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...
27-08-2019
NASA ASTRONAUT ACCUSED OF FIRST SPACE CRIME
NASA ASTRONAUT ACCUSED OF FIRST SPACE CRIME
NASA/VICTOR TANGERMANN
KRISTIN HOUSER
Space Crime
NASA astronaut Anne McClain is at the center of what may be the first-ever crime committed in space.
On Friday, The New York Timesreported that McClain’s estranged wife, Summer Worden, discovered that someone had accessed her bank account while McClain was on board the International Space Station — and the computer network that person used was registered to NASA.
Two Sides
According to the NYT’s story, Worden has since filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing McClain of “identity theft and improper access to Ms. Worden’s private financial records,” while her family has filed a complaint with NASA’s Office of Inspector General.
During an under-oath interview with the Inspector General, McClain admitted that she accessed the bank account, but said she had Worden’s permission to do so.
Old Problems, New Venue
It might seem odd that the first space crime accusation has nothing in particular to do with space — it’s the type of marital dispute that happens regularly here on Earth.
However, Mark Sundahl, director of the Global Space Law Center at Cleveland State University, sees the allegation as an expected development given humanity’s increasing number of off-world endeavors.
“The more we go out there and spend time out there,” he told the NYT, “all the things we do here are going to happen in space.”
Like many NASA missions, Clipper will be looking for potential signs of life.
"We are building upon the scientific insights received from the flagship Galileo and Cassini spacecraft and working to advance our understanding of our cosmic origin, and even life elsewhere," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
NASA hopes to have Clipper ready to launch by 2023, but the space agency is giving it some leeway to take off as late as 2025. Here's hoping for smooth sailing.
Ex UFO-chief claims he quit US government over alien encounter ‘cover-up’
Ex UFO-chief claims he quit US government over alien encounter ‘cover-up’
Debbie White
A FORMER X-Files boss says he quit a secret US government programme over an alien encounter “cover-up”.
Luis Elizondo swears that the existence of aliens, travelling at speeds of up to 8,000mph, has been proven "beyond reasonable doubt”.
Former head of the Pentagon’s real life X-Files programme, Luis Elizondo
Credit: YouTube
The distinguished former intelligence officer ran the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Programme in the US, which looked into UFOs
Credit: Getty - Contributor
New TV series explores UFO sightings
Elizondo has spoken up as part of a crack team of UFO researchers exposing the incredible secrets of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the American government’s secret UFO operation.
He features in a new six-part TV show, "Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation".
It sheds new light on unidentified flying phenomena in the US and around the world, according to television network History, which is airing the show in the UK from August 26.
The show has uncovered “shocking revelations from sources close to the Pentagon, the FBI and the US government”, History claimed.
Elizondo, a distinguished former intelligence officer, was the head of the secretive AATIP, run by a team of 12 in the Pentagon.
MORE WORK ON UFOS
But he quit the job in 2017, telling military bosses that the government was not taking sightings of unidentified craft by American warplanes seriously enough.
His letter, which was leaked, asked why more time wasn't being spent on the issue, to work out "capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation".
Elizondo claims that several countries, including Britain, have been visited by beings in extremely advanced and unidentified aircraft, given that UFOs observed had "extreme manoeuvrability and hypersonic velocity".
In an interview with The Sunday Times last year, he said that there were UFO sightings where "performance parameters were so off the charts" they could not have been dismissed as a drone, missile or aircraft.
History said 'Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation' exposes 'incredible secrets'
The show also features revelations from former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge
One such example was an encounter between US commander David Fravor and an alien aircraft "shaped like a 40ft Tic Tac sweet".
The retired Navy pilot said: "It was rounded on both ends and had a cylindrical body."
Although he tried chasing it, the UFO sped off faster than any other aircraft and disappeared. Elizondo recently revealed a cockpit video of Fravor's 2004 encounter.
The alien aircraft was shaped like a 40ft Tic Tac sweet.
Retired US Commander David Fravor
After quitting the clandestine government UFO investigation unit, the X-Files expert joined like-minded people in the "To The Stars Academy", led by Blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge.
A public benefit corporation set up in 2017, the academy is a “collaboration between academia, industry and pop culture to advance society’s understanding of scientific phenomena and its technological implications.”
History's 'Unidentified' show features UFO-believer DeLonge and researchers such as Elizondo, who reveals details of the US government’s awareness, and cover-up of, extra-terrestrial lifeforms on earth.
The network said that the episodes include “footage recorded from the cockpit of supposed encounters and testimony from pilots whose planes flew by these 'craft' as well as classified reports from foreign governments”.
Former US commander David Fravor was flying an F18 fighter when he spotted a white unidentified craftCredit: ABC
'CREATURE OF THE SHADOWS'
Elizondo said: “I am a creature of the shadows; I spent my entire life in the shadows and it was a matter of survival for me.
“Being able to have the conversation now with the American people so they can finally know what’s going on… is a great privilege and honour for me.”
He admitted, however, that as ex-military intelligence, “I have a non-disclosure agreement with the US government. I still can’t talk about classified things.”
DeLonge told History he hoped the show would help switch the conversaton about UFOs “from being a fringe subject for the tin-foil hat brigade to a legitimate subject for discussion.
“My hope for the future is that people are no longer discussing if this is real or not.”
History UK tweeted: “This series is going to change people’s perception and it’s going to change it quickly.”
The show starts on History, August 26, in the UKCredit: Twitter/@HistoryUK
Tom DeLonge tweeted about the research, uncovered on 'Identified: Inside America's UFO Investigation'
Voormalige UFO-baas Amerikaanse overheid nam ontslag vanwege cover-up rond aliens. Wat weet hij?
Voormalige UFO-baas Amerikaanse overheid nam ontslag vanwege cover-up rond aliens. Wat weet hij?
Een voormalige X-Files-baas heeft gezegd dat hij het Amerikaanse UFO-programma heeft verlaten omdat contact met aliens ‘in de doofpot is gestopt’.
Luis Elizondo, die jarenlang aan het hoofd stond van het geheime UFO-project van het Pentagon, stelt dat het bestaan van aliens onomstotelijk is bewezen, schrijft The Sun.
Elizondo is te zien in een nieuwe tv-serie getiteld ‘Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation’.
Niet serieus
De serie werpt een nieuw licht op onbekende vliegende objecten die in de Verenigde Staten en de rest van de wereld worden gezien.
Bronnen dicht bij het Pentagon, de FBI en de Amerikaanse overheid doen in de serie ‘schokkende onthullingen’, aldus zender History.
Elizondo nam in 2017 ontslag omdat de overheid UFO-waarnemingen door gevechtspiloten volgens hem niet serieus nam.
Wezens
In zijn ontslagbrief vroeg hij waarom er niet meer tijd werd gespendeerd aan het fenomeen.
Hij claimde verder dat verschillende landen, waaronder Groot-Brittannië, zijn bezocht door wezens in extreem geavanceerde vaartuigen.
In een interview met de Sunday Times afgelopen jaar zei hij dat er UFO’s waren die zulke gekke dingen deden dat het geen drone, raket of vliegtuig konden zijn.
Geheimhoudingsverklaring
Onlangs sloot hij zich aan bij een onderzoeksgroep onder leiding van medeoprichter van de band Blink-182 Tom DeLonge.
In de tv-serie onthullen DeLonge en Elizondo wat de Amerikaanse overheid weet over buitenaardse levensvormen op aarde en hoe dit in de doofpot is gestopt.
Elizondo wees er wel op dat hij een geheimhoudingsverklaring heeft moeten ondertekenen, wat betekent dat hij nog niet kan praten over dingen die geheim zijn.
“There have been signs, symbols and objects in the skies of earth described as snakes, swords, lights and rockets. Slow-moving so-called meteors have zig-zagged their way above the clouds, and stratospheric explosions have rocked the land below. Mysterious rays stopped airplane motors over the world’s largest city as unidentified phantom planes puzzled the war departments of four nations. Ships and men were observed to drop from the heavens in isolated areas only to vanish.”
The rather bombastic passage above may bear a certain familiarity for some readers, particularly among those who have enjoyed the work of Charles Hoy Fort, that reclusive and often recalcitrant chronicler of all things “Damned” by the sciences. During the early part of the 20th century, Fort wrote of unusual phenomena in nature, penned in an idiosyncratic style of prose that paired florid passages with quick, jerky sentences. Ultimately, his unusual style of offerings would define an entire genre, and inspire other writers to seek out similar “forbidden” knowledge in the decades to come.
The quoted passage at the outset was not one of Fort’s offerings, however. These had been the words of one of Fort’s many admirers and imitators, although one that is perhaps too-often overlooked for his influence: Vincent Hayes Gaddis, an American writer who was perhaps best known for coining the term “Bermuda Triangle.”
Vincent Gaddis
Gaddis, born in Ohio in 1913, had worked as a writer in a number of career professions throughout the 1940s and 50s, before becoming a freelance writer. He also authored a number of books, among them American Indian Myths and Mysteries, a sensational contribution to the enduring genre of ancient mysteries, which was once described by Rutgers University historian William K. Powers as “histrionic and sensational, differing from Greek tragedy only in that it requires a deus ex machina beginning, rather than ending,” and an altogether “outrageous and intolerable book” similar in effect to the works of Erich von Däniken.
In his article “Creators of the Paranormal,” Joe Nickel noted in the May/June 2016 edition of Skeptical Enquirer how Gaddis ultimately gave a name to the allegedly mysterious region of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and planes were said to go missing:
His article in the February 1964 Argosy landed on major American newsstands and gave the mystery area a definitive name and ominous tone: “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle.” Gaddis followed a year later with a book on sea mysteries, Invisible Horizons (1965), in which a chapter gave an alternate, even more ominous name for the area, “The Triangle of Death.”
It might be argued, however, that the Bermuda Triangle had not been the only paranormal concept that Gaddis had helped to develop with his writing. In the June 1947 issue of Amazing Stories, an edition of the popular pulp magazine famous for having put the so-called “Shaver Mystery” on the map, Gaddis contributed an article entitled “Visitors from the Void,” in which he described a number of instances of unexplained aerial phenomena. For example:
“In April a light was observed at Jefferstown, Ky., in the midnight sky. It was over Fisherville, to the east, size of a large cantaloupe, glowed and receded in brillance like a heart throb, casting its light like a lampshade over the town. After ten minutes it vanished. On May 4 in the early morning there was a flash of light and an explosion reported over six states. Visible for three seconds. Buildings shaken.”
The emulation of Fort is obvious, right down to the sentence fragments and omission of copula (i.e. connecting words). However, what makes Gaddis’s 1947 article interesting apart from its unabashed Fortean derivation is the timing of the subject matter. In June of 1947, around the same time that his article appeared in print, the modern UFO phenomenon first entered the public zeitgeist with pilot Kenneth Arnold’s report of seeing “flying saucers” over Mount Rainer, Washington, on June 24th.
Obviously, Gaddis had to have written his article prior to June 1947 for it to have been included for publication in the edition of Amazing Stories for the month in question. Hence, his selection of subject matter could not have been influenced by the sudden media attention the “saucers” would be getting after Arnold’s sighting, which occurred just weeks later.
Another sample of Gaddis’s offerings from Visitors from the Void reads as follows:
“At 7:30 p. m. on the evening of June 1, 1945, something whizzed through the sky over Morganton, N. C, traveling northwest,” Gaddis reported in the article. “Tubular in shape, shiny, gleaming in the light as if covered with aluminum, five or six feet long, with a blue flame spurting from its tail. It disappeared in the vicinity of the mountains near Lake James and shortly later an explosive sound was heard.”
This description sounds almost reminiscent of the now-famous “Tic Tac” object or aircraft observed by Navy pilots in 2004, in association with the radar-visual UAP encounter reported by the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group at that time off the coast of southern California. With the exception of the “blue flame” the object produced, it is eerily similar in description to the object pilots Dave Fravor and others at the time of the 2004 incident described seeing.
It is also notable for the location, since Morganton, NC and the nearby Lake James are both near the area of Brown Mountain, which has long been associated with sightings of unusual nocturnal illuminations. This fact was not missed by Gaddis either, who noted the following:
“Near Morganton is Brown Mountain, scene of mysterious lights since the Civil War that are so puzzling that government geologists have conducted fruitless investigations. In my files is a long article on the Brown Mountain mystery that appeared in the Literary Digest for Nov. 7, 1925. These lights are about the size of a toy balloon, vary in color, move about, and appear and disappear abruptly.”
In addition to writing about aerial phenomenon in a way that seemingly anticipates modern UFOlogy (and only weeks before the appearance of flying saucers in the American media), Gaddis also notes a number of locations in his 1947 article which would later become staples of paranormal books and other media. For instance, Point Pleasant West Virginia also makes an appearance, as Gaddis describes an incident from October 11, 1931, where the alleged wreck of a dirigible was observed in the sky. “There were many witnesses who stated that the crash had occurred in the hills south of the city,” Gaddis wrote, noting that “White objects, believed to have been parachutes, fell with it,” as the mystery airship–of which no wreckage was ever found–allegedly went down.
John Keel, circa 1967
(Credit: Doug Skinner/JohnKeel.com)
More than two decades later, the town of Point Pleasant would become the famous epicenter of writer John Keel’s investigation into a mysterious “Mothman,” which became the focus of his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies.
It is interesting (although very likely just coincidental) that Gaddis had managed to anticipate several aspects of the modern UFO craze, which would erupt in the months and years following his article in Amazing Stories. Thus, Joe Nickel’s acknowledgment of Gaddis as one of the many “creators” of modern paranormal subjects certainly appears to be accurate, and might even be extended beyond just his “naming” of the Bermuda Triangle.
The cause of elongated skulls – alien intrusion aside – is generally accepted to be the sadistic practice of binding a baby’s skull during its early soft state through subsequent growth years to curse the person with a long pointed head that was funny on Saturday Night Live but caused a life of pain and possible mental illness, with the only fame coming centuries later when the strange skulls were unearthed by puzzled archeologists. The reasons anyone would inflict such torture on innocents (as opposed to other tortures humans inflict on innocents to this day – a topic for greater philosophical and psychological minds) are still a mystery. However, a recent discovery of elongated skulls in Croatia points to a strange ancient nomadic culture that may have spread the practice as it traveled.
“We were inspired to study these individuals based on their unusual burial context as well as the identification of two different types of artificial cranial deformation in two of the individuals.”
Example of an elongated skull
In a press release announcing the study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE, co-author Daniel Fernandes, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at University of Vienna, describes the recent discovery of the remains of three young males age 12 to 15 in a burial pit in the city of Osijek in eastern Croatia. (Pictures here.) What caught his eye was that two of the three had different types of elongated skulls and that that seemed to have been placed together deliberately with pottery and dead animals. Further analysis of these 5th century CE skeletons at first added to their mysterious appearance and burial because it appears the three came from widespread locations.
“Results of ancient DNA analyses indicate that the individual without artificial cranial deformation shows broadly West Eurasian associated-ancestry, the individual with the elongated skull has East Asian ancestry and the third individual has Near Eastern associated-ancestry.”
Ron Pinhasi, head of the ancient DNA laboratory at the University of Vienna and co-director of the study, reveals that the young man with an elongated skull from East Asia is the earliest East Asian to be found in Europe. This means the so-called Migration Period – the era from about 375 CED to 538 CE when the declining Western Roman Empire was invaded by Germanic tribes and the Huns – also included intrusions by East Asians as well. But why an East Asian with an elongated skull?
“Based on the presented results, we propose that the type of artificial cranial deformation may have been a visual indicator of membership in a specific cultural group, and that these groups were interacting closely on the Pannonian Plain during the Migration Period.”
Because of the rich artifacts found in other tombs of individuals with artificial cranial deformation, many researchers believe elongated skulls were a sign of nobility. However, these Croatian skeletons and their artifacts indicated they were poor, undernourished, nomadic and part of a common cultural group despite being from distinctly different geographic locations and having different (or no) forms of elongation. What does it mean that they all ended up in the Pannonian Plain during the Great Migration Period? Were they novices in the Distinguished Gentlemen of the Elongated Skull?
“This leads us to ask: is this a random peculiarity or part of a larger-scale pattern of association between ACD type and group membership? We believe that future multi- and inter-disciplinary studies combining archaeology, bioarchaeology, history, stable isotopes analysis, and ancient DNA, conducted on a larger skeletal sample from a wider region will aid us in answering this question.”
Ah! A new question requiring more research to compare elongated skulls around the world in a completely different way. These archeologists definitely know how to create job security. We await their future answers.
Millions of years ago, some of the most remarkable creatures ever to walk the earth would begin to emerge out of East Africa. Loping along with ease, their forelimbs could just as easily carry them at speed along the ground as they could into the heights of trees. These remarkable creatures were adept in several different kinds of locomotion: in addition to their climbing prowess and their four-legged movement across the ground, they could also stand upright and, perhaps stumbling at first, carry themselves aloft on two legs for impressive distances.µ
With time, these arboreal creatures began to learn that standing upright gave them several advantages; no less among them had been the ability to see greater distances and to spot predators when they were further out. On such occasions, the little creatures could emit sharp whistles and other sounds that, with time, became more and more complex as the sounds turned from shrill warnings to outright mimicry of the sounds produced by the other creatures around them.
Over the passing of generations, these arboreal apes also began to create unique sounds of their own, which they could use to communicate with a depth and clarity no other creatures in the animal kingdom had ever mastered.
These early apes where hungry, like all creatures in nature, but they had something else that motivated their actions apart from a sheer desire for food: curiosity. As they moved about, they began to master their environments, first using stones to break open nuts, seeds, and shells and to grind simple grains that grew in their habitat. Pounding these rocks against hard surfaces often caused them to fracture; there is little doubt that these creatures soon realized how much more could be done with a stone that bore chipped, sharpened edges.
Their curiosity carried them further and further along, and by around 2 million years ago, early migrations by the upright walking ancestors of modern humans out of Africa and into other parts of the world were well underway. These early humans spread first into parts of the Middle East, and then into Europe; by around 25,000 years ago, the genus Homo could be found on each of the world’s continents, with the exception of Antarctica.
The debate has continued as to when, precisely, modern humans first arrived in the Americas. With each new discovery that pushes back the timescales on such migrations to the new world, all new controversies ensue; but this is by no means anything new in the history of anthropological study.
Even at the time of the groundbreaking discoveries of the Folsom and Clovis cultures in the American Southwest during the early part of the last century, which clearly showed that humans had arrived in America by the end of the last ice age (and perhaps even earlier), much doubt was expressed by experts in the anthropological field. Most notably, Aleš Hrdlička, founder and first curator of physical anthropology of the U.S. National Museum (later renamed and known today as the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History), presumably went to his grave having never acknowledged the discoveries, preferring to believe that humans simply couldn’t have been on the American continent any earlier than 3000 or so years ago.
Today, archaeological sites like the Gault site in Texas, as well as Bluefish Caves in Alaska, clearly show that humans were there well in advance of 13,000 years ago, and perhaps even tens of thousands of years ago. Compelling discoveries at locations like Monte Verde, Chile—where radiocarbon dates may indicate a human presence as far back as 33,000 years—continues to tempt us with the idea of much earlier human arrivals in the Americas. Even more controversial sites like the Topper site in Allendale County, South Carolina, suggest dates going even further back to 50,000 years for human occupation, an idea which, understandably, remains controversial today.
But could there have been even earlier arrivals than these?
In 2017, one of the most controversial archaeological papers in recent memory was published in the journal Nature, having to do with a possible early human site in San Diego County, California. Known as the Cerutti Mastodon site, the paleontological remains found at the site, which the 2017 research team found close to stones they believe were used as hammerstones and anvils, boast a seemingly incredible radiocarbon date of 130,700 years.
“To demonstrate such early occupation of the Americas requires the presence of unequivocal stone artifacts,” said archaeologist Michael Waters of the claims. “There are no unequivocal stone tools associated with the bones… this site is likely just an interesting paleontological locality.” Detractors made the reasonable assertion that marks on the mastodon remains that indicated possible butchering were likely to have been the result of highway construction projects underway at the location in recent years. Adding to the extraordinary nature of the claimed discoveries at the site is the fact that along with an absence of any human bones, or irrefutable tools in context with extinct megafaunal remains that can be reliably dated, the site remains an outlier: where are the other sites of similar age in the region, let alone in North America?
Interestingly, less than three hours from the Cerutti site is what had once been the most controversial archaeological site in North America: the Calico Mountain site, located near Barstow, California. Proponents of the site’s legitimacy contend that it is the oldest archaeological site anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, where more than 60,000 possible lithic tools were recovered during excavations, which led to a shocking discovery: some of the tools from Calico appeared to date as far back as 200,000 years.
If true, this presents a number of problems. In addition to their incredible age, this is around the same time that anatomically modern humans begin to appear in the fossil record in Africa. Hence, if tools found at the Calico Mountain site were to be reliably dated back to 200,000 years, it could only mean that their makers must have been an earlier archaic human ancestor such as Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, or even the latter’s close relatives, the enigmatic Denisovans (an implication which would equally apply to the Cerutti site).
Understandably, the extraordinary nature of these claims was not received well by the anthropological community at large. However, neither were they met with complete opposition, as J. M. Adovasio notes in his Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans:
“The Calico site was by no means unanimously discredited at the time—indeed, news of the findings there garnered interest among the growing ranks of archaeological scholars whose criticism of the Clovis First model had been gathering through the 1970s and 1980s. But Calico is now held in widespread disregard among professional archaeologists, largely due to the lack of indisputable artifacts in the Lake Manix and Calico Lithic Industry assemblages, the lack of valid cultural features, a suspicion that the age of any valid archaeological deposit at the location is radically younger than that proposed, and the site’s apparent position as a secondary deposit in an alluvial fan.”
Needless to say, both the Calico site, and the Cerutti site just a few hours further south, will continue to have their proponents—particularly among those advocating controversial ideas about earlier arrivals in the Americas (notably, author Graham Hancock discusses these locales, and others like them, in his new book America Before, which has no doubt introduced the controversy to an all-new audience). To be able to accept such incredible antiquity for sites like these, as noted earlier, calls for more than just an open mind as to when modern humans arrived on the continent: it would also appear to require acceptance that our early hominid cousins were more highly mobile than once thought.
Interestingly, new studies in the field of genomics are helping to shed light on some of the mysteries of human ancestry. Today, traces of both Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA can be found in human populations around the world; however, the notable prevalence of Denisovans in Southeast Asia up until their demise around 40,000 years ago would likely have placed them closer to the Beringia land bridge that would have existed for a time during the Pleistocene, suggesting these mysterious archaic humans as possible contender for sites like Cerutti and Calico.
That is, of course, if they are ever reliably proven to represent conclusive evidence of a hominid presence in the early Americas. By that time, perhaps other sites will have emerged, and we will ultimately have gained a more broad understanding of humanity’s arrival in the Americas… and whether the first immigrants were really “human” in the same sense that we would recognize today.
Here is a report that was turned into Coast To Coast about a deer that was found on top of a power line. The power line is 22 feet up and seems to have been dropped from above. I don't believe an each is big enough to carry such an animal. That is one big deer. So the question is...did a UFO drop the deer out after doing experiments on it? I think to know that for sure we need a closer look at the deer to examine it for puncher woulds, cuts, bites and such. That would be the only way to learn what it was that caused this to happen. UFOs are known to sometimes abduct a person or explore and examine things in nature.
There was even an old UFO report about such an incident being witnessed in the mounts of the US. Its was Feb 25, 1999 in the Cascade mountains near Mount St Hellens, Washington. A team of forest workers watched as a UFO came down from the sky and hovered over a elk. Then the UFO rose up and lifted the elk with an invisible force. The forest workers watched as it moved higher and higher vanishing above. (redition photo below). So you see, its very possible a UFO abducted the deer and its even backed up by past sighting evidence. Not to mention thousands of animal mutilation incidents caused by aliens doing medical research on the animals.
Scott C. Waring
Coast to Coast states:
Conservation worker and C2C listener Bruce shares this bizarre photo of a deer that somehow wound up atop a power pole in a rural area somewhere in the northeast. According to Bruce, the most likely explanation for how the deer wound up there is that it was hit by a train, since there are train tracks several yards away. However, he notes, "the deer would have to have traveled in the air approximately 45 feet (across) to the pole and reach a height of approximately 22 feet (up) to reach the top of the pole."
Amazing Entities Or Mega Structures? On Sky Map, Taurus Constellation, UFO Sighting News.
Amazing Entities Or Mega Structures? On Sky Map, Taurus Constellation, UFO Sighting News.
I was looking over Taurus constellation using a sky map and found these two giant orbs objects. They are actually moving and there is a glowing trail behind them from where they came. That means they were moving very fast, and then came to a stop. I see a lot of similarities between these donut objects and the pulsing donut UFOs seen by NASA during the Tether incident. The objects that looked like this actually broke the 5 mile long tether in the middle by passing through it. The UFOs during the tether incident were huge! Several miles across! Many people mistakenly assume the objects were just inches in size. I am also thinking that they could be mega structures, space station like spacecraft that jump from location to location. Its really hard to tell unless we can send a space craft to investigate it, but I'm sure its long gone by now. This thing travels fast, but these seems to be a lot out there according to the tether incident NASA video. Watch my video and please subscribe to my Youtube channel ET DATA BASE. Scott C. Waring-Taiwan
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
Snake-Like UFO Returns as New York Resident Captures the Latest One On Video Over Clayville
Snake-Like UFO Returns as New York Resident Captures the Latest One On Video Over Clayville
A conspiracy theorist has claimed that a snake-like UFO has been captured on camera for the first time in several weeks.
Last month, UFO conspiracy enthusiasts were rocked about the videos of cylindrical objects flying over the US.
With the last clip appeared on July 13, it seemed the sightings had dried up.
But now, a Clayville, New York resident in the US believes they may have recorded one on camera.
YouTube username beamsinvestgations1 posted the footage showing a black cylindrical UFO hovering in the sky. The incident reportedly happened on August 6.
The witness said it was a gigantic snake UFO moving like it was alive.
Online UFO conspiracy theorists said the UFO has segments or spheres with the mysterious articulated body.
It appears in the video the camera struggles to focus, but the object in question is said to be at a high altitude, so it must have been massive as the witness described.
Some UFO enthusiasts believe captures like this should be treated with great scientific importance, but academics do not seem to take such material seriously.
Sceptical observers of UFO sightings such as this one have claimed in the past that they could be just strange-shaped balloons across the sky.
Others think that this kind of objects may be advanced spacecraft of the United States Air Force.
Scientists have been keeping a close watch on ‘Oumuamua, the cigar-shaped object from far beyond our own solar system that wandered toward us in 2017. Soon after, Harvard scientists proposed that it could be an alien probe sent from far away, stirring up even more interest in the mysterious object. A new article published Monday in Nature Astronomy, however, officially rules out the alien probe hypothesis — but that doesn’t mean we’ve learned all we can from ‘Oumuamua.
When scientists first took a close look at ‘Oumuamua in 2017, its strange shape raised eyebrows, as did its unexpected acceleration, which at first could not be explained by gravity alone. Those observations, among other strange characteristics, are what led the Harvard team to propose their alien hypothesis. But the new analysis, led by Matthew Knight, Ph.D., a research scientist at the University of Maryland’s astronomy department, leverages years of observations to argue that even ‘Oumuamua’s most suspicious qualities can be explained by the impressive natural forces that govern our universe.
Knight tells Inverse that our work on objects like ‘Oumuamua is just getting started. By 2022 he believes that new technology will help us answer a bigger question: Is ‘Oumuamua weird, or is it our solar system that’s unusual?
“We might have to rethink what is normal and instead think of our solar system as being weird!” says Knight.
Oumuamua was first detected by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii.
How Do We Account for Oumuamua’s Weirdness?
Research published in March 2018 suggested that Oumuamua came from a binary star system with a hot, high-mass star. Knight and his team also propose that it was flung our way from its home system. They believe that it’s a planetesimal, which is a building block of a planet (or, at least, a piece of one). Knight favors the idea that it’s “a comet-like body that contained buried ice with a rather unusual composition
With its origin established, the paper then offers natural explanations for Oumuamua’s weirder aspects.
The strange upticks in speedcan be explained by outgassing, as a 2018 study also noted. Outgassing is a release of gasses from an object, like a comet, as they are heated by the sun. That process likely propelled the Oumuamua along, resulting in a speed boost.
Artist's concept of interstellar asteroid 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua) as it passed through the solar system after its discovery in October 2017. The aspect ratio of up to 10:1 is unlike that of any object seen in our own solar system.
Its strange, cigar-like shape can be explained in a few ways.
One idea is that ‘Oumuamua was reshaped passing close by a giant planet or a low-mass star that “tidally disrupted” its structure (essentially tore it apart using gravity). There are also two related theories proposing that it was either pelted by loads of tiny dust grains moving at high speeds or was squished between two other, large planetesimals.
Knight admits that he and his co-authors aren’t satisfied with any of these explanations so far, which is why they concede that ‘Oumuamua’s shape is still an open question. He is hopeful that we’ll have answers soon, though, because he thinks we will detect more objects like ‘Oumuamua.
A New Barometer for What Is “Weird”
Knight explains that ‘Oumuamua’s oddness raises a bigger question about what we consider odd. Is Oumuamua weird, or is our own solar system strange?
That, he says, depends on your reference point. We’re only beginning to have the capability to scan the skies for strange objects of all sizes. As our technology improves, we may start to notice many more objects like ‘Oumuamua before they come wandering into our view by accident.
“If we start seeing an appreciable number of interstellar objects and they frequently display properties that seem unusual compared to things in our solar system (such as their shapes being highly elongated or having seemingly exotic compositions), then we will be forced to reconsider how representative our solar system is compared to other solar systems,” says Knight.
The team is excited about a new telescope project called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is intended to begin operations around 2022. It’s slotted to take a 10-year survey of the sky and collect 15 terabytes of data every night. “LSST will be more powerful than any existing surveys,” says Knight, and thus will allow us to see fainter, more distant objects that come from faraway systems.
Those far-flung systems may be a lot different from our own, and there is some evidence that they too may have giant planets orbiting close to their stars. Because giant planets like our own Jupiter likely played a role in shaping the nature of comets and asteroids in our own solar system, these “hot Jupiters,” as Knight calls them, could be shaping objects in their own way that’s totally foreign to us since our solar system isn’t configured that way.
“It wouldn’t be terribly surprising to me if we started seeing evidence that our comets and asteroids are unusual,” he adds.
In the future, it may become clear that it’s not ‘Oumuamua that’s weird. It might just be us.
Abstract: The discovery of the first interstellar object passing through the Solar System, 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), provoked intense and continuing interest from the scientific community and the general public. The faintness of ‘Oumuamua, together with the lim- ited time window within which observations were possible, constrained the information available on its dynamics and physical state. Here we review our knowledge and find that in all cases, the observations are consistent with a purely natural origin for ‘Oumuamua. We discuss how the observed characteristics of ‘Oumuamua are explained by our extensive knowledge of natural minor bodies in our Solar System and our current knowledge of the evolution of planetary systems. We highlight several areas requiring further investigation.
The eerie, hellish glow coming from the Moon may seem unreal in this image, since it’s invisible to our eyes. But instruments that detect gamma rays tell us it’s real. More than just a grainy, red picture, it’s a vivid reminder that there’s more going on than meets human eyes.
It’s also a reminder that any humans that visit the Moon need to be protected from this high-energy radiation.
From Cosmic Rays to Gamma Rays
NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope captured these images of the Moon’s gamma rays. In this part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. That’s because the Sun produces most of its energy in other parts of the spectrum, though it does emit some gamma rays, especially during solar flares.
Most gamma rays in our Solar System come from distant sources like quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGN.) The Moon is an indirect source of gamma radiation, and produces gamma rays through its interaction with cosmic rays.
Cosmic rays are a type of high-energy radiation that for the most part is produced outside our Solar System. They’re produced by things like supernovae and active galactic nuclei. When cosmic rays strike matter, like the surface of the Moon in this instance, they create gamma rays.
An artist’s concept of an active galactic nuclei hosting an energetic blazar. Active galacitc nuclei are one source of cosmic rays. When those rays strike the Moon, gamma rays are created. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.
Two scientists at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Mario Nicola Mazziotta and Francesco Loparco, have been studying the Moon’s gamma radiation as a means to understand cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are fast-moving particles, and they gain their acceleration from their sources, like the aforementioned supernovae and AGN.
“Cosmic rays are mostly protons accelerated by some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, like the blast waves of exploding stars and jets produced when matter falls into black holes,” explained Mazziotta in a NASA press release.
The particles that make up cosmic rays are electrically charged. When they strike a magnetic field, like the Earth’s magnetosphere, they’re mostly deflected. But the Moon lacks a magnetic field. As a result, even the weakest cosmic rays strike the Moon’s surface directly, and that produces gamma rays. The Moon actually absorbs most of the gamma rays it creates, but some escape out into space.
And the Fermi Telescope can see them, turning the Moon into a kind of inadvertent particle detector.
The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (FGRST) has been at work for 11 years now. Mazziotta and Loparco have studied images of the Moon from the length of the telescope’s mission, and over that time, the view has improved.
“… the Moon would never go through its monthly cycle of phases and would always look full.”
Francesco Loparco, Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics.
The strength of the Moon’s gamma rays is not always consistent. It varies over time. Mazziotta and Loparco gathered together data of the Moon’s gamma rays that exceeded 31 million electron volts, which is 10 million times more powerful than visible light, and organized them over time. That resulted in the following image, which shows the view improving over time.
These images show the steadily improving view of the Moon’s gamma-ray glow from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each 5-by-5-degree image is centered on the Moon and shows gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts, or tens of millions of times that of visible light. At these energies, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. This image sequence shows how longer exposure, ranging from two to 128 months (10.7 years), improved the view. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration
“Seen at these energies, the Moon would never go through its monthly cycle of phases and would always look full,” said Loparco.
The fact that the Moon emits these gamma rays is cautionary. NASA’s Artemis Program will see more astronauts on the Moon for potentially longer periods of time than other Moon missions. They’ll have to be protected from both the cosmic rays that strike the Moon, and the Moon’s gamma rays that result.
A Complex Interaction
The interplay between cosmic rays, gamma rays, the Moon and the Sun can be complex. Gamma rays can have different energy levels. For instance, these FGRST images only capture gamma rays that exceeded 31 million electron volts (MeV) by a certain amount. But gamma rays can be far more energetic than that, and can be in the billions or even trillions of MeVs.
The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Observatory is not the only observatory to see the Moon’s gamma radiation. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory captured this image of the Moon’s gamma rays. Image Credit: By D. J. Thompson, D. L. Bertsch (NASA/GSFC), D. J. Morris (UNH), R. Mukherjee (NASA/GSFC/USRA) – ur=http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cgro/epo/news/gammoon.html., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19838942
Since the electrical charge of cosmic rays means they can be deflected by magnetic fields, and the Sun has a powerful magnetic field, only the most powerful ones can strike the Sun. In turn, these powerful cosmic rays strike the dense part of the Sun’s atmosphere and create very powerful gamma rays. So the Sun is actually brighter in gamma rays above 1 billion electron volts than the Moon is.
The Sun’s 11-year cycle also affects the cosmic rays that strike the Moon, and the gamma rays that result. During that cycle, the Sun experiences variations in its magnetic field. As a result, sometimes more cosmic rays strike the Moon than other times. This variability in cosmic rays striking the lunar surface creates a variability in lunar gamma rays. According to Fermi data, it can vary by 20%.
The Sun’s magnetic field varies in both strength and complexity during its 11-year cycle. This comparison shows the relative complexity of the solar magnetic field between January 2011 (left) and July 2014. In January 2011, three years after solar minimum, the field is still relatively simple, with open field lines concentrated near the poles. At solar maximum, in July 2014, the structure is much more complex, with closed and open field lines poking out all over.
Gamma rays coming from the Moon, and the cosmic rays that cause them, both pose a threat to astronauts because both are ionizing radiation with great penetrating power. It takes a lot of shielding to prevent them from striking astronauts. Materials with high atomic numbers are effective shields. Lead (atomic number 82) is a good shield because it’s also very dense.
For lower energy gamma rays, the risk to astronauts is due to exposure over time. Think of an x-ray technician vs. an x-ray patient. A patient’s lifetime exposure to x-rays is not very high, so a patient accepts the risk. For the technician however, things are different. They’re exposed each work day, so they leave the room and are shielded from the x-rays by materials like lead.
It’s similar for astronauts. The more time they spend on the Moon in a gamma ray/cosmic ray environment, the more they need to limit their exposure. Not only by shielding, but by timing.
Trying to Understand the Moon’s Radiation Environment
This Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope data is helping scientists understand the gamma ray/cosmic ray risk on the Moon. If there are times when the Moon emits 20% less gamma radiation because of the Sun’s 11-year cycle, then it may be sensible to make use of that time.
If we saw the sky in gamma rays, the same way the Fermi Space Telescope does, it would be unrecognizable. This image was constructed from six years of Fermi observations. It shows the entire sky at energies between 50 billion (GeV) and 2 trillion electron volts (TeV). The bright band in the middle is the central plane of the Milky Way. Some of the brightest sources are pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants within our galaxy, as well as distant galaxies called blazars powered by supermassive black holes. Labels show the highest-energy sources, all located within our galaxy and emitting gamma rays exceeding 1 TeV. Image Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration
Exposure to radiation is one of the main barriers to space travel and long-term space missions. Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere are both radiation shields. But even in Low-Earth Orbit, astronauts risk exposure to greater radiation.
If we’re going to have a human presence on the Moon, it’s imperative that we understand the radiation environment there. NASA has been looking into the lunar radiation environment as far back as 2005 in anticipation of a human outpost on the Moon. When they launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in 2009, it contained an instrument called the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER).
CRaTER’s job is to characterize the Moon’s radiation environment and the biological impact it will have on astronauts. It uses plastics to mimic human tissue and placed them behind different shielding materials. At the time, Harlan Spence, the Principal Investigator CRaTER said, “Not only will we measure the radiation, we will use plastics that mimic human tissue to look at how these highly energetic particles penetrate and interact with the human body.”
The Fermi images of the Moon’s gamma rays are another piece of the radiation puzzle. And that’s a puzzle that has to be solved before there’s a realistic hope of a long-term lunar base, or crewed missions to Mars.
On Earth, methane gas is often associated with microbial life. Scientists find methane in Mars’ atmosphere, too. Could it be life-related? We still don’t know, but a new study shows wind erosion is likely not the cause.
Mars is a rocky world, and some scientists have theorized that erosion by wind causes Mars rocks to produce methane. But a new study from Newcastle University refutes that.
What is producing methane on Mars? That is a question that scientists have been trying to answer for quite some time now. There are various possibilities, both geological and biological, but narrowing them down has been a challenge. Could it really be a sign of … life? Now, a new study has shown that at least one of the geological scenarios is very unlikely: wind erosion of rocks.
Researchers at Newcastle University in the U.K. published their peer-reviewed findings in Scientific Reports on June 3, 2019, and a new press release was issued on August 12, 2019. From the article abstract:
Seasonal changes in methane background levels and methane spikes have been detected in situ a metre above the martian surface, and larger methane plumes detected via ground-based remote sensing, however their origin have not yet been adequately explained. Proposed methane sources include the UV irradiation of meteoritic-derived organic matter, hydrothermal reactions with olivine, organic breakdown via meteoroid impact, release from gas hydrates, biological production, or the release of methane from fluid inclusions in basalt during aeolian erosion. Here we quantify for the first time the potential importance of aeolian abrasion as a mechanism for releasing trapped methane from within rocks, by coupling estimates of present day surface wind abrasion with the methane contents of a variety of martian meteorites, analogue terrestrial basalts and analogue terrestrial sedimentary rocks. We demonstrate that the abrasion of basalt under present day Martian rates of aeolian erosion is highly unlikely to produce detectable changes in methane concentrations in the atmosphere. We further show that, although there is a greater potential for methane production from the aeolian abrasion of certain sedimentary rocks, to produce the magnitude of methane concentrations analysed by the Curiosity rover they would have to contain methane in similar concentrations as economic reserved of biogenic/thermogenic deposits on Earth. Therefore we suggest that aeolian abrasion is an unlikely origin of the methane detected in the martian atmosphere, and that other methane sources are required.
A history of key methane measurements on Mars from 1999 to 2018.
One of the more recent theories was that wind erosion of rocks could produce the methane detected in the lower atmosphere. But the team’s findings showed that it wouldn’t be able to produce methane in the amounts observed, according to Jon Telling, a geochemist at Newcastle University:
The questions are – where is this methane coming from, and is the source biological? That’s a massive question and to get to the answer we need to rule out lots of other factors first.
We realized one potential source of the methane that people hadn’t really looked at in any detail before was wind erosion, releasing gases trapped within rocks. High resolution imagery from orbit over the last decade have shown that winds on Mars can drive much higher local rates of sand movement, and hence potential rates of sand erosion, than previously recognised.
In fact, in a few cases, the rate of erosion is estimated to be comparable to those of cold and arid sand dune fields on Earth.
Using the data available, we estimated rates of erosion on the surface of Mars and how important it could be in releasing methane.
And taking all that into account we found it was very unlikely to be the source.
What’s important about this is that it strengthens the argument that the methane must be coming from a different source. Whether or not that’s biological, we still don’t know.
Artist’s concept of ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter, part of the ExoMars mission, analyzing the Martian atmosphere.
Observations from both orbiting spacecraft and the Curiosity rover, as well as telescopes on Earth, have shown that methane levels in the Martian atmosphere appear to be seasonal, peaking in the summer and fading again in the winter. Just why that is isn’t known yet, but it indicates a regular process is occurring, whether geological or biological. Oddly, ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) hasn’t detected any methane yet, although that is one of its main objectives. But that may simply be because of the seasonality of the methane, or because TGO focuses its observations on the upper levels of the atmosphere, and most of the other methane detections have been closer to the ground.
Most scientists now think the methane originates from underground, perhaps as ice clathrates that thaw in the summer and release methane, or maybe a biological source that responds to the warmer temperatures. Even if the methane is bound up in clathrates, the actual origin of it could still be either geological of biological (ancient life). Or it may be produced by warm groundwater interacting with olivine in rocks. If so, that would indicate that there is still some residual geological activity below Mars’ surface, and that itself could provide a habitable environment for microorganisms, even if they didn’t actually produce the methane. Other causes, such as meteorites or comets, probably wouldn’t produce enough of the gas to match observations, either, according to recent studies.
Last April, a new report showed that a spike in methane levels was detected at the same time – for the first time – by both the Curiosity rover and the orbiting Mars Express back in 2013. And last June, Curiosity detected its largest-evermeasurement of methane so far. Why are there these peaks in methane emissions, only for the gas to virtually disappear afterwards? There is still a lot we don’t know, as Emmal Safi, a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University, indicated:
It’s still an open question. Our paper is just a little part of a much bigger story.
Ultimately, what we’re trying to discover is if there’s the possibility of life existing on planets other than our own, either living now or maybe life in the past that is now preserved as fossils or chemical signatures.
Illustration depicting what processes could create and destroy methane on Mars. The methane most likely originates from below the surface and is released into the atmosphere through subsurface cracks.
The idea that Mars’ methane might come from life is an exciting one, of course, since most of the methane on Earth is produced by living organisms. But non-biological explanations would need to be eliminated first. The research from Newcastle University shows that at least one of the possible geological explanations for the methane is unlikely, but there is still a lot of work for scientists to do to determine just what is producing it.
Bottom line:This new study would seem to eliminate one possible source of Mars’ methane: wind erosion of rocks on the surface. This bolsters the probability that the methane originates from underground.
On tall ice structures high in the Chilean Andes, researchers found algae growing on snow. They don’t entirely understand how the algae are able to bloom.
These elongated, thin blades of hardened snow or ice are called nieves penitentes. They’re found closely spaced and pointing towards the general direction of the sun. Recently, researchers were surprised to find patches of red ice on the sides of some of the penitentes, which turned out to be a unique snow algae.
A new study found snow algae on nieves penitentes [Spanish for "penitent-shaped snows”] at high elevations in the Chilean Andes.
Steven Schmidt is a University of Colorado, Boulder professor, specializing in microbial ecology. He’s one of the paper’s authors. He told GlacierHub.
The expedition was an epic and very arduous trip to a remote mountain. The original goal was to sample a lake below a remnant glacier high on the mountain, but the lake was frozen solid and the winds were horrendous, so we worked lower on the mountain and carried out the first-ever search for life on nieves penitentes.
Nieves penitentesform when windblown snow banks build up and melt due to a combination of high radiation, low humidity, and dry winds. The snow melts into the pinnacle-shape which earned penitentes their name: they are said to resemble monks in white robes paying penance. Penitentes are important to the dry, high-altitude areas where they’re found, because they can be a periodic source of meltwater for the rocky ground.
Schmidt described how the researchers were surprised to find patches of red ice on the sides of some of the penitentes. He told GlacierHub:
We took samples from these patches and later found that they contained some unique snow algae and a thriving community of other microbes.
The study was published the peer-reviewed journal Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research on June 12, 2019.
Matthew Davey, a plant and algal physiologist at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, told GlacierHub:
Snow algae are microscopic plant-like organisms that are able to live on and within the snowpack.
Snow algae is also known as watermelon snow because of the color it creates on the surface of snow and ice. The snow’s watermelon hue is caused by an abundance of natural reddish pigments called carotenoids which also shield the algae from ultraviolet light, drought, and cold, contributing to their ability to survive in extreme environments.
Researchers don’t entirely understand how the algae bloom in high density given the low temperatures and high light levels they live with. Davey explained:
There is evidence that they can be deposited by wind, they could already be in the rock surface from previous years or they could be brought by animals. Once the snow has melted slightly, so there is liquid water, the algae can reproduce and bloom within days or weeks. During this time they can start green, then turn red, or stay green or stay red – it depends on the algal species.
The samples of snow algae were collected from penitentes on the Chilean side of Volcán Llullaillaco. It is the second tallest active volcano in the world after Ojos del Salado and it sits on Chile’s border with Argentina. The penitentes were between 1-1.5 meters tall (about 39 to 60 inches tall). The presence of snow algae on penitentes is notable because the algae can change the albedo of ice and increase melting rates.
The study describes the environment that the samples were collected in as “perhaps the best earthly analog for surface and near-surface soils on Mars,” opening the door for implications in astrobiological research. The high elevation where the snow algae was found is responsible for the conditions that create an almost extraterrestrial environment; there are very high levels of ultraviolet radiation, intense daily freeze-thaw cycles, and one of the driest climates on the planet.
Penitente-like structures were recently found on Pluto and possibly on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. In the context of these discoveries, Schmidt said that “penitentes and the harsh environment that surrounds them provide a new terrestrial analog for astrobiological studies of life beyond Earth.” The finding in the new study that “penitentes are oases of life in the otherwise barren expanses” pushes the boundaries of the current understanding of the cold-dry limits of life.
The surface of Pluto’s Tartarus Dorsa region, where penitentes were also found.
Scientists suddenly have a whole lot more data on one of the strangest and most recent mysteries in the cosmos, so-called fast radio bursts. First discovered in 2007, these fleeting blasts of radio waves originate thousands, millions or even billions of light-years from Earth.
FRBs have influenced the design of new radio telescopes like the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). And now a team of Canadian and American researchers using CHIME has reported a major new set of FRB detections that could fine-tune our understanding of where these enigmatic signals come from and what produces them.
The group says it's discovered eight new bursts that repeat.
Watch this:Repeating radio signals coming from space
"Repeating FRBs are highly valuable from an observational perspective since their repeating nature make them better candidates for localizing their host galaxies and multi-wavelength follow-up observations that can help determine if FRBs emit at wavelengths other than radio," said Ryan McKinven, one of the researchers who is based at the University of Toronto and co-author of a paper about the FRBs.
Those follow-up observations could provide details about the origins of the strange bursts, he added. A larger sample size of repeating FRBs to study could also help scientists answer one of the obvious questions about non-repeating FRBs: Could they actually be repeating FRBs that just haven't been recorded as repeating yet?
While dozens of FRBs have been detected and cataloged over the past 12 years, few of those deep space signals had been known to repeat themselves. Two have been documented so far in published, peer-reviewed journals. Two others -- one via a Russian radio telescope, the other via Australia -- have been reported but not yet reviewed.
So with this batch of bursts, the number of reported repeaters has tripled -- from four to 12.
"Discovering different types of FRBs at an unexpected rate, we will soon open new windows into understanding the cosmological origin of these high-energy astrophysical phenomena," said co-author Masoud Rafiei-Ravandi of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
In addition to the sheer number of repeating FRBs discovered in one haul, one of the newfound repeaters appears to be much closer to Earth than the handful of fast radio bursts that have been traced back to a source galaxy. So far, traceable FRBs seem to come from sources on the other side of the universe -- we're talking billions of light-years away.
However, in the new paper, the authors suggest that one of the repeating FRBs could actually originate near the edge of our own Milky Way galaxy but caution that more study is needed to better localize the signal.
"Knowing that we are observing every patch of sky visible to CHIME once every day, it was only a matter of time before we detected a very nearby source," co-author Pragya Chawla of McGill University said.
Studying relatively nearby FRBs will hopefully allow scientists to get a better idea of just what the heck is throwing off these signals, which could be anything from far-fetched notions like alien starships to the less fantastic but more powerful sources, like neutron stars.
Mystery sunken 3,000BC temple dubbed ‘Spanish Stonehenge’ appears after drought dries up reservoir
Mystery sunken 3,000BC temple dubbed ‘Spanish Stonehenge’ appears after drought dries up reservoir
Sean Keach, Digital Technology and Science Editor
AN ANCIENT sunken temple in Spain that dates back 5,000 years has been revealed thanks to a drought.
Dubbed the 'Spanish Stonehenge', this collection of 144 standing stones may have once been a site of ritual worship.
The mysterious site has been revealed thanks to a droughtCredit: Rubén Ortega Martín/Raíces de Peralêda
Some of the stones stand two metres high, and are engraved with serpents.
The giant megaliths are arranged in circles but – just like Stonehenge – no one knows who put them there, and why.
The lost site was submerged back in 1963, after the building of a dam created a reservoir in the area.
But warm weather and large amounts of water extraction saw the stones re-emerge from the deep.
Some of the stones stand up to two metres tall
Credit: Rubén Ortega Martín/Raíces de Peralêda
The 'Spanish Stonehenge' has been lost for 60 years, and could date back to 3,000 BCCredit: Rubén Ortega Martín/Raíces de Peralêda
"We grew up hearing about the legend of the treasure hidden beneath the lake and now we finally get to view them," said local official Angel Castaño, speaking to Spain's The Local.
"There certainly may have been treasures buried beneath the stones once upon a time.
"But for us now, the treasures are the stones themselves."
Angel is now leading a "race against time" to preserve the site before the rains come – and submerge the temple again.
The site is believed to have been created in the second and third millenia BC
And it's said that it was used as a sun temple on the banks of the River Tagus.
It was last seen by locals six decades ago, and formed part of local legends.
"The site would have been created over thousands of years, using granite transported from kilometres away," Angel explained.
"Like Stonehenge, they formed a sun temple and burial ground.
"They seemed to have a religious but also economic purpose, being at one of the few points of the river where it was possible to cross.
"So it was a sort of trading hub."
Angel and a group of local residents are campaigning to move the stones to a site on dry land.
Otherwise, the waters will rise again and the stones will be lost.
"We have had no rain this summer, so the drought but also a policy of extracting water to send to Portugal has combined to lower the water table and reveal the stones," Angel explained.
"But that can all changed very quickly."
The site was thought to be condemned to the history books in the 1960s when a Spanish general ordered the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Peraleda de la Mata, near Cáceres in Extremadura
“If we miss this chance it could be years before they are revealed again.
"And the stones, which are granite and therefore porous, are already showing signs of erosion and cracking, so if we don't act now it could be too late."
Experts now hope to preserve the stones – by moving them to dry land using machines
Credit: Rubén Ortega Martín/Raíces de Peralêda
What is Stonehenge?
What you need to know about Britain's most mysterious monument
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire
It's a ring of standing stones that measure around 13 feet high and seven feet wide
Each stone weighs roughly 25 tons
Experts say that the monument was constructed between 3000 and 2000 BC
In 1882, it was legally protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument
And in 1986, the site and surroundings became a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Stonehenge itself is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage
But the land around Stonehenge is owned by the National Trust
Part of what makes Stonehenge so mysterious is that it was produced by a culture with no written records
Scientists regularly debate over how and why Stonehenge was built, and what it was used for
One theory suggests Stonehenge was a sacred burial site
Another proposes that it was used for celestial and astronomical alignments
And some think it was an ancient place of healing
It used to be believed that it was created as a Druid temple
But we now know that Stonehenge predated the Druids by around 2000 years
The site was reportedly first uncovered by the Ancient Romans.
However, they weren't rediscovered until German priest and archaeologist Hugo Obermaier visited in the 1920s.
He excavated the site and reportedly took treasures back to Germany.
But the stones themselves remained, and disappeared under a reservoir after the building of a dam in 1963.
"It isn't a difficult thing to move them, we have machinery now to do that," said Angel.
"Let's just hope that there is the political will to save them while we can."
Two Colossal Crystal Pyramids Found in Center of The Bermuda Triangle
Two Colossal Crystal Pyramids Found in Center of The Bermuda Triangle
With the help of today’s advanced technology, Dr. Meyer Verlag has managed to discover two huge pyramids at the bottom of the ocean.
These pyramids are extremely large. To give you an idea, they are 3 times larger than the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
It seems that these pyramids are constructed of a type of crystal that could not be identified.
They are about 2000 meters deep at the bottom of the ocean.
According to researcher Meyer Verlag, these crystal pyramids may be the reason why there are so many mysterious disappearances in that area.
There is also a theory that these crystal pyramids belong to the ancient city of Atlantis.
Scientists are optimistic and believe that these pyramids will be investigated very closely in the near future.
And this can give us some very important answers regarding the mysterious disappearances of the Bermuda triangle or even about the lost city of Atlantis.
Archaeologists Who Discovered Giant Skeletons Were Threatened: “You’re playing with fire”
Archaeologists Who Discovered Giant Skeletons Were Threatened: “You’re playing with fire”
Since ancient times there are stories and stories about giants. These creatures were so large that the earth shook as they walk.
There are reports about a very controversial case that took place in Romania in the 1940s.
At that time, a team of foreign archaeologists discovered a lot of precious artifacts that it seems to have belonged to the Dacian leader, Burebista.
From the accounts of that time, it seems that one of the archaeologists by the name of Ionita Florea, discovered a huge skull.
The skull was about five times larger than a human skull. Shortly after the discovery of the giant skull, Ionita Florea was removed from the team, and foreign archaeologists have managed to uncover 80 more giant skeletons.
These giant skeletons were hidden or destroyed. It is not known exactly where the skeletons are.
Another very strange case was when the inhabitants of the village of Scaieni in Romania discovered a cemetery full of giant skeletons, when they were trying to plant an apple orchard.
In 2009, a television channel began a thorough investigation of the phenomena in the Bucegi Mountains.
But the entire team of researchers and journalists were threatened by telephone by several people who did not reveal their identity.
These people wanted at all costs that this investigation be stopped immediately.
These unknown persons threatened with death the entire team investigating Bucegi Mountains. It seems that the entire operation that investigated the phenomena in the Bucegi mountains was stopped shortly.
And none of the team members ever wanted to make a statement. Watch the following video:
Researchers have made incredible advancements in the detection and study of exoplanets in recent years, spotting literally thousands of new planets and learning tantalizing details about them. Scientists can often tell how warm a planet’s surface is, what its atmosphere is made of, and whether or not it could hold liquid water on its surface.
All of this information helps in the never-ending search for extraterrestrial life, but what if an intelligent race of aliens were looking at us? Would they be able to see that Earth is habitable, or perhaps even detect the presence of life here from a distance? A new study published in Scienceattempts to answer that question, and the answer is just as complicated as you’d expect.
The idea here is that by modeling what a distant civilization would see when looking at Earth, we might get a better idea of what traits to seek out when searching for life-supporting exoplanets of our own. To build this model of a “distant Earth,” the research team collected nearly 10,000 images of Earth snapped from NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite and used them to build a two-dimensional picture of the light reflecting off of Earth across multiple wavelengths.
This, the researchers say, offers a reasonable estimate of what an intelligent civilization might see when observing our planet at a distance of many light-years. The image might look like little more than a colorful blob, but it’s actually a rough outline of Earth’s continents and oceans.
The scientists suggest that, if we could interpret the light curves of exoplanets in the same way, we may be able to estimate an Earth-like planet’s potential to support life.
“The analysis of light curves in this work have implications for determining geological features and climate systems on exoplanet,” Siteng Fan, lead author of the work, told Universe Today. “We found that the variation of light curve of Earth is dominated by clouds and land/ocean, which are both crucial to the life on Earth. Therefore, Earth-like exoplanets which harbor this kind of features would be more likely to host life.”
Next year is going to be a pretty big deal for scientists studying Mars, with both NASA’s Mars 2020 mission and the ExoMars rover mission kicking off in the summer. NASA, the European Space Agency, and Russia’s Roscosmos are all doing their best to plan for the landing of their respective rovers, and they recently gathered in a place that looks a lot like Mars to test a few new ideas.
The international group of researchers met in Australia and set their sights on the dry and dusty conditions of the Australian Outback, which is a decent analog for the Red Planet.
The challenges of controlling a mobile robot on another planet are many, but the scientists are doing their best to plan ahead, especially when it comes to search for evidence of life on Mars.
“The Pilbara Outback is home to the oldest confirmed fossilized lifeforms on Earth, called stromatolites,” Ken Farley of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. “If we can better understand how these fossils came to be here – and the nearby geological signposts that help point the way to them – we’ll be that much more prepared when hunting for signs of life on Mars.”
Practicing the ability to spot areas where clues about ancient life on Mars may be hiding could come in handy for both teams during their respective missions, but there’s no guarantee that either mission will lead to the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Both the Mars 2020 mission and the ExoMars rover mission are expected to launch in July of 2020, with NASA’s spacecraft arriving at the Red Planet in February 2021 and the ExoMars rover touching down sometime in March 2021.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
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