Well, that didn’t take long. On December 30th, 2018, researchers from the SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access) expedition used hot water to drill through Antarctic ice to a depth of 1,084 meters (3,556 feet) to reach Lake Mercer – a “lost” lake buried 600 kilometers from the South Pole. While they expected to find the microbes that seem to exist everywhere and in the harshest conditions, the researchers scraping mud off of an instrument retrieved from Lake Mercer were stunned to find it contained the remains of higher life forms – crustaceans, plants and one hardy little eight-legged bear.

“Fully unexpected.”

In a press release published in the journal Nature, University of Nebraska-Lincoln micro-palaeontologist (talk about specialization) David Harwood described his reaction to what he saw with his microscope positioned over a speck of the mud from a lake that has been locked under the ice for thousands of years. He expected to see the million-year-old shells of photosynthetic algae from Antarctica’s warmer times. What he didn’t expect was something that looked like “an old leaf that’s been sitting on the ground for a season.” That “leaf” turned out to be the shell and legs of a shrimp-like crustacean. In micro-paleontology, where there’s one, there’s bound to be another and sure enough, Harwood found a fresher specimen that looked much like it did when it was alive. He also recognized that one of the legged creatures was a tardigrade, the ‘water bears’ that seem to be able to survive the harshest conditions, and things resembling worms were tendrils of a land-dwelling plant or fungus.

To rule out the possibility that the unexpected creatures were the result of their own doing, the researchers sterilized the probe and sent it back down again. Harwood’s microscope found more crustaceans in the new mud. That means they definitely lived in Lake Mercer. But how did they get there?

To answer that question , the mud was sent to animal ecologist Byron Adams at McMurdo Station on the Antarctic coast. He recognized the crustaceans, tardigrade and fungi as the same creatures he’s seen alive in regions of Antarctica called the Dry Valleys and the Transantarctic Mountains. Based on that, he believes the creatures actually lived tens of thousands of years ago in the Transarctic Mountains. After they died, their remains were washed down into Lake Mercer where they intermingled with the million-year-old diatoms.

“What was sort of stunning about the stuff from Lake Mercer is it’s not super, super-old. They’ve not been dead that long.”

That’s disappointing news to those who were hoping the creatures actually lived in the buried lake, but Adams doesn’t rule out the possibility and would like to see more mud, thinking “it’s possible that you could still find things that are alive.” In the meantime, he points out that biologists are now changing the history of Antarctica once written by geologists and glaciologists. The SALSA will now use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the creatures and DNA testing to find out if they lived in fresh water or the ocean. Further tests will determine if they were surface creatures eating algae or were actually able to live in the dark, sub-ice lake where they were found.

You never know what you might catch in Antarctica

This is truly exciting research, but the scientists are racing against the Antarctica-melting force of climate change. Will we find out where we came from before it’s no longer here?

The SALSA camp at Mercer Subglacial Lake. The team included 45 scientists, drillers, and support staff who spent three weeks drilling through the ice and sample from Mercer Subglacial Lake.

(Photo Credit: SALSA)

There is absolutely no doubt that the world, right now, is a dangerous place – an extremely dangerous place. In light of all that, an important questions needs to be asked – and answered. If war comes – and it turns nuclear – will world leaders and elite figures head deep below the surface of the planet, only to return years later to claim what remains of the planet and human civilization? Such a thing is not at all impossible. In fact, there are significant signs that plans are indeed being made to ensure that the underground will be the place to be if the apocalypse occurs. But, as is usually the case, it will be the controlling elite who will be calling the shots, rather than the rest of us. Let’s take a look at some of the highly-classified installations that exist on our planet and how they may make use of them if the unthinkable happens.

Given the fact that Russia amounts to a huge area of land, there are plenty of areas in which secure, underground facilities can be built – and which have been built. The U.S. Intelligence community has known for decades that at least two, massive facilities exist – and which have the ability to survive nuclear strikes, chiefly as a result of the fact that they are built deeply into almost impenetrable mountains. Those same mountains are Mount Yamantau and the Kosvinsky Mountains.

As for Yamantau, it stands at in excess of 5,000 feet and is the highest mountain in the Urals. As far back as the 1990s, the Russians began the construction of a massive facility within Mount Yamantau, primarily to provide the controlling elite with a secure place in which to survive a nuclear exchange between the super-powers. American spy-satellites have confirmed massive digging on the mountain, suggesting that huge, hollowed out sections of the mountain now exist – and which have been turned into the perfect locations for literally hundreds of thousands of people to survive an attack. And make no mistake, the Yamantau facility is gigantic. Studies undertaken by American intelligence agents suggest that its size is that of Washington, D.C.’s huge Interstate 495, which surrounds the capitol of the United States. Given that I-495 has a circumference of more than sixty miles and that will give you an idea of the scale of the Yamantau facility.

As for the Mount Kosvinsky installation, that is equally almost impenetrable. Built well into the heart of the mountain – which is located in the northern Urals – it is protected by around 1,200-feet of granite and, just like the Yamantau base, is designed to provide housing for the elite in the event of a nuclear attack – and also to allow for some form of continuation of government. Presuming, of course, there is anyone left to be governed after a major nuclear exchange between the most powerful nations on the planet. All that’s really known for sure is that the construction of the base was completed by the mid-1990s and that it, like Yamantau, can house thousands of people – with a near-indefinite supply of food, water, medical supplies and all the provisions needed to survive underground not just for months but for years. Some intelligence estimates suggest possibly even for decades.

Mount Yamantau

Moving away from the Urals, but still focused on Russia, there is Kapustin Yar, which is situated in Astrakhan Oblast. Construction of the installation began back in the 1940s – with the intention being to create the ultimate facility for building and testing new and novel rockets. The first such rocket launch took place in October 1947 – it was a test using a captured Nazi A-4 rocket; one of a number that the Russians got their hands on when the Nazi regime collapsed in 1945. As the base grew in size and scope, yet further rocket tests were undertaken and by the early 1950s atomic-bombs tests were carried out in close proximity. Spy-satellites of the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office have noted that in the last few years massive digging has been afoot at Kapustin Yar, all of which suggests that the base is no longer just used for rocket and missile tests; but that it may be being refurbished on a gigantic scale – to essentially turn portions of it into a huge, underground bunker, one designed to withstand the terrible effects of a nuclear war.

Now let’s take a look at China. The most visible of the various installations that U.S. intelligence suspects have been converted into massive, bunker-style facilities is the Sanya installation, as it has become known; although, its official title is the Yulin Naval Base – Sanya being a nearby city which is home to around 700,000 people. Essentially, the installation, located on Hainan Island, is one of China’s most important submarine bases. But, it’s far more than that. The National Interest website states: “The People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) is undoubtedly moving to buttress its presence on the island. On Yalong Bay near the island’s southeastern tip, China’s recently constructed Longpo naval base is a deep-water port complete with submarine piers, an underground submarine facility with tunnel access, and a demagnetizing facility to reduce the magnetic residuals on ship hulls.”

Hainan Island

The Diplomat notes: “Open-source intelligence tools provide an informative glimpse of Hainan Island’s busy, fortified, and increasingly vital base. All told, Yulin-East encompasses over 25 square kilometers of military infrastructure lying within a protected, man-made harbor… the base accommodates surface and subsurface vessels (and most of the necessary accouterments thereof), theater and point defense weapons systems, munitions transport vehicles and depots, and administrative buildings for military commanders.” Not only that: U.S. military spy-satellites, using ground-penetrating radar systems, have been able to confirm evidence of huge excavating within the hills that surround the base. In other words, while the submarine base certainly still exists, it is being expanded on – specifically with the creation of fortified facilities buried deep within the depths of the local landscape.

What all of this demonstrates is that two of the world’s most powerful nations – Russia and China – are taking careful, rapid and secret steps to create huge underground installations which may provide some degree of survival for the elite. If anyone tells you that Russia, particularly, is not a threat, they’re wrong.

By far one of the most well-known and beloved religious figure in history is Jesus Christ himself. Typically portrayed as a beacon of understanding, enlightenment, selflessness, and benevolence, he has been the cornerstone of one fo the biggest religions the world has ever seen. Yet there are some darker components to the history of Jesus Christ, and it seems that in addition to working his miracles and giving his sermons he was not above losing control of his anger and straight up cursing people from time to time, with three cities in particular becoming the target of his mighty displeasure.

The three cities that Jesus decided to lay down his wrath upon are often known as the “Unrepentant Cities,” and all are located around the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in Israel, where Jesus Christ once made his home amongst the humble fishermen of the region. It is interesting in that these are places where Christ was once at home and even performed his miracles. Take the city called Chorazin, also known as Korazin or Korazim, which was an important place in those days, renowned for its wheat, and is where Jesus actually lived at one point after he left Nazareth, and in later years he would frequently visit the city and perform various miracles there, with it being one of the three key cities in which he conducted his ministry. It is said that despite these displays of power the people of the city did not repent their “ways,” which led to a rather uncharacteristically extreme reaction from Jesus, and according to Matthew and Luke’s gospels of the New Testament he then laid a horrible curse down upon this once great city, condemning it to wither away to nothingness.

Indeed, the city supposedly completely died, and according to writings by Eusebius it was destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 330 AD, after which it was rebuilt in the 5th century and later abandoned once more to leave it to rot. In later centuries the doomed city would become associated with the birthplace of the Antichrist, and it is not hard to see that it rather suffered from the spiteful anger of Jesus. It was not until the 19th century that ruins linked to the ancient lost city would be found in the vicinity of a place called Khirbet Kerazeh. Here an ancient synagogue was excavated, as well as various ruins fashioned from black basalt, most interestingly a huge block of the stuff, which was engraved with ancient Aramaic and is called the Seat of Moses, as well as carved human and animal figures and a well preserved statue of Medusa, which at that time would have certainly been considered a very pagan image. There is little evidence that these ruins actually existed in the time when Jesus was alive, and despite the few mentions of Chorazin in the New Testament it remains a bit of a lost historical mystery, and it is still not clear from the passages just what the people did exactly to incur such a vehement response from Christ.

Lying just a few kilometers away is another city purportedly cursed by Jesus, called Capernaum, a famous fishing port at the time and a major stopover on the Via Maris, the main trade route connecting Damascus in the north and Egypt in the south. It is also notable for being home to some of Jesus’ disciples, the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James and John, and the tax collector Matthew. Along with Chorazin it is also one of the three key cities, or the “Evangelical Triangle,” where he had his ministry and performed most of his miracles. Indeed Jesus once lived at Capernaum, calling it his “own city,” and he is said to have healed a paralyzed man, as well as a centurion’s servant boy who was seriously ill with palsy at home, also curing Peter’s mother-in-law, and raising the daughter of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, back from the dead, and he is said to have rid many people of demonic possessions here as well. It was in the Capernaum synagogue that Jesus gave many sermons, including his famous Sermon on the Bread of Life (John 6:35-59), in which he says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Alas, the people here were said to have been largely indifferent to the fantastical miracles they witnessed, unwilling to recognize Jesus’s true powers or to repent for their sins, and this too provoked a rage that caused him to curse it as well, despite what a home he considered it to be. This curse supposedly caused the town to fall into utter ruin, going from a thriving fishing market to a pale shadow of its former glory, becoming what a 3rd century account calls, “despicable;  it numbers only seven houses of poor fishermen,” and all attempts to resettle the area were failed ventures met with woe and strife. As with Chorazin, many ruins have been found here, such as several synagogues and what is thought to have been the home of Saint Peter himself, and many of the structures were constructed of white limestone. The location is also home to the largest synagogue yet discovered in Israel, a massive ornate structure built in the 4th or 5th century upon the remains of a synagogue in which Jesus taught. When the ruins were first found in 1838, the curse apparently still had a shadow hanging over them, as American explorer Edward Robinson called the place “desolate and mournful.” In modern times, a modern Catholic Church sits upon eight grand pillars atop a mound overlooking the archeological excavation site, as if protecting this place and keeping the curse at bay.

Finally we come to the ancient fishing village of Bethsaida, also one of the Evangelical Triangle and the last of the known “cursed cities” of Jesus. It is the largest of the three cities, and was once a thriving capitol of the Kingdom of Geshur during the time of King David, and it was where Jesus met his first disciples, the fisherman Simon-Peter and his brother Andrew. It was also the place where Jesus performed miracles such as curing a blind man, as well as his famous miracle of providing food for a mass of 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread (Matt. 14:13-21), often called the “Miracle of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes.” Unfortunately for them, the people of Bethsaida also fell on the wrong side of Jesus, and he cursed them as well, with the town later being annihilated by an earthquake in around 363 AD. It too would be rebuilt but subsequently abandoned, the land barren and not wanting people here anymore, leaving nothing but mysterious, dusty weed-choked ruins behind.

All of the cities we have looked at here Jesus Christ supposedly found fit to curse with all of his power, their lack of repentance and ways causing great ire for him. In these instances he went outside of his benevolent, forgiving ways, and chose instead to bight these cities with misfortune and death, and it was rather chillingly commended by him in Matthew 11:20–24 as such:

Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the Day of Judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

It is pretty shocking to see a figure of such a typically benevolent and forgiving nature to utter such words and display such scorn, but it seems Jesus was not above a certain fury when times called for it. These cities have become buried by the sands, lost to history and mostly devolved into feral ruins and rubble, but their legacy still stands as the only three times Jesus Christ lashed out to curse whole places. It is an interesting juxtaposition to what he usually stands for, and a frightening display of his power, if any of it ever really happened at all. In the end we have this figure of one of the world’s largest religions, renowned for his gentle nature and forgiving stance conjuring up dark forces to blight lands that did not agree with him, and although it is uncertain how much any reality any of this holds, it is somewhat chilling nonetheless, and a little known chapter and oddity of Biblical history.

Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) have discovered a Jupiter-sized black hole wandering around our Milky Way galaxy. This makes it the third black hole of its kind that has been found so far in our galaxy.

While black holes can’t actually been seen, what the team did witness was clouds of celestial gases that were orbiting around something they couldn’t see. The team was studying two gas clouds, nicknamed Balloon and Stream in reference to their shape, for two days in May 2018 and that’s when they noticed the gas clouds moving mysteriously and spinning around an invisible center. They noticed this by using a set of 66 Chilean telescopes called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) which are located across the Atacama Desert in the northern part of Chile.

Shunya Takekawa, who is an astrophysicist at the NAOJ, told New Scientist, “When I checked the ALMA data for the first time, I was really excited because the observed gas showed obvious orbital motions, which strongly suggest an invisible massive object lurking.”

While studying how the gas clouds were moving and orbiting the invisible object, they concluded that the black hole is approximately 30,000 times the mass of our Sun but it only occupies as much space as Jupiter because it’s so compact. And with the lack of light coming from that area, they concluded that it was in fact a medium-sized black hole.

Scientists have a pretty good understanding of the common tiny black holes and supermassive black holes located in our galaxy, but now they’re curious as to how many of the rare medium-sized black holes there are in the Milky Way. Astronomers do believe that they have found two other medium-sized black holes around the heart of our galaxy near Sagittarius A. These three medium-sized black holes could potentially be escapees from the large black hole that’s at the center of the Milky Way. They also believe that there are many more of these rare medium-sized black holes somewhere out there in the Universe.

The research conducted in finding this new medium-sized black hole has been detailed in an article on the arXiv.org website in December of 2018.

For whatever reasons, anomalous noises seem to have become a more frequently reported phenomenon recently. I have to wonder: are they actually occurring more often, or just being reported more often? From the now omnipresent mystery booms to strange hums which plague cities throughout the globe, the world abounds with strange sounds. What is making these anomalous noises, and why do they seem to be on the rise?

The latest spate of mystery noises occurred along the east coast of the US, where residents of four cities in four different states all seemed to have heard a similar terrifying and unexplained noise in recent weeks. While industrial causes are suspected in at least two of the cases, some residents aren’t buying those explanations.

Plus, major industrial sites are usually off-limits to the public, meaning they’re a perfect scapegoat if one was ever needed.

Late last month, residents of the Mid Valley region of Pennsylvania near Scranton heard what were described as “jet engine-like noises” loud enough to wake them up in bed. The noises began around 8:00 am local time and lasted for over an hour. Borough Council President Gerald Crinella said the noises sounded like “fighter jets flying overhead” and was so loud it could be heard indoors. Shortly after new of the incident broke, officials at the Lackawanna Energy Center say the noises were caused by an emergency pressure valve opening unexpectedly, creating “the loudest noise they’ve ever heard come from the plant.”

Two weeks later, a strikingly similar noise was heard much farther to the south near Tampa, Florida. Residents of the Davis Islands heard terrifyingly loud jet engine noises around 4:00 am on January 11. Emergency officials say the noise was caused by the nearby TECO Bayside Power Station, which was venting steam.

On January 17, residents of Salisbury, North Carolina were startled by a “mysterious ‘alien’ sound” heard throughout the city around 11:00 pm. Cameron Glen told local news affiliate FOX 46 that the noise sounded like a mix between “a locomotive and a space shuttle taking off.” The noise was heard for around five minutes and caused dogs and coyotes to howl. Local officials have reached out to nearby airports and power stations, but so far no one has claimed responsibility.

Normally, there’d be no reason to doubt that power plants would have to occasionally let off incredible amounts of steam. However, the timing and similarities of these three incidents seems a bit too coincidental to me. With reports of mysterious sonic booms on the rise, could these reports of jet engine noises be related? There’s no way law enforcement officials would lie to the press about anomalous events, is there?

What people are speculating the sounds are online...

This wave form shows how the sound was recorded when captured in Canada

Yesterday, I wrote an article titled “Area 51: ‘I Can’t Discuss It, Sir.'”  It was focused on how from 1984 to 1985 plans were initiated – and ultimately implemented – by the U.S. Government to grab as much land as possible around Area 51, Nevada. Today, I’m doing a follow-up to that article. Now, it’s time to take a look at a now-declassified document of 1987 titled Military Land Withdrawals. As was the case in the previous article, we see the Honorable John F. Seiberling taking the lead. Such are their importance, his words are presented without interruption:

“This morning we are resuming our hearings on H.R. 1790, introduced by our colleague from Maryland, Mrs. Byron. The bill is an omnibus measure, which would withdraw certain public lands in four different states for use by the Defense Department for military purposes. Under the Eagle Act of 1958, such military withdrawals involving tracts of 5,000 acres or more can be done only through an act of Congress.

“Our first hearing on this bill on November 14, 1985, focused on the so-called Bravo-20 range in northern Nevada, which the Navy has used for bombing practice and related training. Today’s hearing focuses on the other area in Nevada covered by H.R. 1790; namely, the Nellis Air Force Range complex in the southern part of the state. This is an area of more than 2.9 million acres divided into two portions, the north and south range, separated by lands which are now designated as the national test site and used primarily by the Department of Energy for underground nuclear testing and other purposes. The south range of the Nellis complex overlaps the western half of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. That unit of the national wildlife refuge system is about 1.6 million acres in extent.

“Since 1974 there has been pending before the Congress an administration proposal to designate about 1.4 million acres within this unit as wilderness. Members of the subcommittee who served on the Public Lands and national Parks Subcommittee in the 98^th Congress will recall that we considered the status of the Nellis range and related matters at a hearing on August 6, 1964.

“By way of background let me recapitulate matters discussed at that hearing and some later developments. At the 1984 hearing we were presented with the issue of what some witnesses described as the seizure by the Air Force of more than 89,000 acres of public lands outside but adjacent to the Nellis south range. In fact, I will go further and say the illegal seizure by the Air Force of these public lands and the illegal exclusion of the rightful owners of various properties that were located on them or within them.

“Testimony from the administration demonstrated that in fact the Air Force had acted to close that large area, known as the Groom Mountain area, to public access even though the Air Force and Defense Department had no legal authority whatsoever to do so. They closed the area because of a decision which they testified was reached at the level of the Secretary of the Air Force or above – shades of Watergate. The decision was based on concerns that otherwise the security of the Nellis complex and the national test site would be threatened.

“After these actions, the administration asked the Congress to regularize matters by withdrawing the Groom Mountain area under the Engle Act. At the 1984 hearing also, we raised the matter pf the still pending administration proposal to designate as wilderness lands within the desert refuge and partly overlapped by the Neillis complex. In response to my initial questions, the Air Force testified that they had been consulted in the process of formulating the administration’s wilderness proposal and that they had no reason to object to such a designation. Based on this, the subcommittee was prepared to incorporate into the Nellis withdrawal legislation provisions designating wilderness within the desert refuge in accordance with the administration’s proposals. However, the Air Force and Defense Department then had an apparent change of mind and urged that such designation not be made. The Department of the Interior continued to support the wilderness recommendation.

“As a result of this apparent divergence of views within the administration, in the end we did not act on the Nellis complex as such. Instead, the Nellis withdrawal bill was amended to deal only with the Groom Mountain area. And that amended bill was ultimately passed by the House and agreed to by the Senate. It was signed on October 17, 1984, as Public Law 98-485.

“Under the terms of that law, the Groom Mountain area is withdrawn for military use until December 31, 1987. By January 1, 1987, the Interior and Air Force Departments must complete and issue an environmental impact statement concerning continued or renewed withdrawal of the Groom Mountain area. This environmental impact statement must address certain possible measures to mitigate development, and agriculture in Nevada.

“Strictly speaking, the questions of possible renewal of the withdrawal of the Groom Mountain area is not before us at this time. However, I think it appropriate for us to examine today the way Public Law 98-485 is being implemented, and where things stand in terms of the development of the required EIS and the consideration of mitigation measures. We will also be most interested to learn whether the former divergence of views within the administration has been resolved as regards the administration’s proposal for wilderness in the Desert National Wildlife Range.

Groom Lake

(Wikipedia)

“Finally, as I noted at our first hearing on the bill before us, it would be important for us to remember that while we have been to a certain extent attempting to examine the proposed withdrawal of the Nellis complex separately and apart from other areas in H.R. 1790, and, of course, apart from other proposed military withdrawals which are not dealt with by this bill, we must remember that, in fact, Nellis and the other proposed withdrawal areas are part of a larger picture.

“It would be a mistake to fail to consider the cumulative impact of the Nellis complex, the test site, and the other military withdrawals on the State of Nevada and other parts of the country affected by these withdrawals, as well as by other restrictions on the use of lands and airspace, in the interest of national defense or for other purposes.

“I now recognize our distinguished colleague, Mrs. Vucanovich.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

“I want to thank you for holding this hearing on an issue that is of critical importance to the state of Nevada. I also want to welcome Congressman Reid to our committee, and extend a warm welcome to our Nevada constituents who have come to give their views on this to the committee. I look forward to hearing their testimony.

“As the chairman mentioned, this bill withdraws 2.945 million acres of land and park now in Lincoln County, NV, for use by the Department of the Air Force as the training and testing area. The Air Force has been under numerous Executive orders, public land orders, and administrative actions.

“The Nellis Air Force Range comprises the largest air and ground space available in the free world for peacetime military operations and training and, therefore, it is of extreme importance to the defense of this nation.

“It is important to note that this particular withdrawal does not represent any additional new lands to be withdrawn. During the 98^th Congress hearings were held on this withdrawal, in addition to a proposal by the Air Force to withdraw 89,600 acres known as the Groom Mountain Range.

“Because of the controversy surrounding the Groom Mountain Range brought to the attention of the committee by me and many Nevadans who testified, this committee agreed to require the Air Force to submit a separate environmental impact statement on the Groom Mountain Range. As we have heard, a temporary withdrawal was approved for the Groom Mountain Range until December 31, 1987. Because of the controversy surrounding the Groom Mountain Range, the 2.945 million-acre withdrawal was postponed.

“It is expected that the final environmental impact statement on the Groom Mountain Range will be completed some time this summer. Since it is the intent of the Congress to consider the withdrawal of the Groom Mountain range only after the completion of the EIS, H.R. 1790 withdraws only the land on the existing Nellis range.

“The Air Force has completed the environmental work on the lands that were previously withdrawn, and has compiled with FLPMA, NEPA, and the Eagle Act. The controversy over this legislation during the last Congress was never over the lands that were previously withdrawn, only over the Groom Mountain Range.”

The next land grab went along smoothly.

At last year’s annual “PROJECT” scientific expo in Russia, organizers showed off what they claimed was Russia’s “most advanced robot,” named Boris. Boris wowed expo attendees by conversing with hosts, liberally handing out fist bumps, and even dancing on stage to “Skibidi” by Little Big, Russia’s answer to “Gangnam Style.” Absurdist K-pop dance hits aren’t the only thing being ripped off, though: it turns out Boris was just some guy in a suit. Whoops.

The 3 1⁄2-inch floppy disk hot glued to the chest box was a nice touch, though.

Not to be outdone, the 38th Annual Technology Exhibition in the Ghanaian capital of Accra rolled out its own questionable displays of allegedly “advanced” technology. The exhibition featured the usual variety of telecom tech and social media apps, but the main event was without a doubt a parade sponsored by the Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo Kantanka, owner of Ghana’s first car maker Kantanka Automobile and frequent maker of dubious claims. At the Technology Exhibition, Kantanka showed off what was alleged to be the most advanced military technology in Ghana: soldiers wearing powered exoskeletons and a massive, heavily-armed personnel carrier. The personnel carrier seemed like it could hold up alright to small arms fire for a few minutes, but as for the cyborg supersoldiers, well, just check it out for yourself.

Those guys wouldn’t even make it into the top ten at a cosplay convention. That one dude’s “hydraulic cable” is just hanging off his leg and is obviously empty split loom tubing, and as a cosplayer myself, I know a spray painted motorcycle helmet when I see one. Part of me wants to laugh, the other part just feels embarrassed for the poor guys who had to wear those costumes in the Ghanaian heat. I have to wonder, though: what did the exhibition attendees think?

The whole parade reminds me of several times I got paid to impersonate fake business executives at grand opening spectacles in China. Everyone watching knew it wasn’t real and that I was probably just American off the street, yet somehow a collective delusion would take over and everyone would agree that yes, this 20-something unshaven white guy must be the real Fitzgerald Prescott, VP of Far East operations for the Cass Hotel Management group. Champagne would be poured, pictures would be taken, charters would be signed, then we’d all empty out into the streets and wonder what we just saw. Isn’t that how all reality works, though? We all agree we see the same things every day when in fact we have no idea how subjective our perception may be.

Yours truly, pretending to be Fitzgerald Prescott, signing the hotel charter and everything. True story.

At any rate, this isn’t the first time Kantanka has showed off laughable props and tried to pass them off as advanced defense tech. Check out this bottle-rocket shooting “Kantanka armored car” from the 2013 Technology Exhibition. Still, Kantanka stands by their exoskeletons, even publishing a piece titled “Ghanaians Shame Blogger JB Klutse over His 5 Stupid Questions About Kantanka’s Exoskeleton” on their company’s “Newsroom” page in response to online criticism of the whole charade. Ouch.

While it’s fun to laugh at these silly costumes and wonder how anyone could have possibly tried to pass them off as real, this story only really highlights just how unequal the modern battlefield has become. With the world’s superpowers boasting technology that makes anyone else’s look like bad cosplay, it’s no wonder that terrorism and asymmetrical warfare has become the new norm. Just wait until the real cyborg supersoldiers start marching through city streets.

What was initially exciting news about a cotton seed sprouting on the Moon has ended as quickly as it began. China’s Chang’e lunar lander contains a sealed tank with plant seeds and scientists did confirm that a cotton seed has begun sprouting. That meant that it was the first ever plant to begin growing on the moon.

January 7 footage from the moon shows a green leaf that appeared inside China's Chang'e 4 probe.

Unfortunately, with the cold lunar nights which began on January 13^th, it has now been confirmed that the seeds would have become frozen from not having any power supply as well as the extreme cold. Temperatures during the night time period can dip as low as minus 279 degrees Fahrenheit while the daylight period can be as hot as 212 degrees. The days and nights on the Moon each last 14 Earth days.

Liu Hanlong, who is the head of the experiment at Chongqing University, explained in a press conference that the temperature inside of the canister holding the seeds reached -52 degrees Celsius, ultimately ending the experiment which had run for 212.75 hours.

The canister aboard the Chinese lunar lander also contains seeds to grow potatoes as well as a lab plant named Arabidopsis. But when the cotton was sprouting, it did look rather sickly in comparison to the seeds that have been grown on Earth. In addition to the extreme temperature changes, the seeds faced other major obstacles such as the stress of being launched into space, high radiation, and low gravity.

The Chinese also included fruit fly eggs as well as yeast to form an ecosystem inside of the lander. They were hoping that if the flies were to hatch, they could use the oxygen that would be created by the plants. The decaying plant biomass would create food for the fruit flies, and the waste from the flies would be processed by the yeast, as well as converting oxygen into carbon dioxide for the plants. If they somehow end up growing plants on the moon, they could potentially provide oxygen for the astronauts. The Arabidopsis would provide oil for the astronauts, while the potatoes would give them food to eat, and the cotton would clothe them.

Click here to see pictures of the cotton plant and the capsule that holds them.

Astronauts regularly tend to plants (like lettuce) on the International Space Station in order to study how they grow in microgravity and many of those seeds and plants have orbited Earth since spaceflight first began. In fact, astronauts enjoyed the first ever salad grown in space in 2015. As for the moon, however, the closest they ever got to growing plants there was in 1971 when Stuart Roosa, who was an Apollo 14 astronaut, carried hundreds of tree seeds with him while orbiting the moon. Several of those seeds were brought back to Earth and planted here, earning the name “Moon Trees.”

The Chang’e 4 lander and the container holding the seeds are located inside of the Von Kármán Crater which is on the far side of the moon. The Yutu 2 rover that accompanied the lander to the moon on January 2, 2019 is currently exploring other areas.