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 ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
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...
14-05-2019
Researchers find icy corridor on Saturn’s giant moon
Researchers find icy corridor on Saturn’s giant moon
While searching for the source of methane on Saturn’s large moon Titan, researchers found a completely unexpected corridor of methane ice wrapping nearly halfway around the moon.
Three orientations of Titan’s globe. The icy corridor is mapped in blue.
Image via Caitlin Griffith/UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
A research team has discovered huge ice feature on Titan while trying to understand where Saturn’s largest moon gets all of its methane.
Like Earth,Titanhas rain, seas and a surface of eroding organic material. However, on Titan it is methane, not water, that makes up the raindrops and fills the lakes.
A team of scientists searching for the source of Titan’s methane discovered something unexpected – a long corridor of ice that wraps nearly halfway around Titan, making it over 4,000 miles (6,400 km) long.
Caitlin Griffith is a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and lead author on the paper published April 29, 2019, in the peer=reviewed journal Nature Astronomy. Griffith said in a statement:
This icy corridor is puzzling, because it doesn’t correlate with any surface features nor measurements of the subsurface.
Saturn’s largest moon Titan as seen by the Cassini spacecraft.
Titan is the only object in the solar system other than Earth that is known to have liquid rain. On Titan it’s methane rain, not water, which fills the huge lakes that exist on the moon’s surface. Scientists aren’t sure where Titan’s methane comes from. There is no obvious source, except the evaporation of methane from the polar lakes. But Titan’s lakes contain only one-third of the methane in Titan’s atmosphere.
One theory is that the methane could be supplied by subsurface reservoirs that vent methane into the atmosphere. Prior studies of Titan indicate the presence of what looks like a cryovolcano – an ice volcano that erupts slurries of volatile compounds such as water or methane instead of lava.
The research team set out to study the composition of Titan’s surface, analyzing images from the NASA Cassinimission’s flybys of Titan, partly hoping to find subtle small cryovolcano candidates. They analyzed half of Titan’s surface and none were detected, but, in a surprise discovery, came across the ice feature. The researchers wrote:
Titan’s global ice feature presents a puzzle. Ice-rich terrains in other areas of Titan occur only in local regions excavated by craters or exposed by erosion, suggesting that cryovolcanism, if active, is currently not widespread.
Researchers say the presence of the ice corridor raises the question of whether tectonic processes might have been involved in Titan’s formation. Griffith said:
Given that our study and past work indicate that Titan is currently not volcanically active, the trace of the corridor is likely a vestige of the past. We detect this feature on steep slopes, but not on all slopes. This suggests that the icy corridor is currently eroding, potentially unveiling the presence of ice and organic strata.
Bottom line: Researchers have discovered an enormous ice corridor that wraps almost halfway around Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
More than 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, vast sheets of ice receded, scarring and causing massive cracks to appear on the bridge between North and South America. At that time, the land bridge was known to have been inhabited by fearsome beasts; now new evidence shows these prehistoric beasts included giant ‘wolf-like carnivores’ and the ‘largest bear’ ever to have walked on planet Earth.
‘10,000 BC’ was a 2008 American epic adventure film set in prehistory. It told the adventures of a prehistoric tribe ofmammoth hunters. After its world premiere on February 10, 2008 in Berlin, although it was an immediate box office hit, the film became regarded by professional critics as one of the worst films of the year. The Sunday Times review section noted that the film was “archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms.” But now it would appear this movie was based firmly in reality!
A diver in the Hoyo Negro pit, holding a Protocyon jaw and vertebrae.
At the bottom of an underwater cave in Mexico archaeologists have discovered an ancient graveyard including the skeletons of ancient sloths, sabretooth cats, cougars, elephant-like gomphotheres, bears, and dog-like animals. According to the researchers’ new paper, published in Biology Letters , they have recovered the skull of an enormous short-faced bear ( Arctotherium wingei ) and remains of a wolf-like dog known as Protocyon troglodytes.
Furthermore, in 2007, researchers even found “two human skeletons dating to more than 12,000-years-old.” These are now thought to be two of the “oldest human skeletons ever found in the Western hemisphere” and they inform experts that our ancestors once lived alongside giant ground sloths, towering bears, and fierce wolf-like carnivores.
Arctotherium wingei and Protocyon troglodytes from Hoyo Negro.
The remarkable discoveries were made in the Hoyo Negro pit (Spanish: blackhole) in the Sac Actun cave system on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula . Researchers have described it as “an underworld of exquisitely preserved fossils” naturally formed from limestone in the Late Pleistocene. It is thought that animals fell nearly 60 meters (200 feet) into the death pit and when the melting glaciers filled the pit the remains became a permanent installation.
This large-scale archaeological project is being financially support by a consortium including INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), National Geographic Society, the ETSU Center of Excellence in Paleontology, the Archaeological Institute of America, and DirectAMS and Strauss Family Fund. Among the bones recovered by scientists over the past 12 years, the team of US and Mexican researchers were most impressed by the remains of a giant bear and a wolf-like creature .
Divers in the expansive underwater cave of Hoyo Negro, Tulum, Quintana Roo.
While having been collected several years ago, both giant species were misidentified until now. But it’s not only the awe inspiring size of these two skeletons that is fascinating scientists, it’s the fact that they are causing anthropologists to redress their theories about ancient animal populations in South America .
How so? Up until their correct identification, scientists were convinced that the short-faced bear and wolf only populated the southern aspects of the South American continent, “more than 2,000 kilometers away.”
When Did these Prehistoric Beasts Travel Such Vast Distances?
Lead author and paleontologist from the East Tennessee State University, Blaine Schubert, told reporters at Live Science , “The whole previous record of this particular type of bear is just known from a few localities in South America, and those are fragmentary remains.” And having come from almost no knowledge of this bear, the scientists now have what is being called “the best record of this type of bear from the Yucatán of Mexico.”
Trying to account for how the bear and wolf got as far north as Mexico, scientists refer to “many cross-over events between North and South America.” Another possibility being proposed by the authors is that having walked all the way south, during or after the last full glacial event between 35,000 and 12,000 years ago, they returned northwards to the region of the cave. The scientists wrote, “We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included Homo sapiens.”
When 10,000 BC was released in 2008 critics at Variety wrote: “10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.” However, in April 29, 2008 the movie had grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide, which was said to be “dead money.” Now, it appears the movie was a really, really expensive archaeological lesson.
Top Image:A diver holds the skull of an ancient bear known as an Arctotherium. It is one of the species of “prehistoric monsters” found in an underwater Yucatan cave. Source: Copyright Roberto Chavez-Arce
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
More than 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, vast sheets of ice receded, scarring and causing massive cracks to appear on the bridge between North and South America. At that time, the land bridge was known to have been inhabited by fearsome beasts; now new evidence shows these prehistoric beasts included giant ‘wolf-like carnivores’ and the ‘largest bear’ ever to have walked on planet Earth.
‘10,000 BC’ was a 2008 American epic adventure film set in prehistory. It told the adventures of a prehistoric tribe ofmammoth hunters. After its world premiere on February 10, 2008 in Berlin, although it was an immediate box office hit, the film became regarded by professional critics as one of the worst films of the year. The Sunday Times review section noted that the film was “archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms.” But now it would appear this movie was based firmly in reality!
A diver in the Hoyo Negro pit, holding a Protocyon jaw and vertebrae.
At the bottom of an underwater cave in Mexico archaeologists have discovered an ancient graveyard including the skeletons of ancient sloths, sabretooth cats, cougars, elephant-like gomphotheres, bears, and dog-like animals. According to the researchers’ new paper, published in Biology Letters , they have recovered the skull of an enormous short-faced bear ( Arctotherium wingei ) and remains of a wolf-like dog known as Protocyon troglodytes.
Furthermore, in 2007, researchers even found “two human skeletons dating to more than 12,000-years-old.” These are now thought to be two of the “oldest human skeletons ever found in the Western hemisphere” and they inform experts that our ancestors once lived alongside giant ground sloths, towering bears, and fierce wolf-like carnivores.
Arctotherium wingei and Protocyon troglodytes from Hoyo Negro.
The remarkable discoveries were made in the Hoyo Negro pit (Spanish: blackhole) in the Sac Actun cave system on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula . Researchers have described it as “an underworld of exquisitely preserved fossils” naturally formed from limestone in the Late Pleistocene. It is thought that animals fell nearly 60 meters (200 feet) into the death pit and when the melting glaciers filled the pit the remains became a permanent installation.
This large-scale archaeological project is being financially support by a consortium including INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), National Geographic Society, the ETSU Center of Excellence in Paleontology, the Archaeological Institute of America, and DirectAMS and Strauss Family Fund. Among the bones recovered by scientists over the past 12 years, the team of US and Mexican researchers were most impressed by the remains of a giant bear and a wolf-like creature .
Divers in the expansive underwater cave of Hoyo Negro, Tulum, Quintana Roo.
While having been collected several years ago, both giant species were misidentified until now. But it’s not only the awe inspiring size of these two skeletons that is fascinating scientists, it’s the fact that they are causing anthropologists to redress their theories about ancient animal populations in South America .
How so? Up until their correct identification, scientists were convinced that the short-faced bear and wolf only populated the southern aspects of the South American continent, “more than 2,000 kilometers away.”
When Did these Prehistoric Beasts Travel Such Vast Distances?
Lead author and paleontologist from the East Tennessee State University, Blaine Schubert, told reporters at Live Science , “The whole previous record of this particular type of bear is just known from a few localities in South America, and those are fragmentary remains.” And having come from almost no knowledge of this bear, the scientists now have what is being called “the best record of this type of bear from the Yucatán of Mexico.”
Trying to account for how the bear and wolf got as far north as Mexico, scientists refer to “many cross-over events between North and South America.” Another possibility being proposed by the authors is that having walked all the way south, during or after the last full glacial event between 35,000 and 12,000 years ago, they returned northwards to the region of the cave. The scientists wrote, “We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included Homo sapiens.”
When 10,000 BC was released in 2008 critics at Variety wrote: “10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.” However, in April 29, 2008 the movie had grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide, which was said to be “dead money.” Now, it appears the movie was a really, really expensive archaeological lesson.
Top Image:A diver holds the skull of an ancient bear known as an Arctotherium. It is one of the species of “prehistoric monsters” found in an underwater Yucatan cave. Source: Copyright Roberto Chavez-Arce
Discovery of 16,000-year-old Footprint That Could Change the History of the Americas
Discovery of 16,000-year-old Footprint That Could Change the History of the Americas
There are some discoveries that can change the way that we think about history. Archaeologists in Chilebelieve that they have made one such discovery. They have uncovered a human footprintthat is approximately 15,500-16,000 years old. It is the earliest evidence yet found of humans in theAmericas. The imprint has the potential to change how we believe the continent was settled and who were its first inhabitants.
The imprint was found at the late Pleistocene period archaeological site of Pilauco, which according to phys.org “where scientists have been digging since 2007.” The Pilauco site had also yielded evidence of extinct elephants and horses and is located in the Chilean city of Osorno some 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Santiago, the capital of Chile.
The Pleistocene footprint is the oldest surviving human footprint in the Americas.
The footprint was found in 2010, near a modern house, by “a student at the Universidad Austral of Chile” according to Reuters. While the impression may appear to be clearly a human footprint, the scientists were cautious, as it could have been an animal’s tracks which had become misshapen and elongated over-time. It is believed that the imprint was buried under three feet of residue, which preserved it for posterity.
The Irish state broadcaster RTE reports that ‘”it took years for paleontologist Karen Moreno and geologist Mario Pino to reliably confirm that the print was human.” It was only established by carrying out footprint tests with people and this proved that the imprint was human. These also established that it was made by a “barefooted adult human who was of 'light body weight’” according to the Daily Mail .
Based on foot printing tests they conducted, scientists think the print comes from a straight down step. The diagram shows the different type of prints that could be made with different angles and pressure.
It is believed that the footprint is of a man who weighed 155 pounds (70 kilograms) and according to phys.org, was “of the species Hominipes modernus, a relative of Homo sapiens .” This was established by ichnologicaly, that is by the scientific examination of the traces found in the sediment. Ichnologists comparing the mark with other traces were able to establish that it was H. modernus.
To establish if the Pleistocene footprint was human and how it was made, scientists performed foot printing tests on soil at different soil moisture levels and with different foot angles and pressures.
Scientists were able to date the find by using radiocarbon dating techniques that analyzed organic plant material near where the print was located and established that it was approximately 15,600 years old. This made it according to RTE, the “oldest footprint found in the Americas.” While other prints have been unearthed, none are as old as the one found in the city of Osorno. It seems that the site was occupied by humans for some time as footprints dated a thousand years later have also been uncovered.
The Daily Mail reports that “this was the first evidence of humans in the Americas older than 12,000 years.” Previously it had been believed that the first inhabitants of the continent arrived from Siberia via the Bearing Straits some 10,000 years ago. This discovery is challenging the idea that Clovis Man, a paleo-Indian culture was the first to settle the continent.
Archeologist working on site of the location were Pleistocene footprint was discovered.
According to Plos One , the find provides evidence of “the colonization of northern Patagonia” in the late Pleistocene period . The footprint is supporting evidence found at the Monte Verde , Chile, that this region in the extreme south of the Americas was colonized much earlier than thought. This, in turn, is supporting the so-called coastal migration model. This holds that the first settlers to inhabit the Americas migrated by following coastlines and may suggest that Pacific Islanders were the first to settle on the continent.
The impression and its surrounding sediment has been removed from the Osorno site and is now stored in a specially regulated environment. It has cracked somewhat as the moisture in the soil has dried but the impression is still distinct. The print could be put on display at some later date, but this depends on the state of the traces.
Top image:Region close to where the Pleistocene footprint was discovered. Source: Matyas Rehak / Adobe
SPACEX’S STARLINK SATELLITES COULD MAKE SPACE A MINEFIELD
SPACEX’S STARLINK SATELLITES COULD MAKE SPACE A MINEFIELD
NASA/VICTOR TANGERMANN
DAN ROBITZSKI
Watch Your Step
On Wednesday, SpaceX plans to launch its firstbatch of Starlink satellites, an artificial constellation intended to beam down high-speed internet service from orbit.
It’s an aspirational mission, but there’s an unfortunate downside, according to Scientific American. The satellites could also, in a worst-case scenario, trigger a deadly cascade of space debris known as “Kessler syndrome,” which would fill space with so many hazards that humans are effectively trapped on Earth.
“The worst case is: you launch all your satellites, you go bankrupt, and they all stay there,” European Space Agency researcher Stijn Lemmens told the magazine. “Then you have thousands of new satellites without a plan of getting them out of there. And you would have a Kessler-type of syndrome.”
Mind The Gap
SpaceX proactively took steps to avoid cluttering the skies with even more potentially dangerous space junk — SpaceX plans to launch the Starlink network to a lower altitude that most other satellites that orbit the Earth.
Over time, that number will only climb — it will take thousands of years for the Starlink satellites to be pulled back down into the Earth’s atmosphere where they’ll safely incinerate upon re-entry, per SciAm. And in the meantime, according to the MIT Technology Review, proposed mega-constellations like Starlink will result in 67,000 potential collisions per year.
“This is something we need to pay attention to,” Glenn Peterson, the Aerospace Corporation engineer who calculated the 67,000 annual collision rate, told SciAm. “We have to be proactive.”
A strange light was spotted in the background of a NASA live feed of the ISS, with some quick to point to alien activity. The orb in the background appears to be pulsating, with UFOlogists claiming it is “proof” that extraterrestrials are monitoring astronauts on board the ISS. Prominent alien hunter Scott C Waring said NASA was attempting to hide the evidence.
Mr Waring wrote on the website ET Database: “The UFO seems curved on the top and sides,but flat on its bottom.
“The close up in the video shows its colour changing as it moves past the space station slowly.
“This video is over six minutes and shows some serious close ups of a UFO that NASA does not want you to see.
“This is absolute proof that aliens have a high interest in the space station and how the astronauts on board are dealing with the unique environment of space.”
ALIEN PROOF? UFO ‘seen monitoring International Space Station’ - shock claim
(Image: GETTY)
Conspiracy theorists often look for signs of extraterrestrial activity in official NASA videos and live streams.
But scientists who have worked for the space agency in the past have a much simpler explanation for all of the bizarre UFO sightings reported.
According to former NASA engineer James Oberg, most UFO sightings are nothing more than “space dandruff” floating in front of cameras.
The 'UFO' was seen pulsating
(Image: ET DATABASE)
These specks of dandruff can be anything from bits of chipped paint drifting aimlessly in zero gravity, flakes of ice or ISS insulation that has broken off.
He said: “I’ve had enough experience with real spaceflight to realise that what’s being seen in many videos is nothing beyond the ‘norm’ from fully mundane phenomena occurring in unearthly settings.”
Mr Oberg argued the human brain is not wired to make sense of these tiny objects floating above Earth.
ONE WAY TO FIND ALIENS WOULD BE TO SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL RINGS OF SATELLITES: CLARKE BELTS
ONE WAY TO FIND ALIENS WOULD BE TO SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL RINGS OF SATELLITES: CLARKE BELTS
Any comments, suggestions or just looking for a chat about this subject? Don't hesitate and leave a comment on our improved comment section down below the article!
When it comes to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the Universe, there is the complicated matter of what to be on the lookout for. Beyond the age-old question of whether or not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe (statistically speaking, it is very likely that it does), there’s also the question of whether or not we would be able to recognize it if and when we saw it.
Given that humanity is only familiar with one form of civilization (our own), we tend to look for indications of technologies we know or which seem feasible. In a recent study, a researcher from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) proposed looking for large bands of satellites in distant star systems – a concept that was proposed by the late and great Arthur C. Clarke (known as a Clarke Belt).
The study – titled “Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt” – was conducted by Hector Socas-Navarro, an astrophysicist with the IAC and the Universidad de La Laguna. In it, he advocates using next-generation telescopes to look for signs of massive belts of geostationary communication satellites in distant star systems.
This proposal is based in part on a paper written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945 (titled “Peacetime Uses for V2“), in which he proposed sending “artificial satellites” into geostationary orbit around Earth to create a global communications network. At present, there are about 400 such satellites in the “Clarke Belt” – a region named in honor of him that is located 36,000 km above the Earth.
This network forms the backbone of modern telecommunications and in the future, many more satellites are expected to be deployed – which will form the backbone of the global internet. Given the practicality of satellites and the fact that humanity has come to rely on them so much, Socas-Navarro considers that a belt of artificial satellites could naturally be considered “technomarkers” (the analogues of “biomarkers”, which indicate the presence of life).-
As Socas-Navarro explained to Universe Today via email:
“Essentially, a technomarker is anything that we could potentially observe which would reveal the presence of technology elsewhere in the Universe. It’s the ultimate clue to find intelligent life out there. Unfortunately, interstellar distances are so great that, with our current technology, we can only hope to detect very large objects or structures, something comparable to the size of a planet.”
In this respect, a Clarke Exobelt is not dissimilar from a Dyson Sphere or other forms of megastructures that have been proposed by scientists in the past. But unlike these theoretical structures, a Clarke Exobelt is entirely feasible using present-day technology.
Graphic showing the cloud of space debris that currently surrounds the Earth.
Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/JSC
“Other existing technomarkers are based on science fiction technology of which we know very little,” said Socas-Navarro. “We don’t know if such technologies are possible or if other alien species might be using them. The Clarke Exobelt, on the other hand, is a technomarker based on real, currently existing technology. We know we can make satellites and, if we make them, it’s reasonable to assume that other civilizations will make them too.”
According to Socas-Navarro, there is some “science fiction” when it comes to Clarke Exobelts that would actually be detectable using these instruments. As noted, humanity has about 400 operational satellites occupying Earth’s “Clarke Belt”. This is about one-third of the Earth’s existing satellites, whereas the rest are at an altitude of 2000 km (1200 mi) or less from the surface – the region known as Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
This essentially means that aliens would need to have billions more satellites within their Clarke Belt – accounting for roughly 0.01% of the belt area – in order for it to be detectable. As for humanity, we are not yet to the point where our own Belt would be detectable by an extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). However, this should not take long given that the number of satellites in orbit has been growing exponentially over the past 15 years.
Based on simulations conducted by Socas-Navarro, humanity will reach the threshold where its satellite band will be detectable by ETIs by 2200. Knowing that humanity will reach this threshold in the not-too-distant future makes the Clarke Belt a viable option for SETI. As Socas-Navarro explained:
“In this sense, the Clarke Exobelt is interesting because it’s the first technomarker that looks for currently existing technology. And it goes both ways too. Humanity’s Clarke Belt is probably too sparsely populated to be detectable from other stars right now (at least with technology like ours). But in the last decades we have been populating it at an exponential rate. If this trend were to continue, our Clarke Belt would be detectable from other stars by the year 2200. Do we want to be detectable? This is an interesting debate that humanity will have to resolve soon.
An exoplanet transiting across the face of its star, demonstrating one of the methods used to find planets beyond our solar system.
Image Credit: ESA/C. Carreau
As for when we might be able to start looking for Exobelts, Socas-Navarro indicates that this will be possible within the next decade. Using instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), scientists will have ground-based and space-based telescopes with the necessary resolution to spot these bands around exoplanets.
As for how these belts would be detected, that would come down to the most popular and effective means for finding exoplanets to date – the Transit Method (aka. Transit Photometry). For this method, astronomers monitor distant stars for periodic dips in brightness, which are indications of an exoplanet passing in front of the star. Using next-generation telescopes, astronomers may also be able to detect reflected light from a dense band of satellites in orbit.
“However, before we point our supertelescopes to a planet we need to identify good candidates,” said Socas-Navarro. “There are too many stars to check and we can’t go one by one. We need to rely on exoplanet search projects, such as the recently launched satellite TESS, to spot interesting candidates. Then we can do follow-up observations with supertelescopes to confirm or refute those candidates.”
In this respect, telescopes like the Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Telescope (TESS) will still serve an important function in searching for technomarkers. Whereas the former telescope is due to retire soon, the latter is scheduled to launch in 2018.
While these space-telescopes would search for rocky planets that are located within the habitable zones of thousands of stars, next-generation telescopes could search for signs of Clarke Exobelts and other technomarkers that would be otherwise hard to spot. However, as Socas-Navarro indicated, astronomers could also find evidence of Exobands by sifting through existing data as well.
“In doing SETI, we have no idea what we are looking for because we don’t know what the aliens are doing,” he said. “So we have to investigate all the possibilities that we can think of. Looking for Clarke Exobelts is a new way of searching, it seems at least reasonably plausible and, most importantly, it’s free. We can look for signatures of Clarke Exobelts in currently existing missions that search for exoplanets, exorings or exomoons. We don’t need to build costly new telescopes or satellites. We simply need to keep our eyes open to see if we can spot the signatures presented in the simulation in the flow of data from all of those projects.”
Humanity has been actively searching for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence for decades. To know that our technology and methods are becoming more refined, and that more sophisticated searches could begin within a decade, is certainly encouraging. Knowing that we won’t be visible to any ETIs that are out there for another two centuries, that’s also encouraging!
Robots and artificial intelligence may be just what we need to meet the denizens of the ocean floor, a new study reports.
Image via Pixabay.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has an important role to play in helping us understand the large variety of species living on the ocean floor, new research from the University of Plymouth reports. Such systems could finally allow marine researchers to push past the efficiency bottleneck created by human users analyzing recordings from the depths of the sea.
Davy Jones’ locker
“Autonomous vehicles are a vital tool for surveying large areas of the seabed deeper than 60m [the depth most divers can reach],” says PhD student Nils Piechaud, lead author on the study. “But we are currently not able to manually analyse more than a fraction of that data.”
“This research shows AI is a promising tool but our AI classifier would still be wrong one out of five times, if it was used to identify animals in our images.”
The new study analyzed the effectiveness of a computer vision (CV) system in taking over the role of humans in analyzing deep-sea images. All in all, the team found, such as system is around 80% accurate in identifying various animals in images of the seabed but can be up to 93% accurate for specific species if enough data is used to train the algorithm. The authors say that such results suggest CV could soon be routinely employed to study marine animals and plants. In such a case, it would lead to a major increase in data availability for conservation research and biodiversity management, they add.
“But we are not at the point of considering it a suitable complete replacement for humans at this stage,” Piechaud notes.
The team used Google’s Tensorflow, an open access library, to teach a (pre-trained) neural network to identify individuals of deep-sea species found in images taken by autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). One of these AUVs, known as Autosub6000, was deployed back in May 2016 on the north-east side of Rockall Bank, UK, and collected over 150,000 images in a single dive. Around 1,200 of these images were manually analyzed, containing 40,000 individuals of 110 different kinds of animals (morphospecies), most of them only seen a handful of times.
Manual annotation ranged from 50 to 95% on this dataset; however, it was very slow. And, as you guessed from that ‘ranged’ part, it was quite inconsistent across different teams and work intervals. The automated method reached around 80% accuracy, approaching the performance of humans with a clear speed and consistency advantage. The software worked particularly well for certain morphospecies. For example, it correctly identified a type of xenophyophore 93% of the time.
So should we just use it instead of marine biologists? Well, the authors of this present study don’t think that would be a good idea. The study makes a case for automated systems working in tandem with marine biologists, not replacing them. The AIs could greatly enhance the ability of scientists to analyze the data before them.
And combining the ability of high-tech AUVs to survey large areas of the seabed, the fast data-crunching ability of AI, and expertise of marine biologists together could massively speed up the rate of deep-ocean exploration — and with it our wider understanding of marine ecosystems.
“Most of our planet is deep sea, a vast area in which we have equally large knowledge gaps,” says Dr Kerry Howell, Associate Professor in Marine Ecology and Principal Investigator for the Deep Links project.”
“With increasing pressures on the marine environment including climate change, it is imperative that we understand our oceans and the habitats and species found within them. In the age of robotic and autonomous vehicles, big data, and global open research, the development of AI tools with the potential to help speed up our acquisition of knowledge is an exciting and much needed advance.”
The paper “Automated identification of benthic epifauna with computer vision” has been published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most unique creatures, and the Moa is definitely one of them.
Artistic depiction of moas.
Image credits: Heinrich Harder.
When Michael Johnston took his dogs aout for a walk, he wasn’t expecting much — it was a day like any other, a walk like any other. Because it was “quite a ripper” of a day, he decided to also go for a swim with the dogs, in a nearby swimming hole. But what he found there was amazing: a set of moa footprints from millions of yers ago, offering a rare glimpse into how life was in New Zealand before the ice age.
The stars aligned perfectly to allow Johnston to make the discovery. Not only did he need to be in the right place, but the imprints had been exposed by significant flooding in the area last year. They probably wouldn’t have survived another rainfall event.
“I’m amazed at the luck of finding them – catching it in this very brief window between being exposed and being scoured out, and then that somebody happened to be fossicking around and went for a swim and noticed them. If any one of those things hadn’t happened, we would never have known they were there, and it makes you wonder how many other moa prints are buried or destroyed, or no-one knows they’re there.”
Image credits: Otago Museum / Kane Fleury.
Moas were large, flightless birds, endemic to New Zealand, whose demise was decided the moment humans laid foot on the island. When New Zealand’s first settlers arrived, there wasn’t much in the way of food — except for some remarkable flightless birds. New Zealand has developed a unique and isolated ecosystem, with almost no native mammals. Because of this lack of mammals, the avian life has thrived and developed in ways which would just not be possible in other parts of the world. They had almost no predators, so flying was essentially renounced — large birds were trotting carelessly on the ground, sometimes not even being aware what a predator is. So when humans entered the scene, they found large flightless birds that were extremely easy to hunt.
Under normal circumstances, the moas would have continued their carefree existence. They were simply too large to be hunted by the island’s normal fauna. But after the Maori settled New Zealand, they were extinct within a century.
Paleontologists from the Otago Museum are now working to extract the footprints from the clay and place them in a museum, where they can be better studied and hopefully provide more information about these birds.
In less than a century, humans have managed the ignoble feat of raising atmospheric CO2 levels by more than 100 parts per million (ppm). Like every year, weather stations are measuring new record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and according to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now over 415 ppm, which is higher than at any point during the existence of our lineage.
Eric Holthaus✔@EricHolthaus
This is the first time in human history our planet's atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2.
Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago.
We don't know a planet like this.
Keeling_Curve✔@Keeling_curve
415.26 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in air 11-May-2019 http://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ … First daily baseline over 415ppm
Some believe that global warming, which is responsible for at least 1ºC (1.8ºF) of warming compared to pre-Industrial Age levels, has already triggered an irreversible feedback loop that will see much of the polar ice sheets melt. Whatever the case, the effects of man-made climate change are sorely felt around the world now. The Arctic, which warms twice as fast than the global average, lost nearly one million square kilometers (620,000 square miles) of winter sea ice cover since 1979 — that’s an area twice as large as Texas. Heat waves and droughts are more common and every new year seems like it’s the warmest on record.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been measuring atmospheric carbon since 1958 when the program was started by the late Charles David Keeling. The famous, constantly updated graph that shows the accelerated rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, known as the Keeling Curve (shown above), is named after him.
The latest recorded figure, which stands at 415.26 ppm of CO2, is unprecedented in millions of years. The last time this happened, during the Pliocene Epoch, the Arctic was covered in trees and global sea levels were 25 meters higher than today.
Keeling_Curve✔@Keeling_curve
Comment from Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps CO2 Program: “The average growth rate is remaining on the high end. The increase from last year will probably be around three parts per million whereas the recent average has been 2.5 ppm....” 1/2
The year’s increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has been partly fueled by El Niño conditions — changes in the sea-surface temperature of the tropical Pacific Ocean. This warms and dries tropical ecosystems, reducing their uptake of carbon, and exacerbating forest fires. However, the main factor responsible for the upward trend is, by far, the burning of fossil fuels.
According to a 2017 study, if the world continues on this business as usual route, by 2050 CO2 levels could rise beyond anything the Earth’s atmosphere has seen in the last 50 million years (600ppm). That’s not a death sentence in and of itself — life has flourished in those conditions before — but the shift is too fast and brutal for animals to adapt. A lot of today’s species will find it difficult (if not impossible) to adapt to those conditions in such a short time. As for humans, climate change threatens communities through rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather, heat waves, and food shortages.
All the signs are pointing to an impending disaster if we don’t do something about it. This means moving to zero-emission energy generation as fast as possible. But that’s not enough — we also need to increase carbon capture and sequestration by planting more forests and developing new technologies that can safely lock excess carbon from the atmosphere.
The notion that the climate change we’re experiencing today is mainly driven by a natural climate cycle is silly and not rooted in scientific reality.
Het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds. Volgens een onderzoeker kunnen we hier leven vinden op Mars
Het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds. Volgens een onderzoeker kunnen we hier leven vinden op Mars
Er zijn allerlei aanwijzingen dat er ooit leven heeft bestaan op Mars. Ruimtesondes en Marsrovers hebben daarnaast nog maar een heel klein gedeelte van de rode planeet bestudeerd.
Het is goed mogelijk zich ergens op de planeet leven schuilhoudt, stelde onderzoeker Michael Finney tijdens een recente conferentie.
We weten dat er ooit enorme oceanen waren op Mars, die mogelijk wemelden van leven.
Nog steeds
Finney gelooft dat er waarschijnlijk nog steeds leven is op de planeet.
“Als er vier miljard jaar geleden leven was op Mars, is er nu nog steeds leven op Mars,” legde hij uit. “Er is niets gebeurd op Mars wat het leven volledig heeft uitgeroeid.”
“Als er dus leven was op Mars, heeft het zich wellicht verplaatst, of heeft het zich enige tijd verscholen onder de grond, maar het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds.”
Water
Onderzoekers die Mars bestuderen hebben ontdekt dat er aardig wat ijs in de poolgebieden kan worden gevonden. Ook is een groot ondergronds meer ontdekt op de planeet.
Op aarde kunnen bepaalde diersoorten in de meest extreme omstandigheden overleven.
Aangepast
Zo zijn micro-organismen bestand tegen extreem hoge temperaturen en kunnen ze lange tijd zonder water.
Het is goed mogelijk dat levensvormen zich hebben aangepast om onder het Marsoppervlak te kunnen overleven.
Reptilian Underground Bases "They Are Living Below Us"
Reptilian Underground Bases "They Are Living Below Us"
There is a hidden reptilian empire which consists of alien cultures and lost civilizations, their presence explains many of the myths of gods walking among humans.
The reptoids may have sought out refuge underground after Earth underwent climate changes some 12,000 years ago.
The Shanidar Cave is a vast archaeological complex located on Bradost Mountain in the Erbil Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The remains of 10 Neanderthals, dating from 35,000 to 65,000 years ago have been found within the Shanidar Cave.
The cave also contains two later “proto Neolothie” cemeteries, one of which dates back about 10,600 years and contains 35 ‘humanoids’ one such skill is extremely elongated and considered the Reptilian Elongated Race of Sumerians. Nobody know how vast the complex goes underground.
There are many accounts through history of lizard people and snake like bipedal’s from Sumeria to the Hopi Indians.
We will also explore the many accounts at the Dulce underground facility and how this all ties together.
We hope you will become aware of many facts you may have been previously unaware of in this 37-minute Reptilian Documentary.
Author Merrily Harpur haslogged a fascinating account from one George Price, who had an undeniably bizarre experience on Salisbury Plain, England in September 2002, while then serving with the British Army. It was at the height of a military exercise, Harpur was told, and Price was a “commander in the turret of our tank, and we were advancing to contact our warriors.” Suddenly, Price’s attention was drawn to a “large, ape-like figure” that “looked scared because of the noise from the engines and tanks were moving at speed all around.” Although the beast was not in sight for long – it raced for the safety of “nearby prickly shrubs” – an amazed Price could see that “its fur was similar to an Orangutan in color…its height was impressive…[and] it seemed to run with its back low, i.e. bent over.” Salisbury Plain is not just home to military maneuvers, however. It is also home to one of the world’s most famous ancient stone circles: Stonehenge.
While most students of the legendary structure conclude it had its beginnings somewhere around 3,100 BC, evidence of human activity in the area has been found suggesting a presence as far back as 8,000 BC. And a degree of that same presence is indicative of ritualistic activity, even at that incredibly early age. But, regardless of when, precisely, large-scale construction of Stonehenge actually began, what can be said with certainty is that it is comprised of a ditch, a bank, and what are known as the Aubrey holes – round pits in the chalk that form a huge circle. And then, of course, there are those massive stone blocks.
No less than eighty-two of Stonehenge’s so-called bluestones, some of which weigh up to four-tons, are believed to have been transported from the Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales to the Wiltshire site, a distance of 240 miles. Although, the actual number of stones is in dispute since, today, barely more than forty remain. Certainly, such a mammoth operation to move such huge stones would be no easy feat in the modern era, never mind thousands of years ago. And yet, somehow, this incredible and mystifying task was successfully achieved. Stonehenge’s thirty giant Sarsen stones, meanwhile, were brought from the Marlborough Downs, a distance of around twenty-five miles. This might sound like a much easier task than having to haul the bluestones all the way from Wales. Hardly. As noted, the Welsh stones are in the order of four tons. Some of the Sarsen stones from the downs, however, weigh in at twenty-five tons, the heaviest around fifty. And people wonder why so much mystery and intrigue surrounds the creation of Stonehenge?
Now we come to the Rollright Stones, which are situated near Long Compton, a centuries-old little village in the county of Oxfordshire. Collectively, they are comprised of a tomb, known as the Whispering Knights, a classic circle of stones called the King’s Men, and a solitary stone referred to as the King’s Stone. As for the time of the construction of the Rollright Stones, this appears to be a clear-cut issue: in the Neolithic and Bronze Age eras. As with Stonehenge, legends and pet-theories abound as to the particular origin of the Rollright Stones. Certainly, the most engaging is that which surfaced in 1610 from a historian named William Camden. The story goes that the stones were not always stones. They originally represented an unnamed visiting king and his faithful knights who were turned to stone – in classic Gorgon-style, one might well suggest – by a legendary local witch, one Mother Shipton. The king, not surprisingly, became the King’s Stone. The bulk of his men were turned into the King’s Men. While a few who had initially avoided – but not for long, unfortunately – Mother Shipton’s malevolent powers quickly and collectively became the Whispering Knights.
In 1977, author Paul Devereux established what became titled the Dragon Project; the purpose of which was to study claims that certain British prehistoric sites had unusual forces or energies attached to them, including magnetic, infrared and ultrasonic anomalies. While investigating none other than the Rollright Stones, Devereux reported that one of the team members – described as being a well-known archaeologist – was sitting in a van when an unidentified, hair-covered beast of considerable size walked by. An instant later, it utterly vanished, never to put in a re-appearance. It’s also worth noting that a large and lumbering beast was seen near the Peak District-based Ladybower Reservoir in November 1991. Less than one mile away, on Stanton Moor, stands a stone circle called the Nine Ladies. It was constructed during the Bronze Age era, and is a place at which, every year, druids and pagans alike celebrate the summer solstice. As the legend goes, the circle takes its name from nine women who were turned to stone as punishment for dancing on Sundays!
Perhaps, in light of the extraordinary data contained in this article, we should be focusing our attentions far less on what’s going on in the relevant location of ancient stone circles right now, and far more on (A) the matter of what may have occurred there centuries or millennia ago, and (B) the issue of what may continue to linger and wander and, sometimes, terrorize the good folk of Britain, long after physical death claimed their lives in times past and largely forgotten. For the final word on the potential connection between unidentified, upright, hairy animals and places of specifically archaeological, spiritual, and historical nature, I refer you to the writings of one of the world’s leading authorities on the phenomenon of werewolves, Linda Godfrey, the author of such fine pieces of essential reading as The Michigan Dogman, Werewolves, Hunting the American Werewolf, and The Beast of Bray Road.
Of the Native American phenomenon known as the Skinwalker – which Linda describes as “entities created by magic ritual that look like animals but are really spirit doubles of the shaman that either go out from the physical body or envelope it like a supernatural costume” – she says they are “related to the Tibetan ideas” of Tulpas. Rather significantly, when one takes into account the various encounters that occurred in the vicinity of, or relatively close to, famous standing-stones, such as Stonehenge and the Rollright Stones, the following words from Linda most assuredly stand out as being of keen relevance to such matters. She says, still on the subject of Skinwalkers: “I can tell you that Native Americans from various locations have indicated to me that these things absolutely exist, as do zoomorphic (animal-shaped) spirit guardians made to watch over sacred grounds [Author’s Note: Italics Mine].” Linda also notes that in relation to ancient Native American burial mounds (“shaped like traditional ‘water panthers'”) the mounds are “located in almost exactly the same sites as manwolf posts.”
Perhaps, then, the American “man-wolf,” or werewolf, was created, Tulpa-style, to watch over ancient American sites of deep significance, in much the same way that Bigfoot-like creatures seem to be doing precisely likewise at a multiplicity of standing-stones, and circles of stone, in the U.K. One beast may exhibit ape-like characteristics and the other a far more wolfish appearance, but, at the end of the day, they may very well both be definitive supernatural “guard-dogs,” still faithfully patrolling the old sites they were created to protect all those centuries and millennia ago.
Boynton woman's video captures rare 'positive' lightning bolt
Boynton woman's video captures rare 'positive' lightning bolt
When Erica Hite was filming a thunderstorm on Sunday in her home in Boynton Beach, Florida she had her camera ready at just the right time to capture a weird bolt of lightning.
The National Weather Service in Miami identified the unusual weather phenomena.as 'positive lighting,' or a continuous current, which is up to ten times more powerful than a typical flash.
Hite told the Palm Beach Post: 'It was crazy. Very scary, very loud.' 'It was just at the right place at the right time. I could probably never in my life get something like that again.'
In Hite's 12-second video, the glowing bold of electricity can be seen striking a dumpster, crackling like gunfire or fireworks.
Black Ring UFO Over Argentina Recorded May 7, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Black Ring UFO Over Argentina Recorded May 7, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: May 7, 2019 Location of sighting: Argentina Source: Email I was sent this in an email. He said he was working on a foundation of building when he and his coworkers saw this black ring object flying over head. He had an older phone, but took video of it best he could. The video shows the black ring moving like a disk...which is strange. Had this been a balloon it would be flipping like a wheel end over end. This one seems to stay flat, unlike any balloon I have ever seen. Often when a UFO is nearby, people and animals sense its presence. I mean often they have an emotional aura that either pushes a person to look up and see it, or even make you relax almost in a trance meditative state. You have to seen one first had and feel it to know what I'm saying. Not all UFOs have this aura, but many do. I remember a sighting by the famous actor Dan Aykroyd where he was sleeping he woke up as if someone wanted to wake him, and heard a telepathic voice telling him to walk outside and look at the sky. When he did so, he saw a UFO. Thats what I mean. Scott C. Waring
UFO At Space Station Seen For Almost 7 Minutes! May 10, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
UFO At Space Station Seen For Almost 7 Minutes! May 10, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: May 10, 2019 Location of sighting:Earths orbit, at ISS I recorded this UFO on the old cams not the new cams. The new cams are on Youtube and seemed to be faked, since I noticed they put it on a loop most the time. The UFO seems curved on the top and sides, but flat on its bottom. The close up in the video shows its color changing as it moves past the space station slowly. This video is over six minutes and shows some serious close ups of a UFO that NASA does not want you to see. This is absolute proof that aliens have a high interest in the space station and how the astronauts on board are dealing with the unique environment of space. Scott C. Waring I often post videos 12-24 hours before I make posts, so follow me on Youtube to stay uptodate.
Leslie Kean is an author and investigative journalist. Her book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record is a New York Times Bestseller. She has authored several credible, well researched article that have garnered the attention of the media, including the New York Times exposing the Pentagon’s secretive UFO program. This interview took place soon after that article. Listen to the interview here.
Alejandro Rojas: I am very happy, very, very happy, especially at this day and time to welcome back to the show. Leslie Kean. Hello Leslie.
Leslie Kean: Hello Alejandro. Great to be with you.
Alejandro Rojas: So thank you so much for coming on the show. I know that you have been absolutely swamped with media requests. What’s it been like?
Leslie Kean: Well, it’s been intense. I mean, and hard work the week after the article came out, it was really unbelievable as you know, there was so much attention drawn to it, so it was, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s been quite a ride. I mean it’s, it’s just been very, very intense demanding of a lot of time and energy. And right now I’m just sort of enjoying this weekend where there’s not as much I have to do. So.
Alejandro Rojas: When you go into these interviews, for example, with Tucker Carlson, you were on Fox News recently, which was kind of, people were like, wow, you know, Tucker Carlson having a UFO discussion on his show. But, which went very well, of course. How do you feel going into it? Do you have any idea, you know, the angle they’re going to take, whether they’re going to ridicule it or not.
Leslie Kean: I’m usually pretty sure they’re not going to ridicule it. I mean, I think, you know, especially the week following the New York Times story, which was when most of the interviews were, I mean they, people were just really turned on by the story. And this recent interview with Tucker Carlson, he made it very clear because my publisher set it up that he wanted to talk about my book. That’s what he said. He was interested in just having me on to serve as an expert not to focus on the, the, the Time story and it’s because he’s genuinely interested in this topic. And I, I remember watching the coverage he did after the Times story came out during that week and he did excellent coverage. I mean, very, very intelligent coverage. I was impressed with it and, and I was, his, his producers told us that he really has a genuine interested in this in this topic.
Leslie Kean: So I went in there not knowing what he was going to really want to talk to me about. I had no idea. And he just zeroed in on this O’Hare case, which, you know, took me by surprise, but I thought it was great. It was great that he actually knew something about a specific case which most anchors don’t and he just seemed to be very passionate about it. So I think he is genuinely interested in this topic. I really do believe that and I think he did a great job irrespective of what anything else has coverage that people might not, I’m not going to comment on Fox. Fox’s attitudes, but in terms of UFOs I think he did a terrific job and he really has a serious interest in the topic, which is great.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah, you could get that from his, his enthusiasm, his excitement to talk to you and bringing up O’hare is great because you know, at this point we now have this, this, you know, the DoD had a program looking into this, taking it seriously. So now it’s, it’s a good time to reflect on the other great cases out there. And of course Chicago O’Hare was a really good one.
Leslie Kean: Really good one. I absolutely agree with you. It’s such, it’s such a strong case in terms of illustrating the lack of attention that our government has given to this topic.
Alejandro Rojas: Right. And the point where he was making and you are making that, you know, this thing popped through the clouds and, and when it shot up, these were seen by United personnel, um, in 2008 I think it was, right, 2006 to 2006 earlier. And um, but the FAA just called it a weather phenomenon. I think that’s what they ended up on. And the, at first they didn’t want to look into it at all. And He makes a great point that, yeah, which is the point I think everybody should be making is, you know, we obviously, it’s intuitively obvious that we should look into situations like this and not just ignore them.
Leslie Kean: Absolutely. And I, and he really made that point. He kept saying, why wouldn’t they do it? He was like, how outraged. And I thought that was great because it indicated that he had thought about this.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. So you were also on Don Lemon and I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. And of course that interview went great. But I think the day after, or a couple of days after they had,, Neil deGrasse Tyson on and although he kind of Poo pooed at least the alien hypothesis, just saying we don’t have enough evidence for that. Which is a good point I think. Um, yeah, but he, he did go on to kind of say something along the similar vein as Tucker Carlson and that we should be looking into these things. He doesn’t mind that we spend $22 million looking into these unknown situations because we should be looking into them. When you saw him say that, what was that a bit shocking?
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean I was glad he said that. And I think also his point about we can’t assume that they’re alien is also a valid point. And the irony of that is that we’re not doing that, we didn’t do that in our article. We didn’t do that in any of it. Uh, no, it wasn’t even a hint of that we had done that, you know. So for him to sort of comment on the New York Times and criticize a point that we never even made isn’t really fair. But um, and then he goes on about, you know, when you have an alien it’ll take me out to lunch. I mean, you know, I’ll take them out to lunch. That’s not the point. The point is that we have an unknown phenomenon that needs further study and I think along those lines, he’s pretty, uh, he’s pretty okay with it as you said. He just likes to stretch it into this realm that isn’t where we went with it anyway in the first place.
Alejandro Rojas: And that would be my next question is frustration about that. You’re obviously very careful, you and the group who wrote the article on and how you crafted it and what information you’re putting in there and obviously very aware of the baggage that comes along with, with these sorts of stories. So like you said, you’re very careful not to make it about aliens. However much of the media, even Don Lemon is trying to press you on aliens and Elizondo has had the same experience. Everybody trying to push them on “What about alien? What about aliens?” And that hasn’t, that wasn’t part of the story. That’s not what you’re talking about.
Leslie Kean: It’s true. I mean, and obviously the extraterrestrial hypothesis is a valid one. I mean, I have said that all along. I said that in my book and I still say that and there are plenty of very respectable people who have studied this, you know, generals, pilots and government officials. As I put in the title of my book, that would all agree that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is valid and rational and, but given, even though that’s true, we still don’t know. We don’t know at the level that will satisfy the scientific community. And that’s where that’s, you know, that may be a while. We may eventually get there, but without investing more resources into this, we’re not going to get there. And that’s why a program like this is important. But I think, you know, I think it’s perfectly valid, but you know, you can’t make that leap. And I think one of the problems with a lot of the people in the UFO community is they, they’ve made that leap to such an extent that they say that it’s fact. And I understand why people assume that when they, when they know a lot about this subject, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s easy to go there, but in terms of what we want to present to the world at large and where we are at in terms of a society dealing with this topic, we’re not there yet.
Alejandro Rojas: Right. And I mean, when you’re doing these interviews, which is a great point, and, and I think it’s difficult to explain that to people because people get frustrated with me for the same thing. Regardless of whatever my opinions are, regardless of whether or not I believe in that it’s a possibility or I believe aliens are here interacting with us, when you’re, when you’re speaking with a mainstream or when you’re writing a credible paper like what you guys, you all did, a credible article, you need to focus on the facts and what’s provable and what you can credibly substantiate, um, which makes,
Leslie Kean: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah.
Alejandro Rojas: And it makes a piece more powerful and, and your pieces certainly have been powerful and they get a lot of attention for that reason.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean, I think you have to, and you know, obviously with the writing, but the New York Times, we have a lot of editors involved as well. So, but yeah, I mean if it’s not provable, if it’s not documentable, it doesn’t go in the, in the article and that’s, that’s the way it should be. I think that’s the way it should be.
Alejandro Rojas: All right. So getting back to the last time we spoke. And that’s what, that’s what’s kind of funny in and validating is you, and this was right after the to the Stars Academy announced and we were both kind of, I think we’ve talked soon and maybe a week or so after your article on that. And we were both kind of surprised at the reactions and, and people seeming to not get the importance of, for instance, someone coming out and saying, I used to work for the Department of Defense Investigating, essentially, UFOs. You and I of course thought, wow, that’s incredible. But you know, we were both kind of like, I don’t know why people are so negative about all of this and a not looking at the juice, but it seems that there were people that certainly took notice, um, the Washington Post, POLITICO and then, oh, you, you all were able to put together this article for the Times that really started the whole thing off. How did that come about? How did the article come about?
Leslie Kean: Well. I went to a meeting on October 4th with some of that was arranged by some of Elizondo’s colleagues who also knew me. And so they wanted me to meet him basically. And I went down and went to Washington and we spent three or four hours together and Elizondo, you know, talked to me and I was shown documentation. I was shown the videos that were eventually released with our story. Um, and just given, you know, told all about Harry Reid, was shown documents about Harry Reid’s involvement and just the story was kind of laid out for me at this meeting. And I realized at that point that it was a New York Times level story given the documentation that was available for the program and for the people involved and everything else. And so that’s, that’s how it all started. And then I went to my colleague Ralph Blumenthal, who I’ve known for a long time, who’s a, who was on staff for the New York Times for 40, 45 years and has since become a freelance writer for the Times.
So he continues to work for the times and on a freelance basis. And I went to him and he, we ended up having, then we sat down with somebody in the New York Bureau of the New York Times and had an initial meeting, the three of us to, to lay out the story for them. That’s how it all started. And then that person, then there’s another meeting with the Washington bureau and you know, it took a while to get the times on board, but once they understood what we had, they assigned us a reporter to work with us. Helene Cooper has been absolutely fantastic. She’s their Pentagon reporter out of the Washington bureau and we just that’s how it all started. And then we just got going on the story and it took quite awhile to do it because the editing process is very intense at the Times.
And you know, there’s just a lot of, every single line is, you know, thought through very carefully. And so there were different drafts that had to go back and forth and you know, we had to decide what information would be included and what wouldn’t and all that kind of thing. But you’re working at the New York Times, you’re working with a team of people. So there’s a lot of considerations that go into a story that beyond the considerations of the three reporters that are writing it. And, and that was interesting for me to experience because in the past I’ve written for the Huffington Post where I basically have no editors. You know, I just write a story and I upload it and it’s there. That’s it. And so this is a very interesting process. It’s just another level of journalism than I’ve ever experienced before. And it’s just been an amazing opportunity and situation for me to be able to write for the Times. I’m just very grateful for that. That door’s been opened.
Alejandro Rojas: Were you skeptical that they would pick it up? I mean, and was Blumenthal? He must’ve been confident that they would be interested in the story.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. He thought they would be. Originally he was the one who originally pitched it to the Times, you know, through an email because he knows people there because he’s worked there for so long and that’s how it all started. So he was pretty confident in it and it wasn’t until we had our sit down meeting with the, um, with the, with Mark, I think his name was Mark Mazzetti. He’s the investigative investigations editor at The Washington bureau. He happened to be in New York shortly after we pitch the story and we sat down with him in New York and it was after that meeting I think that we were pretty confident, but he, he didn’t give us an answer right away. He said, well, I’m going to, I’m going to talk to people in Washington and get back to you. And we had to wait maybe a week before we heard back again. But um, then we, we got the green light. So
Alejandro Rojas: Were you all aware that the Post, the Washington Post and POLITICO were also working on stories?
Leslie Kean: Yeah, we heard rumors to that effect, which was, it was disconcerting for us. But, uh, we knew that, you know, we knew that we had a story that we didn’t think anybody else would be able to get, which is all the, on the record sources that we had. If you look at the POLITICO story, it didn’t have people on the record. A lot of them were, were anonymous sources and uh, we don’t, you know, the Times we’re not, we’re not going to do that in the New York Times.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. And, and the Post story even seemed a bit more speculative.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean, they didn’t have access to a lot of the sources that we had and that the documents and all kinds of stuff. So they, I don’t think any stories could match the one that we did just because we had access to a lot that the other media didn’t have.
Alejandro Rojas: One of the parts in the Post story that, you know, at least The Sun has asked me about and others and I want to see what your thoughts are on this is that they seem to be implying that or trying to imply that Elizondo was a little bit, you know, got the videos released under a false pretense a bit. They put in this part that there was some memo and it is kind of weird the way they wrote it. Um, the paragraph on this, some kind of memo that said he tried, he got it released in order to educate pilots on safety, but he alluded to, he really was doing it to get this out to the public and show that there’s this DoD department.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I have the document that shows the process by which these videos were released and it doesn’t say anything along the lines of what the Post has said. So I don’t know where that came from.
Alejandro Rojas: The document about the release, does it say, does it say why he wanted it release and why they approved it?
Leslie Kean: Yeah, it was not educate pilots. I mean, I have to look at it again, but as I recall, there was nothing on there about that. And maybe at our break I can look at that document again.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. Because a big question is why did they allow him to release those videos? Um, and I guess, do you have that answer?
Leslie Kean: Um, let me look at that document again maybe and then we can respond. Yeah.
Alejandro Rojas: All right, well we’ll do that at break. We’ll look at that document again. But getting back to your story that, and of course George Knapp obviously has had somewhat of knowledge of some of this that was going on because he’s worked with Bigelow, so at least he knew Bigelow. A lot of us knew Bigelow was spending money on UFO research and these sorts of things back when this all was getting funded. Of course, none of us, at least I didn’t know. And I, I wouldn’t imagine you would have known it, maybe even George Knapp didn’t know that, you know, he was working with the Department of Defense at the time. Did you know that?
Leslie Kean: Um, I don’t think I did know that.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah.
Leslie Kean: I mean, I knew that he was related to a government investigations and so on, but it was nothing specific, nothing specific like this.
Alejandro Rojas: But Knapp was able to get interviews with Harry Reid. And were you surprised with Harry Reid’s reaction? Will you all even got an interview in your story with Harry Reid.
Leslie Kean: We had the first interview with him.
Alejandro Rojas: How did you feel about his reaction?
Leslie Kean: Harry Reid’s? Oh, he was fantastic. Absolutely. I mean, our partner here, Helene Cooper was the one who flew to Las Vegas and met with him. And, uh, he was absolutely wonderful. He spent like an hour with her. He told her everything and you know, so that he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed or sorry that he’d done this and he was just a very, very positive, great bright person. And the interview was, was really fantastic.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah, I mean it’s, I think it’s a really important component to some of that what’s happened since your story and what it inspired is Harry Reid coming out and standing firm that he is very proud of creating this program. He has no regrets whatsoever. And that lends a lot of credibility to what Elizondo was doing and the seriousness that many people and the government really do take towards the UFO topic.
Leslie Kean: I agree with you. It was very, very important component to have him on the record. And we, we knew that from the beginning that we were, we wanted that to happen. So, we, we did a lot of our reporting first so we would have some, you know, we didn’t want to, we saved him more, a lot more or less for the end. We didn’t want to alert him too much in advance that we were doing this story. So, um, so yeah, but it’s extremely important part of it to have him speaking out about it.
Alejandro Rojas: And it feels at, at least for me, and I’m guessing for you a bit validating because although people like Don Lemon last time you were on his show or, you’ve done interviews for important stories you’ve written for like Chile and other UFO stories in the past few years, but the mainstream has been skeptical that anybody in the government does really take UFOs seriously or military or have since 1969 even though we can show evidence, we’ve got documentation to show, look, they did take it seriously. They have investigated certain cases, but still it doesn’t stick. You know, they still haven’t bought into that. But it seems to have changed when you have a Harry Reid, when you have an Elizondo out there now, it seems to have changed. Now it feels, and I’d love to hear what you think that they’ve kind of accepted that, okay, this situation, this, this, UFO investigations are a serious thing. There are at least taken seriously by some of our government and military.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean this is the first time that we’ve known that there is an actual named program, you know, that we know how it was set up, how it was funded, how many years it went for, we know who the person was that was in charge of it. I mean these things were not known before and so it just takes everything to another level when you actually know for a fact that there was a, there, there is still a program, we know where is, we know who was in charge of it and you know, all this information about it and it has a name. So that’s very different from before when we just would sort of speculate about, well yeah, I’m sure that there’s government interest in this, but we don’t exactly know where it is or what it’s called. So yeah, I mean you’re right it, and it does of course.
That’s why the, the article was so important because now the mainstream, uh, you know, will take it seriously a lot more once they know that the, the Pentagon has a program and they can see videos and they can get information from that program. Uh, they understand this at another level that’s never been, you know, it just hasn’t happened since the close of Blue Book that anything that’s important I think has, has come out that’s going to elevate the position that the topic has in the, you know, among the political world and the the world that really is responsible for policy making. So it’s a huge change in that regard and it does absolutely elevate the seriousness that the top ic will have and I think it already has and hopefully it will continue to, it’ll continue that way. You know, I hopefully will have more information will come out and we’ll be able to keep this ball rolling.
Alejandro Rojas: Are you all planning another story to come out anytime soon?
Leslie Kean: We are exploring that. Yeah. It was just not something I really want to comment on. Yeah, no, we’re not, we’re not planning to drop the ball that’s for sure.
Alejandro Rojas: Which is great because a followup is good to keep this in people’s minds. And also because, you know, it does seem like, at least for the moment as we just mentioned it, there’s a shift. There’s, people are taking it more seriously right now.
Leslie Kean: I think that’s true. And I think that’s, that’s a really important, really, really important.
Alejandro Rojas: So it’s about time to take a break. So we will come back momentarily. But it is kind of interesting. I have a lot of people, you know, and maybe you’ve had this experience, saying that, you know, they’re getting calls from family and friend who are, are actually taking the topic seriously as well. Someone joked about it yesterday that even though they do all this research and writing and have several books their family hasn’t even read, all of us sudden now, years later after this person’s been been doing this, you know, they’re being taken seriously by their family where they haven’t up until now. So a demonstration of the impact of this article, but we’ll talk more about that after the break. For those of you listening on KGRA, you’re going to hear a short commercial break. For those of you listening on the podcast, you will hear just a short musical interlude and then we’ll be back with Leslie Kean so stay tuned.
Alejandro Rojas: Welcome back to open mind UFO radio. I’m your host Alejandro Rojas. And we are talking to journalists, Leslie Kean. And you say you were able to look at that memo to confirm that the Post’s statement about the videos being released for education and safety purposes. It’s not in there.
Leslie Kean: No, I mean his request for the release of the videos did not include anything to do with pilot education or aviation safety.
Alejandro Rojas: So they, they essentially are alluding to that he wasn’t straight forward with his superiors. But do you get that sense at all?
Leslie Kean: Not at all. I mean, I don’t, it’s nothing in this document that suggests that he wasn’t being straight forward and I’m absolutely nothing. Now, maybe the Post has some document that I’m not aware of because I don’t know what they, what they were referring to when they made that statement. I have no, I don’t know. All I know is what I have and my documents don’t suggest that. I also know that Elizondo is in a very, a person of incredible integrity and honesty and he wouldn’t, he just knowing him, I don’t think he would ever be careful, be comfortable, uh, being an all disingenuous about anything. He’s very honest, very careful, very astute. And uh, so I just, I have to not comment on that because unless they have some, they’re either making an error or they have some document that I’m not aware of, one or the other.
Alejandro Rojas: Well, and now talking to Elizondo, he doesn’t seem to, he doesn’t have any, um, at least in the discussions that I’ve had with him, he doesn’t seem to be frustrated with or upset with his superiors. He doesn’t seem to be at odds with the DoD. He still is a patriot. He still believes in their mission and he wants, he seems like he, and, and as mentioned, really wants to cooperate with them in what he’s talking about.
Leslie Kean: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. He has the highest respect for the Department of Defense, for the people he worked with. They’re not just in the UFO program at an all the other very, very sensitive jobs that he had a, he was a counter intelligence officer. He was in the field doing a lot of stuff. I mean, this was a small part of what he did this program. So he left the program with the utmost sense of respect of the, of the people he worked with and for the department and for the mission of the department. And the greatest respect for secretary Jim Mattis, who he knew well and actually served with in Afghanistan. And he, he considers MaTTis to be one of the finest people he’s ever known, so that there’s no negativity there at all about, about his work at the DoD. Um, he would, you know, he just needed to retire and he needed to make the point that more resources need to go to this study of this, of this issue.
And he felt the best way to do that was to do what he did, to draw attention to it because it was just sort of impossible for the program to function, uh, within the system there. And it was just dysfunctional. There was no resources for it. There were people that were opposed to it. It was not, you know, very secret. And so that needed to change. And so he made them, he made the step he did to try to facilitate that changing. But it has nothing to do with being critical of, of the people he worked with or the purpose of the department or anything else.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. You know, I think it was an opinion piece in the Times. It was another, in another paper, if not the Times. I’m pretty sure it was the Times, though. You, you may recall this story by someone who worked in intelligence. And one of the reasons he said, you know, a program like this would be, there were a few reasons why a program like this would be secret and one of those reasons is simply, and he gave other examples of more mundane sort of projects, but that for some reason have some sort of social stigma attached to them. And even though they may be important, because it’s easy to make fun of them, they don’t want to reveal to the public that they’re doing this sort of thing. And if Elizondo’s actions, which I believe they have, can legitimize this topic some more, then that may allow the military to not have to deal with or ridicule factor if they’re setting up a project or working on a project like this, which hopefully may entice the military or other institutions to do this sort of work. If we can get rid of that stigma that its’ something to giggle about.
Leslie Kean: Yeah, that’s certainly, certainly helps. And I think the New York Times story is, has helped to do that.
Alejandro Rojas: Did you all add then have the DoD or anybody look over the article before you released it or have a consultant that you worked with?
Leslie Kean: You mean within the DoD? Yeah. Oh No, no, no, no, no, no. The media is independent of, you know, the government that it’s reporting on. You don’t have to clear it.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. I just know some people I know like Charles Halt for instance, has ran stuff through his superiors before and Nick Pope. So I was just wondering if you all had done something or felt you had to do that. Um, Yep.
Leslie Kean: Cause those are, those are people who are actual employees or who part of the system of the government. So they may have to clear it, but an independent news organization doesn’t have to.
Alejandro Rojas: Hmm. And then I guess the other question is, you know, this whole now of course, and unfortunately the more kind of a fringe aspects of, of this field of which are large, maybe the, the majority of the UFO field, it’s really kind of very speculative and conspiratorial. So, of course there’s this idea that maybe Elizondo is on a secret mission to somehow frame or disinform, people on this topic. I mean, do you get that sense whatsoever?
Leslie Kean: Absolutely not. I mean, it’s just an absurd, absurd notion to me and I’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking with him. And so I would say absolutely not. He’s, he’s genuine. He has high integrity and he’s doing what he’s doing for the reasons he says he is. It’s that simple.
Alejandro Rojas: And it’s funny because even though you say that, and I’ve talked to him and I feel the same way, I think that when you, you talk to him, you get an idea of his motivations, what his life is like, impacts this has had on his life, the sacrifices he’s had to make to get some of this information out. And I think even standing back, even without talking to him, I felt that way, looking at the whole situation. But there are so many people that really build these world-views that even if they were just speak to him, I think, there’s practically nothing that would convince them otherwise.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know why that is, unless they feel they’re just very, very, very mistrustful of anyone within government possibly, or maybe some of the people, you know, they’ve built their whole kind of careers and personalities around a particular theory that they have. And maybe they don’t want to let that go because it would, you know, they’ve built up their whole persona around it. So they’re very attached to trying to maintain their particular conspiracy theory and therefore they have to fit him into that rather than maybe shifting the way they look at things. But, you know, some of the things, yeah, it just, the conspiracies about, I mean, I wasn’t even aware that people were saying that were saying that, that he’s, he’s trying to deceive people. I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s just, to me it’s just ridiculous.
Alejandro Rojas: It’s unfortunate. And there’s a lot of it out there, even from, you know, more well known researchers, certainly people that you’ve interacted with as well. And it’s unfortunate, I agree with you especially to go there without gathering the facts and it’s missing the point. It’s focusing on the wrong thing. It’s focusing on how do I fit this story into my worldview in this scenario that I’ve built instead of just looking for at it for what it is, and then missing all the important parts of it, such as the effect that this has had on the mainstream, which is such a huge positive, I think for this topic being taken seriously.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. So that’s what I mean, you know, I’m, I’m just not that aware of what’s going on in sort of the, within the UFO community world, but just cause, you know, but so I dunno what else to say about it. Yeah.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. With, the, your story, there’s a couple of other important pieces that were in there. Oh. And I guess just to follow up on the last point real quick is yeah, that’s why I think it’s really important to have like you come on and talk about how this story came about. Because I think a lot of people think of, you know, these, these cabal people like an X-Files setting in a dark room at the New York Times coming up with a plan. “We’re going to write this story and that story. Who can we get to write it and who can we get in the DoD to be our guy to tell people this.” You know…
Leslie Kean: You mean like, it’s some kind of orchestrated planned thing by some organization or entity that controls all the information, right? I mean, I have never, ever encountered anything to give me even the smallest hint that that’s what’s going on in my own work. And certainly not in this article with the New York Times. I mean, we, it happened the way I’m telling you it happened, right? I got this information, we pitched it to the Times they said, hey, yes, this is a story. Let’s do it. It’s that simple.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. And that’s the tragedy with these conspiracy theories because then all of these people who are working with the mainstream media or you know, or, or production organizations on television shows or movies or documentaries, you know, they’re not giving credit that they’re the ones who came up with this idea. I mean, it was you going to Blumenthal, it was you all. That’s where it, that what generated the, this story and the situation or at least this story to get out. So people then, yeah, you know, it, it allows people to have these conspiracies where they’re not giving credit where credit’s due,
Leslie Kean: I guess. So, I don’t know. They’re so attached to that. I, you know, I don’t know. I mean, obviously there have been plenty of insiders over the years who know a lot more than is being revealed. And so maybe that’s what people are concerned about. A lot of the reason that a lot of stuff has not come out is simply be due to the fact that it’s classified, it’s highly classified and protected in special access programs and so on. And people who know about these things would go to jail if they talked about it. Yeah. So it’s a, you know, they can’t do it. And so you can’t fault them. It doesn’t mean there’s some grand conspiracy behind it. It just means like so many other topics certain things are kept secret for a lot of different reasons. And, you know, on this issue, I’ve learned a lot more about the, the role that, um, concern for our adversaries getting a hold of a lot of this information that plays a big role in the desire to protect it. And that’s legitimate. It’s legitimate. So I don’t know. I, I mean, I can understand that people are frustrated that more has not been released and that the government hasn’t acknowledged a lot of things. But
Leslie Kean: I don’t think, you know, creating this, this idea that there’s some vast cabal conspiracy controlling it and they’re like planning how they’re going to let you know they’re planning everything and they’ve set up to the stars because they’re manipulating Tom DeLonge to create this, this thing. And they’ve giving him certain information and then they’re controlling the next step, which is the New York Times. And then there, I just don’t, I’ve never seen that there’s any force behind these things that are, that are making them all happen.
I just don’t, I don’t understand where that theory comes from unless some of the people behind these theories, know something that I don’t know, but I, and that’s possible. I don’t know everything.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. Which may be possible in some cases, but in this case particularly there’s just so much speculation and people standing steadfastly to their speculation and as opposed to doing the hard work and speaking to people like you to figure out what the, how things actually didcome about.
Leslie Kean: I mean, why, why did they have a need to not just accept what’s, you know, what the truth is or why do they have a need to create all these, these complicated scenarios? I Dunno. I Dunno.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. I don’t either. So some of the more fascinating parts, some of the really incredible parts of this story. There’s the idea of, there’s a paragraph on a couple of the other things that they looked into, including some sort of metal that is in a Bigelow a building somewhere.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. I mean that of course is an extremely interesting component to me and we are trying to pursue that. I can’t comment any further on it and we would love to be able to learn more about that. Uh, so that’s all I can really say at this point.
Alejandro Rojas: So you can’t speak on its origins or…
Leslie Kean: It’s very, very, very hard to access information along those lines. But, so we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re seeing what we, you know, I just can’t comment or I’ll get in trouble.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah, that’s fine. No problem. No problem. And then also on the second part of that paragraph, it talks about interviewing people who had, or at least believed they had, had physical effects due to an encounter with a UFO essentially. Did, were you able to find out much about who they talked to? Some speculation out there. Is that, this may be related to the Rendlesham incident?
Leslie Kean: Yeah, I mean, I guess that would be an example of a case where a close encounter certainly affected people. Absolutely. Um, we, you know, we were, we were writing more about cases that the program was involved with, which of course it wouldn’t have been Rendlesham. And, you know, a lot of the, the people who have had these effects are, do not want to go on the record, unfortunately. So, that’s always an issue as a journalist is getting people who are willing to put their names on it on a, on a case like that. And that’s very hard to come by. But, so that’s, that’s just, you know, something else too that we have to try to find more out about, but it is, most people involved in those kinds of effects don’t want to go public about it now. It certainly. Yeah. But I, I understand what you’re saying about Rendlesham that’s a good example. Yeah.
Alejandro Rojas: Do you know the cases that, that, that AATIP, now that we’re all calling it kind of due to the acronym, looked into, were those all submitted to them from the military or were they from the public or perhaps from, from pilots or other organizations?
Leslie Kean: No, they were all military cases, so that really limits, I mean they were sometimes brought by other agencies to them, but they were all cases involving military pilots. So they didn’t even, even cases that occurred during their tenure, such as the O’hare case in 2006, uh, oh wait, no, that was before they didn’t start to 2007. So I’m the wrong about that. But even any cases that just involves civilians or even commercial pilots were not under the purview of that program.
Alejandro Rojas: Do you know how many cases that they looked at?
Leslie Kean: Oh Gosh. I said, you know, at some point I got an estimate. Might’ve been like about maybe a dozen a year or something like that. 10 a year or something like that, as I recall. Yes.
Alejandro Rojas: And were these cases that were already vetted, in other words, the people who obtained or, or felt there was something about their case, did they already go over the investigation trying to figure out what it was before they submitted it to AATIP?
Leslie Kean: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I mean, I think they probably, my sense is they worked with AATIP to explore these cases and maybe didn’t know a lot about it before that because I don’t, yeah. But you know, it’s probably different for every case and I just don’t, I don’t feel I have enough information to answer that.
Alejandro Rojas: What about the number of unknowns?
Leslie Kean: That’s another question. I mean, these would be great things for you to ask Elizondo when you do your interview with him. Yeah. I mean, I, it, these are all questions I’d love to ask him and I just haven’t been focused on it in terms of how many of them, you mean, of those cases were actually resolved and explained versus how many yeah. And that as a question I can’t answer. I wish I could.
Alejandro Rojas: And then I guess, what about the third video? Is that going to be released soon? Do you know much?
Leslie Kean: I think it is going to be really soon, but that’s all I can say at this point. But yeah, I think it is.
Alejandro Rojas: Do you know if it will have more information, uh, along with it than perhaps the gimbal one, for example, it had zero information that came along with it.
Leslie Kean: I know. The problem is that information was classified, so they weren’t allowed to, we weren’t allowed to have access to it. I don’t know about the third one with respect to that. I don’t know. It may be a similar situation where you have the audio, but you don’t have much other data, which is, it’s difficult. But if it’s protected, you know, there’s something we can do about it.
Alejandro Rojas: Yeah. But I mean, luckily we did get one extraordinary case and, and, and this is great because, and that’s why I think I kept thinking 2008 was of course the Nimitz San Diego case which is a very exciting case and it’s wonderful that not only that this case has gotten more attention, and now we know it was taken seriously and investigated by Elizondo and the group. But it’s getting, it’s held up. I mean it’s a strong case and now we have these witnesses, a pilot going, pilots going and talking to people in the media. It’s another really strong case now that we can kind of add to the list of, of strong cases that we can point to for credibility for the topic.
Leslie Kean: Yeah. And I think that it helps the media take it seriously and it, because it was investigated by the program, even though it had occurred actually in 2004 before the program even started. But nonetheless, they went back and they did a bunch of interviews and they collected documents on it. And, uh, fortunately, you know, that case is not buried somewhere in some kind of system that we don’t have access to in the DoD. So I agree with you. It’s, and it was wonderful, Dave Fravor the pilot, uh, was an excellent interview and he’s very available to speak to the media, which has been great because we didn’t know if that would be the case or not when we had them in our story. But he’s very, very compelling and intelligent and, so that’s been an important, that was an important component of our story to have a case that we could bring forward as an example of the kind of things they investigated. And also to have the video of the, of the object that was, you know, or one of the objects if the, if there were more than one that was seen during the Nimitz. There was a period of days, but so it was, it was great to have that as a part of the story. I think really, really important to be able to include that. Yeah.
Alejandro Rojas: Well, I guess that’s everything. Thank you so much. I think that the conversations like this are really important. I think, you know, for people out there before you jump to wild conclusions, you got to vet that stuff. You got to go talk to the people who are doing things and you know, you and I talked about the media and these misperceptions about the media being taken over. And you know, I work with the media, I work closely and some of our colleagues such as James Fox who makes documentaries or at least Spiegel who worked at the Huffington post or George Knapp who works for mainstream news, you know, uh, or Bryce Zabel we’re going to have at the conference who works on movies. Um, you know, these people are the ones coming up with these great stories are, they’re the champions who are trying to, such as yourself get the credible information out and to say that they’re manipulated or somehow their projects came from top down when that’s not the case is unfortunate because these people just work hard to get this information out there and, and like your situation it sometimes takes a lot of work and effort, but it’s worth it because it’s very important and you know, you all deserve the credit for getting this out there. And it’s frustrating when people just kind of blow it off and “Oh, they were told to do that.”
Leslie Kean: I don’t know who they think is telling us.
Alejandro Rojas: I don’t know either, the smoking man.
Leslie Kean: Do you think I would like get on the phone or go in some dark room with a cigarette smoker and you know, I’m told what to do. I don’t know how they imagined that it works. But I can tell you it’s incredibly hard work. I mean, it was really, really, really hard work and do this and so many different levels and my whole life was on hold during this, you know, people read an article, they have no concept of how much goes into every single paragraph and how much background you have to cover in order to write that one paragraph, how much more you know, than is ever even in the article, you know, and just, uh, the, the, the editing process and the sensitivity of all of it and the reporting, it just takes a huge amount of time.
Leslie Kean: It’s very, very hard work. And we’re doing this because we believe that this information needs to reach the world so that we can change the paradigm. And, you know, there’s a whole team of people doing this and when you, when you do this work and then you hear these theories that, like you were just saying, it’s just like what, you know, what are, you know, what is that? Um, so, you know, yeah. I mean, it’s hard for me to have the time to talk to every single UFO researcher that has these concerns. But, you know, I’m, it does help to talk to the people that you’re, you’re preaching about you know, if they’re coming out and saying all these things about me and they’ve never even talked to me, it’s just you wonder where the information comes from. I don’t know. Um, but I, I just, you know, I, I’ve never encountered, and you know, they could say, well, it’s all behind the scenes, so you’re not aware of it. I really don’t think that the editors at the New York Times who decided to do this have anybody telling them what to do and not to do. Yeah. And I just, it just doesn’t work that way. Um, and it was just the moment, the reason the story came now was because Elizondo retired, right? Elizondo decided to that this was the time where he had to, he was, he was, he was frustrated enough that he couldn’t do what he needed to do inside. And that’s what precipitated the whole story. It wasn’t anything beyond that.
Alejandro Rojas: Well that’s great. I think that clears things up a lot. Thank you so much for coming on the show again and I’m really happy to talk to you about all of this and then, you know, thank you so much for pushing this story and getting it in the Times. I think, you know, your stories are, I mean, when you look at the timeline, let’s say, of progress on this topic have been so important and they often garners so much attention because of the careful way that you put them together. It’s just wonderful to have you out there doing this sort of staff and I think you deserve so much credit for this and thank you so much.
Leslie Kean: Well, thanks a lot Alejandro. I appreciate that. And um, thanks to all your listeners and you know, I’m on Facebook, so if anybody has questions about the conspiracies or any of that stuff, they can certainly come on my Facebook page and I’d be happy to dialogue on, on that with anybody.
DoD Confirms They Released Navy F-18 FLIR UFO Videos
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68), guided missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59), and fast combat support ship USS Bridge (AOE 10) participate in an underway replenishment (UNREP).
(Credit: US Navy)
DoD Confirms They Released Navy F-18 FLIR UFO Videos
A document leaked by KLAS and a letter from the DoD given to a government documents researcher proves the Department of Defense (DoD) did release Navy videos related to UFO incidents, despite an earlier denial.
In the December 16, 2017 article published by The New York Times that revealed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a secretive Pentagon project to investigate UFOs, there were two videos included. The videos were Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera videos captured by Navy jet fighters of unidentified objects. The New York Times claimed these videos were “released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.”
Much, not all, of the information The New York Times received about AATIP was from the former head of the program, Luis Elizondo. He retired from the DoD in October of 2017. The same month he joined Tom Delonge and other former high-level officials in a new venture called the To the Stars Academy (TTSA). This group also researches the UFO phenomenon.
Soon after The New York Times released the videos, TTSA also released them. According to TTSA, the videos were released “through the official declassification review process of the United States government and has been approved for public release.”
Questions first arose about the release of the videos soon after The New York Times published their article. The same day TheWashington Post also published an article, and regarding the videos, they wrote: “Elizondo, in an internal Pentagon memo requesting that the videos be cleared for public viewing, argued that the images could help educate pilots and improve aviation safety. But in interviews, he said his ultimate intention was to shed light on a little-known program Elizondo himself ran for seven years: a low-key Defense Department operation to collect and analyze reported UFO sightings.”
I was able to interview Leslie Kean, one of the authors of The New York Times article, in January of 2018. I asked about The Washington Post’s claims. Kean said The New York Times had received the videos from the DoD and had verified they were real. She references a document called a DD 1910: Clearance Request For Public Release of Defense Information. She says although they have not made the document public, it was a release approved by the DoD that authorized the release of the videos. She says the document was vetted by The New York Times and is confident it is real.
In February of 2018, during a Q and A for the International UFO Congress, Elizondo was asked to give further information about the release of the videos. This was a question I slipped in. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of that interview.
Q: How were the videos released? Was it under a false pretense or a trick as the Washington Post suggests?
A: No, there was no trick, and there was no false pretense. The videos were released in accordance with the strict manner that DOD prescribes to DOD manuals and regulations involving the release of information. It went through the official DOPSR process and then furthermore an additional step was taken to have the videos reviewed by foreign disclosure representatives. In fact, the most senior foreign disclosure representatives in the department, and ultimately required OCA or original classification authority approval and review to release the video. So in essence, I didn’t release anything; the department of defense released those videos. The documentation is held by the department of defense, and the justification for releasing those videos were exactly as stated, and that was to create an unclassified database that people could then access and help us identify the signatures we were seeing.
Although Kean and Elizondo shared what they knew about the videos, researchers, rightfully, were still seeking official confirmation. However, the DoD threw us another curve ball. Researcher John Greenewald received a letter from the DoD that claimed, among other things, the “DoD has not released videos related to this program.”
WTF? Were The New York Times and Elizondo wrong or lying, or did the DoD spokesperson get it wrong? My guess was the latter. Kean had stressed they thoroughly vetted the videos. Also, historically, the military press departments often get information wrong regarding UFOs. Case after case we have seen this. Greenwald has also often received erroneous information from military and government press offices.
We finally got more insight into this situation just this week. On May 1, George Knapp and Matt Adams of KLAS 8 News Now in Las Vegas released a copy of the DD 1910.
KLAS wrote:
“The request specifies the three videos: Go Fast, Gimbal and FLIR, which was the original name for the Tic Tac encounter. Some personal information has been redacted, but the document shows authorization for release was granted on August 24 2017. The I-Team also acquired the Department of Defense directive which spells out how the release procedure works. The form shows the videos were released by the book.”
Not everyone was satisfied with this leak of the DD 1910. They argued this was still not an official statement. Fortunately, the DoD responded to a request by Greenewald for a confirmation that the DD 1910 KLAS leaked was real.
The DoD responded:
“I can confirm that the form DD1910 you asked about is a valid DD1910. The standard procedure is for blocks 1-7 on the form to be filled out by the submitter before sending to DOPSR; however, occasional exceptions have occurred. The submitter is responsible for any disclaimers on the form as approved, and also abiding by any amendments that may be included in additional communications from DOPSR to the submitter as part of the approval process. Per block 3 of this form DD1910, the submitter requested release of the videos solely for research and analysis purposes by the US government agencies and industry partners, and not for general public release.”
So Elizondo and Kean were right, and the DoD press department’s initial response regarding the videos was wrong. The DoD spokesperson did not directly address why they made their initial claim of having not released the videos. However, they added at the end of their response the claim that the videos were not released “for general public release.” It is readily apparent this is not accurate.
The DD 1910 is a request for “public release.” This DD 1910 was approved, so the videos were indeed approved for public release. The DoD spokesperson may have been referencing a note in the form that says the videos are not being released for “publication” which is not the same thing as the general public. A publication is an article, book, journals, etc.
The request said the videos would be released for “research and analysis ONLY and info sharing with other USG and industry partners for the purpose of developing a database to help identify, analyze, and ultimately defeat UAS threats.” There is nothing that prohibits these databases from being publicly available. Further, again, this DD 1910 is a form to approve information for “public release,” and it was approved.
Nowhere does this form limit the release to not include the “general public.” My guess as to why they added this note to the end of their response to Greenewald is that they are trying to justify their original false statement that the “DoD has not released videos related to this program.” Even if for some reason you agree the videos were not released for the “general public,” it is still not accurate to say the “DoD has not released videos related to this program.”
In the end, the DoD has now admitted the DD 1910 proving the DoD released the videos is real. The DoD did release the videos, just as Kean and The New York Times had discovered, and Elizondo had claimed.
Open Minds UFO Radio: In this episode, we review the confusing and complicated timeline of how the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) UFO project got started, how we found out about, and the history of some of those involved. To really understand AATIP and all of the news coming at us about it, we have to understand this vital background. This includes why and how rockstar Tom DeLonge is involved, who Robert Bigelow is, the paranormal background of Dr. Hal Puthoff, what AAWSAP is and how it was taken down, AATIP’s relation to BAASS and TTSA, and much much more. We will not be interviewing Lue for a little while yet, but covering this background will make you all ready for it.
Krubera Cave - Journeying to the Depths of Georgia in One of the World’s Deepest Caves
Krubera Cave - Journeying to the Depths of Georgia in One of the World’s Deepest Caves
Krubera Cave was once thought to be the deepest cave on earth, although now it is generally regarded as the second deepest. This natural wonder, found in the Republic of Georgia , is renowned among cavers due to its arduous challenges and the subterranean depth.
The Geology and Layout of Krubera Cave
The cave is located in the Arabika Massif of the Gagra Range of the Western Caucasus and overlooks the Black Sea . It is not the only cave in the area, there are many others in the north-west of Georgia, and in fact Krubera is not far from the world’s deepest cave, the Voronya Cave system. It is a mere 80 feet (24 meters) or so deeper than the third deepest cave which is in the Austrian Alps .
The depth of the cave as measured from the entrance to the distance of the deepest explored point is approximately 7,200 feet (2,200 meters). The entrance is surprisingly narrow for such a large cavern and the bottom was only located in 2001.
The geology of the cave is of limestone that dates from the Cretaceous and Jurassic ages. There are several underground springs and pools within it, and according to those who explored the system, it consists of a number of deep pits connected by passageways. The best known of these is the Cascade pit which is over 500 feet (152 meters) deep and the bottom has a pool of water. Many freezing sumps (water-filled pits) and water cascades have also been discovered.
The cave was not explored until the 1960s. The local population was aware of the cave but did not have the means to explore it. The first experts to really study the Krubera Cave entrance were a group of Soviet speleologists who reported that they believed they had found an underground system that was unusually deep.
Soviet speleologists reported that they believed they had found an underground system that was unusually deep.
This team named the underground system after a great Russian geographer, Alexander Kruber, who is regarded as one of the founders of speleology. He was one of the first to survey of the area and published several papers on the caves and their geology. An alternate name for the site is Crow's Cave ( Vronja), in recognition of all the crows who nest in its vicinity.
There were no further expeditions until the 1980s, when a group of Ukrainian speleologists conducted the first large-scale expedition into the caverns. They were able to push down into the narrow connecting chambers and through tight choke points to a depth of 900 feet (274 meters).
Due to the instability brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union , the cave was not explored for the next two decades. In 2001 an American expedition revived interest in the cave and on a series of Krubera cave expeditions they gradually managed to discover more pits, meanders, tunnels, and passages. Underground divers explored the many bodies of water of the cave system.
Underground divers explored the many bodies of water of the cave system. ( Excitement N Net )
In 2012, a Ukrainian diver reached the deepest point of Krubera at a depth of over 2,000 feet (600 meters), which at the time was a world record. In 2017 a team proved that the Veryovkina Cave, also in Abkhazia, was the world’s deepest.
To explore this site is an ambition of many cavers and it is known as the Everest of Caves. Descending into the caves requires great planning and resources, including tents and breathing equipment. One recent expedition to Krubera took two weeks exploring the underground labyrinth. It is only now, after 20 years of near constant exploration, that we have a reliable map of Krubera Cave and some believe that more pits and passageways remain undiscovered.
Exploring Krubera Cave is Not for Everyone
Garga, Abkhazia, is a breakaway region and is currently under the control of the Russian Federation and its local allies. Because of this, the cave is difficult to access. It is not possible to enter the region via Georgia and permission is needed to enter Abkhazia from Russia. Only highly trained experts should enter Krubera Cave as it is incredibly dangerous. Amateurs and visitors with a yearning for adventure can explore the area around the entrance.
Only highly trained experts should enter Krubera Cave as it is incredibly dangerous.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
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 73 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.