Photo of UFO over Columbia sets social media abuzz

s / Robert Neil Moore Photos taken Robert Neil Moore show an object flying above his home in Big Hill off Quail Mine Road between about 4:55 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday. The photos have caused a stir on social media because the object doesn't look like a plane. (Courtesy photo) 6885158

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{ http://www.uniondemocrat.com/localnews/ }

15-11-2017 om 21:41 geschreven door peter  

Making a Moon Base With 'Artemis' Author Andy Weir

In Andy Weir's "Artemis" (Crown, 2017), the lead character is drawn into a crime caper on a lunar city. Weir is known for "The Martian" (Crown, 2014) which described in realistic detail how someone would survive being stranded on Mars. In "Artemis," Weir brings a similar realism to the moon as the ultimate tourist destination.

"Artemis" was released today (Nov. 14) as a novel and audiobook featuring Rosario Dawson.

Space.com talked with Weir about the world of "Artemis"; creating its lead character, Jazz; and how "the moon is basically made of moon bases, with some assembly required." [How Moon Bases and Lunar Colonies Work (Infographic)]

Space.com: Can you talk about how the idea for "Artemis" first developed?

Andy Weir: I wanted to design a city on the moon. I wanted to come up with a city on the moon and a reason for there to be a city on the moon. I came up with the city and how it was built and what its economic foundation was and everything long before I came up with the story or characters to take place in it. I guess that's kind of — world-building and making settings is fun. The actual writing part is no fun. That's kind of where the original idea came from.

Space.com: What kinds of stories did you try to set in that city before you finally settled on one?

Weir: I went through a few revisions. "Artemis," as it is right now, was kind of my third attempt at a story, and that's the one that stuck. The first two revisions just weren't very good. I may steal elements of them someday, so I'm not really telling people what they are. But in the first revision, Jazz — who is the main character in "Artemis" — Jazz was a very minor, tertiary character. I just needed a comedy smuggler type, and so I invented her for that. And I didn't like the plot that had developed, and in the next revision of story, Jazz was much more prominent, but still not the main character, and then I realized, well, the fun part here is Jazz anyway, so why not write a story about her? So that's how I landed on the current plot.

Space.com: What drew you to writing about Jazz in particular?

Weir: In every version and as it went forward, she was the one who got all the funny lines. She's the smart-ass. Shes kind of the lovable rogue archetype. I really like that type of character, and so I had fun writing her.

Space.com: How did you come up with the technology that made a moon base possible?

Weir: The cool thing is, everything in "Artemis" is actually technology that already exists. Really, it was more research than developing technology, although trying to figure out the most efficient way to build a city on the moon was kind of cool. Like, how do you build a city on the moon when you want to absolutely minimize the amount of mass you send to the moon. Well, cities are big, and they weigh a lot, so you're going to want to make the city with materials that are present, not ship it over in its entirety. That's why they would smelt the anorthite [the material the lunar highlands are made of] into aluminum, and that also gives you oxygen.

It's really cool, actually — the moon is basically made of moon bases, with some assembly required. In the lunar highlands, which is the part of the moon that is not smooth — if you look at the moon, you see the smooth parts and the bumpy bits. The lunar highlands are the bumpy bits — 85 percent of the rocks just lying around on the ground are anorthite, which is a mineral, and you can smelt that into aluminum, oxygen, silicon and calcium. That gives you aluminum to make your moon city out of and oxygen to fill it. And by the way, if you want glass or windows, it also gives you silicon, and there's a bunch of oxygen still. Silicon and oxygen makes glass, and — yeah. It's really cool. It's like it's just there, just waiting for us. If we could just get there.

And so, the conceit of the story is that the commercial space industry has driven the price of low-Earth orbit down to the point that middle class people can afford to go to space. And Artemis' economy is based on tourism. For me, one thing is when I'm reading a book I get hung up on the economy of fictional environments. I'm like, wait a minute, why does this city exist? Why would people live there? Why wouldn't they go somewhere else? Stuff like that. For a lunar city, the thing I came up with was tourism. If middle class people can afford to go to the moon, even if they had to get a second mortgage to afford it, I think a lot of people would.

Space.com: And you calculated exactly how much it would cost, given those conditions, to transport objects and people to the moon, and therefore developed what the society there would be like.

Weir: I came up with this whole economic thing — I actually wrote a paper on it, and we're going to try to get that out there via an outlet later. 

I don't describe any of that in the book; that's what I came up with in advance. What we learned from "The Phantom Menace" — don't start a science fiction story with a description of supply-side economics. But it's important to me that that work out.

Space.com: Would you rather live on the moon or Mars, assuming both of them had equivalent infrastructure?

Weir: I'd rather live on Earth, all things considered. I write about brave people. I'm not one of them. If I had to choose between the moon or Mars, I would choose the moon, even if they had the same infrastructure, if they both had cities and stuff. Just on the grounds that the moon is still safer, because if things go really, really bad, you can leave and go to Earth. On Mars, if things go bad, you're on your own.

To put it in perspective of how much further away Mars is than the moon, imagine you're on a football field, and you're at one goal line and Mars is at the other goal line. The moon would be about 4 inches [10 centimeters] in front of you. [Dazzling 'Museum of the Moon' Exhibit Celebrates 'Artemis' in NYC]

Space.com: How was the experience of writing a different lead character and voice than "The Martian"?

Weir: Well, I still got to use the first person, smart-ass narrative style, so it wasn't that big a change. I guess the real change was — first off, I did my best at writing a female lead, but in the end, I'm not a woman, so I'm sure there's lots of places where she ends up sounding like a guy. I ran it by as many women as I could, in my inner circle, people I can trust with a manuscript before it releases, and got feedback from all the women, and gave it my best shot.

And also, Jazz is a much more nuanced and flawed character than Mark Watney. Mark Watney — you can't help but like him, he's just this guy that's in a terrible situation that's not really his fault, whereas Jazz's problems are mostly self-inflicted. She's made a lot of bad decisions, and makes additional bad decisions during the book. The way I like to say it is, Mark Watney is based on the idealized version of me. He's everything I wish I were. He has the qualities of myself that I like and none of my many flaws, and he doesn't have any of my neuroses. Jazz is a little bit more like the real me. Flawed, has bad decisions in her past, makes mistakes. Smart, but doesn't always apply that correctly. Jazz is actually a lot more like the real me, so it's always kind of sad when I read a review that says, "Oh, I didn't like Jazz much." I'm like, "Awww."

Space.com: I also wanted to talk about those crazy "hamster balls" visitors can use to tour the Apollo 11 landing site.

Weir: It'd be fun, wouldn't it?

Space.com: How did you think of those?

Weir: I was trying to think about, how could you have a completely untrained person do an EVA [extravehicular activity, or spacewalk]. And then I came up with the hamster ball idea and said on your backpack is a thing that manages the air inside the ball. And there's a little bit of fictionalization in there in that I'm not sure what that ball is made of, but it can hold in a fifth of an atmosphere, and it's clear, and it's flexible. 

But you've got to get into it and seal it somehow. It just seems like that would be an awesome thing, because you have the freedom of movement. Basically, I don't think that an untrained person, like a tourist or something, could handle being in an EVA suit. First off, it's really clunky, and it takes astronauts months and months of training to learn how to move at all in them, and it's like, you can't scratch your face. It's really inconvenient. But here, they'd have the freedom of motion of their own human body, and then they can do whatever they like in the ball. [Evolution of the Spacesuit in Pictures (Space Tech Gallery)]

Space.com: Assuming you were already on the moon, would you go out in one of those?

Weir: Yeah … I guess if I was already there. I'd be like, eh, you know…

Space.com: How does world-building and plot fit together when you're writing something like "Artemis"?

Weir: I started with the world-building and said, "OK, this is the world it takes place in, and I'm not really willing to change the world to save the plot, except for if I can come up with something incredibly awesome. For the most part, I'm just like, well, here's the problem, and here's what they're doing, and here's the setting. Now what?

Ultimately, [the city] Artemis … lends itself to all this interesting stuff, [and that's] actually not because it's on the moon, but because it's so far away from everything else. You could have similar plots just take place on an isolated island in the Pacific or something like that, where basically help is too far away, and there's really no infrastructure in place for strong authorities.

I think that's one of the main reasons Artemis ends up with these avenues of excitement. Human civilization is all about getting rid of those. OK, in order to prevent our entire city from being destroyed, we're going to make fire departments, police departments — so we do. But frontier towns don't have that luxury, so that's where the interesting stuff happens.

This interview was edited for length. You can buy "Artemis" and its audiobookon Amazon.com.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. 

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• NASA Probe Sees Apollo 11 Moon Landing Site from Space (Video)
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• First Look at 'The Martian': Book Preview

15-11-2017 om 21:30 geschreven door peter  

5 ‘controversial’ ancient Books that could shatter the foundations of history

Throughout the years, archaeologists have come across incredible discoveries. Some of these discoveries are ancient manuscripts which have been found to portray history from a different point of view. A controversial point of view.

Nemours ancient books tell a different side of history. A different side of human origins, and a different side of human capabilities. These ancient texts, usually considered mythological in nature oppose nearly everything set forth by mainstream scholars and modern history.

Some of them are partially accepted, while some of their pages have been dubbed as a myth because they shake the very foundation of what we know about our civilization.

Regrettably, while these books are real and part of history, the history we’ve been taught throughout the years has ignored them entirely.

This is why in this article, I’ll take you on a journey and introduce you to five ancient books that are both controversial and fascinating, and could shake the very understanding of human history.

I find them beyond fascinating.

1. book of Thoth

One of my favorite books is the so-called book of Thoth. It is a sacred book that according to ancient Egyptian beliefs, not only offers unlimited knowledge, but legend says that anyone who reads the contents can contain the means to decipher the secrets and master the earth, the sea, the air and the celestial bodies. Historical records tell us that the book was a collection of ancient Egyptian texts which were written by Thoth—the ancient Egyptian god of writing and Knowledge.

The Book of Thoth appears fragmented in various papyri, the majority pertaining to the second century of the Ptolemaic period.

2. The Kolbrin Bible

The Kolbrin Bible is another fascinating ancient book believed to have been written around 3,600 years ago.

This ancient book is referred to as the first Judaic/Christian document which spells out understanding of human evolution, creationism, and intelligent design. Some scholars argue that this ancient book was penned down at the same time as the Old Testament.

Various authors participated in its creation, and the Kolbrin Bible is composed of two main parts which make up a total of 11 ancient books.

3. The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch is another book which many authors have placed into the dubious or controversial category. The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious manuscript which is traced back to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah.

The Book of Enoch is considered by many as one of the most influential non-canonical apocryphal writings.

Furthermore, this book is believed to have significantly influenced Christian beliefs.

4. The Book of Giants

The so-called Book of Giants is believed to have been composed around 2,000 years ago. It was found in the Qumran Caves where researchers came across the Dead Sea Scrolls. Specifically, the Book of Giants speaks about creatures that inhabited our planet in the distant past and how they were destroyed. According to the ancient text, the Giants —The Nephilim—became aware that due to their violent ways, they face an imminent destruction. They asked Enoch to speak on their behalf to God.

5. The Ars Notoria

The Ars Notoria is one of the most controversial and mysterious books ever created.

According to legend, this ancient book is a mixture of mystical, historical and sensational content that promises to teach superhuman abilities to those who follow that which is written. The Ars Notoria belongs to the Lesser Key of Solomon. It is an anonymous grimoire (or spellbook) on demonology. Its one-hundred-forty-four spells were authored in the mid-17th century, mostly from materials centuries older. The Ars Notoria contains a set of prayers and which were written in several languages, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

15-11-2017 om 21:08 geschreven door peter  

See CRISPR in action in a new video

BY ELENA MOTIVANS 

CRISPR is a powerful gene editing tool that can accurately add in or take out bits of DNA. There’s a lot of buzz about it because it is cheap, easy, and precise. There is also a lot of mystery surrounding CRISPR, perhaps because of its more controversial uses, such as plans of resurrecting the woolly mammoth or editing human embryos, and more sci-fi uses, like eliminating malaria and other diseases from mosquitoes and growing human organs in pigs. However, right now, it’s causing its biggest revolution in the lab, where scientists are now able to manipulate and control any gene easily.

CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. These are actually just sequences which repeat at regular intervals with spaces in-between them. Bacteria use these spaces to keep a genetic memory of viruses that have invaded it in the past. If that virus dares to show its face again, the system will recognize it and destroy it. The sequences can’t detect and destroy viruses by themselves, but they have two helpers: the enzyme Cas9 and guide RNA.

Researchers from Kanazawa University and the University of Tokyo in Japan have published a new study in Nature Communications in which they visualized CRISPR-Cas9 in action, cleaving a strand of DNA in two. They visualized the process for a more detailed look at what CRISPR-Cas9 actually does. The technique that they used is called high-speed atomic-force microscopy and uses mechanical probes to get good resolution images and videos down to a nanometer. Now, you can watch the CRISPR-Cas9 complex work in real-time and real-space.

CRISPR-Cas9 in action (high-speed AFM)

hnisimasu @hnisimasu

CRISPR-Cas9 is like a hand with scissors. The guide RNA is the hand that directs the scissors to bits of DNA matching info in the genetic memory, leading it to the target. When found, Cas9 are like scissors that cut the DNA and destroy it. In this video, you can see the molecular scissors at work cleaving the DNA at the end of the clip. The original sequence can be destroyed or a new sequence can be patched into the gap.

It is pretty amazing that we can see exactly what happens when CRISPR-Cas9 is at work.

Journal reference:

Shibata, M., Nishimasu, H., Kodera, N., Hirano, S., Ando, T., Uchihashi, T. & Nureki, O. (2017) Real-space and real-time dynamics of CRISPR-Cas9 visualized by high-speed atomic force microscopy. Nature Communications 8, 1430.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

15-11-2017 om 20:47 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre UFO Hovers Above A Navy Base in California

Extraterrestrial enthusiasts have been buzzing about the images that show an unidentified flying object near an American Navy base.

The photos in question show a flying saucer-shaped craft hovering above the ground with a helicopter flying nearby.

The five pictures, reportedly taken in the Californian desert, were released by the man known as Keith Bradshaw in a bid to find the truth on aliens.

The snaps were done in 2007, near the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, but he has been too nervous to show anyone.

After an old friend who worked on the Navy base shared with him about the mysterious craft, he sneaked out to the desert. According to Mr Bradshaw, he heard the sound coming from the helicopter as he approached the base. Then he saw the silver UFO with several military vehicles parked close by.

He took off his shirt, blended with his surroundings and spent about 10 minutes watching the flying saucer.

He saw the UFO wobbling along close to the ground and appearing to be very unstable. Then it would freeze in position, go up and sit at a particular height for a few minutes, added Bradshaw. He said that the mysterious flying object did not make any noise that he could hear.

Some of the world’s top UFO experts examined the images. British UFO investigator Philip Mantle said that the snaps could turn out to be one of the most controversial on record when it comes to UFO sighting pictures.

Former RAF and BAE Airbus division employee Jason Gleaves said that they could be genuine but warned that technology and software today may make fake looks authentic.

Former US Navy Physicist Dr Bruce Maccabee said that the photographs could not prove either way.

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

15-11-2017 om 18:53 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers in California have taken a telescope built before most of them were born and converted it into a new instrument dedicated to one of the newest and fastest-moving branches of astronomy: spotting objects in the sky that change from one day to the next.

The new Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which today opened its eye to the sky, was created by retooling the 1.2-meter Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, which, starting in 1948, took pictures of the night sky onto specially curved glass photographic plates. The ZTF, named in honor of Fritz Zwicky, the Bulgaria-born astronomer who worked for most of his career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, has been fitted with a new camera made up of 16 charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors. That will enable it to snap single images covering an area more than 200 times the size of the full moon.

With such a wide field of view—the biggest of any telescope more than 0.5 meters wide—the ZTF can survey the whole northern sky visible from Palomar every night. By doing so, astronomers can spot anything that changes from the previous night’s images, enabling them to identify quickly changing celestial phenomena, including supernovae, variable and binary stars, the active cores of distant galaxies, potentially Earth-threatening asteroids, and the flash of merging neutron stars that could also emit gravitational waves. 

Although the scientific haul is expected to be high, the ZTF is also a testbed for a larger upcoming instrument, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will begin observing from Chile in 2022. The LSST is expected to be so prolific that researchers will have to automate the process of sifting through observed events to find ones worth following up, and then getting a more detailed spectrum. To build such automated systems, ZTF researchers are involved in efforts to create the necessary data processing systems and robotic follow-up telescopes. “The headline goal is to get [an automated system] working and implemented in a way that astronomers can interact with it and use it,” says Adam Bolton of the National Science Foundation’s National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona.

Scaling up

In the past, the discovery of sudden events like supernovae was largely a matter of chance; a fortunate accident while astronomers were looking at something steadier. But in recent years interest in quickly changing phenomena has grown and a range of instruments has sprung up that use small telescopes to scan the sky on a nightly basis. The ZTF continues this trend but with a larger telescope to see fainter and more distant objects.

A key target will be a particular kind of supernova, known as type Ia, that is an important celestial yardstick because it is thought to always explode with the same luminosity. It was by studying type Ia supernovae that astronomers discovered in the 1990s that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, an effect ascribed to the mysterious dark energy. But what causes these explosions is not known for sure, so lingering doubts hang over their reliability as a measure. With the ZTF expecting to find thousands of type Ias per year, astronomers hope to put those doubts to rest and improve the accuracy of this yardstick.

The team behind the ZTF—which includes Caltech and partners at other U.S. universities and institutions in Israel, Sweden, Germany, and Taiwan—also expects to see each year more than a hundred superluminous supernovae, extra-bright explosions thought to be linked to gamma ray bursts, and a dozen or so tidal disruption events, flashes that occur when a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole and is torn apart by its extreme gravity. Only a handful of such events have so far been confirmed, but astronomers hope if they can see more they will illuminate the notoriously camera-shy gravitational giants lurking at the centers of galaxies.

To achieve this, the team had to create a compact camera with a very wide field of view—47 square degrees. The camera’s 16 CCDs and electronics are enclosed in a cryostat to keep the detectors cold, and all of the gear must be small enough to fit in the center of the telescope at its focal point. The telescope’s drive motors were also changed so that the instrument can slew quickly from one patch of sky to another during observations. “It was amazing to take an old telescope and turn it into a supertelescope,” says Shrinivas Kulkarni, director of Caltech Optical Observatories, which has led the project.

New era of automation

Next decade, the LSST is expected to conduct regular surveys that are similar to the ZTF’s, but its 8.4-meter mirror will be able to see much more distant and fainter objects. The LSST is expected to detect as many as 10 million “events”—objects that change or appear—every night. “The ZTF will be an excellent forerunner for the fire hose of data expected from the LSST,” says Jonathan Grindlay of Harvard University, founding chair of the American Astronomical Society’s working group on time-domain astronomy.

That’s why automating data analyses will be critical. Researchers say stargazing will inevitably join forces with big data approaches, machine learning, and so-called event brokers, programs that can pick out the interesting events and then instruct robotic telescopes to take a closer look and obtain a spectrum so that an astronomer can peruse it later. Researchers at NOAO are working on such a broker system, as are others at the University of Washington in Seattle—who are partnered with the ZTF team—and elsewhere. “This is the best way to get ready” for the LSST, Kulkarni says. “We’ll go live, take data, and start doing things. ZTF will be the laboratory.”

The third part of the process—automated follow-up telescopes that can obtain spectra so astronomers can characterize events—is perhaps the least well prepared. The ZTF has teamed up with the Las Cumbres Observatory, which runs a worldwide network of 18 robotic telescopes, and the Liverpool Telescope, a robotic scope in the Canary Islands run by Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom. “The challenge is to put all the pieces together so that scientific intelligence can be applied at the right time,” Bolton says.

If the whole system works, it may herald a new era when astronomers no longer have to spend long nights tending to observations but can simply turn up to work in the morning and have a whole menu of celestial delights waiting for them. Less romantic perhaps but, Kulkarni says: “The most efficient way to do astronomy is to get astronomers out of the dome.”

*Correction 14 November, 4:15 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misstated where Fritz Zwicky was born. 

{ http://science.sciencemag.org/ }

15-11-2017 om 18:48 geschreven door peter  

UNEXPLAINED DISK-LIKE SKY PHENOMENON BLOCKS THE SUN OVER CHILE

Residents of Chile have witnessed a strange disk-shaped anomaly blocking the sun.

Arnoldo Liendo Arce from Antofagasta in Chile managed to capture a strange phenomenon that was witnessed by many residents on November 13, 2017.

MAN FILMING HALO OR SUNDOG ALSO CAPTURES STRANGE DISK SHAPED CLOUD

The man was out on the streets with other residents and filming what he thought was a Halo or Sundog, and he not only managed to capture the strange iridescent rainbow cloud but also an even stranger cloud formation that had formed inside the Sundog or Halo, and it was a dark disk that blocked out the sun.  

Sundogs and Halos are an atmospheric optical phenomenon that is caused when the sunlight reflects ice crystals in the atmosphere. However, there is not usually a strange cloud formation covering up the Halo or Sundog. In this instance, the strange disk cloud shape made for an even more spectacular sighting while people went about their day to day business.

WAS THE RAINBOW CLOUD ASSOCIATED WITH AN EARTHQUAKE?

The first video showed off the weird cloud formation with the Halo or Sundog, and another video revealed the colorful rainbow cloud that resident’s saw, which was suggested to be an earthquake light or sign that there was going to be an earthquake coming.

The iridescent clouds were a beautiful sight to witness by the residents of Chile, spiraling out in a circular pattern with the rainbow effect being seen mostly on the outer rim of the circle. The remainder of the sky was strangely clear, which added to the eerie effect. The strange disk-shaped cloud can also be seen blocking out the sun in the middle.

The second video is the more stable of the two as it does not circle around and this time it shows the stunning rainbow effect in a line or arch, one above and one below with the sun in the middle. Whether it was a Sundog or Halo, there is no doubt that it was a spectacular show for those living in Chile.

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{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

15-11-2017 om 18:41 geschreven door peter  

CLOSEST EARTH-LIKE PLANET EVER DISCOVERED: JUST A COUPLE OF LIGHT YEARS AWAY!

A team of researchers just used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) to discover a low-mass alien planet — also known as an “exoplanet” — orbiting the red dwarf star Ross 128. Notably, this planet has a mass that is similar to Earth’s.  

In fact, it’s thought that the planet, formally known as Ross 128 b, could be similar to Earth in terms of both its size and surface temperature. And it is just 11 light-years from our solar system, making it the second-closest temperate planet to ever be detected. Ultimately, the little world comes in just after Proxima b.

“This discovery is based on more than a decade of HARPS intensive monitoring together with state-of-the-art data reduction and analysis techniques,” said Nicola Astudillo-Defru of the University of Geneva, who co-authored the paper outlining the exoplanet’s discovery, in a press release. “Only HARPS has demonstrated such a precision, and it remains the best planet hunter of its kind, 15 years after it began operations.”

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THIS IS HOW NASA USES STARLIGHT TO DISCOVER EXOPLANETS IN DEEP SPACE  

STRANGE SIGNALS FROM THE NEARBY RED DWARF STAR ROSS 128

The team behind the work notes that, while most red dwarf stars experience extreme solar flares — flares that bathe their planets in deadly radiation — Ross 128 is a “quiet star.” As a result, its planets are thought to be the closest comfortable locations for any possible alien life. Thus, the discovery of an Earth-mass world orbiting the star is significant. “Proxima Centauri is particularly active, with frequent, powerful flares that may sterilize (if not stripped out) its atmosphere,” lead author Xavier Bonfils of Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble explained. “Ross 128 is one of the quietest stars of our sample, and although it is a little further away from us, it makes for an excellent alternative target.” READ MORE: http://www.disclose.tv/news/closest_earthlike_planet_ever_discovered_just_a_couple_of_light_years_away/140837

The team behind the work notes that, while most red dwarf stars experience extreme solar flares — flares that bathe their planets in deadly radiation — Ross 128 is a “quiet star.” As a result, its planets are thought to be the closest comfortable locations for any possible alien life. Thus, the discovery of an Earth-mass world orbiting the star is significant.

“Proxima Centauri is particularly active, with frequent, powerful flares that may sterilize (if not stripped out) its atmosphere,” lead author Xavier Bonfils of Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble explained. “Ross 128 is one of the quietest stars of our sample, and although it is a little further away from us, it makes for an excellent alternative target.”  

The orbit of Ross 128 b is 20 times more proximal (20 times closer) than the distance between the Earth and the Sun – but the planet receives only 1.38 times more irradiation, which keeps its equilibrium temperature between -60°C and 20°C (-76°F and 68°F). But while scientists do believe that it is, in fact, a temperate planet, there’s still no confirmation that it lies within the habitable zone, which is the zone surrounding a star in which liquid water is able to exist.

“Ten years from now, we will be capable, thanks to giant telescopes, to directly ‘see’ the planet and characterize its atmosphere,” Astudillo-Defru told explaiend. “In the meantime, we need to better constrain theoretical models to elucidate if liquid water can be found on Ross 128 b’s surface.”

As was previously noted, Ross 128 is currently 11 light-years from Earth, but it’s moving toward us and, as a result, it will one day be our nearest stellar neighbor…not for 79,000 years, but in cosmic terms, that is just the blink of an eye ( via futurism.com ).

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{  http://www.disclose.tv/ }

15-11-2017 om 18:26 geschreven door peter  

USS NIMITZ UFO VIDEO INTRIGUES RESEARCHERS AROUND THE WORLD

Researchers around the globe have been intrigued by a video that was said to have been taken in 2004 from a USS Nimitz based Super Hornet fighter jet.

FIGHTER JET SCREEN VIDEO SEEMS TO SHOW UFO FROM 2004 

The video apparently shows an object in the distance that is not acting in any way like a typical aircraft, and as the fighter jet gets closer to it, the strange UFO then veers away out of sight.  

The video and story about the sighting of the UFO from the jet aircraft came to light in 2015 and it was rekindled recently when Tom DeLonge, the lead singer with Blink-182, brought it up when talking about the creation of the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science.

USS NIMITZ TIC TAC UFO FLIR FOOTAGE  

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• Arctic UFOs, USS Trepang, SSN 674, March 1971 [Best Resolution Available]
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John B. Alexander from Las Vegas, the author, said that the incident did occur but he has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the video. Alexander has written numerous books on conspiracies and UFOs and he told a news station that he thought the video had come from the US Navy. In an email, he said that he had asked one of the people who was said to have seen it in a classified version. He said that the source was very highly placed. He went on to say that the video was thought to be real but then said do not confirm the authenticity. He also said that other videos would more than likely soon reveal similar incidents that had taken place.

UFO WAS SAID TO BE 100 MILES FROM SAN DIEGO  

DeLonge did not show the video, which was said to have occurred during 2004 with the fighter jet coming from the aircraft carrier the Nimitz and recording various UFOs which were said to be about 100 miles from San Diego. However, he did tease that one of the goals of the group was to release video and documents that had previously been classified.

Since that time what has been said to be a video taken from the display that the pilot was seeing has been seen on many internet sites and YouTube. However, the origin of the video is not certain. Two UFO researchers said that it had first been seen in 2007 on a website in Germany that was run film students.

VIDEO WAS TRACKED TO ORIGINATE FROM GERMAN FILM MAKER WEBSITE

Isaac Kol from London is s researcher and he often posts on the Above Top Secret website. Recently he made a post that said in 2007 he had tracked an online copy of the video and it took him back to the German film students. It was said that they specialized in the creation of science fiction movies that had lots of special effects. He said that in 2007 he had been inclined to believe that the video was, in fact, a hoax. He went on to say that he found it interesting that the current talks about the video ignore the provenance of the video.

In an email to a news station, Kol said that he does not claim to have debunked the footage but that he has shown the place that it originally came from and it raised red flags which needed more investigation and evidence.

Ufologist Robert Powell from Texas said that the video had been found on a German film site and he was suspicious about it due to that fact. He went on to say that there had not been any proof that the film students had doctored the video. He also said that as far as he knows no one has looked at the video and determined that it has been edited in any way. Powell said that he had filed a request for freedom of information to get the documents related to incidents with the Nimitz which related to November 2004.

DOES THE PILOTS COMMUNICATION WITH FLIGHT CONTROL EXIST?

Alexander said that he thinks that the pilot’s communication audio tapes with flight control exist somewhere. The main reason that researchers have found the video intriguing is the fact that the UFOs seemed to baffle the best fighter jets of the navy and their radar systems in 2004.

A description of the anomalous aerial vehicles dropping down from more than 80,000 feet was put onto a website and this was based on returns from the radar, they were then said to have hovered about 50 feet from the water in only seconds. The objects then moved away at extremely fast speed with turn rates and acceleration that was faster than any known aircraft.

RELATED ARTICLES

• SHOCK CLAIMS UFO Researchers Are Being HUNTED By Mysterious 'Men in Black'!
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{  http://www.disclose.tv/ }

15-11-2017 om 18:08 geschreven door peter  

LIGHTNING STRIKE HITS PASSENGER PLANE - BUT WHAT DO YOU SEE ON SECOND 48?

A lightning strike at KL743, heading for Lima on November 13. It looks awesome.

But I'm posting that video because I am confused about what I see on second 48. Is it a bird, or a very fast drone or probe? Or is it something else?

{  http://www.disclose.tv/ }

15-11-2017 om 17:56 geschreven door peter  

Shocking UFO sighting above US Navy base in the California desert raises the possibility of alien visitors

The pictures were taken in 2007 but have only now been revealed to the public

By Jeff Parsons Tech/Science Reporter

These stunning pictures appear to show an alien spacecraft hovering in the air over the desert and have been seized upon by the UFO community.

They were taken by a man using the pseudonym "Keith Bradshaw", who says he went out to the desert near the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California after being told about the craft by a friend.

He snapped the pictures in 2007 - but says he has been too nervous to show them until now.

“This thing would wobble along close to the ground, very unstable," he told the Daily Star .

“Then it would freeze in position, go up to a certain height and sit there for a few minutes perfectly still. It made no noise that I could hear."

Keith said that he watched the craft for about ten minutes. He also claimed he saw the silver UFO while a number of military vehicles were parked nearby.

There was even a military helicopter flying around at the time.

“I don’t believe anyone could have been riding on the inside, but I got the idea the helicopter was somehow remotely controlling it," he said.

“It looked like whoever was controlling it was having fun with it, sometimes because they would do little tricks with it.”

By opening the pictures up to the world now, Keith hopes to open the conversation about whether we've been visited by extraterrestrials - or whether it was simply some new kind of military hardware that he witnessed.

He provided the pictures to 54-year-old UFO sleuth Philip Mantle, who says he hasn't seen anything like this in over 40 years of research.

Mr Mantle has described them as "the most controversial UFO photos on record" and adds experts are unable to agree if the photographs are real.

{ http://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

15-11-2017 om 17:47 geschreven door peter  

Nieuwe planeet dicht bij aarde ontdekt met “mogelijk beste kans op leven ooit” - HLN.be

Tommy Thijs en Karolien Koolhof 

Bron: ESO, Gizmodo, Newsweek, Belga, AD.nl

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Wetenschappers hebben zopas bekendgemaakt dat ze op amper 11 lichtjaren afstand van de aarde een nieuwe planeet ontdekt hebben waar de omstandigheden zo gunstig zijn en die zo hard op de aarde lijkt dat er mogelijk leven op aanwezig is. Ross 128 b, waarschijnlijk een rotsachtige planeet, is 1,35 keer zo groot als de aarde.

Het gaat volgens de studie die vandaag verschijnt om een mogelijk nog belangrijkere ontdekking dan die van Proxima Centauri b, de aarde-achtige planeet die het dichtste bij de aarde ligt en die enkele jaren geleden werd ontdekt. Ross 128 b ligt met 11 lichtjaren afstand verder weg, maar zou wel betere omstandigheden hebben om er leven te herbergen. 

Lees ook

Vreemde exoplaneet ontdekt

De temperaturen zouden er gunstig genoeg zijn, met uitersten van weliswaar -60 graden Celcius, maar ook rond de 15 graden. Daardoor behoort meteen ook de aanwezigheid van vloeibaar water, een noodzakelijke voorwaarde voor de levensvormen die we tot nu toe kennen, tot de mogelijkheden.

“Gematigde wereld”

De brede temperatuurmarge weerhoudt de wetenschappers van het European Southern Observatory, die de ontdekking deden, er momenteel nog van de planeet “leefbaar” te noemen, maar de vooruitzichten zijn gunstig. Ze spreken over de “dichtstbijzijnde gematigde wereld rond een rustige ster ooit”.

De nieuwe planeet werd ontdekt met de HARPS-spectograaf (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) in de Chileense Atacama-woestijn. Ze moesten er tien jaar aan gegevens voor doorspitten. Pas na 157 observaties werd de planeet ontdekt.

“Bijzonder veelbelovend”

“Dit is spannender dan de ontdekking van Proxima Centauri b en bijzonder veelbelovend”, zegt Emily Rice van het American Museum of Natural History aan Gizmodo. “De ster rond de planeet is stiller en minder actief.” Het probleem met Proxima Centauri b is dat de ster errond massa’s ultraviolette en X-stralen uitstuurt die leven op de planeet onmogelijk maken. Dat is bij Ross 128 b niet het geval, de ster is een inactieve rode dwergster.

Proxima Centauri is de ster die zich het dichtst bij ons zonnestelsel bevindt, de planeet Proxima Centauri b bevindt zich op iets meer dan 4,2 lichtjaren afstand van de aarde.

“Mogelijk explodeert ster vroeg of laat”

Ook planeetonderzoeker Daphne Stam van de TU Delft is verheugd door de vondst: “Het is een mooie ontdekking, maar het betekent niet dat we meteen allemaal plannen kunnen gaan maken”, zegt ze. Ze verwacht dat de kans op leven niet zo groot is: “Het is een rode dwergster die nu rustig is, maar dat soort sterren staat er om bekend vroeg of laat te exploderen. De deeltjes die dan vrijkomen zijn vaak gevaarlijk voor levende organismen. Daarnaast is het nog maar de vraag of Ross 128 b überhaupt een atmosfeer en dus zuurstof heeft.”

Volgens Stam levert de vondst vooral veel interessante informatie op. Ze vervolgt: “We deden al onderzoek naar Proxima Centauri b, om te proberen te achterhalen wat voor soort wolken daar voorkomt. Die wolken vertellen namelijk iets over de temperatuur op een planeet. Bij deze nieuwe planeet zouden we dat ook graag doen.” Het feit dat Ross 128 b erg dicht bij de ster staat, maakt het lastig om hem te bestuderen. Door die positie is het volgens Stam namelijk moeilijk om het onderscheid te maken tussen het licht van de ster zelf en dat van de planeet. Stam: “En juist dat licht, en in het bijzonder de richting van de trillingen ervan, kunnen ons iets vertellen over de atmosfeer op een planeet.”

Komt dichterbij

Ross 128 b staat twintig keer zo dicht bij zijn ster als de aarde bij de zon, maar de ster heeft ook maar 17 procent van de oppervlakte van de zon. Door de geringe afstand tot de ster draait Ross 128 b er elke 9,9 dagen rond. Bovendien komt Ross 128 b steeds dichter naar ons toe en zal de planeet over slechts 79.000 jaar Proxima Centauri b inhalen en de dichtstbijzijnde exoplaneet worden.

Bedoeling is nu Ross 128 b te blijven observeren, en te ontdekken waar de atmosfeer uit bestaat. De planeet staat zo dicht bij de aarde dat het relatief eenvoudig moet zijn om met de Extremely Large Telescope van ESO op zoek te gaan naar zuurstof in de atmosfeer.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

15-11-2017 om 17:29 geschreven door peter  

Saudi Arabia's 400 ancient 'gate' structures found on the edge of volcanoes are shown in stunning new detail, but archaeologists STILL have no idea why they were built

• The strange cluster, found in the Harrat Khaybar region, are 'the oldest man-made structures in the landscape'
• They could only be studied using satellite imagery taken from Google Earth due to restrictions in the country
• David Kennedy, of the University of Western Australia, was given special permission to fly over the structures 
• Some are up to 1,700 feet (518 metres) long and built across lava domes that may be thousands of years old
• Some stone structures have been dubbed 'gates' because they appear to look like field gates from above

By Tim Collins For Mailonline

Incredible images shot from the sky have provided a glimpse of some of the 400 mysterious stone structures located in a remote desert area in Saudia Arabia.

Since the early 1950s, restrictions in the country have stymied further research of the baffling geometric shapes, which experts believe may be up to 7,000 years old.

With the rise of satellite imagery and Google Earth, tantalising new shots of the elusive earth works were revealed, affording new avenues for investigation.

Now, a leading archaeologist has been granted special permission to fly over the desolate lava fields of the Harrat Khaybar region, providing the clearest pictures yet of the enigmatic formations

Incredible images shot from the sky have provided a glimpse of some of the 400 mysterious stone structures located in a remote desert area in Saudia Arabia. A leading archaeologist was granted special permission to fly over the desolate lava fields of the region, providing the clearest pictures yet of the enigmatic formations. This image shows a 'keyhole pendant'

Dr David Kennedy, of the University of Western Australia, has spent almost 20 years studying the 'Works of the Old Men', as they were named by the area's Bedouin population when questioned in the 1920s.

After his research hit the headlines in October, Dr Kennedy was given special dispensation by the Saudi government to take to the skies and conduct the first aerial survey in more than half a century.

There is no obvious explanation of why many of the shapes, which include gate-like structures, kites, pendants and keyholes, were built. 

In many cases, they are so large that their shape is only revealed when viewed from above.

But experts believe that new aerial photography, combined with closer inspection on the ground, could one day lead to a breakthrough.

Dr Kennedy and colleagues used Google Maps to 'pin' some of the sites they were most interested in visiting.

They then spent three days flying in a Saudi Royal Commission helicopter, from October 27 to October 29, for a total of 15 hours, taking almost 6,000 photographs of around 200 sites.

Writing for LiveScience, Dr Kennedy said: 'The number of high-resolution "windows" on Google Earth has increased rapidly, especially since the launch of the Landsat 8 satellite in February 2013. 

Dr David Kennedy, of the University of Western Australia, has spent almost 20 years studying the structures. Since the early 1950s, restrictions in the country have stymied further research of the baffling geometric shapes, like this triangle-shape seen pointing towards a bullseye, which experts believe may be up to 7,000 years old

After his research hit the headlines in October, Dr Kennedy was given special dispensation by the Saudi government to take to the skies to conduct the first aerial survey in more than half a century. The gate-like shape shown in this image is the fifth largest found so far, at 1,224 by 262 feet (373 by 80 metres)

'Google Earth will remain a useful tool for prospection. It is simple to "pin" and catalogue sites, measure them, sketch them and generate distribution maps for interpretation. 

'The limitations are equally obvious, however. The imagery is two-dimensional, and even the best resolution can be very fuzzy when enlarged. 

'Detail is missing, and some sites are effectively invisible for various reasons. And imagery may be months, or even years, old and thus less valuable for routine monitoring.' 

Built across ancient lava domes, some of these strange features are more than four times the length of a football pitch.

Some of the stone walls have been dubbed 'gates' because they appear to look like gates in a field from above. 

Dr Kennedy and colleagues used Google Maps to 'pin' some of the sites they were most interested in visiting. They then spent three days flying in a Saudi Royal Commission helicopter, from October 27 to October 29, for a total of 15 hours, taking almost 6,000 photographs of about 200 sites

Some of the stone structures have been dubbed 'gates' because they appear to look like field gates from above. The rectangular shapes in this image are the gates

The smallest gates are 43 feet (13 metres) in length while the longest are 1,699 feet (518 metres) long. Remains of lava flows can be seen on top of some of the gates, suggesting that they are older than some of the lava flows

The strange cluster of gates (pictured) 'appear to be the oldest man-made structures in the landscape' and some are up to 1,700 feet long and built across old lava domes. Dr Kennedy has said 'no obvious explanation of their purpose can be discerned'

The strange cluster 'appears to be the oldest man-made structures in the landscape' and some are up to 1,700 feet long and built across old lava domes.

The smallest gates are 43 feet (13 metres) in length while the longest are 1,699 feet (518 metres) long. 

Experts say that thousands of years ago this area would have been much more hospitable than it is now.  

Remains of lava flows can be seen on top of some of the gates, suggesting that they are older than some of the lava flows.

Many of the structures have multiple stone walls that form a rectangular design whereas others - called 'I' type gates - have one stone wall with piles of stones at the ends.

Most of them were discovered through satellite surveys and archaeological fieldwork has yet been carried out. Previous research has found thousands of stone structures that form geometric patterns in the Middle East

Experts believe that new aerial photography, combined with closer inspection on the ground, could one day lead to a breakthrough. In this image, there are gates pictured going up the side of this lava dome in the foreground

Many have multiple stone walls that form a rectangular design (pictured) whereas others - called 'I' type gates - have one stone wall with piles of stones at the ends

The structures were uncovered in the Harrat Khaybar region in Saudi Arabia in the 1920s and were referred to as the 'Works of the Old Men' by the region's Bedouin population

Most of them were discovered through satellite surveys and no archaeological fieldwork has yet been carried out.

Previous research has found thousands of stone structures that form geometric patterns in the Middle East.

These include two wheel-shaped patterns date back some 8,500 years.

A number of the designs, found in Jordan's Azraq Oasis, appear to have an astronomical significance, built to align with the sunrise on the winter solstice, according to LiveScience. 

Some types of stone structures such as 'kites', were believed to have been used to hunt animals. 

Others, like the pendants, often lead from burial sites and may have had ritualistic significance in death rites.

They were found on top of the gates - suggesting the gates pre-date them.

Read more:

• Aerial Images May Unlock Enigma of Ancient Stone Structures in Saudi Arabia

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

15-11-2017 om 17:16 geschreven door peter  

15-11-2017 om 16:55 geschreven door peter  

Explore the ancient caves and labyrinths under Chichén Itzá, Mexico

Chichén Itzá is a complex of Mayan ruins on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. A massive step pyramid, known as El Castillo or Temple of Kukulcan, dominates the ancient city, which thrived from around 600 A.D. to the 1200s.

The mysteries of the Mayan “Snake God” could be revealed after scientists discovered a secret passage that would lead to an underground cave in the Kukulcan Temple, the name by which the Mayan deity is known as a feathered serpent, reports El Universal.

Unlike the European cosmogony that places deities in paradise; Mayan spirituality believed that the divine was in the underworld: that is why formations like caves and cenotes were so scared, because they were a means of access to the interior of the earth, according to the California State University scholar, James Brady.

  

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

15-11-2017 om 16:49 geschreven door peter  

UFO encounter in Alabama

Editor’s note: This article appeared in Issue 5 of Open Minds Magazine in 2011. 

This report was originally published in the 1984 APRO Bulletin (newsletter of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization). New illustrations have been provided by Jim MacNeill. The text of the original article has been slightly modified from its original version. The original can be found here.

Encounter in Alabama

The following case is the result of a lead furnished to APRO by Bob Gribble of the Phenomena Research Hot Line. The follow-up investigation was completed by Field Investigator Ed O. Brown. The name of the witness and some identifying names of the exact location have been changed to protect the principle, as requested.

Mrs. Pat Norris, twenty eight years old, lived with her husband, Carl, and three children in a suburb of Mobile, Alabama. On the evening of February 3, 1983, she had visited a friend in Mobile, and when the friend’s husband arrived from work, Mrs. Norris left and headed home on Highway 90. As she turned off the highway, she heard an explosion. At this point, her car began to vibrate, making it difficult for her to steer. She negotiated another turn off the road she was on, brought the car to a halt, opened the car door, and leaned out to ascertain the cause of the problem.

Object Seen

Mrs. Norris continued driving, and the vibrating stopped. She turned onto another road and saw that the woods ahead were brilliantly illuminated. At first she thought that there was a helicopter search in progress because of the lights, and she was very frightened. She again stopped the car, and at this point, she sighted a huge object about half a mile west of her. She later thought that the explosion she had heard earlier was the object coming down over a clay and gravel pit in the vicinity.

Illustration of the sighting based off of the original sketches in the APRO Bulletin. Click to enlarge.

(Credit: John MacNeill)

The thing was huge—later estimated to be seven to eight stories (70 to 80 feet) high and “six telephone poles” (210 feet) wide—and appeared to be moving toward her at four or five miles per hour. The evening had been clear and cool, and she had driven with the car windows closed. After the explosion, she noted a “chopping wind, a high-pitched sound, and a roaring sound” as well as the vibration. She noted the “whipping of the wind—like a tornado.”

Fear Gone

When the object reached a point fairly close to Mrs. Norris, the object halted and all of the noise stopped. It was completely silent, and Mrs. Norris lost all the fear she had felt before. She then got out of the car to get a better look. She strained to take in every detail—feeling like a child with “unbelievable happiness.”

Carl Norris, Pat’s husband, said that although his wife told him of her sighting after it happened, he didn’t realize how important it was to her until she started checking books out of the local library pertaining to UFOs and related subjects.

Mrs. Norris estimated the time duration of the sighting as five minutes. As the craft appeared, Mrs. Norris’s attention was drawn to a top deck with a long window she estimated to be fifty-three feet and through which she viewed twenty or thirty persons, apparently oblivious of her presence, walking about as if they were changing shift. The wall behind them was curved and white. There were no instruments. The people did not appear to look out the window. The beings were pale-skinned and dressed in white one-piece suits. She judged them to be about five-feet-ten-inches tall, quite slender, but with chests larger than ours, the top of the head more prominent, and no hair. She noticed nothing out of the ordinary about their eyes. What did draw her attention was the great grace of their movements. The overall atmosphere seemed “sterile.”

Illustration of the sighting based off of the original sketches in the APRO Bulletin. Click to enlarge.

(Credit: John MacNeill)

Details Observed

Below this top-deck window was an opaque window. The area around it was all white. This lower window was in sections and was inset. The glass was tinted.

Below the center of the craft, a door was closing from right to left. All across the craft, she saw rivets and portholes. She said she could see the portholes as she peered into the craft. She saw some construction that included “huge I beams like they put ships together with, and beams holding the glass in there.” The bottom side was tiered upwards. The construction reminded her of a ship or submarine. She said it seemed possible that it could have been constructed here on Earth.

The very bottom of the craft was formed into a cross, made with one foot mirrors and an observation deck hung down and around the bottom with beings in it. In this case, unlike the top deck, the people were peering out, while overhead she heard a very low-pitched but clearly audible (almost like a growl) “announcement” coming from the area of the observation deck.

Mrs. Norris said she believed that the beings didn’t realize she was there until they were directly over her position.

She saw four pipes projecting six to eight feet out from the craft set in three or four foot square boxes. They had a hollow flange on the end like a tank cannon, and she believed “it looked like a weapon.”

The craft took a southerly turn as it went on from where she was parked. She said it was staying in the wooded area and did not cross Highway 90 again. It lit up the wooded area and the area beneath it as it moved on. It had white spotlights, and it had blue and red lights on its sides that intermingled, pointing up to the clouds and then down to Earth.

After the object was out of sight, Mrs. Norris continued home, arriving at 1:10 a.m.

{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

15-11-2017 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/ }

15-11-2017 om 01:16 geschreven door peter  

Declassified Drawings from the British Government’s UFO Desk

Allison Meier

The National Archives AIR 2-18961

(courtesy the National Archives and Four Corners Books)

Between 1962 and 2009, the British Government’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) had a UFO desk and telephone hotline that collected around 11,000 cryptic sightings from across the United Kingdom. The files are now accessible to the public, and among the reports on flying saucers and inexplicable lights in the night sky are drawings that attempt to describe their fleeting forms. As part of its new Four Corners Irregular series on modern British visual culture, Four Corners Books has published selections of this alien art in UFO Drawings From The National Archives by David Clarke.

A US release of the book is planned for February 2018. As Clarke, a reader and principal lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, explains in a book essay, the first release of UFO documents in 2007 came after years of effort:

The opening of these formerly secret files was a personal victory for me. For a decade before the MoD’s announcement I had waged a long campaign, using new powers under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act (FOI), for the full disclosure of Britain’s UFO files. From 2005, when the act came into force, I used a series of targeted FOI requests under the new act to persuade the Ministry of Defence to make their UFO material available for academic researchers. I argued there was a genuine public interest in how the government had investigated sightings of mysterious objects in the sky and that, by embracing greater openness, they could dispel many misconceptions about a subject long mired in unnecessary secrecy.

Then there was a strange twist where Clarke, long on the other side of access, was invited to work with the British National Archives during the release of the MoD UFO files. The project culminated in 2017, with a dedicated online UFO portal from the National Archives with thousands of digitized files. In UFO Drawings, Clarke delves into the history of MoD and the rise of UFO sightings following World War II. The overriding question, as put forth by Winston Churchill in 1952, was: “What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth?”

Clarke was particularly interested in how UFOs were depicted in art, whether crude crayon on construction paper drawings by elementary school children who collectively witnessed a flying saucer in 1977, or a beautifully painting bright white object observed over a roof in Harborne in 1975.

“Viewed from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, sketches of UFOs made by schoolchildren or policemen might appear naïve or worthless,” he writes. “But as visual evidence of unusual sightings that are deeply meaningful and significant to those individuals who see UFOs, they are uniquely valuable historical documents in their own right, and shed light on how the events and popular culture of the age imprinted on people’s imaginations.”

Indeed, UFO sightings spiked around cultural moments such as the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A rocket-shaped craft viewed through a telescope in Hampstead in 1972 looks strikingly like one from the 1960s science fiction television show, Thunderbirds. Yet there’s an incredible diversity of shapes, colors, and movement of the UFOs, ranging from huge hovering eggs, to dark triangular ships and soaring discs.

Each of the sketches, paintings, and even a few photographs in UFO Drawings is joined by a personal account. For a 1998 illustration of a salmon-hued, crop circle-creating orb adorned with Egyptian ankhs — a vision that seems fueled by Sun Ra’s cosmic Afrofuturism — the Oxfordshire correspondent wrote: “I have developed contact with this craft and their energy forces but unfortunately the designs I am perceiving are too complex for me to draw … these include anti-gravitational fields that allow the craft to access time.” A police officer in 1966 soberly diagrammed an object “the length of a bus” that “emanated a greenish grey glow.” An RAF intelligence officer later interviewed the man, and reported “there is no reason to doubt the fact that this constable saw something completely foreign to his previous experience.”

Every drawing is an artifact of the modern enigma of UFO sightings, and how our hopes and anxieties for a connection with other worlds rose in the late 20th century. The MoD desk may now be closed, but these personal experiences, and their visual record, are evidence of a widespread, mysterious phenomenon.

UFO Drawings From The National Archives by David Clarke is out now from Four Corners Books.

{ https://hyperallergic.com/ }

15-11-2017 om 00:44 geschreven door peter  

The good guys call themselves the Future of Life Institute. The bad guys are smart drones called Slaughterbots that can swarm a crowd yet kill precisely, delivering an explosive to the forehead of selected individuals while letting the others run in terror … or cheer the killing. While it sounds like a great plot for a dystopian movie or a sci-fi series, the Future of Life Institute is a real organization. And the Slaughterbots?

“Slaughterbots” the video (link here) was released this week by the Future of Life Institute at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons held in Geneva. The purpose of the Convention “is to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.” The mission of the Future of Life Institute is “To catalyze and support research and initiatives for safeguarding life and developing optimistic visions of the future, including positive ways for humanity to steer its own course considering new technologies and challenges.” The purpose of the video is “safeguarding life” from tiny autonomous armed drones that can kill without human initiation based on things like data collected from social media.

Uh-oh.

The Future of Life Institute created the fictional (for now) video in conjunction with the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, an international coalition working to preemptively ban fully autonomous weapons. It sound like the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons is the perfect place to fight for such a ban … if it’s not too late.

Stuart Russell — Professor of Computer Science and Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading AI researcher – closes the video with a warning about Slaughterbots:

“Its potential to benefit humanity is enormous, even in defense. But allowing machines to choose to kill humans will be devastating to our security and freedom. Thousands of my fellow researchers agree. We have an opportunity to prevent the future you just saw, but the window to act is closing fast.”

The goal of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is not to restrict innovation in AI and drones but to stop the use if AI for selecting and killing without having a human in the decision-making process or pulling the trigger. The AI technology shown in the video is admittedly fictional but the components are recognizable in current devices, drones and social media.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the video is not the killing but the cheering. It’s just as easy to imagine this happening as well. Maybe that’s what the powers-that-be should focus on when deciding whether to ban slaughterbots.

Thoughts?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-11-2017 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

We live in an ever developing, technological world full of amazing new discoveries, slick gadgetry, and constant incredible breakthroughs in science. It sometimes seems that in this rapidly advancing society of technological wizardry that there is no place anymore for such arcane things as charms, totems, or cursed items or haunted items, and that these are surely the relics of a fading, dying past mired in the murky word of the supernatural and occult. Yet these things still lurk out in the periphery, and in at least one case the worlds of high technology and the supernatural have managed to collide in the oddest of ways.

One of the more fascinating inventions of recent times is the process of 3D printing, in which a 3-dimensional object is recreated layer by layer based on computer controlled data and scans of a model. Such objects can be fashioned of almost any material and can be a wide range of sizes or shapes, making the potential applications of the process virtually limitless. Indeed, 3D printing has been used in the automotive industry, the medical field, the military, the clothing industry, you name it. Tools, toys, parts, firearms, automotive and electrical components, scientific instruments, medical implants, prosthetic limbs, even food, it seems almost anything can be conjured up seemingly from thin air by 3D printing in this day and age. Bizarrely, and perhaps inevitably, 3D printing has even been used to reproduce actual haunted, cursed objects. Wait, what?

3D printing

The whole weird experiment started with the alleged discovery of a strange hand-carved statue supposedly found by some hikers stashed away and abandoned, quite possibly hidden, in a dim cave somewhere in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The doll is creepy to say the least, with a length of filthy cord wrapped around its neck and rusty nails driven into its eyes, and it seems like the sort of thing most people would cringe at and leave lying where it was, but in this case the hikers took it home with them. It is a decision they would apparently later regret.

Almost immediately strange phenomena purportedly began to occur around the house, starting with inexplicable bumps, knocks, thuds, thumps, and other anomalous noises in the night when no one else was around, mixed with the persistent, intangible sense of being watched, but it quickly graduated to more frightening fare. Shadowy apparitions began to be seen lurking about, odd smells such as that of stagnant water or decay would appear and disappear, and it was reported that the strange doll would move on its own, changing locations when no one was looking and almost always later found in a different room from where it was left, and even tiny muddy footprints were allegedly discovered around the house. The pet dog of the house was apparently terrified of it and peed in the house on several occasions even though it never had done that before, and would often refuse to enter the premises at all. On one occasion the homeowner claims that they saw an entity crouching in a darkened room that looked like a haggard old crone completely naked and dripping with water, with reflective eyes like those of a cat, leading to the doll’s sinister nickname “The Crone of the Catskills.”

The seemingly possessed object drew great interest from paranormal investigators Dana Matthews & Greg Newkirk, who were able to acquire it for their spooky Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and Occult, a vast repository of some of the world’s most haunted or cursed objects. It is definitely one of the creepier museums out there, and it seems that the Crone would be perfectly at home here. And it was, in the sense that it went right on with its scary bag of tricks. On various occasions the figure was said to knock over furniture and a plastic figure of Jesus Christ on a wooden crucifix from the wall, pulling out the nails out in the process that were never found, as well as leave its muddy footprints all over the museum and the smell of fetid pond water in its wake, and there is one instance in which the Warrens claim to have captured video footage of the statue actually moving.

There were times when heavy furniture toppled over for no apparent reason to almost smash the museum owners or their guests, and the doll was known to roll off of tables on its own. More sinister still were reports of those who touched or even looked at the Crone the wrong way becoming violently ill or ending up in freak accidents. A burning, itching sensation was not uncommon for people who gazed at it too long, and there was a general natural aversion people felt in its presence, as if they were being repelled and pushed away. People who physically touched the figurine had it the worse, allegedly being overcome with sudden and inexplicable violent seizures and prompting the enactment of a strict no-touching rule for the cursed object. Indeed, the Crone was soon wrapped up in a pillowcase, stashed in a padlocked box, and taken out of the exhibition. The statue did not respond to any attempts to placate it, and things supposedly got so bad that the directors, who remember were housing the scariest, most haunted items on the planet, didn’t even want it anymore, and they mulled over putting the doll back into the cave where it had been found. For now it remains with the museum on a no-touch basis, and is rarely shown to visitors.

The Crone of the Catskills

It seems like a good plan to put it back, as it is apparent that disturbing its resting place caused whatever ominous and malignant force is attached to it to lash out, but before doing that it was decided to make it the subject of an off-the-wall experiment thought up by paranormal researchers Karl Pfieffer and Connor Randal. They proposed trying what is perhaps the world’s first attempt to 3D print a haunted object, while at the same time attempting to communicate with the malevolent, restless entity attached to it via psychic and livestreaming the whole thing on a museums member’s only Facebook page, on Halloween night no less. Other 3D scanning projects soon followed, including that of a haunted mask and various cursed idols, in a project meant to create a 3D catalogue of haunted and cursed items. 3D printing a cursed object inhabited by a very pissed off, very aggressive evil force or spirit, what could possibly go wrong? Apparently, making 3D prints of these haunted objects had some strange consequences, including freak equipment malfunctions, almost as if the objects did not want to be scanned, and museum founder Greg Newkirk explained some of these unexplainable issues thus:

We’ve had equipment malfunction in bizarre ways, artifacts mysteriously go missing before we can scan them, and just two weeks ago, we went to print a 3D duplicate of a haunted mask we’ve named The Fetid Face and it completely melted the printer. It destroyed the equipment.

Some artifacts are so plagued with problems that no successfully scan can be made. On top of this, some of the 3D scan prints have been claimed to have exhibited strange phenomena in their own right after the printing, as if some of the ghostly energy from their progenitor has attached itself to these copies as well. Concerning the strange defiance of being printed shown by some objects and the odd tendency for the prints to mimic certain aspects of the paranormal from their parent, Newkirk has said:

In hindsight, I guess we should have anticipated this, but when it comes to working with haunted artifacts in new, unexplored ways, you never know what’s going to happen. We’re attempting something that’s never been done before, laying the groundwork for future study of paranormally-active objects. There are going to be quirks we can’t see coming. Members will email us and let us know that something strange is happening with their copy. Maybe it’s possible that we’ve captured more than just the image of these artifacts in the scan – maybe we’re actually capturing a bit of their essence.

It seems like with 3D printing people will try and make or replicate just about anything, and it seems that we have officially stepped into the world of recreating cursed objects. Good idea or not (probably not), there are some interesting issues this raises, not the least of which is just what quality does an object possess that makes it haunted in the first place, and what anchors a spirit or ghost to it? Is it the object itself or some mysterious unseen quality permeating it? Are these prints upsetting or confusing the spirits? If the object were to be replicated perfectly down to the last molecule would the entity then be anchored to that thing as well or would a curse cling to the replica? It is all a curious little mental exercise to contemplate, and a new dimension on the nature of ghosts and cursed items. Or maybe it is all a bunch of rubbish and there are not ghosts or curses to begin with? Whether one believes in the supernatural or not, the project of 3D printing haunted items is certainly an odd little curiosity that melds the dark world of the paranormal with the shiny toys of modern technology.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-11-2017 om 23:49 geschreven door peter