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.
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
16-03-2018
UFO’s zo groot als een huis deden Nieuw-Zeelanders versteld staan. Wat hebben deze mensen gezien?
UFO’s zo groot als een huis deden Nieuw-Zeelanders versteld staan. Wat hebben deze mensen gezien?
Veertig jaar geleden werden in het Nieuw-Zeelandse Kaikoura enorme UFO’s gespot. Getuigen hebben nog altijd geen flauw idee wat ze indertijd hebben gezien.
In december 1978 verschenen er drie heldere lichten in de lucht boven Kaikoura. De mensen die de lichten zagen, waaronder luchtverkeersleiders John Cordy en Andy Herd, stonden versteld.
De objecten werden zelfs vastgelegd door een Australische cameraploeg, die op dat moment in het gebied aanwezig was.
Huis
Journalist Quentin Fogarty zei dat hij aan de grond genageld stond en dat sommige van de lichten zo groot waren als een huis.
“We zagen een aantal lichten die begonnen als een stipje en uitgroeiden tot grote pulserende bollen die oranje en rood kleurden,” zei hij.
“Ik stond aan de grond genageld en we kregen te horen dat ze zo groot waren als een huis,” voegde hij toe.
Verwarring
De objecten verschenen zelfs op de radar en zorgden bij de luchtverkeersleiding voor verwarring.
De lokale autoriteiten zeiden dat het vissersboten waren of dat het ging om maanlicht dat weerkaatste op een veld met kolen. De mensen die de UFO’s hadden gezien geloofden daar niets van.
“Kom op, een veld kolen? Vissersboten op 4000 meter hoogte?” vroeg Cordy.
Zelfs Herd, die volgens zijn zoon een scepticus was, vond het erg vreemd wat er gebeurde.
Mysterie
“Er was veel voor nodig om hem te laten geloven dat dit iets ongewoons was en dat was precies wat hij geloofde,” zei zoon Daniel Herd.
Wat het mysterie nog groter maakt is een andere reeks UFO-waarnemingen zes jaar eerder, in 1972.
Een Amerikaanse wetenschapper die de lichten had bestudeerd gaf toe dat het geen vissersboten konden zijn geweest.
1978 Kaikoura New Zealand UFO
2010 : The Kaikoura UFO sighting continues to baffle, 30 years on:
Het lijkt erop dat de wereld bewust alle buitenaardse activiteiten in de buurt van vulkanen, naast zich neerlegt.
Het maakt dan ook niet uit hoeveel spectaculaire beelden er verschijnen, het bestaat niet en dus kijken we de andere kant op.
Iets dat systematisch door de wereld wordt genegeerd, zijn de vele buitenaardse activiteiten rondom de voornamelijk Mexicaanse vulkanen. Of in ieder geval activiteiten waar wij de herkomst niet van kennen.
In de loop der jaren zijn er zoveel wonderbaarlijke beelden gezien en toch doet men alsof het niet bestaat, alsof het niet gebeurt en worden gebeurtenissen systematisch genegeerd.
Zo was er enkele dagen geleden bij de bekende Colima vulkaan weer het nodige te bewonderen. Via de webcams die permanent op de vulkanen in Mexico gericht staan, zijn al heel wat bijzondere opnames gemaakt en ook dit keer is het weer raak.
Het volgende is wat er te zien is op de webcambeelden:
Van rechtsboven in het beeld verschijnt een object.
Vervolgens lijkt het te landen op de helling van de vulkaan, waar het een tijdje blijft staan.
Dan vertrekt het weer in dezelfde richting als vanwaar het is gekomen.
De camerabeelden liegen niet. Er vliegt daar een UFO, daarover bestaat geen enkele twijfel.
Volgens ufoloog Scott Waring landt de UFO op de helling van de vulkaan omdat zich daar ergens de ingang bevindt naar de buitenaardse basis diep onder de vulkaan.
Hierna volgen een tweetal video's met beelden. De eerste is een verkorte en de tweede is de originele, langere versie.
Is it possible that portals, mysterious ‘cosmic bridges’ to other points in the universe exist on Earth?
Do these portals lead to other galaxies and extraterrestrial civilizations? While this may sound like nothing more than a conspiracy, or tinfoil material, the truth is that many ancient civilizations firmly believed in such things being possible, and many oral legends exist until today, that recount stories of stargates and portals.
A ‘natural stargate’ is similar to an Einstein-Rosen bridge or ‘wormhole’ which has been theorized to form when space-time is distorted by the intense gravitational fields generated by collapsing stars.
At a singularity point, time would stop as it stretches to infinity as predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
This would make it possible for anyone able to survive even briefly, the intense gravitational fields accompanying a singularity point, to emerge into whatever future date they desired.
Physicists consider it to be theoretically possible for an Einstein-Rosen bridge to form wherein one could even travel back and forth in time.
So a singularity point, at least in theory, offers a means to travel forward or backward in time.
Hierapolis was an ancient city in southwestern Anatolia.
Its ruins are adjacent to modern Pamukkalein Turkey and currently comprise an archaeological museum designated as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site.
In March 2013, Italian archaeologists announced that they had unearthed something the ancient Greeks described as a gateway to Hell.
Ancient mankind was fascinated with the underworld. Both the Greeks and the Romans were connected with the realm of Hades and Pluto.
Written history tells the story of travelers who were able to journey to these mysterious places, and access them somehow, allowing them to travel among the Gods.
But… where are these places? And are they anything more than a myth?
Pluto’s Gate
Pluto’s gate was considered so sacred that only high priests were allowed anywhere near it.
These priests were said to have worshiped a powerful goddess known as Cybele.
Cybele is known as the guardian of the gateways, and ancient legends suggest that needed permission from Cybele to move through time and space.
Iconographically, she is often portrayed as standing next to the gate to the other world.
Pluto’s gate is just one of the many mysterious sites described through human history that lead to fascinating and “shocking” places. But perhaps even more interesting is the fact that there are countless stories similar to this one.
In many instances, these gates did not only grant instant passage outside our own planet but even beyond space and time.
And according to countless myths, these passages were traversed by otherworldly beings.
Throughout the history of mankind, we know of many stories and legends (even creation myths) of advanced beings who somehow, came from the stars. These beings were referred to as star beings or Gods.
These mysterious star beings are often described as passing through portals or star doors, hence the definition of Stargate.
But is this only a myth or where ancient cultures onto something?
Can we find evidence of portals and stargates existing on Earth?
According to several authors, a number of locations across the planet exist where ancient cultures built ‘portals and stargates.’
But why would ancient civilizations build portals or stargates? Is it because the gods came to them through similar gates? Or, as some authors suggest, are these construction the result of ancient man’s imagination?
Or is there something more to these mysterious Stargates.
Could the Ploutonion be an ancient stargate? A location on Earth that allowed multidimensional traveling, protected by mysterious priests who possessed technology and knowledge far beyond our own today.
Let’s travel to South America.
At Machu Picchu in Peru located in the Andes mountains, we find the most famous Inca ruins we know of.
Hidden away in the southwestern corner of what archaeologists believe was the site’s main plaza we find the Temple of Three Windows.
The temple of the three windows is a stone hall 35 feet long and 14 feet wide containing three trapezoidal windows along one wall.
Written texts indicate that the Three Windows were perfectly aligned to let June solstice sunrise come right in at a nearly perfect angle. The building was erected so that the entire structure is oriented to receive the first light as it comes over the mountains through the three windows at the summer solstice, a symbol representing the Incan creation myth.
According to Inca history, the children of the sun god Viracocha stepped into the world through three mysterious openings in a mountain and gave rise to the Incan civilization.
This ancient legend tells that the Ayar Brothers came down through three portals – the windows, to create the Inca people. Furthermore, the temple at Machu Picchu with three windows is said to represent this mysterious event.
Could this event describe ancient stargate technology for otherworldly visitors coming to Peru?
Through these three windows?
Could this be a description of Stargate travel taking place thousands of years ago?
Is there a mysterious connection between the temple of the Three Windows and the Ploutonion?
But does science back up the theory of Stargates and portals? Or are these ideas nothing more than creation myths created by ancient cultures thousands of years ago?
While working at the Institute for Advanced Study, researchers Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen publish a groundbreaking idea which brought Portals and Stargates a step closer to reality.
The scientific duo came to the conclusion that the Theory of Relativity allows for shortcuts across the space-time continuum.
These routes, more commonly referred to as Einstein-Rosen bridges or “Wormholes” have the ability to connect two distant locations, making travel to the most remote stars in the universe a possibility within reach.
The Defense Department ran a secret and now defunct government project to discover the truth about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), revealed by The New York Times in December.
The program had a somewhat bland title: Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification. Just $22 million was spent on the project from 2007 through 2012, when it was shut down. However, an effort to study UFOs remains in existence on a lower-level rung by Defense Department personnel who also have other duties.
The study collected accounts and videos of encounters with UFOs, mainly by military personnel. A reference also exists to buildings where “metal alloys and other materials” said to have been recovered from “unidentified aerial phenomena.” The project was run out of the Pentagon by a man named Luis Elizondo who has since resigned from the Defense Department and is running a private UFO research organization.
While a subsequent story in New York Magazine suggests that there was less than met the eye to the story, mostly due to a dearth of fact checking, a great deal of excitement was kindled in the media. Has the Defense Department discovered evidence of aliens visiting the Earth? If so, why is no one taking about it? Fox Mulder, call your office.
The more fascinating aspect of the story was how the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program came to be. More than 10 years ago, Nevada hotel tycoon and aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow called then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to discuss his theories about aliens visiting the Earth. Reid, intrigued no doubt at the possibility of rewarding an important campaign contributor, arranged for the project to be funded, along with then Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) without a debate on the Senate floor. The project was part of the Pentagon’s black budget.
The funding was directed to Bigelow Aerospace, which conducted the research. The subcontractors hired by Bigelow collected audio and video recordings of UFO encounters and interviewed people who had close contact with the encounters. Some were examined for physical effects of their close encounters.
The story would be just another example of pork barrel spending arranged by a powerful senator for a constituent had it not been about such an exotic subject. Americans have been conditioned to think that at least some UFO phenomenon are alien in origin from movies and TV shows such as “The X-Files.” Many also believe that the government knows about alien visitations and is covering it up for its own nefarious reasons.
The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of UFO incidents can be explained by natural phenomena, misidentified aircraft, and even hoaxes. A handful of instances remain unexplained. However, evidence of alien visitation is thin at best.
A simple thought experiment would suggest that if aliens were visiting the Earth, no one would know about it. Modern militaries have the ability to observe enemies undetected with remotely piloted, stealthy drones. An advanced civilization would be able to do the same to Earth without using huge spaceships hovering about for all to see. Tiny, even microscopic probes would suffice to gather all the data needed about the planet and its volatile inhabitants without anyone being the wiser.
Nor is a vast, government conspiracy to conceal the truth about UFOs likely. According to the BBC, an Oxford mathematician David Grimes concluded that the more people are in on a conspiracy, the sooner it is likely to come to light. That’s why people find out about real conspiracies, such as Watergate and Iran Contra, and they find that phony conspiracies, such as faking the moon landing, 9/11 being an inside job, and aliens landed at Roswell do not exist.
Does that mean we should ignore unexplained UFO phenomena? Decidedly not. If the small number of unexplained UFO phenomena are not aliens, they could constitute a threat of a more terrestrial origin.
However, Bigelow, for all of his accomplishments, is the wrong man to conduct such a study. He is too emotionally invested in alien visitation to have an open mind. A serious examination of UFOs should be conducted by scientists and other experts with no preconceived notions, much like the Air Force’s Project Blue Book of the 1950s and 1960s. The study should be done as transparently as possible, so that its results will be widely accepted by all but the most credulous.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
PENTAGON 'UFO COVER UP': Area 51 whistleblower on US Government and military sightings
PENTAGON 'UFO COVER UP': Area 51 whistleblower on US Government and military sightings
A FORMER senior Pentagon official has spoken about the US Government's handling of alleged UFOs witnessed by military personnel. Chris Mellon, who served deputy assistant secretary of defence for intelligence in the Bill Clinton and George W Bush administrations, said the US is ignoring UFO sightings made by military personal at a risk to national security.
Mr Mellon had high-level clearance, was on a committee with oversight of all Department of Defence (DoD) special access programmes, spent a decade on the Senate Intelligence Committee and also work on classified projects at the Area 51 top secret US Air Force base in Nevada.
He is now part of the To The Stars Academy UFO research group formed by former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLongue, which has released a number of US military videos seemingly showing UFOs.
Mr Mellon said the unexplained craft in these videos could be proof of visiting aliens or that the Chines or Russians have developed far superior technology to the US.
Mr Mellon wrote that the government needs to do far more to investigate reports of unexplained objects flying around the sky.
Chris Mellon*To The Stars Academy
Chris Mellon (pictured) says UFOs are ignored by US Government.
Those might not be the work of alien civilisations – but if they are not, they appear to suggest that another Earth-bound country such as China or Russia has technology that we do not know about.
Chris Mellon
Writing in The Washington Post, he said: "A number of videos of US pilots encountering unexplained objects appear to suggest that there exists aircraft far superior to anything known to be held by America or its allies.
"Those might not be the work of alien civilisations – but if they are not, they appear to suggest that another Earth-bound country such as China or Russia has technology that we do not know about.
"Either way, the strange and unexplained videos appear to suggest that there is something that urgently needs to be investigated.
"But up and down the chain of command in the Pentagon people are anxious about treating the bizarre videos as connected events rather than strange individual occurrences.
“If these craft mean that Russia, China or some other nation is concealing an astonishing technological breakthrough to quietly extend its lead, surely we should respond as we did then
”Perhaps Russian President Vladi mir Putin’s recent chest-thumping claims about propulsion breakthroughs are not pure braggadocio.
“Or, if these craft really aren’t from Earth, then the need to figure out what they are is even more urgent.”
However, he said the issue was not addressed as senior intelligence officials feared being ridiculed for taking it seriously.
He added: “But nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.
”This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.”
Mr Mellon spoke out after the To The Stars Academy released a third video filmed by a US Navy pilot radar allegedly showing a UFO.
The case was looked at by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which ran from 2007 to 2012, but was disbanded after being branded ineffective.
Neither the DoD or US Pentagon will comment on Mr Mellon's claims.
These unidentified flying objects do not belong to our earthly enemies
These unidentified flying objects do not belong to our earthly enemies
The Washington Daily News on July 28, 1952, following an alleged UFO sighting in the Washington metropolitan area.
(The Washington Daily News)
Christopher Mellon’s March 11 Outlook essay, “The Pentagon isn’t taking UFOs seriously enough,” described the refusal of the appropriate federal agencies to deal rationally with this latest flurry of reports of unidentified flying objects. (That is what they are, despite hesitancy to use that loaded term.)
Any concern that potential enemies have vastly superior military aircraft is seriously misplaced, for flying objects having radical shapes and spectacularly superior performance have been detected visually by military and airline pilots and confirmed by both civil and military radar since the 1940s. Had Russia or North Korea or Iran or anyone else possessed such craft, there would have been multiple opportunities to use them to our everlasting detriment.
Don Berliner, Alexandria
The writer is a former chairman of the board of the now-defunct Fund for UFO Research.
A group co-founded by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge has got their hands on some declassified UFO footage shot by the US Navy in 2015.
The video, which was released by To The Stars Academy on Friday under the name GO FAST, was attained by a freedom of information request, according to the group. The group says it is footage from an F/A-18 Super Hornet equipped with a [takes a deep breath] Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared, which works as a camera.
You can watch it below.
The video shows two pilots conversing as they encounter an unidentified flying object that has no wings or tail over an undisclosed portion of the east coast. Even though it’s rapidly moving, the object shows no sign of an exhaust plume—something that occurs on the majority of flying objects. The video starts with one of the Navy officers zooming in on the object which appears to be moving quickly over the ocean.
“Whoooooaaaaa, got it,” exclaims the officer. After a brief bit of laughter, one of the two excitedly asks, “What the fuck is that thing?” They then discuss how they are tracking it before they again start to excitingly talk about what they’re seeing.
“Oh my gosh, dude,” says one to which the other responds with “Wow! What is that, man? Look at it flying!”
DeLonge has long been a believer in aliens, an obsession that has bled into his music—most prominently in the band Angels & Airwaves and in the Blink 182 song “Aliens Exist” that appeared on the band’s massive album Enema of the State.
DeLonge, for a time, actually quit music to focus on studying UFOs full-time. That said, To The Stars Academy isn’t run solely by a former pop-punk prince, but is instead headed up by James Semivan, a former CIA agent, and Hal Puthoff, a former NASA and US Department of Defense adviser.
If Go Fast is indeed legit, it is now the third in a trilogy of videos that have been released by the government in recent time. Late last year, the New York Times published a blockbuster story outlining a secret Pentagon program which investigated UFOs and included two videos—the program allegedly ended in 2012. Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who now works with DeLonge, bemoaned the end of the program and the fact that there seems to be no interest in investigating these sightings in an editorial for the Washington Post regarding GO FAST.
“Nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue,” wrote Mellon. “This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.”
Speaking with CNN, Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (the program outlined in the NYT story) who now works with To The Stars Academy, said that the Department of Defense approved the release and that To The Stars went through the proper channels to attain the video. He also noted how similar it was to the videos released by the NYT and that while it may not necessarily be from the creatures from above, it’s still fucking weird.
"It could be anything, so I wouldn't rule anything out, and that's why I think we need to look at it," Elizondo said. "I mean it could be Russian. It could be Chinese. It could be little green men from Mars.”
The Phoenix Lights still fascinate, 21 years later
The Phoenix Lights still fascinate, 21 years later
PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Did you happen to see what happened in the night skies over Phoenix, 21 years ago Tuesday night?
Some say it was only flares dropped by air force fighters.
Some say it was hot air balloons.
Others, however, say what they saw over the Valley that night was much more, and more are coming forward about it all the time. The sightings over Phoenix that night would become known as the Phoenix Lights.
"We have come such a long way in 21 years," said Lynne Kitei. "Some people saw these things take off at great speed without even dispersing the air."
Years later, the sightings would become part of a book, The Phoenix Lights, a graphic novel, and documentary film, all by Kitei, Phoenix physician who witnessed the Phoenix Lights, but didn't come forward until seven years later.
"So many people are afraid to come forward because they are so ostracized," said Kitei.
But what were the Phoenix Lights? Most would say it's one of the most widely reported UFO sightings of all time.
"On March 13 1997, while thousands of people were looking at the sky to see the Hale-Bopp Comet, they also caught a glimpse to a mile even larger, these orbs of light in a 'V' formation, equidistantly spaced," said Kitei.
What's changed 21 years later? Plenty, according to Kitei.
"New York Times had a big article announcing the UFO disclosure by the Department of Defense," said Kitei. "The Pentagon actually has been studying these phenomenon."
The report lit a fire among those who believe the truth is out there, and more witnesses keep coming forward, like Dr. Brad Evans. The behaviorist and neuropsychologist says he and his wife saw the Phoenix Lights, while driving north on I-10.
"These were very distinct, round, crystal clear lights," said Evans, who is also a pilot, and once told his wife he had seen it all.
"Pretty suddenly she pointed ahead," said Evans. "She said, 'well, what's that then?' I said I had no idea."
The craft Evans says he saw was fast, and big.
"In an instant, they were directly overhead as if there was no time in between," said Evans. "You could clearly see one light, two football fields best guess, to the west, easily two football fields for the other light east of I-10."
Why did Evans wait 21 years to speak out? As a psychiatrist, he had seen what happened to professionals who spoke out before.
"Other folks, I think, like us, repressed it," said Evans. "There was nothing to share. We didn't talk to anybody for months."
Now, however, Evans says people should speak out without fear.
"Write about it. Talk about it. Share the experience. Don't worry. It's 21 years ago," said Evans.
"The giggling and ridicule and snickering has gone on for much too long," said Kitei. "It's really starting to dissipate."
Something else that's new is a Phoenix Lights exhibit at the Arizona Historical Museum in Tempe, where people can see a timeline of the sightings, as well as alternative theories to what happened that night.
While no one is sure what was really over the skies of Arizona 21 years ago, Kitei says the most important thing is to keep asking questions.
"We may not have the technology yet to define what these things are. That doesn't mean they aren't real," said Kitei.
We have a whole lot of Fox Mulders out there who want to believe. But we also have a whole lot of Dana Scullys who are chiming in about what the video shows.
First, take a look at the video.
To The Stars says the video, caught with an infrared camera system, comes from a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet flight in 2015. It appears to show a fast-moving UFO flying over water. One of the voices on the video seems to be a pilot saying, "Wow! What is that, man?"
The video is only a few seconds long. "The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don't have any additional info to provide," said Tom Crosson, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
To The Stars calls the UFO an "unidentified vehicle." Mick West, who operates the Metabunk debunking website, has a much different idea.
"I think the most likely explanation is that it's a relatively slow-moving object like a bird or a balloon," he tells me. "The jet filming it is moving fast, so this creates an illusion of speed against the ocean, especially after the targeting system locks on."
Alien aficionados won't like West's explanation, but he and some fellow skeptics have analyzed the footage in great detail on Metabunk, if you want to dive into the fascinating thought process that led to the bird-or-balloon theory.
So why are people so ready to believe a blip in a video is aliens and not a bird?
Nickell thinks some of it ties in with the naturally self-centered human worldview. He says we see mythical creatures like Bigfoot as a remnant of the human past, and big-eyed, big-headed aliens as a futuristic version of us. We would like to think Earth would draw a highly advanced extraterrestrial race to come visit. "Hopes springs eternal," he says.
Aliens are exciting. Birds ... not so much. "It would be great to discover alien visitors, but you really need to fully eliminate the boring explanations first," West says.
West encourages viewers to pay attention to the audio of the pilots talking and note how it sounds like they're just having fun using the aircraft's advanced tracking system and aren't concerned about possibly spotting an alien spacecraft.
Unless further evidence comes to light, the entity in the video will remain a UFO in the strictest sense. It is an unidentified flying object. It's just that it's probably a bird or a balloon and not some bored aliens with an inconceivably high-tech spacecraft who've come to take a look at our planet.
“Wow. What is that, man?”Photo: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science
Maybe the truth really is out there.
A UFO research group on Friday released a declassified Pentagon video that apparently shows a U.S. Navy aircraft encountering a UFO, the third such video released in recent months. Published by the group To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, whose founders include former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, the video shows a Navy F-18 fighter jet filming a mysterious aircraft off the East Coast in 2015.
“What the fuck is that thing?” someone says after after locking in on the object. “Wow, what is that, man?”
The oddities of the newly released video include the vehicles lack of wings and, as Popular Mechanics notes, its apparent coldness.
There are several unusual things about this sighting. For one, the UFO does not have an hot exhaust trail typical of that emitted by any sort of conventional turbine engine. In fact, the UFO appears “cold” to the ATFLIR sensor, emitting no heat at all.
Elizondo, who has advocated for more government transparency on unidentified flying objects, told CNN that he doesn’t know what the object is but that there should be more conversation about it. “It could be anything, so I wouldn’t rule anything out, and that’s why I think we need to look at it,” Elizondo said. “I mean it could be Russian. It could be Chinese. It could be little green men from Mars.”
Oddly, this is only the second-weirdest piece of space-related news this week, trailing NASA’s revelation that astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA transformed during the year he spent in space. Now his DNA no longer matches that of his twin brother, Mark, who was on Earth while Scott was in orbit.
‘They investigated quite significantly’: Canadian government researched UFO sightings
‘They investigated quite significantly’: Canadian government researched UFO sightings
CTV Winnipeg
Though many people may be quick to dismiss a UFO sighting as nothing but a myth, recently discovered documents show that at one point the Canadian government took them seriously.
Science writer Chris Rutkowski, an alumnus of the University of Manitoba, discovered documents in the National Archives dating back to 1967 that show UFO sighting were once investigated.
“They investigated quite significantly a number of cases and a few in particular were ones that they described as very unexplained or of especially interest,” he said.
PHOTOS
Rutkowski said the reports were from qualified personnel and were investigated by other qualified personnel. At times, post-secondary institutions like U of M helped out with the analysis.
The briefing shows there was a jump in reports from about 40 to 167 between 1966 and 1967.
In many instances, no explanation was found for the sightings.
“In some cases there were very reputable observers, some of these were radar operators and yet they had experienced and seen something that couldn’t be explained. To me that says there’s a real phenomenon that needs investigation.”
Physicist Stephen Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England, on Wednesday.
Hawking’s earliest astrophysics work posited the existence of singularities, mathematically conforming black holes with Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Hawking established, along with Roger Penrose, the universe’s origin as a singularity, i.e., a point in spacetime where traditional physical laws break down and gravity becomes infinite. His later work in quantum mechanics, inspired by collaboration with Soviet scientists Yakov Zel’dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, would mathematically indicate the finite entropy and evaporation of black holes as they emitted particles that came to be known as Hawking radiation. Though widely accepted as a breakthrough in theoretical physics, Hawking radiation and its resulting micro black holes have yet to be observed in experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
His work in theoretical astrophysics (and the 1988 publication of his bestselling bookA Brief History of Time) made Hawking a celebrity—including appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Simpsons and Futurama—which allowed Hawking a prominent public platform for his beliefs outside of physics. An atheist, anti-war activist, BDS supporter and anti-capitalist, the overlap between Hawking’s humanist politics and scientific interests found expression in his repeated public statements on the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial life.
Hawking took a conflicted position on alien life, at once promoting the search for extraterrestrial life and warning about the potential dangers of first contact with an alien species. His position on extraterrestrial life advocates two approaches: collecting intel and keeping as quiet as possible.
“There is no bigger question,” Hawking said, while announcing his support for Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million program to search for alien communications via radio wave and visible light observations of 1 million nearby stars and 100 galactic centers. “It is time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth.”
In 2010, Hawking worried what that answer would bring, describing the dangers of first contact with aliens in a Discovery Channel documentary. “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” Hawking says. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
“Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach,” Hawking said in the documentary, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.
Stephen Hawking speaks on stage during a Breakthrough Starshot press conference at One World Observatory in New York City on April 12, 2016. Breakthrough Starshot is one of a number of projects by the Breakthrough Initiative, who also organised Breakthrough Listen.
BRYAN BEDDER/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES
Absent knowledge about alien life, Hawking urged documentary viewers to analogize their likely behavior to ours. Hawking noted that first encounters throughout our own history rarely begin with: “I’ll pop the kettle on. Milk? Sugar?”
He would reiterate this theme in a later documentary. “One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this," he says in Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places of the newly discovered world of Gliese 832c. “But we should be wary of answering back.”
During the announcement for Breakthrough Listen, Hawking said: “We don’t know much about aliens, but we know about humans. If you look at history, contact between humans and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their point of view, and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive technologies have gone badly for the less advanced. A civilization reading one of our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. If so, they will be vastly more powerful, and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.”
While Hawking expresses near certainty that alien life exists in the universe, he does not believe aliens have visited Earth in UFOs or at any point in history. “Why hasn’t the Earth been visited, and even colonised?” Hawking wrote on his official website. “I discount suggestions that UFOs contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant.”
In the essay Hawking describes some of the possibilities for the universe’s seeming silence, speculating that intelligence may be one of many possible evolutionary outcomes or, mostly darkly of all, the possibility that “intelligent life destroys itself.”
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Daytime UFOs caught on tape over Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Daytime UFOs caught on tape over Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Here’s one new footage of a bright unidentified flying objects in the sky above Lachine in Quebec, Canada. This was filmed back in September 2016 but it was just submitted to MUFON.
Witness report:
I can only describe those objects as these reflective and glowing. Flying in one path never changing direction. The sun that day was pretty bright, bright enough to make my eyes water, which made it difficult to record them.
New Horizons passed Pluto in 2015. With public input, the mission team has nicknamed the spacecraft’s next target – on the fringes of our solar system – Ultima Thule.
This image shows New Horizons’ current position along its full planned trajectory toward MU69, now nicknamed Ultima Thule. The green segment of the line shows where the spacecraft has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft’s future path.
Some 115,000 people from around the world recently suggested some 34,000 possible nicknames for the distant object 2014 MU69, the next target of the New Horizons spacecraft, whose historic sweep past Pluto took place in July 2015. The New Horizons mission team announced on March 13, 2018, it has selected the name Ultima Thule – pronounced ultima thoo-lee – for New Horizon’s next target, a Kuiper Belt object officially named 2014 MU69. New Horizons will sweep closest to Ultima Thule on January 1, 2019.
The mission team describes the object as:
… the most primitive world ever observed by spacecraft, in the farthest planetary encounter in history.
In a statement, the team explained their reasons for their choice:
Thule was a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography. Ultima Thule means “beyond Thule” – beyond the borders of the known world – symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done.
Alan Stern (@AlanStern on Twitter) of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is New Horizons’ principal investigator. He said:
MU69 is humanity’s next Ultima Thule. Our spacecraft is heading beyond the limits of the known worlds, to what will be this mission’s next achievement. Since this will be the farthest exploration of any object in space in history, I like to call our flyby target Ultima, for short, symbolizing this ultimate exploration by NASA and our team.
View larger. | Artist’s conception of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 – now nicknamed Ultima Thule – on January 1, 2019. This object orbits a billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto. Evidence gathered from Earth suggests it might be a binary (double) or multiple object.
NASA and the New Horizons team launched the nickname campaign in early November. Hosted by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, and led by Mark Showalter, an institute fellow and member of the New Horizons science team, the online contest sought nominations from the public and stipulated that a nickname would be chosen from among the top vote-getters.
The campaign wrapped up on December 6, after a five-day extension to accommodate more voting. Of the 34,000 names suggested, 37 reached the ballot for voting and were evaluated for popularity. This included eight names suggested by the New Horizons team and 29 nominated by the public.
The team then narrowed its selection to the 29 publicly nominated names and gave preference to names near the top of the polls. Names suggested included Abeona, Pharos, Pangu, Rubicon, Olympus, Pinnacle and Tiramisu. Final tallies in the naming contest posted here.
About 40 members of the public nominated the name Ultima Thule. This name was one of the highest vote-getters among all name nominees.
Showalter said:
We are grateful to those who proposed such an interesting and inspirational nickname. They deserve credit for capturing the true spirit of exploration that New Horizons embodies.
After the flyby, NASA and the New Horizons team say they’ll choose a formal name to submit to the International Astronomical Union, based in part on whether MU69 is found to be a single body, a binary pair, or perhaps a system of multiple objects.
Astronomers found evidence that compounds on Ceres formed from liquid water in the recent geologic past.
Distribution and intensity of the carbonate absorption in VIR data.
Image credit: Carrozzo et al., Sci. Adv. 2018;4: e1701645
In a way, Ceres is both big and small. It’s the largest object in the asteroid belt, but it’s still a dwarf planet — and it’s much too small to be really considered a planet. About four times smaller than the moon, Ceres has a diameter of approximately 945 kilometers. It was first discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi and considered a planet, but was then relegated to asteroid status. But this doesn’t mean that Ceres isn’t exciting in its own right.
The NASA spacecraft Dawn entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015, allowing astronomers to study it in unprecedented detail. In a new study, authors report that Ceres is still evolving.
Using the visible-infrared mapping spectrometer aboard Dawn, they observed significant quantities of magnesium-calcium carbonates covering most of the dwarf planet. Finding carbonates — a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3) — is extremely important since it is usually a sign of water. Judging by the current analysis, astronomers now believe water amounts to about 30% of the dwarf planet’s mass.
Carbonates are abundant and ubiquitous across the surface, but variations in the strength and position of infrared spectral absorptions indicate variations in the composition and amount of these minerals. Also, not all carbonates are hydrated, and therefore not all of them can be connected to water.
Some carbonate patches featured sodium carbonate in its hydrated form — which is a clear indication of liquid water. Pictured is the distribution of water ice (left), sodium carbonate (center) and hydrated sodium carbonate (right) in a crater on Ceres.
Credits: Carozzo et al.
Ceres appears to have differentiated rocky core and an icy mantle. Researchers have known for quite a while that Ceres probably had liquid water in its recent history (and perhaps still has), but the wide distribution of carbonates, and therefore, the water, is surprising.
“The different chemical forms of the sodium carbonate, their fresh appearance, morphological settings, and the uneven distribution on Ceres indicate that the formation, exposure, dehydration, and destruction processes of carbonates are recurrent and continuous in recent geological time, implying a still-evolving body and modern processes involving fluid water,” the researchers write.
Patches of hydrated sodium carbonate (green and red) were found around craters with domes or mounds by the team.
Image credits: Carozzo et al.
The authors suggest that the connection between carbonates and extrusive surfaces implies that carbonates are possibly brought to the surface by rising subsurface fluids. This could indicate that beneath a frozen surface, there is an ocean of liquid water. The carbonate mapping indicates active geological processes such as upwelling, excavation, and exposure of salts.
Ceres doesn’t get nearly as much love as Pluto does, but given recent findings, perhaps it should.
Déjà vu, pronounced ‘day-zhaa voo’, is French for ‘already seen.’ It describes the eerie sensation of familiarity in a seemingly new setting and environment. For instance, you may have found yourself in the middle of a conversation thinking to yourself that this exact exchange has taken place before. Or you may have walked into a totally new environment, and said to yourself “I’ve been here before!”. It’s all strangely familiar, but you can’t quite wrap your mind around the whole thing. In a sense, it’s a bit like seeing into the future.
Déjà vu is commonly featured in pop culture. Inthe movie The Matrix, adéjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix — a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control while a cybernetic organism farms our bodies. But despite most people (60-80%) reporting that they have experienced the unsettling feeling at least once in their lifetimes, déjà vu has been startling understudied. To researchers’ credit, the fleeting, uncontrollable nature of déjà vu has made it difficult to study.
Scientists have proposed various hypotheses for déjà vu formation in the brain. According to one theory, the phenomenon might arise due to some sort of “mismatch” in how we’re simultaneously sensing and perceiving the world around us. Another theory suggests that the brain may occasionally take a short-cut to long-term memory storage, bypassing short-term working memory, evoking the sensation that of experiencing something in the distant past. The mainstream line of thinking is that déjà vu is a product of false memories — glitches in our neural matrix.
“[Déjà vu] is certainly related to false memory in the sense that it is a memory dissociation kind of effect. It dissociates reality from your memory,” said Valerie F. Reyna, a psychologist and Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and an expert on false memory and risky decision making.
“There’s all kinds of different dissociative experiences that can happen. Sometimes you cannot be sure, for example, if you dreamed something or experienced it, if you saw it in a movie or it happened in real life.”
But in 2016, Akira O’Connor, a psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Britain, found that the phenomenon might be the result of front regions of the brain ‘fact checking’ our memories and sending signals when it encounters a sort of error. This error generates a conflict between what we’ve actually experienced and what we think we’ve experienced. By this explanation, déjà vu represents a mechanism that ensures that we don’t form false memories, or at least keeps them to a minimum, and is not the product of false memories themselves. This may also explain why the phenomenon is far more common in younger people, since memory deteriorates with age.
“Déjà vu is characterized by having a false sensation of familiarity, alongside the awareness that that sense of familiarity cannot possibly be correct,” O’Connor said. “It’s a memory clash where there’s false familiarity, together with an objective awareness that it can’t be real.”
O’Connor and colleagues enlisted 21 volunteers, who each were exposed to a list of words related to sleep — such as bed, pillow, night, or dream — but not the keyword itself that links all of them together. The participants were then asked whether they had heard the word ‘sleep’. Those who responded affirmatively were then asked whether they had heard any word from the previous list start with the letter “s”, to which they responded negatively. The resulting confusion triggered déjà vu in two-thirds of participants.
The next step was to scan the brains of the participants with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to see which brain regions lit up when the experience took place.
“What we found was that it wasn’t memory-linked regions that are driving déjà vu,” he said. “Traditionally, researchers thought déjà vu was being driven by false memories. What it actually is is that the cognitive control, error-monitoring conflict-checking frontal brain regions are the ones which show greater activity in people reporting the experience.”
What does this mean for people who have never had déjà vu? Well, it may mean that these people don’t reflect on their memory system. On the other hand, people who don’t have déjà vu might simply have a better memory than the general population, so there’s no risk of triggering memory errors.
As to why people have déjà vu in the first place, the jury isn’t out yet. It may be an evolutionary product that makes people more cautious when memory is playing tricks on us, but there’s no evidence backing this idea up yet.
We can never enter into contact with extraterrestrial civilizations
We can never enter into contact with extraterrestrial civilizations
While signals from alien civilizations have reached the Earth, there is a high probability that by this time all the aliens have long been dead. To such conclusions came a group of American astronomers led by the Swiss researcher Claudio Grimaldi, who decided to turn again to the famous Drake equation, a formula designed to determine the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy, with which humanity has a chance to come into contact.
In their work, the researchers calculated the area of that region of the galaxy through which the extraterrestrial signals must pass. According to Drake himself, civilizations are born and die at a constant rate. With the death of civilization, the transmission of messages also ceases. However, already sent signals continue their journey through the galaxy, as the circles diverge on the water. As a result, most of the galaxy is filled with messages from dead aliens.
The Milky Way’s diameter is one hundred thousand light-years, while the solar system is located about 26,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy. Scientists believe that most developed civilizations capable of sending radio signals do not exist for more than one hundred thousand years. Therefore, the chances of receiving a message from aliens still broadcasting at the moment are very small. The same mankind sends signals to space for about 80 years, so radio waves from Earth have covered less than 0.001 percent of the area of the galaxy. “If a civilization living on the other side of the galaxy sends a message, then by the time this message reaches us, this civilization is already going to die out,” says physicist Claudio Grimaldi of the Lausanne Federal Polytechnic School.
But one debunking expert said it was more likely to have a natural explanation, according to the Daily Express.
'I think it's a small object crossing the lunar disc like a mylar balloon. There are many similar footages like this,' said Scott Brando of ufoofinterest.org
It comes after the pilot of a US Navy jet was shocked after he witnessed a mysterious object streak across the sky just above the Atlantic Ocean.
It comes after the pilot of a US Navy jet was shocked after he witnessed a mysterious object streak across the sky just above the Atlantic Ocean
The pilot yelled 'What the f*** is that thing?' as his sensors locked in on the mysterious object.
Earlier this month some UFO spotters claimed another sighting when an unexplained silver sphere was seen hanging in the sky above upstate New York on Google Street View.
But many viewers were not convinced, saying the orb was nothing more than a splash of water on the camera lens.
New footage of a bright orbs in the sky above Phoenix, Arizona filmed on 14th March 2018.
Witness report:
I looked out my window and seen a red dot orb moving where I usually see activity. I went out and captured the red dot breifly, but then noticed an orb that seemed to possibly morph into plane.
I looked out my window and seen a red dot orb moving where I usually see activity. I went out and captured the red dot briefly, but then noticed an orb that seemed to possibly morph into plane.
I have been wondering if they are morphing into planes, but this maybe some evidence. After if morphed it came over my APT and did have sound, but as you can see it moved in one place for a while then changes into 2 lights.
Another artist's concept showing NASA's Mars 2020 rover exploring Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's next Mars rover won't just explore the Red Planet; it will, the space agency hopes, make it so a little bit of Mars might make it to Earth. Known as Mars 2020, the upcoming rover will hunt for signs of habitable environments on Mars while searching for signs of past microbial life. The robotic traveler will also cache a series of samples that can be returned to Earth with a future mission.
The mission is currently slated to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in July or August 2020, when Earth and Mars are positioned to require the least amount of power for interplanetary travel. It is scheduled to land in February 2021, with an initial mission duration of at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth-days.
The car-sized rover is about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters tall). At 2,314 lbs. (1,050 kilograms), it weighs less than a compact car.
Mixing old and new
If photos and sketches of the Mars 2020 rover look familiar, that's because the robotic explorer is largely based off its predecessor, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)'s Curiosity rover. Roughly 85 percent of the new rover's mass is based on this "heritage hardware."
"The fact that so much of the hardware has already been designed — or even already exists — is a major advantage for this mission," Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a statement. "It saves us money, time and most of all, reduces risk."
Like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will have a rectangular body, six wheels, an arm and hand, cameras and instruments, and a drill for sampling rocks. But the new rover has different goals that require a suite of cutting-edge instruments. Using an X-ray spectrometer and an ultraviolet laser, Mars 2020 will seek out bio-signatures from the past on a microbial scale. A ground-penetrating radar will be the first instrument to look under the surface of Mars, mapping layers of rock, water and ice up to 30 feet (10 m) deep.
"Our next instruments will build on the success of MSL, which was a proving ground for new technology," said George Tahu, NASA's Mars 2020 program executive. "These will gather science data in ways that weren't possible before."
These upgrades will kick in before the rover ever touches the surface of Mars. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is developing and managing the mission for the space agency, is developing a new landing technology called terrain-relative navigation. As the mission hardware approaches the Martian surface, it will use a computer to compare the landscape with pre-loaded terrain maps, guiding the descending mission to a safe landing site and making corrections on the way down.
A related feature, known as a range trigger, will use location and velocity to determine when to open the spacecraft's parachute, narrowing the landing ellipse by more than half.
"Terrain-relative navigation enables us to go to sites that were ruled too risky for Curiosity to explore," said JPL's Al Chen, the Mars 2020 entry, descent and landing lead. "The ranger trigger lets us land closer to areas of scientific interest, shaving miles — potentially as much as a year — off a rover's journey."
Cameras on the spacecraft will film the final journey, capturing the opening of the parachute and the slow drift to the Red Planet for the first time. That information will be sent back to Earth, where it will provide not only awe-inspiring imagery but also scientific data about the planet's atmosphere. [VIDEO: Watch Mars 2020 Rover's Parachute Successfully Unfurl in Test Flight]
"It is quite a ride," Ian Clark of JPL, the test's technical lead, said in a statement. "The imagery of our first parachute inflation is almost as breathtaking to behold as it is scientifically significant. For the first time, we get to see what it would look like to be in a spacecraft hurtling towards the Red Planet, unfurling its parachute."
Illustration depicting the science instruments slated to be carried aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Improved eyesight
Mars 2020 will boast nearly five times as many cameras as the first Mars rover. Sojourner carried only five cameras, and the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity were designed with 10 cameras apiece. Curiosity has 17.
The new rover will carry 23 cameras. Some will provide more color and 3D imaging than on Curiosity, according to Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, the principle investigator for 2020's Mastcam-Z. "Z" stands for "zoom," one of the improvements on Curiosity's high-definition Mastcam.
The engineering cameras for planning drives and avoiding hazards on Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity all captured 1-megapixel images in black and white. 2020's engineering cameras will acquire high-resolution, 20-megapixel color images. Their wider field of view means that, instead of spending time taking multiple images to be stitched together on the ground, the new cameras can capture the same view in a single snapshot. The cameras can also reduce motion blur, so they can snap images while the rover is traveling.
More detailed images mean more data to beam through space.
"The limiting factor in most imaging systems is the telecommunications link," Maki said. "Cameras are capable of acquiring much more data than can be sent back to Earth."
Smarter rover cameras are helping to reduce the load. On Spirit and Opportunity, compression was done on the onboard computer. Mars 2020, like Curiosity, will have its compression performed by electronics built into the camera.
Data will be beamed back to Earth through spacecrafts already orbiting Mars: NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MAVEN and the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter was the first orbiter to send rover data home from Spirit and Opportunity.
"We were expecting to do that mission on just tens of megabits each Mars day, or sol," Bell said. "When we got that first Odyssey overflight, and we had about 100 megabits per sol, we realized it was a whole new ballgame."
Mars 2020 will also carry a microphone, which can relay the sounds of the Red Planet back to Earth.
"There's a lot of good science that can be done by having a microphone on Mars," Sylvestre Maurice, a planetary scientist at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in France, told Space.com. He and his colleagues investigated the possibility of pairing a microphone with a laser that will be used to vaporize rocks on the Martian surface.
In addition to gathering science, a microphone would represent a public relations coup, Maurice said.
"It will be the first time we can listen to a sound on Mars," he said.
NASA has decided on three potential landing sites for the upcoming Mars 2020 mission: Northeast Syrtis, Jezero crater and Columbia Hills.
Credit: NASA
Landing on Mars
As of March 2018, the final landing site for Mars 2020 had not yet been selected. In February 2017, a team of scientists narrowed down the list to three: Columbia Hills, Jezero Crater and Northeast Syrtis.
One site has been explored before. Starting in 2004, the Mars exploration rover Spirit explored Gusev Crater and Columbia Hills, where the rover discovered evidence of past water, the only place it found water in the enormous crater. Later data analysis suggested that the crater may have once hosted a shallow lake.
The Jezero Crater is an ancient lakebed where microbial life could have developed, NASA officials said in a statement. The river delta structure suggests that water filled and drained from the site at least twice, and MRO has identified minerals that have been chemically altered by water.
An ancient volcano in Northeast Syrtis could have led to hot springs and melting ice, creating the ideal conditions for past microbial life. The edge of the Syrtis Major volcanoes exposes 4-billion-year-old bedrock, as well as many minerals altered by the encounter during the Red Planet's early history.
The final selection of the landing site should come during a workshop in either 2018 or 2019, the researchers said during a 2015 meeting.
"In the coming years, the 2020 science team will be weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each of these sites," Mars 2020 project scientist Ken Farley said. "It is by far the most important decision we have ahead of us."
Bringing samples home
Unlike previous rovers, Mars 2020 will prepare samples to return to Earth. The rover will try to drill at least 20 rock cores, and possible more than 30 or 40. Samples will be secured in sample tubes and deposited at select locations for return on a potential future sample-retrieval mission. Such a mission has not yet been selected, so the samples may have to wait for years to hitch a ride back to Earth.
"The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth," Geoffrey Yoder, then-acting associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said in a 2016 statement. "This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's Journey to Mars — to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet."
Assuming the samples make it to Earth, scientists will be able to use powerful instruments to provide a more in-depth examination than can be carried on the car-sized rover.
The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) laser instrument will be the first instrument on Mars to use Ramen and fluorescence spectroscopies, techniques familiar to forensics experts. When an ultraviolet light shines over certain carbon-based chemicals, they glow much like material beneath a black light. The glow can help scientists to detect chemicals that form in the presence of life. SHERLOC will photograph the rocks it studies, then maps the chemicals it detects across the images.
"This kind of science requires texture and organic chemicals — two things that our target meteorite will provide," Rohit Bhartia of JPL, SHERLOC's deputy principal investigator, said in a statement.
The rover will carry a small bit of the Martian meteorite known as Sayh al Uhaymir 008 (SaU008) to help calibrate SHERLOC. Previous rovers have included calibration targets, but none of them have ever relied on Martian meteorites. (A meteorite has, however, ridden to Mars aboard the Mars Global Surveyor, which continues to orbit Mars now that its mission has ended.)
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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.
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