As wide as 2 Earths – like nothing seen on any other world – Saturn’s hexagon was thought to be a feature of the lower atmosphere, where Saturn’s weather happens. Now there’s evidence it extends high above the cloudtops.

The Cassini spacecraft used its wide-angle camera to capture this image of the ringed planet Saturn on April 2, 2014. You can see Saturn’s hexagon – an odd six-sided feature – surrounding its circular north polar vortex.

Image via NASA.

Space scientists have been fascinated by the hexagonal feature at Saturn’s north pole since the Voyager mission first discovered it in 1981. The hexagon – a jet stream in Saturn’s atmosphere, moving at some 200 mph (320 km/h) — was believed to be a feature of Saturn’s lower atmosphere, or troposphere, only. Now, however, as the seasons have passed on Saturn, this bizarre hexagon – which is wider than two Earths – appears to have changed. Writing in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on September 3, 2018, scientists said they now have evidence that the hexagon extends to about 180 miles (300 km) above Saturn’s cloudtops, up into this world’s stratosphere, at least during Saturn’s northern spring and summer.

The new work is a long-term study, using data from the Cassini spacecraft, which arrived at Saturn in 2004 and began observing the hexagon in 2006. Cassini’s mission to Saturn ended in 2017, but scientists are still mining the mission’s data (and will be for years to come). Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester, U.K., lead author of the new study, said:

The edges of this newly-found vortex appear to be hexagonal, precisely matching a famous and bizarre hexagonal cloud pattern we see deeper down in Saturn’s atmosphere.

While we did expect to see a vortex of some kind at Saturn’s north pole as it grew warmer, its shape is really surprising. Either a hexagon has spawned spontaneously and identically at two different altitudes, one lower in the clouds and one high in the stratosphere, or the hexagon is in fact a towering structure spanning a vertical range of several hundred kilometers.

Cassini captured images in 2012 that were used to create this animation of Saturn’s northern polar hexagon.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University/ESA.

When Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004, it was summer in that world’s southern hemisphere and winter on the northern half of the globe. Cassini saw a broad, warm, high-altitude vortex at Saturn’s southern pole, but none at the planet’s northern pole.

In the years since Cassini’s arrival at Saturn, the seasons shifted on Saturn, whose orbit around the sun and, thereby, seasonal cycle, lasts 30 years. In Cassini’s later years at Saturn, as summer approached that world’s northern hemisphere, scientists did see a polar vortex at Saturn’s north pole. The new work suggests this vortex forms high in the atmosphere too, also sitting hundreds of kilometers above the clouds, in Saturn’s stratosphere.

Layers in Saturn’s atmosphere, via KHadley.com.

Just as on Earth, Saturn’s troposphere – a lower layer of the atmosphere – is home to most of the planet’s weather. The north polar hexagon was thought to reside in Saturn’s troposphere and to be, essentially, a weather feature. A statement from the European Space Agency (ESA) explained:

This feature was discovered by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s and has been studied for decades; it is a long-lasting wave potentially tied to Saturn’s rotation, a type of phenomenon also seen on Earth in structures such as the polar jet stream.

Its properties were revealed in detail by Cassini, which observed it in multiple wavelengths – from the ultraviolet to the infrared – using instruments including its Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). However, at the start of the mission this instrument could not peer further up in the northern stratosphere, which had temperatures around -158 degrees Celsius [-252 Fahrenheit] – some 20 degrees [68 F] too cold for reliable CIRS infrared observations – leaving these higher-altitude regions relatively unexplored for many years.

Co-author Sandrine Guerlet from Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, France added:

One Saturnian year spans roughly 30 Earth years, so the winters are long.

Saturn only began to emerge from the depths of northern winter in 2009, and gradually warmed up as the northern hemisphere approached summertime.

As temperatures warmed around Saturn’s north pole, Fletcher and colleagues were able to study the polar vortex in infrared light. Guerlet said:

We were able to use the CIRS instrument to explore the northern stratosphere for the first time, from 2014 onwards. As the polar vortex became more and more visible, we noticed it had hexagonal edges, and realised that we were seeing the pre-existing hexagon at much higher altitudes than previously thought.

Brightness maps of the stratospheric hexagonal vortex at Saturn’s north pole via NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Leicester/GSFC/L.N. Fletcher et al. 2018.

Scientists are fascinated by the differences between Saturn’s two poles. They said there was no hexagon at the south pole, either at the cloud tops or above, when it was observed early in Cassini’s mission during southern summer. The northern vortex is also nowhere nearly as mature as the southern vortex, as it is cooler and displays different dynamics from its southern counterpart. Fletcher said:

This could mean that there’s a fundamental asymmetry between Saturn’s poles that we’re yet to understand, or it could mean that the north polar vortex was still developing in our last observations and kept doing so after Cassini’s demise.

The long-running Cassini mission came to an end in September 2017.

These scientists also said that:

… understanding how and why Saturn’s north polar vortex has assumed a hexagonal shape will shed light on how phenomena deeper down in an atmosphere can influence the environment high up above, something that is of particular interest to scientists trying to figure out how energy is transported around in planetary atmospheres.

Saturn’s northern hemisphere passed its summer solstice in May 2017, shortly before Cassini plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending its mission. The north polar region is expected to continue developing as the northern hemisphere moves toward its autumn equinox in 2024.

However, there is no spacecraft at Saturn now to obtain close observations of any subsequent changes in Saturn’s atmosphere. In this way, as in so many others, Cassini is missed.

• Read more from ESA

Saturn’s hexagon, greyscale.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Read more about this image.

Bottom line: The hexagon at Saturn’s north pole – a jet-stream-like feature – was thought to occur in a lower layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, where most of Saturn’s weather occurs. By mining Cassini spacecraft data, as the season shifted toward summer in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, European scientists found that the hexagon extends to about 180 miles (300 km) above Saturn’s cloudtops, into this world’s stratosphere.

Source: A hexagon in Saturn’s northern stratosphere surrounding the emerging summertime polar vortex

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 23:52 geschreven door peter  

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s latest book examines the partnership between scientists and soldiers

BY MARIA TEMMING 

 

STAR WARS 

Outer space (a satellite orbiting Earth is illustrated above) is both a laboratory and a battleground, the authors of Accessory to War explain.

Accessory to War

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang

W.W. Norton & Co., $30

Late-night comedians skewered Vice President Mike Pence in August when he announced preliminary plans for a new branch of the U.S. military dubbed the “Space Force.” Jimmy Kimmel likened the idea to a Michael Bay action movie, while Jimmy Fallon quipped that the Space Force’s chain of command would go “E.T., Yoda, then Groot.”

But, as a new book by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and researcher-writer Avis Lang demonstrates, the militarization of space is no joke.

In Accessory to War, Tyson and Lang chronicle how war-makers have long wielded knowledge of outer space as a weapon. This bloody history features Christopher Columbus exploiting his awareness of an upcoming lunar eclipse to threaten natives on the island of Hispaniola with divine retribution, as well as the United States using satellite intelligence to fight the Gulf War.

“As for America’s forthcoming wars,” Tyson and Lang predict, “they will be waged with even more formidable space assets.”

But just as militaries have long used space science and space-based technology to their advantage, astronomers and astrophysicists have reaped the rewards of military investment. James Cook, a captain in the British Navy, for example, established an observatory in Tahiti. Observations of Venus passing across the face of the sun in 1769 from that observatory helped astronomers pin down the distance between Earth and the sun. During the Cold War, U.S. military satellites designed to watch for nuclear detonations discovered gamma-ray bursts, some of the most spectacular explosions in the universe (SN: 1/10/15, p. 15).

Tyson and Lang’s millennia-long world history is sprawling. The book is exhaustively researched, almost to the point of information overload. It’s easy to get bogged down in parenthetical asides about minor characters or paragraph-long lists. The book is the antithesis of Tyson’s starry-eyed, bite-sized Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and may end up on the shelves of more history buffs than astro nerds.

Still, Accessory to War lives up to much of the promise of a Neil deGrasse Tyson read: Written from Tyson’s perspective, the narration is rich with wry humor and vivid descriptions of cosmic goings-on. For anyone who is, like Tyson, “smitten by the cosmos,” the book is a stark reminder that astrophysics has been both a benefactor and beneficiary of human conflict — and that the final frontier will likely be the battleground of many future skirmishes.

• Buy Accessory to War from Amazon.com. Science News is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Please see our FAQ for more details.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveals unusual magnetism that suggests a convoluted interior

BY CHRISTOPHER CROCKETT 

 

HIDDEN DEPTHS  Beneath Jupiter’s clouds, the planet’s magnetic field (illustrated) behaves differently in the northern and southern hemispheres.

If Earth’s magnetic field resembles that of a bar magnet, Jupiter’s field looks like someone took a bar magnet, bent it in half and splayed it at both ends. 

The field emerges in a broad swath across Jupiter’s northern hemisphere and re-enters the planet both around the south pole and in a concentrated spot just south of the equator, researchers report in the Sept. 6 Nature.

“We were baffled” at the finding, says study coauthor Kimberly Moore, a graduate student at Harvard University.

The new look at Jupiter’s magnetic field comes courtesy of NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting the planet since July 2016 (SN: 6/25/16, p. 16). Relying on nearly 2,000 measurements of the field outside the planet, Moore and colleagues created maps detailing how the field emerges by calculating how it extends to roughly 10,000 kilometers below the cloud tops.

SPOT CHECK Jupiter’s magnetic field (illustrated as lines) emerges from a wide zone (red) in the northern hemisphere and partly re-enters in a concentrated spot (blue) south of the equator.

K.M. MOORE ET AL/NATURE 2018

The results “complicate our picture of Jupiter’s interior,” Moore says. Planetary magnetism arises from electrically conductive fluids within a planet. Typical simulations for how these fluids generate magnetism can explain a field that resembles that of a bar magnet, such as Earth’s or Saturn’s, as well as those that are messy all over, like the ones at Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter’s split personality is harder to explain.

One possibility is that the extreme temperature and pressure near Jupiter’s core create a soup of rock and ice partly dissolved in liquid metallic hydrogen. Here, the interplay of turbulent layers might generate a convoluted magnetic field. Or perhaps squalls of helium rain closer to the clouds stir up conductive layers below, contorting the field before it emerges from the clouds.

Citations

• K.M. Moore et al. A complex dynamo inferred from the hemispheric dichotomy of Jupiter’s magnetic field. Nature. Vol. 561, September 6, 2018, p. 76. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0468-5.

Further Reading

• C. Crockett. 4 surprising things we just learned about Jupiter. Science News. Vol. 193, March 31, 2018, p. 10.
• L. Grossman. Jupiter’s massive Great Red Spot is at least 350 kilometers deep. Science News. Vol. 193, January 20, 2018, p. 7.
• A. Yeager. Juno spacecraft reveals a more complex Jupiter. Science News. Vol. 191, June 24, 2017, p. 14.
• C. Crockett. Juno is closing in on Jupiter. Science News. Vol. 189, June 25, 2016, p. 16.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 23:33 geschreven door peter  

UFODAP for the San Luis Valley

For 70-plus years, the so-called field of "scientific ufology" has been a misnomer for truly viable UAP/AAO/UFO research and investigation. The effort to ascertain the nature and capabilities of these mysterious objects has been stymied by the mercurial aspect of their tricksterish manifestation, and the prohibitive cost of viable, diagnostic technology. What we've been left with, for decades, is a bewildering, growing pile of anecdotal reports that are impossible to analyze effectively—garbage in/garbage out. It's like we've been driving the car of UFO science forward by using the rear-view mirror to see where we're headed. Something has to change, and perhaps this perplexing conundrum may have finally been solved.

UFO Data Acquisition Project (UFODAP) in the The San Luis Valley, CO involves the deployment of pan/tilt/zoom video cameras and multi-sensor data acquisition sensors to properly record real-time UAP/AAO/UFO events. These instruments will document anomalous aerial objects at our first location, America's most active UFO "hot spot," the San Luis Valley, CO. The system will grow from two initial cameras to a three camera system with data sensors to be added as time and funding permit. Multiple cameras and sensors allows for all-important "triangulation." The triangulation feature will permit an evaluation and determination of object size, distance, altitude, speed and acceleration.

The system's cameras will be controlled by customized, motion tracking software and our triangulation software. When anomalous movement is detected by the automatic motion detection software, the system will go into record mode as the cameras coordinate their function and follow the moving objects, zooming in for better identification. With multiple cameras, the triangulated position of the object will also be located on Google maps for precise GPS location and tracking. This position will be recorded along with coordinated video and data from the cameras and the other sensors.

This amount of scientific information has never before been publicily accomplished in UFO event detection, and this is the first time a project of this size and scope has been initiated in the private sector.

UFODAP is also slated to include recording sensors to determine changes in the Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields. Electro-magnetic detectors and other measuring equipment will be encased in environmental enclosures—all operated over the Internet under automatic control of our unique customized software. These enclosures protect the gear from minus -40F degrees to 120F degree environmental conditions.   

The gofundme funds will be used to procure and  build more of these sensing equipment packages, pay for installing and maintaining the initial field equipment, and will also help offset Internet service costs and pay other costs incidental to advancing the project.

It is our goal to expand a growing network of these triangulated sensor systems to other hot spots around North America and then the world. Some possible additional locations include: San Pedro, CA; Mt. Adams, WA: Dulce, NM; Pine Bush, NY; White Sands, NM; Black Hills, SD: Bridgewater Triangle, New England, etc.

We are scheduled to begin installation in the San Luis Valley—our first location—in mid-September 2018

Our engineer, Ron Olch, has spent over 5,000 hours and written 10K +lines of code and done a masterful job developing these sophisticated software programs and the hardware interface. All of this work over with an intensive four-year effort. The UFODAP team is excited and eager to finally become operational so thank you for your interest and for YOUR kind support!

Below is an example of the UFODAP motion tracking software identifying motion and then tracking the acquired object, in this case, an airliner going into Burbank Airport (w/ the bounding box targeting feature enabled). Events will be recorded both w/ and without bounding boxes. 

{ https://www.gofundme.com/ }

06-09-2018 om 23:22 geschreven door peter  

Physician Solves Mystery of Mona Lisa's Smile While Waiting in Louvre Line

"I don’t know how to appreciate art. But I sure do know how to make a clinical diagnosis."

By Yasmin Tayag

The “Mona Lisa” has her own room in the Louvre, where she attracts six million visitors each year. Her room is frequently crowded with frenzied guests attempting to catch a glimpse of her enigmatic smile. Over a year ago, Boston physician Dr. Mandeep R. Mehra was in that endless line, hoping to do the same. During the long wait, he pondered the details of La Giaconda’s strange looks — her yellowing skin, her thinning hair, and of course, her lopsided smile.

In that time, he came to a realization: This woman is ill.

“I had the chance to just stand there for an hour and a half staring at nothing but this painting,” Mehra, medical director of the Heart & Vascular Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, tells Inverse. “I’m not an artist. I don’t know how to appreciate art. But I do sure know how to make a clinical diagnosis.”

Over the next year, Mehra dug into the history of Lisa Gherardini, the woman in the legendary portrait, as well as the public health records of historical and modern-day Florence, where the painting was created. As he outlines in a new paper in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings journal, Gherardini suffered from an ailment that is still common — and quite treatable — today.

“I don’t know how to appreciate art. But I do sure know how to make a clinical diagnosis.”

As Mehra outlines in his paper, each of the physical abnormalities he spotted on the “Mona Lisa” has a known medical correlate.

The bump next to her eye, for example, is likely a xanthalesma, a yellowish cholesterol deposit under the skin, usually near the eye. Similarly, the bulge on her hand is probably a type of fatty benign tumor known as a lipoma or a xanthoma, if it’s rich in cholesterol.

The bulge on her neck, meanwhile, could be the beginnings of a goiter, an abnormal enlargement of the thyroid gland. “It’s not an aquiline neck,” says Mehra. “You don’t actually see the trachea.”

“So, I’m basically looking at a receding hairline, loss of eyebrows, a swelling in the neck, coarse, thin hair,” he says. Then there’s the xanthalesma and the lipoma or xanthoma. “And I’m looking at a slightly edematous, swollen woman with no hair throughout. That, to me is a classic picture of clinical hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid gland.”

Put that way, it looks plain as day. Poor Lisa.

This diagnosis — common in women who had just had a baby, like Ghirardelli — even explains the perplexing smile of the “Mona Lisa.” While previous historians had tried to chalk it up to Bell’s Palsy, a form of temporary facial paralysis that weakens the muscles in one of half of the face, Mehra says this explanation doesn’t hold because there’s no unevenness in the rest of her face.

His hypothyroidism diagnosis, however, accounts for her inscrutable expression, and casts a certain sadness over the portrait.

“The more characteristic reason for why that smile is not a full-blown smile or is partially asymmetric is probably hypothyroidism,” he says, “because when you have hypothyroidism you’re a little depressed, and your facial muscles are puffy and weak. You can’t even bring yourself to a full smile.”

To back up his diagnosis, Mehra examined life in 16th-century Florence, looking for evidence that hypothyroidism might have been a common ailment.

Sure enough, he found that the food being eaten at the time — largely vegetables — was heavily deficient in iodine, which is necessary for maintaining thyroid health. Furthermore, many of the vegetables Renaissance Florentines ate, like cauliflower, cabbage, and kale, were goitrogens, or “goiter-promoting foods,” he says. Other studies on paintings by Renaissance masters back up his theory: About one-third of the paintings by Da Vinci’s contemporaries, like Caravaggio or Raphael, depict people with thyroid problems, says Mehra.

The problem Lisa Ghirardelli faced was not, it seems, isolated to the era in which she lived. Digging through public health records, Mehra discovered that thyroid deficiency remains an issue in some parts of modern Italy. “As recently as 1999 there are populations of people in iodine-deficient areas in Italy that had as much as 60 percent incidence of thyroid swelling,” he says.

The hypothyroidism diagnosis means that Ghirardelli’s life would have been uncomfortable, and increasingly so. “It’s slow. It happens over time,” says Mehra. People with hypothyroidism have trouble sleeping and difficulty regulating their body temperature; they become depressed and find it hard to think, and later become sedentary, and unable to exercise. It can be life threatening, but only in the very long term. Ghirardelli, for her part, is known to have lived to the ripe age of 63.

Da Vinci, a man of science, might have realized that his subject was ill, though it’s impossible to know. What is clear is that he deliberately depicted her with all her strange and compelling imperfections, which is perhaps the reason why the “Mona Lisa” has captivated onlookers for over five centuries.

“He was an incredibly accurate artist,” Mehra says. “I would call him a forensic artist. Almost a scientific artist. He didn’t just look at art and show what he thought would be eye-pleasing. He wanted to depict the form as it happens naturally, and that was his greatness.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

06-09-2018 om 23:14 geschreven door peter  

MISSCHIEN WEL HET BESTE BEWIJS VOOR BUITENAARDS LEVEN, OOIT? ( VIDEO )

Voor heel veel mensen zijn buitenaardse wezens sciencefiction en iets dat niet echt bestaat. 

Mensen die daar toch in geloven zijn aluhoedjes die wel een joint teveel gerookt zullen hebben, maar toen kwamen de kinderen. 

Als je dan ook onafhankelijke getuigen wilt die die jou precies kunnen vertellen wat er op een bepaald moment is gebeurd, dan weet je dat je met een kind aan het goede adres bent. Als er dan ook nog eens een hele klas is die unaniem hetzelfde verhaal vertelt, kun je gevoeglijk aannemen dat wat zij vertellen de waarheid is. 

Terug in de tijd naar het jaar 1994 en de basisschool in Zimbabwe, waar op een dag in september iets bijzonders gebeurde. Veel zullen het verhaal al wel kennen, maar hierna een geheugensteuntje uit een eerder artikel: 

In 1994 gebeurde er iets heel bijzonders bij een school in Rwanda in Afrika. Een gebeurtenis die het leven van veel mensen voorgoed zou veranderen. 

Voor het verslag van die gebeurtenis lenen we wat tekst van Ufowijzer: 

Een incident dat in 1994 voorviel op de Ariel school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, toen 62 kinderen tussen de 8 en 12 jaar oud, meldden dat ze tijdens hun speelkwartier die morgen een UFO en ‘vreemde wezens’ hadden gezien. 

“Het was die morgen speelkwartier en ze waren buiten op het schoolterrein,” zegt Nickerson. “Ze zagen één zilver hoofdvoertuig waar omheen zich vier andere objecten bevonden. Het kwam naar beneden op een heuvel naast het speelterrein van de school dat zonder hekken was. De grens ervan was de rand van het speelterrein, daarna werd het kreupelbos en heuvelachtig. Ze renden naar de rand van het speelterrein om te kijken was dat voor ding was. Ze zagen een klein wezen dat rondliep bovenop het voertuig terwijl er een ander wezen naar beneden kwam naar de kinderen toe. Hij was helemaal in het zwart, met een strak zittend pak aan. De kinderen vertelden dat hij grote ogen had, ‘zoals rugby ballen’. 

De kinderen hadden direct oogcontact met dit wezen. Er lijkt de een of andere vorm van communicatie tussen het wezen en de kinderen te zijn geweest over de staat van de wereld – wat wij de planeet aandoen, de vernietiging die we veroorzaken. Maar niet alle kinderen bleken deze boodschap te hebben gekregen. Enkele kinderen waren getraumatiseerd, anderen waren opgewonden. De jongere kinderen waren degene die overstuur waren, omdat zij vooraan in de groep stonden. 

Ze renden allemaal schreeuwend terug naar hun onderwijzers. Die geloofden hen in eerste instantie niet. Maar toen de kinderen thuis kwamen en het aan hun ouders vertelden, kwamen die naar school en wilden weten wat er was voorgevallen. Kort daarna werd de kinderen gevraagd te tekenen wat ze gezien hadden. Ze deden dat afzonderlijk. De tekeningen waren allemaal hetzelfde.”

Tijdens onze dagelijkse zoektochten naar interessante zaken, stuitten wij op de video onderaan dit artikel. Hij is al wat ouder van zo’n vijf jaar geleden met daarin fantastische opnamen. 

Het laat onder andere zien wat die kinderen aan hun juf vertellen in september 1994, vlak nadat het incident heeft plaatsgevonden. De kinderen noemen hun naam en vertellen wat ze hebben gezien. 

Verderop in de video zie je hoe ze door onderzoekers enkele maanden later opnieuw worden ondervraagd en dan komen er dingen uit, die eigenlijk onomstotelijk bewijzen dat er buitenaards leven is. 

Alle ondervraagde kinderen beschrijven de inzittenden van de gelande UFO als klein, ongeveer zo groot als zij zelf waren en datgene wat bewijst dat we hier met buitenaardsen te maken hebben is de manier waarop ze allemaal de ogen beschrijven of tekenen. 

Geen mens op aarde ziet er als volgt uit:

En iedere keer blijkt dat de ogen iets zijn wat de kinderen bij blijft. Er is een kind dat de ogen omschrijft als “evil” en er een heel ongemakkelijk gevoel bij kreeg. Andere kinderen ervaren dat weer niet en zouden ze graag nog een keer willen zien om ze te vragen wat ze hier op aarde komen doen.

Wat de getuigenis van de kinderen heel bijzonder maakt, is dat ze op band staan en zijn opgenomen vlak nadat het incident heeft plaatsgevonden. Van latere interviews zou je nog kunnen stellen dat de kinderen misschien zijn beïnvloed, maar dat is zeker niet het geval vlak na de gebeurtenis als alles nog vers in hun geheugen staat en ze precies kunnen vertellen wat ze hebben gezien. 

Twijfelaars aan buitenaards leven raden wij aan om 30 minuten de tijd te nemen om onderstaande video te bekijken. Grote kans dat je er daarna heel anders tegenaan kijkt. 

{ http://niburu.co/ }

06-09-2018 om 21:47 geschreven door peter  

Are extraterrestrials watching the current president … or at least keeping an eye on his cherished Scottish golf course while he’s away? That’s one of the possible explanations for a report with a photo of four UFOs flying over the Trump Turnberry resort in Ayrshire, Scotland. There are plenty more, although not enough to make a tell-all UFO book … yet.

It was on August 16 at 7:55 pm that the photograph of the alleged UFOs was taken as they appeared to fly or hover over Turnberry, one of the three courses at the resort located on the coast of the Firth of Clyde in South Ayrshire in southwestern Scotland. According to The Scottish Sun, an unnamed (what a surprise) person described as a “golf fan” emailed the picture taken by an equally unnamed relative of his. (See the photo here.)

“My niece was at Trump Turnberry golf course and took a picture of the golf course from the balcony of her room. She emailed the picture because I like to play golf, and when I looked at it closely I saw 4 strange disc shaped objects in the background which she said she had not noticed when taking the picture. Can you help me identify these ufos? Any ideas?”

Trump Turnberry Hotel and golf course

Not surprisingly, there are plenty of ideas since Scotland has a number of famous UFO encounters, the president has seemingly been followed by UFOs before and … “Space Force!” Scotland has the Robert Taylor Incident or Dechmont Woods Encounter (Taylor claimed an attempted abduction), a recent sighting over Kippen (looks like a kite with a flare or sparkler) and a number of them in Bonnybridge, part of the so-called Falkirk Triangle which averages around 300 UFO sightings per year.

During his campaign, then candidate Trump was followed by a UFO while in his helicopter and by two while flying from New York to Washington for his inauguration. And of course, he recently announced plans for a “Space Force” to conduct space warfare, which may or may not include battles with extraterrestrials. The president was not at the golf course on August 18, so the UFOs photographed then were likely not part of a security detail or drones trying to capture pictures — before being shot down by the security detail or the Space Force.

So, what are the UFOs in the golf fan’s photo? The top vote-getter is reflections of interior lights in the window. That’s possible, although the photographer seems to be close enough to the balcony rail to suggest she was outside. Since she didn’t see the UFOs while taking the picture, bugs, birds or lens anomalies are also possibilities.

It’s unlikely that the president will have any comments on the UFOs. Any thoughts on what they might be? Anything that will move the needle which is currently buried at ‘reflections’? Do ETs play golf? Would you welcome ETs at this time? Would the president?

A golf fan shared a picture of the mysterious objects, seen in the sky above a Scottish flag at Trump's Turnberry club in Ayshire

Should he?

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 21:39 geschreven door peter  

Two glowing UFOs filmed above El Paso, Texas

A glowing triangular object has been filmed in the sky above El Paso, Texas. At the start of the video another object is visible leaving a trail behind. Since the glowing triangle stays motionless in the air, it seems as if it is observing the first object.

Witness statement: I was on my way to work the morning of August 31, 2018 at 6.25 in the morning. I stared at the sunrise as usual because I have to stop a red light, right before I get on the freeway to work.

After a few minutes I glanced to the right and saw a glowing triangle and thought it was weird. So I took several pictures and a short video with my Samsung Galaxy S8 and did zoom in on the object and luckily it worked perfectly.

The witness has submitted the video to Mufon case 94699.

  

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

06-09-2018 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

The lost city of Atlantis... hidden in plain sight?

if there is a world that remains unexplored....it is the ancient history of man....we have signs hidden in the deserts...burried in the jungles and swallowed by our oceans......and we have mythology...a time when the world was more beautiful..more dangerous...more mysterious..

the fella in this vid has a great theory about Atlantis...check it out

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

06-09-2018 om 19:03 geschreven door peter  

La boule de feu de Colombie…

06-09-2018 om 18:44 geschreven door peter  

Un homme filme un OVNI triangulaire à Melbourne

{ http://activite-paranormale.net/index }

06-09-2018 om 18:40 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers proberen 40.000 jaar oud paard te klonen. Daarna willen ze mammoet weer tot leven wekken - HLN.be

Bron: The Siberian Times

De onderzoekers zullen proberen om een levende cel te vinden in het karkas, dat perfect bewaard bleef in de permafrost. “Het spierweefsel van het dier is onbeschadigd en we hebben enkele stalen kunnen nemen voor biotechnologisch onderzoek”, aldus dr. Semyon Grigoriev, die aan het hoofd staat van het laboratorium van het lokale Mammoetmuseum. (lees hieronder verder)

Lees ook

“Prehistorische jagers vonden vooral baby-mammoeten lekker”

Zuid-Koreaans professor en kloonexpert Hwang Woo Suk vult aan: “Als we een levende cel vinden, kunnen we die zo veel kopiëren als we willen en er zo veel embryo’s mee maken als nodig. We zullen een van de embryo’s vervolgens inplanten bij een surrogaatmerrie, die het kan voldragen en het ter wereld kan brengen. Het zou de eerste keer zijn dat zoiets lukt.”

Bij het weer tot leven wekken van een mammoet zal een olifant worden gebruikt als draagmoeder. Maar volgens de onderzoekers zou het makkelijker moeten zijn om de verdwenen paardensoort terug te brengen met de hulp van een moderne merrie. “Er zijn zo veel paarden, dat we een goede selectie kunnen maken van eicellen. En er zijn verscheidene paardensoorten die nauw verwant zijn met deze uitgestorven soort. Tussen de mammoet en de olifant is er veel minder gelijkenis. Daar zit een miljoen jaar aan evolutie tussen.” (lees hieronder verder)

Het klonen van de uitgestorven paardensoort aan de North Eastern Federal University zien de wetenschappers als een “eerste stap” in het tot leven wekken van de mammoet. “Het zal ons helpen om de nodige technologie te ontwikkelen”, klinkt het.

De vrouw op wie alle ogen gericht zijn, is Hae Hyun Kim. Zij slaagde er al eerder in om een levende cel te oogsten uit bevroren weefsel: van een hond die de eigenaar in de diepvries had gestopt. Ze gebruikt een gepatenteerde technologie (NT-1) die de cel beter maakt en herstelt. “Het is niet eenvoudig, want water kristalliseert in de cel en vernietigt ze”, klinkt het. (lees hieronder verder)

 EPA

EPA

Het veulen in kwestie werd vorige maand gevonden bij een zoektocht naar bevroren resten van een wolharige mammoet. “Er is geen schade aan het karkas, zelfs het haar van de manen en de staart bleef perfect bewaard en dat is erg zeldzaam voor zulke oude resten”, aldus dr. Grigoriev.

20 dagen

Het veulen was een mannetje en moet ongeveer 20 dagen geweest zijn toen het stierf. Het ziet er nu donkerbruin uit, maar was bij leven lichtros. Zijn haar was zwart en hij had een donkere streep langs zijn ruggengraat. Het gaat om een equus lenensis, een soort die tussen 30.000 en 40.000 jaar geleden de regio bevolkte. “Nooit eerder werd zo’n jong prehistorisch paard gevonden en dan nog eens zo goed bewaard.”

{ https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-planeet }

06-09-2018 om 18:16 geschreven door peter  

Look through the stock photos of Egypt and it’s rare to find any that don’t include pyramids – the defining monuments of that country. Yet Egypt must have had a history before that, right? These were the people who roamed the deserts and followed the Nile before the pharaohs. The people who came up with the idea of the pyramids and the Great Sphynx in the first place. What were THOSE people like?

Well, now we have another clue. Archeologists digging in Tell el-Samara, a Nile Delta area in the Dakahlia province about 140 km (87 miles) north of Cairo, discovered the remains of a village that dates back 7,000 years to a time 2,500 years before the pyramids. That makes this Neolithic village one of the oldest ever found in Egypt.

Satellite image of the Nile Delta

“Analysing the biological material that has been discovered will present us with a clearer view of the first communities that settled in the Delta and the origins of agriculture and farming in Egypt.”

In a statement on Facebook by the Ministry of Antiquities, ministry official Nadia Khedr points out that this was clearly a farming village but one that predates the development of the extensive canal systems that transformed the Nile Delta into the fertile farmlands that exist today. Studying how these people survived and farmed using the rare rainfall could reveal the spark of ingenuity that created the canals … and eventually the pyramids.

Chief archaeologist Frederic Gio led a joint French-Egyptian excavation team which uncovered storage silos (photos hereand here) containing the organic remains of food plants and animals, indicating humans spent some time there. That plus the pottery and stone tools also discovered in the silos helped date the settlement to 5,000 BCE. Besides predating the pyramids, this was also was before – although as we now know it was not long before – the first signs of the development of manmade mummification of human corpses around 3700 BCE.

Egyptian farmers

So, this new discovery predates mummification, King Menes – the first pharaoh who was believed to have united Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty – and the pyramids. What else does it tell us about the ancestors of these people? That apparently will have to wait until the next excavation season begins. Meanwhile, the organic materials found in the silos will continue to be studied and hopefully offer clues about the first settlers of the Nile Delta.

One of these days, Egypt is going to need some new stock photos.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 15:27 geschreven door peter  

Last week, at his A Different Perspective blog, Kevin Randle wrote an interesting article on one of the more intriguing figures in the Roswell affair of July 1947. It was focused on the words of the now deceased Major Edwin Easley. For those who may not know too much about the history of the Roswell controversy, Easley – who died in 1992 – was the Provost Marshall at the old Roswell Army Air Field when the “Roswell incident” took place. He was a man with a significant position in the military, and someone who had a great deal of responsibility too. As was the case with so many of the Roswell witnesses, Easley spoke about what he knew of the Roswell event later in life. In the case of Easley, we’re talking about very late in life.

The collective interviews that Kevin Randle had with Easley make for intriguing reading. In part, because of what he, Easley, had to say. But, also because of what Easley was determined not to say or discuss. Easley’s words were, and still are, important because of his rank and his credibility as a military officer with the rank of Major. A look at the interviews show that Easley was very uneasy about speaking on what went down on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico, a couple of hours’ drive from the city of Roswell.

A clearly wary Easley told Randle that he could not talk about what happened, that he had sworn to President Harry Truman that he would not disclose what he knew (although, Randle takes the far more likely and reasonable scenario of one of Truman’s aides having arranged the non-disclosure). Randle asked Easley if the theory he, Randle, was pursuing – the extraterrestrial theory – was the correct one. Easley, in careful words, said that it was not the wrong path to take. This is all very notable. And, Kevin’s article provoked a lively debate in the “Comments” section of Kevin’s blog.

In that same “Comments” section, you’ll see debate on that President Truman angle, on references to “creatures” that Easley mentioned when his life was near its end, and more. But, it’s not so much the Easley affair itself that is the subject of today’s article. Rather, it’s the matter of how, or if, such interviews can help us solve the case, once and for all. It’s important to note that I respect those in the Roswell research who have spent significant time and money to try and get to the heart of the mystery. There is, however, a problem. At least, from my perspective there is. Yes, it’s a good thing – a very good thing – when old-timers come forward telling us what they know about what really happened at the Foster Ranch, more than seventy years ago. But, after more than seventy years, testimony is still all we really have.

We have zero evidence for any theory for Roswell. Ufologists have not proved that aliens crashed on the ranch. I have been unable to prove that a secret experiment was the cause of the legend, but I do believe that’s the answer. The U.S. Air Force concludes that the debris came from a secret Project Mogul balloon. The USAF admits, though, that it has not uncovered any specific documents that actually prove a Mogul balloon came down. The same goes for the Air Force’s “Crash-test dummy” report to explain away the tales of alien bodies: the USAF believes that dummies were the source of the legends of extraterrestrial corpses found in Lincoln County, NM, but no official papers have surfaced to specifically prove that. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in the 1990s, was also unable to uncover anything specific on Roswell.

So, where does all of this leave us? Well, I’ll tell you: it leaves us with the words of old men and old women. And that’s all. We debate on their words endlessly. But, regardless of how extensive those debates might be, we still don’t have any kind of proof for what happened 71 years ago. The fact is that if the collective field of Ufology is to break the secret of what actually took place back in the summer of 1947, it will take more than just debate and interviews. And it doesn’t matter how significant that testimony is, it will never, ever be enough.

Ufologists need to take a new approach to solving Roswell. I have to admit that I don’t know what that new approach might be. I do know, though, that regardless of how dedicated ufologists in this specific field are, and regardless of how many interviews have been conducted, they have failed to achieve what they sought for: the Roswell truth, the bodies, the craft, the wreckage, and the old files. And, that goes for my research too; not just for the pro-E.T. investigators or the Mogul and dummy proponents. Now, don’t misinterpret my words: the brief statements made by the like of Edwin Easley are significant, very significant. But, the important thing is they don’t open doors.  And, to solve the case, or to take it much further, we need to open doors.

There are dozens and dozens of books out there on the JFK assassination of November 1963 and on the Jack the Ripper affair of 1888. They are filled with interviews, and with decades-old statements (in the Ripper mystery dating back more than a century).  But, no one has been able to make a cast-iron, undeniable, 100 percent provable case for who Jack was or who whacked JFK. Roswell is in that very same category, when it comes to research, interviews, blogging and book-writing: we have got so far, but now we’re stuck. As in completely stuck. We’re forced – time and again – to go over old interviews, to readdress what those interviewees told us, and to provoke near-endless blog comments. Of course, we could go on like that forever. But, that’s not preferable. It’s time for the Roswell UFO research community to come together and try and figure out how we might get the truth. There has to be a way, but so far no one has found it. I hope it can be found.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-09-2018 om 15:19 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Lights Over San Diego Spark UFO Visitation Speculation

Residents of San Diego were startled with the mysterious lights that appeared in the sky above their city. Twitter was flooded with photos and videos of the strange glowing orbs that made some to speculate the lights were of extraterrestrial in origin.

Many observed floating-balls like object over the downtown skyline. Various residents had observed the strange aerial activity looking from La Mesa to downtown. Some others mentioned, “extraterrestrial lights” randomly appearing in the air of Pacific Beach in San Diego.

Did aliens visit San Diego? Several UFO enthusiasts think so, but a Navy spokesperson said otherwise. According to the official Navy report, the lights were merely part of a flare training exercise. However, despite this straightforward explanation, many others expressed doubt at it, who said that the official word was unbelievable.

Is the truth out there in San Diego? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

 Daniel Burns@DBurnsOfficial

What’s happening over the downtown skyline? Looking from La Mesa to downtown. Looks like floating balls of fire? @CBS8 #ballsoffire #whatsthat

5:25 AM - Aug 30, 2018 · La Mesa, CA

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Nicky Fox@itsnickyfox

Extraterrestrial lights randomly appearing in the air of Pacific Beach, San Diego. What are they?! #SanDiego #lights @nbcsandiego

9:21 AM - Aug 30, 2018

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{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

06-09-2018 om 15:11 geschreven door peter  

Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Are A National Security Risk And Also An Opportunity For Progress

A career’s worth of intelligence work for the U.S. Government has taught me one key lesson: national security is a lot like playing a game of chess. You have to anticipate your opponent’s every move in order to remain one step ahead.

Disclosing your strategy will be used against you. But if you recognize certain opportunities, you can win the match.

When I headed the government’s highly sensitive Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), I worked with a team to assess whether a particular chess piece — in this case in the form of an unfamiliar aerial technology — was a threat to our side of the chess board.

If it was, we had to know how to counter it.

Since the Government views Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) as a potential national security issue, they’re secretive by necessity. They don’t want to reveal any information to a potential enemy.

But there are risks to keeping that information classified.

Say the person who first learned how to harness fire never shared it with the next generation, or the person who invented the telescope threw it away when he was done using it. What if the creator of the wheel decided it was too labor intensive for others to build and decided, “Forget it”?

As a species, we’re meant to evolve. And we needed those advancements to get to where we are today. Reports of strange crafts with seemingly inexplicable properties have been circulating within the U.S. Government for at least 70 years, which suggests it isn’t going away. There is “something out there.”

Declassifying certain information about UAP and sharing it with the public could lead to new technological discoveries, new forms of medical research, and a broader view of how humanity understands reality.

Here’s why:

A government must assume anything is a threat until it has been proven otherwise.

When determining whether an unknown entity is friend or foe, the U.S. Government looks at factors including capabilities, intentions, vulnerabilities, and exploitability. A close look at these factors reveals just how little UAPs are understood.

Advancements in our understanding of physics at the quantum level have helped shed faint light on the potential science behind UAPs. But these advancements have also shown us that UAPs have superior technical knowledge as well.

If these capabilities fell into the hands of a foreign adversary, it would be a decisive game-changer.

Likewise, the intentions of UAPs haven’t been made clear to us at this point. There could be a number of reasons for their presence, ranging from peaceful curiosity to a probe for battlespace preparation. The possibilities are numerous.

UAP vulnerabilities, however, remain a complete mystery. Some have hypothesized that there’s a correlation between UAPs and our nuclear capabilities, while others have suggested that nuclear-generated electromagnetic pulses are a potential weakness.

Regardless, we still don’t really know what vulnerabilities UAPs might have short of speculation. Right now, it’s anyone’s guess.

From a national security perspective, exploitation is the holy grail of endeavors. It’s critical to determine whether UAP technology could be reverse-engineered and used to our benefit, but we can’t exploit such technology unless we first understand it.

When it comes to UAPs, the U.S. knows less than it should, and perhaps much less than our adversaries.

The potential rewards outweigh the risks.

There is always a risk involved when it comes to communicating national security issues to the public. But it’s subjective. The significance of that risk depends on who you ask.

If you ask a military leader, for example, they would say government secrecy about advanced aerospace phenomena is crucial because you want to avoid broadcasting your capabilities and intentions to your potential enemy.

A politician would view UAPs completely differently. They may ask, “Is this something potential voters need to know, or will concealing it cause my constituents to lose faith in me? How does this discussion affect the voters and my ability to represent them?”

A religious figure, on the other hand, would likely be more concerned with the religious and philosophical implications UAPs might have on his or her faith.

There are countless examples throughout history of individuals challenging the prevailing systems of power with radical scientific ideas.

When Galileo told the church hundreds of years ago that Earth was not the center of the solar system, for example, they nearly killed him for it.

As someone without a political or religious agenda, I’m free to say the rewards outweigh the risks in this situation. For example, in December 2017 our team at To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science helped release U.S. military footage of UAPs. No government imploded, no religion dissolved.

Like Galileo, our mission is simple. Collect and disseminate the truth about the unknown. As long as the risks don’t compromise national security, the rewards can benefit all.

Scientific truths help push society forward.

At this point, there’s no question about whether UAPs are out there — they are. People can choose to either continue to live with their heads buried in the sand, or they can take a proactive approach to the phenomenon.

Centuries ago, when mankind first stood on the shores of a beach and contemplated sailing across the horizon, the chorus shouted, “You’re crazy! You’re going to fall off the Earth! There are sea monsters!”

But now, in the 21st century, people travel across oceans every day. What our ancestors thought were sea monsters are great white sharks, blue whales, and giant squid. It turns out that they’re just another part of our natural environment.

Once people committed to discovering the truth for themselves, it was no longer mystical, it was just nature.

But because government processes demand secrecy when it comes to classified information, false knowledge about UAPs spreads rapidly. Secrecy empowers people selling their snake oil and YouTubers profit from peddling their ill-informed narratives about UFOs. Soon people start believing Elvis lives on the mothership — just as they once believed you could fall off the edge of the Earth.

The more knowledge people have, the better they will be able to master their own destinies, and not be held hostage to the monsters of their imaginations.

{ https://medium.com/ }

06-09-2018 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

The trumpets of the Apocalypse are heard again, now in Canada and Indonesia

People around the world have been reporting eerie, haunting and almost apocalyptic like sounds. According to witnesses of this unexplained phenomenon, they hear humming and loud booms, grinding metal, trumpet-like noises coming from the sky.

But do these sounds really come from the sky or something else is going on?

An in-depth investigation on this issue conducted by Linda Molten Howe has shown that the secret of these sounds is inside the Earth.

And again these sounds have been heard. This time strange apocalyptic trumpet-like sounds are heard in the sky in Downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada on November 2, 2017 at 9:30 pm local time and one day earlier, on November 1, 2017 similar sounds are heard from several locations in Indonesia.

{ http://funnyrandomstuff.com/ }

06-09-2018 om 00:08 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn May Be 180 Miles Tall

05-09-2018 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

TRAPPIST-1 Worlds Are Rocky and Rich in Water, New Research Uncovers

05-09-2018 om 23:23 geschreven door peter  

Observation d’OVNI : Un “vaisseau spatial extraterrestre” ABATTU dans le ciel écossais

Les chasseurs d’ALIENs étaient sur le qui-vive lorsqu’un OVNI a été abattu au-dessus de l’Écosse dans une vidéo qui fait actuellement le tour sur les médias sociaux.

Les théoriciens du complot ont cru avoir décroché le jackpot lorsqu’une vidéo montrant quelque chose d’étrange qui circulait dans le ciel nocturne au-dessus de Kippen, en Écosse.

La vidéo bizarre, qui a été tournée le 1er septembre, montre quelque chose flottant dans le ciel avec une matière étrange qui semble s’en échapper.

Les théoriciens du complot ont cru que c’était un OVNI qui avait été abattu.

La vidéo a été tournée par une femme anonyme en Ecosse qui l’a envoyée à la chaîne populaire UFO Today.

La description sur la vidéo se lit : “L’objet laissait tomber beaucoup de matière incandescente en volant. Elle savait ce qu’était cet objet, mais elle était sûre qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’un objet fabriqué par l’homme.”

“Il ne faisait pas de bruit du tout. Quand j’ai analysé les images, j’ai remarqué que l’objet éjectait beaucoup de matière.”

Beaucoup d’adeptes d’UFO Today étaient convaincus qu’il s’agissait d’une véritable activité ufologique.

YouTuber David Leach a écrit : “Excellente séquence. Il y a beaucoup de fuites. Vers la fin, on dirait qu’un petit OVNI se détache et monte.”

Starman 2710 a ajouté : “C’est passé à travers le portail trop vite et ça a perdu le contrôle ?”

AKIJPN a poursuivi : “On dirait qu’un objet volant qui perd le contrôle ! Incroyable.”

Cependant, il semble y avoir une explication plus logique à ce phénomène étrange.

Selon les gens du pays qui ont pris le site internet Reddit d’assault, les observations étranges sont en fait causés par des gens qui attachent des bougies à des cerfs-volants.

Il semble qu’il y ait eu plusieurs cas au cours du dernier mois où les résidents n’étaient pas trop préoccupés par une invasion extraterrestre.

L’utilisateur de Reddit ‘Space Pecs’ a déclaré que c’est “la troisième fois ce mois-ci” qu’un cerf-volant avec des bougies a été déployé.

Bory Truro a répondu : “Je n’avais pas beaucoup d’indices au début, mais maintenant que vous le mentionnez, on dirait que quelqu’un a collé une bougie sur un cerf-volant.”

Source: Express.co.uk, le 3 septembre 2018 – Traduction Nouvelordremondial.cc

{ https://www.nouvelordremondial.cc/ }

05-09-2018 om 22:56 geschreven door peter