“Magnetar” sounds like it could go either way as a comic book superhero or villain but it’s actually one of the rarest kinds of celestial objects – a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field. Only 23 have ever been discovered and only four of those are of the type whose rapidly decaying magnetic field is sending out radio waves. A distress signal? If it is, it seemed we were too late in receiving from magnetar XTE J1810–197, which suddenly stopped sending radio waves ten years ago. Now, just as unexpectedly, it’s sending them again. Should we respond?

“These bizarre objects are neutron stars possessing magnetic fields a million billion times more powerful than Earth’s field, or some 1,000 times greater that those of normal neutron stars.”

As explained in Sky & Telescope, magnetars are not something you want to approach while wearing a steel belt buckle. Actually, you may not want to get close at all. Here’s what Scientific American says will happen:

“X-ray photons readily split in two or merge. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron.”

Without knowing what any of those things mean, it still sounds pretty bad. However, astronomers were excited to discover XTE J1810–197 in 2004 because it was the first magnetar to have detectable radio pulsations or waves. The waves were highly variable and continued until late 2008 when they suddenly stopped. Astronomers are a patient and persistent bunch, so a group led by Lina Levin of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester kept on watching the magnetar using the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory. After squinting into the eyepiece for ten years (figuratively, of course), Levin was rewarded for her perseverance on December 8, 2018, when she detected a pulsed radio signal at 1.52 GHz from XTE J1810–197.

After the high-fives had ended and the champagne was gone, they noticed that something had changed with XTE J1810–197.

“The pulse variations seen so far from the source have been significantly less dramatic, on timescales from hours to months, than seen in 2006.”

Artist’s depiction of a magnetar with magnetic field lines (NASA)

The magnetism of a magnetar is a mystery, although the most likely cause is its dense mass spinning at hundreds to thousands of times per second. The equally massive and mysterious radio waves seem to come from starquakes caused by movement in the magnetar’s crust that realigns its magnetic field.

So, the radio waves aren’t being sent by a dying alien race looking for a place to send their child to live and start their species anew while becoming an indestructible superhero whose arch-enemy is ironically named Magnetar … even if it would make a great movie.

For now, we have to be content with reading Levin’s new study and waiting for future observations.

Octopuses are beautiful sea animals that can change their skin color and texture in order to avoid predators, sneak up on prey, and to communicate with other octopuses. But do they dream? A new video has surfaced that shows an octopus sleeping, but what’s strange is that it changes colors in a dramatic way.

Footage that’s been circulating online shows a Caribbean two-spot octopus (or Octopus hummelincki) that’s sleeping in an aquarium at Butterfly Pavilion, which is a non-profit invertebrate zoo located in Westminster, Colorado. Since the aquarium was very well lit, it was easy to see the octopus’ skin color changing from light to dark and then back again to light. Rebecca Otey, who was a science and conservation intern for the zoo, shot the video in October of 2017 before posting it to YouTube.

The beginning of the video shows the sleeping octopus as a pearly-white color, but as the nap went on, its skin turned into a dark pattern that pulsed with its breath, followed by a completely dark color that covered its entire body before slowly fading back to white. The question on everyone’s mind is “why?”

Sara Stevens, who is an aquarist with Butterfly Pavilion, told Live Science that the color changes on octopuses are caused by chromatophores which are specialized pigment cells that either expand or contract to create the colors and patterns on its body. Iridophores and leucophores are the other two types of cells which are believed to detect the colors that the octopus’ skin then turns into. Since octopuses are colorblind, these cells are very important factors in how they end up changing colors to blend into their surroundings.

“The exact processes of how they match colors is still not fully understood, though it’s being very thoroughly studied,” Stevens said, adding, “But current research suggests that the actual cells themselves can match colors.”

Since cephalopods normally alter their colors because of the conditions changing around them (like a predator approaching), why did the octopus in the video change colors while sleeping? One possibility is that it was dreaming about a threat. While research has been conducted into what goes on in the brains of cephalopods while they are asleep, it remains unclear whether they dream the same way that humans do. “It’s been hypothesized that octopus species can exhibit something very similar to REM cycles in humans – but the jury’s still out on whether they’re achieving REM sleep,” Stevens explained.

• Click here to see the incredible video of the octopus changing colors while it was asleep.

While humans only have one brain, octopuses have nine of them – one central brain in its nervous system, and the other eight are at the base of each of its arms that controls its movements. They also have tons of neurons in its body – around 500 million. Stevens also mentioned that while octopuses have great control over the color-changing cells, they may not have complete control all the time.

So, was the octopus dreaming of a predator coming to attack, or was the color change completely out of its control while it was sleeping? We may never know the answer, but it’s still very interesting to witness the remarkable features of this beautiful sea animal.

It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!
It’s … a comet!
It’s an asteroid!
It’s an alien spaceship!
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog, it’s just little old me …
‘Oumuamua

With apologies to Superman and Underdog, ‘Oumuamua seems to be becoming the description-defying, interstellar, possibly super-powered unidentified aerial phenomena of the 21st century. “Unidentified” because the arguments over what it is have changed continuously since it was first spotted in October 2017 after it had already looped around the Sun and continue to this day as it streaks past Saturn on its estimated 10,000 year solar orbit. One new theory, presented this week in a paper published on the preprint server ArXiv, is that it may be made of the same stuff as Earth because rapidly-forming planets may be seeded by objects like ‘Oumuamua that are spewed out into space until they find a young star, settle into its cosmic dust disk and grow into a planet. A second theory to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that the puzzling movement of Oumuamua is not a spin like a comet but a rocking motion like a pendulum.

At this point, even Superman might pause and think, “Until someone tells me what it is, I’m not touching it. Go for it, Underdog.”

“It’s not a very efficient process, but you’re starting out with so many of them that you still end up with plenty.”

Study co-author Susanne Pfalzner of Germany’s Jülich Supercomputing Center explained the theory in New Scientist. A big object like ‘Oumuamua could attract planet food faster than a ball could form randomly. Co-author Michele Bannister, an astrophysicist at Queens University Belfast, thinks it’s a little heartwarming.

“A fraction of planets could have had an ‘Oumuamua at their heart. You’re not going to have any trace of it anymore, but it’s a lovely thought.”

The second theory could explain how a cigar-shaped object like ‘Oumuamua might bump into and assimilate a lot more planetary debris than other objects because of its unusual movement. While most astronomers now agree that ‘Oumuamua is accelerating through space because it’s emitting gases, Yale astronomy professor Gregory Laughlin, an author of the study coming soon in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, told Yale News that the lack of a tail indicated this outgassing is different than a normal comet.

“In the model we’re proposing for ‘Oumuamua, the venting gas does not erupt from a single fixed point on the surface. Instead, the jets migrate along the surface, following the warmth and tracking the direction to the Sun.”

Instead of spinning like a top, ‘Oumuamua is rocking like a pendulum. This movement and other rocks like ‘Oumuamua may not be that unusual. The researchers say nearly every star in the galaxy may eject them during planet formation and they could have been passing through our solar system for a long time.

Long enough to have planted the seed that spawned the Earth? Maybe the authors of these studies need to get together and talk. Is there a Tinder for astronomers?

In far more than a few cases of alien abduction, witnesses – or victims – report something very strange, but which can be found all across the planet. They have seen what they describe as a giant-sized owl staring at them. Then, there follows a typically weird and mysterious event, one in which the witness suddenly finds themselves aboard a UFO, and subjected to intrusive procedures. For some ufologists, the most obvious explanation is that the owl is a screen-memory created by the aliens, as they seek to obscure and obfuscate what really happened to the abductee. A screen-memory is one of a non-threatening nature that the mind and subconscious creates to mask and bury a frightening, stressful event. It is not at all implausible, or impossible, that a highly advanced extraterrestrial species might possess the ability to create extremely visual hallucinations in the mind of the targeted abductee, as part of a concerted effort to ensure that the truth of the matter never surfaced. The image of the eerie owl would overwhelm the reality of the situation, thus ensuring that the aliens’ desire to stay in the shadows remained intact. Make no mistake, such cases are everywhere.

Whitley Strieber is the author of what is probably the most widely recognized book on the alien abduction phenomenon: the bestselling Communion, which was published in 1987, the cover of which displays a near-hypnotic image of an alien entity. It may not be a coincidence that immediately after the first abduction experience that Strieber recalled, on December 26, 1985, his mind was filled owl-based imagery. Strieber’s sister had her own experience with an anomalous owl in the early 1960s. Strieber said, in his 1987 book, Communion, that as she drove between the Texas towns of Comfort and Kerrville, “…she was terrified to see a huge light sail down and cross the road ahead of her. A few minutes later an owl flew in front of the car. I have to wonder if that is not a screen memory, but my sister has no sense of it.”

This all brings me to something else – a creature that has become a staple part of a completely different subject: cryptozoology, which is the study and search for unknown animals, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Or, based on what I’m about to say now, maybe they are not so unconnected, after all. In 1976 the dense trees surrounding Mawnan Old Church, Cornwall, England became a veritable magnet for a diabolical beast that was christened the Owlman. The majority of those that crossed paths with the creature asserted that it was human-like in both size and design, and possessed a pair of large wings, fiery red eyes, claws, and exuded an atmosphere of menace. No wonder people make parallels with the Mothman.of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

In 2016, I received an email from a woman now living in the English town of Lowestoft, but who previously lived very close to Mawnan, and specifically in the small Cornwall village of Gweek, the distance between which, by car, is approximately six and a half miles. It transpires that in 1998 she had a profound UFO encounter while taking the road from Mawnan to Gweek. It was after 11:00 p.m. and the woman was driving home after visiting a friend in Mawnan. She had barely left the little village when she saw what she could only describe as a UFO, one that appeared at the side of the road – around the size of a large beach-ball and glowing bright orange. The next thing she knew, she was parked at the side of the road, with what she was able to determine was around two hours of time unaccounted for.

But there was something else: as she came out of her groggy state, she caught sight of a huge owl-like creature, but which had somewhat humanoid characteristics attached to it, too. It was hovering in the air, at a height of around fifteen feet, but was not employing the use of its wings to keep it aloft. Given the fact that this was practically on the doorstep of where the Owlman was seen back in 1976 (and since, too), the idea that the two issues are unconnected is highly unlikely. The witness admitted she knew of the Owlman legend. Living so close to Mawnan, it would be more astonishing had she not heard of it. There was little more she could tell me, beyond the facts surrounding the sighting of the curious ball of light, the period of missing time, and the appearance of a “humanoid owl,” as I term it.

This particular encounter – which has not been publicized before – set me thinking. What if the Owlman of Cornwall is not a beast of cryptozoological proportions, after all? What if, instead, it is some strange manifestation of the UFO phenomenon, one that is designed to trick the witnesses into thinking they have encountered a large owl, when, in reality, the event was of an otherworldly nature? This neatly dovetails into another aspect of the controversy and a pair of questions that are highly relative, even integral, to the theme of this article: what if the so-called alien Greys are not creating screen-memories, as a means to try and confuse them with regard to the true nature of their experiences? What if they have the ability to literally shapeshift, from the form of a black-eyed extraterrestrial into that of a large owl? And, by and large, we are talking about creatures that the witnesses suggest are usually between four- and five-feet in height.

While some of the cases, such as that 1998 incident highlighted above, do indeed smack of a screen memory, others do not. One such encounter which falls solidly into the second category involves a Scottish woman who we shall refer to as “Maxine,” who I met in 2004. She lives in the Scottish town of Inverness, which is located only a very short distance from the site of yet another famous mystery: Loch Ness, the home, of course, to long-necked Nessie. On a clear summer day in 2007, Maxine was walking her dog along the hills that overlook Loch Ness when she saw what, from her description, can only be described as an alien Grey. When she first saw it, at a distance of a couple of hundred feet, she assumed it was a young child – chiefly because of its short height. As she got closer, and as her dog froze to the spot, she could see that not only was it not a young boy: it wasn’t even human. Maxine and the Grey stared at each other for just a few seconds, after which is stretched its arms out and, in an instant, transformed into what Maxine described as an impossibly large owl: it was practically man-sized. It immediately took to the skies and headed across the loch at a fast rate. Maxine continue to watch, with astonishment, as the alien-owl thing vanished into the trees on the opposite side of the loch.

The most important aspect of Maxine’s encounter is that she is one hundred percent sure that she did not experience missing time. She does not have any vague memories of being taken aboard some kind of futuristic, alien craft. She is not plagued by graphic nightmares involving extraterrestrials. In fact, she is completely sure that what she recalls is exactly what she saw: a small, alien creature literally shapeshifting into the form of an owl. Interestingly, since her experience took place, Maxine has come up with an intriguing theory to try and explain and rationalize the situation. She now believes that the Greys have the ability to transform their physical appearances. This, she also suggests, means that the Greys can spy on us whenever, and wherever, they choose, without being noticed for what they really are. If we see an owl, a black cat, a German Shepherd dog – the list goes on – we may actually be seeing something very different: a shapeshifted E.T. using a piece of brilliant camouflage.

A similar report comes from “Gary,” of Newport Beach, California, who I spoke with in 2014 at the Joshua Tree, California-based Contact in the Desert conference. Unlike Maxine – who has experienced just one UFO-themed incident in her entire life – Gary has had numerous encounters. His, however, are not of the alien abduction type. For Gary, a manager at a Target store, his experiences have been of the Contactee variety: face to face interaction with very human-looking, long-haired aliens and a wealth of interaction and discussion of a mind, body and spirit nature.

As for Gary’s experience with an owl, it occurred out at Giant Rock, California. Close to the town of Landers, Giant Rock is where, from the 1950s to the late 1970s, a famous Contactee named George Van Tassel held yearly outdoor conferences on UFOs. Gary maintains that in November 2001 he rendezvoused at the old rock with an alien name Capsona – a blond-haired, beautiful woman, dressed in a long white gown. The two spent several hours discussing the precarious state of the human race. After which, and with the sun starting to set on the desert, Capsona told Gary to back away, which he did, to a distance of about forty feet. Capsona was suddenly bathed in a white light and was transformed into a roughly four-foot-tall, brilliantly white owl, which took to the skies and that was quickly lost from view. Again, and as with Maxine’s experience, there was no hint of a suggestion of a screen memory. Only that of an extraterrestrial with the stunning ability to shapeshift.

Those who survived the panic caused by the less-trouble-than-expected Y2K or Millennium Bug that was supposed to shut down computers when they tried to move their clocks from 12/31/1999 to 1/1/2000 may scoff at the new April 6, 2019 bug that many predict will wreak havoc with the GPS systems drivers, pilots and many major industries depend on. Those who profited from the Y2K Bug (COBOL and assembler language programmers dragged out of retirement to fix old software) may be upset that no one told them about this one sooner. Those planning a flight or a road excursion on 4/6/2019 may suddenly be considering a postponement. The rest of us are wondering … what the heck is the April 6, 2019 bug?

“The GPS Internal Navigation Time Scale “GPS Time” is based on the weighted average of GPS satellites and ground station clocks. GPS Time is used for user navigation solutions. A nanosecond error in GPS Time can equate to one foot of position (ranging) error. The WN parameter is provided via a ten (10) bit parameter – or “counter.” The valid range of values for the WN parameter is 0 to 1023 (or 1024 total values). The WN parameter is incremented by one each week. At the end of the 1024th week, the counter experiences a rollover (resets) to 0. Each WN rollover event defines a new GPS Time Epoch. The WN value is referenced to the start of the current GPS Time Epoch. The last WN rollover was August 21, 1999. GPS Time is currently in the second Epoch. The next WN rollover is April 6, 2019.

GPS Time is adjusted by the U.S. Air Force GPS Directorate to maintain alignment with UTC as provided by the U.S. Naval Observatory. A GPS device that provides UTC time does so by converting GPS Time to UTC using multiple parameters – including WN – conveyed in page 18 of GPS sub-frame.

GPS devices with a poorly implemented GPS Time-to-UTC conversion algorithm may provide incorrect UTC following a WN rollover. Additionally, some GPS devices that calculate the WN value from a device-specific date rather than the start of the current GPS Time Epoch may provide incorrect UTC at some other device-specific date.”

That explanation came from a memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in April, 2018. A one-year warning doesn’t seem like much time to fix old programs dependent on an antiquated 10-bit counter that bumps up one per week until it reaches binary 1111111111 (1023) and resets to zero, does it? DHS points out that this happened once before on August 22, 1999 and nothing bad happened then. Of course, that could be because most people were still folding paper maps in 1999 when GPS was still a new and much less used innovation.

(Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay)

On the other hand, in 2019 it seems that every cell phone, vehicle, watch and just about anything with a chip in it has GPS. Will we all go spinning aimlessly on 4/6/2019? Here’s an answer from FalTech GPS, a company specialized in GPS repeater technology.

“Who will be affected? The list is long and varied; some industries come to mind immediately as they are known to use the accurate timing information provided by the GPS constellation. Financial markets, power generating companies, emergency services and industrial control systems may be affected, as well as fixed-line and cellular communications networks. GPS tracking devices installed in a fleet management system to schedule and monitor deliveries could cause system errors if they start to provide location data that is potentially up to 20 years out of date.”

All together now …. ahhhh! Why isn’t someone doing something about this? Well, the government and GPS makers have been for a while. Most modern GPS receivers shouldn’t be affected. Older devices that have been getting regular firmware updates should also be OK. A lot of GPS devices can run without UTC or can get it from other sources. And don’t forget – GPS systems survived August 22, 1999, just as we survived January 1, 2000.

And yet … Tom’s Guide reports that a security expert at the recent RSA Conference 2019 (RSA is a computer and network security company) said in a presentation:

“I’m not going to be flying on April 6.”

Does that sound like a warning? Is someone keeping things quiet? Who? This is no April Fool’s joke. If you survive April 1, make it to April 7 by being extra careful just in case on April 6.

One of America’s most mysterious archaeological sites is finally being returned to its rightful owners after 200 years. In the small town of Franklin, North Carolina, a small mound of earth can be found alongside US Highway 441. The grassy mound today stands just just a dozen or so feet high (4 meters) and occupies the space of roughly a city block. While the mound may be easily overlooked by the untrained eye, it remains one of the most unknown structures in the United States and predates even the oldest known oral histories of indigenous American peoples. Who built the Nikwasi Mound?

The mound today. US 441 can be seen in the right of this image.

When the earliest European settlers encountered the Cherokee nation in what is now Western North Carolina, they inquired about the mound. Cherokee tribal elders told the explorers that the mound predates their tribe’s history and was already ancient when the Cherokee arrived. The original builders of the mound remain unknown, and it is believed the mound was once part of a sprawling tribal town which thrived around 1,000 CE. Despite the mystery surrounding the Nikwasi Mound, the Cherokee people have revered the mound as a spiritual and ceremonial place for centuries and consider it to be one of the last known structures built by their mysterious predecessors.

The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians (EBCI) has worked for years to reclaim ownership of the mound and are finally poised to regain it. The Franklin City Council will soon vote to pass control of the mound to the nonprofit Nikwasi Initiative in the next few months, and the votes are expected to go in favor of the EBCI. “What this will do is allow the Cherokees — finally, after 200 years — to have some representation in the management of the mound,” Franklin Vice Mayor Barbara McRae told council members before the vote. “We have an opportunity to do something really historic, and to reverse that wrong.”

Main Street, Franklin NC. Make sure to check out Lazy Hiker Brewing if you’re ever in the area.

While it’s unknown who exactly built the Nikwasi Mound, it is believed that the Southern Appalachian Mississippians likely constructed it at some point nearly a thousand years ago. The Mississippian people were the predecessors to modern American Indian nations and inhabited what is now the eastern United States from the 9th century to the 15th century before European colonization.

Climate change at the end of the Little Ice Age, deforestation and overhunting, and the ensuing cultural collapse eventually brought about the decline of the Mississippian culture and the subsequent development of the Native American Indian nations and culture we know today. Because the Mississippian people left behind no writing system, little is known about this ancient culture outside of archaeological artifacts, mounds like the Nikwasi Mound, and the oral histories passed down through indigenous peoples for centuries.

The Nikwasi Mound is believed to have once been the site of a townhouse which served as the seat of Cherokee tribes in the area.

Because of its sacred status, the Nikwasi Mound has never been excavated, and the Cherokee people request that no one even climb on it in order to preserve it. Who knows what mysteries lie in the earth of the mound? Luckily, we may never know. Some mysteries are worth preserving.

Around 2,600 years ago, a huge solar storm hit Earth that was approximately ten times more powerful than any solar storm recorded in modern times. According to a new study, these massive solar storms were actually quite common in the history of the Earth. Unfortunately, with how many of us rely on technology and electricity, if one of those storms hit our planet today, our daily lives would nearly become unmanageable.

The sun could attack our planet with explosions of immensely energetic particles that are called solar proton events, and if these “proton storms” were to hit Earth, it could even damage electronics located in the air and in space. Raimund Muscheler, who is an environmental physicist at Lund University in Sweden, told Live Science, “Today, we have a lot of infrastructure that could be badly damaged, and we travel in air and space where we are much more exposed to high-energy radiation.”

When a proton storm hits Earth’s magnetosphere, our planet’s magnetic field traps it and when there is an interruption in our magnetosphere, that’s called a geomagnetic storm and that can destroy power grids all across the planet.

One example of this happening was in 1989 when a large solar storm put the entire Canadian province of Quebec in complete darkness, with the effects being felt all the way in New Jersey where some of their transformers were damaged. In fact, power grids in the United States from the mid-Atlantic to the Pacific Northwest were very close to shutting down.

A much more massive storm – approximately ten times more powerful than the one in Quebec – happened in 1859 and it’s called the Carrington Event. If a massive solar storm like the Carrington Event happened now, power outages could last weeks, months, or years, as we would have to wait for specific parts of the power grids to be replaced.

But wait, the massive Carrington Event may have been nothing compared to a solar storm that may have hit Earth in ancient times. Researchers have recently discovered radioactive atoms that were trapped in ice located in Greenland that seem to suggest that a gigantic proton storm hit our planet around 660 BC. Scientists studied two samples of ice from Greenland and noticed a spike of radioactive beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 from around 2,610 years ago. An even more interesting fact is that these findings coincide with tree rings that had a spike of carbon-14 around that same time period.

Two other major solar storms happened – one was around 993-994 AD, while the other happened around 774-775 AD – with the latter being the biggest-known solar eruption to have ever occurred.

“These enormous events are a recurring feature of the sun – we now have three big events during the past 3,000 years,” Muscheler said, adding, “There might be more that we have not yet discovered.” You can read the scientists’ findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by clicking here.

Solar flares are a common trait of the sun, but let’s hope that a massive storm like the ones mentioned above do not hit Earth anytime soon.