Overlooked Ocean Worlds Fill the Outer Solar System

In the search for watery abodes for extraterrestrial life, the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus are only the tip of the iceberg

When it reached Saturn in 2004 Cassini deployed a European-built lander, Huygens, to land on Titan’s frozen surface, where it found a bizarre landscape of methane–ethane lakes and hydrocarbon snows. In later observations Cassini revealed Titan possesses a watery ocean beneath its surface of hydrocarbon slush. The breakout star of Cassini’s investigations, however, was unquestionably Enceladus, an icy moon about as big as England is wide—too small, researchers had thought, to sustain much interesting geologic activity.

Against all odds Cassini found the moon jetting plumes of salty water vapor from its south pole—an unmistakable signpost of some kind of mysterious ocean hidden beneath its icy crust. Where there is liquid water, the thinking goes, there might well be life—just as there is on Earth, where water forms the cornerstone of biology as we know it. And unlike Jupiter’s moon Europa, which Galileo had shown contains a sunless sea perhaps impenetrably sealed beneath a thick crust of ice, Enceladus’s plumes offered a way to obtain direct samples of its dark waters. Starry-eyed astrobiologists were instantly enamored with this wee moon—and they still are.

But other astrobiologically interesting moons circle Saturn, too. A bit more than 400,000 kilometers from Enceladus spins another icy satellite, named Dione. Twice as big and similarly coated in ice and snow, it has something else in common with Enceladus: it is probably an ocean world. “There’s really good evidence” for Dione’s ocean, says Bonnie Buratti, a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who worked on the Cassini mission. “I kind of feel this is one of the things we’ve left hanging as we leave the Saturn system, that we just haven’t answered.”

Ocean worlds are bodies in the solar system that manage (or managed in the past, like Mars) to hold onto enough liquid water to form seas, lakes and other potential aquatic abodes for life. The newly discovered ones in the outer solar system still harboring oceans today all possess some internal energy source that keeps them from freezing solid like some of their siblings. Scientists argue over the details but most agree those worlds are warmed from within by a combination of radioactive decay and tidal heating (the friction-inducing flexure of their crusts from the gravitational pull of the parent planet).

Buratti lays out the case for Dione’s membership in this elite club: Its surface is fairly smooth, meaning something has been filling in and covering up the spots where craters and fissures might otherwise form. Liquid water rising from a moon-girdling subsurface reservoir, then freezing, would work nicely for that. Tentative evidence from Cassini’s instruments also hinted at plume activity—albeit much weaker than at Enceladus—as if a similar but subtler mechanism is at play inside Dione. Buratti and others suspect that Janiculum Dorsa, one of the moon’s few mountains, may be somehow responsible, but the scientists were unable to gather definitive proof before Cassini’s termination.

Janiculum Dorsa may be Dione’s equivalent of Enceladus’s south pole, where water gushes more than 60 kilometers into space. On the latter this mechanism (called cryovolcanism) is fed by an underwater ocean—and there is similar albeit more circumstantial evidence for Janiculum Dorsa as the source of similar “cryovolcanic” plume activity on Dione.

Cassini’s measurements of Dione’s gravitational field also indicate that something strange is going on beneath the surface. When a spacecraft flies by a completely solid body, the craft’s trajectory tends to be more or less “straight.” In simple terms, it flies by without a discernable difference in the amount of gravity attracting it. But if the body is less homogeneous—for instance, a liquid ocean beneath an icy crust—the spacecraft’s trajectory can exhibit faint but detectable deviations in the tug due to this liquid mass. This is precisely what Cassini experienced as it swooped by Dione. “If Dione has an ocean, it’s another example where there might be a habitable environment because we have liquid water—there’s a heat source and there might be organic molecules in there that contribute to primitive bacterial life,” Buratti says.

And Dione is not the only promising place passed over by many astrobiologists infatuated with Enceladus, Titan and Europa. There are at least a half dozen other ocean worlds that might merit inclusion in the quest to discover alien life. “Might” being the operative term here—these oft-overlooked oceans tend to be less accessible than their more popular peers. They are either locked beneath thicker ice crusts or just so far out in the solar system (in the cases of moons of Uranus and Neptune) that no one can yet say how promising their hidden seas really are. That is, save Dione—which appears to be a sleepier but no less interesting cross between Enceladus and Europa.

THE MOST MASSIVE MOON OF ALL

Ganymede is a truly giant moon. Larger than Mercury and not much smaller than Mars, it is a would-be planet forever demoted from that lofty status by its host Jupiter. Just as Dione is perennially overshadowed by Enceladus and Titan, Ganymede tends to take a back seat to its sister ocean world, Europa, which is slated to be studied up close by NASA’s Europa Clipper mission sometime in the 2020s. But Ganymede is deserving of study, too: Telltale cycles of auroral activity on the surface, witnessed from afar by the Hubble Space Telescope in Earth orbit, reveal oscillations in the moon’s magnetic field best explained by the internal sloshing of a huge ocean hundreds of kilometers below the surface.

How huge? Olivier Witasse, a project scientist working on ESA’s future Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), says Ganymede’s ocean is even bigger than Europa’s—and might be the largest in the entire solar system. “The Ganymede ocean is believed to contain more water than the Europan one,” he says. “Six times more water in Ganymede’s ocean than in Earth's ocean, and three times more than Europa.”

UICE will orbit Ganymede, giving scientists a chance to study this second-fiddle moon in detail. On the way there the craft will make several sweeps past another potentially ocean-bearing Jovian moon, Callisto. “We think that Callisto also harbors a subsurface ocean, but the available data is unclear,” Witasse says. “What we hope to do is to check whether there is an ocean or not—and if yes, at which depth.”

ICY MOONS AROUND ICY GIANTS

Out past Jupiter and Saturn other ocean worlds may be found as well. The moon Ariel twirls in a two-day orbit just 190,000 kilometers from the gas-giant Uranus. All we know about the moon comes from a single encounter with the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. That flyby revealed Ariel to be relatively smooth, as if its surface was being continually renewed by activity deep within. It is currently believed to be the only ocean world in the Uranian system.

The smoothness of Ariel’s surface may be a hallmark of “extrusive cryovolcanism,” or geyser activity that throws material onto a world’s surface. Imagine a flow of molten rock from a volcano on Earth, except with the flow being made of molten ice—in other words, liquid water. Zibi Turtle, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, says finding and studying instances of cryovolcanism would be a “holy grail in solar system evolution” that could explain how icy worlds, oceanic or not, change over time. She says there may also be a tentative connection between Ariel’s geology and the Uranian rings—but without more data, not much more can be said. (Enceladus’s plumes similarly interact with one of the rings of Saturn, steadily replenishing and maintaining the ring’s tenuous existence with injections of icy particles.) “Really, the best way to learn about the interiors and geologic history—the evolution of these satellites—is going to be another mission that goes through or in orbit around the Uranian system,” she notes.

Farther out, the gas-giant planet Neptune has only one moon of any substantial size, Triton. The satellite appears to be a captured interloper from the Kuiper Belt, a diffuse ring of icy bodies at the outer reaches of the solar system. That would make it kin to Pluto, the Kuiper Belt’s largest denizen. Data from Voyager 2, which encountered Neptune in 1989, suggest Triton possesses a very thin atmosphere and more than a few geysers on its surface. “What is actually driving the cryovolcanism? It’s got to be pretty powerful because it’s shooting this material quite high above tiny Triton,” says Heidi Hammel, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute. “It’s not just that it’s leaking, it’s jetting these materials.” The answer, as far as researchers can tell, is the same combination of radioactive decay and tidal forces that sustains oceans on other frozen moons of the outer solar system. But geysers that shoot as high as Triton’s, she notes, would require a particularly potent heat source and a massive ocean. “There’s no doubt that there’s a case to be made to look at Triton in the light of a very habitable environment,” she says. “It’s an active world. It has cryovolcanoes and we’ve seen them. There’s a whole lot of material from these cryovolcanoes that is black, dark,” which indicates the presence of organic materials, according to Hammel.

Triton, it seems, is a hipster ocean world—it was seen spouting geysers decades before the plumes of Enceladus were astrobiology’s next big thing. That it has been overlooked for so long is due to its immense distance from Earth and the fact that it has only been visited once, for a handful of hours by Voyager 2. But if Triton is so promising, what then of Pluto, its Kuiper Belt cousin? On this world, planetary scientists may find the weirdest potential ocean world of all.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

During its 2015 Pluto flyby NASA’s New Horizons probe only had about 12 hours to study the dwarf planet Pluto before it was a fading point of light in the rearview. The spacecraft had to make use of every available moment, and that intense scrutiny revealed signs of something spectacular but not yet entirely certain: Pluto appears to have an ocean, too.

Pluto's Moon Charon

Scientists had long suspected what New Horizons confirmed: Pluto is mostly made of ices—not only water, but also of more volatile substances like nitrogen and methane that freeze solid at extremely low temperatures. Yet the spacecraft measured Pluto to be more compact than it was expected to be, given its mass, because freezing water should have expanded and pushed the surface outward. There is also a surprising amount of geologic activity at Sputnik Planitia, the heart-shaped region sprawled across one of Pluto’s hemispheres. All that tumult on a world long thought to be locked in deep-freeze suggests some reservoir of heat must linger within—an ocean, perhaps. If so, though, that ocean would be decidedly atypical.

Bill McKinnon, a Washington University in Saint Louis professor and New Horizons team member, says ammonia is believed to be plentiful on Pluto, albeit hard to detect remotely from a spacecraft flying by at thousands of kilometers per hour. That ammonia, he says, should mix with any water below, which might still be in liquid form even billions of years after the dwarf planet’s formation. “If the ocean is able to cool and not freeze, then the ammonia helps to keep it from disappearing,” he says. This would make the ocean fairly viscous. “At those temperatures it ends up having the consistency of honey,” he says. But the scant bit of time New Horizons spent in the Plutonian system means one unfortunate thing: There is insufficient data to conclusively prove the model. “It’s a story, it’s not proof,” McKinnon notes. “At least it hangs together conceptually.”

Cracks in Pluto's Moon Could Indicate it Once Had an Underground Ocean

The only way to further study these ocean worlds is via targeted missions. Europa, of course, will be lavished with attention by Europa Clipper and JUICE. But outside of that, Ganymede and Callisto are currently the sole also-ran ocean worlds with planned visits—from JUICE. Despite their revered status, even Enceladus and Titan lack committed follow-up investigations, but that could change by the end of the year if NASA chooses to pursue a mission to either as part of the agency’s New Frontiers program of midsize interplanetary missions. Uranus and Neptune missions have been discussed—and rejected—for decades, with no concepts for exploration ever advancing beyond the preplanning stages. Of all the lesser-known worlds, Turtle says, “the two that really cry out to me are Ariel and Dione. I think Dione has some surprises still.”

JUICE could make Ganymede and Callisto’s oceans seem less remote and more dynamic, and maybe even confirm some tentative evidence of cryovolcanism at Ganymede, once again revolutionizing our understanding of these mysterious moons. But without more missions to the outer solar system, inquisitive scientists—as well as the curious public they serve—will be left with more questions than answers for several decades to come. The oceans, of course, will wait. Will we?

{ https://www.scientificamerican.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 23:07 geschreven door peter  

BILL GRADY

CATEGORIES: KC News

A local UFO researcher says Kansas City is a hot spot for sightings.

Margie Kay is assistant state director for the Missouri chapter of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, and author of a new book, The Kansas City UFO Flaps. The publication documents numerous sightings, mostly in Eastern Jackson County in 2011 and 2012. 

"Flap" is a term used to describe sudden grouping of sightings of UFOs in an area that appear to be related.

The accounts involve close encounters in which someone had a really good look at strange objects in the sky, Kay said. In one case, a photograph showed what she called small beings that don't appear to be human. 

"There's never cooperation from government agencies," Kay said. "We filed a freedom of information request asking for radar reports and there's hardly ever a response."

A lot of people report seeing multi-colored objects that rotate counter clockwise at high rates of speed. The sightings continue, Kay said.

MUFON wants people to file reports whenever they see something in the sky they can't explain. The organization has set up an online registry.

TAGS: 

• UFO
• Close Encounter
• Margie Kay
• kansas city
• Unidentified flying object
• Paranormal
• MUFON
• Mutual UFO Network

{ http://www.kmbz.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 22:45 geschreven door peter  

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NASA, JPL-Caltech

By David Grossman

 

Yet another theory has been developed to explain the mysteries of Tabby's Star, one much more plausible than previous, eccentric theories of an "alien megastructure." A new study from NASA and Belgian AstroLAB IRIS observatory suggests that the star's odd behavior could be explained by an "uneven dust cloud."

This is not the most exciting explanation of the famous-in-astronomy-circles Tabby's Star, also known as KIC 8462852. It's been observed in the night sky since 1890, but in September 2015, Dr. Tabetha Boyajian, then of Yale and now of Louisiana State, published a paper titled "Where's the Flux?" which looked at 846's highly unusual light curve. Tabby's Star, as it became known, would experience a series of eccentric photometric "dips," which would dim its light with seemingly no pattern.

Theories erupted about what could be causing the dips. The most outlandish of these was that Tabby's Star was, or at least was involved in, the creation of an alien superstructure. But there have been other, more plausible theories. A planet with uneven, wobbly rings near the star could also potentially generate a similar effect.

Continued study, however, has shown less dimming in the infrared light coming from Tabby's Star than in its ultraviolet light.

"This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength-dependent dimming," says Huan Meng, at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is lead author of the new study looking at the dust theory published in The Astrophysical Journal, in a press statement. "We suspect, instead, there is a cloud of dust orbiting the star with a roughly 700-day orbital period."

From January to December of last year, researchers looked extensively at the light from Tabby's Star in ultraviolet, infrared, and visible. Based on dips in ultraviolet light, they determined that tiny particles were blocking the star's light. Dust near a star, known as circumstellar dust, hits the Goldilocks test for what could be causing continued dimming. It's not so fine that it would fly away from the star, but not thick enough to uniformly cover everything.

NASA compares the experience to going "to the beach on a bright, sunny day and sitting under an umbrella." While the umbrella will block some of the sunlight, it won't be able to stop the sunset from changing colors. The light changes through the scattering of particles, and Tabby's Star might experience a similar process from our vantage point. "The new study suggests," NASA says, "the objects causing the long-period dimming of Tabby's Star can be no more than a few micrometers in diameter (about one ten-thousandth of an inch)."

While NASA appears to be quite confident in the larger dust theory, there are still smaller mysteries within, like a three-day period earlier this year of continued short-term dimming. It's had to move its telescopes off the star for now, but it's clear that Tabby's Star will remain an object of curiosity in the sky.

"Tabby's Star could have something like a solar activity cycle," says Siegfried Vanaverbeke, an AstroLAB volunteer who helped convince the Belgian lab to make it a point of study. "This is something that needs further investigation and will continue to interest scientists for many years to come."

Source: NASA

{http://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 22:38 geschreven door peter  

A Fast UFO Flying was Filmed by a US Air Force Veteran, He Sent the Footage to MUFON for Investigation

The UFO was filmed with a DJI Phantom 3 Professional 4K aerial camera mounted on a drone above Ayden District Park travelling too fast to be spotted with a naked eye. The 59- year-old veteran was astonished after reviewing the recorded footage that showed a UFO flying in a blur under the drone.

The retired USAF veteran has told MUFON that he had never previously experienced anything similar in his 20 year military career and that this footage took him back.

The object travelled around 1.2 miles just in one-third of a second, meaning, it travelled at around 13,000 mph per hour or 17 times the speed of sound an altitude of just 50 feet.

The object on the footage can be seen clearly only when slowed down. It is when it stays on the screen long enough to be seen. The description on YouTube video says that it traveled 6200 feet (about 1.2 miles) in 1/3rd of a second.

The UFO was reported with MUFON and then a copy of the video was sent to NASA. Both agencies are investigating and anysing it.

The object looked like a solid metallic object which reflected or emitted its own light.It appears like a blur and it covers a distance during one-third of a second without making a sound.

MUFON’s North Carolina investigator Sanford Davis wrote in the official report that the object was not observed nor seen personally. It was spotted after reviewing drone footage and the whole sighting occured within a third of a second – a stroke arising in the background, streaking across the screen before disappearing in the foreground.

It appears as a white dot, turning into a ‘light disk’ right before it disappears off screen.”

Some users on YouTube commented that it has prosaic origins while the others see it as valid proof of UFO’s existence .

Without any doubts, the results of the NASA analysis will share the former’s opinion.

Source: www.ufoholic.com

{ http://www.mysteryx.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

Neil Armstrong: Their ships were far superior to ours-Boy, was the big”

Everyone is familiar with the broadcast images of Neil Armstrong’s historic first steps on the moon, and many believe his footsteps to be the first ever on the lunar surface. However, during a documented NASA symposium, Armstrong made comments alluding to the fact that not only had other species visited the moon but that there were signs of colonization thereupon.

THE REAL REASON NASA REFUSES A RETURN TO THE MOON

Armstrong stated in an interview with an unnamed professor at the symposium that their presence on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission was immediately noticed and addressed by an alien race.
The beings that occupied the lunar airspace made very clear their displeasure of the human’s arrival on the moon’s surface: Armstrong: It was incredible … of course, we had always known there was a possibility … The fact is, we were warned off. There was never any questions then of a space station or a moon city.
Professor: How do you mean “warned off”?
Armstrong: I can’t go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology – Boy, were they big! … and menacing … No, there is no question of a space station.
Armstrong: Naturally – NASA was committed at that time, and couldn’t risk a panic on earth…. But it really was a quick scoop and back again. (Above Top Secret, p. 186) Additionally, there are reports that upon arrival on the moon Armstrong witnessed structures on the surface resembling shops and other buildings obviously not designed by man. It is believed that while footage exists of these findings, the decision was made not to make these films public so as to not incite public panic.
NASA’s unwillingness to move forward with lunar cities or even stations can easily be explained by the fear of going against the will of a much more advanced race. Armstrong stated that this fear is what leads to the following Apollo missions to only include a quick landing and sample collection. With this limited access to the moon, NASA or any other space exploration organization would be greatly hindered in their efforts to establish surface space stations of any type and lunar colonies would be completely infeasible.
Could it be that human’s exploration of the cosmos is closely regulated by alien races? What lengths would those races go to prevent space travel advancement by humans? Perhaps in the future, humans will gain the favor of the celestial inhabitants and be privy to the mysteries of beyond.

Source:http://www.disclose.tv

{http://twofeed.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 22:15 geschreven door peter  

This photograph, taken on the evening of May 26, 1988, is typical of several taken in recent years of enormous, slow-moving structures with lights along the perimeter.

CENTER FOR UFO STUDIES

The sounds of frightened cattle woke a rancher from a sound sleep in the early morning of September 30, 1980, near Rosedale, Victoria, Australia. When he went outside, he was astonished to see a domed disc with orange and blue lights gliding about ten feet above the ground. It rose slightly in the air, hovered briefly above an open 10,000-gallon water tank, and then landed 50 feet away. The rancher jumped on a motorcycle and sped toward the object, which was making a "whistling" sound. Suddenly, an "awful scream" sounded as a black tube extended from the UFO's base. With an ear-splitting bang the strange craft rose into the air. A blast of hot air almost knocked the witness down.

The sounds ceased as the object slowly moved to a position about 30 feet away and eight feet above the ground. Hovering briefly, it dropped debris -- stones, weeds, cow dung -- from underneath it, then flew away, disappearing in the east.

05-10-2017 om 20:44 geschreven door peter  

It’s official: Researchers have discovered a SECOND Earth

Researchers have confirmed the existence of a SECOND Earth located in the Proxima Centauri System. The planet is believed to have oceans just like Earth…

In the past, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in the universe, but none of them is like Proxima B.

Proxima b, as has been baptized, has very ‘promising characteristics’: it is probably rocky, slightly more massive than our own planet and is located in the region around its star that would allow liquid water on its surface to exist.

Researchers have discovered a planet located in the Proxima Centauri system, one of the closest stars to Earth which they believe harbors liquid water and potentially alien life.

The planet, named Proxima B is believed to be around 1.3 times the size of our planet and has the ideal temperature on the surface for water in a liquid state to exist.

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Proxima B is located four light years away from Earth –over 25 TRILLION MILES—meaning that in order to visit the planet in the near future, future generation would have to come up with super-fast spacecraft that would allow them to travel to the Proxima Centauri system with ease.

If the planet proves to be ‘a SECOND Earth’ it could become one of the best options for future human colonization.

Researchers believe that the temperature on the surface of the planet could be between -90 degrees Celsius and 30 degrees Celsius.

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According to researchers, Proxima B may be the best opportunity we have come across to find DIRECT evidence of the existence of Alien Lifeforms outside of out solar system.

The planet which has already been dubbed ‘a second Earth’ is located at an ideal distance from its host star for liquid water to exist, which means that life as we know it is very likely to exist.

Proxima B is the closest exoplanet we have ever discovered, and according to researchers, a mission to the planet to search for signs of life could be something achievable within our lifetime.

The distance from our planet to Proxima B may seem insurmountable, but it is actually formidably shorter when compared to other candidates to host life. This means that Proxima B could become the first objective for future interstellar travel.

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf located in the constellation Centaurus. The star itself is too weak to be observed with the naked eye, but in recent months, scientists have not taken their eyes off of it.

In fact, during the first half of this year, Proxima Centauri was followed regularly with the HARPS spectrograph installed on the 3.6-meter telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in La Silla (Chile) and monitored simultaneously with other instruments from around the world.

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“Many exoplanets have been found, and many more will be found, but searching for the closest potential Earth-analogue and succeeding has been the experience of a lifetime for all of us,” Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escudé, lead author of the paper, said.

“Many people’s stories and efforts have converged on this discovery. The result is also a tribute to all of them. The search for life on Proxima b comes next.”

There are already two papers which describe and go through the potential habitability of Proxima B.

Future observations, for example using the 39-m ESO E-ELT telescope under construction in Chile, will allow further investigation of Proxima b and of the hypothetical presence of a thick atmosphere and a liquid water reservoir. If this turned out to be the case, it would be very exciting that the nearest star to the Sun also hosts the nearest habitable (perhaps inhabited?) planet. (Source)

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Reference: The habitability of Proxima Centauri b Our next door neighbor

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 20:33 geschreven door peter  

Suspected huge asteroid explodes in the sky over Yunnan Province, China

A suspected huge asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere over China on October 4, 2017 and exploded at 37 kilometers height near Shangri-La County in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Some people caught the asteroid on camera at the moment of its final impact behind thick clouds. 

What strikes is the strange rectangular shaped cloud above the asteroid moments of its final impact as it doesn't really look like a natural cloud but more like cloaked object!

NASA said that the explosion was equivalent to 540 tons of TNT. Seismic agencies registered a seismic impact of 2.1 Magnitude.

Asteroid and meteor observers speculate that there might be remains of the asteroid have been falling on the ground, since the asteroid exploded at a relatively low height above the Earth’s surface.

  

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

05-10-2017 om 20:16 geschreven door peter  

Ripples in space: U.S. trio wins physics Nobel for discovery of gravitational waves

By Adrian Cho

Two years ago, physicists detected for the first time the infinitesimal ripples in space itself set off when two black holes whirled into each other. The observation of such gravitational waves fulfilled a century-old prediction from Albert Einstein and opened up a whole new way to explore the heavens. Today, three leaders of the massive experiment that made the discovery received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Rainer Weiss, 85, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and Kip Thorne, 77, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena hatched plans for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 1984. Barry Barish, 81, a Caltech particle physicist, later guided the construction of the twin LIGO observatories in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. Weiss will receive one half of the $1.1 million prize, and Thorne and Barish the other half. LIGO's third founder, Ronald Drever, died in Edinburgh on 7 March at age 85. (Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.)

Other physicists rate the discovery of gravitational waves among the most important ever in physics. “It's revolutionary,” says Abraham Loeb, a theorist at Harvard University. It's very rare that we open a completely new window on the universe.”

Weiss, however, says that he finds the prize somewhat embarrassing. “Receiving money for something that was a pleasure to begin with is a little outrageous,” he says. "The best way I can think of it is we're symbols for the much bigger group of people who made [LIGO] happen.” Weiss says he has arranged to donate the prize money to MIT to help support students.

The entire notion of gravitational waves is mind-bending. In 1915, Albert Einstein explained in his general theory of relativity that gravity comes about when mass and energy warp spacetime, causing freely falling objects to follow curving trajectories. A year later he predicted that a twirling barbell-shaped arrangement of mass—such as two spiraling black holes—should radiate ripples in space that would zip through the universe at light-speed.

Detecting the incredibly feeble waves is a challenge. Each of LIGO's L-shaped interferometers acts like a pair of perpendicular rulers. A passing gravitational wave will generally stretch the two 4-kilometer-long arms by different amounts, and by comparing laser light bouncing back and forth in the arms, physicists can detect that slight differential stretching. LIGO’s interferometers can detect a difference in length as small as 1/10,000 the width of a proton.

Weiss, a consummate tinkerer who once flunked out of college, wasn't the first person to think of using an interferometer to try to detect gravitational waves. In the 1960s, U.S. physicist Robert Forward built a small interferometer for the task. However, Weiss analyzed the problem far more thoroughly and recognized the need for kilometers-long interferometers. He also identified the main sources of extraneous noise, and explained how to deal with them in an unpublished report in 1972 that became the basis for LIGO.

After overcoming his initial skepticism, Thorne championed the project and pressed Caltech to pursue gravitational wave research by hiring Drever in 1979. Thorne also shaped LIGO’s scientific goals, says Saul Teukolsky, a theorist at Cornell University. For example, early on, many physicists thought the most likely sources of gravitational waves would be supernova explosions. Thorne realized that pairs of spiraling neutron stars or black holes would be more powerful sources and encouraged experimenters to tailor LIGO to spot them, Teukolsky says. Thorne also pushed physicists to assemble a vast catalog of numerical simulations to help them spot potential signals in their data.

If Weiss and Thorne conceived of LIGO, Barish made it a reality. He took over leadership of the project in 1994, when it was stalled and the National Science Foundation was thinking of canceling it. Barish expanded the LIGO collaboration, made a key design change, and saw the project through construction before stepping down in 2005. “LIGO wouldn't have happened without his leadership,” says Stanley Whitcomb, a physicist at Caltech and an original member of LIGO. “It was something that Rai[ner] and Kip couldn't do.”

Barish, too, says he's uncertain what to think of the prize. “I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about the recognition of individuals when so much of this was a team effort,” he says.

Had he lived, Drever would have shared in the prize, many physicists think, even though his difficult personality got him drummed out of LIGO in 1990. Drever invented several key elements of the LIGO design, Whitcomb says, but he was not as self-effacing as Weiss and Thorne. “It will be a cruel thing to Kip and Rai[ner] because they have to live with this [attention] for the rest of their lives,” Whitcomb says. “And it's cruel to Ron because he would have enjoyed it.”

LIGO appears to be delivering on its promise. The first discovery revealed the merger of star-sized black holes that were more massive than theorists had thought possible. Last month, researchers announced the discovery of a fourth black-hole merger that had been spotted not only by the LIGO detectors, but also by Europe’s premiere detector—the freshly upgraded Virgo detector near Pisa, Italy—which enabled scientists to better pinpoint the merger’s location on the sky. And rumors are swirling that LIGO has spotted the merger of two neutron stars in a violent explosion that was also seen by conventional telescopes. Such “multimessenger” astronomy could provide unprecedented insight into numerous astrophysical phenomena.

The one thing LIGO has yet to deliver is a surprise, Weiss notes. “We haven’t found anything that we can’t explain at all,” he says. “I hope that will happen.”

Related gravitational-wave stories

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  Gravitational waves, Einstein’s ripples in spacetime, spotted for first time

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  Meet the college dropout who invented the gravitational wave detector

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  Will Nobel Prize overlook master builder of gravitational wave detectors?

• 

  Trio of detectors homes in on black hole sources of gravitational waves

{ http://science.sciencemag.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 18:38 geschreven door peter  

The Mystery Of Great Pyramid Of Giza Revealed In Ancient Papyrus Just Discovered

One of the most mysterious and inexplicable constructions on the planet – The Giza pyramids had kept their secrets  all the way through many thousands of years. Our  best archeologists and researchers around the world desperate to unravel the secret behind the method how this megalith pyramids are constructed.

The primary reason that almost all Archaeologists disagreed with  it’s exactly how the components was transported to Giza, currently a part of modern-day Cairo, for construction of Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb in 2600 BC.

Exactly how could possibly people with relatively crude equipment might possibly transfer several hundreds of tons of materials from Aswan, 500 miles to the southern area each and every day?

Is the answer to thousands years old question on the ancient papyrus?

This question might be just answered by the new discovery of  an ancient papyrus, a ceremonial vessel along with system of a waterworks had uncovered the complicated infrastructure developed by ancient builders.

Discovered in the seaport Wadi Al-Jarf this ancient papyrus written by an overseer by name Merer , it brings light on exactly how this builders managed to build this enormous megalith structures.

According to this discovery in ancient times builders used wooden boats built with planks and rope to transfer the 170,000 tones of construction material along the River Nile.

This construction material was made by 2.3 million blocks of limestone, and using ropes and slaves  was dragged through long system of canals yards away from the port to the pyramid.

Khufu The Boat and his great importance

In the middle of 20 century archeologist discovered two wooden boats that looked ancient in separate carved stone near the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

This boats identified as the world’s oldest intact boats  has been described as “a masterpiece of woodcraft” that could sail today if put into water, lake and river. For long time has been thought about what exactly they were used for.

Were this boats made to take the Pharaoh on last drive into afterlife along with his equipment and possessions or was it made to serve him in his afterlife?

This boat its estimated to be from the time  of second pharaoh Khufu who ruled the Egypt between 2609 BC – 2584 BC. This ancient boats were sewn together with rope, and with this technique they could easy transfer huge blocks from Aswan fall along the base of pyramids.

The reconstructed “solar barge” of Khufu

(Image:: Berthold Werner) 

Using 3D laser technology the leading scientist in this area managed to reproduce the construction process of the Khufu boat. As reported by the archeologist Mark Lehner underneath the Great Pyramid was discovered a centuries-old waterway used for the same purpose.

“We’ve outlined the central canal basin, which we think was the primary delivery area to the foot of the Giza Plateau,” as he reported.

There are many questions left unanswered about the way this pyramids are constructed.

Leeding egyptologists  are hoping that all remain questions soon will be answered with the help of the Ancient papyrus of Merer.

Source:

{ http://www.mysteryx.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 18:28 geschreven door peter  

The best candidate for alien life: The planet LHS 1140b

The super-Earth exoplanet LHS 1140b is located in the liquid water habitable zone surrounding its parent star, LHS 1140.

Planet LHS 1140b is considered to be one of the best candidates for alien life. LHS 1140b is known as a super earth and is located about 40 light-years away from the Sun and is a star, of a type known as  M dwarf. It is situated in the constellation of Cetus. As seen from Earth the planet passes once in every 25 days in front of its star. Regardless of its small distance from its sun it is estimated that the planet receives about half of the light our planet receives from our Sun.

Astronomers from the MEarth project at Harvard University in the USA discovered the planet by measuring the variation of light when LHS 1140b passes between our earth and its star. The transit method.

The MEarth project which is dedicated to searching for exoplanets orbiting red dwarf stars uses two instruments to scan the heavens: he MEarth-North telescope located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observartory located at Hopkins near Tuscon Arizona, and The MEarth-South telescope situated at the Cerro Tolodo Inter-American Observatory.

Using the High accuracy radial velocity planet searcher at the La Silla Observatory in Chillie has allowed researchers to get more information on the planet.

We are informed that, as far as is known, there are no other planets orbiting around the star but there is still space for other discoveries. Studies of other solar systems has shown that is possible for there to be more planets than the ones originally discovered.

Despite the fact that the universe is endless and full of mysteries the informations gathered about LHS 1140b makes the planet interesting in its own way and promises more great findings.

The Star Spot team’s leader Dr.Jason Dittmann is amazed by this potential alien home and he intends to learn more about it. He describes LHS 1140b as a rocky planet with diameter of 18,000 kilometers, about 1.4 times that of Earth. However, its mass is much higher, about 6.6 times that of Earth.

What makes LHS 1140b more interesting is its rotation, because it is slower and emits less high-energy radiation than similar stars and it’s at least 5 billion years old. LHS 1140b’s large size means that a magma ocean could have existed on its surface for millions of years.

Dr. Xavier Delfosse and Dr. Xavier Bonfils concluded that the LHS 1140b system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1.

The astronomers were happy to announce that LHS 1140b is really promising in seeking life forms similar to our planet in its atmosphere.

It’s amazing that we have the chance to see it pass in front of its star once every 25 days because a planet’s atmosphere filters the light from its star.

At last but not least is it said that LHS 1140b is being added to the long list of targets for observations which will be conducted with James Webb Space Telescope  which, from our resources, we found out that it is scheduled to be launched in 2018.  Although it is scheduled for 2018, it is already possible to explore this planet’s atmosphere with existing instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope.

{ http://www.mysteryx.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 18:14 geschreven door peter  

NASA Alerts that An Object is Approaching Earth

The official estimation says that we need to pay attention (again) to the potential danger of an object heading to the Earth. The asteroid Florence missed the Earth on September 1st, but NASA alerts that the object that they call “2012 TC4” is approaching the Earth and its closest approach will happen on October 12th. New Yorkers will be closer to it  than to Tokyo

The object is a bit smaller than Florence,however,this doesn’t help very much because it is much denser and faster. It is thousand times heavier than the Chelyabinsk meteorite that ruined a whole Russian city. The predictions are that it will make the closest approach to earth of any other asteroid of its size. To compare, imagine a watermelon (the Earth) being shot with a BB gun (the asteroid). It will get into the magma, after penetrating the crust and cause magma splashes as well as huge volcanic eruptions.

NASA’s official numbers predict that the probability of an impact is 1 in 600. However, more a coincidence occures,since  NASA is holding doomsday exercises on October 12th, the exact date that the asteroid is supposed to “miss” the Earth. It is very possible that they might be just preparations and not actual exercises. Probably not many people have planned to protect themselves on this event. Those who actually have, might need to consider it. The government could be keeping this information wrapped in order not to cause panic among people.

Source: www.nasa.gov

{ http://www.mysteryx.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 18:09 geschreven door peter  

“To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society.”

That’s the mission statement of Way of the Future, a nonprofit religious corporation founded by Anthony Levandowski, the god of self-driving vehicles. He’s the engineer who built Google’s autonomous car and founded Otto, a self-driving truck company that was acquired by Uber. He’s now being sued by Alphabet, the parent company of Goggle, for allegedly stealing trade secrets and infringing on patents. Perhaps that’s why he needs an AI god.

Anthony Levandowski

“He had this very weird motivation about robots taking over the world—like actually taking over, in a military sense. It was like [he wanted] to be able to control the world, and robots were the way to do that. He talked about starting a new country on an island. Pretty wild and creepy stuff. And the biggest thing is that he’s always got a secret plan, and you’re not going to know about it.”

That quote from an engineer friend is in an article in Wired and sums up Levandowski’s view on robots … and on Way of the Future. Not much is known about the company/religion. While just discovered now, Wired found that he filed the incorporation paperwork in 2015. There doesn’t appear to be a website or anything more from Levandowski, which goes along with his reputation for “secret plans.”

Artificial intelligence alone is already feared by scientists and technology gurus like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, who sees AI as the antithesis of conventional religion or “summoning the devil.” Others in Silicon Valley see the singularity – when robots or AI surpass human intelligence – to be not too far off. Silicon Valley is said to be moving towards transhumanism, where the human condition is transformed and improved (saved?) by technology.

Is Way of the World already working on the next phase beyond transhumanism where AI becomes a savior and a god? All of sudden, jokes about “AI overlords” aren’t so funny anymore, especially when one considers that plenty of gods destroy many humans while selecting those qualified to be saved.

Levandowski made his name developing a self-driving car which must someday make god-like decisions when in an accident situation where it has to choose who to save and who to run over. Perhaps he’s creating this new religion out of guilt because he knows what the answer will be:

“Pretty wild and creepy stuff.”

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 17:39 geschreven door peter  

If any group or individual is going to find extraterrestrial life, chances are it will be the SETI Institute. The SETI Institute is a group of interdisciplinary researchers who have been scanning the cosmos for signs of intelligent life for over thirty years. While many false alarms and interesting anomalous signalshave been detected, SETI has yet to find conclusive proof of intelligent life outside of Earth. However, we might be getting close. According to one leading SETI scientist, we might be only a decade or two away from discovering evidence of an intelligent alien civilization.

Someone (or some thing) has to be out there, right?

That prediction was made by Seth Shostak, one of the senior astronomers at the SETI Institute in California. Shostak was interviewed at the Worlds Fair Nano in New York, a convention dedicated to futurology, cutting-edge technology, and all things visionary. Shostak told Futurism that current advances in telescopes, satellites, and data collection mean that we’re on the verge of being able to survey the stars like never before.

SETI’s Breakthrough Listen program has amassed the world’s best radio telescopes to scan for alien communications.

Shostak believes that if current trends continue, we’ll likely discover an alien race within twenty years, but that won’t necessarily mean an intergalactic handshake with little green men, however:

We may find microbial life – the kind you’d find in the corners of your bathtub. We may find that a lot sooner, but that remains to be seen. But it’s gonna happen, I think, in your lifetime. I don’t know about contact. I mean if they’re 500 light years away … you’ll hear a signal that’ll be 500 years old, and if you broadcast back ‘Hi we’re the Earthlings, how’re you doing?’ – it’ll be 1,000 years before you hear back from them. If you ever hear back from them.

Still, microbes on some desolate moon are a lot better than the thought that we might be all alone in the universe. Despite what the Fermi Paradox might say, I find it too hard to believe that in the near-infinite vastness of space, we are the only intelligent life. The big question is when – or if – we’ll ever discover other civilizations and if we’ll even recognize alien life when we see it. Of course, then there’s the question of them being friendly or not. Still, the scariest part of it all is wondering how the human race will react. If history is any guide, not well.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-10-2017 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

05-10-2017 om 12:22 geschreven door peter  

Giant Deposit on Mars May Not Be Icy After All

The researchers analyzed data collected by the MARSIS radar sounder instrument on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, according to the study. They focused on readings it collected from Meridiani Planum, a South Carolina-size area on Mars' equator that the Opportunity rover is currently exploring.

The MARSIS instrument transmits low-frequency radio pulses at Mars, which can penetrate the crust of the Red Planet and get reflected back when they encounter changes in density or composition.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 11:32 geschreven door peter  

'Alien Megastructure' Ruled Out for Some of Star's Weird Dimming

05-10-2017 om 10:54 geschreven door peter  

NASA Addresses Rumor: Dimming Of Star Not Caused By Aliens

05-10-2017 om 01:04 geschreven door peter  

Scientists point to dust rather than aliens as the cause of a star’s weird behavior

BY ALAN BOYLE

Are aliens building a huge energy-generating megastructure around a weirdly dimming star? That way-out hypothesis has suffered another blow, thanks to a study that draws upon infrared as well as ultraviolet observations.

The star, known as KIC 8462852 or Tabby’s Star, first came to attention two years ago when citizen scientists sifting through data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope noticed some unusually drastic dips in its brightness. The star’s nickname comes from Tabetha “Tabby” Boyajian, the Yale astronomer who oversaw those observations.

Another astronomer, Penn State’s Jason Wright, mused that the data could be explained by the construction of a huge orbital structure known as a Dyson sphere — although he cautioned that “aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider.”

Since then, however, the alien hypothesis has been very much considered — along with more mundane explanations such as swarms of comets, stellar variability or clouds of gas and dust. Further observations found that KIC 8462852, which is about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, has been going through a long-term dimming trend.

The latest findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicate that the long-term dimming is due to the effect of obscuring streams of dust.

Astronomers analyzed data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Swift spacecraft, as well as from the Belgian AstroLAB IRIS observatory, and compared the levels of dimming in infrared vs. ultraviolet wavelengths.

They found that the ultraviolet light dimmed significantly more than the infrared light. That fits the pattern for starlight shining through a haze of dust particles no bigger than about a ten-thousandth of an inch.

The effect is similar to the way the sun reddens in a smoky sky, as was the case in the Pacific Northwest during this summer’s wildfire season. Tiny particles scatter more light in the bluer, shorter-wavelength part of the spectrum, and less light on the redder, longer-wavelength side.

The researchers said a similar effect appears to be at work around Tabby’s Star.

“This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength-dependent dimming,” lead author Huan Meng of the University of Arizona said in a NASA news release. “We suspect, instead, there is a cloud of dust orbiting the star with a roughly 700-day orbital period.”

The explanation applies to the long-term dimming, but not necessarily to the shorter-term changes in brightness. Those changes could be due to a swarm of comets, or variations in stellar activity, or the breakup of a planet orbiting the star … or even, heaven help us, alien shenanigans.

Meng and his colleagues favor the comet-swarm hypothesis, because passing comets could contribute fine-grained material to orbiting dust clouds.

In any case, Boyajian and her colleagues are continuing to monitor the ups and downs of Tabby’s Star in multiple wavelengths, aided in part by a crowdfunding campaign. The latest confirmed dip in brightness was registered just last month.

Yet another study, led by astronomers Josh Simon and Benjamin Shappee at the Carnegie Institution for Science, adds to the intrigue.

The researchers analyzed more than a decade’s worth of observations from the All Sky Automated Survey and the high-precision All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae — and found that Tabby’s Star has gone through periods of significant brightening as well as dimming.

Simon and Shappee said their findings support the view that Tabby’s Star is worth keeping watch on.

“We haven’t solved the mystery yet,” Simon said in a news release.  “But understanding the star’s long-term changes is a key piece of the puzzle.”

{ https://www.geekwire.com/ }

05-10-2017 om 00:51 geschreven door peter  

In Search of the Truth Behind Canada's Most Infamous UFO Sighting

Hillary Windsor

It's been 50 years since one of the most well-documented UFO incidents in Canadian history.

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

The first time I heard about Nova Scotia's Shag Harbour UFO incident was about six years ago when a Celtic guitarist with long white hair and a glass eyeball was telling me about it at a house party in Halifax.

As he regaled the fateful day back in 1967 that plagued a sleepy fishing village in rural Nova Scotia with a mystery still unsolved, I became more and more entranced (it didn't help that, at the time, Ancient Aliens was my televised Bible).

My interest grew, and my research furthered as the years went on, and I found out there was an annual festival held at the location of the incident, and that 2017 would mark its 50-year anniversary.

Having never been to Shag Harbour before, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to make my inaugural pilgrimage to the village that was going to celebrate the half-century milestone since an inexplicable flying object fell out of the sky and into the ocean on October 4, 1967. So, I hopped in my car and drove 300 kilometers southwest from Halifax, hoping the truth would be out there.

Shag Harbour Sign

Driving into Shag Harbour is not unlike driving into many of the Maritimes' rural fishing towns—its seaside main road peppered with old wooden boats, old wooden docks, and old wooden homes, all of which are slowly decaying form the salt air. It is quiet, quaint, and completely beautiful, albeit a little tragic to anyone coming from away.

As I continued to drive, I began to notice nondescript signs nailed to telephone poles and churches advertising things like "Lobster Supper," "Baked Bean Supper," "Wednesday Night Kitchen Party," and "UFO Crash Site." You know—normal, fishing village stuff. When I arrived in town, it was the second day of the annual UFO festival, and despite the placidity of the sea and the aged state of everything, the air was electric.

I went straight to the day's main event—a witness panel at the local community center, which was decorated with streamers, balloons, and dozens of old white people. The woman at the registration desk was knitting. She set it aside for a moment and wrote "PRESS PASS" on a small square piece of paper and handed it to me, smiling. I walked into the stucco-ceiling'd, cement-floored room—where I can only imagine every single wedding reception, cribbage tournament, and Knights of Columbus meeting has taken place for the past 60 years—glanced over the UFO memorabilia merchandise table at the back, and made myself comfortable for what would be a two-hour witness testimonial session.

The panel featured firsthand accounts from several people involved in the infamous incident—including eyewitness testimonies from Shag Harbour locals, as well as one from a commercial pilot who was flying a plane at the time of the incident.

As the story goes, on the night of October 4, 1967, a handful of local residents saw a low-flying, brightly lit object head toward Shag Harbour before it quickly crashed into the sea, where it sank before anyone could get to it. It was first reported to authorities as a plane crash by Laurie Wickens—who would become one of the event's key witnesses.

"We went right to the phone booth and called the police and reported a plane crash, and the officer didn't believe me [at first], so I hung up," Wickens, now 67, testified to a crowd of keen onlookers. "But he had gotten the number for the phone booth, so as I made my way back to my car, the phone booth rang, and he wanted to know where [the crash] was, and we told him to meet us. So as we were going back there to meet him, we could see the light drifting in the water, and then me and [my friend] watched the light until it went out."

Shag Harbour DND Memo

Ralph Loewinger was co-piloting a cargo plane from New York to London that same night, and saw the event unfold from a different perspective.

"I just happened to be looking in the right direction, and I saw this formation of bluish-white lights, slanted from upper left to lower right, and I said, 'Ooh—watch this guy,'" he told the room. "And the other two [in the cockpit] looked. I remember the captain's hands and my hands both went for the control yoke—because we figured we were going to have to dodge this guy, he's going right at it."

"And it looked like a big airplane at the time, like a B-52 or a 707, with all of its lights on—there were about five lights, I remember—and he was in a position relative to us of a guy making a left-hand turn, and that would have him crossing our bow. So we were waiting, and these lights just hung there—they did not cross our bow. And I remember the three of us were looking at it, and we said, 'What is this?' And we couldn't discern what it was. I called Boston and asked if they still had us on radar, and he said, 'Yeah,' and I said, 'Well, who's this at 11 o'clock?' He watched the sweep on his radar scope, and he says, 'I don't have anybody out there.' And I said, 'Well, I'm looking at somebody.'"

Norman Smith was a teenager in Shag Harbour in 1967. On the night of the incident, he saw the lights in the sky, and then followed them until they crashed into the water before he, his father, and his uncle hopped in a fishing boat on an immediate rescue mission.

"We were looking for people and debris," he said during the witness panel. "And we went up to the vicinity of where it was, and we didn't find anything, no piece of material or anything in the water, except for a long streak of foam—yellowish orange foam—which was four to six inches thick, on the water. We searched that all night, then the Coast Guard came, and all we did was go back and forth all night long. I was out again the next day, the divers were there, [and] we stayed there for the better part of the day then gave up and went home. We didn't find anything, and the divers didn't find anything that we could see, so we went home."

"I can't tell you what came down or what landed in the water—if it was a plane or if it was a UFO, I don't know—but there definitely was something that came down out of the sky and landed in the water. I can still see it. I'd like to see it again, I really, really would. [But] I don't know what it was and I probably never will."

For days following the incident, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Royal Canadian Navy, and local fishing boats all scoured the area for survivors or debris, but no trace of anything was ever found.

Captain Ronnie Newell was the skipper aboard the Coast Guard Cutter 101. He said they mobilized within ten minutes of receiving a call from the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax that a plane had went down.

"We searched that night on the ocean, pretty much the whole rest of the night [but] we didn't see anything," he recalled to the festival crowd. "We were back the next morning—we brought divers down for two days at that time, and they didn't bring up anything that we [saw]. So I can't tell you anything more than that. I'm not saying that it wasn't [a UFO], but it's just that we didn't see anything. Other than the foam that was on the water—but that's all we did see."

Crash site

On October 9, five days after the mysterious object sank off the shoreline and into the abyss, the UFO search had been called off, after extensive efforts turned up nothing. Of course, some will argue that evidence could have been found and was concealed from the public eye—which is somewhat plausible, especially when one considers the fact that there was a secret US military base monitoring subterranean and underwater frequencies for Russian submarine activity just 30 minutes from the crash site.

One of the panelists at the 50 anniversary festival was Bill Boudreau—who worked at this secret base—which was disguised as an oceanographic institute—for 25 years.

"They picked up the crash here in the harbour almost as soon as it happened," he alleged during the witness testimonies.

It's no wonder conspiracy theorists like to have a heyday with this particular UFO event, because, quite frankly, there does seem to be a lot of ammo.

Diver David Cvet—another panelist at the festival—has been surveying the ocean floor of the harbour for years, and claimed he's discovered underwater anomalies, or depressions, in the area where the crash is said to have taken place.

"The point of these dive expeditions is to figure out what these anomalies are—it may or may not support the Shag Harbour Incident—but that's not the point," Cvet told the room. "The fact is that these anomalies do physically exist."

It's here where the USO (unidentified submerged object) theory comes into play.

Interpretive Centre

Cvet described the depression as a dinner plate, with the center being about a foot deep. "It was perfectly round," he said. "A perfect circle. And the covering of this depression was comprised of pebbles two to four centimeters in size. So where are the big rocks? Where are the plants? Where are the scallops, the lobsters, the silt? There was nothing. It was absolutely clear—like someone had swept it the day before."

Noah Morritt is one of the Shag Harbour UFO Festival event directors. He's also a PhD student studying folklore at Memorial University in Newfoundland writing his dissertation on the Shag Harbour Incident. His interest in the event stems from the identity of the community itself and how its people are still grappling with what happened half a century ago.

"[It] left this community with the challenge of, 'so what's a UFO? So they've spent the past 50 years trying to figure out what this is," he said.

But despite countless hours spent studying the town, the history of the event and immersing himself directly in the culture, Morritt is still stumped as to what exactly it was that so many witnesses reported seeing that night.

"There's lots of interpretation of what it was, from flares to some kind of government satellite, or government aircraft, or extraterrestrial aircraft—there's been a whole range of stuff. I have not a clue [what it was]—no idea," he said.

After hearing the eyewitness accounts at the community center that day, I began to make my way out of town, but stopped first at the commemorative crash site just a few minutes up the road. It was here I met Norman Brown, who drove 600 kilometers from Miramichi, New Brunswick, for his first-ever visit to Shag Harbour. When I asked him what drew him to this year's event, he began to tell me his own story of a peculiar sighting he encountered when he was 18 years old off the coast of New Brunswick—just 200 kilometres straight across the Bay of Fundy—that same first week of October in 1967.

"That same night [on October 4]—or it may have been the night before or two nights before—it sounds very much exactly like the spacecraft or UFO that we saw. I firmly believe it was either the same craft, or if there was more than one, it was one that was with them at the time," he told VICE.

"I have no idea what was manning it, or where it was from, but I can tell you that it was no kind of a spacecraft that the Canadian or US Navy or Air Force could have had at that time. There was no sound, [it was] pitch black, glowing a bit—nothing could just hover as steady as that was. It was stationary, [and] you could see it very clear. It was just over top of the trees maybe a couple hundred feet in the air, on a little bit of an angle, and then all of a sudden it just took off with incredible speed, and as it got going you could see the lights getting smaller and smaller and smaller and—gone."

Brown—who admitted that, before his encounter, he did not believe in spaceship sightings—said he hasn't seen anything like that since.

"When I heard stories of people seeing stuff like this in the sixties, I thought, no way, you're crazy, you're making it up." he said. But when I saw it myself, from that point on, I knew that these stories had to be true, because I saw it myself, and I knew it wasn't something from this earth."

Witness Panel

The people and the identity of Shag Harbour have been completely consumed by the events that happened on the night of October 4, 1967. Whether it was from this world or not, whatever fell out of the sky and into the water 50 years ago, has left this village—and researchers, officials, and the public at large—completely stumped as to what exactly it was. At least that's the official story.

There is no closure, and all the witnesses—and the rest of the world—have, are their stories, their unwavering convictions in what they saw, and the sliver of hope that maybe someday, it might come back.

As for me—I was happy to have met the people of this beautiful, dying place, but I was also happy to get back on the road.

As I drove out of Shag Harbour, I saw those old wooden boats and homes and wondered if they'd still be here in another 50 years or whether this would just be another Maritime ghost town with a wonderful and weird past.

Follow Hillary Windsor on Twitter.

{ https://www.vice.com/en_us }

05-10-2017 om 00:44 geschreven door peter