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 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 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...
Out in a rural, remote area of the U.S. state of Arkansas, at a small town called Gurdon, in Clark County, about 75 miles south of Little Rock and a few miles off Interstate 30, is a deserted stretch of railroad track just outside of town near the Sandy Creek cemetery and paralleled by a dusty, pockmarked dirt road that would not look out of place in some horror movie. If you are to come here to this forgotten place and walk along the tracks to a specific spot just before where the tracks cross State Road 53, you may be treated to quite an outlandish sight. Coming through the gloom ahead you might notice a bobbing white orb of light, sometimes bluish green and at other times a reddish orange, with a very defined and clear shape, which will hover and float along about 3 feet over the railroad tracks before veering off and flickering out. What you are seeing is a persistent phenomenon that has been witnessed by hundreds of people, and what has come to be called the “Gurdon Spook Light” has become entwined with the fabric of the local folklore, and is one of Arkansas’s most well-known paranormal mysteries.
The most persistent tale surrounding the origin of the mystery light is that it is ghostly in nature. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History holds the tale of a railway foreman named Will McClain, who in December of 1931 was murdered by a worker he had fired named Louis McBride. The disgruntled McBride apparently ruthlessly killed McCain with a pickaxe or spiked maul, after which he placed the body on the tracks for it to be cut in half by a passing train. Police would arrest McBride, find him guilty, and have him executed by electric chair in 1932, and it was not long after this murder that the mysterious light began appearing, hence the idea that it is actually the spirit of McClain, carrying the lantern he had used while working on the tracks.
While the the players and murder are a real part of history, what is not clear is whether this is really a ghost or not. Nevertheless, it is from that point that the light became entrenched in the area’s lore, and would be sighted by numerous people, starting with a conductor who said that he was followed by an orb of light for several miles before it suddenly shot straight up into the air. The light has gone on to be seen very frequently and regularly, to the point that the trail leading out to where the tracks are has become quite well-defined from all of the curiosity seekers who come here to see it. Many of the locals have seen it so often that it is just sort of a part of the landscape, and one local named Robert Nunnally has said of it:
I grew up in Gurdon, and have seen the light many times. It tends to appear as a colored spherical light, hovering in a ghostly or space alien way in mid-air. The legend surrounding the light is that a headless railroad man, victim of a revenge murder, hunts for his head with a lantern. The phenomenon transcends the legend, though, as the experience of seeing the Gurdon Light is both frequent and unusual — a natural roadside attraction of the highest order.
The phenomenon has been covered on a November 1994 episode of Unsolved Mysteries and it has gone on to generate quite a lot of interest and debate over the years. That the light does indeed exist is not really disputed, but what it is depends largely on who you ask. Besides the ghost theory, there is also the idea that what people are seeing is simply headlights off on the nearby I-30, but this explanation is problematic as the phenomenon had been seen since long before the interstate was there. There are also many trees and hills standing between the interstate and the location of the light, and in an article for the Arkansas Gazette a local graduate student researching the light said of this theory:
The nearest interstate to the tracks is about four miles away, and a large hill stands in between the tracks and the interstate. If the light was caused by passing headlights, it would have to be refracted up and over the hill to be visible on the other side.
The Gurdon Spook Light
Swamp gas, which is a highly combustible gas produced be decomposing vegetation, has also been offered as a possibility, but this could not account for the light being seen in very windy conditions, and it fails to explain why it is always such a well-defined orb and why it is only ever seen in this one place. It could also be due to the high concentration of quartz in the area releasing some sort of electrical charge, but how would this explain the shape, movement, and almost intelligent behavior the spook light is said to exhibit, as well as the sheer frequency with which it is seen and its limited area? It has also been offered that it is a mirage, but a physics professor named Dr. Charles Leming thoroughly studied the light without ever finding an answer, and he claimed that through filters the Gurdon Light did not polarize as a mirage would be expected to do. He also found that it produced no electromagnetic current and is always the same size and shape no matter what the atmospheric conditions are. So what could it be? Who knows? One witness has said of the light:
A ball of yellowish light will almost always appear, hovering over the tracks. The light seems to be about the size of a basketball, and around fifty yards away. If you walk toward it, the light will receed away from you or disappear, sometimes reappearing behind you. I myself have seen it, and believe me when I tell you that it is not a hoax, a mirage, or “reflected light”… something very strange is going on in Gurdon. A great “X-files” style road trip destination.
What is going on here? There has been no completely satisfactory consensus on it all, and the only way to really know is to go out there and check it out for yourself. If you do lan on going, please do go in prepared, as it is said that the trestles or the railway are perilous, the terrain is rugged and rocky, and it is completely pitch black and rugged out there. For the time being, the spook light of Gurdon remains a perplexing mystery and regional phenomenon that has so far defied any concrete answers, and it continues to be regularly seen right up to this day. What is it? Is it a ghost, a natural phenomenon, or something else. No one really seems to know, and it continues to bob along out there in the wilds as it has for years and may do for many more.
I’m a sucker for unidentified sonic phenomena. The latest weird noise to pop up in the news comes by way of the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, where residents say a mysterious and unidentified noise has been causing painful side-effects and curious medical conditions for months. Oddly enough, some of the symptoms seem eerily similar to the unexplained medical complications reported by U.S. diplomats at several embassies reportedly plagued by sonic attacks over the last few years. Could the two related?
The story of the strange Brooklyn hum first appeared on Patch.com last week. According to reports, up to a half a dozen complaints have been filed with city officials concerning the pain-inducing noise but no action has been taken as nobody knows where the sound is coming from. Locals describe the sound as a “mysterious, headache-inducing tone” or a “high pitched noise” that can be heard both inside homes and on city streets.
Bedford–Stuyvesant
Some Bedford-Stuyvesant residents report that the noise has been causing them headaches, mental stress, or even “hangover-like symptoms.” Painful sinus pressure and “mental stress” have also been reported since the unidentified tone first appeared.
One Bed-Stuy local says the noise seems to be getting louder in recent weeks after first being noticed in May. “I couldn’t run away from it,” Drew Robbi told Patch.com. “I went inside it was still piercing. If it’s emanating from a house it would get higher, but that’s not been the experience. It’s even throughout the whole block.” Have a listen for yourself: Robbi posted a recording of the noise to Twitter. It’s an objectively miserable sound and one you certainly wouldn’t want to hear 24 hours a day.
Local police and utility officials have looked into the noise but have not been able to identify a cause. The best theory going is that a malfunctioning air conditioning unit could be to blame, but the New York City Department of Environmental Protection does not have the resources to hunt down every single A/C unit in the city. Instead, they recommend all residents turn their units off briefly to determine if they might be the ones responsible for the piercing noise. With temperatures climbing higher as summer drags on, it will prove difficult to convince Brooklyn residents to turn their A/C units off.
Rooftop air conditioning units
Another unexplained hum caused similar issues for Michigan residents back in March, and the strange saga of the sonic “attacks” at embassies has been well-documented. What could be behind these unexplained sonic phenomena? Are they merely an unfortunate byproduct of modern technology and infrastructure? Maybe we’re doomed to live in a noisy, headache-inducing world as more machinery comes to occupy human spaces alongside us.
Maybe though, just maybe, something stranger is lying under the surface of all of these seemingly unrelated stories. Unidentified visual phenomena tend to receive much more attention than unidentified sonic phenomena, but many disparate stories about strange noises over the last few years prove that high strangeness can come in many forms. What’s causing the strange tone in Brooklyn?
X-rays Spot Spinning Black Holes Across Cosmic Sea
X-rays Spot Spinning Black Holes Across Cosmic Sea
Like whirlpools in the ocean, spinning black holes in space create a swirling torrent around them. However, black holes do not create eddies of wind or water. Rather, they generate disks of gas and dust heated to hundreds of millions of degrees that glow in X-ray light.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Oklahoma/X. Dai et al.
Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and chance alignments across billions of light years, astronomers have deployed a new technique to measure the spin of five supermassive black holes. The matter in one of these cosmic vortices is swirling around its black hole at greater than about 70% of the speed of light.
The astronomers took advantage of a natural phenomenon called a gravitational lens. With just the right alignment, the bending of space-time by a massive object, such as a large galaxy, can magnify and produce multiple images of a distant object, as predicted by Einstein.
In this latest research, astronomers used Chandra and gravitational lensing to study six quasars, each consisting of a supermassive black hole rapidly consuming matter from a surrounding accretion disk. Gravitational lensing of the light from each of these quasars by an intervening galaxy has created multiple images of each quasar, as shown by these Chandra images of four of the targets. The sharp imaging ability of Chandra is needed to separate the multiple, lensed images of each quasar.
The key advance made by researchers in this study was that they took advantage of “microlensing,” where individual stars in the intervening, lensing galaxy provided additional magnification of the light from the quasar. A higher magnification means a smaller region is producing the X-ray emission.
The researchers then used the property that a spinning black hole is dragging space around with it and allows matter to orbit closer to the black hole than is possible for a non-spinning black hole. Therefore, a smaller emitting region corresponding to a tight orbit generally implies a more rapidly spinning black hole. The authors concluded from their microlensing analysis that the X-rays come from such a small region that the black holes must be spinning rapidly.
The results showed that one of the black holes, in the lensed quasar called the “Einstein Cross,” is spinning at, or almost at, the maximum rate possible. This corresponds to the event horizon, the black hole’s point of no return, spinning at the speed of light, which is about 670 million miles per hour. Four other black holes in the sample are spinning, on average, at about half this maximum rate. (The 6th did not enable an estimate of spin.)
For the Einstein Cross the X-ray emission is from a part of the disk that is less than about 2.5 times the size of the event horizon, and for the other 4 quasars the X-rays come from a region four to five times the size of the event horizon.
How can these black holes spin so quickly? The researchers think that these supermassive black holes likely grew by accumulating most of their material over billions of years from an accretion disk spinning with a similar orientation and direction of spin, rather than from random directions. Like a merry-go-round that keeps getting pushed in the same direction, the black holes kept picking up speed.
The X-rays detected by Chandra are produced when the accretion disk surrounding the black hole creates a multimillion-degree cloud, or corona, above the disk near the black hole. X-rays from this corona reflect off the inner edge of the accretion disk, and the strong gravitational forces near the black hole distort the reflected X-ray spectrum, that is, the amount of X-rays seen at different energies. The large distortions seen in the X-ray spectra of the quasars studied here imply that the inner edge of the disk must be close to the black holes, giving further evidence that they must be spinning rapidly.
The quasars are located at distances ranging from 8.8 billion to 10.9 billion light years from Earth, and the black holes have masses between 160 and 500 million times that of the sun. These observations were the longest ever made with Chandra of gravitationally lensed quasars, with total exposure times ranging between 1.7 and 5.4 days.
A paper describing these results is published in the July 2nd issue of The Astrophysical Journal, and is available online. The authors are Xinyu Dai, Shaun Steele and Eduardo Guerras from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, Christopher Morgan from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and Bin Chen from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra’s science and flight operations.
Contacts and sources: Lee Mohon NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
Advanced Ancient Civilizations Before The Egyptians
Advanced Ancient Civilizations Before The Egyptians
The temples near the Sphinx are built from stones weighing up to 150 tons slotted together like a jigsaw puzzle in a way that could not be even be reproduced with today’s technology, he marveled.
While West doesn’t entirely rule out the ancient ET hypothesis, he finds no evidence for it. He believes a lost civilization with advanced skills, predating the known ancient Egyptians, created the Sphinx.
He also talked about how the pyramids at Giza seem to be connected as part of a mysterious grand unified plan or machine. The focus of all Egyptian religion deals with the quest for immortality, he added.
Abducted Eyewitness Warns World Against Contacting Aliens, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Abducted Eyewitness Warns World Against Contacting Aliens, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Here is an interesting eyewitness who started getting visits from an aliens when he was only age 4. He felt intimidated and frighted of the creature and never had any positive experiences with them. The same aliens comes to see him every few years and the eyewitness feels victimised by the alien, violated and abused. He tries to tell the world that aliens are evil and should be feared. I believe he is wrong. You see there are many alien species out there not just one. He only had interactions with a single alien from a single species. To judge an entire species by one individual is insane. You just can't do that. Thats like aliens judging humans by using only one individual...Trump. We are not all Trumps. We prize our individuality and uniqueness and most alien species probable do too. So as you see, his interview is legit, his fear and anger is real, but when we react in anger our minds are not fully in control. Are there alien species to be feared? Yes of course. Are there humans to be feared? Yes, of course. So...lets look for the good ones. Scott C. Waring
This video contains many UFOs shooting out of our sun and around the SOHO satellite. Its amazing that so many videos of UFOs exist and yet the US government wont take any of it seriously. Which means they are deliberately hiding the truth from the public. This video was posted by SolarBug of Youtube. (click link to follow him) He caught many UFOs shooting out of our sun, but also caught some life forms that look almost squid like in nature. These longer life forms may have been close to the SOHO sun satellite or not too far away and got caught in the video. The screenshot above shows three black UFOs shooting out of the suns explosion, yet just 3 seconds earlier there were three white UFOs in the exact same position also shooting out of the sun. It would be logical to conclude the aliens crafts caused the solar flare to take place. However about four to six other objects papers to zoom out in a loop that moves towards the explosion, through it and away from the sun. I assume its an illusion and the life forms are actually much close to the satellite. These long life forms have a front that is almost catfish like...they have 4-6 feelers or antenna sticking out the front of the creatures. Yes, life exists everywhere, not all life forms need planets to exist. Thanks to SolarBug for this awesome discovery. Click here to subscribe to his channel. Scott C. Waring
Crazy Cool UFO Seen At Space Station On Live Cam, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Crazy Cool UFO Seen At Space Station On Live Cam, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 2016 Location of sighting: Space station This footage was originally recorded by Streetcap1 of Youtube but was uploaded by another Youtube. It shows an extraordinary UFO with a shape unlike anything I have ever seen before. The object was recorded on live NASA space station cam and has a very strange appearance. Its clear to me that UFOs frequently visit the space station to keep an eye on humanities progress. Scott C. Waring
A Group Of US Senators Receives Classified Briefing On Encounters With UFOs
A Group Of US Senators Receives Classified Briefing On Encounters With UFOs
Democratic Virginia Senator Mark Warner said through his spokeswoman Rachel Cohen that he wanted answers if pilots at Oceana or elsewhere were reporting UFO sightings that interfere with training or put them at risk. The senator could not ask pilots to put their lives at risk unnecessarily regardless if the UFOs were weather balloons, little green men, or something else entirely, according to Cohen.
Spokesman Joseph Gradisher for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare also confirmed the briefing happened.
Gradisher said Navy officials did indeed meet with some congressional members and staffers interested on the matters this week to give a classified brief on efforts to understand and identify UFO threats to the safety and security of aviators.
Follow-up discussions with other interested staffers were done the day after, Gradisher revealed. Gradisher added that Navy officials would continue to keep interested congressional members and staff informed. However, he stressed that they wouldn’t comment on the specific information provided in briefings given the classified nature of these discussions.
President Donald Trump also confirmed recently he was briefed on reports of Navy pilots encountering UFOs
This Golden Asteroid Could Make Everyone On Earth A Billionaire, And Now NASA Is Chasing It
This Golden Asteroid Could Make Everyone On Earth A Billionaire, And Now NASA Is Chasing It
There is an inordinate number of asteroids in the solar system, each one with their own characteristics. Most are nothing but rock and other sediments. However, every now and then there's a special one.
NASA is currently following one of these special asteroids. They are looking at a nearby asteroid that contains enough gold to make everyone on Earth a billionaire - crazy, right?
Gold Asteroid
The asteroid in question is called Psyche 16, and it is nestled between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid isn't the average one as it’s actually made of solid metal. Along with large amounts of gold, there are huge quantities of platinum, iron, and nickel. All of those metals are pretty expensive, so how much is the asteroid itself actually worth?
There have been a number of estimations in regards to the total value of Psyche's various metals and the final number has been decided at about $10,000 quadrillion. While this may sound appealing, bringing it back to Earth would destroy the world's commodity prices as well as the economy, which is only worth a measly $75.5 trillion.
NASA does have plans to launch a mission in summer 2022 which will arrive at the asteroid in around 4 years time, in 2026. Bringing back such a huge amount of gold would annihilate the global economy so NASA has no plans to mine, it is purely deemed a research mission.
Benefits
According to some researchers, Psyche is a survivor of violent hit-and-run collisions between planets which were common when the solar system was forming. Therefore, it could potentially reveal how Earth’s core was formed. This could have huge scientific benefits, as well as financial ones. Asteroid ownership was made legal in 2015 and so a number of mining companies are gearing up for a gold rush.
To be specific, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources both have their eyes on the 2011 UW158 asteroid which is twice the size of the Tower of London and worth up to $5.7 trillion. While this would also have a profound effect on the global economy, it would be nothing compared to that of Psyche.
No, it’s not pseudoscience. Does a regular alignment of planets make a strong-enough tug to regulate the sun’s 11- and 22-year cycles? Read more in this story via Eos – a source for news and perspectives about Earth and space science – from the American Geophysical Union.
An ultraviolet image of the sun, overlaid with a map of its magnetic field lines.
For more than 1,000 years, the number of sunspots hit a minimum within a few years of a major planetary alignment. A recent study showed that tides created by this alignment every 11 years are strong enough to tug on material near the sun’s surface and synchronize localized changes in its magnetic field.
We noticed from historical data that there is an astonishing degree of regularity in the sunspot cycle.
Stefani is a fluid dynamics research fellow at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Dresden, Germany. He said:
We definitely have a clocked process. But then the question was, What is the clock?
The study expands upon the commonly accepted model for the solar dynamo and supports a long-held theory that planetary configurations are responsible for the sunspot cycle and magnetic solar cycle.
Wound, Twisted, and Unstable
As a giant spinning ball of plasma, the sun’s magnetic field is extremely complicated. Its magnetic field lines start as parallel lines running from the north to the south pole. But because the sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles, those pole-to-pole magnetic field lines slowly wind and wrap around the sun, stretching like taffy from the middle of the line to become horizontal.
A simplified schematic of a single magnetic field line as it wraps around the sun (omega effect) and then twists upon itself (alpha effect). The arrows indicate the direction that solar material moves as it drags the field line with it.
On top of the rotational motion of solar plasma, convection moves material from the equator to the poles and back again. That twists the field lines around each other into loops and spirals.
The winding and twisting of the sun’s magnetic field lines are described by the alpha-omega dynamo model. In that model, alpha represents the twisting, and omega represents the wrapping. Tangled field lines can create instabilities in the local magnetic field and cause sunspots, flares, or mass ejections.
This model is the commonly accepted explanation for the behavior of the sun’s magnetic field, but it’s not perfect, Stefani explained. It predicts that the instabilities’ twistedness will oscillate randomly every few years. But the model can’t explain why the number of sunspots waxes and wanes on a roughly 11-year cycle or why the sun’s magnetic field flips polarity every 22 years.
Low Tide, Low Activity
Another solar system phenomenon happens every 11 years: Venus, Earth, and Jupiter align in their orbits. These three planets have the strongest tidal effect on the sun, the first two because of their proximity to the sun and the third because of its mass. Past observational studies have shown that minima in the sunspot cycle have occurred within a few years of this alignment for the past 1,000 years or so. Stefani said:
If you look at the trend, it has an amazing parallelism.
The researchers wanted to test whether the planetary alignment could influence the sun’s alpha effect and force an interplanetary low tide at regular intervals. The team started with a standard alpha-omega dynamo model and added a small tidal tug to the alpha effect every 11 years to simulate the alignment. Stefani explained:
Our dynamo model is not a completely new one. We’re really building on the old-fashioned, or conventional, alpha-omega dynamo.
The simulation showed that even a weak tidal tug of 1 meter [about 1 yard] per second every 11 years forced unstable magnetic twists to pulse with that same period. The simulated dynamo’s polarity oscillated with a 22-year period just like the real solar dynamo. Stefani said:
With a little bit of this periodic alpha, we can indeed synchronize the dynamo period to 22 years [with] planetary forcing.
Because those magnetic instabilities are connected with solar activity, the researchers argue, this synchronization could also suppress (or generate) sunspots across the sun at roughly the same time – in other words, the sunspot cycle. The team published these results in Solar Physics in late May 2019.
A Counterintuitive Result?
Steve Tobias is a solar dynamo researcher at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom who was not involved with this research. He said:
This is an intriguing paper.
Tobias argued that the combined planetary tides are too weak to directly set the length of the solar cycle. Plasma dynamics deep within the sun are the more likely cause, he told Eos.
Nevertheless, he said, this study
… seems to show that even a tiny amount of forcing from tidal processes can resonantly synchronize the cycle. This counterintuitive result should be explored further by investigating the behavior of proxies for solar activity such as the production rates of isotopes of beryllium deposited in ice cores.
It’s possible that other planetary systems might have tidally dominant planets that resonate with their suns like ours do, Stefani said, but it’s not likely that we’ll be able to prove it. For most stars, he said:
… we have observations going back about 40 years. And people are happy if they can identify two or three or four periods. Only for our Sun do we have all the historical observations. We have beryllium data. We can go back for thousands of years.
Our sun is quite an ordinary star, but it is quite special in that sense.
Bottom line: New research suggests that a regular alignment of the planets makes a strong enough tug to regulate the sun’s 11- and 22-year cycles.
An articulated view of a Discopter in flight, floating through the night sky above the San Francisco Bay. WITH PERMISSION FROM DISCOPTER.COM
A VERSION OF THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON TEDIUM, A TWICE-WEEKLY NEWSLETTER THAT HUNTS FOR THE END OF THE LONG TAIL.
Early in the summer of 1947, an amateur pilot from Idaho named Kenneth Arnold spotted something in the Washington skies that kind of blew his mind.
Despite the skies being clear that day, he saw a series of nine flashes of horizontal light. He landed, told others what he saw, and his story spread through the popular consciousness, taking on a life on its own, as well as a name—the flying saucer.
Two weeks later, a much more famous incident in Roswell, New Mexico, involving a weather balloon (if you believe what the government tells you), further cemented the idea of the flying saucer in the public consciousness.
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Why Making a Better Umbrella Is Way Harder Than It Seems
Their design hasn't changed in a very long time.
Not long after, hobbyists of all kinds suddenly felt inspired make their own—and they’ve been flooding the patent offices globally ever since.
But the guy who got to the U.S. Patent Office first, surprisingly, wasn’t actually inspired by the popular perception of the UFO at all. He had the idea, in fact, years before Kenneth Arnold took his fateful flight.
“They did not appear to me to whirl or spin but seemed in fixed position traveling as I have made drawing.” From Arnold’s account of his UFO sighting. PUBLIC DOMAIN
The Dutch painter and sculpture artist Alexander Weygers, who grew up in the Dutch East Indies—now Indonesia—and spent most of his adult life in the U.S., was something of a 20th-century Leonardo da Vinci. He had both an engineering and artistic background, and his work spanned sculpture, illustrations, photography, and many other fields.
In 1927, he conceptualized a device that predicted the infatuation with flying saucers before they even had that name. And as an engineer, he did so with a practical eye toward the failings of the device he hoped to replace.
“Helicopters are vulnerable,” he said in an interview with UPI in 1985. “People were being killed in them during the 1920s. They go down like a brick. The saucer became the logical answer.”
His creativity was driven by tragedy. In 1928, his wife died during childbirth, as did his son. The painful incident ended up pushing him closer to art, with the losses inspiring some of his most notable sculptures.
A similar tragedy—the capture of his family, still in the Dutch East Indies, by Japanese forces during World War II—pushed him in the early 1940s to complete his saucer project, which he had first started in the 1920s. He called the device a “Discopter.”
The idea was inspired not by spaceships or science fiction, but by a practical desire to create a vehicle that could be used to rescue people in incidents not unlike the one that faced his family members. His frame of reference was his own prior work.
To a helicopter, a craft constructed on the principles of my invention bears a superficial resemblance in that both types are sustained by at least one horizontal rotor. From this point on, however, all similarity between the two types of flying craft ends. A craft embodying my invention is distinguished from a helicopter in that the rotor or rotors in my craft are enclosed within a substantially vertical tunnel, the rotor regarded as a whole is mainshaftless and the external form of the craft is not very different from the familiar discus of the athlete, in common with which the craft enjoys certain aerodynamic advantages characteristic of the passage of the discus thru the air. Not only the rotors and power plant compartments but all of the usual moving and fixed protruding parts, present in both airplanes and helicopters, such as stabilizing and directing means and otherwise, are entirely enclosed within the strikingly simple and cleanly streamlined contour line of the craft when regarded from exteriorly thereof in any elevation view, thereby concealing from the casual view such parts.
Alexander Weygers wasn’t trying to invent the flying saucer. He was trying to reinvent the helicopter, along with aviation in general, so that it could be used more practically. (It should be noted that the device was never built.)
But the existence of everything that came afterwards meant that his name would forever be associated with futurism and science fiction, elements that didn’t actually inspire his invention.
Soon after the flying saucer hit the public consciousness in the late 1940s, people noticed what Weygers had done. A 1950 article in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call, dedicated column space to a dentist named Dr. Harold T. Frendt, who used the existence of the patent to argue against the existence of aliens. Frendt suggested that the patents were being used to create these saucers, despite his only evidence being Weygers’ patent.
“They should be operated at high altitudes instead of exposing them for observation to the general public and the pro-communistically inclined, and thereby stimulating a trend of foolish speculation,” Frendt told the newspaper at the time.
Frendt’s statement is ironic, because he’s also speculating. There probably was no flying saucer.
While Weygers was certainly first, the folks that followed him clearly were inspired by whatever happened in Washington and New Mexico back in 1947, perhaps with a little touch of H.G. Wells in the mix as well.
As soon as there was a popular “spark,” the inspiration that had us looking up in the sky and wondering what if, the saucer was everywhere. It’s been keeping patent offices around the world busy ever since—first, with a spate of flying saucer toys in the early 1950sthat looked like frisbees, and soon, in the form of aircraft clearly inspired by flying saucers, like this 1953 design and this helicopter/flying saucer hybrid.
Buried in the USPTO’s many classifications for airplanes and helicopters is the indexing code “B64C 39/001,” which represents “flying vehicles characterised by sustainment without aerodynamic lift, often flying disks having a UFO-shape.” Yes, USPTO got so many patent applications for flying saucers that it earned its own classification.
So how many flying saucer patents are we talking about? According to Google Patents, around 192 items in this specific classification are listed as being produced in the U.S., with three particular surges in their creation—an initial jump in the years between 1953 and 1956, a second wind between 1965 and 1971, and an unusually dramatic surge in such inventions between the years 2001 and 2004. USPTO handled 37 flying saucer-related patents during that particularly busy time in U.S. diplomatic history.
There’s a lot to look at, and it’s entirely possible that due to the complexity of the patent system, this doesn’t cover everything. Fortunately, someone with a pseudonym and apparently a large amount of time already did a huge amount of curation for you.
Earlier this year, an Internet Archive user named Superboy collected more than 100 flying saucer patent filings spanning the past 75 years or so. It took the user over three months to gather the documents from the U.S. patent offices and other patent offices globally, and is split upover two pages.
(Superboy helpfully noted that the documents prove “that humans have obtained and incorporated flying saucers for personal and secret use.”)
Most patents were credited to individuals, with a handful of companies involved.
The patent document for this 2003 invention describes it as a “ring-shaped wing helicopter, which is similar to a flying saucer in appearance.” GOOGLE PATENTS/ US 20030122033 A1
The weirdest such applications—though eventually withdrawn—came from a man named John Quincy St. Clair. People have been wonderingabout St. Clair for years. During the 2000s, he filed for for dozens of patents for all sorts of bizarre things. (It should be noted that filing for a patent isn’t cheap, even if it’s withdrawn.) Among his greatest hits: a “magnetic vortex wormhole generator” and a “walking through walls training system,” which comes complete with instructions on how to print the “training system” using a home printer.
One of his applications, from 2006, was for something called a “photon spacecraft.” “This invention is a spacecraft propulsion system that employs photon particles to generate a field of negative energy in order to produce lift on the hull,” he wrote.
Of course, not every flying saucer patent has been produced by a hobbyist, an eccentric inventor, or an engineer who turned tragedy into creativity.
Some of the largest companies in the world have occasionally taken interest in the flying saucer idea. In 2014, for example, Airbus invented a device that has a lot in common with the modern flying saucer, but also looks like a stealth fighter jet with a donut in the middle.
As CNBC reported at the time, it wasn’t intended for either outer space or the military—it was a reinvention of the passenger jet that was intended to help reduce cabin pressure. And there’s a good chance we’ll never even see it.
“It’s just one of many ideas,” a company spokesman told Fortune. “It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be working on making it a reality.”
And of course, the future may have room for a flying saucer—or at least a flying car—yet. As Bloomberg Businessweek reported last year, Google co-founder Larry Page has been investing in the idea of flying cars for years through his startups Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, with Weygers cited as an early inspiration for what could come next.
Earlier this year, Kitty Hawk released a video for a product that, if you squint hard enough, shares a lineage with what Weygers did way back when, with maybe inspiration from all the things that have come along since.
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.
Nature is a fantastic thing that offers many weird and wonderful occurrences. One of these things is light. With different colors, patterns, and shapes, light can create beautiful scenes for so many people to admire. The Northern Lights are probably the most famous example of this, but that doesn't mean there aren't others. For example, a similar occurrence which took place in the province of Sulu this year has been captured in several photos shared by netizens. Now, they've spread all over the world for everyone to see, and they're spectacular.
Amarkhan Jidara, who has shared several photos of the spectacular dance of lights in the night sky, has said that the latest celestial show the province has witnessed was last Sunday, June 30th, 2019 at 7 p.m. local time. There have also been a number of other sightings throughout this year, as well as previous years with Sulu residents claiming to see at least one or two of these peculiar light shows every year. According to Jidara, the residents were awestruck at the sight of lights in the sky, as anyone would be. Just looking at these stunning images is enough to blow anyone away, that's for sure.
What are they?
As with any strange event, people want to know what it is and what's causing it. Here, it's not that simple. There are a huge number of theories and names for these lights but no one has been proved right as of yet. Local Tausugs call the lights "Lansuk-Lansuk" or candles but have opposing beliefs about the appearance of the lights. Some think it brings bad luck or tragedy, while others look at it as a sign of good luck and fortune.
Many scientists have said that, similar to the Northern Lights, it's simply electrons and gases interacting in such a way where they release photons giving off light and creating the beautiful aurora that is seen from Earth. That said, these aren't the Northern Lights and there really is any number of possible events that could be causing it.
NASA’S Curiosity Mars Rover has photographed a truly unexpected anomaly amid the Red Planet’s rocky surface – an terrestrial bird seemingly in flight, which a UFO expert claims could be proof Curiosity is not on Mars at all.
US space agency NASA has been exploring the Gale Crater on Mars since 2012 via its car-sized Curiosity rover. The NASA rover’s comprehensive mission involves examining the apparently arid Martian climate and geology and even assessing whether microbial forms of alien life ever existed on the Red Planet. Now a prominent UFO conspiracy theorist believes the NASA Curiosity Rover has captured a flying bird in one of its Red Planet photos.
Well-known alien life hunter and UFO conspiracy theorist Scott C Waring took to his etdatabase.com blog to broadcast his outlandish claims.
He wrote: “This flying bird on Mars was found by Marcelo Irazusta who actually found a bird flying across the surface of Mars captured last week by the Curiosity Rover!
“This is impossible, and yet, there it is … captured in a photo on a NASA website.
“The Curiosity Rover has a 13 minute delay from the time they push the keys on Earth to the time rover gets it.
“So if this is a large bird, then it was taken by accident and was probably not in that area for long.
NASA proof of aliens? A UFO hunter claims to have spotted a bird in flight on Mars
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NASA’S Curiosity Mars Rover has photographed a truly unexpected anomaly amid the Red Planet’s rocky surface – an terrestrial bird seemingly in flight, which a UFO expert claims could be proof Curiosity is not on Mars at all.
US space agency NASA has been exploring the Gale Crater on Mars since 2012 via its car-sized Curiosity rover. The NASA rover’s comprehensive mission involves examining the apparently arid Martian climate and geology and even assessing whether microbial forms of alien life ever existed on the Red Planet. Now a prominent UFO conspiracy theorist believes the NASA Curiosity Rover has captured a flying bird in one of its Red Planet photos.
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Well-known alien life hunter and UFO conspiracy theorist Scott C Waring took to his etdatabase.com blog to broadcast his outlandish claims.
Either animals exist on Mars or … the rover might not be on Mars at all, but on Devon Island
Scott Waring
He wrote: “This flying bird on Mars was found by Marcelo Irazusta who actually found a bird flying across the surface of Mars captured last week by the Curiosity Rover!
“This is impossible, and yet, there it is … captured in a photo on a NASA website.
“The Curiosity Rover has a 13 minute delay from the time they push the keys on Earth to the time rover gets it.
“So if this is a large bird, then it was taken by accident and was probably not in that area for long.PROMOTED STORY
NASA proof of aliens? The so-called sighting is little more than a black speck (Image: NASA)
“Of course it could be a UFO – aliens like to use nature to inspire their structures and ships.’
The so-called sighting is little more than a black speck showing up against a great sky in the black and white photograph taken on Sol 2446.
Mr Waring speculated about the potential ramifications of such a dubious find.
He wrote: “It looks like a soaring eagle … which if this is true, it may mean one of two things.
“Either animals exist on Mars or – and I hate this idea, but it needs to be considered – the rover might not be on Mars at all, but on Devon island in Canada.
Artificiële intelligentie: het einde van menselijke controle of niet?
Artificiële intelligentie: het einde van menselijke controle of niet?
Onze apparaten, digitale assistenten en zelfs onze auto’s lijken soms te weten wat we willen, zonder dat we ernaar vragen. Toeval? Nee hoor, ze worden steeds slimmer door artificiële intelligentie. Het lijkt toekomstmuziek, maar in werkelijkheid zijn er al heel wat snufjes die gebruik maken van AI. Wat betekent dat voor ons dagelijks leven en moeten we er bang voor zijn? Flore van BEEGO houdt deze evolutie tegen het licht.
Wat is artificiële intelligentie?
In een vorig artikel hadden we het al over digitale assistenten zoals Siri, Alexa en Cortana die bijvoorbeeld je digitale agenda bijhouden, je favoriete muziek afspelen en je leven op allerhande manieren efficiënter maken. Een digitale assistent is een voorbeeld van artificiële intelligentie, maar het gaat nog veel verder dan dat.
AI (artificiële intelligentie) is een enorm uitgebreid wetenschappelijk domein waarin onderzocht wordt hoe computers, machines en apparaten zelfstandig problemen kunnen oplossen. Met behulp van ingewikkelde algoritmes verwerken de systemen gigantische hoeveelheden data om daaruit te leren en zo menselijke intelligentie te imiteren.
Artificiële intelligentie leert de menselijke intelligentie te imiteren.
Zo’n zelflerend algoritme kan patronen herkennen, en door te leren uit de eigen fouten, levert het achteraf een beter resultaat. Op dit moment zijn de meeste intelligente systemen nog maar gespecialiseerd in één taak, en ze zijn zich niet bewust van de taken die ze uitvoeren. Zo kunnen ze bijvoorbeeld wel een kat herkennen op een foto, maar ze beseffen zelf niet wat een kat precies is. Daarvoor moet AI nog verder ontwikkeld worden.
Waarschijnlijk maak jij ook al gebruik van AI in je dagelijkse leven, bijvoorbeeld met:
Waze, een navigatie-app die de reisgegevens van jou en andere gebruikers inzet om de snelste route te berekenen,
Online chatbots, soms word je op een website te woord gestaan door een chatbot die antwoorden kan formuleren op vaak gestelde vragen,
Facebook, de manier waarop en welke berichten je te zien krijgt in je nieuwsoverzicht, ja hoor, daar is ook AI mee gemoeid.
Bedreiging voor de mensheid?
AI evolueert aan een razendsnel tempo. Daarom waarschuwen sommige experts voor de risico’s die het met zich meebrengt.
Zo kan het voor een stuk de controle van de mens wegnemen als er steeds meer beslissingen automatisch genomen worden. Daarom vreest men dat we op langere termijn onze kennis en initiatiefzin kwijtraken.
Daarnaast zijn het vooral grote bedrijven en overheden die inzetten op AI. Wat als ze alle data die de systemen vergaren gaan misbruiken en inzetten als een politiek wapen? Of als een oorlogswapen? Legers over de hele wereld hebben de afgelopen jaren hun investeringen in autonome technologie aanzienlijk verhoogd. Daarmee zouden ze wel eens wapens kunnen ontwikkelen die zichzelf besturen en kille, onmenselijke beslissingen kunnen nemen.
Andere experts voorspellen dan weer dat artificiële intelligentie veel jobs zal overnemen en dat er hierdoor een chaos in de samenleving zal ontstaan.
Of verrijking voor mensheid?
Gezondheidszorg
De overgrote meerderheid van experts in het domein zien de toekomst positiever in en verwachten grootse dingen van AI, vooral in de gezondheidszorg. Zo kan AI de levenskwaliteit en overlevingskansenverhogen van patiënten in de gezondheids- en ouderenzorg.
AI kan nu al beter dan 'echte' artsen longontstekingen detecteren en autisme voorspellen.Intelligente software kan bijvoorbeeld net zo goed als artsen symptomen interpreteren en diagnoses stellen bij bepaalde aandoeningen. Volgens het Amerikaanse wetenschappelijke tijdschrift IEEE Spectrum is AI vandaag zelfs al beter dan ‘echte’ artsen in staat om longontstekingen te diagnosticeren en autisme te voorspellen op basis van hersenscans.
Daarnaast kan AI je helpen om langer, veiliger en comfortabel thuis te blijven wonen. Slimme toestellen kunnen iemand verwittigen in noodsituaties, je eraan herinneren je medicijnen te nemen of zelfs detecteren wanneer je gevallen bent of wanneer je hartslag onregelmatig is.
Ogen voor blinden en slechtzienden
Verschillende bedrijven ontwikkelen software die beelden omschrijft aan blinden en slechtzienden met spraaktechnologie. Zo maakt de app ‘Lookout’ van Google handig gebruik van artificiële intelligentie: het enige wat de gebruiker moet doen, is z’n smartphone richten naar iets dat ie wilt zien, en de app vertelt welke personen, tekst of objecten zich voor de camera bevinden. In de eerste fase heeft Google de app beperkt uitgebracht in de VS om hem te blijven verbeteren op basis van feedback de gebruikers. (Foto: Google Play)
Ook Facebook en Instagram werken aan een tool die de inhoud van beelden herkent, zodat ook blinden en slechtzienden sociale media kunnen gebruiken.
Eerlijkere rechtspraak?
Juridische processen kunnen zeer traag en inefficiënt verlopen. Artificiële intelligentie zou hier een oplossing voor kunnen bieden en ook vandaag wordt het al ingezet. Zo berekenen algoritmes hoe groot de kans is dat iemand een misdrijf nog eens zal plegen en helpen ze rechters te beslissen of ze een borgtocht weigeren of aanvaarden.
Er zijn onvolkomenheden aan deze aanpak, omdat de software gevoed wordt door criminele feiten uit het verleden en op die manier zelf verbanden leert leggen die misschien niet altijd kloppen voor de persoon over wie een oordeel geveld moet worden. Toch kan AI ook een meerwaarde betekenen voor het gerecht: algoritmes worden bijvoorbeeld niet beïnvloed door een slechte nachtrust, aankomende verkiezingen of een voetbalwedstrijd die ze willen bijwonen, rechters wel.
Robocop
Politierobots waren een paar jaar geleden misschien nog sciencefiction, maar we zullen ze in de toekomst steeds vaker tegenkomen. Politierobots kunnen repetitief of saai werk overnemen, maar ze kunnen ook ingezet worden op gevaarlijke of moeilijk bereikbare plekken. Zo vergroten ze de veiligheid van zowel de burgers als de ‘echte’ politieagenten en vullen ze het groeiende tekort aan politieagenten op.
Verschillende politiekorpsen ter wereld maken al gebruik van robotica, en sinds dit jaar is de eerste robotagente in dienst in een korps in India. De KP-Bot, een vrouwelijke onderofficier, zit aan de balie in het politiebureau en begeleidt bezoekers naar de juiste afdelingen. Ze kan verbaal met mensen communiceren, klachten opnemen en informatie tonen op haar scherm.
Veel onderzoek nodig
Er zijn nog een heleboel andere toepassingen van artificiële intelligentie, maar het is duidelijk: AI biedt ons de mogelijkheid om enerzijds het werk efficiënter aan te pakken in verschillende bedrijfstakken en anderzijds om ons leven op allerhande manieren makkelijker te maken. Om de risico’s en knelpunten aan te pakken, is er nog veel onderzoek en tijd nodig om artificiële intelligentie een waardesysteem aan te leren en zelfs een gevoel voor empathie.
Om deze complexe technologie te ontwikkelen, en de systemen te controleren, onderhouden en blijven verbeteren, blijven er natuurlijk mensen nodig. AI zal sommige jobs overbodig maken, andere aanvullen, maar het zal er ook heel veel creëren.
Wij zijn alvast benieuwd wat de toekomst brengt! En jij?
Unlike our pinkish, frail frames, mold may be able to survive on the outside walls of our spaceships. Even when drenched in hard radiation.
Image via Pixabay.
The International Space Station isn’t as squeaky-clean as you’d expect: in fact, it turns out that our current home in space is plagued by mold. Every week, astronauts spend several hours scrubbing and cleaning its inside walls to prevent this mold from impacting their health.
However, new research suggests that efforts to completely de-mold the ISS may be in vain. Mold spores can survive even on the outside walls of the station and can bear radiation levels thousands of times harsher than ourselves. The results also point to mold as a useful ally on space travels, which could help supply the crew with biological products such as antibiotics or vitamins.
Stowaways, cosmic rays
“We now know that [fungal spores] resist radiation much more than we thought they would, to the point where we need to take them into consideration when we are cleaning spacecraft, inside and outside,” said Marta Cortesão, a microbiologist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, who presented the findings at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference.
“If we’re planning a long duration mission, we can plan on having these mold spores with us because probably they will survive the space travel.”
Mold spores can withstand extreme temperatures, ultraviolet light, chemicals and dry conditions. This resiliency makes them hard to kill. Spores of the two most common mold types on the ISS — Aspergillus and Pennicillium — can survive exposure to X-ray levels at over 200 times the deadly dose for humans, the team found. The findings show how important planetary protection protocols designed to prevent spacecraft from contaminating other planets with Earth-borne life are, and that we need to reconsider how much of a threat fungi spores are from this point of view.
The good news is that these two species aren’t generally harmful to humans. They can impact people with weakened immune systems in cases of extreme exposure (i.e. when inhaling a large quantity of these spores). However, Cortesão believes we can coax these molds to work in our favor. Fungi are more similar to us, genetically, than bacteria: they’re made up of complex cells with a structure resembling ours, and they come equipped with the biochemical machinery to synthesize polymers, food, vitamins, and other useful molecules astronauts may need on extended trips beyond Earth.
“Mold can be used to produce important things, compounds like antibiotics and vitamins. It’s not only bad, a human pathogen and a food spoiler, it also can be used to produce antibiotics or other things needed on long missions,” Cortesão said.
In the lab, Cortesão exposed fungal spores with ionizing radiation, high-frequency ultraviolet light, and heavy ions to see how they fared. Ionizing radiation kills cells by damaging their DNA and other essential cellular infrastructure but gets blocked by our planet’s magnetic field (the ISS also benefits from this shielding). Earth’s ozone layer protects us from high-energy UV down here on the surface. However, spacecraft going to the Moon or Mars would be exposed to both.
Cortesão reports that the spores survived exposure to X-rays up to1000 gray, exposure to heavy ions at 500 gray and exposure to ultraviolet light up to 3000 joules per meter squared. Gray is a measure of absorbed dose of ionizing radiation (joules of radiation energy per kilogram of tissue). Half a gray is the threshold for radiation sickness in humans, while five gray is the lethal threshold.
A 180-day voyage (about as long as we’d need to get to Mars) is estimated to expose passengers to around 0.7 gray. In other words, it could cause some issues for the human crew, but not for the mold.
In the future, the team plans to expand its search to understand how the combination of radiation, vacuum, low temperature, and low gravity in space affects the fungi.
The findings ” Fungal Spore Resistance to Space Radiation” have been presented at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon 2019) on the 28th of June.
It is unclear how many intelligent civilizations have arisen in the Milky Way galaxy so far, but if some have, a pressing question comes to mind: were they or are they more intelligent than we are?
When reading the morning newspaper, it is difficult to avoid the thought that our own intelligence bar is not particularly high nor difficult to surpass. We fight among ourselves in “lose-lose” situations; we do not promote long-term solutions over short-term fixes; and we have been broadcasting our existence to the galaxy with radio waves for over a century without worrying whether about whether there are any predators or competitors in outer space. (If it’s the latter, they might have been ignoring us because we appear so incompetent.)
If other civilizations do exist, one key in becoming aware of them is whether we are intelligent enough to adequately interpret their signals or to identify a piece of their technology if it should appear in our solar system. One fact is clear: if we assign a zero prior probability for such evidence coming our way, as some scientists did in the case of ‘Oumuamua by invoking the principle “it’s never aliens,” we will indeed never find any. We will be like ostriches burying our heads in the sand.
In fact, this attitude may be one sign that our intelligence isn’t very impressive—that the human race as a whole suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those with mediocre abilities insist that they’re unusually talented or smart.
How can our civilization mature? The same way kids do: by leaving home, going out into the neighborhood, meeting others and comparing notes with them. In other words, we can develop a balanced perspective on our current technological accomplishments by engaging in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since our own technological development accelerates exponentially with an e-folding time of a few years, it is difficult to imagine what a much more advanced technology crafted by a civilization that had lived for a cosmic timescale—billions of such e-folding times—would look like.
As natural as this suggestion to search might seem, however it is evident that SETI faces a hostile mainstream culture in astronomy. The simple proposal to consider the possibility that ‘Oumumua is technological debrisas an explanation for its unusual properties, for example was met with controversy on social media.
True, SETI carries non-scientific baggage related to unrealistic aspects of the science fiction literature and unsubstantiated reports about unidentified flying objects (UFOs)—something SETI researchers sometimes refer to as the “giggle factor.” But at the same time, it would be a strategic mistake for observers to restrict the interpretation of data from their telescopes and not search for “other kids in our neighborhood” just because of this baggage. The existence of extraterrestrial intelligence has nothing to do with the credibility of science fiction stories of UFO reports. The problem with adopting this wrong attitude is that it delays scientific progress. Grant applicants are frequently asked to forecast the scientific discoveries they will make if their application is approved—but by bracketing the range of possibilities in advance, we might never discover the unexpected. Instead we cultivate a scientific culture that tends to replicate what we already know.
History teaches us that this is a mistake. The search for extrasolar planets encountered mainstream resistance in its early days. Observing proposals to search for low-hanging fruits, such as “hot Jupiters”—which are easiest to detect—were rejected by conservative committees of telescope-time allocation that argued that such planets should not exist in nature based on what we know about the solar system. But discovery forged ahead as some observers dared to challenge this prejudice, demonstrating that hot Jupiters are abundant. There was 40-year delay, however, given that the first theoretical proposal to do such a search was made by Otto Struve as early as in 1952.
Hence, an obvious obstacle to identifying our neighbors is the tendency to limit our imagination to what we already know. But this should not necessarily remain the case in the future. What we imagine for extraterrestrial life should not be solely defined by the natural chemical and geological processes that took place spontaneously on Earth. We could, for example produce synthetic life in the laboratory under a broader range of conditions than those with which we are familiar. Metaphorically, we could bake new kinds of cakes using the same ingredients, expanding the book of recipes handed to us by Mother Earth.
Realizing that life can exist under new conditions will improve our forecasts for where to search for it in space and how to interpret our findings, in just the same way that the laws of physics—which were first revealed in laboratory experiments—allowed astrophysicists to study the universe billions of light years away.
An important survival skill in the company of unknown neighbors is to listen before speaking out. Given our sloppy behavior in transmitting signals to outer space without restraint, we can only hope that we have not become the laughingstock of our galactic neighborhood by now. But even if we have, we can still get our act together and do better in the future. In order to know how to behave, we should find out first who is on our street by searching with our best telescopes for unusual electromagnetic flashes, industrial pollution of planetary atmospheres, artificial light or heat, artificial space debris or something completely unexpected.
Fortunately, we possess instruments that are sensitive enough to find out not only whether we have neighbors but also whether they have noticed us already.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
We steken als struisvogels onze kop in het zand. Professor legt uit waarom aliens waarschijnlijk slimmer zijn dan wij
We steken als struisvogels onze kop in het zand. Professor legt uit waarom aliens waarschijnlijk slimmer zijn dan wij
Als we willen achterhalen of er andere beschavingen bestaan, is het van groot belang dat we hun signalen kunnen interpreteren en hun technologie kunnen onderscheiden. Dat schrijft professor Avi Loeb voor Scientific American.
Als we bij voorbaat al stellen dat een vreemd object niet door buitenaardsen kan zijn gemaakt – zoals in het geval van Oumuamua – dan zullen we ook nooit aliens gaan vinden, stelt Loeb.
We steken als struisvogels onze kop in het zand, klinkt het.
Tegengehouden
Dit gedrag kan volgens hem een teken zijn dat onze intelligentie niet veel voorstelt: dat het menselijk ras als geheel lijdt aan het dunning-krugereffect, dus dat incompetente mensen juist door hun incompetentie het vermogen missen om te zien dat hun keuzes en conclusies verkeerd zijn.
Loeb wijst erop dat wetenschappelijke vooruitgang op allerlei manieren wordt tegengehouden.
Zo stuitte de zoektocht naar exoplaneten in eerste instantie op weerstand vanuit de mainstream.
Giechelfactor
Conservatieve commissies belemmerden het onderzoek naar ‘hete Jupiters’, die het gemakkelijkst te detecteren zijn, door te beweren dat ze niet bestonden.
Sommige waarnemers besloten toch op onderzoek uit te gaan en toonden aan dat hete Jupiters veelvuldig voorkomen.
Het SETI-onderzoek wordt daarnaast beperkt door UFO-waarnemingen. In dit geval wordt ook wel van de ‘giechelfactor’ gesproken.
Beperken
Een ander obstakel, zo stelt Loeb, is dat we ons voorstellingsvermogen beperken tot datgene wat we al weten.
Maar buitenaards leven hoeft niet te worden gedefinieerd door dezelfde chemische en geologische processen die op aarde hebben plaatsgevonden, zegt hij.
Gelukkig beschikken we over instrumenten die gevoelig genoeg zijn om te achterhalen of we buren hebben, en ook of ze ons al hebben opgemerkt, besluit Loeb.
Excavation of ancient Chinese tombs have revealed the oldest human skulls which were intentionally reshaped as part of a ritual to show status and wealth.
At a site called Houtaomuga, scientists unearthed 25 skeletons dating to between 5,000 and 12,000 years ago and 11 had the egg-shaped craniums.
The practice of skull elongation - to signify group affiliation or social status - originally was thought to date back between 9,000 and 10,000 years.
It was common in various tribal cultures around the world, such as the Mayans, North American natives and Aboriginal people.
The team, from Texas A&M University in Dallas, say five of the skulls belonged to adults, including four men and one woman.
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At a site called Houtaomuga, scientists unearthed 25 skeletons dating to between around 12,000 years ago and 5,000 years ago. Of those, 11 featured skulls with artificially elongated braincases and flattened bones at the front and back of the head
The ages of death for all 11 skulls is estimated to range from three years old right up to 40.
According to the study, skull reshaping was reserved for high-status individuals and certain families.
The three-year-old with the elongated skull was buried with pieces of pottery and other artefacts, suggesting he was from a wealthy family.
The woman had a number of shell ornaments placed on her body, which indicates she was also of high status.
'It is too early to tell whether intentional cranial modification first emerged in East Asia and spread elsewhere or originated independently in different places,' paleoanthropologist Qian Wang.
Cranial modification, or skull stretching, occurred over a long stretch of time at the site than at any other archaeological dig the researchers said.
Skull stretching it isn't a new phenomenon. The head moulding styles fell into three groups: flat, round or conical.
Artificially remodeled human skulls unearthed at a site in northeastern China include one of a man from around 12,000 years ago (left in this composite image) and another of a woman from about 5,000 years ago (right), the study found
According to the study, skull reshaping was reserved for high-status individuals and certain families. The three-year-old with the elongated skull was buried with pieces of pottery and other artefacts, suggesting he was from a wealthy family
Specific head modifications may have been used as signs of social status.
Oddly shaped, intentionally stretched skulls have been found in many parts of the world.
Permanent reshaping of a skull early in life, when cranial bones are soft, can be achieved by compressing an infant's head with one's hands.
Binding the head with hard, flat surfaces such as boards or tightly wrapping the head in cloth similarly remodels immature cranial bones.
Houtaomuga was excavated from 2011 to 2015 and the skulls found a the site add to a growing body of evidence of cranial reshaping from the site which stretches back 6,000 years, the study said.
A man's skeleton with a modified skull was found in a tomb dating to between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, based on styles of pottery found in the same sediment layer.
Radiocarbon dating of the skeleton placed it at around 12,000 years old. Two sediment layers dating to between 6,300 and 5,000 years old contained 10 skeletons with reshaped skulls.
The practice of skull elongation - to signify group affiliation or social status - dates back 9,000 years
Common in various tribal cultures around the world (such as Mayans, North American natives and Australian Aboriginal people), the head moulding styles fell into three groups: flat, round or conical.
To achieve the desired shape, the head was wrapped in tight cloth.
In the case of cranial flattening, the head was placed between two pieces of wood.
The technique would usually be carried out on an infant, when the skull is at its most pliable.
The cloth would be applied from a month after birth and be held in place for about six months.
Sometimes, skulls were modified as a sign of social status.
For example, ancient Collagua people, who lived in the Colca Valley of southeastern Peru, likely modified the heads of babies using bandages or special hats, in order to elongate their heads.
Analyses of skull and bone specimens dating from 1150 to 1450 indicate that those with elongated skulls had broader diets as well as fewer signs of physical attacks perpetrated against them.
The oldest human skulls that were intentionally elongated were excavated from ancient Chinese tombs at a site called Houtaomuga from 2011 to 2015 (pictures of the skulls can be seen here). Scientists uncovered 25 skeletons that date back from between 5,000 and 12,000 years ago. Of those 25 that were discovered, 11 of them had elongated egg-shaped skulls with five of those belonging to adults (four men and one woman). The age of death for the eleven skulls was between 3 years of age and 40 years of age. This is significant because it was previously believed that elongated skulls dated back only between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The woman that was uncovered was buried with shell ornaments that were placed on her body which indicated that she was of high social status. Pieces of pottery and several other artifacts were buried with the three-year-old which also indicated that he belonged to a wealthy family. One of the men who were found was buried with pottery that date back between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago.
Copy of a statue showing an elongated skull
The ancients reshaped their skulls in order to demonstrate wealth and social status. It was in fact a quite common ritual in different tribal cultures from different parts of the world, such as Aboriginals, North American natives, and the Mayans. However, it is still uncertain where skull elongation originated from. “It is too early to tell whether intentional cranial modification first emerged in East Asia and spread elsewhere or originated independently in different places,” stated paleoanthropologist Qian Wang.
Cranial modification (or skull stretching) occurred for the longest period of time at the Houtaomuga site, more than any other archaeological site. There were three different types of skull stretching – flat, round, and conical.
(Not one of the elongated skulls found at Houtaomuga)
Skull reshaping was conducted in early childhood when the cranial bones of an infant’s head were soft and the skull was compressed by the hands of an adult. First, the child’s head would be wrapped in a tight cloth. The cloth would stay on the infant’s head beginning when the child was a month old and remained there for around six months. In order to flatten the skull, the head would be placed between two boards.
The research was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology which can be read here.
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