How Will Humans React If We Discover Alien Life? This New Study Just Found Out (and Surprised Us)

 

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19-02-2018 om 22:49 geschreven door peter  

HUBBLE CAPTURES NEPTUNE’S MYSTERIOUS DYING STORM—AND IT SMELLS AWFUL

Photos taken from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed a new mystery for scientists to crack. The dark storm on Neptune, which was once so vast it spanned the distance from Boston to Portugal, is now shrinking.

A mysterious storm in Neptune that is the size of China and believed to smell like rotten eggs is dying. The reason for this is unknown, along with any ...

Related: Latest NASA Juno images show Jupiter's stripes of multicolored gas in extraordinary detail

In the 1980s, NASA first discovered dark storms on the planet with its Voyager 2 spacecraft. The large oval-shaped storm was called the Great Dark Spot. Since then, Hubble has given us a better look at the mysterious storms that appear and vanish.

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The newest storm was spotted in 2015, and is similar to the gigantic storm swirling on Jupiter, dubbed the Great Red Spot (GRS). Jupiter's particular storm has tumultuous winds that reach up to 400 miles per hour and has been on the planet for more than 150 years. Like the GRS, this storm moves in an anticyclonic direction, which coughs up substances found inside the planet’s atmosphere. Analyzing this allows astronomers to study Neptune’s winds, as no other measurement tools exist. Scientists believe it could be made of hydrogen sulfide—meaning there’s a good chance it smells like rotten eggs.

However, Neptune’s storm does differ from the one on Jupiter in that its vortices are short-lived. This new image is the only photograph of a storm captured during its demise. But scientists are puzzled at how they began in the first place.

“We have no evidence of how these vortices are formed or how fast they rotate,” Agustín Sánchez-Lavega from the University of the Basque Country in Spain, said in a statement. “It is most likely that they arise from an instability in the sheared eastward and westward winds.”

NASA

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3 billion miles away on Neptune, the farthest known major planet in our solar system, an ominous, dark storm – once big enough to stretch across the Atlantic Ocean from Boston to Portugal – was captured shrinking out of existence by @NASAHubble: http://go.nasa.gov/2Bw3c0Q 

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This elusive vortex has also gone rogue, behaving differently than expected.

“It looks like we’re capturing the demise of this dark vortex, and it’s different from what well-known studies led us to expect,” said Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. “Their dynamical simulations said that anticyclones under Neptune’s wind shear would probably drift toward the equator. We thought that once the vortex got too close to the equator, it would break up and perhaps create a spectacular outburst of cloud activity.”

Instead, the dark spot faded away instead of vanishing in one big dramatic exit.

We can thank Hubble for the discovery of this baffling phenomenon, according to scientists.  

“No facilities other than Hubble and Voyager have observed these vortices. For now, only Hubble can provide the data we need to understand how common or rare these fascinating neptunian weather systems may be,” Wong said in a statement.

19-02-2018 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Aliens and Extraterrestrial Life: An Islamic Look

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  Does Quran Mention UFOs and Extraterrestrial Life?

Salam Dear Irfan,

Thank you for your question and for contacting Ask About Islam.

Before we speak about the Islamic view on extraterrestrial life forms, we need to be clear about what they are.

They are not creatures like angels, whose existence is a matter of faith for Muslims as well as for some other religious people.

If they indeed exist, extraterrestrial (literally, “outside earth”) beings have a material existence in the world of space and time on some planets other than the earth.

Such beings may be simple one-celled creatures similar to bacteria, but most people commonly use the term extraterrestrial to mean intelligent life on other planets.

A Scientific Understanding

From a scientific point of view, there are a few important points we should not lose sight of when discussing life forms.

Life requires complex and subtle chemical reactions for it to come into being as well as to exist. And such reactions require a liquid medium to facilitate them.

But we should know that liquids cannot exist isolated in space or on bodies without gaseous pressure pressing down on a solid surface.

Now of all the known objects in our solar system, only the earth is definitely known to have the conditions needed for liquid to exist under the prevailing conditions.

It is also possible that Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede as well as Saturn’s moon Titan may have liquid on or below the surface.

So there is a distant possibility that they may have some life forms existing there.

And we know that of all liquids, it is water that actually does have some very special properties that are crucial to the formation of life.

Possibilities in the Quran

In this context, it is well worth remembering how the Noble Quran teaches us of the connection between water and life:

Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before We cleaved them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? (Quran 21:30)

Today, scientists tell us that life began in the sea when simple molecules bonded together and became self-replicating.

And Allah said He created all life from water and raised a protective canopy over the Earth. Allah knows best, and all we can do is to study, to research, and to reflect.

There are verses in the Quran that apparently favor the belief in the existence of such creatures, though we cannot find any particular verse explicitly stating their existence.

For example, the very phrase “rabbul `aalameen” (meaning “the Lord of the worlds”) as a description of God points to the possibility of the existence of beings in many worlds.

We read in the Quran several verses where God’s creatures of various kinds are mentioned:

Among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the living creatures that He has scattered through them: and He has power to gather them together when He wills. (Quran 42:29)

Based on the above verse, among others, some of our scholars of the Quran permit the belief in the existence of life on other planets or anywhere other than the earth according to one’s judgment.

Note the expression in the above verse “living creatures He has scattered through them.” There is a reference here to creatures on planets other than earth.

The word used for “living creatures” is dabbah and according to the famous Quran translator Muhammad Asad:

The word dabbah denotes any sentient, corporeal being capable of spontaneous movement; it is contrasted here with the non-corporeal, spiritual beings designated as angels.

- (Asad, Muhammad. The Message of the Quran. England: Book Foundation, 2003, 449)

On the same verse, Abdullah Yusuf Ali comments:

It is reasonable to suppose that Life in some form or another is scattered through some of the millions of heavenly bodies scattered through space.”

- (Ali, Abdullah Yusuf, The Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary, Ad-Dar Al-`Arabiah, Beirut, 1938, 1314).

So one day, if scientists come forward with solid proof for the existence of extraterrestrial beings, it should not be a surprise for Muslims.

Cultural Obsession

Aliens and UFOs have provided great scope for the kind of fiction that appeals to people’s imagination while drawing heavily on their increasing interest in the wonders of science and technology.

Particularly in the United States, there is fertile ground for all kinds of “fashionable” myths to be advanced and propagated.

Think of the number of psychics, clairvoyants, spiritualist mediums, and other self-proclaimed experts who flourish there on the “educated ignorance” of the gullible public.

People in the East, who have almost forgotten all these superstitions, are led to believe by the media that these are part of the postmodern lifestyle now renovated and closely followed by a glamorous West.

People in the East tend to swallow almost anything spewed out by the American visual media, falling easy prey to such beliefs.

From the Islamic point of view, it is all left to science, as the Quran clearly and categorically supports all kinds of honest scientific investigations.

Scientific Exploration Encouraged!

Islam encourages humankind to explore the universe, as this helps to lead to deeper faith in the Almighty Creator.

Scientifically, no conclusive proof has been discovered so far of the existence of life on other planets or in other galaxies.

But the universe is such an enormous entity that we cannot discount the possibility of life existing, as on earth, in some remote planet in one of the millions of galaxies.

This is the sound scientific stand towards everything that is yet to be known conclusively.

We do not know all the secrets of the universe, nor can we know them.

And finally, this issue of the existence of extraterrestrials is not related to our fundamental faith, and a belief or disbelief with regard to them need not trouble us overmuch.

I hope this answers your question. Please stay in touch.

Salam.

---

(From AboutIslam’s archives)

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19-02-2018 om 18:27 geschreven door peter  

How Would Mankind React To The Ultimate Proof Of Alien Life?

A study has reflected on how humanity will react when we finally come across the ultimate proof of alien life: how are we going to assimilate it? Will we feel threatened and react with horror? Shall we embrace alien life as a development, and are we going to understand it?

In 1938, Orson Wells created a radio adaptation of Hg Wells War Of The World. The result? Total panic: The first two-thirds of the one-hour broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins. The first news update interrupted a program of dance music to report that a series of odd explosions had been spotted on Mars, which was followed soon thereafter by a seemingly unrelated report of an unusual object falling on a farm in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. Martians emerged from the object and attacked using a heat ray during the next interruption, which was followed by a rapid series of news reports describing a devastating alien invasion taking place across the United States and the world.

Now, a new study by the University of Arizona asked people how would they feel about the discovery of alien life. The result took experts by surprise.

“If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it,” said Arizona State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Varnum.

(Shutterstock)

“So far, there’s been a lot of speculation about how we might respond to this kind of news, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research,” says Dr. Varnum, who presented his findings at a press conference this at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is held in Austin, Texas, United States.

In a pilot study, Dr. Varnum and his colleagues analyzed the language in newspaper articles about potential discoveries of extraterrestrial life in the past. Dr. Varnum aimed to address the nature of reactions to the discovery of extraterrestrial life using a software program that quantifies emotions, feelings, impulses and other psychological states in written texts.

Dr. Varnum and his team looked at the 1996 discovery of possible microbes on the surface of Mars, the discovery of a periodic oscillation around Tabby’s star in 2015, which was thought to indicate the presence of an extraterrestrial megastructure; and the discovery in 2017 of a number of exoplanets similar to Earth in the habitable zone of a star.

This analysis revealed that the language in the coverage of these events showed significantly more positive than negative emotions.

In a separate study, the team asked more than 500 different participants to write about their own hypothetical reactions and humanity’s hypothetical reaction to the announcement that extraterrestrial microbial life had been discovered.

The responses of the participants also exhibited significantly more positive than negative emotions, both when contemplating their own reactions and those of humanity as a whole.

“I would have some excitement about the news,” one participant said. “It would be exciting even if it was a primitive form.”

Dr. Varnum explained that the studies demonstrate that “taken together, this suggests if we find out we’re not alone, we’ll take the news rather well.”

“In summary, the results of this study suggest that people believe, on the whole, both themselves and humanity will respond in positive ways if a confirmed discovery of extraterrestrial life is made,” he said.

“I would qualify that by saying that if the intelligent life discovered was sort of an armada of hostile warships entering the Solar System, the no I don’t imagine you would see this pattern,” concluded Dr. Varnum.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

19-02-2018 om 18:13 geschreven door peter  

Former Pentagon Official In Charge Of Secret UFO Investigation Explains How UFOs Fly

Alien Technology finally revealed? A former Pentagon official has made an astonishing claim about the technology behind UFOs.

A former Pentagon Official who was in charge of the top-secret Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was founded in order to investigate the UFO phenomenon has revealed astonishing details about the mysterious flying craft.

The AATIP was a secretive program with a total budget of more than $20 million dollars, annually allocated by the Department of Defense. This mystery program was run from the Pentagon’s C ring and was solely in charge of investigating UFOs.

If UFO’s aren’t real, why has the government spent so much money on studying the phenomenon?

Luiz Elizondo, the man who was in charge of the secret program has spoken out about the AATIP and what exporters found since Nevada Democrat Senator Harry Reid pushed for its creation in 2007.

One of the most groundbreaking findings—accompanied by video and audio—was when US navy pilots observed a “whole fleet” of UFOs that were “going against” a 120 knots wind – in one AATIP case from 2015.

According to reports, the unidentified flying object had an unknown propulsion system, displaying incredible, never-before-seen movements which man-made aircraft could never perform.

Now, Mr. Elizondo has spoken out about the otherworldly capabilities of UFOs.

“I think we’ve come very close to understanding the physics of how it works, and that’s very exciting.

“For the first time, we have a compelling picture that what we are seeing is explained in our current understanding of physics, advanced physics, and quantum mechanics,” said Mr. Elizondo.

Not long ago we wrote about the incredible footage filmed by US Navy pilots as they were chasing a UFO off the coast of the US. In the video, seen below, two navy pilots Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight watched in awe as an unidentified flying object appeared at an altitude of 80,000 feet, then flying at incredible speed towards the sea, and eventually coming to a halt at some 20,000 feet.

AS the two pilots approached the object, it “accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen”, said Cdr Fravor.

Mr. Elizondo explained: We do believe all these observables we’ve been seeing, sudden and extreme acceleration, hypersonic velocities, low observability, trans medium travel, and last but not least, positive lift, anti-gravity – is really the manifestation of a single technology. So it’s not five exotic technologies we’re trying to figure out, it’s one. and we think we know that one too.”

The technology is within our reach.

As explained by scientists working at Bigelow Aerospace, a physicist named Dr Hal Puthoff; these mystery crafts have the ability to effectively create their own time-space bubble, which allows them to fly at such incredible speeds.

“We believe it has to do with a high amount of energy and the ability to warp space-time, not by a lot, but by a little,” said Mr. Elizondo, revealing incredible details about UFO’s.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

19-02-2018 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

Have We Found A 20,000-Year-Old Pyramid Where Plato Said Atlantis Would Be?

Is there a slight possibility that there is a massive Pyramid where Plato said Atlantis was once located? The alleged underwater pyramid is around 60 meters tall, and has a base of 8000 square meters.

Every time I read about Atlantis and that someone found ‘something—anything,’ that may indicate Atlantis was real I get really exciting.

Atlantis is probably the dream discovery of any archaeologists, despite the fact that many refer to it as a mythical place. Throughout the years, countless people have claimed to have found the ultimate evidence that Atlantis was once real. Despite this, no one has actually found solid evidence that would indicate Atlantis was anything more than a great ancient story.

According to Sonchis of Sais, Atlantis—a great ancient civilization—existed 9,000 years ago

According to Solon, after traveling to Egypt on numerous occasions he met a man called Sonchis of Sais—an ancient Egyptian Priest—who told him about a great civilization that existed 9,000 years before their time. This is well documented in Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias.

Now, it is Plato who tells us, according to Salon, where Atlantis was located.

The mighty Atlantean island appeared as a military power that existed nine thousand years before the time of the Athenian Legislator Solon, who, according to Plato, is the source of the story.

It was allegedly located beyond the Pillars of Hercules and is described as larger than Libya and Asia Minor together.

The power of Atlantis was such that it came to dominate western Europe and northern Africa until it was stopped by the city of Athens.

At that very moment a catastrophe, which is not described, made both the island and the rival armies disappear;

“Through violent earthquakes and floods, in a single day and night of misfortune … [the whole race] … was swallowed up by the Earth and the island of Atlantis … disappeared into the depths of the sea.”

– Plato.

Was Atlantis real?

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

The sea where Atlantis was located soon became unnavigable because, while Athens and the people of Greece forgot the event, because only a few survived.

In Egypt, on the other hand, the memory that, thousands of years later came to Solon’s knowledge and, from his stories and a manuscript to Critias the narrator, the history of Atlantis was eventually was preserved.

But… what have we found beyond the Pillars of Hercules that might suggest Atlantis was in fact located there? The Azores are a set of nine volcanic islands that are located over a thousand kilometers from Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.

Located just off the islands of São Miguel and Terceira in the Azores, researchers have allegedly identified a massive structure located beneath the ocean.

The Islands of Azores are located precisely where Plato said, the mythical city/state of Atlantis would be found.

As noted by media and countless articles from the internet, the Pyramid off the coast of the Azores islands is a square pyramid, which is perfectly oriented by its cardinal points. Researchers claim that the structure has been submerged for at least 20,000 years, or around the last ice age when our planet’s glaciers were melting.

According to newspaper reports from Portugal, Diocleciano Silva first discovered the underwater pyramid. Early estimates indicate that the structure is at least 60 meters high and has a base of 8000 square meters.

Silva is said to have discovered the Pyramid while he was on a fishing trip and stumbled across the submerged pyramid using bathymetric equipment on board his ship (Bathymetry is the study of underwater depth of lake or ocean floors. In other words, Bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography.).

Speaking to Diário Insular, Silva said: “the pyramid is perfectly shaped and apparently oriented by the cardinal points.”

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

19-02-2018 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

Galileo’s sketches of the moon, showing its phases. Image via Wikimedia.

Michael J. I. Brown, Monash University

It’s not a stretch to say the Copernican revolution fundamentally changed the way we think about our place in the universe. In antiquity people believed the Earth was the center of the solar system and the universe, whereas now we know we are on just one of many planets orbiting the sun.

But this shift in view didn’t happen overnight. Rather, it took almost a century of new theory and careful observations, often using simple mathematics and rudimentary instruments, to reveal our true position in the heavens.

We can gain insights into how this profound shift unfolded by looking at the actual notes left by the astronomers who contributed to it. These notes give us a clue to the labor, insights and genius that drove the Copernican revolution.

Wandering stars

Imagine you’re an astronomer from antiquity, exploring the night sky without the aid of a telescope. At first the planets don’t really distinguish themselves from the stars. They’re a bit brighter than most stars and twinkle less, but otherwise look like stars.

In antiquity, what really distinguished planets from stars was their motion through the sky. From night to night, the planets gradually moved with respect to the stars. Indeed “planet” is derived from the ancient Greek for “wandering star.”

The motion of Mars over many weeks.

And planetary motion isn’t simple. Planets appear to speed up and slow down as they cross the sky. Planets even temporarily reverse direction, exhibiting “retrograde motion.” How can this be explained?

Ptolemy epicycles

A page of an Arabic copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest, illustrating the Ptolemaic model for a planet moving around the Earth. Image via Qatar National Library.

Ancient Greek astronomers produced geocentric (Earth-centered) models of the solar system, which reached their pinnacle with the work of Ptolemy. This model, from an Arabic copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest, is illustrated above.

Ptolemy explained planetary motion using the superposition of two circular motions, a large “deferent” circle combined with a smaller “epicycle” circle.

Furthermore, each planet’s deferent could be offset from the position of the Earth and the steady (angular) motion around the deferent could be defined using a position know as an equant, rather than the position of the Earth or the center of the deferent. Got that?

It is rather complex. But, to his credit, Ptolemy’s model predicted the positions of planets in the night sky with an accuracy of a few degrees (sometimes better). And it thus became the primary means of explaining planetary motion for over a millennium.

Copernicus’ shift

The Copernican Revolution placed the sun at the center of our solar system. Image via Library of Congress.

In 1543, the year of his death, Nicolaus Copernicus started his eponymous revolution with the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Copernicus’ model for the solar system is heliocentric, with the planets circling the sun rather than Earth.

Perhaps the most elegant piece of the Copernican model is its natural explanation of the changing apparent motion of the planets. The retrograde motion of planets such as Mars is merely an illusion, caused by the Earth “overtaking” Mars as they both orbit the sun.

Ptolemaic baggage

The original Copernican model has similarities to Ptolemaic models, including circular motions and epicycles.

Image via Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, the original Copernican model was loaded with Ptolemaic baggage. The Copernican planets still traveled around the solar system using motions described by the superposition of circular motions. Copernicus disposed of the equant, which he despised, but replaced it with the mathematically equivalent epicyclet.

Astronomer-historian Owen Gingerich and his colleagues calculated planetary coordinates using Ptolemaic and Copernican models of the era, and found that both had comparable errors. In some cases the position of Mars is in error by 2 degrees or more (far larger than the diameter of the moon). Furthermore, the original Copernican model was no simpler than the earlier Ptolemaic model.

As 16th century astronomers did not have access to telescopes, Newtonian physics, and statistics, it wasn’t obvious to them that the Copernican model was superior to the Ptolemaic model, even though it correctly placed the sun in the centre of the solar system.

Along comes Galileo

Galileo’s telescopic observations of the planets, including the phases of Venus, demonstrated that planets travel around the sun.

Image via NASA.

From 1609, Galileo Galilei used the recently invented telescope to observe the sun, moon and planets. He saw the mountains and craters of the moon, and for the first time revealed the planets to be worlds in their own right. Galileo also provided strong observational evidence that planets orbited the sun.

Galileo’s observations of Venus were particularly compelling. In Ptolemaic models, Venus remains between the Earth and the sun at all times, so we should mostly view the night side of Venus. But Galileo was able to observe the day-lit side of Venus, indicating that Venus can be on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth.

Kepler’s war with Mars

Johannes Kepler triangulated the position of Mars by using observations of Mars when it returned to the same position in its orbit.

Image via University of Sydney.

The circular motions of Ptolemaic and Copernican models resulted in large errors, particularly for Mars, whose predicted position could be in error by several degrees. Johannes Kepler devoted years of his life to understanding the motion of Mars, and he cracked this problem with a most ingenious weapon.

Planets (approximately) repeat the same path as they orbit the sun, so they return to the same position in space once every orbital period. For example, Mars returns to the same position in its orbit every 687 days.

As Kepler knew the dates when a planet would be at the same position in space, he could use the different positions of the Earth along its own orbit to triangulate the planets’ positions, as illustrated above. Kepler, using astronomer Tycho Brahe’s pre-telescopic observations, was able to trace out the elliptical paths of the planets as they orbited the sun.

This allowed Kepler to formulate his three laws of planetary motion and predict planetary positions with far greater precision than previously possible. He thus laid the groundwork for the Newtonian physics of the late 17th century, and the remarkable science that followed.

Kepler himself captured the new world view and its broader significance in 1609’s Astronomia nova (New Astronomy):

To me, however the truth is more pious still, and (with all due respect to the Doctors of the Church) I prove philosophically not only that the earth is round, not only that it is inhabited all the way around at the antipodes, not only that is it contemptibly small, but also that it is carried along among the stars.

Michael J. I. Brown, Associate professor, Monash University

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Insights into Copernicus’ revolution and Galileo’s vision from the astronomers’ notes and drawings.

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

19-02-2018 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Disc-shaped UFO spotted above Mount Everest [VIDEO]

By Nirmal Narayanan

{ http://www.ibtimes.sg/ }

19-02-2018 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

LOCAL METEOROLOGISTS ACKNOWLEDGE ATMOSPHERIC SPRAYING OF ALUMINUM BY MILITARY AIRCRAFT

Terence Newton, Staff Writer
Waking Times

Some things are hidden in plain sight, and no matter how many warnings there are, some people just refuse to look at that which contradicts their beliefs about the world.

Take, for example, geoengineering, which, among other things, involves the atmospheric spraying of aluminum, strontium, barium, plastics and other materials into the sky as a means of ostensibly protecting us from the dangers of global warming.

Mainstream media has been reporting on geoengineering quite a bit in recent years, pitching it as a necessary evil to come, never quite fully divulging the years of evidence we’ve collected which shows how governments the world over are already tampering with the earth’s climate.

Rosalind Peterson, President of the Agriculture Defense Coalition at a UN conference on climate change about geoengineering and weather modification. In 2014 we reported on Lisa Murkowski’s (U.S. Senator – AK) statements in Congress about the HAARP program and it’s purpose of controlling the ionosphere. NASA has acknowledged spraying chemicals such as lithium into the atmosphere over major American cities.

USA Today recently ran an interesting piece about geoengineering, suggesting that such programs would be coming in the near future, while outlining the case that once these programs officially begin

In this video, an ex-military meteorologist explains that anomalous radar readings are the result of the military spraying chaff into the atmosphere.

“Then you see these bands of very distinct cloud cover moving into the region. That is not rain, that is not snow. Believe it or not military aircraft flying through the region dropping chaff: small bits of aluminum, sometimes it’s made of plastic or even metallicized paper products, but it’s used as an anti-radar issue and obviously they’re practicing. Now they won’t confirm that, but I was in the Marine Corps for many years and I’ll tell you right now, that’s what it is.” [Source]

In this video, a meteorolgist in Southern California talks about chaff again, noting that it has been sprayed over the region and is interfering with satellite data.

Again, another reporter from Southern California explains chaff being dispersed into the atmosphere over the region.

In this video from Florida, the local weatherman again talks about the military releasing chaff into the sky.

“I want to point out this big area of blue. That’s what we call military chaff, and the military releases some things in the atmosphere… I know.” [Source]

Here’s another one:

Final Thoughts

It’s interesting to see how spraying aluminum and other products into the skies above populated areas is treated as a non-issue by local news. Aluminum is known to cause a wide range of serous health problemsincluding brain damage and Alzheimer’s. It makes you wonder what else is happening in our skies that is not being reported on by the news.

{ http://www.wakingtimes.com/ }

19-02-2018 om 16:43 geschreven door peter  

19-02-2018 om 16:34 geschreven door peter  

Among the various aquatic anomalies reported over the years, including sea monsters, lake monsters, and mermaids, certainly in a class all its own are the various reports of strange amphibious humanoids, typically described as reptilian, frog-like, or fish-like, as if something straight out of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. These outlandish accounts tend to fly off into the extreme fringe of cryptozoology and defy any real efforts to understand or classify them, only adding to the mysteries that the world’s waterways hold within their depths. Here is a selection of some of the weirder of such encounters.

Perhaps the most well known of the tales of such beasts is that of what has come to be known as the Loveland Frog, of Loveland, Ohio, in the United States. One of the earliest accounts of this frog-like mystery monster comes from May of 1955, when a businessman was traveling down a remote rural road along the Miami River in Clermont County, near the town of Loveland. As the witness approached a bridge at around 3:30 AM, he says that he saw three bipedal frog-like creatures measuring around 3 to 4 feet in height gathered under a bridge. The strange beasts were described as being somewhat reptilian in appearance, with webbed hands and feet, thick leathery skin, and “frog-like heads,” and as having many wrinkles over their bodies, as well as having wide, lipless mouths. One of the mystery beasts then allegedly raised its arm to produce a bar or wand of some sort that was said to emanate sparks and a pungent odor of “alfalfa and almonds,” an odd detail that just sinks the whole thing deeper into the strange.

Thus would begin the odyssey of the Loveland Frogmen. In March of 1972 the bizarre frogman would make an appearance again when it was purportedly spotted near Loveland by a Ohio police officer identified as a Ray Shockey as he drove in his cruiser along East Kemper Road, which winds along with the Little Miami River near town. The creature was described as bipedal and around 4 feet tall, with rough, leathery skin, and a head and face like a frog or lizard. The officer explained that he saw it leap over a railway to apparently jump into the Little Miami River. A later examination of the scene turned up strange scratch marks on the handrail the thing had reportedly jumped over, but no other physical evidence of any kind.

Just two weeks after this sighting it was seen yet again, this time by another police officer named Mark Mathews. In this case the creature was spotted lying on a rural road on the outskirts of Loveland. The witness supposedly at first took it to be a dead animal on the road, but as he got out of his cruiser to investigate it allegedly stood up and crouched down on the road before walking over to the guardrail while intently watching the witness. It was described as a frog-like bipedal creature around 4 feet in height, this time with a tail clearly visible, and the startled police officer then took a shot at it with his sidearm but missed as the beast scurried off into the night. In later years Matthews would begin to doubt what he had seen, and started to claim that it must have been some exotic reptile pet that had escaped from its owner, although how this could be confused with an upright walking frog is anyone’s guess. It is unclear why he retracted his original report, but an investigation by Weird Ohio in 2001 interviewed a local named Ron Schaffner about the possible reason, and he said thus:

Why, after all these years is Matthew’s debunking the story? I’m not sure. Could be a number of reasons. But both officers told us that it resembled the sketch in 1976. Why would they shows us a composite drawing of this creature back in 1976 and tell us that it looked like the drawing? I lived in Loveland for about five years and the story is still circulating with many variations. Just maybe Matthews is tired of hearing the story and all the variations.

There have been other sporadic sightings over the years of the Loveland Frogman, and as recently as 2016 there was a report that someone had actually filmed the creature. According to WLWT5, witness Sam Jacobs was playing the popular video game “Pokemon Go” along with his girlfriend behind the Beth Adam synagogue on Loveland Madeira Road, in Ohio, when they saw a strange, frog-like creature in the water on the nearby river. Jacobs would describe what happened thus:

We Saw a huge frog near the water. Not in the game, this was an actual giant frog… then the thing stood up and walked on its hind legs. I realize this sounds crazy, but I swear on my grandmother’s grave this is the truth… Not sure if it was a frogman or just a giant frog. Either way, I’ve never seen anything like it.

The couple managed to take a video clip of the alleged creature on their phones, which shows what seems to show something standing in the water with glowing eyes, but it is so indistinct and grainy it is hard to make out just what we are seeing here. It could be the Frogman or it could be a person in a suit. It is very possible that it is a hoax, but the couple are adamant that they actually saw this thing. If the Loveland Frogman was ever real, then what could it possibly be? Is this a cryptid, and alien, or what? It is hard to say.

A still from the Loveland Frog video

Another very well-known case of some sort of amphibious beast in the Ohio River seems to describe some sort of fish-man in its waters. In August of 1955, a Mrs. Darwin Johnson claimed that as she had been swimming in the Ohio River near Evansville, Indiana when she was pulled underwater by a reptilian creature of some sort, which grabbed her knees and yanked her under the waves. She was able to kick herself free and get to shore with the help of another woman in the vicinity named Chris Lamble. According to the report there was a green palm print on the victim’s leg which would not fade away for nearly a week. Oddly, a mysterious figure claiming to be with the Army reportedly later approached the two woman and discouraged them from telling anyone of the encounter.

Also from the Ohio River are sightings of something strange in October of 1975 at the portion of the river that runs across the northern boundary of Milton, Kentucky. Described in cryptozoologist Loren Coleman’s book Mysterious America, one witness, a Clarence Gable, claimed that there was a massive frog-like creature lurking in the area of his junkyard. The creature was described as having bulging eyes, a forked tongue, and as being a dull white color with black and white stripes. Other witnesses at around the same time would see the same or similar creature around the Ohio River at Trimble County, Kentucky, and say it was some sort of bipedal and amphibious lizard-like beast.

Other “gill-man” sightings covered by Coleman have come in from other areas as well. In March of 1959, witnesses Michael Lane, Wayne Armstrong, and Dennis Patterson sighted a “green-eyed, seven-foot-tall, seemingly armless humanoid” at Charles Mill Lake in Mansfield, Ohio, that left behind tracks like the flippers of scuba divers. This particular entity was seen again in 1963, and a major detail was that it was “luminous and green-eyed.” In November of 1978 a bizarre creature was spotted by a Charles Wetzel in the wilderness along the Santa Ana River near Riverside, California, that was described as being 7 feet tall, covered with scales and having a “protuberant mouth” and eyes that had a fluorescent sheen to them. This creature would apparently open its beak-like mouth to emit a high-pitched scream or wail and lunge for the witness’s car, which sent the him driving off with great haste. In the summer of 1973, a beast described as a “giant, man-like alligator” was sighted by residents of New Jersey’s Newton-Lafayette area, and in 1977 a scaled humanoid creature was frequently spotted in the fern and moss- covered uplands of southern New York state.

A well-known account of some sort of amphibious reptilian humanoid or fish-man comes from Thetis Lake, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. On August 19, 1972, two teenagers named Robin Flewellyn and Gordon Pike were at the lake when they claimed to have noticed a strange surging of the water just offshore. Shortly after this, there emerged what they would describe as a 5-foot tall humanoid covered with silver scales and with gills, webbed, clawed hands, bulging eyes, a sort spines jutting from its back, and a wide, fish-like mouth. The boys claimed that the creature chased them up the beach all the way to their car, and that it had actually managed to lunge forward to cut one of them on the hand with its sharp spines before they were able to escape.

The two frightened boys later told authorities, and while the whole story seemed pretty outlandish the two witnesses seemed to be genuinely disturbed about what they had seen, which forced the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to actually investigate the claims. Nothing would be found, but oddly another similar report would come in not long after, when on August 23 teenaged witnesses Russell Van Nice and Mike Gold said that they had been out on the opposite side of the lake of the original sighting when they saw a silvery, scaled creature around 5-feet tall and with a spike on its head emerge from the water, look around, and then slip back under to disappear. Interestingly the Natives of the area have long spoken of legendary fish-like humanoids inhabiting the lake, so are these reports perhaps of something very real or is it just hoaxes? No one knows, and there have been no other sightings, leaving it all to pure speculation.

These cases are certainly hard to classify, and almost impossible to verify in any meaningful way, leaving us to ponder just what could lie at the heart of them. Is this just attention-seekers making up tall tales? Is it misidentifications of known animals or exotic escaped pets? Are there really undiscovered bipedal amphibious creatures of the likes described roaming the wilderness? If so then what could they possibly be? It is all very head-scratching indeed, and Loren Coleman has said of this conundrum thus:

Are these beasts future time travelers lost in some time/space warp? Or infrequent visitors? Or do you feel more comfortable with the idea there is a breeding population of scaly, manlike, upright creatures lingering along the edges of some of America’s swamps? Something is out there. That’s for sure.

Is there really something out there other than or rampant imaginations? The only thing that can truly be said for sure is that such reports rank as among some of the strangest sightings of mystery beasts, and show that the world of the weird goes deep. With all of the truly off-the-wall accounts out there, humanoid frog-men and gill-people? Why not?

Humanoids from the Deep - Barbara Peters - Jimmy T. Murakami - Langosto

GENDER] Terror. Science fiction | Monsters [AUDIO] Spanish [SUBS] No. Several strange events occur in a small and quiet fishing village. First, a fishing boat explodes causing the death of its crew. The dogs of the port appear dismembered, except that of the Indian Hank. The fishermen believe that he has been the author of the killing, and they do the same with the native dog. But when several bathers are killed, and some girls raped, some begin to understand that behind everything that happens there is something else ...

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-02-2018 om 12:02 geschreven door peter  

Local scientist has evidence of life on Mars

He sees trace fossils in images from the Rover

Mike Randall

19-02-2018 om 11:39 geschreven door peter  

19-02-2018 om 11:25 geschreven door peter  

IJSKOUDE LUCHT  KOMT RICHTING EUROPA

De zogenaamde Polar Vortex (poolwervel) is, zoals verwacht, in tweeën gesplitst en één deel daarvan koerst af op Europa. 

Of dit daadwerkelijk zal resulteren in de lang verwachte Elfstedentocht is uiteraard niet zeker, maar de kans daarop is wel toegenomen. 

Ongeveer een week geleden schreven wij dat dankzij een plotselinge stratosferische opwarming er de grote mogelijkheid bestond dat de Polar Vortex zich in tweeën zou splitsen en als gevolg daarvan er een koude luchtstroom richting Europa op gang zou komen.

Die splitsing heeft inmiddels plaatsgevonden.

Het vreemde is dat er bij de Nederlandse weerdiensten weinig aandacht aan wordt geschonken, maar des te meer bij hun collega's in Amerika en Engeland.

Daar gaat men ervan uit dat Europa tegen heind februari, begin maart te maken zal krijgen met letterlijk ijskoude lucht en strenge vorst. Dit heeft bijvoorbeeld ook gevolgen voor de gascontracten in Engeland die al met 3,6 procent zijn gestegen in verband met de te verwachten koude.

Op het volgende plaatje is te zien dat tegen het einde van de week, naar verwachting, de koude lucht al aardig onze kant op komt.

Als deze beweging doorzet, dan krijgen we volgens de Engelse meteorologen te maken met zeer strenge vorst en kunnen de ijzers uit het vet.

Ook voor Amerika heeft dit gevolgen, waar de westelijke helft te maken zal krijgen met ongewoon lage temperaturen en de oostelijke met ongewoon hoge.

Als er één ding zeker is, dan is het dat er niets veranderlijker is dan het weer, dus niets is zeker, maar de kans op een late Elfstedentocht lijken toch behoorlijk toe te nemen. 

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

19-02-2018 om 11:20 geschreven door peter  

Op naar het volgende waanzinnige project: SpaceX test eerste van 4.425 satellieten die hele wereld van goedkoop internet moeten voorzien -  HLN.be

Drie jaar geleden onthulde SpaceX-CEO Elon Musk Project Starlink in Seattle. Met het breedbandproject wil hij met zijn ruimtevaartmaatschappij duizenden met elkaar verbonden satellieten in de ruimte sturen. Doel? De hele wereld goedkoop van razendsnelle internettoegang voorzien. SpaceX wil in totaal een slordige 4.425 kleine satellieten (zo groot als een gemiddelde auto) in een lage baan om de aarde brengen, zo’n 1.100 tot 1.325 kilometer boven ons. Dit weekend gaan de eerste twee testsatellieten de lucht in, zo blijkt uit een brief van SpaceX naar de Amerikaanse Federal Communications Commission. SpaceX geeft voorlopig geen officiële bevestiging, maar had eerder wel al aangekondigd dat eind 2017 of begin 2018 de eerste proefsatellieten zouden vertrekken.

Lees ook

Waarom de raket van Elon Musk een ongelofelijke ‘game changer’ is

Waarom Musk het ook nu weer in de ruimte gaat zoeken? Omdat een netwerk van satellieten met goedkope grondstations op ongeziene wijze de huidige moeilijkheden en kosten van internettechnologie op de grond kan omzeilen. “De typische uitdagingen op de grond worden verholpen door een breedbandnetwerk in de ruimte”, verklaarde Patricia Cooper van SpaceX eerder. Ondanks dat Musk zelf duidelijk wel wat geld op overschot heeft, is hij vaak op zoek naar manieren om kosten te drukken. Getuige zijn baanbrekende recyclage van raketten.

Race om het internet

Daarnaast is Musk een competitief man, die ook in de steeds competitiever wordende race van betaalbare internettoegang wil meespelen. Neen, winnen. SpaceX is immers niet de enige die globaal razendsnel internet uit de ruimte wil domineren. Zo heeft een ander privébedrijf met de naam OneWeb gelijkaardige ambitieuze plannen. OneWeb zou volgens Geekwire onder meer samenwerken met Blue Origin, het ruimtebedrijf van die andere miljardair - Amazon-baas Jeff Bezos - en met Virgin Orbit, een ruimtevaartbedrijf dat onderdeel is van de Virgin Group van miljardair nummer drie, Richard Branson. Niet alleen de race om de ruimte, maar ook de race om het internet is ingezet.

Waar Elon Musk met de lancering van de Falcon Heavy los de voorsprong nam in de nieuwe ruimterace tussen miljardairs en hun private bedrijven, lijkt hij ook nu in poleposition. In 2015 rapporteerde The Washington Post dat grote bedrijven Google en Fidelity 1 miljard in het ruimtebedrijf van Musk pompten, deels om Project Starlink te steunen. Het is dan ook waarschijnlijk dat als het Starlink-netwerk functioneel wordt, deze bedrijven er deels de controle over zullen nemen. Het moederbedrijf van Google, Alphabet, werkt overigens zelf ook aan internetconnectiviteit op grotere hoogtes - met satellieten, ballonnen en drones. Facebook wilde in 2016 samen met het Franse Eutelsat met een satelliet gratis internet aanbieden in Sub-Saharisch Afrika, maar die droom ging in rook op toen de SpaceX-raket die de satelliet moest lanceren, ontplofte. Andere initiatieven van Facebook omvatten het gebruik van drones op zonne-energie.

Wereldverbeteraar

Ook de wereldverbeteraar in Musk kan zich niet bedwingen: een globaal internetnetwerk dat goedkoop is en in sommige regio’s zelfs gratis voorzien kan worden, kan de bestaande issues rond ongelijke internettoegang oplossen. En dat louter met een ontvanger ter grootte als een laptop. Let wel, ook hier America First, want eerst zouden enkel de Verenigde Staten van het internet van Starlink kunnen proeven, pas later wordt het uitgerold naar de rest van de wereld. Een satellietnetwerk van 800 exemplaren zou snelle internettoegang naar de VS, Puerto Rico en de Maagdeneilanden kunnen brengen, met 4.425 satellieten mikt SpaceX op wereldwijde dekking. De hele planeet online dus, omwikkeld met een dekentje van 1-gigabit-per-seconde-internet.

2024

De twee testsatellieten (Microsat 2a en 2b) zullen dit weekend vanop de Vandenberg Air Force Base in Californië met een Falcon 9 in de ruimte worden geschoten, samen met de primaire lading: een grote Spaanse observatiesatelliet met de naam ‘Paz’. De experimentele Microsats zullen communicatie met grondstations testen, blijkt uit documenten. Zo zijn bijvoorbeeld verschillende kantoren van SpaceX een grondstation, maar ook het hoofdkwartier van Musks autobedrijf Tesla (niet toevallig hebben Tesla’s een 4G-internetverbinding). Ook drie mobiele ‘testbusjes’ staan in verbinding met de prototypes. Vanaf volgend jaar moeten dan de eerste ‘echte’ operationele internetsatellieten de ruimte in. Tegen 2024 wil SpaceX alle satellieten van Project Starlink hebben gelanceerd.

Kostenplaatje? Zeker tien miljard dollar, maar volgens Musk moet die investering zich al snel terugbetalen. De markt is tientallen of zelfs honderden miljarden dollars per jaar waard, schat SpaceX. En die markt zal alleen maar groeien als steeds meer mensen online zijn. En zo hoopt Musk dat de hele wereld uiteindelijk mee zijn ultieme droom zal financieren: een kolonie op Mars. Aha, zo zit dat.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

19-02-2018 om 11:12 geschreven door peter  

Bright Flaming Object Flies Over Belarus

This video was captured on February 17, 2018 in Belarus between Minsk and Soligorsk, with a iPhone X.

The people in the car had no explanation of the event, if it was a fighter-plane, it would have been to low and the flame-size is too big for a fighter.

  

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

19-02-2018 om 11:01 geschreven door peter  

{

19-02-2018 om 01:40 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Aliens – Beyond Roswell

{

19-02-2018 om 01:29 geschreven door peter  

Researchers Find Thousand-Year-Old Pyramid City In The Heart Of Mexico

Researchers have made a sensational discovery in Mexico, as they have uncovered the remains of an ancient Pyramid city as densely built as Manhattan. During its peak, this ancient city is believed to have been inhabited by more than 100,000 people.

Using state-of-the-art laser technology; users discovered the lost city of Angamuco, built by the ancient Purepecha people, a rival culture of the ancient Azteca.

The recently uncovered archaeological site had 26 square kilometers and remained hidden for several centuries as dense vegetation devoured it.

Seen here are examples of sunken plazas, patios, and related features in Angamuco.

Photograph: C Fisher

LiDAR—Making Archaeology great again

Since 2011, a group of researchers has used laser scanning technology called LiDAR to examine the remains of an ancient metropolis called Angamuco, established during 900 AD on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

‘To think that this massive city existed in the heartland of Mexico for all this time and nobody knew it was there is kind of amazing,’ said Chris Fisher, professor of anthropology at CSU who made the admission of missing the finding on foot.

LiDAR technology is helping archaeologists around the globe make unprecedented discoveries. Using traditional methods of on-the-ground archaeological surveys would take 20 years to assemble as much data as two days using the laser-based technique, note experts.

One of Angamuco’s ‘neighbourhoods’, revealed using LiDAR technology.

Photograph: C Fisher

LiDAR can help researchers see what the naked eye can’t, thanks to the technologies ability to penetrate through thick layers of vegetation.

The technology offers researchers a new set of eyes, allowing them to see what they’d never see without it. In fact, after seeing the results of the scan, one of the team members realized that he had walked within 10 meters of one of the most massive pyramids of the ancient city of Angamuco, without even realizing it, since the pyramids—and entire city—are covered in thick layers of vegetation.

‘If you do the math, all of a sudden you are talking about 40,000 building foundations up there, which is [about] the same number of building foundations that are on the island of Manhattan.’

In an interview, Fisher said that thanks to LiDAR they have discovered that “more than 100,000 people inhabited the city of Angamuco during its peak, which occurred between the year 1,000 and 1,350 AD. We are talking about the fact that this metropolis is the largest metropolis that, until now, is known in western Mexico during this period.”

The discoveries have helped researchers understand that pre-Columbian Mesoamerica was ‘significantly more densely populated at the time of European contact’ than previously thought.

The researcher from Colorado State University said that “Angamuco was a large settlement that had many people and a lot of architectural remains.”

He added: “Some estimates of our studies show that there may have been more than 40,000 buildings, that is, the same number of buildings that are currently on the island of Manhattan, in New York.”

Seen here is the city of Angamuco, which was inhabited by more than 100,000 people during its peak.

Photograph: C Fisher

Between the 15th and 16th centuries, the Purépecha empire, with capital in Tzintzuntzan, was a Mesoamerican power that resisted the push of the Mexica Empire.

This ancient culture encompassed the southern part of the state of Guanajuato, much of the state of Michoacán and the northern region of the state of Guerrero to the south of the State of Mexico.

Its military and economic success were due, in part, to the fact that the Purépechas were skilled metal workers in both gold and copper, which undoubtedly helped maintain their independence from the Aztecs.

The ancient Purépechas were exclusive speakers of the Purepecha language, an isolated language that has no proven historical relationship with any other in the region.

The most famous source of information about the Purépechas is the Michoacán relation written by Fray Jerónimo de Alcalá for Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza around 1540.

Source: Laser scanning reveals ‘lost’ ancient Mexican city ‘had as many buildings as Manhattan’

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

19-02-2018 om 01:18 geschreven door peter  

A study of 211 skulls from a pre-Inca society suggests head-shaping developed over time

BY  BRUCE BOWER 

 

 

GOING LONG  Starting around 1300, high-ranking members of a pre-Inca population increasingly had their heads bound into a narrow, elongated shape during infancy, a researcher says.

M. VELASCO/CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2018

Bigwigs in a more than 600-year-old South American population were easy to spot. Their artificially elongated, teardrop-shaped heads screamed prestige, a new study finds.

During the 300 years before the Incas’ arrival in 1450, intentional head shaping among prominent members of the Collagua ethnic community in Peru increasingly centered on a stretched-out look, says bioarchaeologist Matthew Velasco of Cornell University. Having long, narrow noggins cemented bonds among members of a power elite — a unity that may have helped pave a relatively peaceful incorporation into the Incan Empire, Velasco proposes in the February Current Anthropology.

 “Increasingly uniform head shapes may have encouraged a collective identity and political unity among Collagua elites,” Velasco says. These Collagua leaders may have negotiated ways to coexist with the encroaching Inca rather than fight them, he speculates. But the fate of the Collaguas and a neighboring population, the Cavanas, remains hazy. Those populations lived during a conflict-ridden time — after the collapse of two major Andean societies around 1100 (SN: 8/1/09, p. 16) and before the expansion of the Inca Empire starting in the 15th century.

For at least the past several thousand years, human groups in various parts of the world have intentionally modified skull shapes by wrapping infants’ heads with cloth or binding the head between two pieces of wood (SN: 4/29/17, p. 18). Researchers generally assume that this practice signified membership in ethnic or kin groups, or perhaps social rank.

HEADY BURIALS In southeastern Peru, structures at the base of a cliff contained the bodies of presumably high-ranking members of a pre-Inca-era population known as the Collagua. These individuals gradually adopted a style of intentional head shaping that resulted in many of them having long, narrow noggins, a new study finds.

DAVID RODRÍGUEZ SOTOMAYOR

The Callagua people lived in Colca Valley in southeastern Peru and raised alpaca for wool. By tracking Collagua skull shapes over 300 years, Velasco found that elongated skulls became increasingly linked to high social status. By the 1300s, for instance, Collagua women with deliberately distended heads suffered much less skull damage from physical attacks than other females did, he reports. Chemical analyses of bones indicates that long-headed women ate a particularly wide variety of foods.

Until now, knowledge of head-shaping practices in ancient Peru primarily came from Spanish accounts written in the 1500s. Those documents referred to tall, thin heads among Collaguas and wide, long heads among Cavanas, implying that a single shape had always characterized each group.

“Velasco has discovered that the practice of cranial modification was much more dynamic over time and across social [groups],” says bioarchaeologist Deborah Blom of the University of Vermont in Burlington.

Velasco examined 211 skulls of mummified humans interred in either of two Collagua cemeteries. Burial structures built against a cliff face were probably reserved for high-ranking individuals, whereas common burial grounds in several caves and under nearby rocky overhangs belonged to regular folk.

 

SHAPING UP About 300 years before the Inca arrived, low-ranking members of the Collagua people sometimes had their heads flattened at the back during infancy (left). More often, their heads were not modified (right).

M. VELASCO/CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2018

Radiocarbon analyses of 13 bone and sediment samples allowed Velasco to sort Collagua skulls into early and late pre-Inca groups. A total of 97 skulls, including all 76 found in common burial grounds, belonged to the early group, which dated to between 1150 and 1300. Among these skulls, 38 — or about 39 percent — had been intentionally modified. Head shapes included sharply and slightly elongated forms as well as skulls compressed into wide, squat configurations.

Of the 14 skulls with extreme elongation, 13 came from low-ranking individuals, a pattern that might suggest regular folk first adopted elongated head shapes. But with only 21 skulls from elites, the finding may underestimate the early frequency of elongated heads among the high-status crowd. Various local groups may have adopted their own styles of head modification at that time, Velasco suggests.

In contrast, among 114 skulls from elite burial sites in the late pre-Inca period, dating to between 1300 and 1450, 84 — or about 74 percent — displayed altered shapes. A large majority of those modified skulls — about 64 percent — were sharply elongated. Shortly before the Incas’ arrival, prominent Collaguas embraced an elongated style as their preferred head shape, Velasco says. No skeletal evidence has been found to determine whether low-ranking individuals also adopted elongated skulls as a signature look in the late pre-Inca period.

Citations

• M. Velasco. Ethnogenesis and social difference in the Andean Late Intermediate Period (AD 1100-1450). Current Anthropology. Vol. 59, February 2018, p. 98. doi:10.1086/695986.

Further Reading

• B. Bower. Ancient Romans may have been cozier with Huns than they let on. Science News. Vol. 191, April 29, 2017, p. 18.
• B. Bower. Maize may have fueled ancient Andean civilization.Science News. Vol. 176, August 1, 2009, p. 16

{https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

19-02-2018 om 01:07 geschreven door peter