Een 260.000 jaar oude schedel uit China kan zomaar eens de menselijke geschiedenis herschrijven. Uit een nieuwe analyse blijkt dat de schedel opvallend veel gelijkenissen vertoont met fossielen die in Marokko zijn ontdekt.

Dit suggereert dat moderne mensen niet enkel en alleen afstammen van Afrikanen, zoals wetenschappers voorheen altijd dachten.

De meeste experts geloven dat onze soort zo’n 200.000 jaar geleden is ontstaan in Afrika, maar de 260.000 jaar oude schedel die in Dali in de provincie Shaanxi is gevonden kan ervoor zorgen dat ze deze theorie moeten herzien.

Nieuwe analyse

De Dali-schedel, die in 1978 is ontdekt, is opvallend intact. Onderzoekers dachten in eerste instantie dat de schedel toebehoorde aan de Homo erectus.

Maar in 1981 merkte Xinzhi Wu van de Chinese Academie van Wetenschappen al op dat de Dali-schedel erg leek op die van onze soort.

Uit een nieuwe analyse van de Chinese Academie van Wetenschappen en de Texas A&M University blijkt nu dat de schedel zeer veel overeenkomsten heeft met de schedel van de moderne mens.

Verrassing

“Dit kwam als een verrassing omdat we verwachtten dat Dali alleen gelijkenissen vertoonde met andere Chinese soorten,” zei professor Sheela Athreya.

“Maar de schedel leek vooral op fossielen uit Noord-Afrika en de Levant. “Bij de evolutie van onze soort is een groot deel van Eurazië betrokken geweest,” zei Athreya.

Het nieuwe onderzoek is verschenen in het American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Foto: Sheela Athreya

In Turkije staat Göbekli Tepe, een 12.000 jaar oud megalithisch monument dat pas enkele tientallen jaren geleden is ontdekt.

Inscripties op een stenen pilaar in het tempelcomplex gaan mogelijk over de inslag van een komeet die heeft geleid tot een catastrofale gebeurtenis in het Jonge Dryas.

De komeet zou volgens wetenschappers van de Universiteit van Edinburgh onder meer verantwoordelijk zijn geweest voor het uitsterven van de mammoet en het ontstaan van de eerste menselijke beschavingen.

Aboriginals

De Schotse onderzoekers zeggen dat de inscripties nog duizenden jaren belangrijk bleven voor de mensen van Göbekli Tepe, wat kan wijzen op de enorme impact die de inslag had.

“Volgens ons was Göbekli Tepe onder meer een sterrenwacht van waaruit de nachtelijke hemel in de gaten werd gehouden,” zei coauteur Martin Sweatman.

Onderzoeker en schrijver Bruce Fenton komt nu met een theorie dat het tempelcomplex is gebouwd door Aboriginals.

Arnhemland

Hij ontdekte namelijk dat er veel overeenkomsten zijn tussen Göbekli Tepe en Arnhemland, een gebied in Australië dat vernoemd is naar de stad Arnhem.

Het symbool (Bruce Fenton)

Zo schilderden Aboriginals een symbool op hun borst dat ook op pilaren in het tempelcomplex is gevonden.

Het gaat om een symbool dat volgens de Aboriginals staat voor twee mensen die kennis uitwisselen.

Churinga-stenen

Op een andere pilaar ontdekte Fenton een symbool dat normaal gesproken alleen gebruikt wordt voor de meest heilige voorwerpen binnen de Aboriginal-cultuur: churinga-stenen.

Hij trof dergelijke churinga-stenen naar eigen zeggen ook aan op andere archeologische vindplaatsen in Turkije die gerelateerd zijn aan Göbekli Tepe.

“Veel van de dierensymbolen op de stenen kunnen worden gelinkt aan de totems van de Aboriginals,” zei Fenton.

Tegen te houden

Hij zei dat er ook overeenokmsten zijn tussen de enige vrouwelijke figuur die in Göbekli Tepe is afgebeeld en Yingarna, de schepper volgens de Aboriginals.

Fenton vermoedt dat de Aboriginals gedurende het Jonge Dryas hebben geprobeerd om de catastrofale gebeurtenis tegen te houden met behulp van sjamanen.

Foto: Zhengan Wikimedia Commons

Based on recent data collected, as you read this, a close encounter could very well be happening somewhere in the world. The number of experiencers ranges from a single witness to hundreds. Some are reported, others are secrets taken to the grave. With reported close encounters as an ongoing phenomenon and because of multiple factors, ironically many due to the advances in technology, it has become harder than ever for anyone, private or government, to accurately separate an experience that is being misinterpreted from an authentic close encounter.

It has been 45 years since the world was first introduced to Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s “close encounter” system of classification in his book, “The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry”. Of course Steven Spielberg’s movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” made the system of classification a global house-hold terminology, still holding-up to this day to best categorize the types of UFO/alien encounters being experienced.

SIGHTINGS

J. Allen Hynek

(image: Northwestern University)

No current update on close encounters would be complete without an overview referencing the long history of these phenomena, which arguably stretches back to biblical times and beyond, with references to “beings from the sky” prolific throughout many of the ancient cultures and mythologies. The Nazca Lines in Peru is one such example of this compelling circumstantial evidence. Confirmed UFO encounters amidst the era of manned flight began during World War II with countless reports of a “foo fighter” phenomena, a term used by U.S. military squadrons.

Of course it was the Kenneth Arnold incident that would forever change America. On June 26, 1947, on an unusually sunny Washington day, private pilot Arnold was flying his small single engine plane from Chehalis, Washington to Yakima, Washington. At one point Arnold turned and saw nine shiny objects in the sky, flying past Mount Rainer at approximately 1,200 miles an hour. That is much faster than any conventional aircraft in 1947. When Arnold later compared their actions in the sky to saucers skipping on water, the press ran with “flying saucers” and a new era was born. While many regard this as modern America’s first UFO incident, two other lesser-known events took place in the previous century. While the 1800’s may not entirely be considered ‘modern America’, the incidents warrant mentioning; on June 1, 1853, at dawn, countless students and faculty of Burritt College in Tennessee observed two massive floating objects perform various maneuvers in the morning sky, including one of the objects morphing its shape; and in 1896/1897 a rash of sightings occurred across the U.S. originating from Sacramento, California and culminating on April 17, 1897 in Aurora, Texas, where the entire community supposedly not only witnessed the crashing of a UFO near their town, but also buried the extraterrestrial pilot in their town’s cemetery.

Closely following the Kenneth Arnold Incident, an event took place involving a supposed flying saucer that remains one of the best known, and most controversial, UFO stories to date. On July 8, 1947 Walter Haut, the Roswell Army Air Field public information officer issued a press release. It stated that the 509th Operations Group had retrieved a flying disc that had apparently crashed, near Roswell, on a ranch. The local media ran a front-page story in their newspaper, which quickly spread across the country and around the world in record time, and that was without the Internet. However, the military jumped-in and made a huge effort to correct the story, hosting a press event now stating that the crash was of a weather balloon and not a “flying saucer”. With that, after creating a brief stir, the story faded from view. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that UFOlogists rediscovered the Roswell incident with great interest. While stories eventually circulated involving alien bodies recovered from the crashed UFO, proof that the Roswell crash actually involved an alien craft remains elusive.

CONTACT

While a ‘close encounter of the third kind’ technically includes all manner of direct extraterrestrial contact, many in the UFOlogy community wanted to more specifically categorize the type of extraterrestrial contact. What resulted was the adding of two new close encounter classifications; the ‘fourth’ and ‘fifth’ kinds that covers ‘abductions’. Though these terms are not universally recognized.

Betty and Barney Hill marker.

(Credit: Kathleen Marden)

One of the first alien abduction cases in modern culture that defined the phenomena was the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, which was majorly publicized. At the time, Barney and Betty Hill were like any other married couple with one possible exception: they had an interracial marriage at a time when such things were not common. On September 9, the Hills were driving at night, in their rural New Hampshire community. On a secluded country road, Betty observed what she thought was a falling star. She encouraged Barney to stop the car so they could investigate. Betty followed the “odd shaped” object with her binoculars. It flashed multi-colored lights. Curiosity getting the best of them, they drove to another location. In an area near Indian Head, the object came down and hovered about 100 feet over the Hill’s car, that was now stopped in the middle of the highway. Barney saw the object as a giant pancake. Using binoculars, Betty saw 8 to 11 figures looking out the saucer’s window. Suddenly a loud buzzing was heard that vibrated both the car and their bodies. They drove away, later claiming to have had a distortion of time experience. Some time after this event, under hypnosis, Barney and Betty separately revealed supposed terrifying experiences aboard the aliens’ craft that produced tormented dreams for years. Their story later became a popular 1966 book, as well as a 1975 TV movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. The first modern abduction story is amazing and like the majority of abduction cases, somewhat difficult to prove, despite the credibility of the Hills.

Travis Walton

(Credit: OpenMinds.tv/Peter Beste)

Another famous close encounter of the third kind took place in Arizona, on November 5, 1975. Logger Travis Walton was part of a five man lumbering crew in Sitgreaves National Forest, a stone’s throw from Snowflake, Arizona. At one point, the crew spotted a saucer-shaped craft, emitting a high-pitched sound, hovering above the ground a hundred feet or so away. Travis states he left the logging truck to further investigate. After being hit by an intense beam of bright light, Walton was knocked to the ground. According to him, his logging buddies freaked, racing off in the truck and leaving him behind. After this, Travis went missing for five days. While people were out in the woods looking for him, Walton claims he woke up in a hospital bed, with three short, bald beings peering down at him. After a clear plastic mask was put on his face, he passed out. The next thing he remembered he was walking along the road as the UFO departed. The Walton abduction received extraordinary press, the story eventually becoming a book and a movie.

Close encounters of the third kind, specifically abductions, are the most difficult to assess, primarily due to the lack of direct and forensic evidence, the majority of the time only leaving testimonial and circumstantial evidence to support the encounter, many times fragmented and unclear, typically collected through hypnotic regression. Though difficult to find corroborating evidence, similar to close encounters of the first and second kinds, a significant percentage of abduction experiencers are proven to be of sound mind and body and are upstanding citizens and individuals of impeccable reputation and credibility.

A DECADE OF CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Here is a smattering of some of the most intriguing close encounters from around the world that have taken place in the last decade:

INDIA

In the airspace above Kolkata in the early morning of October 29, 2007, hundreds of witnesses observed a fast moving UFO that was also able to morph its shape from a sphere into a triangle and then into a straight line. The object emitted a brilliant light that produced a halo with a full spectrum of colors. As it continued to move over the area, hundreds of more witnesses encountered the UFO, resulting on countless photos and videos. Shibani Banerjee went through a complete spectrum of emotions as she experienced the encounter, “At first I was like everyone else around me, thrilled and excited by what we were seeing, like children seeing fireworks for the first time. Than, as if I hit a brick wall, a horrible ominous feeling came over me and of what this thing could be. I retreated along with others, at first slowly walking which then turned into a hysterical run.” The UFO disappeared into the horizon at an impossible rate of speed leaving local and government authorities at a loss for what it was.

TURKEY

For a few days in 2007, four months in 2008 and again in 2009, UFOs besieged a wide area of western Turkey near Istanbul, along the Sea of Marmara. “The UFOs were so frequent and obvious, I brought my video camera to work and was able to easily capture the objects as they flew overhead”, stated Yalcin Yalman, a security guard handling the nightshift at the Yeni Kent Compound in Kumburgaz. Government authorities visually confirmed each time the UFOs appeared but were unable to identify what the objects were. Haktan Akdogon and other scientific analysts at the Sirius UFO Space Science Research Center had thoroughly analyzed all footage filmed by Mr. Yalman and were able to rule-out all logical explanations, stating, “we came to a definite conclusion with no doubts that these are 100% genuine”, adding about the footage, “the most significant UFO videos ever!”

CHINA

On July 7, 2010, at Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, China, a UFO was spotted hovering in the airport airspace at approximately 8:40 p.m. In response, authorities had to cease all airport operations, diverting inbound flights to Ningbo and Wuxi Airports and/or delaying countless planes and halting all adjacent ground traffic. A brief video of the object was later shown on Chinese TV. While the UFO was visibly seen by countless witnesses and recorded by multiple means, it did not appear on radar.

Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, China

(Credit: Xiaoshan Airport)

A Chinese aircraft engineer, who was among the thousands that witnessed the event, was adamant that the object could not have been any type of man-made aircraft. Several theories were floated, from the absurd to the plausible, including the planet Venus, a rocket launch or a helicopter with flashing lights. While analysts and skeptics were quick to dismiss the incident, multiple news and media outlets shifted and retracted their stories about government investigations into the incident, seemingly as a result of government pressure, with come Chinese officials going on record stating they knew what the object was but could not comment further due to national security. Lou Jinhong and his associates with the Shanghai UFO Investigative Research Center, had been interviewing witnesses and reviewing footage and photographs in an attempt to make some sort of definitive conclusion on what the object was. Both this organization, as well as conventional authorities, have been unable to determine the object’s true identity.

CHILE

In April of 2013, on a clear sunny day in the isolated Atacama Desert community, countless workers of the Collahuasi copper mine and their friends and families encountered a glowing flying disc maneuver in the skies above them. Several of the witnesses took photos and video of the object as it ascended, descended and moved horizontally at extraordinary speeds, unlike any aircraft today. At one point, the object hovered in one area as if intending to land, then suddenly disappeared into the east. It was later discovered that during the brief time it hovered in one place, an apparent abduction had also taken place. Initially, both the authorities, as well as the corporation that owned the mine and surrounding properties, were suppressing all information and documentation concerning this incident. Several months later, some of the video and photos that had been taken were leaked and the government and corporation had no choice but to comment on the “sighting” aspect of the incident only, declaring an investigation is taking place. Even with this announcement and the ongoing investigation, authorities sought to control all information concerning the event until they knew what they were dealing with and maintained a controlled press blackout.

The first image captured by the miners.

(Credit: CEFAA)

Over a year later and over a thousand miles away, another UFO incident occurred in Chile on November 2014, as a Chilean Navy helicopter was performing routine coastal patrol. The military aircraft visually documented the UFO with state-of-the-art recording technology while it flew in front of them at the same rate of speed for over nine minutes, until they had to break-off to return to base. Shortly after the government went public with this incident earlier this year.

AFRICA

On the evening of December 13^th, 2016, a pilot flying from Cape Town International Airport to Port Elizabeth International Airport encountered a glowing green object increasing in speed and altitude past the cockpit of their airplane, reaching to about a thousand feet into clouds above them and then returning towards earth at high speed past the cockpit of their plane. The incident forced the NSRI (National Sea Rescue Institute) to investigate the matter, conducting searches in case the unidentified aircraft had gone down for whatever reason. No aircraft was ever found. Everything from weather balloons to drones to green parachute flares to space debris and meteorites were ruled out in this case, the object classified as unidentified.

UNITED STATES

And of course it is no surprise that the U.S. continues to be at or near the top of the list for countries that continue to report close encounter events. In fact, according to the 2017 book, “UFO Sightings Desk Reference”, written by two UFO experts, Linda Miller Costa and Cheryl Costa—one a former aerospace analyst and the other a former librarian at the National Academy of Sciences and NASA, sightings have spiked across the U.S. in general. In 2015 alone, there were 11,868 reported sightings, significantly up from the 3,479 logged in 2001—and those are just the reported ones. Rather then even attempt to detail the specifics from so many encounters, here is the list of states that continue to have the most UFO sightings, in order from the most to least, with California leading with the most reports:

1. California
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Washington
5. Pennsylvania
6. New York
7. Arizona
8. Illinois
9. Michigan
10. Ohio

AN ACCOUNTING

For years now there has been much debate on whether close encounters worldwide are on the decline, have remained steady or are actually on the rise. However a recent 2017 independent report and assessment done by Statistician/PhD student Sam Monfort with Human Factors and Applied Cognition at George Mason University, revealed that UFOs sightings have been steadily rising with 104,947 reported sightings on record over the past 100-plus years. Monfort utilized data from the previously mentioned National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). According to Monfort’s assessment, sightings have spiked dramatically over the past 30-plus years, with the reported number jumping from around 5,000 in 1980, to roughly 45,000 in 2010. Some sociologists and psychologists speculate that the perception of there being a decline in UFO reports is due to an overall dismissal of such eye-opening news as a product of mass desensitizing, cynicism, pessimism and apathy around the world. They suggest that this is primarily because of the effects of the digital age (Internet, smartphone, etc.) and constant over-exposure to violence and other negative depictions in media, as well as an overall loss of confidence in media.

Of course the majority of close encounters of the ‘third kind’ that include alien abductions are a different matter all together, with many of the encounters never associated with actually seeing a UFO prior to the actual encounter. Additionally, a huge percentage of abductions are never reported for a variety of psychological, sociological and cultural/religious reasons, with a significant estimated percentage never knowing or realizing that they had been abducted to begin with.

One thing is for certain regarding close encounter experiences; it is most certainly an equal opportunity phenomena around the world, being experienced equally by every age group, sex, social class, culture and belief system. And while the phenomena continues to elusively proliferate, we are yet to have globally come to any absolute agreed-upon consensus of what these phenomena are and why they continue to occur, remaining just as mysterious as ever.

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