Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
01-03-2019
NASA experiment recreates primordial conditins for life in the deep ocean
NASA experiment recreates primordial conditions for life in the deep ocean
NASA has turned its attention away from the planets in our solar system in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system and is focusing on the moons orbiting some of the larger planets. One such object of study is Saturn’s moon Enceladus, seen in the image below.
In this image, the rainbow-like spire jutting from the side of the moon is a false color image of icy particles and water that spew into space from an ocean deep under the icy surface of the moon. Scientists believe that life on Earth originally started deep in the ancient ocean, conditions that could exist in the oceans of Enceladus. A NASA experiment has recreated how scientists think that life on Earth could have started in the ancient ocean inside a lab.
NASA scientist Laurie Barge and her team were working on ways to find life on other planets by studying how life started on Earth. The research specifically focused on how the building blocks of life form in hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. In the experiment, the team formed mini seafloors in beakers filled with a mixture that mimicked the primordial oceans of Earth.
The experiments showed that the beaker oceans acted as nurseries for amino acids, which are essential to life as we know it. Amino acids build on each other to create proteins, which make up all living things on the planet. The experiments looked at hydrothermal vents where natural chimneys form as heated fluid from deep inside the Earth flows out.
Where the heated fluids exit into the ocean creating an environment where life was able to grow and flourish and still does to this day despite the cold ocean depths, this same process could mean life exists on icy worlds like Enceladus. The experiment used water, minerals, and precursor molecules pyruvate and ammonia, all needed to make amino acids. The solution was heated to 158-degrees Fahrenheit, the same temperature found in thermal vents. Another mineral called iron hydroxide was used, which reacted with the little oxygen found in primordial oceans to produce alanine, an amino acid, and alpha hydroxyl acid lactate. Ultimately, the team found that the experiment led the building blocks for life to occur.
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver the Egyptian Earth-observation satellite EgyptSat-A into orbit on Feb. 21, 2019.
A Russian Soyuz rocket launched an Egyptian Earth-observation satellite into orbit on Thursday (Feb. 21) despite experiencing technical problems a few minutes after liftoff.
The three-stage Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:47 a.m. EST (1647 GMT), topped with the satellite EgyptSat-A, which was attached to the rocket's Fregat upper stage. Although Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, and the satellite's manufacturer, RSC Energia, reported that the satellite had reach its intended orbit, multiple Russian news reports "suggested [that] the mission may have experienced a close call during the climb into orbit," Spaceflight Now reported.
According to Spaceflight Now, EgyptSat-A and the Fregat upper stage had entered a "lower-than-expected orbit" after separating from the Soyuz rocket 9 minutes after liftoff — likely due to a problem with the rocket's third-stage engine. However, the Fregat upper stage "appeared to have corrected the apparent performance shortfall," boosting the satellite to its intended polar orbit, at an altitude of about 400 miles (650 kilometers).
The $100 million EgyptSat-A will provide high-resolution images of Earth for Egypt's National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS). EgyptSat-A was built as a replacement for EgyptSat-2, which failed in April 2015, three years into its planned 11-year mission.
Thursday's anomaly led the European launch provider Arianespace to postpone lofting the first 10 OneWeb communications satellites by one day, to Tuesday (Feb. 26), because that mission will also use a Soyuz rocket. "That flight is slated to use a Soyuz ST-B rocket, a variant that uses the same third-stage design as the Soyuz-2.1b launcher that flew Thursday with EgyptSat-A," Spaceflight Now reported.
"At least one day slip for the launch. Ugh," Greg Wyler, founder and executive chairman, tweeted after EgyptSat-A's launch on Thursday. "Glad to see EgyptSat-A launch was successful but need to review more data on that launch before proceeding. Waiting patiently."
You can now ride along withVirgin Galacticat the edge of space. An incredible new video shows footage from the SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket VSS Unity launching from its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo.
With a mountain range below, Unity lights up its engines. A few frames later, the spacecraft soars into a black sky, the curve of the Earth underneath it. Unity clocked a peak altitude of 55.87 miles (89.9 kilometers), which is slightly above the U.S. Air Force's defined boundary of space — the second time a Virgin Galactic spacecraft has surpassed that boundary.
In the video Unity slowly rotates against the black backdrop of space, displaying black-outlined diagrams of several airplanes and space planes along its hull.
"Welcome to space," one of the two pilots says. In addition to pilots Dave Mackay and Michael "Sooch' Masucci, a third Virgin Galactic staff member, Beth Moses, was also on board. Moses is the company's chief astronaut instructor and served as the company's first test passenger.
"Welcome to the club, astronauts," says one of the ground controllers.
Part of the flight's purpose was to provide more data about how the human body adapts to space during SpaceShipTwo flights, and how passengers feel. Unity also carried four NASA payloads, with the aim of studying data such as dust particles, payload vibration and liquid/gas interactions.
Unity's Feb. 22 voyage brought it to a maximum altitude some 4.4 miles (7 km higher) than its historic flight of Dec. 13, which was the first time Virgin Galactic breached the Air Force's space boundary. However, both spaceflights' ascent was well short of the Kármán Line of 62 miles (100 km) that the International Astronautical Federation considers to be the beginning of space.
Hundreds of potential space tourists have already claimed a spot for suborbital flights aboard Virgin spacecraft, paying $250,000 apiece for the privilege. Entrepreneur Richard Branson, who founded the company, said he hopes to fly for the first time on July 16, 2019 — the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's launch of three humans to the moon.
The Great Barrier Reef Was Just Hit by a Flood of Polluted Water Visible From Space
CARLY CASSELLA
The Great Barrier Reef just can't catch a break. Year after year, this global treasure has been battered by cyclones and beaten by bleaching events. Now, with little time to recover, a part of the reef is being kicked while its down.
An exceptional year of rainfall in Queensland, Australia has caused a huge flood of polluted runoff to rush out to sea, straight towards the reef.
Satellite images show the muddy waters stretching from the swollen rivers of the Whitsundays to Cape Tribulation.
(NASA)
For the nearest reefs, some 60 kilometres away from shore, the floodwater has already arrived, possibly shielding the sun and smothering the life below.
The biggest fear, according to the ABC, is that the muddy waters contain common farming chemicals, like nitrogen or phosphorous, because these could kill off the nearby coral and seagrass.
The longer the murky cloud sits there, the more damage it could do, and without strong winds, the plume of polluted water may take a while to move on.
AFP news agency✔@AFP
Smothering life: Runoff from recent floods in Australia is flowing onto parts of the Great Barrier Reef starving coral of light http://u.afp.com/J3yV
Right now, it's not clear if or how the runoff has impacted the reef, but there's not a lot more we can afford to lose.
Back in 2016, 93 percent of the reef was reported to be bleached due to unseasonably warm weather, with 50 percent listed as dead or dying, and some think it can no longer be saved.
(NASA)
But there may be an upside to all of this. If the rivers transport cold water out to sea and if the clouds continue to block out the sun, this might be enough to cool down some underwater heatwaves headed for the region in the coming weeks.
"If you want to have a flipside to the story that would be one, yes," marine scientists Frederieke Kroon told the ABC, "but it's still a huge disturbance to the reef [after] the bleaching and the cyclones that we've had over the last couple of years."
High Speed UFO makes 90 degrees turn without slowing down filmed over Doi Ang Khang, Thailand
High Speed UFO makes 90 degrees turn without slowing down filmed over Doi Ang Khang, Thailand
When selecting video material for their wedding video, the couple discovered a UFO in the video flying at an incredible speed over Doi Ang Khang, Thailand.
The most fascinating aspect of this UFO fastwalker is the fact that it abruptly makes a 90-degree turn without slowing down.
Again the question, what are these flying objects that manifest themselves in our atmosphere and in space?
Is it possible that these fastwalkers are advanced transport vehicles under intelligent control carrying highly confidence messages or codes from and to certain locations?
The video was made in 2013 but recently uploaded on February 17, 2019. You have to slow the speed of the video (video-settings-speed) to see the amazing movements of the UFO.
UFO Caught on TV Zooming Over Cleveland, and You Won't Believe NASA's Response
UFO Caught on TV Zooming Over Cleveland, and You Won't Believe NASA's Response
The unidentified streak of light was accidentally picked up by cameras belonging to a local television channel in the early morning hours of 21 February, with journalists failing to even notice the blip until it was uploaded to YouTube by UFO hunters.
The footage, published by UFOmania, has garnered close to 50,000 views, and sparked an online debate about whether it was an alien craft, a missile, a firework, swamp gas, a weather balloon, or something else.
Amid the hype, NBC affiliate WKYC, whose cameras picked up the footage, reexaminedthe video for themselves in HD, and contacted a NASA expert, who told them that the streak was just a bird.
Thomas Wertman, a local UFO watcher, similarly downplayed the clip's significance, saying that the 'unidentified flying object' was "most likely a gull," and not really anything out of this world.
"I can actually see the wings going up and down and this is not uncommon. I've had some other videos submitted over the past that have turned out to be insects, when you get a very high quality resolution, you can even see the wings going up and down as it goes across the screen," he said.
"So we can move this from the category of unidentified flying object to identified flying object," WKYC concluded.
But WKYC's viewers weren't so sure. On the channel's Facebook page, users insisted that the footage was real, or offered alternative explanations as to what caused the mysterious streak.
"I don't know what it is but the article says that 'experts' at NASA who examined the video said it was a bird. The experts at NASA who stated this must have a bird brain because of all things it could be it's certainly not a bird," a user named Jim angrily noted.
"Definitely a UFO," a user named Larry added, saying that at the time in question, he had just parked his car at work in the area "when a light shot across the sky behind the clouds…way too fast for a jet."
Others had alternative ideas, suggesting the blip was a "potato and cheese pierogi," a search light, lightning, a meteor, a blimp, Nancy Pelosi flying on a broomstick, or even God.
"Always someone recording it with a camera that looks like it was HD back in the 70s…can you donate some higher quality cameras to WKYC?" user Keith joked.
Here is his story, and those of two other people who believe they have seen something extraterrestrial.
"It was the 31st of March, 1999," said Colin.
"We had been out for a bar meal in Warwickshire to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday.
"At approximately 9.30pm, myself, my ex-wife, daughter and mother-in-law headed home.
"We turned onto the Fosse Way, near the village of Monks Kirby, and immediately noticed some bright lights ahead of us.
"The lights were half a mile away and just off the road to the left. The lights appeared deep red, with a bit of white mingled in.
"We drove down, parallel to the lights. We had slowed right down at this point.
"I stared at the four lights, which were in a row, but not level with the ground.
"It was at this moment that I noticed a fifth, smaller, spurious light off to the left hand side.
'It tilted slowly upwards like an airship'
"I stared into the end light, and could see a criss cross of lines, a bit like a traffic light lens. It seemed to pulse very rapidly.
"As I was looking at this light and the lights in general, a shape started to appear around them. The edges looked like the sky was rippling, but they, and the body, I believe, were transparent at that time.
"I could see the shape of a diamond around the lights.
"As soon as I had realised there was an object there, it tilted slowly upwards like an airship or a submarine. The object was now solid and fully materialised in a triangular shape.
"The tilt was not from the centre of the craft but from the rear. It was so low that if it had pivoted from the centre of the craft it would have struck the ground.
"I noticed the surface looked to be alive, it was like a lake of dark grey liquid similar to mercury. The liquid, although tilted quite steeply, looked as though it had waves running up and down the surface, like ripples on a lake in a breeze.
"On top of this 'lake' were silver lines running up and down the surface. They were like raised box sections, which interlocked like an old fashioned maze.
"I could see how the craft's top and bottom surfaces joined to a lighter central core, like a sandwich. No nuts and bolts, rivets or welding seams visible.
"It was immediately obvious to me that this was not an earthly object."
At this point, said Colin, who is a former aircraft designer, having been employed by Saab Aerospace in the military in Sweden, and Chevron Petroleum in New Zealand, the driver of the car pulled forward so she could reverse into a gateway off the main road.
As she pulled forward, a large hedge momentarily blocked the view of the craft. When they could once more see the spot where it the UFO had been, it had disappeared.
"We got out of the car and it was gone."
Of the object they had seen, Colin said: "We could see a large craft in the distance with strange red lights at the rear. It seemed enormous to me with a huge wingspan.
"At the end of each wing was a steady white light shining up along the top surface.
"It was very, very quiet as we stood there, no smells of any fuel having been burnt.
"During the incident we didn't hear a single noise from the craft, which was the size of a house, hovering by the car."
Since his experience, which Colin described "like meeting God" and "life changing", he has devoted much of his time researching what he saw.
Colin was 40 when it happened. He immediately went home and starting building a model of the craft he believes he saw, which he completed in 2000. He has also had a 3D printed model made of the craft, and commissioned computer-generated imagery to enable him to show at his presentations.
Colin, now aged 60, said: "The years since the encounter have been very interesting for me.
"I have given several presentations to different groups, as well as appearing on television a couple of times with my model.
"The result of this is that many people have come forward to tell me of their own experiences."
Although his story will sound hard to believe to many of us, Colin is not alone.
'I understand this sounds very weird'
In 2014, a man who lives in Earl Shilton had a similar experience in his back garden.
"I was out in the back garden having a cigarette - when I smoked - in the summer of 2014.
"It was late as it was dark. I don't remember exactly the time and date as I had put it to the back of my mind.
"I usually look up to the stars during clear nights as it's a very nice sight. When I did, I saw a 'fluid' looking triangular craft coming from the west over Earl Shilton.
"I understand this sounds very weird hence I've not talked about it before.
"I don't think I would have noticed it if it had been at a different angle as it was 'cloaked'. I could see stars as if I was looking straight through it, but I could clearly see the triangular shape of the craft and I still remember thinking to myself that it wasn't a very good cloaking device.
"It was moving very slowly and very low with no sound and no lights whatsoever, but it was huge - the size of a football pitch.
"As it got closer visibility got worse - I'm guessing it's all about the angle of view - then I could no longer see it at all. I managed to see what I assume would be the front right side as it was approaching, then the underneath.
"It was all smooth or fluid with no sharp edges with no markings that I could see."
Another person, who did not want to be named, said: "I have also seen triangular objects moving silently across the sky very low.
"On February 3, 2016, at 17.37, I was travelling from Stoney Stanton towards Earl Shilton. The lights seemed to be heading from Desford way, and following the Earl Shilton bypass across to Barwell.
"I wound down my window as it crossed overhead.
"The lights were very bright. I quite often stargaze and these lights stood out immediately. There didn't appear to be any other lights on it, just the three white lights in a triangle shape.
"They did not flash. The lights were around the size of helicopter’s search lights.
"I would say the height of it when it passed overhead was around 300-400 metres high. I couldn't make out the size of the craft as the street lights made it difficult.
"However, with the distance between the two rear lights and the front light, I would say it was the size of an articulated lorry and more of an isosceles triangle rather than equilateral. There was no sound as it passed over at approx 30mph."
Have you seen anything unusual in the skies that couldn't be explained? Send your pictures and videos to newsdesk@leicestermercury.co.uk
Scott C Waring, a popular extraterrestrial researcher who posts UFO-related stories, recently uploaded pictures of an alleged unidentified flying object sighting apparently shot from the Alps mountain Lesyn in Switzerland.
In his post, Waring revealed that the pictures were actually taken on last year, but the alleged UFO came to notice only after closer analysis a few days back. Even though no video of the sighting is available as of now, the photos of the incident have already gone viral on online spaces.
UFO Sightings Daily
After closely studying the image, Waring argued that this UFO might be actually entering or exiting a hidden alien base in the Alps mountain. The alien researcher also added that the alleged extraterrestrial craft might be using artificial gravity technology which is helping the occupants to stay intact even when the flying object is tilting.
"The UFO is tilted, but for the aliens inside, there is no tilting. The craft would have artificial gravity that keeps the pilots and occupants totally comfortable. The UFO would only be tilted if it was entering or exiting a mountain alien base," wrote Scott C Waring on his website UFO Sightings Daily.
In the website post, Waring assured that extraterrestrial aliens are living in the Alps, and this photograph is an irrefutable piece of evidence that substantiates this fact.
"This is a very rare moment not often seen, let alone photographed. Amazing evidence that an alien base exists below the mountains of Lesyn," added Waring.
However, experts have already ruled out the alien possibility by stating that this anomaly in the photo could be the result of a technical glitch.
The report of this UFO sighting came just a few days after popular conspiracy theory channel 'UFOmania' released footage that shows another flying object spotted during the live feed of Channel 3 NBC. Scott C Waring also checked this clip, and he claimed that aliens are visiting the earth to monitor human activities. Several viewers who watched the eerie footage also argued that extraterrestrials from deep space are gearing up for an invasion.
HITTING THE GAS ‘Oumuamua had its foot on the accelerator as it left the solar system. Some astronomers think the object was spewing jets of gas, as shown in this artist’s illustration, although there’s no evidence of that. Others think it was pushed by radiation from the sun.
NASA, ESA, STSCI
The first known interstellar visitor to the solar system is keeping astronomers guessing.
Ever since it was spotted in October 2017, major mysteries havedogged the object, known as ‘Oumuamua (SN Online: 10/27/17). Astronomers don’t know where it came from in the galaxy. And they’ve disagreed over whether ‘Oumuamua is an asteroid, a comet or something else entirely.
One of the strangest mysteries is how ‘Oumuamua sped up after it slung around the sun and fled the solar system, a motion that can’t be explained by the gravitational forces of the sun or other celestial bodies alone. The most natural explanation is that ‘Oumuamua spouts gas like a comet, which would have given the object an extra push away from the sun — except astronomers saw no signs of such outgassing.
In November, Harvard University astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Avi Loeb sparked a firestorm of media coverage when they suggested that the acceleration could be explained if ‘Oumuamua is an alien spaceship, in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. In particular, the duo suggested, the object could be a solar sail: a large flat sheet less than 1 millimeter thick that uses pushes from starlight to navigate the galaxy (SN: 9/10/11, p. 18). Loeb is part of an organization called the Breakthrough Initiative that has suggested sending solar sails to visit a nearby planet orbiting the star Proxima Centauri (SN Online: 8/25/16). Maybe some other spacefaring civilization sent a similar sail to visit us, Loeb argues.
Since then, astronomers have been kicking around other origin stories to explain ‘Oumuamua and its bizarre behavior. “Jumping to the conclusion that it has to be produced by extraterrestrial intelligence, I think we don’t have evidence for it yet,” says astronomer Amaya Moro-Martín of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “There are other natural explanations that can be explored.”
Here are three such possibilities.
1. Fluffy ice fractal
To get a push from starlight, an object needs to have a large surface area — to provide more surfaces for particles of light called photons to nudge — and a small mass, so that even tiny amounts of photon pressure can make a difference.
A flat sheet, such as a solar sail, isn’t the only way to harness this radiation pressure, Moro-Martín says. A fluffy, porous structure that resembles a fractal, a geometric pattern that repeats itself on smaller and larger scales, could also be propelled by light, she argues. “Physically it would be the same idea, just the geometry would be different.”
FEELING FLUFFY ‘Oumuamua could have the same porous structure as this interplanetary dust particle, but on a larger scale, researchers say.
H. VOLTEN ET AL/ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS 2007
Dust particles collected in Earth’s stratosphere can have this sort of fluffy fractal form, Moro-Martín says. She also sees similar structures in computer simulations of the way planets grow up in the dusty planet-forming disks astronomers see around other stars. As ice grains in the distant, frigid regions of those disks stick together, the particles develop into fractals.
“If ‘Oumuamua were to have such an origin, it will be very interesting because it will be the first time that we have evidence for what this intermediate stage is,” Moro-Martín says. “We don’t know how the planet formation process proceeds. All we can see are the smallest particles, the dust particles, or the very largest, planets.”
But could a fluffy fractal survive the journey from another star’s planet-forming disk, all the way into the solar system and out again?
To accelerate as much as ‘Oumuamua did, the object must have a density of just 0.00001 grams per cubic centimeter, Moro-Martín estimates. In comparison, graphene aerogel — the lowest-density artificially produced material — is at least 10 times as dense. “It tells you [the object] must be very fragile,” Moro-Martín says.
“The idea that ‘Oumuamua is a fluffy fractal of ice, pushed by radiation pressure from sunlight, is an interesting scenario,” Loeb says. “But there are major challenges that it faces,” including how such a fragile object would survive, he says.
2. Comet skeleton
Planetary scientist Zdenek Sekanina of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., agrees that a fluffy structure could account for ‘Oumuamua’s strange speedup. But he doesn’t think ‘Oumuamua was born with it. Instead, the object is a desiccated comet that lost most of its water and gases when it swooped close to the sun, he proposes in a paper posted January 30 at arXiv.org.
“It’s like a skeleton of the original body, with all the ice out,” Sekanina says.
SKY SKELETON Maybe ‘Oumuamua was a comet that was destroyed as it approached the sun, like this image of comet LINEAR shattering into mini-comets in 2000. If that’s the case, only the skeleton of the original comet was left by the time astronomers spotted ‘Oumuamua.
HAL WEAVER/JHU, NASA
Comets that fly close to the sun often do not survive. But some of these doomed objects have left observable fragments behind, like comet LINEAR. That comet came within 0.7 times the Earth’s distance to the sun in 2000 and left a cloud of mini comets behind, which were observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. ‘Oumuamua faced a harsher situation: It swooped closer to the sun, about 0.25 times Earth’s distance.
Like Loeb and Moro-Martín, Sekanina thinks solar radiation pressure is the best explanation for how ‘Oumuamua sped up. And a fluffy structure is the best way to accelerate with radiation pressure without invoking “little green men sending a sail,” he says. Although ‘Oumuamua is denser in Sekanina’s estimates than Moro-Martín’s, that’s still “just unbelievable,” he says. “It’s like a fairy castle type structure, or gossamer.”
If ‘Oumuamua were a fully solid, icy comet when it approached the solar system, and developed that gossamer structure only after flying close to the sun, that could explain how the object survived a trip through interstellar space.
3. Weird comet or ice shard?
When the Spitzer Space Telescope checked ‘Oumuamua for signs of a cometlike tail, the instrument saw none, meaning only minuscule amounts of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gas would have been expelled, if any. And if you assume ‘Oumuamua’s composition is similar to comets in the solar system, Spitzer’s data suggest that the object must not have been spewing out much water, either.
But if ‘Oumuamua is a strange sort of comet, it could spew water vapor or other noncarbonated gases that Spitzer didn’t detect, which could explain how the object sped up. “‘Oumuamua is made of still water, not Perrier,” quips astronomer Gregory Laughlin of Yale University.
Laughlin and colleagues are working on a study that suggests that ‘Oumuamua releases a nozzlelike jet of gas whose source migrates across the object’s surface, following the warmth of the sun. That migration would let ‘Oumuamua tumble through space without spinning so fast that it breaks apart. Other comets, including one visited by the Rosetta spacecraft (SN: 11/11/17, p. 32), exhibit this sort of sun-tracking jet.
“The weirdness is that [‘Oumuamua] would have to be made of pretty pure ice” to explain such outgassing, Laughlin says. It’s not clear if a comet, even a weird one, could be made of pure ice. So it’s possible that it ‘Oumuamua could be an ice shard of a larger body, such as if an icy planet came too close to a larger neighbor and was ripped apart, he says.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to check how ‘Oumuamua is structured now — it’s too far away to make any more observations. The ultimate test will come when — and astronomers think it’s a matter of when, not if — another interstellar visitor comes calling.
“If [‘Oumuamua] was representative of a population, there will be opportunities to get an up-close look at them,” Laughlin says.
Sometime in the last decade, something heavy slammed into the Martian atmosphere and shattered into a hard rain of superheated material. Those pieces fell to the Red Planet's surface, dotting the Martian dirt with a pattern of pockmarks.
The impact craters, astronomer Phil Plait wrote on his Bad Astronomy blog, suggest that the asteroid hit Mars while in an already weakened state. Most solid rock or metal asteroids are strong enough to survive the journey through the planet's atmosphere to the world's surface. But many asteroids, he explained, have already suffered collisions during eons spent tumbling through the solar system. Those collisions can leave the space rocks weakened and covered in fissures, which split open under the intense heat and pressure of atmospheric entry.
"It's essentially an explosion, the force of the sudden and furious release of energy when it splits," Plait wrote. [5 Mars Myths and Misconceptions]
You know this happened recently on Mars because images of the same region from 2009 don't show the craters, as explained in a statement from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
Here's the site in 2009:
Here it is in 2016:
The new features are exciting because Mars barely changes, or changes very slowly. University of Arizona researchers counted 21 separate craters in this image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with some of the features up to 23 feet (7 meters) across. They span an area just over 1,000 feet (305 m) across.
"This is a not-so-gentle reminder that although we may think of Mars as not being a terribly active world, especially when compared to Earth, there's still stuff going on there … even if it means importing the action from space," Plait wrote.
Planet Ninewill probably be detected within a decade or so, if the putative world does indeed exist, a new study suggests.
Three years ago, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown estimated that the hypothesized Planet Nine — also known as Planet X, Giant Planet Five or Planet Next — is perhaps 10 times more massive than Earth and lopes around the sun at an average distance of 600 astronomical units (AU). (One AU is the Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)
But in a detailed and lengthy new review paper, Batygin, Brown and two other researchers determined that the putative planet is likely smaller and less far-flung than that.
Observational evidence and computer-modeling work indicate that 10 Earth masses is an upper limit for Planet Nine, according to the new study. Indeed, 5 Earth masses, and an average orbital distance of 400 to 500 AU, are likely to be closer to the actual marks, the scientists found.
And that means Planet Nine is probably easier to spot than scientists had suspected.
"Perhaps counterintuitively, the increase in brightness due to a smaller heliocentric distance more than makes up for the decrease in brightness due to a slightly diminished physical radius, suggesting that Planet Nine is more readily discoverable by conventional optical surveys than previously thought," Batygin and his colleagues wrote in the paper. The study was published online this month in the journal Physics Reports. You can read it for free at the online pre-print site arXiv.org.
Indeed, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project in Hawaii could conceivably spy Planet Nine any day now. And even if the hypothesized world is on the fainter and more distant side, it will probably still be detectable by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is scheduled to come online in Chile in the early 2020s, the researchers said.
"Therefore, Planet Nine — if it exists as described here — is likely to be discovered within a decade," they wrote in the study.
The newly published paper also sums up the case for Planet Nine's existence, organizing the available observations into four main lines of evidence. All four deal with peculiarities in the orbits of small objects way out in the frigid wastes beyond Neptune's orbit.
Such peculiarities are best explained by the existence of a big, distant "perturber," whose gravity has shepherded the objects onto their current paths, the researchers wrote. (The magnitude of this sculpting effect is determined by both the perturber's mass and distance from the sun. So, a smaller-than-thought Planet Nine would have to be closer to the sun to produce the observed results.)
"Although this analysis does not say anything directly about whether Planet Nine is there, it does indicate that the hypothesis rests upon a solid foundation," Brown said in a statement.
This foundation is, indeed, very solid, Batygin said. In a conversation with Space.com last fall, he pegged the probability of the world's existence at "over 90 percent." Another key player in the Planet Nine hunt, Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, is similarly bullish, putting the odds in the 80 to 90 percent range.
It may seem strange that an object considerably bigger than Earth could stay hidden in our own solar system for so long. But Planet Nine's neighborhood is extremely distant; for perspective, Pluto orbits the sun at an average distance of just 39.5 AU. So, Planet Nine is likely to be quite faint, and its orbital path is huge, meaning that astronomers have a lot of celestial ground to search.
"We've covered very little of the sky to the depth that's needed to be covered to find something this faint," Sheppard told Space.com last fall. "You can hide a very big thing in the outer solar system very easily."
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated byKarl Tate), is out now.
Chinese satellite snaps rare photo of moon's far side with Earth in the background
Eye-popping image evokes other iconic space photos, including the famous "Earthrise" portrait taken during the Apollo 8 mission.
China's LongJiang-2 satellite captured this rare view of the moon's far side, with Earth appearing tiny in the background.CAMRAS/MingChuan Wei (HIT), CAMRAS, DK5LA
By Denise Chow
Ready to feel small? A striking new photograph taken by China’s Longjiang-2 satellite affords a rare view of the lunar far side — the side that’s impossible to see from the surface of our planet — with Earth visible in the background as a tiny blue marble.
"Few pictures have been taken that show the entire far side of the moon, so we're pretty proud to have helped take this picture," Cees Bassa, an astronomer at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, told NBC News MACH in an email. Bassa is a volunteer astronomer at the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory in the Netherlands, where the photo was processed.
The eye-popping portrait was taken Feb. 3 and beamed back to Earth the next day. Because the satellite’s camera lacks an infrared filter, the colors were distorted in the original photo (below). But the astronomers who processed the image created the color-corrected version seen above.
“We edited it to balance the colors, and make the moon greyscale,” Tammo Jan Dijkema, a software engineer at ASTRON who also volunteers at the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory, wrote in a blog post.
Longjiang-2, which has been circling the moon since last June, is a key part of China’s Chang’e 4 mission, which successfully placed a lunar lander and rover on the moon’s far side for the first time ever Jan. 3. In concert with Queqiao, a radio-relaying probe in orbit around Earth, Longjiang-2 has been providing the radio link between the Chang’e 4 lander and mission controllers in Beijing.
The Chang’e 4 mission is studying a part of the moon that previously had been explored only from afar. It has taken a series of dramatic photos of the surface and successfully sprouted a series of seeds that became the first plants ever grown on the moon.
Longjiang-2, which measures 20 inches across, is expected to operate until August. Dijkema said he expects to have even more photos of the moon from the Chinese satellite in the coming months.
NASA, the United States space agency has been searching for alien life outside the earth for many years, but until now, no probes have successfully found traces of life in the space. However, Jim Bridenstine, the reigning NASA administrator believes that the milestone alien discovery will happen soon, and he recently revealed that the upcoming Mars missions will find an answer to the billion-dollar question regarding extraterrestrial life.
An artist's illustration of NASA's life-hunting Mars 2020 rover on the Red Planet's surface.
As per a report published in The Independent, Jim Bridenstine is quite eager to equip upcoming NASA missions to search for alien life. Bridenstine revealed that future Mars missions by NASA will try to collect samples from the surface of the Red Planet, and will be later taken back to the earth for further research. The NASA administrator also added that studying these samples will help to identify biosignatures that aliens might have left behind.
“We’re going to be able to look at samples and determine if there’s a biosignature in there. The goal is to discover life on another world; that’s what we’re trying to achieve. And because of so many great people in this room, friends, we are well on our way to doing that,” said Bridenstine, Space.com reports.
Bridenstine also talked about the previous findings which indicate that Mars is one planet in the solar system where alien life can be found. Earlier, several reses arch reports have found that organic molecules are there in the Red Planet, and experts also believe that there might be water sources below the Martian surface.
A few days back, Scott C Waring, a popular conspiracy theorist had argued that Mars was once home to an advanced alien civilization. Waring made this conclusion after spotting various anomalies on Mars photos taken by NASA. In a recent post on his website UFO Sightings Daily, Waring also argued that the male-oriented society which once existed on Mars was the reason behind the extinction of life on the Red Planet.
As per Waring, in his research, he has spotted very less female face-like structures on the red planet, and most of the apparent face-like structures he found were males with beards and mustaches. Waring added that the intelligence of female Martian species was ignored by men, and thus the species increased the odds of destroying themselves.
An aeroplane pilot reported being hit by a 'laser' just moments before he encountered unidentified flying objects.
The flying instructor, from Wolverhampton airport, was travelling over Gloucestershire when his small aircraft was brightly illuminated.
Moments after the incident, the pilot and his student encountered UFOs, which reportedly consisted of unusual lights.
A spokesman for Air Midwest, which employs the pilot, said: "We are unsure if this event (the laser) is involved with the main event (UFO sighting).
"The pilot believes he may have been under a laser attack from the ground.
"A bright laser-like light illuminated the cockpit. Immediately after this the main lights (UFO) were observed."
Air Midwest, a flying school based at Wolverhampton airport in Bobbington, has been unable to identify the source of the light. Staff members are now wondering if this event was related to the UFO sightings. They are also unsure if the light source was actually a laser, or if it was caused by something else.
They were undertaking night navigation training over Gloucestershire when the sightings occurred, after taking off from Wolverhampton airport.
Both events - the UFOs and so-called laser-light - have left staff members at the flying school baffled.
In the 'laser incident', which took place before the UFO sightings, the affected pilot radioed air traffic control after his student raised concerns.
In the conversation to air traffic control, the pilot said: “Apparently there is someone shining lasers at the aircraft from the bottom of the base-downwind leg."
A while later into the flight, the two Air Midwest flying instructors, who were in separate aircraft, spoke about witnessing the UFOs.
One pilot said to the other: "Behind you at your six O'clock, there is something that looks stationery but has got some peculiar lights on it."
As part of Air Midwest's own investigations, staff members trawled logs from Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), which listed airborne events in the area.
Tim Brannon, director of the flying school, told the Express & Star: "There was no airborne activity that remotely the objects we saw.
The flight school published the pilot's report on its Facebook page. Note, the photograph is not what the pilots saw, but gives an illustration of their encounter
"This is a massive surprise to us as we expected to find an activity that explained the event.
"So as it stands my guys did see still unexplained objects that one would generally refer to as UFOs."
The incident has drawn interest from around the world and it remains a mystery.
The Air Midwest spokesman added: "We at Air Midwest are still expecting a normal explanation at some point but as yet after investigating, we still cannot find an explanation for what four of our pilots saw that evening."
They say “seeing is believing” when examining evidence for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). And the latest proof of an alien spaceship visiting Earth has landed this week, according to wild online reports. The eye-opening footage is said to show a rectangular-shaped UFO flying at high speeds over English skies.
Self-proclaimed UFO researcher Scott C. Waring uploaded the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it footage this week.
It is mind-blowing that something could fly that fast
UFO researcher Scott C. Waring
“The UFO is a rectangle shape from the side, but a diamond shape from a tilted position.
“Also the fact that unusual tunnel clouds appear in the background make me believe this is a UFO and it may be responsible for making that cloud tunnel.
YouTube viewer Melissa Smidt appeared convinced, writing: “Clearly, not a plane or bird. Plus, it traverses the entire bridge ‘cloud’ in just 2 frames.”
And viewer UpNorthOfThe49th agrees, adding: “26 sec mark there in a few frames but at the 46 sec mark it is like it is in two places at once. You can catch two then one then two then one again like skipping.”
However, not all the viewers of the bizarre and grainy footage are completely certain about the video’s veracity.
YouTube viewer YouSaltyD0g commented: “Looks like a bug to me.”
Life on Ceres, largest body in the asteroid belt? Maybe, at one time. New research points to ancient subsurface reservoirs of salty meltwater that might have lasted millions of years and let life’s chemistry begin.
False-color view of Ceres from the Dawn spacecraft showing differences in surface materials. The bright spots are salt deposits left over from when salty water (cryomagma) reached the surface and evaporated. New research shows that subsurface reservoirs of salty meltwater existed on Ceres for millions of years.
What astronomers now characterize asdwarf planets might seem to be little more than large asteroids. But, as planetary scientists have been discovering, dwarf planets can share characteristics with full-sized planets; they are indeed actual worlds. That’s certainly true of distantPluto, with its blue skies, high mountains, and red snows, not to mention its system of moons. Another example is the dwarf planetCeres, which resides in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Despite being a lot smaller than the primary rocky planets like Earth or even Mercury, and a lot farther from the sun, we now know Ceres has its own unique and active geological history, too.
One of the most intriguing discoveries about Ceres has been evidence for ancient cryovolcanoes – an icy type of volcano that releases water, ammonia or methane instead of hot molten rock. Now, a new research study – a joint project between the University of Texas at Austin and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) – suggests that shallow meltwater reservoirs of salty meltwater were able to stay liquid for millions of years, thanks to an insulating crust. The findings are related to the numerous bright spots seen on Ceres, in particular the largest ones in Occator Crater, which are sodium carbonate salt deposits thought to be the remnants of cryomagma – salty meltwater – that vaporized after reaching Ceres’ virtually airless surface.
High-resolution view of the brightest spots on Ceres, in Occator Crater.
Image via NASA/JPL-CalTech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
An even closer view of one of the bright spots in Occator Crater, on the southwest part of Cerealia Facula. The spots are now thought to be salt deposits on Ceres’ surface. They reached the surface through cracks.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/Jason Major.
The new peer-reviewed research was published online on February 8, 2019, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. From the summary:
We are testing the hypothesis that the bright spots in the center of Occator crater on Ceres are salts extruded from a large brine reservoir in the crust that melted during the asteroid impact that formed Occator Crater. The age difference between the crater and the salt deposits is approximately 16 million years and it is not clear if the brine can remain molten for such a long time. Our simulations show that an isolated impact-induced cryomagma chamber will cool in less than 12 million years. However, our simulations show that the crustal brine reservoir might communicate with a deeper brine reservoir in Ceres’ mantle. Such recharge could extend the longevity of the impact-induced cryomagma chamber beneath Occator Crater.
Cryovolcanism could help mix chemicals that produce the more complex molecules needed for life, such as on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Scientists are interested in studying how similar processes work on Ceres and whether they could could also create the molecules needed for life to begin. According to lead author Marc Hesse, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences:
Cryovolcanism looks to be a really important system as we look for life. So we’re trying to understand these ice shells and how they behave.
Illustration of the history of the interior of Ceres. Scientists now think that salty meltwater reservoirs (cryomagma) in the crust lasted for millions of years.
Image via Neveu/Desch/Arizona State University.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that life itself ever started on Ceres, but the initial chemical interactions needed certainly could have, at least. A subsurface supply of salty water below the surface would have been an ideal environment for that to occur.
The new study focused on the bright salt deposits in Occator Crater. While the crater is about 20 million years old, the deposits are as young as 4 million years old. The cryomagma is thought to have been produced by the impact that created Occator, and was originally estimated to have only been able to remain liquid for about 400,000 years after the impact. But if the deposits are only about 4 million years old, how did the meltwater reservoirs remain liquid so long? To answer that question, Hesse and Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist at JPL, looked closer at Ceres’ crustal chemistry and physics. As Castillo-Rogez explained:
It’s difficult to maintain liquid so close to the surface. But our new model includes materials inside the crust that tend to act as insulators consistent with the results from the Dawn observations.
The large cryovolcano Ahuna Mons (“Lonely Mountain”) on Ceres, which sits in isolation on the surface with no other volcanoes nearby.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
According to their calculations, the melt reservoir of cryomagma could have lasted for 10 million years. As Hess added:
Now that we’re accounting for all these negative feedbacks on cooling – the fact that you release latent heat, the fact that as you warm up the crust it becomes less conductive – you can begin to argue that if the ages are just off by a few million years you might get it.
The bright spots, including those in Occator, tend to be located in the or near the center of impact craters, which suggests that the impacts created the reservoirs of cryomagma, which then came to the surface through cracks. The salty water evaporated, leaving the salt deposits behind.
The new findings will help scientists better understand how Ceres evolved, according to Jennifer Scully, a planetary geologist at JPL:
They used more up-to-date data to create their model. This will help in the future to see if all of the material involved in the observed deposits can be explained by the impact, or does this require a connection to a deeper source of material. It’s a great step in the right direction of answering that question.
An ancient cryovolcano called Wright Mons on Pluto, as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.
Image via NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
Cryovolcanism is rather common in the outer solar system – it is known to exist, and suspected to exist, on many icy worlds including Ceres, Titan, Pluto, Europa, Enceladus, Triton and others. This icy form of volcanism mimics the “hot” volcanism of planets and moons like Earth, Venus and Io, and shows that even small, cold bodies in the solar system can be surprisingly geologically active – Ceres itself is only 592 miles (952 km) in diameter.
Bottom line: The dwarf planet Ceres had subsurface meltwater reservoirs of salty water (cryomagma) for millions of years, the new research suggests. Whether any kind of primitive life could have ever evolved is unknown, but the environment could at least have allowed the chemistry to begin that would lead to the creation of the kinds of organic molecules that are the building blocks of life.
UFOs and Odd “Vibraniums”: A Look at the CIA’s Weird Tweeting Habit Micah HanksFebruary 28, 2019
UFOs and Odd “VibraniUFOs and Odd “Vibraniums”: A Look at the CIA’s Weird Tweeting Habit
Micah Hanks
On Sunday night, as Americans were settling in for the beginning of the week ahead, many televisions were dialed-in to the 91st Academy Awards, held this year at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
Notably, this year’s Oscars ceremony was the first since 1989 to be held in the absence of a host, after repeated failed attempts to secure prospectives that included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, as well as comedian Kevin Hart (who stepped aside after a series of Tweets rose from his past and stirred controversy; it’s a social media trap that has become all-too-familiar to us these days).
However, these weren’t the only notable and controversial things happening with relation to this year’s Oscars on Twitter. As the awards were being given, many people following the proceedings on social media were surprised to see the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chiming in.
“In #BlackPanther,” the CIA’s Tweet read, “a unique metal called #vibranium helped the fictional African nation of #Wakanda become the most technologically advanced country on the planet.” It was accompanied by a poll asking whether viewers thought “vibranium” was “A real metal,” “Based upon real materials,” “Possible future tech,” or simply “Total fiction”, with the latter option winning at
The Tweet was linked to a page about the CIA’s “Reel vs. Real,” described at its website as follows:
Merging the overt world of Hollywood with the covert mission of the CIA, the Agency’s “Reel vs. Real” event seeks to demystify the CIA’s mission by comparing what’s seen on TV to what happens in reality. Former CIA officers join the acclaimed creator and actors from FX’s “The Americans” on-stage at UCLA for a lively discussion about the facts vs. fiction of espionage, CIA tradecraft, and living under cover.
Although Hollywood and entertainment reporting isn’t something we focus on all that often here at MU, the occasional humor that appears on the CIA’s Twitter feed isn’t lost on us. Back in January 2018, Paul Seaburn also reported here on one of the agency’s occasional UFO-related Tweets, which featured a famous UFO photograph in conjunction with a post commemorating World UFO Day.
This wasn’t the first time the CIA used its Twitter account to make references to UFOs. Back in early 2015, as the agency Tweeted about its most-read articles from the previous year, it featured what was likely the first of its Tweets about the subject when it shared the following:
The Tweet linked to an article titled “The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974,” featured as a PDF document which discussed the agency’s high-altitude tests involving the U-2 spyplane in the 1950s.
“[T]esting of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” the report states. Two years earlier, the agency had already released historical documents pertaining to the U-2 Program, which gave the position of the famous Area 51 base near Groom Lake Nevada. There was no Tweet that accompanied this release, however, since the CIA’s Twitter account did not appear online until the following year.
In fact, the CIA’s penchant for the provocative and humorous in its Tweeting habits goes all the way back to its very first Tweet, issued on June 26, 2014, which simply stated, “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.”
Obviously, whoever handles the CIA’s Twitter account enjoys poking a little fun at the tropes associated with their work, and even putting their own spin on a few common internet memes. The agency may have even resorted to posting cat pictures on at least one occasion; but as you might have guessed, we’re not in a position to confirm, nor deny whether such an incident ever occurred… you be the judge.
It’s 6:30 am. The coffee’s still brewing, the sun is about to peek over the horizon, and you turn on the local news because you’re a responsible and informed citizen. Or a masochist. The camera pans across Lake Erie and shows Cleveland, Ohio getting ready to meet the day. And then you see it. A glowing white shape comes out of the clouds and wobbles across the sky. A UFO. You’ve always known this day would come, but never thought it would be live on WKYC. The anchors don’t notice, it was too fast. As Mr. Coffee gives his last gurgle, you don’t know what you’ve just seen and realize it’s going to be one of those days.
Last Thursday, someone in Cleveland had that exact morning. During their early morning broadcast a strange object briefly appeared on a WKYC camera. It went unnoticed by the anchors, but was soon uploaded to YouTube where it began gaining traction—You can see the video for yourself here. According to WKYC, it was MUFON investigator Thomas Wertman who brought the existence of the clip to their attention. Which shows how dedicated MUFON investigators are. They know what’s on your camera before you do.
The video looks pretty strange. A shape seems to appear out of nowhere over the bay and disappears just as quickly as it arrives. It’s not necessarily how I’d prefer to start my day, and you can see why someone would immediately upload it to YouTube.
No one needs alien nonsense at 6:30 in the morning. Start normal, end weird. That’s my motto.
You’ve got to hand it to WKYC. They actually followed up with MUFON’s Thomas Wertman and invited him into the studio to go over the footage. The benefits of it being unintentionally filmed by a news station means they can prove it’s not doctored, they can slow it down, they can see what’s actually going on here.
And this is where the disappointment comes in. According to Wertman, after seeing the video in full resolution, he believes the the UFO is just a bird:
“I can actually see the wings going up and down and this is not uncommon. I’ve had some other videos submitted over the past that have turned out to be insects, when you get a very high quality resolution, you can even see the wings going up and down as it goes across the screen.”
Asked if it was safe to say the object in the video had been identified, he said:
“I’m sure we can, because I’ve also gone and scrubbed up any aircraft in the region. I had one helicopter flying around in that region, but no other aircraft in that area that I could pick up on the transponder. So, I’m sure we’re seeing wildlife down along there, most likely a gull.”
Seagulls ruin everything.
Like I said, dedicated. In the slowed down video, you can see what appears to be wings flapping. Although, there has been some winged weirdness in that part of the country recently. Was it mothman? Sorry, I didn’t need to bring him into it. UFOs are one thing, but no one deserves mothman before coffee.
I often like to look into reports that truly skirt around the periphery of the paranormal and cryptozoology, the cases that stand out as being particularly odd and baffling. Such cases truly tax the imagination and leave us scrambling to try and explain just what in the world could be going on, and challenge our notions of what we think we know. Here I have collected together an eclectic mix of very weird encounters with everything from jellyfish floating through the sky, to squid-like beasts and octopod monsters roaming the wilderness, so sit back, buckle up, and enjoy this journey to the other side of the bizarre.
One of the stranger things one could see soaring through the skies is a jellyfish, but there are actually numerous reports throughout the world of just that. These incredibly bizarre entities are often reported as looking very similar to a typical jellyfish one would find bobbing about in the sea, only in this case soaring through the air, and in some accounts they are described as being able to change density, color, or size, and to be able to go almost completely transparent, and there have even been cases of some sort of bioluminescence present. They are variously reported as moving about on their own through some unknown form of propulsion or merely at the whim of the air currents, and they are always just about as otherworldly as can be.
There have been particularly strange accounts of encounters with flying jellyfish going back decades. In the 1950s a police man in England claimed to have had a run in with a low flying sky jellyfish as he was riding his bicycle on patrol. He claimed that it drifted right down in front of him and that he actually bumped up against it, describing the sensation as similar to brushing up against a soft blanket, and that it had a slightly unpleasant smell of mildew. In 1958 there was also report from Florida, where a policeman named Faustin Galegos found a translucent purple blob about the size of a soccer ball outside of his house. He claimed that when he had approached it seemed to be some sort of dying creature, and when he picked it up the thing just sort of evaporated in his hands.
A more recent account was given on the site Phantoms and Monsters, and comes from a witness in Perth, Australia, who is referred to merely as “BD.” The witness claims that in 2012 he was out in front of his house one evening having a cigarette when his attention was drawn to the curious sight of the light patterns of the stars being disrupted by something passing over them. At first he thought it might be a plane, but it soon became apparent that this was no aircraft. The witness explains:
As it got closer, the way it moved resembled the way a jellyfish would swim if it was horizontal. It was hard to describe, but it looked to be expanding at the front like a balloon, then using that air to propel itself along. It was roughly 100 meters above me and I watched it for 10 minutes. After that it was out of sight. This was during a clear night sky in Australia. I am very familiar with aircraft as I live relatively close to Jandakot airport and we see/hear them all the time. It was certainly not a machine of any kind.
I yelled out to my Mother-in-Law who was staying at the time to come out and look. She also saw it. I filmed it on my smartphone, but being 8pm at night it was pitch black and you couldn’t see anything. If I had to guess, I would say the feeling I was left with is that it was some kind of creature. It moved gracefully and gradually in large deliberate movements. Like a large bird would do with a large flap of its wings, then gliding for a bit, although this was unlike anything I could describe. It appeared to be translucent in parts and remained at the same altitude and speed but just completely silent.
Amazingly, there was a follow up report from a different witness, who claims that he and a friend saw what appears to be the same or a similar creature around Perth at around the same time as this sighting. The witness says of the creature:
I would like to confirm the story of the flying jellyfish like creature as described on your forum by “BD,” There were two of us actually not just myself. We were in Perth CBD actually having a glass of wine on a quite loud jazz music playing balcony about 10 meters from the ground. I am so thrilled to find out there is another person who has seen this. The creature was behaving exactly as described by “BD” so basically like jellyfish but without any long tentacles – about a size of a balloon.
It was kind of changing according to the different colored lighting attached to the balcony and it was flying upwards so effortlessly. It is really precious I have finally found this. I have been searching for so long. I have to be honest I don’t recall the exact day but it must have been the same night as “BD” mentioned. We had seen it around 9-10pm either friday or saturday. The creature wasn’t too shy either meaning it didn’t fly in a hurry. Would gladly put my hand on my heart on this one and now may actually try to find it again, but who knows how often do they appear.
A very odd claim was posted on the site Norcalblogs, from a commenter calling himself Pie Guevara, who claims that his uncle, an Oscar Guevera, had taken part in a scientific survey of these sorts of creatures in the 1950s and 60s. The remote areas north of San Fransisco had apparently experienced a spate of sightings for over a decade of what were usually referred to as “Space Jellies,” which would congregate in the upper atmosphere along the coast, after which they would soar up into the upper atmosphere out of sight. Pie provides a letter that he allegedly received from his uncle, which outlines the phenomenon and his study of it, and reads:
This coalescence of “space jellies”, as we called them, was assumed to be part of a seasonal migration pattern in and about the western Pacific. With a small joint grant fund from several philanthropic scientific organizations (which shall remain unnamed), I developed a small, high altitude, long distance ultralight aircraft (the first of its kind) assisted by an in-flight deployable and detachable ovoid helium balloon. This platform was developed as it had become evident through observation and experimentation that the behavior of these creatures was disturbed by the approach of larger aircraft. It was not by coincidence that the craft bore a distinct resemblance to the large, presumably mature form, of “space jelly” creatures themselves.
Working within a shoe-string budget, I deployed a modified aqualung attached to a motorcycle helmet and a small forge bellows that was fashioned into a crude but effective and light weight re-breathing system for high altitudes. For warmth I wore a gorilla suit (procured from a costumer’s auction in Emeryville) and had it fitted with a lining of goose down. From below the aircraft was lowered a fair sized grappling hook with several large mackerels tied to it with bailing wire. Inside of six weeks in the fall of 1973 I had snagged most of these diaphanous jelly fish like buggers. None of the captured survived the experience and within minutes dissolved into an odd steamy smoke. On my final expedition, as per standard operating procedure, I reached the specified location at an altitude of 9500 feet, deployed the balloon, and floated up into the remaining few of these creatures which, apparently, died of fright on the spot, dissolving into threadlike wisps before me.
Besides the regrettable loss of the subjects under study there was one more unfortunate circumstance. On the last mission, after jettisoning the balloon, I was flying in from the Pacific over the Farallons at about 5000 feet towards my hidden base of operations in a remote area of [redacted]. I was spotted by a US Navy crew on a practice and shakedown cruise flying a restored antique Consolidated Vultee PB2Y Coronado that was to be displayed in a few days at a Fleet Week exposition near Fisherman’s wharf. They veered off course, followed me, and executed a close and slow pass-by over San Francisco Bay. So close I could see the faces of the pilot and crew. The flying boat then abruptly dropped altitude and beached near the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in what, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be an emergency landing.
Weeks later I learned, through some Navy sources in Vallejo who hung out Fridays at the [redacted] Bar and Grill, that the pilot and crew recovered from the plane had babbled incoherently and for days all they could get out of them was, “Flying fish bear … flying fish bear …” Needless to say this story has never been declassified and likely never will be. The only reason I relate it now is lay to rest any fears that may still exist about these creatures and confident in the knowledge that no one in their right mind would ever actually believe it.
This is truly a far-out and spectacular account, and one can’t help but wonder how much veracity any of it holds. A guy in a gorilla suit collecting flying jellyfish from the upper atmosphere? Flying Fish Bears? It is all quite beyond bizarre. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. In December of 1999 there was a rather unusual sighting of something like this at Vitebsk, in the Republic of Belarus. The two witnesses described the object as being somewhat tubular or cigar-shaped, with a front part that was rounded and asymmetric, and a rear part that seemed blurred. It was apparently a blue and red color, and exhibited a somewhat transparent quality, as well as what looked to be some sort of flickering bioluminescence. Whatever it was moved with a sort of undulating movement and made no noise during the sighting, and after a while it was reported as just vanishing into thin air. The witnesses would claim that it was not an aircraft, and that they had had the distinct impression that it was a living creature, saying it somewhat resembled an animal known as the glass squid (Cranchiidae).
Glass squid
What could such creatures be? One idea is that they are a type of theoretical organism known as an “atmospheric beast.” Atmospheric beasts, or atmospheric life-forms, as they are often called, are said to be organisms that live their entire lives floating high in the atmosphere, undetected by humans. These creatures are most often described as having bodies that are semi-solid, or almost insubstantial, with some reports even claiming that they are able to adjust their density from almost immaterial and invisible to more solid, depending on as yet unknown factors. Numerous theories have been posited as to how such seemingly fantastical organisms could manage to stay adrift in the air, such as air bladders or very low body densities.
The appearance of these atmospheric beasts varies wildly. Accounts have variously described them as amorphous and cloud-like behemoths, finned squid-like creatures, floating jellyfish, translucent, vaporous blobs, flitting rods, amoeba-like organisms, gelatinous oddities, and even dragons. The sizes of atmospheric beasts likewise run the gamut from tiny and bird-like, to gargantuan monsters hundreds of feet long. Although these enigmatic creatures are said to typically lurk too high in the atmosphere or to be too insubstantial to see with the naked eye, there are instances when one might become observable for some reason. Indeed, there has been a substantial amount of sightings reports over the years from all over the world describing unusual flying monsters that do not fit into the typical mold of thunderbirds or other flying cryptids. These atmospheric life forms have even allegedly been photographed, and there have been reports of the gelatinous remains of dead ones on occasion. Are such sightings evidence of this type of lifeform?
While flying jellyfish are weird enough, let’s move on to something just about as strange. One thing that one would not typically expect to find out walking around on land is an octopod beast, but there have been some downright surreal reports of these as well. One earlier and very weird case comes from the battlefields of World War II, in particular the Battle of Okinawa, in Japan. Lasting from April until June of 1945, the 82-day-long battle was envisioned as the first step in a planned eventual invasion of the Japanese Okinawa Islands and on to the mainland. It was the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific Theater, and saw some of the fiercest, most intense, and bloodiest fighting of the entire war. From here among the many scattered dead bodies strewn about in the aftermath of the fighting come some odd tales of encounters some Japanese troops allegedly had with something very bizarre indeed.
Fighting at the Battle of Okinawa
There are some scattered stories of Japanese troops surveying the smoking battlefields and telling of seeing what appeared to be very large octopuses picking through the corpses. These creatures were said to be around 4 feet in height, and rather than slither about like one would expect a normal octopus to do, they were said to walk about on their tentacles with their heads held above the ground. When one of the beasts was startled or on alert, it would apparently stretch its tentacles up to hold its head higher, like a camera mounted upon a tripod. Making it all more sinister is that the soldiers who saw these creatures claimed that they seemed to be actually coming to feed upon the corpses of the fallen. It is hard to know what to make of these reports, and one wonders if it just wasn’t a spooky forgotten wartime legend of the battlefield.
Then we have what has come to be known as the “Octosquatch.” In the summer of 1961, a 29-year-old truck driver named Arquimedes Sanchez was driving along a precipitous mountain road through the Basque mountains in Spain at around 11PM, along with an unnamed companion, on their way to the town of Puerto de Barazar. As they rounded a bend, their headlights hit a bizarre and rather monstrous being standing upon an embankment nearby, which prompted the pair to stop their vehicle.
When they peered through the murk ahead of them they claim that they saw a “hairy octopus,” which stood around 4 feet tall, with glowing eyes and “tentacle-like” arms. The witnesses and the thing apparently sat there completely frozen and immobile for several minutes, both parties probably just as startled and scared as the other, before Sanchez snapped out of it and slammed the accelerator, which caused the weird apparition to scurry backwards away from the threat, after which Sanchez backed up and tried again, apparently intent on running it over. Interestingly, the otherworldly intruder refused to take off into the night, instead always just managing to avoid being run over, as if it were all a game. Finally the two men, neither who were willing to step out of the vehicle to investigate, drove off to leave the being behind, never to be seen again.
In more recent years, in December of 2014 there was a very odd report taken by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), concerning an outlandish bipedal creature that was sighted and almost hit by a car in the vicinity of the sleepy town of Carmel, in Highland County, Ohio. The witnesses, a former Marine and his wife, had just moved to the area, and one evening they were driving along the rural road through a wooded area towards their home when a 7-foot-tall creature with muscular, very bendable, tentacle-like legs, and a tubular body without any arms or head ran in front of their car and into the woods on the other side of the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by the vehicle in the process.
It would later be described as being a dull, sickly grey in color and looking sort of like a “walking squid,” and after the report was featured in the local paper there was a lot of speculation as to what it might be. One of the most popular ideas is that this was merely a misidentified deer that had just happened to be witnessed in a strange, bipedal pose. This sort of makes sense, as white-tailed deer are known to rear up on their hind legs and even take a few steps in that position, but it seems odd that one would walk so far, and it doesn’t really seem to totally match the witnesses’ description. Interestingly, the witnesses also claimed that there was a large sphere of grass near their house that is always greener than the surroundings and where snow does not gather, so make of that what you will. Whatever it is, the “Walking Squid” Of Carmel, Ohio, is a truly bizarre case that can’t easily be explained away.
Here we have looked at an array of utterly bizarre tales of jellyfish, squid, and octopus-like creatures popping up in the oddest of places. These obviously could not be considered normal examples of these types of animals, so what were they? Some sort of undiscovered species? Aliens? Interdimensional interlopers? Are they just tall tales or hallucinations? No matter what the answer may be, these are certainly highly odd cases that go beyond the strange, and elude any easy classification.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.