UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog. Read his thoughts on the statistical chances a piece of Tiangong-1 will hit us.

The most recent calculation by Aerospace Corporation calls for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on April 1 at 16:15 UTC ± 9 hours. Here’s how you can translate UTC to your time. The European Space Agency (ESA), in its March 30 update, nearly agrees. ESA gives the dates as the night of 31 March to the late evening of 1 April (in UTC time) and still calls these dates highly variable.

Meanwhile, experienced sky observers caught video of Tiangong-1 last week, as it sped across our sky on its way to a fiery demise this weekend. We know of at least two who succeeded in this demanding observation. See their videos below. Brian Ottum posted his view of the space station – from early in the day on Wednesday – on Instagram:

astropicsdaily

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astropicsdailyAs you may have heard, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will come crashing down to Earth this weekend. Here is my video of the bus-sized satellite from this morning. The camera was having trouble keeping up with Tiangong as it zoomed across the sky - you can see stars whip past. Taken March 28, 12.6UT. The space station is starting to dip into the atmosphere, 120 miles up. Friction could be starting to cause it to warm up and glow. Predictions have it burning up late Saturday night, but that could happen as early as Saturday morning or Sunday. We just don't know where or when. Chunks are likely to hit Earth, but probably the ocean.
Video taken with Canon 5DmkIII, 10" F/5 reflector telescope, satellite tracking Paramount MX mount, remote control observatory located at Dark Sky New Mexico.
#astro #astronomy #astronomia #astrophotography #astrophotos #APOD #cosmos
#galaxy #galaxies #Hubble #longexposure #milkyway #nasa #satellite #tiangong
#tiangong1 #reentry #sky #space #stars #telescope #universe
earthskyscienceAwesome, Brian!
astropicsdaily @spacedotcom @universetoday @usatoday @cnn @npr @europeanspac
eagency @nasa @astronomypicturesdaily
spc456aGreat, hope to see the burn trails.
algolwatchMy app has it in our hood Sunday 6:41... think it'll last that long?
astropicsdaily @algolwatch 6UT on Sunday, which is 2am EDT, is currently the best forecast. But the uncertainty is about 24 hrs either side!!!!! We currently have no idea where or when. Hopefully better estimate on Friday evening.
space_factsssCool man!
plesamatias69really like ur page ;)
livanalejandrodiazDM
brianm910Awesome! I was wondering if I could find it here and get a video of it.

3 DAYS AGO

The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome and Tenagra Observatories in Arizona provided an exciting livestream of their successful attempt to view Tiangong-1, also earlier in the day on Wednesday. Check this out! It’s really fun to hear Gianluca Masi‘s commentary and he searches for – and finds – the space station.

As of now (early in the day on March 31, 2018) the spacecraft is at about 113 miles (182 km) in altitude. That’s down from about 134 miles (215 km) altitude on March 24. And it’s down from 155 miles (258 km) on March 7. Its orbit is clearly decaying as you can see if you follow the spacecraft’s descent here. The end will come more or less suddenly, due in part to changing conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is why it’s so inherently unpredictable.

Have you been hearing specific reentry locations for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, aka Heavenly Palace 1? I heard Michigan at one point, then Wisconsin.

Don’t believe these specific predictions. Experts are still saying reentry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (see map below). As Guy Ottewell points out:

The satellite’s orbit is inclined 43 degrees to the equator, which means that it passes over latitudes between 43 north and 43 south. That includes all of the Americas between the Great Lakes and southern Argentina, all of southern Europe, Asia from Korea south, all of Africa and Australia and the East Indies. So there are a few tens of millions of square miles of land, and more of water, that a descending piece may choose to hit.

At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.

Tiangong-1 potential reentry area. Map showing the area between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south latitude (in green), over which Tiangong-1 could reenter.

Image via ESA CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011, and, originally, a controlled reentry was planned. Firing the craft’s engines would have enabled controllers to allow the craft to burn up (mostly) over a large, unpopulated region of the South Pacific ocean. Any surviving pieces would have fallen into the ocean. But, in March 2016, the Tiangong-1 space station ceased functioning. Ground teams lost control of the craft, and it can no longer be commanded to fire its engines. It is, therefore, expected to make an uncontrolled reentry … soon.

The spacecraft’s main body is approximately 34 feet (10.4 meters) long.

ESA has said that Tiangong-1 will “substantially burn up” in Earth’s atmosphere. Will pieces crash to Earth? Possibly. Will they crash in populated areas? It’s not possible to say, but the chances are small that any human being will be harmed, according to a statement from Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace said:

There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over.

Aerospace also warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board.

Tiangong-1 is not designed to withstand reentry, as some spacecraft are. But it will mostly burn up when it falls, due to the extreme heat and friction generated by its high-speed passage through Earth’s atmosphere.

Tiangong-1’s predicted reentry as of March 29, 2018, via ESA.

Tiangong-1’s major goal was to test and master technologies related to orbital rendezvous and docking. One uncrewed and two crewed missions – executed by the Shenzhou (Divine Craft) spacecraft – took place during its operational lifetime. ESA explained:

Following launch in 2011, the Tiangong-1 orbit began steadily decaying due to the faint, yet not-zero, atmospheric drag present even at 300 or 400 km altitude [~200 to 250 miles altitude]. This affects all satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, for example.

Bottom line: China’s first space station will soon undergo an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. As of early in the day on March 31, Aerospace Corporation was predicting April 1 at 16:15 UTC ± 9 hours. At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.

Live, real-time tracking of Tiangong-1 here

As you may have seen, I recently wrote an article on Truman Bethurum’s controversial, alleged encounters in the early 1950s with a hot babe from another world. Her name: Aura Rhanes. I suggested in the article that Bethurum’s encounters may have been caused by hypnagogia. Of this particular phenomenon, healthline.com state: “If you think you’re seeing — or smelling, hearing, tasting, or feeling — things when you’re asleep, you may not be dreaming. It’s possible you’re experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations. These can occur in the consciousness state between waking and sleeping.” It’s a fact that a lack of sleep – and disturbed sleep patterns, such as shift-work – can provoke vivid hypnagogic states. A good argument can be made that Truman Bethurum’s experiences occurred when he was in just such a state.

There are other cases which may be explainable by hypnagogia. One of them occurred back in 1947 and is recorded in now-declassified FBI files (which can be accessed at the UFO section of the FBI’s website, The Vault). It was in the second week of July 1949 that an intriguing story caught the attention of the FBI. The story was given to the Bureau by a broadcaster and journalist, Walter Winchell. He told the FBI that he had received a UFO-themed letter from a “Mr. Jones” of Los Angeles, California. According to Jones, the encounter had occurred two years earlier, in 1947. Why Jones waited so long to tell his story, we don’t know. But, let’s see what the FBI had to say about this particular case of the flying saucer kind.

The now-declassified documentation states: “In this letter, Jones stated that in August of 1947 he left Los Angeles for the mountains and started hiking through the mountains. About 10:00 a.m. he was laying on the ground when he observed about one-half block away from him a large, silver, metal object, greenish in color, shaped like a child’s top and about the size of the balloons used at Country Fairs.”

The FBI added: “[Jones] stated that there appeared to be two windows in the object and portions of metal appeared transparent and that he gained the impression that there was some life within this object although he saw no persons. The object appeared as though sealed as a pressure chamber. He stood up and waved toward this object and this so-called flying saucer was off the ground in a second, knocking Jones to the ground. In its flight he stated that its power was silent and he raised the question as to whether this was an inter-global landing on our planet. He thought that it might be a device to land on our planet because the occupants of another planet had become curious as to the reaction caused by the atomic bomb causing trouble in an expanding universe. He asked the question as to whether it was possible that the occupants of another planet might have solved the theory of negative energy.”

This is all very interesting, as much of what Jones had to say – about issues concerning “the reaction caused by the atomic bomb” – mirrored what many of the UFO “Contactees” began to talk about from the early 1950s onward. It should be noted, though, that by Jones’ admission, when he encountered the UFO he was “laying on the ground,” and specifically after taking a hike. In light of that, it’s highly possible that Jones, after a long trek, had fallen asleep and entered a graphic, hypnagogic state. Now, let’s move onto a famous case from the 1960s.

It was in the early hours of December 3, 1967 that a police-officer named Herbert Schirmer had an extraordinary encounter at Ashland, Nebraska. While on patrol, Schirmer came across what, at first, he thought was a broken-down truck at the edge of the road. It was not. What Schirmer saw – when his headlights lit up the object – was an egg-shaped craft floating a couple of meters above the ground and giving off a red glow.

The egg-le has landed

There followed a face-to-face encounter with a trio of human-like entities that were around five-feet in height, maybe slightly smaller. Schirmer was quickly taken on-board – although not by force. Indeed, he was invited to take a tour of the craft from another world. There was also the matter of what has become known in Ufology as “missing time.” According to Schirmer, although he believed he was only in the vehicle for around ten minutes, when he later checked he realized that around an hour of time couldn’t be accounted for.

It sounds like a classic UFO encounter. And, maybe, that’s exactly what it was. On the other hand, there is the not insignificant fact that by his own admission Schirmer often had sleep disturbances, as do many people who work shifts – as Schirmer did. In the early hours and just before dropping off to sleep Schirmer would hear strange noises – and on more than a few occasions. On other occasions he even found he had his hands around his wife’s throat. Thankfully, no harm was done. Sleep disturbances, strange sounds, working irregular hours, and even extreme and violent activity are all part of hypnagogia – which can affect people to significantly varying degrees.

Now, I should stress that I don’t think hypnagogia is the cause of all close encounters. To even try and claim such a thing would be ridiculous. And, it would be unwarranted, too. But, where there is a clear and specific connection to a sleep-related condition that can provoke vivid imagery, and even voices, I think we would do well to focus far more on the mysteries of the mind, and far less on the mysteries of outer space.