Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
04-03-2018
Watch an experimental space shield shred a speeding bullet
Watch an experimental space shield shred a speeding bullet
PACKS A PUNCH Engineers are testing a new spacecraft shield by slamming a bullet into it at 7 kilometers per second.
FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR HIGH-SPEED DYNAMICS
Engineers are taking a counterintuitive approach to protecting future spacecraft: shooting at their experiments. The image above and high-speed video below capture a 2.8-millimeter aluminum bullet plowing through a test material for a space shield at 7 kilometers per second. The work is an effort to find structures that could stand up to the impact of space debris.
Earth is surrounded by a cloud of debris, both natural — such as micrometeorites and comet dust, which create meteor showers — and unnatural, including dead satellites and the cast-off detritus of space launches. Those pieces of flotsam can damage other spacecraft if they collide at high speeds, and bits smaller than about a centimeter are hard to track and avoid, says ESA materials engineer Benoit Bonvoisin in a statement.
FLASH BANG Watch as a bullet slams through the first layer of a new, experimental space shield, and a second layer deflects the shrapnel.
To defend future spacecraft from taking a hit, Bonvoisin and colleagues are developing armor made from fiber metal laminates, or several thin metal layers bonded together. The laminates are arranged in multiple layers separated by 10 to 30 centimeters, a configuration called a Whipple shield.
In this experiment at the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics in Germany, the first layer shatters the aluminum bullet into a cloud of smaller pieces, which the second layer is able to deflect. This configuration has been used for decades, but the materials are new. The next step is to test the shield in orbit with a small CubeSat, Bonvoisin says.
TOTALLY LIT The first stars in the universe switched on by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations indicate. Ultraviolet light from early, blueish stars (illustrated) interacted with hydrogen gas, causing it to absorb background radiation, and creating a signature scientists have now detected.
N.R. FULLER/NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
For the first time, scientists may have detected hints of the universe’s primordial sunrise, when the first twinkles of starlight appeared in the cosmos.
“It’s a tremendously exciting result. It’s the first time we’ve possibly had a glimpse of this era of cosmic history,” says observational cosmologist H. Cynthia Chiang of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, who was not involved in the research.
The oldest galaxies seen directly with telescopes sent their starlight from significantly later: several hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, which occurred about 13.8 billion years ago. The new observation used a technique, over a decade in the making, that relies on probing the hydrogen gas that filled the early universe. That approach holds promise for the future of cosmology: More advanced measurements may eventually reveal details of the early universe throughout its most difficult-to-observe eras.
But experts say the result needs additional confirmation, in particular because the signature doesn’t fully agree with theoretical predictions. The signal — a dip in the intensity of radio waves across certain frequencies — was more than twice as strong as expected.
The unexpectedly large observed signal suggests that the hydrogen gas was colder than predicted. If confirmed, this observation might hint at a new phenomenon taking place in the early universe. One possibility, suggested in a companion paper in Nature by theoretical astrophysicist Rennan Barkana of Tel Aviv University, is that the hydrogen was cooled due to new types of interactions between the hydrogen and particles of dark matter, a mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the universe.
If the interpretation is correct, “it’s quite possible that this is worth two Nobel Prizes,” says theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University, who was not involved with the work. One prize could be given for detecting the signature of the cosmic dawn, and another for the dark matter implications. But Loeb expresses reservations about the result: “What makes me a bit nervous is the fact that the [signal] that they see doesn't look like what we expected.”
To increase scientists’ confidence, the result must be verified by other experiments and additional tests, says theoretical cosmologist Matias Zaldarriaga of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Several other efforts to detect the signal are already under way.
Experimental cosmologist Judd Bowman of Arizona State University in Tempe and colleagues teased out their evidence for the first stars from the impact the light had on hydrogen gas. “We don’t see the starlight itself. We see indirectly the effect that the starlight would have had” on the cosmic environment, says Bowman, a collaborator on the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature, EDGES, which detected the stars’ traces.
TURN THE TABLES Detecting the signature of the first stars required a radio antenna about the size of a table (shown), located in western Australia, far from artificial sources of radio waves.
BRETT HISCOCK AND LOU PULS/CSIRO AUSTRALIA
Collapsing out of dense pockets of hydrogen gas early in the universe’s history, the first stars flickered on, emitting ultraviolet light that interacted with the surrounding hydrogen. The starlight altered the proportion of hydrogen atoms found in different energy levels. That change caused the gas to absorb light of a particular wavelength, about 21 centimeters, from the cosmic microwave background — the glow left over from around 380,000 years after the Big Bang (SN: 3/21/15, p. 7). A distinctive dip in the intensity of the light at that wavelength appeared as a result.
Over time, that light’s wavelength was stretched to several meters by the expansion of the universe, before being detected on Earth as radio waves. Observing the amount of stretching that had taken place in the light allowed the researchers to pinpoint how long after the Big Bang the light was absorbed, revealing when the first stars turned on.
Still, detecting the faint dip was a challenge: Other cosmic sources, such as the Milky Way, emit radio waves at much higher levels, which must be accounted for. And to avoid interference from sources on Earth — like FM radio stations — Bowman and colleagues set up their table-sized antenna far from civilization, at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the western Australian outback.
Scientists hope to use similar techniques with future, more advanced instruments to map out where in the sky stars first started forming, and to reveal other periods early in the universe’s history. “This is really the first step in what’s going to become a new and exciting field,” Bowman says.
Expand to full size to see this video from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, which caught a close-up view of the little Mars moon Phobos, moving in front of distant Saturn.
On March 1, 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) released this video from its Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since December 2003. The video combines 30 images as individual frames and shows Phobos passing through the frame with the gas giant planet Saturn, some 600 million miles (roughly a billion km) further away. Be sure to expand the video to full size to see Saturn as a small ringed dot in the background.
Putting Together a Community Strategy To Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Putting Together a Community Strategy To Search for Extraterrestrial Life
I regret that the formatting of this column was askew earlier; I hope it didn’t make reading too difficult. But now those problems are fixed.
The scientific search underway for life beyond Earth requires input from many disciplines and fields. Strategies forward have to hear and take in what scientists in those many fields have to say. (NASA)
Behind the front page space science discoveries that tell us about the intricacies and wonders of our world are generally years of technical and intellectual development, years of planning and refining, years of problem-defining and problem-solving. And before all this, there also years of brainstorming, analysis and strategizing about which science goals should have the highest priorities and which might be most attainable.
That latter process is underway now in regarding the search for life in the solar system and beyond, with numerous teams of scientists tackling specific areas of interest and concern and turning their group discussions into white papers. In this case, the white papers will then go on to the National Academy of Sciences for a blue-ribbon panel review and ultimately recommendations on which subjects are exciting and mature enough for inclusion in a decadal survey and possible funding.
This is a generally little-known part of the process that results in discoveries, but scientists certainly understand how they are essential. That’s why hundreds of scientists contribute their ideas and time — often unpaid — to help put together these foundational documents.
With its call for extraterrestrial habitability white papers, the NAS got more than 20 diverse and often deeply thought out offerings. The papers will be studied now by an ad hoc, blue ribbon committee of scientists selected by the NAS, which will have the first of two public meetings in Irvine, Calif. on Jan. 16-18.
Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a leader of many NASA study projects and a astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Fight Center. (NASA)
Then their recommendations go up further to the decadal survey teams that will set formal NASA priorities for the field of astronomy and astrophysics and planetary science. This community-based process that has worked well for many scientific disciplines since they began in the late 1950s.
I’m particularly familiar with two of these white paper processes — one produced at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) in Tokyo and the other with NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS.) What they have to say is most interesting.
This is what Shawn Domagal-Goldman, an astrobiologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, had to say about their effort, which began 16 months ago with a workshop in Seattle:
Chaitanya Giri, a research scientist and the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo. (Nerissa Escanlar)
“This is an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ problem, and we held a workshop to start drawing a wide variety of scientists to the problem. Once we did, the group gave itself an ambitious goal – to quantify an assessment of whether or not an exoplanet has life, based on remote observations of that world.
“Doing that will take years of collaboration of scientists like the ones at the meeting, from diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences.”
Chaitanya Giri, a research scientist at ELSI with a background in organic planetary chemistry and organic cosmochemistry, said that his work on the European Rosetta mission to a comet convinced him that it is essential to “develop technological capacities to explore habitable niches on various planetary bodies and find unambiguous signatures of life, if present.” There is some debate about the organic molecules — the chemical building blocks of life — identified by Rosetta.
“Over the years there have been scattered attempts at building such instruments, but a coherent collaborative network was missing,” Giri said. “This necessity inspired me to put on this workshop,” which led to the white paper.
We’ll discuss the conclusions of the papers, but first at little about the decadal surveys:
NASA Decada:
Here are the instruction from the NAS to potential white paper teams working on life beyond Earth projects and issues:
Identify promising key research goals in the field of the search for signs of life in which progress is likely in the next 20 years.
Identify key technological challenges in astrobiology as they pertain to the search for life in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems.
Identify key scientific questions in astrobiology as they pertain to the search for life in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems
Discuss scientific advances that can be addressed by U.S. and international space missions and relevant ground-based activities in operation or funded and in development
Discuss how to expand partnerships (interagency, international and public/private) in furthering the study of life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe
Quite a wide net, from specific issues to much broader ones. But the teams submitting their papers are not expected to address all the issues, but only one or perhaps a related second.
The papers range from a SETI Institute call for a program to increase the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to address a range of astrobiology issues; to tempting possibilities offered by teams already in the running for future missions to Europa or Enceladus or elsewhere; to recommendations from the Planetary Science Institute about studying and searching for microbialites, living carbonate rock structures once common on Earth and possibly on Mars as well.
Proposed White Paper Subjects
Saturn’s moon Enceladus and plume of water vapor flowing out from its South Pole.
(NASA)
Microbialites are fresh water versions of the organic and carbonate structures called stromatolites — which are among the oldest signs of life detected on Earth.
The white paper from ELSI focuses how to improve and discover technology that can detect potential life on other planets and moons. It calls for an increasingly international approach to that costly and specialized effort.
The paper from Giri et al begins with a disquieting conclusion that only “lately, scattered efforts are being undertaken towards the R&D of the novel and as-yet space unproven ‘life-detection’ technologies capable of obtaining unambiguous evidence of extraterrestrial life, even if it is significantly different from {Earth} life. As the suite of space-proven payloads improves in breadth and sensitivity, this is an apt time to examine the progress and future of life-detection technologies.”
The paper points to one discovery in particular as indicative of what the team feels is necessary — an ability to search for life in regions theoretically devoid of life and therefore requiring novel detection techniques or probes.
“For example,” they write, “air sampling in Earth’s stratosphere with a novel scientific cryogenic payload has led to the isolation and identification of several new species of bacteria; this was an innovative technique analyzing a region of the atmosphere that was initially believed to be devoid of life.”
Other technologies they see as promising and needing further development are high-sensitivity fluorescence microscopy techniques that may be able to detect extraterrestrial organic compounds with catalytic activity surrounded by membranes, i.e., extraterrestrial cells. In addition, they support on-going and NASA-funded work on genetic samplers that could go to Mars and — if present — actually identify nucleic acid-based life.
“With back-to-back missions under development and proposed by various space agencies to the potentially habitable Mars, Enceladus, Titan, and Europa, this is a right time for a detailed envisioning of the technologies needed for detection of life,” Giri said in an e-mail.
Yellowknife Bay on Mars, where the rover Curiosity first found conditions that were habitable to life. The rover subsequently found many more habitable spots, but no existing or fossil microbial life so far. (NASA)
The NExSS white paper on potentially detectable biosignatures from distant exoplanets– one of four submitted by the group– is an especially ambitious one. The NASA-sponsored effort brought in many top scientists working in the field of biosignatures, and in the past year has already resulted in the publication or submission of five major science papers in addition to the white paper.
In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of NExSS, the paper brought in people from many fields and ultimately advocates for a Bayesian approach to exoplanet life detection (named after 18th century statistician and philosopher Thomas Bayes. )
In most basic terms, the Bayes approach describes the probability of an event based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. A simple example: Runners A and B have competed four times, and runner A won three times. So the probability of A winner is high, right? But what if the two competed twice on a rainy track and each won one race. If the forecast for the day of the next race is rain, the probability of who will be the winner would change.
This approach not only embraces probability as an essential way forward, but it is especially useful in terms of weighing probabilities involving many measurements and fields. Because the factors involved in finding a biosignature are so complex and potentially confounding, they argue, the field has to think in terms of the probability that a number of biosignatures together suggest the presence of life, rather than a 100 percent certain detection (although that may some day be possible.)
Nancy Kiang of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, explores (among other subjects) the possibility of using photosynthetic pigments as biosignatures on exoplanets.
Nancy Kiang of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, explores (among other subjects) the possibility of using photosynthetic pigments as biosignatures on exoplanets.
Both Domagal-Goldman and collaborator Nancy Kiang of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies are eager to adopt climate modeling and it’s ability to use known characteristics of divergent sub-fields to put together a big picture. (Those two, along with Niki Parenteau of NASA Ames Research Center led the NExSS effort.)
“For instance,” Kiang said, “the general circulation model (GCM) at GISS simulates the global circulation patterns of a planet’s wind, heat, moisture, and gases, providing statistical behaviors of the simulated climate.” She sees a similar possibility with exoplanets and biosignatures.
Such a computer model can take in data from different fields and come up with some probabilities. The model “might tell us that a planet is habitable over a certain percent of its surface,” she said.
“A geochemist or planetary formation person might then tell us that if certain chemistry exists on that planet, it has good potential for prebiotic compounds to form. A biologist and geologist might tell us that certain surface signatures on the planet are plausible for either life or mineral background.” That’s not a robust biosignature, but the probability that it could be life is not zero, depending on origin of the signature.
“These different forms of information can be integrated into a Bayesian analysis to tell us the likelihood of life on the planet,” she wrote.
One arm of the NExSS team is already using the tools of climate modeling to predict how particular conditions on exoplanets would play out under different circumstances.
This is a plot of what the sea ice distribution could look like on a synchronously rotating ocean world. The star is off to the right, blue is where there is open ocean, and white is where there is sea ice. (NASA/GISS/Anthony Del Genio)
I will return to the NExSS biosignatures white paper later, since it is so rich with cutting edge thinking about this upcoming stage in space science. But I do want to include one specific recommendation made by the group, which calls itself the Exoplanet Biosignatures Workshop Without Walls (EBWWW).
What they say is necessary now is for more biologists to join the search for extraterrestrial life.
“The EBWWW revealed that the search for exoplanet life is still largely driven by astronomers and planetary scientists, and that this field requires more input from origins of life researchers and biologists to advance a process-based understanding for planetary biosignatures.
“This includes assessing the {already assessed probability} that a planet may have life, or a life process evolved for a given planet’s environment. These advances will require fundamental research into the origins and processes of life, in particular for environments that vary from modern Earth’s. Thus, collaboration between origins of life researchers, biologists, and planetary scientists is critical to defining research questions around environmental context.”
The recommendation, it seems to me, illustrates both the youth and a maturing of the field.
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ENCIRCLED BY AN UFO? THE WEIRD ENCOUNTER OF CAPTAIN JÚLIO MIGUEL GUERRA
ENCIRCLED BY AN UFO? THE WEIRD ENCOUNTER OF CAPTAIN JÚLIO MIGUEL GUERRA
Following my own demarcations about the nature of a strange flying object having been sighted, I see a UFO as any object in the air which cannot be accounted for with our current knowledge. It stands to reason this isn’t necessarily the same thing as an alien spacecraft.
A UFO encircles a helpless aircraft. Artistic creation.
Given this definition, the general claim that UFOs really exist isn’t extraordinary by any means and seems almost certain to anyone having taken a look at the most puzzling sightings with an open eye.
Yet one can still find hardcore skeptics such as German debunker Werner Walter confidently asserting that there are “no unsolved cases“.
As we saw with the disappearance of Australian pilot Frederick Valentich, having “solved“ an intriguing case generally means picking and choosing some facts fitting the pet-theory of the “Skeptics“, while ignoring all other elements or explaining them away by resorting to incredibly unlikely ad-hoc hypotheses.
But there are some incidents which are ignored altogether by debunkers who do not write a sole page to “account“ for them in a conventional way.
In what follows, I reproduced such a case for which I’ve been (until now) utterly unable to find any debunking explanation.
Portugal, 1982
In the chapter he wrote for “UFOs,” Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra relives his lengthy encounter with a highly active UFO while serving as a flight instructor for the Portuguese Air Force in 1982.
He writes: “At various times the object had been very close to me and I was able to verify that it was round with two halves shaped like two tight-fitting skullcaps. I carefully looked at the lower one, which seemed to be somewhere between red and brown with a hole or dark spot in the center.
“The center band looked like it had some kind of a grid, and possibly a few lights, but it was hard to tell since the sun was so bright and was reflected.”
The object circled his small airplane for 15 minutes while he was alone in the sky, in his DHC-1 Chipmunk. He made this drawing the day after the encounter and submitted it with his report to the Portuguese Air Force.
(Júlio Guerra, CNIFO Case Report)
Guerra states that the object “flew at a fantastic speed in a large elliptical orbit to the left, between 5,000 feet to the South and approximately 10,000 feet to the North, always from left to right, repeating this route over and over. “I tried to keep it in sight.”
Two fellow Air Force officers, Carlos Garcês and António Gomes, flew to the location, and they too watched the object repeat its elliptical course, passing between the two planes on each return, for about 10 minutes. They were able to estimate the size, given its proximity to the two aircraft: about eight to 10 feet.
After landing, all three pilots filed detailed, independent written reports with the Air Force. General José Lemos Ferreira, the Portuguese Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, authorized the release of all the records to a team of scientists and experts, which conducted a lengthy scientific investigation.
The group estimated that the unidentified object was flying at over 300 MPH vertically and its velocity when it circled Guerra’s aircraft was about 1550 MPH.
Since leaving the Air Force in 1990 after 18 years of service, Júlio Guerra has been a Captain with Portugália Airlines (TAP), Portugal’s largest commercial airline. He has 17,000 hours of flight experience, and in 2009 he received an aeronautic science degree from the Lusofona University of Oporto. (Courtesy Júlio Guerra)
It is worth noting that as he first noticed the object, the captain was flying at 5000 feet and perceived it as a metallic disk flying not far from the ground. He turned around to better observe it and the thing flew up to him in only 10 seconds. The sky was clear and the visibility was excellent.
Trying to put myself in the shoes of a debunker is really hard in that specific situation. I’ll nevertheless try to put on my pseudo-skeptical hat and look for conventional explanations compatible with known phenomena or aircrafts.
Weather balloon
Weather balloon
This is the first thing which sprang to the mind of the flight officers and other pilots he contacted by radio while having this strange experience.
Their initial reaction was that it must be a kind of weather balloon and some of his colleagues even laughed at him.
The problem is that Guerra could clearly recognize that the object was initially flying close to the ground while the visibility was incredibly good under this cloudless sky. Whilst distance appreciations are never perfect, it is extremely far-fetched to think that this experienced pilot would perceive an object flying just below him as being near to the soil, that is at least 4000 feet lower than it actually was.
Given that, the fact that the thing covered vertically in only 10 seconds such a distance rules out that it was some kind of non-motorized balloon.
What is more, in order to circle Julio’s plane (a fact attested by the two other pilots having attended to the event), it needed to have glided considerably more quickly than him.
Its peculiar orbiting movements would also involve an extraordinarily improbable wind distribution at the time and place of the incident.
Consequently, I think we can completely forget this possibility.
Conventional aircraft
The next theory would be that Guerra had been confronted with a conventional helicopter or plane he and the two other pilots misidentified.
Unknown form
The first objection is that this doesn’t fit at all the shape of the object which had neither body nor rear.
Its oval form made up of two halves doesn’t correspond to any known aircraft.
Incredible velocity
The scientific committee having meticulously studied this case estimated the speed of the object during his vertical ascension to 300 miles per hour and even to 1550 miles per hour as it was circling around Julio Guerra, based on the data of the three men who had already produced three independent reports after the sighting. While such numbers might be imprecise, it can be deduced that it was truly flying much faster than their planes, which is at the very least incompatible with it being a helicopter or any usual type of planes back in 1982.
Weird behavior
The whole behavior of the object is also completely at odds with it being a private or military aircraft being piloted by someone else. What motive could have had any other pilot to rapidly fly towards another aircraft and start out circling him in such a bizarre fashion?
Taking together, these three factors make it extremely implausible that the three men had just encountered a conventional piloted aircraft.
Full fleshed hallucination
(c) Alan Davie; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Delirious hallucination.
I think that the only way a debunker could cope with this sighting would be by declaring it was entirely hallucinatory.
The sober and experienced pilot Julio Guerra began to see an object which didn’t exist and during the next 15 minutes, he hallucinated it doing coherent movements around him even though there was nothing at all out there.
Since the two other pilots were expecting to see something, they experienced a similar hallucination consistent with what their colleague had shortly described to them.
Needless to say that the probability of three mentally sane individuals having such a shared coherent hallucination during a elongated timespan is astronomically low.
Imagine they had just reported having sighted another plane flying illegally. After having made their report to the local military police, one of the responsible just shrugged and said: “Well, I’m pretty sure they saw no plane at all but just dreamed up the whole thing.“ what would be your own reaction?
Would not such a statement sound incredibly ridiculous and even outrageously absurd?
Yet, for die-hard skeptics convinced that there must be an ordinary explanation for anything seen in the sky, this is pretty much the only game in town.
Conclusion: an unknown flying object
I myself wholeheartedly echo Guerra’s own conclusion: “I have no clue about whether or not it stemmed from another universe, another planet or was of earthly origin. I just don’t know.“
It doesn’t seem to me unlikely that what he saw was a sophisticated purely human creation (such as a sort of very advanced drone or robot). But this would then mean that there is a huge gap between human technology as it is publicly known and the very best vehicles and weapons our governments really dispose of.
Anyway, such kinds of incidents show us that when “Skeptics“ affirm that there isn’t any sighting they can’t conventionally account for, all what they mean is that one can explain everything away through piling up widely implausible assumptions made in hindsight.
Op het nog steeds bevroren continent van Antarctica komen steeds meer dingen boven water, zoals nu een object dat lijkt te zijn neergestort.
Het heeft waarschijnlijk een berg geraakt en komt na een spoor door de sneeuw van meer dan een kilometer uiteindelijk tot stilstand.
Bovenstaande lijkt een logische verklaring wanneer je kijkt naar de satellietbeelden waarop te zien is hoe een onbekend object een lang spoor door de sneeuw maakt en dan abrupt stopt.
De plek waar dit gebeurt is, is een eiland wat zich bevindt tussen het uiterste puntje van Antarctica en het Zuid Amerikaanse Chili. Het eiland is met een rode cirkel aangegeven.
Wanneer we verder inzoomen, ziet het er zo uit.
En daar, ergens op dat eiland, is een langwerpig, sigaarvormig object te zien in de sneeuw dat na een lang spoor te hebben gemaakt abrupt tot stilstand komt. Om het zelf op te zoeken, gebruik je de volgende coördinaten:
Wanneer je de beelden goed bekijkt, begint het spoor aan de rand van een berg, waardoor het lijkt alsof dit object eerst de rand van die berg heeft geraakt waarna het uiteindelijk een kilometer verderop in de sneeuw tot stilstand kwam.
Wanneer je de plek bekijkt bij de berg waar het spoor begint, dan lijkt het alsof dat de plek is waar dit object de berg heeft geraakt, verschillende onderdelen alle kanten zijn opgevlogen en het hoofddeel van het sigaarvormig object de sneeuw in wordt gelanceerd waar het na ongeveer een kilometer tot stilstand komt.
Hier is een opname gemaakt vanaf de andere kant van het object en hier zie je duidelijk de grote schaduwen. Deze is op het hoogste punt 12 meter, waardoor je dus over een behoorlijk object spreekt.
Wanneer je het spoor van dichtbij bekijkt, dan zie je goed dat hier geen sprake is van iets dat natuurlijk is gevormd, maar een duidelijk spoor dat door een solide object is gemaakt.
Er zijn misschien nog andere verklaringen mogelijk, maar duidelijk is dat daar iets in de sneeuw ligt wat niet door de natuur is gevormd.
Lying within the Tualatin Valley of Oregon, in the United States, just 25 miles from the major city of Portland, is the rustic suburb of Forest Grove. Originally sprouted from a farming community, the quiet town has a population of just over 20,000, and is usually a peaceful place outside of major news and the noise of the city. However, in 2016 the usual quiet was rudely broken when terrified residents of the rural town began to report hearing an unearthly loud shrieking noise piercing out from the surrounding countryside at night that no one could explain, and which would go on to generate national news and baffle experts.
To those who heard it, the sound was described variously as being a shrill squeal, a flute-like blare, the screeching of car brakes, a steam whistle, a mechanical scream, metal scraping against metal, an off-kilter siren, or a banshee like moan, but it was agreed by all that no matter what exactly it sounded like it was a truly intense and nerve-wracking racket which purportedly kept people awake and was said to drive pets nuts. The weird noise was also described as coming from the trees, from backyards, and even from the middle of the street, and no one could quite figure out where or what it was emanating from. The story was propelled even further into the mainstream consciousness when a video made by resident Paula Lynch was released purporting to contain one of the mystery shrieks, and the Internet went nuts trying to figure out what it was. One Dave Nemeyer, fire marshal of Forest Grove Fire and Rescue, investigated and said of it:
It’s definitely a horrendous noise. I have no idea what the noise is. [The resident] described to us that it was coming from the middle of the street. To me, it sounds like the sound of train tracks, that metal screeching sound, but there are no train tracks near her home … so that’s obviously ruled out.
Forest Grove, Oregon
Several other people began to come forward with their own recordings of the anomalous noise, which supposedly typically lasted from 10 seconds all the way up to several minutes, and the whole mystery deepened further. It was widely thought that the sound perhaps came from some broken pipeline or leak, but when this was checked out it was found that the sound did not really match this audio signature. For their part, Forest Grove Public Works and the gas company Northwest Natural denied that the sound could be coming from them or a ruptured gas line, and that even if it had it would have absolutely released a strong odor of gas, and the fire department also put to rest the idea that it was coming from a fire alarm somewhere. The Department of Forestry also said that whatever it was did not originate from them. Additionally, the nearby train tracks are rarely used, and authorities explained that this could not be the origin of the sound either. Some suggested that pranksters could have been behind it, but there was no evidence of this. Forest Grove Police Capt. Mike Herbs said of the noise:
There would be a city ordinance violation if somebody was creating a noise like this, that late at night, on purpose to annoy people. At this point, we don’t have information that would lead us to believe that’s the case. It sounds to me like some kind of release valve or some kind of pipe that’s under pressure. We’ve had different suggestions from folks that it’s an alien mother ship or a warning sign of something to come.
Yes, of course aliens come into the picture. The wilder theories included that the sound was made by UFOs or that it was the wailing of some strange creature or entity like a ghost or Sasquatch, or even the portentous trumpeting of angels from Heaven. Indeed, whole forums were dedicated to the unexplained noise, where there were theories ranging that it was produced from vast underground bases and government mind control experiments, to the inscrutable activities of government installations or more paranormal explanations like ghosts and UFOs. Whatever it was, the mystery shriek of Forest Grove was all over the news on websites, in newspapers, on news shows, and on TV programs such as Inside Edition and World News Tonight.
Then, almost as suddenly as it appeared the noise stopped and the town was quite again. In the void of silence left by the lack of the mysterious squeal, the speculation has continued and theories remained rampant, with people of all opinions sticking fast to their own ideas on what it could have been. The most rational explanation is still that tis was some sort of problem with a pipe or a valve, and a physics professor at Forest Grove’s Pacific University, an Andy Dawes, has thrown in his two cents by saying:
An audio analyst from Florida emailed me a fairly detailed report that certainly agreed well with the hypothesis that it came from a faulty valve within an HVAC (or heat pump) unit. If the original source was a failing valve, then it may have gone away completely when the failure was complete.
Is that all this was, some leaky pipe? Or was there something more to this? Was it perhaps something beyond our ability to rationally explain? Whatever it was, the mystery shriek of Forest Grove has never been solved, and continues to baffle all who hear it. Considering that it has not been heard since, there is the very real possibility that we may never know what caused it, but for now it seems as if the residents of the area can rest easy. At least for now.
Sky-Watcher caught Being-Plasma Ball traveling through Space
Sky-Watcher caught Being-Plasma Ball traveling through Space
A sky-watcher David S captured a strange phenomenon through his telescope on the evening of March 2, 2018 around 9.30 pm using a Canon powershot camera with a Celestron 130 telescope with an 18 mm eyepiece and a 2x barlow lens.
The short footage shows a strange object that looks like a kind of transparent plasma ball with a being or alien residing inside the ball.
Image left: Original Enlarged - Image right: Original Enlarged Over Exposed
Despite this kind of phenomenon is not yet understood, it is not the first time images have been captured of orbs or plasma balls that show beings residing inside the objects.
Former Pentagon X Files Project Head Reveals US Intelligence Officers Leak UFO Footage Themselves To Get More Pieces of the Puzzle
Former Pentagon X Files Project Head Reveals US Intelligence Officers Leak UFO Footage Themselves To Get More Pieces of the Puzzle
Defence officials need help from the public after all to find answers on top secret UFO videos. Former head of real life X-Files programme of the Pentagon revealed that defence officials leak UFO footage themselves to the public in a bid to find answers.
Luis Elizondo, the former top secret programme head, revealed that the releasing of two strange videos of UFO encounters late in 2017 was intended to ask help from the public in solving these mysteries by putting together more pieces of the puzzle.
The Pentagon confirmed back in December the existence of the $22 million programmed which investigated UFO sightings from 2007 to 2012.
In a recent video clip, Elizondo claims that the defence officials declassified and released the footages themselves so that members of the public could try identifying the mysterious objects in those videos.
The Pentagon claimed that the funding for the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and its operation ceases in 2012 but Elizondo said that the program itself had not ended. The bombshell revelations provide the clearest insight so far on the secret UFO project of the Pentagon.
Elizondo has promised to reveal some more information as long as it has been approved for release. Ufologist Alejandro Rojas said that the insider’s view of Elizondo is invaluable.
Humans Are Being Alien Abducted. Why Is It Happening?
Humans Are Being Alien Abducted. Why Is It Happening?
People forget that Cthulhu is not actually evil, he’s amoral. He just doesn’t care about you one way or the other. These aliens could be the same way. So all the fear you endure, the tears, the pain from their experiments, all the things you feel from their research; it means nothing. They’re just insignificant reactions to them. Not because they’re sociopaths, but because they just don’t give a shit about humanity either way. They just want to come here, do the research they were going to do, and get the hell off this crazy monkey planet.
Let’s say that there are aliens and they live in the closest star system to us, Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is about 4.2 light years away. It will take us tens of thousands of years to travel that distance with our current technology. If they can cross that distance, that would mean that they are really smart cookies.
The aliens would have to cross the void of space very quickly for it to be practical to do research about another sentient species in another star system. If it took them thousands of years to cross the gap, they would likely be looking to colonize. If it took hundreds of generations to travel somewhere, it would be pointless to even send a scouting mission, as it would take hundreds of generations to get any data. When space travel is that slow, traveling vast distances would have to be an all or nothing effort. So if they were sending only a few researchers over (as a ship that can support generations of life forms would be easily detected), that would mean that they were crossing the void at least fast enough for time dilation to take effect so a few researchers can survive the journey. This means that they are really really smart cookies.
Now technology that uses energy will give off some form of radiation as a waste product. This is because the laws of the universe prevent things from being 100% percent efficient. (This is why phones, tablets, and computers heat up during use). If they had the technology to travel that quickly and then slow down in our solar system (as an object in motion stays in motion and if one had enough energy to go 50% the speed of light, for example, they would need just as much energy to slow back down), it would give off radiation that would be detectable to us. Even if their technology is 99.9% efficient, it would give off some radiation that we could detect.
And don’t forget that 0.1% of the energy needed to slow down from 50% light speed is still a lot of energy. Along with that, they would need to communicate back to their homeworld any data they gather. This would also be something we could pick up on. If they established a base of operations in the solar system, then the energy used to power the technology keeping them alive and processing data would also give off some radiation signature.
We have probes all over the place. The various rovers and satellites would have picked up something if they were on Mars. The sphere of satellites around Earth and the moon would pick up something if they were there. Juno would likely pick up on something if they were on one of Jupiter’s moons. Cassini would found them if they were on one of Saturn’s moons. Flybys of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto likely would have found them out if they were there. And if they were on Mercury or Venus, Earth would have been between them and Proxima Centauri multiple times, so we would have stumbled upon their communications with sensors here on Earth. For us to not detect them means that they have found a way to hide their radiation from us. This means that they are really really really smart cookies.
Given that they are hiding their existence from us, and they aren’t trying to make their presence known far and wide without a shadow of a doubt to Earth’s people (or at least the scientific community), they aren’t trying to make first contact.
One could argue that they are making contact with the government and the government is hiding this from us, but this logic is flawed. First, meeting aliens is a big fucking deal. The US government could barely keep the contents of the patriot act secret for as long as it did. That was leaked in about a decade. A big deal like this would likely be leaked much faster by a whistleblower, assuming a hacker doesn’t beat them to it. Second, scientists want information to be seen by many so they can use their knowledge to advance mankind. There would be no reason for a scientist to hide this information from everyone, so this makes the odds of a whistleblower revealing this more likely. Lastly, the US government is likely not the only government that they would make contact with, and one of these governments is likely to be less deceptive to its populace than the US is. Let’s say that they also contacted Denmark, and Denmark is transparent to its citizens about first contact. The news will spread over Twitter in literal seconds, making any US efforts to hide first contact pointless.
So they aren’t here to be known. They also aren’t here to take resources. Given that they can cross multiple light year gaps in space and can hide any waste radiation that they produce, the aliens are very advanced. The difference in technology between them and us would be greater than that between us and an ant hill. Remember when I said they were “really really really smart cookies”. That was a massive understatement. They could get any resource they want in abundance from the solar system without getting close to the Earth. Metals and minerals are common in the asteroid belt. Gases can be taken from the gas giants. Heck, if they needed a specific molecule, they could just siphon hydrogen from Jupiter, use nuclear fusion to convert it into the atoms they need, and arrange the atoms into the molecules they need. They have no reason to visit earth and would likely leave us alone. If there was a convoluted scenario they did need a non-living thing from Earth, they could just bulldoze the planet. Again, we are an anthill to them.
So that leaves research. They’ve taken great efforts to hide their presence from us, so they want to keep the research a secret. Why would they take humans at night, then return them to tell their friends that the aliens are there? To reiterate, we are ants to them. If they were doing any level of research on us they would know, based off of news stories, that it isn’t uncommon for someone to go missing and never be found again, or found several years later as a corpse in a river or something. If they killed their test subjects, they will remain hidden.
But if they do take people at night and return them, why would they do so?
It wouldn’t be a moral reason. Again, they would see our media and know that contact with an advanced alien species would topple religion, cause several revolutions, and a war or two may be started. At the very least, mass rioting would ensue. More humans would die if their presence was known. Why let one person live when it dooms a hundred to die?
So maybe they want their presence to be known, a little. They keep the major giveaways of their presence hidden, so most people think that their existence is improbable at best. Yet they let one or two people see them and make everyone else think that the people who saw them are crazy. They may also mess with some NASA footage now and again to make their presence kinda known, but not common knowledge. Then they sit back and watch the show.
I bet that this would turn into some entertainment to them. They watch as the hairless monkey creatures squabble amongst themselves about the existence of magical creatures from the sky. They would now be laughing their asses off as they watch Ancient Aliens. It is utterly hilarious that some people will credit their entire civilization to beings that the scientific community doesn’t even have strong evidence to prove their existence. If they were messing with us, there is no way they could have expected Ancient Aliens to be made.
If there were aliens that shaped the course of human civilization, they likely already have enough notes on us to make abductions pointless today. If a different race of aliens came to us, they would likely also know of the aliens that already shaped our civilisation and opt to trade notes instead of doing their own research (That, and the existence of one race of aliens is already unlikely, so the odds that there are two races close enough to us to do research on us, and the odds that, if they both existed, both managed to remain as hidden from us as well enough that their existence is considered a conspiracy theory to most people today, are astronomical).
But, if you are a follower of William of Ockham (Occam’s Razor) it leaves us with the following scenario.
Aliens are not taking us, it’s a sleep disorder thing. Before aliens were invented, people would say they were taken by demons. This has been going on for many centuries. Humans have several flaws in the way our brains behave under certain stresses. If you experience sleep paralysis, your body will not move and you’re brain will be half asleep. This allows dream-like images to become part of the real world. Your brain will make up stories about why you can’t move and you can easily hallucinate animals, aliens, or a succubus. Imagine half waking up and not being able to do anything. Imagine the fear of struggling to move, but thinking you’re being held down. It’s natural that your brain would go through all of the possibilities and arrive at something you fear. With most people that fear is something getting in your house, violating your body, and doing it all while you’re utterly defenseless.
Your hypnogogic state will seem just as real to you as when you are awake. That is because the same parts of the brain that create your daytime reality are the ones that are utilized in your hallucinatory state.
Of course, that does not answer to the claims of multiple people being abducted at the same time or wide awake abductions that happen nowhere around bedtime. It all comes down ultimately to the evidence. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence in peoples accounts of being taken but absolutely nothing else of substance.
With the recent release of the Pentagon’s UFO footage, which comprised of two videos filmed by U.S. Navy pilots of objects performing maneuvers that defy our current understanding of aerodynamics, the topic of UFOs has once again grabbed headlines around the world.
The video was a step forward towards disclosing the fact that there are unknown objects in our atmosphere that are commonly spotted and tracked on radar by defence authorities. They are highly technologically advanced, more so than any air-craft which is available in any global inventory at the moment.
Further to this, many people have had strange sightings that don’t really ‘make sense,’ in the realm of known aircrafts. The frequency of these sightings are not uncommon these days, especially for avid star gazers.
Haven’t seen one yourself? Well, how often are you looking up into the night sky? For many people, the answer is little to never.
Who Man’s These Craft’s?
The next question to be asked is, are these objects, or at least some of them, extraterrestrial?
According to one of the pilots who filmed the UFO released by the Pentagon, yes, they are, at least that’s their belief. The Pentagon’s “aerial defence” program director, Luis Elizondo also shared his belief that they are, along with hundreds of other high ranking personnel from several branches of military, intelligence, academia, aerospace and academia. He said that there is plenty of evidence to make that connection… The most recent example might be Robert Bigelow, founder of the Bigelow Aerospace corporation who, not long ago, stated that he knows we are being visited, and have been visited by ET’s.
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. . . . I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
Ancient history is fascinating to say the least, and we’ve discovered so much about it. But, at the same time, we still know very little about Earth’s history and even the history of humanity. One of the most fascinating points to make about ancient history is that much of which was once considered mythological, is actually turning out to be true.
Perhaps information that didn’t fit within our framework of accepted knowledge was deemed mythological? How can we take seriously the writings of ancient Greek philosophers when describing social life and other aspects of humanity, yet when it comes to other areas of theworld, like the Oracle at Delphi, they are placed in a the mythological realm?
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Perhaps some was mythological, but perhaps some of what we call mythological was actually real.
Another great example is the Lost Land of Atlantis, a highly technologically advanced civilization that would shake what we thought we knew of human history, it’s not so much a tale anymore, and it’s one of many examples that show what we’ve been taught may not be completely correct.
For anybody who has done their research in this area, it’s quite clear given the evidence we now have, that Atlantis was far from a mythological place. Given our research on Atlantis, and many scholars out there, Atlantis is no joke, and perhaps before that, Lemuria as well.
This is why when it comes to stories of figures like Quetzalcoatl, it’s always interesting to contemplate that they were real.
The video footage mentioned above, which was released by the Pentagon, was done so in conjunction with To The Stars Academy headed by Tom Delonge, along with Luis Elizondo (mentioned earlier), and several other figures who’ve held high level positions within the Department of Defence. The Pentagon is working with the academy in the disclosure of UFO’s.
That in itself is a completely different discussion with many implications. It’s hard to trust the government these days, so can we really trust them with UFO disclosure and what that means? Will leave this for another time.
Delonge recently made some interesting comments about his experiences so far, and the contacts he’s been able to make, and the discussions that have been had.
“I went and met a former director of the CIA and NSA…Right when I sat down and told him about the book you know what he says to me? He goes, “I didn’t read much science fiction when I was a kid but I read a lot about Greek mythology”…The sixth biggest defense contractor in the world is a company called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)…and in the front of the building (SAIC’s headquarters) you have an obelisk coming out of a fake leg and two Atlantians on thrones, and they’re both holding pyramids and one says the past and one says the future, and they’re 8 foot tall statues.”
So, who was Quetzalcoatl? Considered to be a mythical tale, Spanish chronicler Juan de Torquemada states that Quetzalcoatl was ‘a fair and ruddy complexioned man with a long beard. Another describes him as follows:
“A mysterious person…a white man with strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, and a flowing beard. He was dressed in a long, white robe reaching to his feet. He condemned sacrifices, except of fruits and flowers, and was known as the god of peace…When addressed on the subject of war he is reported to have stopped up his ears with his fingers.” (source)
Graham Hancock, one of the world’s foremost researchers into such things, describes another description from Central American Mayan tradition in his book, Fingerprints of the Gods:
“He came from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles. He was a tall, bearded white man who taught people to use fire for cooking. He also built houses and showed couples that they could live together as husband and wife; and since people often quarrelled in those days, he taught them to live in peace.”
This figure is spoken of the Mesoamerican culture.
It’s interesting because there are multiple accounts of various figures, not just Quetzalcoatl, all of which seemed to have provided humanity with a little ‘push’, here and there, and assistance with regards to discovery. Nothing was really done for humanity, it seemed that the common theme through all of these contacts was for us to better ourselves, and be responsible for our own progression, with a little bit of assistance.
Not all of the ‘gods’ were kind, loving and peaceful. There were others who required sacrifices, and seemed to almost be a little opposite of ones like Quetzalcoatl.
What’s also interesting is that the descriptions of Quetzalcoatl resemble modern day descriptions of some, supposed extraterrestrial beings. Those who have examined the lore, like myself, would know this. Could these have been who we consider today, benevolent extraterrestrial beings? Perhaps.
Ancient history, along with many ancient cultures who pre-date modern-day religion, all have very interesting stories which can easily be interpreted has highly advanced beings from another place.
The idea that these are just mere interpretations seem to be dwindling every year. Being an avid researcher in the field for more than a decade, I can tell you that extraterrestrial intelligence is just the tip of the iceberg. It truly does open up Pandora’s box, and there is much more to this universal story, so much so that we probably couldn’t even comprehend it.
The evidence today points to the idea that we’ve been visited for a long time, so to contemplate the idea that these were extraterrestrial visits is not out of the question.
“There are objects in our atmosphere which are technically miles in advance of anything we can deploy, that we have no means of stopping them coming here … [and] that there is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations….Who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.”
–Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)
If they have been here as well as visiting us for a long time, that’s good news. It takes out the idea of an ‘extraterrestrial invasion’, because, if that were the case, it would have already happened by now.
To find all of our archived articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial phenomenon, you can visit theexopolitics section of our website.
The meaning of Quetzalcoatl is “feathered serpent,” this is the translation that comes from ancient South America, from the Maya and the Aztecs. In Hancock’s book, he goes on to describe how there were other entities who resembled Quetzalcoatl quite closely:
“There were other deities, among the Maya in particular, whose identities seemed to merge closely with those of Quetzalcoatl. One was Votan, a great civilizer, who was also described as pale-skinned, bearded and wearing a long robe. Sholars could offer no translation for his name but his principal symbol, like that of Quetzalcoatl, was a serpent. Another closely related figure was Itzamana, the Mayan god of healing, who was robed and bearded individual, his symbol, too, was the rattlesnake.”
Graham, in his book, goes on to state:
“All of the legends stated unambiguously that Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan/Gucumatz/Votan/Itzamana had arrived in Central America from some-where very far away (across the “Eastern Sea”) and that amid great sadness he had eventually sailed off again in the direction whence he had come.”
This is an interested quote, and relates closely to a sentiment shared by a First Nations Canadian storyteller, Richard Wagamese:
“My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.” (source)
Interesting to think about. These are versions of history that old more plausibility to them than the ones we currently consider concrete. As we continue to move forward exponentially, perhaps our destiny is in the stars and we ourselves one day will be the extraterrestrials, or perhaps we already are.
There May Be Alien Life In Our Solar System, Say Experts
There May Be Alien Life In Our Solar System, Say Experts
According to scientists, certain microbes can develop and produce methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen under extrapolated conditions on Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon, according to a study published in Nature.
What does this mean? Well, it means that there’s a very high chance that we may not be the only life forms in our solar system, and that aliens are…real.
Satun’s satellite has been found to have a warm underground ocean and strange hydrothermal vents which may help support life, according to experts. Now, new research has offered groundbreaking evidence that certain microbes could survive in the moon’s ocean.
Enceladus’s plumes.
Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Now, scientists which refer to Enceladus as a hot spot in the search for alien life have discovered how certain methane-producing microbes on Earth, have the ability to survive extremely harsh conditions which may exist on Enceladus.
Furthermore, scientists explain how methane found around Enceladus’ surface may have been produced by microbial life, located just beneath its icy crust.
According to the cited scientific publication, prokaryotic microorganisms known as methanogenic archaea could develop under certain conditions assumed on Enceladus, using carbon dioxide and molecular hydrogen for growth, releasing methane.
Enceladus as seen from afar across Saturn’s rings.
Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
“I’m pleased people are starting to take deep looks at biological methane production,” says Christopher Glein, a geochemist and planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute speaking to WIRED. “The next step is doing this hard work in the lab to figure out what life might look like from a spacecraft instrument’s point of view.”
To reach this conclusion, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna cultivated three of these microorganisms in the laboratory, under gas compositions and pressures similar to those attributed to Enceladus. One of the microbes, called Methanothermococcus Okinawensis, grew and produced methane, even in the presence of components that inhibited the growth of other methanogenic archanes, such as ammonia, carbon monoxide or formaldehyde.
This graphic shows how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of the ocean of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, producing hydrogen gas.
In addition, scientists found that serpentinization – a process in which rocks are geochemically altered – that possibly occurred in the Enceladus nucleus, could generate enough hydrogen to support these prokaryotic microorganisms.
The recently obtained results support the idea that methanogenic archaea could, in theory, develop and produce methane in Enceladus. However, experts warn that methane can also be generated by geochemical, not biological, processes.
To find out whether or not Enceladus may in fact be an alien homeworld, “Future missions to Enceladus or other icy moons should be equipped to be able to detect methanogenic biosignatures related to methanogens, like certain lipids or ratios of certain carbon isotopes,” said study co-author Simon Rittmann, of the Department of Ecogenomics and Systems Biology at the University of Vienna in Austria, in an interview with space.com.
Record Breaker! Powerful Supernova Is Most Distant Ever Seen
Record Breaker! Powerful Supernova Is Most Distant Ever Seen
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
This animation shows the appearance of the superluminous supernova DES16C2nm, which occurred 10.5 billion years ago. It is the farthest star explosion ever seen, scientists say.
Credit: Mat Smith and DES collaboration
An extraordinarily powerful "superluminous supernova" that occurred 10.5 billion years ago is the most distant star explosion ever observed, a new study reports.
The Big Bang occurred about 13.8 billion years ago, which means that light from the superluminous supernova (SLSN) has been streaking through space for about three-quarters of the universe's existence.
Astronomers first spotted SLSNs just a decade or so ago. As the name suggests, these objects are extreme versions of "normal" supernovas. Several different phenomena may trigger these events, including the infall of material onto neutron stars, the rapidly rotating corpses of once-massive stars, study team members said. [Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions]
The newfound SLSN is known as DES16C2nm, because it was first spotted by the Dark Energy Survey, an international research effort that aims to better understand the mysterious force thought to be responsible for the universe's accelerating expansion. The initial detection came in August 2016; DES16C2nm's brightness and distance were confirmed two months later by astronomers using the Very Large and Magellan telescopes in Chile and Hawaii's Keck Observatory.
"It's thrilling to be part of the survey that has discovered the oldest known supernova," study lead author Mathew Smith, of the University of Southampton in England, said in a statement. "DES16C2nm is extremely distant, extremely bright, and extremely rare — not the sort of thing you stumble across every day as an astronomer."
The superluminous supernova DES16C2nm flares up as a glowing dot in a region of space that had previously been dark.
Credit: Mat Smith and DES collaboration
The discovery of DES16C2nm holds more than mere gee-whiz value, Smith added.
"The ultraviolet light from SLSN informs us of the amount of metal produced in the explosion and the temperature of the explosion itself, both of which are key to understanding what causes and drives these cosmic explosions," he said.
DES16C2nm may not keep its distance record for lon
"Finding more distant events, to determine the variety and sheer number of these events, is the next step," study co-author Mark Sullivan, also of the University of Southampton, said in the same statement. "Now [that] we know how to find these objects at even greater distances, we are actively looking for more of them as part of the Dark Energy Survey."
The Dark Energy Survey is a five-year project that kicked off in 2013. It uses a 570-megapixel camera, mounted on a telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes, to study 300 million distant galaxies throughout the cosmos.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that DES16C2nm lies 10.5 billion light-years from Earth. Because of the expansion of the universe, the object is actually much farther away than that. The previous version also equated SLSN with hypernovae; in reality, these are two similar but distinct types of star explosions.
‘Giant’ 300,000-Year-Old Hand Axes Used By Mystery Ancestor Found In Spain
‘Giant’ 300,000-Year-Old Hand Axes Used By Mystery Ancestor Found In Spain
Researchers have uncovered ‘giant’ hand axes believed to date back between 200,000 and 300,000 years. It is believed the hand axes were used by a mysterious human ancestor to cut prey in prehistoric Europe, report experts.
The ‘giant’ tools were used by ancient man to process hard materials such as wood and carcasses and were discovered at an archaeological site at Proto Maior in Spain.
Furthermore, a recent study carried out on the giant hand axes, suggests that there may have been two species of ancient humans, who lived close to each other for long periods of time.
Image Credit: Eduardo Mendez Quintas
One group used technologies recently imported from Africa, while the others were long-standing residents.
In Porto Maior, located in Galicia, a group of archaeologists, led by experts from the National Center for Human Evolution Research, have found an important repository of large tools dating back nearly 300,000 years.
The tools have a distinctive style known as Acheulian, which is seen much more frequently in Africa and the Middle East than in Europe.
The nature of the finding suggests that humans may have used these tools to cross the Mediterranean 300,000 years ago, but we have no idea how.
It also shows that the Acheulean style coexisted for a long period of time with another style of tools, most likely belonging to a different species of primitive humans.
The conclusions, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, point out that although similar tools had already been found in southwestern Europe, they had never been found in this amount. Experts have recovered a total of 159 pieces, with a weight of 118 kilograms.
The pieces are larger and heavier than those found in other parts of Europe, while they are consistent with those of other continents.
‘Porto Maior introduces further complexity to this overlapping technological pattern, and suggests that distinct early human populations of different geographical origins coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene (between 773,000 and 125,000 years ago)’, researchers, led by Dr. Martina Demuro, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide wrote in the Conversation.
To explain this finding, two theories are currently considered by experts.
The first involves an African population crossing the Mediterranean, while the second indicates an independent invention of a very similar style.
The defenders of the second theory call attention to the subtle differences between the European findings and those of Africa.
The authors of the study, on the other hand, are inclined towards the African option, arguing; “Any hypothetical reinvention of Acheulian technology in Europe would have occurred 1 million years after the appearance of Acheulean in Africa in a different environmental and technocultural context, and most likely by a human species that was very different from Homo ergaster, the species responsible for this technology.”
“The discovery of Porto Maior is further evidence of the arrival of this technology from Africa, given the similarities that the site shares with deposits of African tools,” conclude experts.
Featured image credit:The large tools are consistent with a culture known as Acheulean.Eduardo Mendez Quintas
Are The Mysterious Dogu Figurines Depictions Of Ancient Astronauts?
Are The Mysterious Dogu Figurines Depictions Of Ancient Astronauts?
The so-called Dogu are relatively small humanoid figures made at the end of the Jōmon period (14,000-400 BC) in Japan. The curious figurines have a number of strange characteristics that make them some of the most unique pieces of ancient art on the surface of the planet.
What do the Dogu have that makes them so mysterious?
Well, if you look at them, they kinda’ resemble some sort of humanoid wearing a suit? Maybe a spacesuit? The figurines are depicted with helmets or goggles. They are also depicted having strangely shaped ‘elongated’ heads, and some of them have almond shaped eyes. The eyes are nearly always depicted disproportionally in relation to the body.
The most interesting part perhaps is the fact that the Dogu Figurines are meant to represent the ‘Gods’.
Shakōki-dogū (遮光器土偶) (1000–400 BCE), “goggle-eyed type” figurine. Tokyo National Museum
Most Dogu figures have breasts, small waist, and large eyes and are considered by many to be representations of goddesses. Many have a large abdomen associated with a pregnancy, suggesting that the Jomon considered them to be mother goddesses.
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these figures “suggest an association with fertility and shamanic rites.”
Made of clay, these figures take on many fascinating forms.
The Dogu tend to have large faces, small arms, hands, and a compact body. Some seem to wear glasses or have “heart-shaped” faces.
Most have marks on their faces, chests, and shoulders. Nearly all of the Dogu figures have been discovered in graves or stone circles, indicating through the location they were discovered in, some sort of religious or shamanistic use.
Experts have identified four types of Dogu figurines:
Another interesting fact is that the Dogu figurines are believed to be exclusive to the Jōmon period and disappeared in the next historical period, the Yayoi period.
Regarding the Jomon ceramics, the Dogu have several styles depending on the area and type of associated exhumation. According to the National Museum of Japanese History, researchers have recovered around 15,000 Dogu figurines so far. Most of the Dogu have been found in eastern Japan and it is rare to find any in the west of the country.
Despite the fact that the figurines were associated with the Gods, the exact purpose of the Dogu is not yet clear, but most likely the Dogu acted like the effigy of people manifesting some kind of magic or shamanic purposes. As noted by Timothy Insoll, author of the book “The new hakodate jomon culture center, minamikayabe, Japan” it may have been believed that illnesses could be transferred into the Dogu, then destroyed, clearing the illness, or any other misfortune.
Gods or Ancient Astronauts?
Well, what’s the difference, right?
Ancient Astronaut theorists offer interesting explanations. Some authors believe that these figurines represent otherworldly visitors, extraterrestrial beings that came to Earth thousands of years ago.
The Dogu figurines appear humanoid but are certainly anything but human. The mysterious ‘suit’ that some of these figures appear to wear, helmets, and what some describe as goggles are just a few of the characteristics unfamiliar with that period in human history. This raises a few interesting questions: Did the ancient artists see beings that resembled the Dogu? Or are the mysterious figures the result of ancient mankind’s imagination?
Given the enigmatic nature and peculiar characteristics of the figurines, the Dogu have been part in numerous controversial theories. As noted by popular researcher and best-selling author Erich von Däniken, the Dogu (referred in the text as the “Japanese statue of Tokomai”) “…have modern fastenings and eye apertures on their helmets”, an attribution made in the final chapter of his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?.
Nick Pope is one of the world’s leading experts on conspiracy theories. He has discussed the subject on numerous TV shows, and written news stories and features about conspiracy theories (including tie-in publicity material for the second X-Files movie, and extensive material for truTV’s Conspiratorium), covering topics that include JFK, the moon landings, 9/11, UFOs, and many other conspiracy theories – some well-known, others less well-known. If you’ve ever read one of those media features listing the world’s top 10 conspiracy theories, it may well have been written by Nick Pope!
Having investigated UFOs for the British Government, Nick Pope has been the subject of some conspiracy theories himself, with many people believing that he was part of a government cover-up aimed at hiding the truth about UFOs. Despite having left the UK’s Ministry of Defense in 2006, the belief that he’s still secretly working for the government is widely held in the conspiracy theory community.
Nick Pope is a conspiracy theory skeptic. While he thinks that challenging the government’s position on issues is an important part of any free, open and democratic society, he believes that many conspiracy theories arise from a lack of critical thinking, and a poor knowledge of the way in which government works. He’s particularly concerned when conspiracy theories are used as justification for anti-Semitic views, or have fueled the anger of people with mental health issues.
In his work as an author, journalist and broadcaster, Nick Pope has covered conspiracy theories extensively. The following article is a distillation of his current position, and is meant as a quotable resource for academics, students, journalists and other media professionals looking at the subject.
Introduction
This article is a personal overview of the conspiracy theory ‘genre’. While I’ll be citing a few individual conspiracy theories to illustrate some particular points, it’s not my intention to drill down into any individual conspiracy theories in great detail here. Many others have done this and in a sense, the purpose of this article isn’t to debate whether any individual conspiracy theories are true or false, but to make some more general observations about the subject as a whole.
Personal Background
I write this article with a number of different hats on. Firstly, I worked for the British Government for 21 years, at the Ministry of Defense (MoD). Accordingly, I have considerable knowledge of the way in which government works and – in relation to the topic in hand – have a pretty good idea of the boundaries: what governments do and what they don’t do. Secondly, one of my MoD jobs involved investigating UFO sightings reported to the Department, as well as handling policy, media enquiries and public correspondence on the issue. Given that many people believe the MoD is covering up the truth about UFOs, this exposed me directly to accusations concerning conspiracy theories. Thirdly – and related to the previous point – despite having left the MoD in 2006, I’m the subject of a conspiracy theory myself. The accusation is that my departure from MoD was a ruse and that I’m still secretly on the payroll, with a role variously described as being either to put out disinformation about UFOs, to infiltrate/discredit the UFO community, to acclimatize people to an extraterrestrial reality ahead of ‘Disclosure’ (official confirmation of extraterrestrial visitation), or to promote belief in (non-existent) extraterrestrials ahead of a “false flag alien invasion”. Such mutually-contradictory theories are not unusual in the conspiracy theory community – see, for example, the work done by Dr. Karen Douglas at University of Kent, who discovered that those who believed Osama bin Laden was already dead before the US raid that purportedly killed him in 2011 were also more likely to believe that he is still alive. Fourthly, I now work as a journalist and broadcaster covering – among other subjects – conspiracy theories. Fifthly, through speaking at various conferences, I have had considerable exposure to the conspiracy theory community.
One of Nick Pope's newspaper features on consipiracy theories
Definitions and Terminology
This subject is not helped by the lack of agreed terminology and definitions of words and phrases such as “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory”, or by the relationship with words like “collusion”. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines conspiracy as “an agreement between two or more persons to do something criminal, illegal or reprehensible” – but what constitutes “reprehensible” is a subjective judgement. The OED defines collusion as “a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others”.
Related to this is the way in which “conspiracy theorist” is sometimes used as a pejorative. This is unhelpful, given that some conspiracy theories are true, and it leads to situations where 9/11 conspiracy theorists refer to the US Government’s version of what took place as the “OCT” (Official Conspiracy Theory). This dogfight over language muddies the waters before we even get to the issues.
It’s worth noting that the conspiracy theory community has a number of linguistic tropes. “Sheeple” is used to describe people who are not “awake” in a political sense and tend not to question the ‘party line’. Such terms are combined in phrases like “wake up, sheeple”. “Crisis actors” are people alleged to play the parts of grieving relatives or bystanders at fake mass-shootings or terror attacks. The bad guys in the conspiracy theory universe are sometimes individual governments, but often more shadowy forces such as the Illuminati, the New World Order, or some variation on this theme. Dissent from fellow conspiracy theorists with differing views is often dealt with by stating or implying that the dissenter is a “shill”, secretly working with the bad guys. Conspiracy theorists know just enough about the world of intelligence to be familiar with terms such as “useful idiot”, “disinformation”, “psyop”, “agent provocateur”, “false flag” and “cointel”, without really understanding the realities.
Dissent from outside the conspiracy theory community is generally ignored. The Popular Mechanics investigation into the most widely held 9/11 conspiracy theories is often dismissed out of hand, as is the 9/11 Commission Report. Most 9/11 conspiracy theorists haven’t read the latter, and justify this by saying that it’s obvious propaganda and is itself part of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy Theories and Government
It’s an important but often overlooked fact that a common thread that runs through most conspiracy theories is that the event under discussion generally involves government or some official agency. Only a very few conspiracy theories (e.g. “Paul McCartney is dead”) don’t involve the government and even here, one can make a case for saying that ‘Big Business’ is an extension of government in the minds of conspiracy theorists, and that there were obvious financial reasons for covering up McCartney’s death. But the fact that most conspiracy theories revolve around the supposed actions of government, the military and the intelligence agencies is extremely important in understanding the root causes of conspiracy theories, and suggests that distrust of government lies at the heart of the matter. Sometimes, however, the tendency to focus on specific conspiracy theories can blind us to such overarching points.
Conspiracy Theories and Popular Culture
It would be remiss not to mention the issue of how conspiracy theories are portrayed in popular culture. In a TV series like The X-Files or in films such as The Matrix trilogy, not only could the main protagonists be categorized as conspiracy theorists and portrayed as heroes, but they live in a world where the conspiracy theories are true and where – in the Matrix universe – reality itself is a lie. Movies like Conspiracy Theory and Mercury Rising are also good examples, as are numerous sci-fi movies dealing with UFOs/extraterrestrials, where part of the plot often involves the government or the military being aware of the alien presence, but trying to keep the knowledge from the public. Arguably, Hollywood portrays conspiracy theories as more likely to be true than is the case in real life, and portrays conspiracy theorists in a more favorable light than the media portrays their real-life counterparts. It’s unclear what effect such a portrayal (generally positive) of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists has (it may act as a partial validation of people’s fringe beliefs, especially if they empathize with ‘heroic struggles’ in conspiracy theory fiction), but it’s worthy of study. It also highlights another irony of the conspiracy theory universe, where people often allege that Hollywood is part of the ‘system’ and – particularly in relation to extraterrestrials – is complicit in a campaign to acclimatize/indoctrinate people to a particular view.
Conspiracy Theories, the Internet, and the Multi-Media World
The internet has played a huge role in giving voices to those who, previously, would have had little or no chance of having their say. Social media sites have played a large part in this too. The Arab Spring is an oft-cited example of this. More generally, there has been a fundamental shift in the concept of journalism, where the center of gravity has moved away from the mainstream news media. A good example of this shift is the fashion industry, where the rising (and arguably disproportionate) influence of a handful of influential bloggers has caused huge tensions, but where changes reflect a new power dynamic. The use of sites such as Twitter to name and shame celebrities who have taken out ‘super injunctions’ to try to prevent negative news stories being published is another example of this.
The internet has had a similar and massive effect upon conspiracy theories. It’s arguable that every issue and point of view has been changed and amplified by the internet, but it seems that alternative viewpoints have been disproportionally affected. Previously, fringe issues often tended to be squeezed out, but they now have more of an outlet.
Tied to this is the increase in media outlets. I was brought up in the UK when there were three TV stations: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Nowadays, there are a multitude of TV stations, and while a lot of material is repeated, there’s more demand for new content than has ever previously been the case. All this broadcasting time – and the same is true for radio – has to be filled, and this gives conspiracy theories an outlet that they have not previously enjoyed. Indeed, some networks such as Edge Media TV (later known as Controversial TV and broadcast on Sky Channel 200) were almost exclusively devoted to alternative views and conspiracy theories.
It’s not clear whether the rise of the internet and the transition to a multi-media society has significantly changed people’s views, as opposed to having held up a mirror to views that were already there. Again, this is a point worthy of further study.
Notwithstanding the above, there remains an odd disconnect. 9/11 conspiracy theories, for example, have a huge ‘internet footprint’, but enjoy comparatively little mainstream media coverage. The same could be said about other topics, such as ‘chemtrails’. Skeptics might say this is a good thing, as it shows that that the ‘evidence bar’ is set at an appropriately high level, which alternative theories about 9/11 have yet to reach. As a journalist, however, my intuitive feeling is that this is wrong, and that even if pretty much every conspiracy theory relating to 9/11 is flawed (as I believe to be the case), the fact that so many people believe otherwise should lead to greater mainstream news media engagement – even if it’s the belief in these conspiracy theories that is, itself, the news story. The danger otherwise is that large numbers of people feel disenfranchised by the media, and believe the media is letting them down by not asking tough questions of the authorities. Worse still, some people may – and do – come to believe that the media (the “controlled media” as various people in the conspiracy theory community are fond of saying) is complicit in the cover-up.
The announcement on the BBC of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 is a good example of how people come to believe that elements of the media are “controlled”. A newsreader announced that the building had collapsed while it was still standing. Only later did it collapse. The building was on fire and the firefighters had been pulled out, so collapse was arguably imminent, but how did the collapse get announced before it had actually occurred? Let’s look at the possible explanations. Had the newscaster misunderstood, or perhaps misheard what the producer said via the earpiece? It was a fast-moving and stressful situation for everyone in the newsroom, and that’s the likely explanation. But a surprising number of people believe that the BBC knew about the collapse in advance (because these people think the whole attack was pre-planned by Western authorities, or elements thereof), but weren’t following the script carefully enough, and thus let the cat out of the bag by announcing a pre-planned event a little too early. As an ex-government official who now works as a broadcaster and journalist, I can’t help but observe how absurd this is: the idea that a small group of conspirators would plan an insidious false flag attack that – if discovered – would shake the Establishment to its core and result in jail terms (and possibly the death penalty) for all those involved – and then tip off one of the largest news organizations on the face of the planet. But for the purposes of this article, the point isn’t whether or not such things are true – which will always be a subject of debate – but whether people believethey’re true, which is undeniably the case. Such a view of the media is unfortunate, because from Watergate in the US to more recent UK stories such as cash for questions, cash for honors and MPs’ expenses, the media actually has a good, proven track record of going after powerful Establishment figures when suspicions or allegations of wrongdoing emerge.
Contradictory Conspiracy Theories
I mentioned earlier the work of Dr. Karen Douglas at University of Kent, who found that those people who believed Osama bin Laden was already dead before the US raid that purportedly killed him were also more likely to believe that he’s still alive. This may seem counter-intuitive, if not downright absurd, but it’s symptomatic of a wider issue with some conspiracy theories, where mutually-contradictory theories are put forward for what’s alleged to be going on. The chemtrail conspiracy is a good example, with some people believing the aim of this supposed chemical spraying campaign is to alter the weather, while others think it’s aimed at behavior modification, or that it’s part of a campaign to poison people, as part of a mass-extermination plan. Clearly, even if chemtrails were real, most conspiracy theory belief about them would be false. We see the same with 9/11 conspiracy theories: some people believe it was an “inside job”, some people believe America “looked the other way”, some people believe aircraft hit the Twin Towers, while other people (the so-called “no-planers”) think the aircraft seen hitting the buildings were holograms and that the buildings were brought down by a controlled demolition (or, at the extreme end of the belief spectrum, some sort of anti-gravity weapon). In situations like this, the proponents of more extreme beliefs are often accused of being shills, infiltrating the so-called “Truth Movement” and discrediting it by making overly ridiculous claims.
Close, But No Cigar
Few conspiracy theories are without some element of half-truth or ambiguity. There are apparently reasonable points that, at first, give one pause for thought. The CIA, for example, was aware of 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, but didn’t put them on the State Department’s TIPOFF watchlist, or inform the FBI. Does this mean that the authorities knew 9/11 was going to happen but “looked the other way”? In fact, such failings are not uncommon, and in most cases are the result of factors such as overwork, information overload and – critically – poor intelligence-sharing between different agencies. On this latter point, inter-agency rivalry, mistrust and even antipathy is much more common than the public (who often view government as a single entity) are generally aware. To these factors can be added the tendency of people entrusted with classified or sensitive information to be overly-protective (particularly in situations where a key concern is to avoid compromising a sensitive source), to the extent that it becomes useless – the intelligence isn’t actionable. So using the Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi example, what may look suspicious to the layperson is immediately recognizable as standard practice to those of us with a background in government/intelligence.
Conspiracy Theories and Science
Related to the above are arguments that may initially seem scientific, but on closer examination (which often doesn’t happen) aren’t. Again, 9/11 provides a nice example. Conspiracy theorists point out that aviation fuel doesn’t burn at a high enough temperature to melt steel. Therefore, they argue, aircraft alone, slamming into the Twin Towers, couldn’t have brought the buildings down. This opens the door to speculation about a controlled demolition. While the argument might initially sound reasonable, more careful consideration leads us to the answer: steel loses its structural integrity at a much lower temperature. This, plus gravity, was more than enough to bring down the buildings.
A basic understanding of science would result in a more informed debate about many conspiracy theories. The chemtrail conspiracy is a good example of this. Undeniably, there have been government/military attempts to modify the weather. Operation Popeye (cloud seeding during the Vietnam War, aimed at making it rain on the Ho Chi Minh trail, thus bogging down the main Vietcong supply route) is a well-documented example of this. So, if chemtrails are real, it’s scientifically plausible that they have something to do with weather control or even climate change. However, researching crop spraying and seeing how low the aircraft have to fly for the spray to have a discernible effect on the crops should – even for believers in chemtrails – eliminate the idea that they have anything to do with poisoning people or modifying their behaviour. You couldn’t target a spray with any degree of accuracy from the heights at which it’s alleged chemtrails are discharged (commercial aircraft cruising height of around 35,000 feet), and any chemicals sprayed from such heights would have a negligible effect on anyone at ground level. In any case, the economy of scale argument could be brought into play – why not simply put chemical into the water supply? Surely even the New World Order would choose a cheaper and easier strategy if one was available! The point is, applying science can eliminate some aspects of a conspiracy theory and result in a more focused debate on that part which remains.
Conspiracy Theories – The Good
Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, and while governments don’t lie as often as many people seem to think, they constantly dissemble and spin. Accordingly, a healthy skepticism in respect of what we’re told by government (and the authorities more generally) is actually a very good thing, and is a healthy indicator of a modern, open, democratic society. More generally, it’s good in terms of critical thinking. So it’s right to doubt and challenge what we’re told by those in power, and to ask searching questions if something doesn’t look or feel right. But there’s a danger in going too far and in assuming that because one conspiracy theory is true, most or all of them are (The few academic studies done into this suggest that if you believe in one conspiracy theory, you’re more likely to believe in others). As ever, the trick is to get the balance right. As the old saying goes, it’s good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
With this in mind, it would be a good thing (and would help a more informed debate) if conspiracy theorists and skeptics could find some common ground in terms of a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. Interestingly, one that’s often cited as true (that the Nazis started the Reichstag fire to discredit the communists and consolidate their power) is the subject of more debate between historians than most people realize. Conversely, few people on either side of the debate are familiar with one of the best documented conspiracy theories in recent years, i.e. the fact that senior figures in the Northern Ireland Office, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Catholic Church knew (or strongly suspected) who was responsible for the bombings in Claudy, County Londonderry, in 1972 (attacks in which nine people died), and that actively conspired to cover it up, because the alleged perpetuator was a Catholic priest. The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman’s 2010 report into the bombing and the subsequent events found that this conspiracy almost certainly took place, and their conclusion was widely reported by the mainstream media – including the BBC.
The review of the original investigation into the Claudy bombings makes interesting reading for those interested in conspiracy theories (on whichever side of the debate) because of what it tells us about inquiries in modern times. When wrongdoing (including conspiracy – even if it’s only a conspiracy of silence) is found, it’s generally exposed, with criticisms being made. The Hutton Inquiry (into the apparent suicide of government weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly) is seen by some as a whitewash, and itself part of a conspiracy to cover up what really happened. But if people use this to imply that all official inquiries are going to give the government an easy ride and support the party line, they’re mistaken. The Saville Report (into the Bloody Sunday shootings) was extremely critical of the Army and concluded that a soldier fired the first shot. Charles Haddon-Cave QC’s report into the fatal crash of an RAF Nimrod aircraft in Afghanistan in 2006 contains damning criticisms of the MoD and defense contractors. The ongoing Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot is likely to contain robust criticisms of various government figures in relation to the Iraq War, though it’s unlikely to support the conspiracy theory that “we went to war on a lie” – i.e. that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Again, all this should be required reading for conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theory skeptics alike, as it’s a useful template for how the authorities respond when things go catastrophically wrong.
Conspiracy Theories – The Bad and the Ugly
There’s a dark side to some conspiracy theories. Firstly, the irony is that while they can sometimes be healthy in terms of encouraging critical thinking, they can also be extremely unhealthy, in terms of people believing unsubstantiated rumors simply because they accord with their (generally anti-Establishment) worldview. Far more worrying, however, are three other factors.
Firstly, some conspiracy theories, particularly those involving a ‘New World Order’, imply that the world is secretly run by a small group of families and corporations – a sort of ‘shadow government’. In relation to such ideas, one often hears the phrase “conspiracy of international bankers” or “small group of families who secretly rule the world”. Often, such wording is used to mask anti-Semitism. The accusation of anti-Semitism is often met with the defense that those involved are only against “Zionism”, but have nothing against Jewish people more generally. In some cases this is true, and on a related issue it’s a dangerous situation where any criticism of the Government of Israel is automatically labeled as being anti-Semitic. But in other cases the defense about being anti-Zionist sounds like a convenient ‘get out’, not a million miles away from the cliché about the racist who begins an argument with a phrase “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got black friends”. Even if not motivated by racism, such views make it easier for racism to take root. At a UFO conference held in Leeds in 2011, for example, a question from the floor turned into a lengthy comment which included the sentiment that Hollywood was “run by the Jews”. Significant numbers of audience members (and even some of the other speakers on the panel) seemed to be nodding in agreement, and only one person in the audience was courageous enough to take the individual concerned to task.
Secondly, medical conspiracies (e.g. those surrounding Swine flu) can be dangerous. Many people believe that certain diseases were bio-engineered deliberately, and that they – and/or the associated vaccination programmes – are part of a conspiracy to exterminate large numbers of people, to bring the world population down to a more manageable/sustainable level and – perhaps – to bring about a New World Order. If people who are ill with such diseases use conspiracy websites to inform their decisions, as opposed to seeking medical advice, the consequences could be fatal. As a practical illustration of this, I once saw a father post a question about vaccinations for his baby on the Facebook wall of a conspiracy theorist who had recently expressed the view that a false flag alien invasion would be staged at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics.
The third – and possibly least commented upon – area where conspiracy theories can be dangerous relates to the feelings of rage and powerlessness that they can engender. With certain personality types, this runs the risk of making them feel they have no stake in the democratic system, and no conventional way for their voice to be heard. Though the situation is not clear-cut, there are very strong indications that John Patrick Bedell (who opened fire on Pentagon police officers in 2010 and was subsequently shot dead) was motivated in part by 9/11 conspiracy theories, and that Jared Lee Loughner (who killed six people in Tucson in 2011) was obsessed with conspiracy theories on 9/11, the New World Order and Mayan prophesies apparently suggesting that the world would end in 2012. This is a controversial area and one on which experts in psychopathology are best-placed to comment. One could doubtless argue that such people would always find something to latch onto, that tips them over the edge. But at the very least, we must be mindful of the negative effects that conspiracy theories can have on individuals, and indeed on groups of people. The think-tank Demos, for example, has done some interesting research into the link between conspiracy theories and extremism.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
There’s an interesting aspect of some conspiracy theories that’s worth knowing if one is to truly understand the mindset of some conspiracy theorists. On one level it looks like a cheap trick, but on another level it offers a useful insight into the conspiracy theory universe. Again, the supposed false flag alien invasion at the 2012 Olympic Games is the perfect example. If it happened, self-evidently proponents of such a theory would have been proved correct and would have claimed credit. But when it didn’t happen, the ‘get out’ was that those involved prematurely exposed the New World Order’s plan and thus forced them to back down. In this case and in others, conspiracy theorists can actually take credit for what, in reality, is nothing more than a failed prediction.
National Differences
As a British citizen who now lives in the United States, the issue of national differences in conspiracy theories is of particular interest to me. It’s noticeable that a number of US conspiracy theories (e.g. those about the Sandy Hook school shootings and the Boston Marathon bombings) revolve around the central premise that the intention is to create an environment where the government will be able to declare martial law and “take away our guns”, thus overturning the right to bear arms that’s enshrined in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Interestingly, proponents of such theories seldom cite what might initially sound like a compelling argument, i.e. the fact that a school shooting in Scotland (the 1996 Dunblane school massacre) did lead to extensive gun control in the UK. However, even if this was to be cited as a precedent for how governments can clamp down on private gun ownership, it would be based on a misunderstanding of the fundamental differences in US and UK public attitudes to firearms, and on a failure to appreciate the unique protections afforded by the Second Amendment. Such factors must be borne in mind when looking at conspiracy theories regarding mass shootings – arguably one of the most prevalent types of conspiracy theory in modern day America.
A Testable Hypothesis
Belief in conspiracy theories clearly has a number of root causes, including mistrust of government, feelings of personal disempowerment, and lack of knowledge of the way in which government, the military and the intelligence agencies work. It seems to me that much of this is testable. On the knowledge of government point in particular, where answers are either right or wrong, it would be possible to conduct double blind experiments which could score someone’s believe in various conspiracy theories and their knowledge of officialdom, to see if there’s a relationship. I’ve discussed this with at least one academic (and have drawn up some questions for a study) but I believe further work in this area would be fruitful.
Conclusion
As I pointed out previously, belief in conspiracy theories has been the subject of comparatively little academic study. Exceptions include the aforementioned Demos work on conspiracy theories and extremism, Cambridge University’s Conspiracy and Democracy project, led by Sir Richard Evans, and a March 2015 conference on conspiracy theories organized by Professor Joseph Uscinski at University of Miami. However, given the profound impact conspiracy theories can have on people’s beliefs and actions, more work is needed, and while I support academic research into this subject, I believe we need to be more inclusive. A wider conversation on the subject needs to take place, involving not just social scientists and academics, but the media and – critically – conspiracy theorists themselves. It’s this latter engagement that will prove most difficult (because of conspiracy theorists’ mistaken perception that conspiracy theory skeptics are Establishment debunkers), but is essential for any proper understanding of the subject. It seems to me that a greater understanding of the conspiracy theory community and their mindset is a prerequisite to such engagement. In this respect, blanket dismissal of such people as crazies is singularly unhelpful.
Conspiracy theories are an important part of contemporary belief. In our globalized society, with its 24/7 media coverage, conspiracy theories start almost immediately after newsworthy disasters, high-profile deaths, and mass-shootings. They then spread rapidly, in our increasingly interconnected world. Even if most popularly-held conspiracy theories are demonstrably false, dismissing conspiracy theory culture in its wider sense would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Rather, we should be asking why people believe such things, and what this tells us, not just about the individuals concerned, but about 21st Century society and culture as a whole.
Who Or How Were Earth’s Ancient Structures Built? Ancient Aliens or Forgotten Technology? … Or Both?
Who Or How Were Earth’s Ancient Structures Built? Ancient Aliens or Forgotten Technology? … Or Both?
Exactly how were the great pyramids in Egypt and Mexico built?
How were the famous Inca & Mayan stones squashed into each other?
How was the great stones of Stonehenge placed high on top of each other?
These questions and many more have fascinated people for centuries. Not only are they structures which were built during periods where technology was supposed to be very basic but the more we learn about them the more they baffle us.
For example, the Sphinx and the Pyramids in Egypt are thought to be older than what we are being told. Geologists say that weathering patterns on the Sphinx show rain damage which puts the building date of the Sphinx well past the date of the Egyptians we are lead to believe were responsible for building it.
The pyramids themselves hold many mysteries, much of it appears as scientific code. The layout of the pyramids in Giza are an exact copy of the stars in the Orion’s Belt constellation. Spread out over miles of Egypt’s land the smaller pyramids also line up with the stars of the same constellation. Is Egypt a star map of where our ancestors came from?
More interesting is the coordinates of the pyramids at Giza in Egypt . Their coordinates are 29.9792458 degrees North and what is the speed of light in a vacuum? 299.792,458 metres per second. Coincidence or planned as a message to modern man?
However it should be mentioned that modern latitude is set so that the prime meridian goes through Greenwich England which did not exist at the time the pyramids were built so whatever system they would have used would not have been this one… unless… they were time travellers and knew what system would be in place several thousand years later. Now that would blow the socks of modern man if that were true!
The pyramids are also mentioned on an ancient Sumerian tablet. The Sumerians were in Egypt thousands of years before the ancient Egyptians who are believed to be responsible for building them. This ages them thousands of years more than what is publicly believed.
The Great pyramid hasn’t dropped more than a feet yet the weight of the structure is immense. Modern skyscrapers are designed to drop more once built. The blocks of stone that the pyramids are made from are huge and weigh so much that even modern cranes would struggle to move them. As far as we know there were no modern cranes around.
So how were they built? How were the big stones of Stonehenge lifted? Were there aliens involved in the construction? Was alien technology used? Was there an Atlantis type super race of ancient humans building these structures or did basic man know more about physics than we believe.
The Mayans, Egyptians and Incas are all supposed to have cosmology knowledge and understanding which far surpassed that of which we believe they should have so did they have a better understanding of quantum physics and the little known vibrational physics than we first thought?
The reason I say vibrational physics is that there is a story of a Swedish dr who went to Tibet in 1939 to visit the Dalai Lama. It is said that while he was there the monks were building a high wall using heavy stones. The story goes that he observed the monks lifting up the heavy stones by levitating them using sound.
The monks set up drums and horns in an arc shape a certain distance away from the stones and then began to make sounds which lifted up the heavy stones and they were then pushed into place. Meditation and Eastern philosophies put a lot of emphasis on sound. Especially the Ohm sound which is the Universal vibration rate sound.
Did our forefathers know something that we are just beginning to understand? Was this kept a secret from us?
The Swedish doctor apparently recorded this on film but the film was confiscated from him by British authorities and never seen again. Funny that?
We know about the law of attraction, things which vibrate with the same or similar frequency are drawn to each other like magnets. We have seen what some metals do when they are near magnets but everything has a vibration and a specific rate so that means that everything can be lifted up like a magnet if you hit the right frequency.
Acoustic Levitation in Egypt – Ancient High Technology
Alien abductees talk about being lifted up out of houses. Do aliens know something about acoustic levitation or vibrational physics? Did they give that knowledge to us years ago and has been kept secret by those in the know or did ancient man know about it but it somehow got forgotten about? Maybe it was lost when modern style governments were formed and knew that there would be no profit or tax in construction if everyone had access to this knowledge.
If you are not sure whether you have been abducted by aliens then use this checklist here to find out:
Another puzzling ancient mystery is the stone walls in south and central America. They have been cut and shaped to fit so tight and snug that even to this day people cannot slide pieces of paper between them.
They are also oddly shaped which is interesting. What people do not know is that how they were carved and made. There have been stories and theories that say that the Ancient Mayan and Incan builders were able to soften the stones and mold them into position.
Megalithic Softening of Stone Part 1
A very old story spoke about how an explorer discovered that a mixture made from plants which were found in central America would somehow soften the stone which was then pushed and molded into shape. How true this is no one knows.
What is interesting is that there are very little scratch and tooling marks to see. We do have thousands of years of weathering so the smallest marks might have been eroded but the stone work across central and south America is pretty impressive.
Maybe the stone was an ancient version of concrete and were molded and fashioned into shapes. This is another theory being put forward today.
What do you think? Were our ancestors smarter than we give them credit for using technology we no longer use or were these impressive structures built by or with the help of Ancient Aliens?
Click the nav button below to read all about the mysterious Bosnian Pyramids.
A Floating 'Brain' Will Assist Astronauts Aboard the Space Station
A Floating 'Brain' Will Assist Astronauts Aboard the Space Station
By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer
CIMON says: "I'm ready to be an astronaut!"
Credit: Airbus
The crew on board the International Space Station (ISS) will soon welcome a new member — one that is 3D-printed from metal and plastic and is described by its creators as "a kind of flying brain."
It goes by the name CIMON, short for "Crew Interactive Mobile Companion." Built by the aerospace design company Airbus in collaboration with IBM, CIMON houses artificial intelligence (AI) in an autonomous, spherical body that would "float" in the space station's microgravity environment, with a screen that can display data readouts for astronauts — or present an image of a friendly face — as well as a voice shaped by IBM's AI technology.
As an "intelligent" machine, CIMON could help the ISS crew to solve problems during their routine work by processing and displaying diagnostic data. But its neural network — a computer system that works like the human brain — would enable it to go a step further and also engage with astronauts as a "colleague," according to the statement.
CIMON weighs about 11 lbs. (5 kilograms) and is already "training" with an astronaut — Alexander Gerst, who represented the European Space Agency (ESA) on the ISS from May to November 2014. Gerst will return to the ISS, bringing CIMON along, from June to October 2018, on ESA's Horizons mission.
Since 2016, a team of 50 technicians has been working to prepare the AI for its trip into space, feeding it data about the ISS and ensuring that the robot can orient itself and move freely. At the same time that CIMON was learning about the layout of the ISS, it was also becoming familiar with its astronaut colleague Gerst, through photos and voice samples.
Once CIMON is in space, astronauts and the AI will work together on a series of tasks that includes working with crystals, solving a Rubik's Cube and performing a medical experiment in which CIMON will serve as an interactive camera, Airbus representatives said in the statement.
This Star Shines with the Light of Millions of Suns!
This Star Shines with the Light of Millions of Suns!
By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor
An image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, home of the newfound neutron star ULX. X-ray light seen by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in purple, while optical light from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is red, green and blue.
Credit: M.Brightman et al./NASA/CXC/Caltech; Optical: NASA/STScI
Astronomers have identified the fourth member of a rare type of celestial object that shines with the brilliance of millions of suns.
Known as ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, these objects were long considered to be black holes. Recent research has identified three of them as extremely dense neutron stars, and now this new finding brings the total of known ULXs to four. The discovery also provides clues about how these objects can shine so brightly.
In the 1980s, astronomers found extremely bright X-ray sources in the outer regions of galaxies, far from the supermassive black holes in their hearts. It wasn't until 2014that observations from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and other space telescopes revealed that some of these objects are actually neutron stars, the dense cores left behind after stars explode in fiery supernovas. [The Strangest Things in Space … Ever]
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers targeted a ULX in the Whirlpool Galaxy, a galaxy with a pronounced spiral structure that lies approximately 28 million light-years away. They found an unusual dip in the light spectrum streaming from the object, which they identified as coming from charged particles circling a magnetic field. Because black holes don't have magnetic fields, the dip signaled that the ULX was instead a neutron star, the scientists said.
With the highest density of any known space object, neutron stars can beam radiation across the galaxy.
Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist
Neutron stars are extremely dense, city-size objects with masses about 1.5 times that of the sun. A teaspoon of material from a neutron star can weigh up to a billion tons, scientists said in a statement. Their extreme gravity can strip material away from a companion star.
That material heats up and emits X-rays as it is pulled into the neutron star, and eventually, that X-rays light overpowers the star's gravity and pushes material away — a point known as the Eddington limit. For the ULX neutron stars, these X-rays are far stronger than their cousins, and scientists aren't sure why. [Related: How Big Are Neutron Stars, Really?]
"In the same way that we can only eat so much food at a time, there are limits to how fast neutron stars can accrete matter," Murray Brightman, lead author of the new study and a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, said in the same statement.
"But ULXs are somehow breaking this limit to give off such incredibly bright X-rays, and we don't know why," Brightman said.
The charged particles circling the magnetic field reveal signatures in a star's spectrum of light known as cyclotron lines, which can provide information about the strength of the stellar magnetic field. But there's a catch. Researchers must know whether the lines are caused by positively charged protons or negatively charged electrons. Currently, they don't have enough information to determine which set of particles are involved.
"If the cyclotron line is from protons, then we would know that these magnetic fields around the neutron star are extremely strong and may in fact be helping to break the Eddington limit," Brightman said. A strong magnetic field could help reduce the pressure from the X-rays that push away the ULX's matter, allowing the star to gobble down more material than a typical neutron star and making it shine so brightly.
If the cyclotron limit is from circling electrons, however, the magnetic-field strength of the ULX would not be especially strong, and the field would play no role in the extreme light pouring from the star.
The researchers plan to acquire more X-ray data on the ULX in the Whirlpool Galaxy and hunt down more cyclotron lines in other ULXs, in hopes of figuring out how neutron stars are overcoming these limits to burn so brilliantly.
"The discovery that these very bright objects, long thought to be black holes with masses up to 1,000 times that of the sun, are powered by much less massive neutron stars, was a huge scientific surprise," said Fiona Harrison, the principal investigator for the NuSTAR mission and a researcher at Caltech. "Now we might actually be getting firm physical clues as to how these small objects can be so mighty."
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
