’s Paradox, which that research pointed me toward; an invitation as it seemed to explore some subject matter I would not ordinarily take the chance of boring my readers with. The name of Enrico Fermi, the father of the nuclear age, has been well-known to me ever since I came under the influence of a New Jersey junior high school teacher who was devoted to educating her students on much more than the Math her contract specified.
Fermi, an Italian-born physicist and Nobel laureate who escaped his fascist homeland just in time to head up the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb, had the chance in his short lifetime (he died of stomach cancer at age 53) to think logically of possibilities beyond the earth’s sphere and even the outer reaches of our galaxy. In a discussion with some of the best scientific minds of his day, he discussed what has famously become known as The Fermi Paradox. I note here that there are those who argue that the “question” is not a true “paradox”, and that beyond that, it does not have any support in established science.
Because I am a story-teller and not a papered professor with a scholarly reputation on the line, I feel free to continue anyway.
At the heart of the so-called paradox is the increasingly evident fact that not only are we surrounded in our galaxy by billions of other planetary systems – that is a central star (or two) such as our sun, around which a family of circling and associated planets have organized – but that many of them are similar enough to our own to suggest the possibility of a life-sustaining, earth-like environment. Add to that the likelihood that many of them would be older – perhaps much older – than our planet’s teenage level of maturity.
The big question that possibility poses for an earth-bound thinker boils down to this: If there are other human-like populations in advanced development stages elsewhere who know about us and “our world”, and have the technological prowess to do so, why haven’t they made contact with us?
Setting aside all the cosmic and scientific hypotheses which make Dr. Fermi’s list of 22, I am fascinated most by these two:
1. It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. And . . . 2. It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others.
If either or both of these be true, perhaps potential “visitors” may have destroyed themselves just about the time they might have said “hello” to us; OR perhaps they observed just enough of our earthly doings from a distance to decide they couldn’t afford to get involved with folks who were building big bombs and exhibiting so limited a respect for the doctrine of “loving one’s neighbor”.
[In 1954, I was briefly tasked by the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigation (OSI) to interview citizens reporting UFO sightings near Washington’s Hanford Atomic Works as part of Project Blue Book (UFO investigations 1949-1969). Since “declassified”, I will still only mention that most of my reports came from experienced pilots, control tower operators, aviation professionals and on one occasion a gathering of 50 adult RC (radio control) hobbyists who all saw the same thing. Please don’t ask me what I think of all this; I really don’t know what to say.]
As an octogenarian who reads history, has seen war, watches several hours of TV news every day, and has a large and loving family, I am a worrier. Why then do I work so hard at what I do every day? I still believe that living a good life and loving my neighbors, and doing everything I can to contribute something worthwhile is important. I hope you feel the same. Email Al Cooper at ascooper@infowest.com
Area 51 and the Bermuda Triangle are familiar names around the world, but how about Kecksburg, Uniontown and Keystone State Park?
A new documentary makes the case that southwestern Pennsylvania is among locations with the most instances of paranormal activity in the country.
"Invasion on Chestnut Ridge," from the production company Small Town Monsters, recreates stories told by locals who say they have experienced paranormal activity in and around the small town of Chestnut Ridge, Pa., about an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ALLYSON RUGGIERI: The trailer gives off uneasy vibes as it invites viewers to "uncover the secrets of the Ridge." Can you describe the premise of the movie and what those secrets center on?
SETH BREEDLOVE: Basically, it's about Chestnut Ridge's bizarre history of unusual happenings that have been occurring for over a century. I don't use the word anthology too much, but I think it's kind of like an anthology. It's a series of very unusual stories from the Ridge starting with the Kecksburg UFO crash and ending with a sighting these two guys had in a forest of basically a weird little light that was chasing them around and all stops in between. It's from UFO sightings to sightings of strange, possibly prehistoric birds. Where other films are about a monster, this film is about a place. So the place is actually the monster.
RUGGIERI: Is this type of film, one focused on a place rather than a person or monster, something new for your team? How does this differ from your other documentaries?
The production team on location
CREDIT SMALL TOWN MONSTERS
BREEDLOVE: It's funny because our other movies have these very simple premises where, it's basically the entire Small Town Monsters series revolves around unusual creature sightings in rural areas and the affect that can have on a small community. But with "Invasion on Chestnut Ridge" it's very different because there are multiple communities involved, and rather than focused on one small town, it kind of covers this entire range, like 72-mile mountain range. So it's a little bit different from our other films in that way.
RUGGIERI: I noticed you describe this as "the most unusual area this side of the Bermuda Triangle." Can you speak a little bit on that?
BREEDLOVE: It's just that there's something going on there that all this weird, kind of bizarre activity takes place in this one area. There's all these different investigators who spend enough time up there investigating these strange occurrences looking for answers, and have been looking for answers since the '60s and '70s. And there don't seem to be any.
RUGGIERI: What would you say was one of your most favorite or interesting stories or interviews while filming this documentary?
An interviewee on set.
CREDIT SMALL TOWN MONSTERS
BREEDLOVE: We interviewed a guy named Barry. He's the first kind of "UFO abductee" that I've ever spoken to. I've never had a talk with anyone that claimed to have that experience before. It's always been something that's kind of freaked me out, like it's a very unnerving thing to talk to someone who's convinced they've had that incident, that occurrence happen to them. The stuff that had happened to him was pretty crazy, stuff I couldn't explain. I tend to be a little on the skeptical side, and some of the stuff he was saying to me I could not find an explanation for.
RUGGIERI: What do you want viewers to take away from your film? What do you want everyone to know about your experience working on it?
BREEDLOVE: We make movies for everyone. Whether you're a skeptic or ardent believer or whatever, one thing I always want people to take away from our films is the fact that these locations we go to are amazing places and especially in the case of Chestnut Ridge. It's a place that should be explored. You should have your own adventure there. Whether it involves Bigfoot or a UFO, I can't guarantee, but it's a really amazing and beautiful place. People should embrace the history of these rural communities because this is the heartland of America.
"Invasion on Chestnut Ridge" will be available on DVD and Amazon video on Oct. 20.
Alien landt in een park en stapt uit. Lees hier 3 opmerkelijke UFO-verhalen uit Rusland
Alien landt in een park en stapt uit. Lees hier 3 opmerkelijke UFO-verhalen uit Rusland
In Rusland vinden net als in de rest van de wereld onverklaarbare gebeurtenissen plaats. Er zijn genoeg Russen die ervan overtuigd zijn dat aliens bestaan.
Over de hele wereld zijn er mensen die stellen dat geheime diensten veel te verbergen hebben, waaronder informatie over buitenaardse beschavingen. Zo ook in Rusland.
Veel Sovjets meenden dat de KGB, de geheime dienst van de Sovjet-Unie, buitenaardse geheimen achterhield.
In 2005 zei Vladimir Krjoetsjkov, de laatste baas van de KGB, in een interview dat zijn geheime dienst geen bewijs had gevonden voor vliegende schotels of aliens.
Veel Russen geloofden hem niet en denken zeker te weten dat er beschavingen bestaan op andere planeten en dat sommige daarvan de aarde hebben bezocht.
Petrozavodsk
In 1977 gebeurde er iets vreemds in de stad Petrozavodsk. Op een avond in september zagen zo’n 200 inwoners van de autonome deelrepubliek Karelië een mysterieus object dat werd omgeven door wit licht.
Het vreemde object werd ook gemeld in Leningrad (Sint-Petersburg), Helsinki en andere Russische en Finse steden.
In eerste instantie werd verondersteld dat het ging om een satelliet, maar Lev Gindilis van de Academie van Wetenschappen van de Sovjet-Unie concludeerde dat het geen satelliet kon zijn.
Bijna 50 jaar later is nog altijd niet duidelijk wat mensen destijds hebben gezien.
Voronezj
In 1989 werd een uitzonderlijk incident gemeld in de stad Voronezj. Kinderen claimden dat er een schijfvormig ruimteschip in een park was geland en dat er een alien met drie ogen was uitgestapt.
Er waren ook enkele volwassenen die de UFO hadden gezien. De media besteedden veel aandacht aan het incident, dat zelfs het NOS Journaal haalde.
Er werden geen sporen gevonden op de landingsplek. Wel werden er hoge stralingsniveaus gemeten.
Dalnegorsk
In januari 1986 werd in de stad Dalnegorsk een bolvormig object gespot in de lucht. Het crashte op een heuvel, waar lokale ufologen later metalen vonden die niet van nature voorkomen in het gebied.
Het leger ontkende dat een militaire basis in het gebied er iets mee te maken had. Volgens ufologen was er een buitenaards schip of een satelliet neergekomen bij Dalnegorsk.
‘Mijnbouwcomplex’ gespot op de maan. Zijn dit beelden van bouwwerken op het maanoppervlak?
‘Mijnbouwcomplex’ gespot op de maan. Zijn dit beelden van bouwwerken op het maanoppervlak?
Een UFO-jager claimt een mijnbouwcomplex op het oppervlak van de maan te hebben gespot, meldt nieuwszender Fox News.
Streetcap1, die video’s over buitenaards leven en UFO’s op YouTube plaatst, beweert dat een groep objecten op het maanoppervlak een mijnbouwcomplex zou kunnen zijn.
“Zie je die gebouwen?” zegt Streetcap1 in de video, die inmiddels bijna 100.000 keer bekeken is. “Ze bevinden zich in de Tycho-krater op de maan. Dat is best indrukwekkend, niet?”
Bekijk de video hieronder:
Mensen lijken het eens te zijn met de bevindingen van de YouTube-gebruiker. “Mooie vondst,” schreef Thomas Mundt.
Kristin Bacon schreef: “Dit is een fraaie foto. Er is zeker iets aan de hand. Niemand kan zeggen dat het niet op een mijnbouwcomplex lijkt. Ik zou graag eens willen rondkijken op de maan.”
Onverklaarbare objecten
Clint Steel voegde toe: “Ik geloof wel dat er bouwwerken op de maan staan, maar ik denk dat dit gewoon korrelige beelden zijn.”
Streetcap1 plaatst vaker video’s over onverklaarbare objecten op het maanoppervlak.Ook anderen claimen mysterieuze objecten te hebben gevonden op het maanoppervlak, hoewel nooit onomstotelijk is bewezen dat het om gebouwen gaat.
PLANEET NIBIRU NU ZICHTBAAR MET HET BLOTE OOG ( VIDEO )
PLANEET NIBIRU NU ZICHTBAAR MET HET BLOTE OOG ( VIDEO )
Niet alleen vinden er meer en meer vreemde dingen plaats op aarde, maar ook beginnen er nu steeds vaker berichten te komen over mensen die een planeet met het blote oog waarnemen.
Volgens de verwachtingen van een aantal Nibiru experts zal dit tot nu toe "onbekende" hemellichaam tegen het eind van het jaar voor iedereen duidelijk zichtbaar zijn.
Regelmatig krijgen wij opmerkingen van lezers die zeggen: jullie voorspellen dit over die planeet Nibiru en jullie voorspellen dat, maar waar blijft die planeet?
Wij voorspellen niets, wij berichten over dingen die op aarde voor iedereen zijn waar te nemen en we doen verslag van wat mensen die zich in dit onderwerp hebben gespecialiseerd, denken.
En ja, een vreemde planeet in ons zonnestelsel zou een hele logische verklaring zijn voor al de bijzondere dingen die nu om ons heen gebeuren en waar de reguliere wetenschap geen antwoord op heeft.
Voor het welzijn van iedereen, inclusief dat van onszelf, zou het natuurlijk veel beter zijn als blijkt dat iedereen voor wat betreft een onbekende planeet, op een dwaalspoor zit, maar vooralsnog lijkt het er niet op.
Volgens één van die onderzoekers, Nancy Lieder, wordt nu op verschillende plaatsen op aarde de planeet Nibiru met het blote oog waargenomen en ook gefotografeerd.
Zij plaatse de volgende opnames en zegt er categorisch bij dat we hier niet te maken hebben met lensflares. Eén van de redenen daarvoor is dat het object op veel foto’s zich gedeeltelijk achter de wolken bevindt en de tweede is dat mensen dit ook waarnamen met het blote oog.
This phenomena appears on both a camera in Italy and a camera in France, and has been recorded by a camera in Mexico also. Nibiru is visible, naked eye!
Natuurlijk kijkt iedereen uit naar de komende grote zonsverduistering in Amerika en het feit dat er wellicht mensen zijn die met hun camera’s er niet alleen in slagen om de verduisterde zon vast te leggen, maar eventueel ook wat zich in de omgeving bevindt.
Een andere onderzoeker is Marshall Masters, voormalig wetenschapsredacteur bij CNN en door onze columnist Evert Jan Poorterman een zwamneus genoemd, maar die toch vaak met heel interessante dingen komt.
De oorzaak daarvan wordt helemaal duidelijk als je naar het volgende plaatje kijkt.
Dit is één van de hoofdredenen dat mensen op mooie dagen nauwelijks nog iets in de lucht zien en iets dat de komende tijd naar verwachting nog veel heftiger zal worden.
Wat bovendien heel interessant is, is het volgende dat hij schrijft.
Hoeveel mensen kijken niet op naar de hemel en doen de strepen zoals op de afbeelding af als contrails (red.: condensatie sporen)? Het is een feit dat de zogenaamde high-bypass turbofan motoren zoals die tegenwoordig door moderne jet passagiersvliegtuigen worden gebruikt en die iedere dag boven onze hoofden vliegen, alleen in bepaalde gebieden contrails kunnen produceren zoals in de buurt van de evenaar. Conclusie is dan ook dat de ontkenning van chemtrails blijft bestaan door deze onwetendheid; een situatie die bewust in stand word gehouden.
Dit betekent dat ook in ons land er de komende tijd weer volop gaat worden gesproeid om het gebied rondom de zon zoveel mogelijk onzichtbaar te houden.
Zoals te zien op de volgende foto die onlangs door een lezer (dank!) is genomen op de A15. Het bolletje op de foto is een lensflare.
Of zoals de volgende, eveneens gestuurd door een lezer (dank!).
Deze foto is ook bijzonder omdat er op één een paar elementen voorkomen die door mensen vaak worden verward met een planeet.
De ene is een overduidelijke lensflare en de tweede is een halo om de zon, waardoor aan weerszijden zogenaamde bijzonnen ontstaan.
Kringen om de zon zijn echter allerminst zeldzaam, gemiddeld iedere twee of drie dagen is er ergens in ons land wel zo’n kring te zien en elders in de wereld is dat niet anders. Met de regenboog heeft het verschijnsel niets te maken. Een regenboog ontstaat door weerkaatsing van zonlicht in regendruppels, een halo door weerkaatsing in ijs. Naast de kring kunnen allerlei vormen zichtbaar zijn zoals bogen in verschillende richtingen die raken aan de kring, lichtzuilen boven de zon en lichtvlekken aan weerszijden van de zon. Deze meestal prachtig gekleurde vlekken zijn geregeld te zien en worden bijzonnen genoemd. Halo’s hebben een voorspellende betekenis: een kring om zon of maan is vaak een voorbode van een weersverslechtering. Niet voor niets kennen we de oude weerspreuk “Kring om de zon, brengt regen in de ton”.
Of zoals de volgende, genomen door een lezer in Deventer. Wat een prachtige helderblauwe lucht had moeten zijn is verziekt door chemicaliën.
Desondanks begint het erop te lijken dat het de moeite waard wordt om geregeld naar de lucht te kijken.
Voor zover ons bekend, zijn er in Nederland en België nog geen waarnemingen geweest van de planeet Nibiru met het blote oog. Mocht er iemand zijn die dit wel ziet, laat ons zeker weten.
UFO NEWS: 'Perfect 1950s flying saucer' filmed above crop circle
UFO NEWS: 'Perfect 1950s flying saucer' filmed above crop circle
A CROP circle "expert" claims the mysterious corn field formations could be caused by aliens or other paranormal forces after allegedly filming a series of UFOs over the baffling creations.
UFO proof? Pierre Beake claims to have snapped bizarre craft over crop circles.
Pierre Beake insists he captured these pictures of UFOs hovering over or near crop circles.
Mr Beake, who travels from France to the south west of England each year to study the phenomena, also claims to have photographed strange lights and orbs within west country crop formations.
Crop circles - allegedly made by landing UFOs - have been widely considered one of the world's biggest paranormal hoaxes since 1991, when Doug Bower and David Chorley were filmed showing how they made many of the reported corn field patterns discovered across the UK.
The two said they simply used wooden planks and rope to flatten corn in a circular fashion.
The pair started the tomfoolery in the 1970s to tease locals who believed in UFOs.
In the latter half of the 1990s more "circle makers", who tried to out do each other with the most complicated designs, emerged.
Pierre Beake
This UFO is like a 1950s flying saucer, claims Pierre Beake.
But despite the hoaxers outing themselves, Mr Beake refuses to believe they could make the "highly geometric" patterns he has documented.
Mr Beake produced his UFO images at the 27th annual Glastonbury Symposium, an event which started to look at the crop circle subject and now covers other new age issues.
He said: "When you go first into a crop circle you can't explain the feeling. "You feel good, you feel nice."
He produced one image which he said resembled a B-movie flying saucer.
He said: "It looks like a classic 1950s UFO. One researcher said to me it was a parachute, but there is no one underneath."
Mr Beake is convinced something paranormal is behind crop circle formation and that his UFO snaps could be part of the picture.
He says he has also photographed balls of energy and light at crop circles.
In one case he said he filmed bizarre solid balls flying around.
Pierre Beake
A perfect circular object filmed over Silbury Hill.
He said: "It was a very strange form and not a plane or helicopter."
But he said it was not seen at the time of the filming, but was physical because the sun could be seen glinting on it.
Another one was filmed at Milk Hill, also Wiltshire.
He said: "I can't explain why that thing is here, it looks more physical than other balls of light."
Scott Brando, who runs debunking website ufoofinterest.org said so-called UFOs such as these were often birds or insects that had flown past and been blurred in the process, giving rise to the indistinguishable shapes.
They are actually referred to as blurbs by sceptical UFO researchers.
UFO flies in front of the Capitol Building in Washington live on Fox News
UFO flies in front of the Capitol Building in Washington live on Fox News
While watching Fox News on August 14, 2017 a resident of Rolling Meadows, IL witnessed and recorded an Unidentified Flying Object that flew in front of the Capitol Building in Washington.
The yellow colored UFO suddenly appears on the left side of the screen, passes at high speed the Capitol Building before it disappears from the screen.
Why was this UFO not detected if you know that the airspace around America’s Capitol is not only one of the most flight restricted areas in the world but also guarded by Norwegian surface-to-air missiles.
After watching the short video I got the feeling that fox news has accidentally broadcast this UFO event. The UFO can be seen at the end of the video.
Interview with Kelly Cahill about her Close Alien Encounter in 1993
Interview with Kelly Cahill about her Close Alien Encounter in 1993
In August 1993, 27-year-old Kelly Cahill, her husband and three children were driving home after a visit to a friend’s house. Their routine journey would soon become a harrowing trip into an unknown world of strange beings that occupied space but were void of color as we know it.
The Dandenong foothills, near Belgrave, Victoria, Australia would have its location forever linked to the sighting of one of the most unusual humanoid creatures in Ufology archives.
Bright UFOs seen and filmed over London, UK 14-Aug-2017
Bright UFOs seen and filmed over London, UK 14-Aug-2017
Here’s one interesting footage of a bright unidentified flying objects hovering near Alexandra Palace in London. This happened on 14th August 2017.
Witness report:
Not planes or stars. Didn’t move in the sky for about 5 mins and stayed directly next to each other. 15 mins later we heard a huge bang that sounded like fireworks, but it was about 10pm in a park with no sign of fireworks / anyone who could cause a bang. Eventually they disappeared
50+ objects over Santa Monica, California 10-Aug-2017
50+ objects over Santa Monica, California 10-Aug-2017
This interesting footage of bright orbs was filmed over Santa Monica, California a few days ago.
Witness report:
Orb like sighting of 50+ objects over Santa Monica CA on 8-10-17.
Disclaimer: I’m not drawing any conclusions as to what these were, I’m open to all possibilities.
Here is an explanation of what we’re looking at because the video really doesn’t do justice to how these things were moving:
These are 7 videos put together that stretch between 7:06pm – 7:22pm on 8/10/17.
I first noticed these things in the sky while walking out to my car around 6:50pm. There were a dozen or so, high up, and looked to be moving like balloons or lanterns. Living close to the beach and the Pier, I see a lot of balloons and lanterns so I’m familiar with them. Anyway, I ignored them at first because I was in a hurry to move my car. By the time I finished (around 7:00) and walked back down the path the numbers of them in the sky increased by another couple dozen – AND there were a number of them quite low to the ground.
At this point I thought: Advertising stunt of some kind (we get those a lot in LA too). It wasn’t until I got back to my door that I saw a whole “fleet” of them coming in on what looked like a flight path (disclosure: we are close-ish to LAX and the Santa Monica Airport and I’m familiar with the flight paths – you’ll see a number of planes in the video). As if they were coming from the upper atmosphere (over the Pacific) and down towards Pico Blvd essentially. At this point I thought “skydivers” or “flares”… and went inside and grabbed my binocs.
When I looked through the binocs (I have two pair, one with a stabilizer one with extra magnification) I expected to see lanterns, flares, balloons, or even drones or skydivers. Instead what I saw were sparkling rings of smoke that had some shape and apparent structure, but they spun like tops in the sky as they moved. They almost had a jellyfish type body that seemed to pulse and was translucent. Once I pulled out the binocs and saw this, four “zoomers” (what I called them) buzzed down from the sky (above the palm tree in the long shots for reference) and skimmed above the roof of the building directly in front of me (only a couple hundred feet in altitude). They were silent, and moved incredibly fast (way too fast, as you’ll see) to be a lantern or balloons – and then they climbed in elevation after buzzing the roof.
I was alone, though my neighbor saw it as well. I should have gotten more people outside to be honest. Mistake on my part. But these clips in the video are broken up because I was going back and forth between filming and watching through the binocs. I stated this in the video, but will say it again, this video does NOT do justice to how many of them there were in the sky. It was a constant flow, on a “flight path” seemingly of these things for 30 minutes or longer. It lasted a long time, and had to be seen by more than me.
I slowed some of the clips down at the end, the one zoomer I got and another slow motion vid of how they move in the sky (you’ll see it tumbling @ the 1:51-1:57 mark).
Time stamps: First thirty seconds are kind of tough, showing the higher altitude ones that had just buzzed me :40 second mark you see some new ones coming in, lower and closer. :55-:57 mark you can kind of see the movement (like balloons) as well as the pulsing. 1:51 – 1:57 mark you will see one moving across the top, spinning, it gives you some of the shape 2:11-2:17 mark you can see more movement (these are new ones, not the same as the ones above) 3:15-3:26 mark good shot of one close, moments after it buzzed the path I was standing on, moves like balloons… but way faster and they’re glowing. 3:33-3:52 mark has another one dipping low, then a zoomer (the only one I got on film, but there were several others) that flew past real fast. This one is slowed down at the end and zoomed in as best I could. *4:35-5:21 mark has three more coming in on the “flight path”. By that I mean, you see how they’re high in altitude and moving lower. That’s how most of them came in, in a straight line from that high altitude and then down where they spread out, then reformed into a line and moved on at a lower altitude. This also includes the description of these things.
Retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire re-examined the Fermi Paradox, and why the universe is silent if there is alien life out there. He believes that it's possible that humanity was the first to have become technologically advanced.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
For retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire, currently a mathematics professor at the University of Arkansas (UARK), humanity is typical. Not exactly in the sense that we’re ordinary; we’re typical in a statistical sense, following a concept in modern cosmology called the principle of mediocrity. This principle suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should consider humanity to be a typical member of a certain reference class.
This was Whitmire’s conclusion, in a study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, when he revisited his thoughts on the Fermi Paradox — that we haven’t encountered alien life, despite the high probability of it existing — and again asked if there’s alien life out there. With all the billions of stars in billions of galaxies, chances are there’s bound to be other intelligent life in the cosmos. So, where are they?
“I used to tell my students that by statistics, we have to be the dumbest guys in the galaxy,” Whitmire said in a UARK press release. “After all, we have only been technological for about 100 years, while other civilizations could be more technologically advanced than us by millions or billions of years.”
But Whitmire changed his mind on this concept based on two observations: Firstly, that humanity was the first technologically advanced civilization that evolved on Earth, and we’re currently in our early technological development. (“Technological,” here, is to be understood as biological species that developed electronic devices and are capable of significantly changing the planet.)
On the surface, this may seem like an obvious observation. However, based on the Earth’s habitable time span — from around 50 billion years ago, and for an estimated billion years in the future — it would have been possible for other technological civilizations to precede us on this planet. The thing is, there’s no geologic record that shows someone else came before us. “We’d leave a heck of a fingerprint if we disappeared overnight,” Whitmire said.
ANYBODY OUT THERE?
But what about life outside of the Earth? Following the same principle of mediocrity, technological civilizations that lasts millions of years or longer are atypical, Whitmire says. If one considers a bell curve of all supposedly extant technological civilizations in the universe, humanity would fall in the middle 95 percent.
If that is the case, the lack of communication from similar civilizations around us does not bode well. Whitmire explains the silence of the cosmos as a product of how typical technological civilizations work: They usually go extinct after attaining technological knowledge. This is the same explanation held by other scientists, and one even suggests that we should look for traces of alien technology instead of alien life.
The “Great Filter” hypothesis is another possible explanation. It suggests that before any life in the universe becomes technological or before technological life goes beyond the bounds of its own planet, it had to overcome some extremely difficult evolutionary threshold. Some even think that climate change is humanity’s great filter.
For resident “Science Guy” Bill Nye, the Fermi Paradox should push humanity to explore further. The reason why we haven’t found intelligent extraterrestrial life or even simple alien life is because we haven’t been looking hard enough. There’s still a big chance that they’re somewhere out there.
Yet these theories assume that we’re not a typical representative of life in the cosmos. “If we’re not typical then my initial observation would be correct,” Whitmire said. “We would be the dumbest guys in the galaxy by the numbers.
In America, 65 million people believe that a UFO crashed at Roswell – and another 21 million people believe that the moon landings were faked.
Conspiracy theories became big news last year as ‘fake news’sites spread misinformation during the election – including conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton.
So what is it that attracts people to insane theories like the idea that the Royal Family are shape-shifting reptiles?
It could be a sense that they are unique – and not part of the herd, according to researchers at Grenoble Alps University.
The researchers found that people who agreed with the statement, ‘You’re unique’ more than the statement, ‘We’re all the same,’ were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
The researchers conducted three linked experiments to investigate the belief – and found that people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to think they are ‘special’ and that they possess unique information.
The researchers write, ‘we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness.
‘We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories and higher need for uniqueness
‘These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.’
Was the Wow! signal evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? Forty years later, the debate continues: Edd Wheeler (Opinion)
Was the Wow! signal evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? Forty years later, the debate continues: Edd Wheeler (Opinion)
A 1983 file photo of Ohio State University's "Big Ear" radio telescope where, 40 years ago this week, scientists searching for signs of intelligent life in outer space detected the still-debated Wow! signal. A recent assessment attributed the signal to hydrogen clouds from two comets but Edd Wheeler writes in the op-ed below that Jerry Ehman, the astronomer who famously named the moment with his "Wow!" notation on the printout, is not ruling anything out. (Plain Dealer Historical Photograph collection, File, 1983)
Edd Wheeler is a former federal administrative law judge with an interest in astrophysics. (Courtesy of Edd Wheeler)
TUCKER, Georgia -- The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was first conceived almost 60 years ago by the late Carl Sagan. In 1974 it took institutional form at the University of California, Berkeley. Today, its modern computers monitor 100 million frequency channels for potential signals from space.
However, lack of a credible finding of putative aliens has resulted in detractors calling SETI the Great Martian Chase.
SETI's most noted reception occurred 40 years ago this week, and was registered by three scientists, with shoestring budget and staff, using a primitive IBM computer having only 64,000 bytes of memory.
The "Big Ear" telescope at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory that operated from 1973 to 1997 was SETI's longest and most famous operation. Though small by later standards, it was then one of the world's foremost radio telescopes, a curved reflector 70 feet high and 420 feet long on its aluminum plane.
Just after 11 p.m. on Aug. 15, 1977, it recorded a type of transmission not encountered previously or since.
While Big Ear was monitoring the 1420-megahertz frequency, one reserved for scientific use in belief that potential extraterrestrial intelligence might broadcast on the frequency for neutral hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, signals were received from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
They were recorded at 12-second intervals of ten seconds for reception followed by two seconds of data processing by the computer. The transmission produced data that followed the observatory's antenna pattern more than 99 percent accurately.
Upon seeing the computer readout, astronomer Jerry Ehman simply penned "Wow!" on it, thus famously naming the transmission. He soon ruled out possible sources like ground emission, aircraft, satellites, and space debris.
Ehman believes the average signal strength was constant throughout the unprecedented length of 72 seconds and that the six intervals were only timed recordings caused by the design of equipment and antenna pattern.
There was little doubt by all on-scene scientists that they had accurately recorded an artificial transmission, one caused by something other than natural phenomena such as pulsars.
Ehman initially was cautious about conclusions on the source. But in his 20th anniversary report on the "Wow!" signal, he wrote that "Big Ear" data were reliable and, lacking evidence to the contrary, that the source was probably extraterrestrial intelligence. Although he now thinks the matter an "open question," he continues as before to believe that the signal is "a tantalizing candidate" as ETI, which he reiterates as "certainly a possibility."
Fellow scientist Robert Dixon confidently stated that the source was from "beyond the moon." He wrote in 1985 that, for SETI's first decade and among its 30,000 "detections," the Wow! signal was clearly "most prominent."
The late Dr. John Kraus, as quoted in a 2012 book on the topic by Robert H. Gray, ventured that it might have been an ETI "signal" but that this was speculative.
In 2016, scientists at the Center of Planetary Science, a small group near Tampa promoting astronomy, suggested the Wow! signal likely was not an artificial transmission but a natural phenomenon caused by radiation from massive hydrogen clouds surrounding two remote comets discovered in 2006 and 2008.
As evidence, they presented a recorded radio signal emitted by a comet at 1420.25 megahertz, very close to the frequency of natural hydrogen monitored for many years by "Big Ear."
It is uncertain whether this finding solidly refutes the Wow! transmission as a possible ETI signal.
An inherent problem is that humans may not be "wired" to recognize a real interstellar "signal."
Britain's Astronomer Royal Martin Rees is chairman of the Breakthrough Initiatives, a ten-year, $100 million search for extraterrestrial intelligence, intended to answer Stephen Hawking's query, "if we are alone in the dark."
Rees emphasizes that putative aliens likely possess intelligence fundamentally different from ours, and thus "may package reality" and convey it in ways not understandable. He seeks a "manifestly artificial" signal.
However, if certainty is the gauge, how can signal receipt be manifestly established if the source has different intelligence and expression than ours?
The Wow! signal was not manifestly from ETI, yet it seemed credibly outside the solar system. Some question whether intelligence, as we know it, exists beyond Earth.
At the 40th anniversary of the Wow! signal, it is time to acknowledge that, in a galaxy of 400 billion stars and a universe of more than 500 billion galaxies, we may not comprehend the possible qualities of intelligence in other worlds, but by probability it is incomprehensible that extraterrestrial intelligence does not exist.
The Breakthrough Initiatives will formulate a compact yet substantive interstellar signal about humans, our values and achievements.
An equal concern has gone unmentioned. What if Earth was identified as a living world long before man's appearance, and what should be our concern if distant observers have intelligently and correctly concluded that we have produced the likes of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, and Newton, along with Tamerlane, Stalin, and Hitler, and with an identifiable practice of superpredation? What then might a potential signal from afar look like?
Wow! indeed.
Edd Wheeler, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a veteran of the Vietnam War, is a former federal administrative law judge whose articles on the Wow! signal and Breakthrough Initiatives have appeared in the "Journal of the British Interplanetary Society."
Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue).
The pulsar maps on the Voyager probes pinpoint our location in the galaxy—even as some experts debate the pros and cons of signalling ET.
Forty years ago, we sent a map to Earth sailing deep into the cosmos. Copies of this map are etched into each of the twin Voyager spacecraft, which launched in the late 1970s and are now the farthest spacecraft from home. One of the probes has already slipped into interstellar space, and the other is skirting the fringes of our sun’s immediate neighbourhood. If it’s ever intercepted and decoded by extraterrestrials, the map will not only reveal where to find our watery little world, but also when the space probe that delivered it to alien hands left home. “We needed to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was travelling,” says my dad, Frank Drake, who designed the map. The Voyager version of route-finding pins the sun onto our galaxy using 14 pulsars, which are the rapidly spinning corpses of exploded stars. It’s a cipher unlike anything made before, the kind of object that drives entire fictional quests—and that is currently spurring arguments over the intelligence of broadcasting our existence to civilisations with possibly nefarious proclivities. “Back when Drake did the pulsar map, and Carl Sagan and the whole team did the Voyager record, there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence,” says York University’s Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist who studies the ethics of sending messages to extraterrestrials. “Now, however, as you know, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening.”
STELLAR MAP MAKING Drake’s cosmic directions to Earth are stamped onto the cover of the Voyager Golden Record, two of which have been ferrying the sights and sounds of planet Earth across the interstellar sea since 1977. But unlike the record, which grew into its final form during one short summer, the map took shape years earlier, in late 1969. Back then, my dad and Carl Sagan were designing a message to put on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, which would be flung from the solar system after an encounter with Jupiter. One of the components he and Sagan wanted to include was a map that pointed to Earth in both space and time. The question was, how do you create such a map in units that an extraterrestrial might understand? Earth-years would be perfectly meaningless, because they are derived from our planet’s particular path around the sun. And there’s also the question of coordinates--in space, no one can find you using up, down, east, or west. Even the stars themselves are constantly shifting on astronomical time scales. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning” doesn’t quite work if the map is found a billion years from now and the star in question—say, Betelgeuse—has long since exploded and died.
THE MAGIC ABOUT PULSARS To my dad, the answer was obvious: pulsars. Discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, these dense husks of expired stars were perfect blazes in both space and time. For starters, pulsars are incredibly long-lived, staying active for tens of millions to multiple billions of years. Also, each pulsar is unique. Many spin faster than anything on Earth, sometimes thousands of times each second, and they emit pulses of electromagnetic radiation like lighthouses. By timing those pulses, astronomers can determine a pulsar’s spin rate to a ridiculous degree of accuracy, and no two are alike. But pulsars do slow down, sometimes by a mere but measurable billionths of a second a year. By calculating the difference between a pulsar’s spin rate when the map is found versus the spin period inscribed on the map, an intelligent being could figure out how long it had been since the map was made. “There was a magic about pulsars … no other things in the sky had such labels on them,” Drake says. “Each one had its own distinct pulsing frequency, so it could be identified by anybody, including other creatures after a long period of time and far, far away.”
Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, as seen here in a picture taken at Cape Canaveral in Florida. About two weeks later, NASA launched Voyager 1.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, JPL-CALTECH
He reasoned that if those beings had figured out what pulsars were, they surely knew where the whirling, dead stars resided in the galaxy. Using the map, they could then follow the trail back to the sun. After a roughly three-minute discussion with Sagan, the decision was made. Drake drew the map using 14 known pulsars (today, that original pencil-drawn pulsar map is casually tucked into an old produce box at home). The length of the lines connecting each pulsar to a central point—the sun—indicates how far they are from home. Along those distance markers, he inscribed the pulsars’ spin rates out to 12 digits in binary code, so any curious aliens would know which pulsars he’d chosen as anchors. Successfully decoding the map would unambiguously pinpoint the sun’s position and the timeframe of the spacecraft’s launch. Today, that makes some scientists and philosophers very nervous.
DANGEROUS BEACON? When the Voyager spacecraft launched, astronomers had no evidence that other planets even existed outside our solar system, much less worlds capable of hosting alien life. Now, thanks to missions like NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler endeavor, we know that planets are common in the galaxy, and that a sizable percentage of those worlds could be like Earth. The revelation has spawned efforts to send directed radio messages toward promising stars sytems. In the wake of these discoveries, a debate has emerged over the ethics of intentionally announcing our presence to the stars. Some think the endeavour is foolish and dangerous, given how little we know about what might be out there. Others would rather prioritise listening to the stars over talking to them. For the Voyager spacecraft, the truth is already out there, as the maps they carry hurtle deeper into the void.
An illustration of one of the Voyager probes traveling in space.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA
“In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly,” Drake says. “Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.” So what are the chances of the map actually reaching extraterrestrial shores aboard the Voyagers? “Very small,” Drake says. “The thing is going something like 10 kilometres per second, at which speed it takes—for the typical separation of stars—about half a million years to go from one star to another. And of course, it’s not aimed at any star, it’s just going where it’s going.” If an extraterrestrial civilisation has sufficiently powerful radars, it might be able to detect the Voyager spacecraft from afar. But that’s still unlikely, Drake says, which means the Voyagers’ sights, sounds, and maps to planet Earth may forever sail silently through the cosmos. The reality is that humans have been passively announcing our presence to the cosmos for nearly a century via radar, radio, and TV transmissions. And with the rise of private space enterprises, who knows what new message to the stars might end up making its way into space? Denning urges everyone to act thoughtfully and consider the pros and cons of intentionally hailing aliens. “We're all on this Earth together,” she says.
STORY PRODUCED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH HHMI TANGLED BANK STUDIOS. Header: The cover of the Voyager Golden Record. The starburst pattern seen in the upper right is the pulsar map to Earth. PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA
Columnist Cheryl Costa reports a UFO sighting tale from 1930.
During the four years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve noted that some UFO sighting sighting accounts seem to be handed down within families like family heirlooms. A particular 1930 account caught my eye because of its heritage aspect.
The UFO sighting account happened in the town of Waterloo, Ala., in Lauderdale County in late fall of 1930.
First, some background: Lauderdale County was named in honor of Colonel James Lauderdale, of Tennessee. Lauderdale County is located in the Northwestern corner of Alabama, which borders Tennessee to the north and Mississippi to the west. According to the census the county has an ancestral mix mostly rooted from all over the British Isles and, of course, Africa.
During the cotton boom of the early and mid 19th century, Lauderdale County was known principally for cotton and textile mills. In the late 19th century there was industrialization in the form of an iron industry.
In 1930 the construction activity of the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide electrical power to rural areas made Lauderdale County and small towns like Waterloo grow substantially. The population of Waterloo in the 1930s was about 497; it peaked during WWII to about 524 and presently is only around 200.
Jesse, a present day adult grandchild of his ancestral observer, tells us that his now-deceased grandmother was a teenager in 1930.
“It was after dark, perhaps about 6:30 p.m., and my grandmother and three other school mates were waiting in a car before an evening play or musical type performance at her school,” Jesse said. “They were a bit early, so they waited for someone to come unlock the school’s door.”
It’s important to understand that at that time in rural Alabama there was no such thing as street lights in remote areas where schools were located.
“Shortly after pulling up by the school, the occupants of the car saw a bright light that looked like a ball of fire,” Jesse said. “My grandmother was in the back driver’s side of the car, and she said that the light was approaching the car from the rear passenger’s side. They all assumed it was a flash light or car headlight of someone to come open up the door to the school. The light got brighter and it filled the car interior with light. It was so bright, my grandmother said it was as bright as daylight.”
Over the years the woman shared her consistent description with her children and grandchildren. “It was a bright glowing ball about the size of a basketball. It floated by our car, about two or three feet away,” Jesse said she recounted. “It moved forward on the rear passenger side about four feet above the ground. It moved at the speed of a slow walk and was completely silent.”
Jesse said his grandmother and her friend were so terrified that neither of them would get out of the car. But, as the story goes, she related that the two boys in the car got out and followed the glowing ball of fire as it meandered into the woods. The boys came back after a few minutes and said it had disappeared.
“The sighting perplexed all who saw it. Later as adults, her friends recalled the sighting event many times over the years,” Jesse said.
From 2001-2015, Lauderdale County, Ala., reported a total of 28 UFO sightings. Twenty-three of them were reported in the regional area of Florance. Waterloo is part of the Florence-Muscle Shoals metropolitan area, known as “The Shoals.”
LET’S LOOK AT SOME RECENT UFO SIGHTINGS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY:
July 16, 2017: At 1 a.m. a resident of Donalds in Abbeville County, S.C., saw something he initially thought was lighting, but then the light started moving around in the clouds.
July 16, 2017: At 3 a.m. a resident of Independence, in Montgomery County, Kan., reported seeing bright star-shaped objects that were moving at random.
July 16, 2017: At 4:30 a.m. a resident of San Bernardino, in San Bernardino County, Calif., reported a pair of bright white-lit objects that were flying in a zig-zag formation, then hovered, then flew in darting zig-zags again before silently vanishing.
July 16, 2017: At 10:30 a.m. a resident of Manhattan, in New York County, N.Y., reported observing cigar-shaped object that was being pursued by four smaller saucer spheres.
July 16, 2017: At 11:15 p.m. a resident of Hyannis, in Barnstable County, Mass., witnessed what appeared to be a shooting star. The object suddenly made a broad curve, reversed its course 180 degrees and headed back toward the horizon.
People see - or think they see - UFOs all around the world, and naturally Russia has its fair share of unexplained events. Although there’s no solid proof of contact with extraterrestrials, dozens of people in the country and the former USSR are sure aliens exist.
An alien was reported to appear in the city of Voronezh in 1989.
Source: Varvara Grankova
All around the world people tend to believe that their own country’s special services have much to hide, including information about extraterrestrial civilizations. Russia is no different, nor was the USSR, where many people discussed the omnipotent KGB holding back data concerning alien secrets.
In 2005 Vladimir Kryuchkov, the last head of the KGB, denounced the rumors - firmly stating this in an interview: “There was no single case of receiving material confirming any UFO’s existence.”
According to Kryuchkov, the KGB scrutinized all events in the USSR thought to be connected to abnormal activity. Sadly, the largest country on Earth was found to be short on proven supernatural happenings, including flying saucers and bug-eyed, grey aliens.
However, the former KGB chief’s words did not sway the minds of Russians who were - and are - set on believing the contrary. People continue to discuss encounters with UFOs and space travelers on sites like ufology.ru. While chatting online they tend to agree on one thing: Civilisations on other planets exist and some have visited Earth.
The Petrozavodsk phenomenon
In both Russia and the USSR, most cases of UFO sightings were connected with military experiments mistaken for objects from space. However, there are some instances that can’t be dismissed so easily. Perhaps the most mysterious case occurred in 1977 in Petrozavodsk (696 km northwest of Moscow).
One September night, about 200 people from the Republic of Karelia saw a strange object in the night sky, surrounded by glowing white light. It looked like a cloud emitting bright rays and moved from east to west. There were also reports of similar sightings in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Helsinki, and other cities in the Leningrad Oblast and Finland (all these territories are situated close to each other).
The case later became known as “The Petrozavodsk phenomenon” and was initially attributed to a satellite launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome (788 km east of Moscow) that took place the same night. However, Lev Gindilis - a scientist who collected information and statements about the incident for the Soviet Academy of Science - concluded that it was not a satellite, given the direction of its movement, size, and speed. “It’s unfeasible to satisfactorily understand the observed phenomenon,” he wrote in his report. Almost 50 years after, his words are still true.
Stranger things in Voronezh and the Far East
In 1989, while the USSR was on the brink of collapse, an incredibly unusual incident was reported in Voronezh (466 km south of Moscow). A group of children claimed they saw not only a disc-shaped spaceship land in the park they were playing, but also a three-eyed alien who emerged from it. According to the youths, the alien was holding “a 50 cm-long pistol tube” and even attacked one of them before leaving.
Though the children were the only ones who apparently witnessed the alien, some adults confirmed they had seen the UFO that day so the case attracted great media attention. Nevertheless, since no alien traces were found (except for the relatively high level of radiation in the area of the reported contact) the hype soon dispelled.
The small city of Dalnegorsk in the Far East (6491 km east of Moscow) also received its 15 minutes of fame in January 1986 after a spherical object darted across the sky. It crashed into a hill where local ufologists later found samples of metals which, though not necessarily unearthly, were not typical for the soil in the area. Officials from the military base situated nearby denied they had anything to do with the incident, so the ufologists assumed that Dalnegorsk had witnessed the crash of an extraterrestrial spaceship or satellite. Still, scientists neither confirm nor deny this suggestion.
This article is part of the Russian X-Files series in which RBTH explores Russia-related mysteries and paranormal phenomena.
“Lights in the sky” sightings easily comprise the majority of UFO sightings, and have just as easily been dismissed by skeptics as bright stars and planets, conventional aircraft, and—dare I say it?—swamp gas. Now, there is a new bane of a ufologist’s existence—drones. Every kid with an LED-covered quadcopter can spark a viral “UFO” video, even further muddying the already murky waters of “lights in the sky” cases.
Depiction of triangle UFO at night.
(Credit: OpenMinds.tv)
So perhaps researchers need to take a step back and look into the darkness—into the far more rare cases of nighttime sightings of craft flying completely dark, without any lights. It’s impossible for skeptics to consign such cases to the “Venus Files” if they are solid, unlit objects. These cases also present a more enticing element, which may or may not be warranted—a somewhat sinister aspect as these craft obviously don’t want to be seen as they are cruising silently just over your head.
The subject of “Dark UFOs” came up recently when I interviewed Lorraine M. about her early 1980s sighting in Putnam County, NY, which was the scene of a major flap in the Hudson Valley which lasted several years.
“I was leaving a party with my friends,” Lorraine explained in a detailed email. “It was 1am and we had parked our cars in an elementary school parking lot. There were about six of us, laughing, having fun. I looked up into the sky to take in the beauty of this clear, starlit night when all of a sudden I noticed an area straight up without stars! ‘What the hell?!’ was my first response! I elbowed my boyfriend and pointed to the sky without saying a word. Immediately he elbowed and pointed upward to the next friend, and so on! We all stood there dumbstruck, looking up, amazed at the sight before us.”
This is a great description of the immediate reaction to such a sighting—no words, just each friend nudging one another and pointing successively on down the line. Lorraine explained that there were no streetlights, and the field of stars was very bright that night. The “colossal craft” had no lights or other form of illumination, so “The only way you could see its triangular shape was how it blotted out the stars!”
“We all stood there, staring upward, mouths agape, bewildered… scared yet amazed…It passed over us at a height that it could nick its bottom on the point of the Empire State Building. And its speed was as slow as a balloon in the Macy’s Day Parade. It passed slowly. Creeping along. Then all of a sudden it shot out from view, then reappeared what seemed like ten miles down further and continued its sloth-like pace.
“We ran to our cars! The next day we learned through the local newspaper that others had witnessed this craft as well! I would say that experience far exceeded any party that night!”
Just to further emphasize her story, Lorraine later emailed me this:
“All of this is the darn truth! I’ll never forget it!!”
Book cover to Linda Zimmerman’s Hudson Valley UFOs.
This craft exhibited many of the characteristics described by witnesses during the 1980s flap—triangular, the size of a football field, and the ability to go both incredibly slow and impossibly fast. However, whereas most of the other craft witnessed were often described as being lit up like Christmas trees, this one was flying dark.
Around the same time frame of the late 70s and early 80s, a “black disk” was spotted one night in Brentwood, NY, which is on Long Island. A witness reported to MUFON that she went outside to call her cat in for the night when she looked up and saw “a black disk the size of a stop sign at arm’s length” and about the height of a radio tower. It moved very slowly, diagonally over her house and she had time to observe it from both the back and front yards.
Again, there were no lights, and the shape was only able to be determined by the “sky glow” from the neighborhood lights, as the object was silhouetted against the dark sky. There was one other unusual feature the witness described with this craft—“The bottom didn’t appear smooth, it looked like it had sections that were raised, with sharp edges.” Unlike the previous case, however, where the UFO shot off in the blink of an eye, this black craft just quietly floated out of sight.
Yet another different shape of dark object appeared even earlier in the area, a rectangular craft as described in a 1978 NUFORC report from Avon, Connecticut. This case was also different, as what first drew the attention of the witness was a bright light, which apparently shut off as the witness approached.
“I was driving back to where I was staying that night after dropping off a friend. I was driving up a road in Avon, CT, when I saw a bright light up ahead; I thought this was unusual for this time of night [1 am]. I proceeded up the road and when I got to where the light basically was coming from, there was no light present. I looked around in curiosity and discovered an object the size of a house hovering about fifty feet in the air. There was a half moon and visibility was good, this object was very dark and large, there were no lights on and it made no noise whatsoever.
“I parked my car in the middle of the road and left it running with the lights on, hoping someone would come down the road to witness this as well. I stood still in one spot staring at this object for about 5 minutes, fearing what it would be capable of doing. I looked around and saw a house that had its lights on, so I ran over to it and knocked on the door. I waited for a couple of minutes, but nobody answered.
“I ran back to where my car was and the object was still there. I became so scared I jumped in my car and drove off quickly. As I went to the stop sign at the end of the road, I looked up and the object had followed me all the way down the road. I turned to the left and saw the object was still following me, so I floored the gas and never looked back again.”
As if this case isn’t bizarre enough, there was a final twist.
“It took me over a month to tell anyone else, but eventually I told my parents. We ended up moving to an area right where this event occurred, and a neighbor saw the same thing almost one year to the date later. She described the exact same event I witnessed.”
Depiction of triangle UFO at night.
(Credit: OpenMinds.tv)
What were the chances that this witness would actually move to the location of her intense encounter, and then find a neighbor who saw the same black, unlit object around the same day the following year?
Another black triangle with no lights was seen by at least three men in 1985. It was around midnight when “Jerry” and his friend, “Matt” were driving from Danbury Hospital toward Brewster, NY on Route 84. The sky was overcast, but not completely dark, due to the sky glow from all the street and building lights. Had it been a clear night, the two friends may not have seen the incredible silent object they witnessed, silhouetted against the clouds.
“It was a large solid, black triangle with no visible sign of propulsion,” Jerry told me. “No exhaust, no propellers. It was low enough that the altitude itself was notable and striking as it appeared to be very low relative to the highway for such a large craft. In terms of speed, I would say somewhere around 80 miles an hour. I am guessing that because we were driving on I-84 and the craft stayed ahead of us during the time we were on the highway, but was not pulling away at great speed. There were no lights that I recall and the craft was a triangle, not the V-shape that I know some others have seen. It would have been travelling at well below stall speed for any conventional aircraft of its size.
“We pulled off the highway at Exit 4 (west bound) and pulled into what I believe was an empty lot where a McDonald’s now exists. There was another motorist who had pulled off for the same reason. He was standing outside his car when we pulled in and we spoke briefly. The three of us; my friend, the other motorist and I, all watched the craft head toward Ridgefield [Connecticut]. The time was likely around midnight, but I don’t know the exact time. It was after 10:00 PM because I called the tower at Danbury Airport the next day to see if they had any idea what it was. They said the tower closed at 10:00 so they had no information at all to offer.”
The most startling case I have had involving a dark craft has to be the one sighted by Jim in Howells, NY, in 1995, if for nothing else, the sheer enormity of the object.
Jim was in his twenties and living at his mother’s house. He went to take the garbage out one night, so he turned on the front porch light. This was no ordinary light, as his mother had installed an extremely bright spotlight that did not aim down, it aimed straight ahead, so the angle of its beam went up into the sky, as well. Without that powerful beam of light, Jim never would have seen what passed overhead.
“It was like something out of Battlestar Galactica! It was an enormous, metallic triangle and I could see a lot of detail.”
The craft did not have any lights on, but as it was only at an altitude of a couple of hundred feet, the spotlight illuminated the underside.
Depiction of triangle UFO seen in Illinois.
(Credit: Michael Schratt)
“It wasn’t moving really fast, but it was going along at a good clip. Even so, it took many seconds to pass completely overhead.”
I asked Jim what he would compare the size to: a house, a plane, a football field?
“At least three football fields,” he replied without hesitation.
As he began by making a science fiction spaceship comparison, I mentioned the opening scene of Star Wars where the Imperial Star Destroyer just keeps coming and coming across the screen.
“I never thought of that, but that’s what it was like. It was just enormous.”
“Any sound?” I asked.
“Absolutely silent,” he stated. “Had that spotlight not been on, I don’t think I would have even noticed it.”
I asked what his immediate reaction had been to the sighting, and how it made him feel. In the spirit of a picture being worth a thousand words, rather than trying to describe it, he struck a pose and expression of extreme surprise and amazement. That said it all.
What else is in the skies above us that we don’t notice because it has absolutely no form of illumination? Why are some craft brilliantly lit, clearly wanting to be seen, or at least not caring if they are seen? Can we assume that dark UFOs are rare, or are just the sightings of these craft rare because the conditions have to be just right to see them?
Whatever is going on, these cases present researchers a valuable opportunity to sidestep the numerous excuses for lights in the sky and concentrate on the indisputable facts: for reasons we can only imagine, enormous triangles, disks, and rectangles are in our skies displaying no lights, not wanting to be seen. Based upon the cases with which I have personally dealt, and others I have come across in the MUFON and NUFORC databases, I know I will now be starting a new file labeled “Flying Dark.”
Watch Linda’s presentation on Hudson Valley UFOs here.
A team of researchers from the Australian National University have discovered what could be a huge clue in understanding how animal life emerged on Earth. They claim that when Earth melted from an icy snowball, the resulting flood of nutrients sparked the evolution of complex ecosystems.
SNOWBALLS AND ALGAE
CAPTION
Associate Professor Jochen Brocks and Dr. Amber Jarrett with an oil sample taken ancient sedimentary rocks.
CREDIT
Stuart Hay, ANU
The research team crushed old sedimentary rocks to powder and extracted molecules of old organisms from them.
CREDIT
Stuart Hay, ANU
This week, in a press release, the Australian National University asserted that a team of their scientists had figured out how animal life came into existence on our planet. The release states, “Research led by The Australian National University (ANU) has solved the mystery of how the first animals appeared on Earth, a pivotal moment for the planet without which humans would not exist.”
The discovery started with ancient sedimentary rock samples from central Australia. The team, led by ANU Research School of Earth Sciences associate professor Jochen Brocks, crushed the rock samples into powder and then “extracted molecules of ancient organisms from them,” Brocks explained in the press release. “These molecules tell us that it really became interesting 650 million years ago. It was a revolution of ecosystems, it was the rise of algae.”
Scientists generally agree that complex, animal life on Earth started some 600 million years ago. Brocks and his team claim that a significant event preceded this. “Before all of this happened, there was a dramatic event 50 million years earlier called Snowball Earth,” he said, referring to a hypothesis that suggests a period when the planet’s surface was entirely frozen from pole to pole.
This event is key for the ANU team’s findings, as it was what made the growth and spread of algae possible. “The Earth was frozen over for 50 million years. Huge glaciers ground entire mountain ranges to powder that released nutrients, and when the snow melted during an extreme global heating event rivers washed torrents of nutrients into the ocean,” Brocks explained.
EVOLVING INSIGHTS
At the end of this frozen period, when global temperatures settled into more hospitable levels, the nutrients that flooded into the oceans sparked the transition from microbial life into a more complex life, Brocks said. “These large and nutritious organisms at the base of the food web provided the burst of energy required for the evolution of complex ecosystems, where increasingly large and complex animals, including humans, could thrive on Earth,” he added.
This study is, indeed, promising and could potentially be groundbreaking. The origin of complex life on Earth remains one of the most puzzling events in science, as the evolutionary jump between single-celled microbes and multi-cellular, nucleus-bearing, mitochondria-powered organisms is simply immense.
Additionally, our understanding of the moment this occurred keeps on evolving. While it’s understood that conditions on Earth became ideal at a certain point to make life possible, being able to pinpoint just what these conditions were — and exactly when they occurred — could better help explain complex life’s rise.
Studies like this ANU research help in achieving this. Recently, a couple of studies have been published that also attempted to shed light into the origin of life on Earth. One suggested that life didn’t just begin in the oceans, but also on land. Another claimed that the so-called Asgard microbes are the bacterial ancestors of human life.
Studying the origins of life on this planet could also help us to figure out how life develops in the cosmos. Right now, the search for extraterrestrial life is a concern that keeps a number of scientists and institutions occupied. Understanding life on Earth might just help us understand life beyond it.
Advanced alien civilizations could find our planet with the aid of Cosmic Maps NASA launched into space some 40 years ago. However, Dr. Frank Drake, the man who helped design the charts has suggested these maps could be dangerous for our species.
This is the diagram carried aboard Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11.
Image Credit: NASA.
Our quest for alien life goes back more than you’d imagine. But perhaps the most important step towards finding our cosmic neighbors began in the 1970’s when NASA sent maps revealing our planet’s location into space, onboard of four spacecraft in hopes that one day we would be able to communicate if anyone else is out there.
However, despite the fact that sending the maps of Earth into space was a great step for mankind, the creator of the maps—Dr. Frank Drake—has spoken out about the potentially ‘dangerous’ decisions to send the maps into space over 40 years ago.
All f the four spacecraft carrying the maps—Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2—have left our solar system and are heading towards deep space with our planet’s coordinates embedded onto their body.
Dr. Drake who worked at NASA to design the ‘cosmic’ charts placed on board Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively believes not everything is positive about sending the maps.
The Voyager spacecraft were launched into space with golden records (pictured) on board.
Image Credit: NASA
In an interview with his daughter Nadia Drake, a reporter from National Geographic, Dr. Drake said: “In those days, all the people I worked with were optimists, and they believed how ETs would be friendly, Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.”
The plaques placed on board the Pioneer spacecraft are a message from our civilization. They depict a man and a woman standing side by side, next to a map of Earth, which plots its position in relation to distant pulsar stars.
Why pulsar stars? Because these stars are long-lasting stars and are so bright that they could help guide aliens in the right direction towards Earth.
The maps on board the Voyager spacecraft are of similar design. The Voyager 1 and 2 feature a golden record on board, with similar pulsar stars to our planet.
NASA wanted to put something on board the spacecraft saying where we come from, who we are, and how long our spacecraft were traveling.
Furthermore, the records also contain various sounds from nature, and noises produced by humans like a train, and a kiss between a mother and a child.
However, despite all potential danger these cosmic charts pose in outer space, Dr. Drake says that the chance of Aliens intercepting the messages and finding out wehre we are are “very small”
“The thing is going something like 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] per second, at which speed it takes – for the typical separation of stars – about half a million years to go from one star to another,” added Dr. Drake.
Apparently, things about E.T. and visitations to Earth changed since the 1970’s. Now it seems more people are inclined to avoiding aliens at any cost.
Now, more experts are leaning towards the idea that we should not reveal ourselves to aliens.
Professor Stephe Hawking said in an interview that if aliens found us, it would be something comparable to when the Native Americans first encountered Christopher Columbus—something that did not turn out so well for the natives.
Stephen Hawking has said that if aliens ever discovered Earth, they would probably want to conquer and colonize it.
One of the most enigmatic crop circles appeared in 2001, on a crop field in next to the UK’s biggest telescope and observatory, the Chilbolton. The enigmatic crop circle was hailed by many as the most impressive and important crop circle to ever appear on our planet, since according to many UDO researchers, this crop circle unlike others, carried a message from space.
Crop Circles have fascinated the general public and Ufologists for decades. For years have experts studied this incredible phenomenon which many have attributed to UFO’s, and how Crop Circles are in fact a message from above, from our cosmic neighbors.
Others—from the skeptical side—are convinced that crop circles are just one of the many elaborate hoaxes trying to prove, we’re not alone in the universe.
Crop Circles—hence their name—appear on crop fields across the world. The term „Crop Circles“ was coined in the seventies by Doug Bower y Dave Chorley. In 1991, they declared that since 1978 they had been authors of more than 200 crop circles, inspired by a formation which appeared in Queensland, which a farmer said to have found after seeing a UFO fly over the zone.
Since then, Crop Circles have been a UFO subject bombarded by critics.
The product of man? Or product of Aliens? The product of the 21st century?
According to Richard Dolan: “The electromagnetic field over the area where a circle appears is usually electrostatically charged. Furthermore, there is a rare form of electromagnetic energy called an “ionized plasma vortex,” also known as ball lighting, involved with these formations.(source)
Well, it a much-debated subject. I mean after all, why would Aliens come all the way to earth from outer space to draw a few crop circles…?
While the term “Crop Circles” was coined in the seventies, the truth is that the first reported Crop Circle dates back as far as 1678.
A pamphlet published on August 22, 1678, called “The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News Out of Hertfordshire” shows a demon cutting a large circle in a crop field is considered the first precedent of an agroglyph, aka Crop Circle.
However, researcher Jim Schnabel does not consider it as a historical antecedent since the text describes the stems as cut and not bent.
In 1686, naturalist Robert Plot reported circular forms appearing on fungi, which later on would be attributed to air currents, then in 1880, John Rand Capron described circular shapes that appeared in a field after a storm.
In more recent times, things related to crop circles have dramatically changed.
The enigmatic ‘messages’ usually tend to appear over night, while fewer are reported to appear during the day.
Throughout the years the phenomenon has evolved drastically to the point where it’s hard to judge whether it’s a hoax or the real deal.
Nobody doubts that. The crop circle figures are getting bigger, some with more than 200 meters in diameter; Others are more complex in design as if we were witnessing real cosmic “mandalas,” many of them are constructed with an impressive geometrical precision, with knowledge of fractals and allusions to the studies of modern quantum mechanics.
Those who have studied the phenomenon without prejudice, believe that Crop Circles are accompanied by certain characteristics that are relatively unique to them and do not have a rational explanation.
Farmer s who have seen crop circles appear on their fields how they witnessed seeing “flashes of light” or “light orbs” in the sky before their fields were ‘tattooed.’
Richard Dolan, historian, academic, author, and one of the world’s leading UFO researchers explained Crop Circles eloquently when he said (source):
“Some of these Crop Circles are so large and complex as to defy reason. And after all these decades, noneof the perpetrators have been caught in the act of making any of the truly extraordinary formations.”
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
