Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
Scientists working with the Curiosity rover have found salt-enriched rock at a place called Sutton Island on Mars. The rocks suggest ponds with briny water on Mars, billions of years ago.
The video above provides concise background on insights obtained so far via NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Gale crater on Mars since 2012. Curiosity has joined other Mars explorers in providing evidence that the red planet must once have been warmer and wetter, likely with liquid water on its surface. Could life have gotten a foothold there? Maybe, and that’s part of what has scientists so intrigued. This week (October 7, 2019), Curiosity scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, announced another new study about Mars water, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience.
A statement about the new work painted a vivid picture of Mars, billions of years ago:
Imagine ponds dotting the floor of Gale Crater, the 100-mile-wide (150-kilometer-wide) ancient basin that Curiosity is exploring. Streams might have laced the crater’s walls, running toward its base. Watch history in fast forward, and you’d see these waterways overflow then dry up, a cycle that probably repeated itself numerous times over millions of years.
That is the landscape described by Curiosity scientists …
The authors of the new paper interpret the rocks found by Curiosity – enriched in mineral salts – as evidence of shallow briny ponds that existed on Mars’ surface billions of years ago. The rocks provide evidence that these ponds on Mars went through episodes of overflow and drying. NASA commented:
The deposits serve as a watermark created by climate fluctuations as the Martian environment transitioned from a wetter one to the freezing desert it is today.
View larger. | Possible mud cracks preserved in Martian rock. Earthly scientists call this Martian rock slab Old Soaker. It might have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago. The view spans about 4 feet (1.2 meters) left-to-right and combines three images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the arm of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.
William Rapin of Caltech is the lead author of the new paper. He said:
We went to Gale Crater because it preserves this unique record of a changing Mars. Understanding when and how the planet’s climate started evolving is a piece of another puzzle: When and how long was Mars capable of supporting microbial life at the surface?
Rapin and his co-authors describe salts found across a 500-foot-tall (150-meter-tall) section of sedimentary rocks called Sutton Island, which Curiosity visited in 2017. The mud cracks at one location look so much like a dry lakebed that the scientists have nicknamed the location Old Soaker. NASA said:
… the team already knew the area had intermittent drier periods. But the Sutton Island salts suggest the water also concentrated into brine.
Typically, when a lake dries up entirely, it leaves piles of pure salt crystals behind. But the Sutton Island salts are different: For one thing, they’re mineral salts, not table salt. They’re also mixed with sediment, suggesting they crystallized in a wet environment – possibly just beneath evaporating shallow ponds filled with briny water.
Given that Earth and Mars were similar in their early days, Rapin speculated that Sutton Island might have resembled saline lakes onSouth America’s Altiplano[in west-central South America, the place where the Andes are widest]. Streams and rivers flowing from mountain ranges into this arid, high-altitude plateau lead to closed basins similar to Mars’ ancient Gale Crater. Lakes on the Altiplano are heavily influenced by climate in the same way as Gale.
Rapin added:
During drier periods, the Altiplano lakes become shallower, and some can dry out completely. The fact that they’re vegetation-free even makes them look a little like Mars.
View as panorama. | This self-portrait of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity combines 66 exposures taken by the rover’s MAHLI imaging system during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars (February 3, 2013).
Curiosity’s science team is now seeing a cycle of wet-to-dry across long timescales on Mars. Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL said:
As we climb Mount Sharp, we see an overall trend from a wet landscape to a drier one. But that trend didn’t necessarily occur in a linear fashion. More likely, it was messy, including drier periods, like what we’re seeing at Sutton Island, followed by wetter periods…
This animation illustrates the Sutton Island model of drying lakes on Mars. Sutton Island is a 500-foot-tall (150-meter-tall) section of sedimentary rocks on Mount Sharp – the central mountain in Gale Crater – where Curiosity has been exploring since 2012. The model suggests stream flow from Mount Sharp to the floor of Gale Crater. Salty ponds might have been left behind as the region dried out over time. The rocks enriched with mineral salts, found here by Curiosity, suggest that water vanished slowly, and they suggest a possible, persistent cycle of drying and overflow.
Image via ASU Knowledge Enterprise Development/Michael Northrop/NASA.
Bottom line:Scientists working with the Curiosity rover have found salt-enriched rock at a place called Sutton Island on Mars. The rocks suggest ponds with briny water existed on Mars, billions of years ago.
Based on estimates of trajectory, which are constantly becoming more accurate as technology develops, the rock will passt within about 9,700 kilometres of Earth.
While that may seem like a safe distance, the moon is more than 383,000 kilometres away.
Alien artifacts from ancient Egypt found in Jerusalem & kept secret by Rockefeller Museum
Alien artifacts from ancient Egypt found in Jerusalem & kept secret by Rockefeller Museum
Alien enthusiasts have been left fascinated by reports of ancient Egyptian artifacts that were discovered in the home of famous Egyptologist Sir William Petrie. The artifacts are believed to be the ultimate proof of alien contact and are said to rewrite not only Ancient Egyptian history but the history of the entire planet. Like many other ‘controversial objects’ these mysterious artifacts were also kept a secret.
So, where do we start?
A YouTube video posted by Paranormal Cruciblepurports to show alleged ancient Egyptian artifacts and sculptures which were found at the Giza plateau. These items were reportedly taken away from Petrie’s home in Jerusalem by ‘officials belonging to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum’ after the discovery was made reports popular UFO portal UFO Sightings Daily.
The reports of the alleged artifacts captured the internet as you would expect.
According to Intellihub News, the alleged ‘otherworldly’ artifacts were discovered in a secret room in the home of Sir William Petrie.
According to UFO researchers, among the artifacts were some that contained ‘otherworldly’ symbols.
It is sad that the renowned Egyptologist had found ultimate proof of alien life before he died in 1942, but instead of sharing the discovery, for some reasons he decided to hide the artifacts away in his home.
Now, according to reports, these items have been taken by the Rockefeller Museum and like many other discoveries that contradict mainstream history, these too could be hidden from society.
Interestingly, the Inquisitr decided to dig further and was able to confirm that the prestigious Petri Museum of Egyptian Archaeology has in their possession a grandiose collection of ancient Egyptian and Sudanese items which include ancient Egyptian “firsts,” such as the “oldest linen” and “oldest dress” from ancient Egypt (5,000 B.C.).
The Petri Museum also displays some of the earliest examples of Metallurgy in Ancient Egypt.
However, as the Inquisitr indicates they were NOT able to confirm that the museum has displayed ‘Alien Artifacts’ discovered in Egypt, nor recovered from a secret room in Petrie’s residence in Jerusalem.
But this may be because these items contradict history and mainstream beliefs say ufo researchers who believe in the story. Like many other things that go against the beliefs of mainstream scholars, these artifacts too have been locked away from society.
As always, sensational stories require sensational evidence.
According to the editor of Intellihub News, the Ancient Egyptian artifacts found in Petrie’s residence in Jerusalem directly link the ancient Egyptian civilization to an advanced civilization, not from Earth.
Among the artifacts –now in possession of the Rockefeller museum— are two alleged mummified bodies of approximately four feet in height. Some have even speculated that these mummified bodies could be the remains of ‘alien’ visitors.
According to reports from Intellihub News, the physical features of the alleged mummified bodies indicate their possible alien nature. According to the editor of the website, the anomalous skeletons have “stereotypical alien “elongated heads, large eye sockets, and long spiral arms.”
But as if the mummified bodies weren’t enough, it is said that among the artifacts were “highly advanced” mechanical devices and a golden spherical object with strange writings.
Intellihub News’ editor indicates that the high-tech devices have “an intricate mechanism which is surrounded by gold spiral tubing that has several small gold orbs and crosses attached to it.” Is it possible that the alleged artifacts are part of ‘interstellar navigational devices’?
Intellihub News points towards Abydos and the temple built by Seti I, and his son Ramses II, where we can observe the so-called Flying machines of Abydos.
There, we are able to ‘spot’ what seem to be representations of modern day vehicles like Helicopters, submarines, and aircraft.
The only problem is that these inscriptions are believed to be thousands of years old.
Scientists believe these are not aircraft but the result of a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia.
However, there are more mysteries when it comes to Ancient Egypt and Aliens.
But is it just because we would love to find a connection between one of the greatest civilizations to inhabit Earth and alien visitors?
Well, it is a possibility, but there are more interesting details worth looking at.
An Ancient Egyptian text called the Tulli Papyrus mentions a fascinating story during the reign of Thutmose III when an alleged mass UFO sighting occurred over ancient Egypt.
The ancient text reads (translated):
“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day […] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor.
Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice. It came toward His Majesty’s house. Their heart became confused through it, and they fell upon their bellies. They [went] to the king, to report it. His Majesty [ordered that] the scrolls [located] in the House of Life be consulted. His Majesty meditated on all these events which were now going on.
After several days had passed, they became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shined in the sky more than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of heaven […] Powerful was the position of the Fiery Disks.
The army of the King looked on, with His Majesty in their midst. It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and other volatiles rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country. And His Majesty caused incense to be brought to appease the heart of Amun-Re, the god of the Two Lands. And it was [ordered] that the event [be recorded for] His Majesty in the Annals of the House of Life [to be remembered] for ever.”
Ons sterrenstelsel zit mogelijk vol met buitenaardse micromachines. Zo kunnen we ze spotten
Ons sterrenstelsel zit mogelijk vol met buitenaardse micromachines. Zo kunnen we ze spotten
In 2015 suggereerden astronomen dat het vreemde gedrag van de ster KIC 8462852, beter bekend als Tabby’s ster, verklaard zou kunnen worden door een Dysonbol, een buitenaardse megastructuur.
Uit het nieuwste onderzoek blijkt dat de helderheidsdipjes van de ster waarschijnlijk worden veroorzaakt door een exomaan.
Alienjagers hebben nu hun hoop gevestigd op zogeheten von Neumann-sondes, vernoemd naar wiskundige John von Neumann.
Kopieën
Von Neumann-sondes zijn ruimteschepen die aliens in staat stellen om de ruimte vanaf hun thuisplaneet te verkennen.
Deze sondes vliegen door de ruimte en maken daarbij kopieën van zichzelf, waardoor ze exponentieel toenemen in aantal en steeds grotere gebieden kunnen verkennen.
Je kunt je afvragen waarom we ze dan nog niet hebben waargenomen.
Piepklein
In een paper op preprintserver arXiv stelt astrofysicus Zaza Osmanov van de Vrije Universiteit van Tbilisi in Georgië nu dat deze machines waarschijnlijk piepklein zijn, ongeveer een nanometer lang.
Deze microscopische ruimteschepen hebben maar weinig materiaal nodig om zichzelf te kopiëren en daarnaast kunnen ze zich voortbewegen door middel van waterstofatomen in interstellaire stofwolken.
Zichtbaar
Volgens Osmanov zijn alleen mega-zwermen von Neumann-sondes zichtbaar voor ons, als we tenminste met een infraroodtelescoop in de juiste richting kijken.
Deze nanomachines lichten namelijk op als ze in contact komen met protonen, stelt de astrofysicus.
Nanoscale alien robots could be a thing. Barry Keily reports.
It has long been an unspoken tenet of astrobiology that in the absence of confirmed alien technologies it’s necessary to imagine some.
This is far from a frivolous pursuit. Rather, it is an attempt to resolve one of the more baffling aspects of human existence, generally summed up as the Fermi Paradox.
In 1950 the famous nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi came up with an interesting point. Given the size and age of the Milky Way, he said, any alien civilisation just a bit cleverer than humanity should by now have had ample time to explore and colonise all of it.
Why, then, with the obvious exception of a couple of dozen befuddled folk in America’s more agricultural states, has no one ever seen evidence thereof?
Scanning the skies for the sounds of extraterrestrial radio broadcasts – the basis of the long-running Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project – has thus far turned up squat. Other research avenues, at least since Fermi’s implicit challenge, have focussed on the search for technological evidence.
If ET is out there, the logic runs, she or he or it must have somehow arrived wherever there is, and must be somehow surviving – and for those things to happen, some type of whizzbang alien machinery must be involved.
All that has to be done, therefore, is work out a way to detect the tech, which is not easy when the object of any such search is completely unknown.
This has led to some not entirely fanciful imagining. Flying saucers were an early example, although, despite attempts to build them here on Earth, the engineering challenges inherent in the design appear fatal.
Dyson spheres were, and remain, a much stronger candidate. Named after the man who thought of them in 1960, English mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson, these bits of mega-kit comprise enormous energy-absorbing panels placed around entire stars.
Each sphere, the theory goes, could capture, convert and transmit enough energy to power a far-flung galactic empire. Speculation grew over the past couple of years that an actual alien Dyson sphere had been located.
Such a thing, astronomers suggested in 2015, would explain the eccentric light variations observed in a star classified as KIC 8462852, but better known as Tabby’s Star.
The most recent research, sadly for enthusiasts, suggests that the irregular and sudden dimming of KIC 8462852 is most likely caused by a rogue exomoon – otherwise known as a ploonet – getting in the way.
Hope, however, springs eternal for extraterrestrial tech hunters, and the other best-favoured hypothetical example is known as a von Neumann probe, named after a mathematician called John von Neumann, who came up with the idea.
These hypothetical machines overcome one of the principle objections to Fermi’s Paradox – that it assumes ET would actually want to physically colonise the galaxy. Von Neumann probes allow aliens to explore across vast distances while staying at home.
Essentially, they are self-replicating devices that whizz off and then make copies of themselves, thus rapidly – indeed, exponentially – increasing in numbers and range.
In terms of Fermi’s notion, however, von Neumann probes simply kick the can further down the road. The idea might explain why humans have never seen an alien, but fails to explain why it has never seen an alien machine.
Objections to the probe idea come in several forms. The machines would need materials to build their doppelgangers, some researchers note, and there may simply be not enough well-placed asteroids or rocky planets to allow this to happen often enough.
Others cite evolutionary theory. As the probes make copies of codes needed for them to operate, mistakes are bound to occur. Some probes might thus turn into predators, hunting and destroying others, or perhaps at a particular point in time, the accumulated errors render most of them dysfunctional.
Recently, however, the idea has been tweaked, because, well, of course it has.
In a paper lodged on the preprint site arxiv, astrophysicist Zaza Osmanov of the Free University of Tbilisi in Georgia suggests that theorists have been thinking about von Neumann probes at entirely the wrong scale.
Using some very detailed calculations, Osmanov concludes that the probe idea works best if the machines are microscopic – about one nanometre long.
At that size, he notes, they would not require the substantial resources of rocky planets to reproduce, but could instead power up using hydrogen atoms whirling around in the interstellar dust. He calculates that this is altogether more efficient and much, much faster, with replications happening in a matter of a few years rather than the rather longer timescales thought necessary for macro-scale machines.
Furthermore, nano von Neumanns would very quickly – at least on galactic timescales – become very numerous. Osmanov estimates that by the time descendants of an initial population of 100 had travelled one parsec – about four light years – they would number roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 1 x 1033).
And that sort of mega-swarm, he suggests, might make them visible, if only someone was looking in the right direction. The nano machines, he says, by encountering and collecting protons, would produce luminous emissions.
Each individual emission would be tiny, but collectively they would add up to something observable, given that the mature von Neumann swarm, assuming they are in a level formation and comprise a “wave” at their leading edge, would collectively have the “typical mass of a comet having a length scale of several kilometres”.
At least in the infrared part of the spectrum, Osmanov calculates, that constitutes a target worth looking for.
“All the aforementioned results indicate that if one detects a strange object with extremely high values of luminosity increment, that might be a good sign to place the object in the list of extraterrestrial Von-Neumann probe candidates,” he concludes.
(It is also possible, of course, referencing Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker books, that a huge and tightly packed swarm of nano von Neumanns has already swooped down through the atmosphere to take a closer look at Earth, only to be swallowed by a yawning dog.)
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover may have just captured a snapshot of the Red Planet's long-ago Great Drying.
Curiosity has detected relatively high levels of sulfate salts in the rocks of Gale Crater, a new study reports. Gale hosted a lake-and-stream system in the ancient past, and the newfound salts were likely concentrated by evaporation during a period of low water levels, researchers said.
This period may have been part of a normal cyclical fluctuation, a regular climatic change perhaps driven by recurring shifts in Mars' axial tilt or orbital parameters. "Alternatively, a drier Gale lake might be a sign of long-term, secular global drying of Mars, posited based on orbital observations," the scientists wrote in the new study, which was published online today (Oct. 7) in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Mars was once a relatively warm and wet world, complete with rivers and lakes and, most researchers believe, an ocean covering a large swath of the planet's northern hemisphere.
But things began to change around 4.2 billion years ago. Mars lost its global magnetic field, which had protected the planet's atmosphere from the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing continuously from the sun.
As a result, Mars lost the vast majority of its air to space by about 3.7 billion years ago, causing the planet to become much colder and drier. Today, Mars' air is just 1% as dense as Earth's atmosphere at sea level. (Luckily for us, Earth still has its global magnetic field.)
The Curiosity rover is helping scientists better understand the Red Planet's history, including its dramatic transformation.
The car-size rover landed inside the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater in August 2012, tasked primarily with assessing the area's past habitability. Curiosity quickly found lots of evidence of long-ago liquid water. Indeed, the mission team has determined that Gale's floor is an ancient lake bed, and that the area could have supported Earth-like life for long stretches — perhaps hundreds of millions of years at a time — in the ancient past.
In September 2014, Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp, the bizarre, 3.4-mile-high (5.5 km) mountain that rises from Gale's center. The rover has been climbing the mountain's foothills ever since, examining younger and younger sediments as it goes. And that brings us to the new study.
The researchers analyzed measurements Curiosity made while exploring the upper Murray Formation, an assemblage of exposed sedimentary rock near Mount Sharp's base thought to be 3.3 billion to 3.7 billion years old.
They found that these rocks are strongly enriched in sulfate salts — much more so than the deposits Curiosity had previously examined on the crater floor. (Those older rocks indicated an aqueous environment with water so fresh it was probably drinkable, mission team members have said.)
"Bulk enrichments" of calcium sulfate are widespread through about 500 feet (150 m) of the Murray Formation, the new study reports, while nuggets of high magnesium sulfate concentration speckle a thinner section of rock layers.
These salts were probably deposited along the margins of the Gale Crater basin, where the water was shallow. The deposits may trace back to multiple ponds on the fringes of the central lake, the researchers said.
Still, these salty ponds may have been habitable, the researchers added, noting that hypersaline lakes here on Earth teem with life. Indeed, the nature of the detected salts is intriguing from an astrobiological point of view.
"Sulfur is a basic element for life," study lead author William Rapin, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Space.com. "And we show that there was sulfate available in the water."
This animation shows a proposed route for NASA's Curiosity rover, which is climbing lower Mount Sharp on Mars. The annotated version of the map labels different regions that scientists working with the rover would like to explore in coming years.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/University
of Arizona/JHUAPL/MSSS/USGS Astrogeology Science Center.
It's possible that the Gale Crater lake system was drying out for good around the time these salty deposits were laid down, Rapin said.
"Maybe habitable environments had started to become niche," he said. "Maybe large regions of Mars were already too arid."
But there's also that other possibility — that Mars was in a temporary dry spell but would become wet again when its axis of rotation, or its orbital eccentricity, changed.
Curiosity's work could soon help solve this mystery. Mars orbiters have detected sulfate salts higher up on Mount Sharp. Curiosity is making its way toward those deposits and should start encountering them in the next year or two, if all goes according to plan, Rapin said. (The newfound salt deposits were not spotted by Mars orbiters.)
What the rover finds there, and along the way, should help researchers piece together the evolution of the Gale Crater lake system, he added.
"We know we're going to have an answer — maybe a big answer — about what happened next, including with the sulfate deposits, in the years to come," Rapin said.
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated byKarl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom orFacebook.
The Mystery Behind What Caused the Tunguska Explosion May Have Been Solved
The Mystery Behind What Caused the Tunguska Explosion May Have Been Solved
Russian scientists believe that a piece of decorative glass that sat in the bottom of a schoolteacher’s fish tank for the past 35 years might have been a part of the meteor that caused the Tunguska event, a multi-megaton explosion that occurred over Russia’s remote Tunguska region in 1908. If this proves to be true, the sparkling meteorite fragment could hold the key to unraveling the 111-year-old mystery of what caused the massive blast over Siberia.
The meteorite in question was discovered by the husband of schoolteacher Lidiya Korshunova in the early 1980s, while on a hike with friends celebrating his birthday. Korshunova’s husband happened upon the translucent green stone, assuming it to be an artificial piece of glass discarded from one of the mines in the region. Along with another, similar stone, it wound up as a decoration in the family fish tank, where the stones sat for the next 35 years.
After reading the papers of Soviet mineralogist and geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, Korshunova, herself a historian and geologist, began to suspect that there was more to the translucent stones adorning her fish tank than previously assumed, especially considering that the area where they were found—deep in the taiga on the banks of the Krasnoyarsk region’s Metlyakovka River—was rich in precious stones such as emeralds. Consulting with experts in Moscow, it was discovered that the strange stone wasn’t an emerald, but it was indeed extremely strange.
The material making up the stone was indeed glass, but it was no ordinary industrial slag: once analyzed, the piece was found to be 7.5 times richer in nickel, 6 times in copper, 20 times in zinc, 3 times in cobalt, 3 times in titanium, and had 40 times more chrome than what would be found in ordinary, man-made glass. This finding ruled out the possibility that the glass that made up this stone was artificial in origin.
However, similar compositions have been found in glassy tektites—blobs of glass formed by the heat of meteorite impacts—a connection that has led former chief specialist for the Russian Space Agency, Evgeny Dmitriev, to speculate that the glassy rock might have been an orbital travelling companion of the Tunguska meteor which exploded over Siberia on 30 June 1908. Indeed, much smaller, albeit similar, stones with identical compositions have been found around the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion, a blast that flattened more than 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles) of taiga, the type of forest that grows in the remote Siberian region.
“The scientists were able to conclude that these stones are part of the Tunguska meteorite, because the chemical elements that were in the area of Tunguska are almost entirely in line with our stones,” Korshunova said in an interview with the Russian RT Network. She went on to say that an unnamed institute offered to buy her stones, but she declined, because “this stone is priceless, because it has no analogues in Russia.”
We've Got New Photos of That Weird Substance China Found on The Moon
VICTOR TANGERMANN, FUTURISM
China's Yutu-2 lunar lander just sent back new images of a strange substance it found near a small crater on the far side of the Moon.
Last month, the team behind the lunar rover claimed it had found a "colored mysterious substance" as described in the rover's diary, which claimed that the material's "shape and color is significantly different from the surrounding lunar soil."
A new post released by the team over the weekend shows new images of the strange substance — though it's unfortunately located in the middle of a crater, making it difficult to reach.
(CNSA/CLEP)
The images were taken by the rover's obstacle-avoidance camera, which makes sure the rover doesn't bump into anything. The red and green shapes in the image above are most likely artifacts of the rover's Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer, Space.com reports.
(CNSA/CLEP)
So what is it? The best guess we have so far is that it's a piece of lunar glass that formed during a meteor impact.
It's likely that the Chinese researchers will release more images and spectrometer readings of the mysterious substance in the future.
It will have to — at the very least — wait for the Sun to rise again to continue its investigation. And that's roughly a week from now.
This article was originally published by Futurism. Read the original article.
We haven't seen scenes like this because space travel is harder than it looks
(Image: Getty)
Where is everybody? The question, famously asked by pioneering nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, is one that many people have wondered about at one point or another.
Our planet is teeming with life. Even in the most inhospitable environments; deep underground, in the depths of freezing Antarctic lakes, life will always find a way.
But as yet there is no hard evidence of life anywhere else in the universe.
SETI started actively searching for aliens in 1984
(Image: Getty)
Unless Copernicus was wrong, the Earth is not special. There are planets just like ours scattered throughout the Universe.
Even if breaking the light speed barrier is completely impossible, and there isn’t an interstellar empire thriving somewhere in our galaxy, we should be able to perceive the signs of alien megastructures and listen in on extraterrestrial communications.
Why not?
Some theorists have suggested that there is a "Great Filter" that most habitable planets don’t make it through: either a purely biological one like the transition from single-celled to multicellular life, or a more technical one, like the difficulty of sustaining an industrial civilisation without succumbing to runaway climate change.
But maybe the answer to that question is simpler than that. Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong places.
We have already detected a number of ocean worlds, where the surface is either mostly or completely covered with water.
NASA’s Alan Stern thinks that water worlds would provide the kind of stable environment that intelligent life would thrive in: shielded from radiation and all but the biggest asteroid impacts, undersea life could evolve in peace.
"Impacts and solar flares, and nearby supernovae, and what orbit you're in, and whether you have a magnetosphere, and whether there's a poisonous atmosphere — none of those things matter," he told Space.com.
But that liquid "suit of armour" is also a prison. "If they have technology, and let's say they're broadcasting, or they have city lights or whatever — we can't see it in any part of the spectrum, except maybe very-low-frequency [radio]," he said.
Stern, who works on NASA’s long-range New Horizons space probe, adds that intelligent sea creatures would naturally have less interest in the stars than us, and their spacecraft – filled as they would be with water – would be very heavy and hard to launch.
It would be even harder to get off the ground if you lived on a Super-Earth.
Super-Earths – rocky planets with a mass between two and ten times that of Earth – appear to be very common in the Universe.
Since first being discovered in 1992, many more have been identified. Of the 1,000 or so exoplanets so far mapped, over 300 of them are Super-Earths.
Many of these are in what scientists consider to be the "Goldilocks Zone" of their parent star – not too hot and not too cold for liquid water: and therefore candidates for life.
Not only habitable, they could be "super-habitable" with denser atmospheres providing better shielding against cosmic menaces such as asteroids and solar flares.
"On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive," says astronomer Michael Hippke. "Such civilisations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope.”
He says that humans are very lucky to live on a comparatively "lightweight" planet with a gravitational pull that’s weak enough to escape.
"Other civilisations, if they exist,” he says “might not be as lucky."
To launch a 1 tonne satellite from Kepler-20b (a Super-Earth about 1.87 times Earth's radius and 9.7 times its mass), a conventional-fuel rocket would need to be about 3 times the size of the Saturn V that carried Neil Armstrong and his crew to the Moon – a payload of around 45 tonnes.
If our imaginary Super-Earth dwellers actually wanted to stage their own equivalent of the Apollo programme, they’d need a rocket in the region of 400,000 metric tons, or roughly the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
In a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Dr Hippke drily notes that a pyramid-sized rocket "is probably a realistic limit for chemical rockets regarding cost constraints."
Until we actually find extraterrestrial life we won’t know.
But as author and satellite communications pioneer Arthur C Clarke pointed out: “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
As the northern lights danced and glowed in the night sky this past Labor Day weekend, skywatchers in places like Alaska and Canada may have spotted a rose-tinted streak amidst the dazzling display. But this pink-ish ribbon isn't an aurora — it's STEVE!
STEVE (the Strong Thermal Emissions Velocity Enhancement) is a spectacular and colorful celestial phenomenon that was first spotted 2016. Scientists have studied the particles associated with STEVE for decades, but only recently have they witnessed the phenomenon in the sky. This past summer, a research team led by University of Calgary researcher D.M. Gillies confirmed that, despite its colorful appearance, STEVE isn't a type of aurora but something entirely unique.
In May, researchers confirmed that STEVE is not an aurora. But this new research expands our understanding of the strange phenomenon even further.
"The big thing is, we can clearly say now it's [a] not regular aurora," study co-author Don Hampton, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said in a statement. "It's a new phenomenon; that's pretty exciting."
One characteristic that distinguishes STEVE is its mauve hues, which are different from the typically green, purple, blue and yellow beams of auroras. Additionally, STEVE is visible from latitudes much farther south than auroras usually are.
The researchers used a spectrograph, which they built at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, to study the light coming from STEVE which they observed on April 10, 2018 at Lucky Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. They analyzed its emissions to determine its wavelengths, patterns and other properties. A spectrum acts as an identifier, so by determining STEVE's spectrum, the team hopes to further understand and categorize the phenomenon.
"We need to understand what the spectrum looks like and therefore understand the physics behind it," Hampton said in the statement.
Alberta Aurora Chasers captured STEVE in April in British Columbia, Canada. STEVE is the narrow ribbon of white-purple hues overhead, and the vibrant green light on the right is an aurora located further north.
Green optical structures, often described as "picket fence" structures because of their distinctive shape, can be seen jutting through STEVE at lower altitudes, and in studying the wavelengths of the emissions from STEVE and these green structures, the team found that the green emissions have a much different spectrum from STEVE.
The team determined that the green columns which appear alongside STEVE are caused by particle precipitation, which occurs when energetic particles like electrons, protons, neutrons and ions are accelerated through the atmosphere. This makes these green streaks a type of aurora very similar to a typical auroral structure. However, because they have a very different spectrum, STEVE is in a category of its own, the researchers concluded.
"When we looked at the spectrum of STEVE, it had none of those distinct wavelengths … Instead, it's a very broad band of light," Hampton said in the statement. "When you turn your electric stove on, those coils get red hot, right? If you look at it with a spectrograph, you would see broadband emissions … So this is like very, very warm atmosphere emissions of some sort."
Scientists will continue to study STEVE, what exactly it is and what causes it. Understanding STEVE is more than just an important scientific pursuit, however. Phenomena in the atmosphere can disrupt radio communications between spacecraft and humans back on Earth, so understanding this strange, pink phenomenon could have immediate, practical applications.
This research was published in a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
NASA satellite spots a mysterious green light that quickly disappeared
NASA satellite spots a mysterious green light that quickly disappeared
A green space blob flashed into existence and then... it was gone.
NASA's NuSTAR X-ray observatory has spotted something a little weird. While imaging the Fireworks galaxy, NuSTAR spotted several mysterious bright sources of X-ray light, appearing as green and blue spots. Within days, the blobs had disappeared.
The main goal of the NuSTAR observations was to examine a supernova -- a huge star explosion. The green blob, known as an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), shown at the bottom of the galaxy in the image above didn't appear during the first observation, but showed up during a second one 10 days later. Another space telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, then looked again and found the object, ULX-4, had quickly disappeared.
"Ten days is a really short amount of time for such a bright object to appear," Hannah Earnshaw, a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech and lead author on the study, said in a statement. "Usually with NuSTAR, we observe more gradual changes over time, and we don't often observe a source multiple times in quick succession. In this instance, we were fortunate to catch a source changing extremely quickly, which is very exciting."
It's possible the light was from a black hole consuming another object like a star, the study suggests. When objects get too close to a black hole, they can get torn apart by gravity, and their debris is pulled into a close orbit around the black hole. Material at the disk's inner edge moves so quickly that it "heats up to millions of degrees and radiates X-rays," NASA says. For reference, the surface of the sun is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Most ULXs last for a long time because they're formed by dense objects like black holes that "feed" on a star for a long time. Short-lived X-ray sources like this ULX aren't as common, so its appearance could be explained by a scenario such as a black hole quickly destroying a small star.
There could be other possible explanations for the green blob's appearance. The study's authors suggest its source could be a neutron star, which is an extremely dense object created from the explosion of a star that wasn't big enough to create a black hole. The mass of a neutron star is similar to that of the sun, but it's only around the size of a large city. Therefore, neutron stars can pull in material and cause debris to move really quickly in a disk, similar to a black hole. These can create slow-feeding ultraluminous X-ray sources, but the processes that make the X-ray light differ slightly from those in ULXs formed by black holes.
Neutron stars can create strong magnetic fields that form "columns" and take material to the surface. In the process, they generate strong X-rays. However, if the star is spinning super-fast, material can't reach the surface and create these X-ray bursts. It's kind of like an invisibility cloak -- astronomers can't see the neutron star's X-ray signature. But if material does somehow sneak through, the invisibility cloak fails. That could explain why ULX-4 quickly appeared and then disappeared.
"This result is a step towards understanding some of the rarer and more extreme cases in which matter accretes onto black holes or neutron stars," Earnshaw said in the statement.
So in the middle of the 20th century, after we first invented radio telescopes, we found all sorts of surprises. It turns out that the universe is pretty loud, full of all kinds of interesting radio sources. Some of them were familiar, and some of them were quite odd. As you can imagine, it was a pretty exciting time to be a radio astronomer.
Out in the middle of the English countryside, two particularly excited people were Antony Hewish and his grad student Jocelyn Bell Burnell. They were hunting for quasars, relatively new characters on the astronomical scene, which were at the very at the time poorly understood. All we knew then is that they were very loud radio sources and very far away.
In their hunt for quasars they instead found something absolutely remarkable and unprecedented in the history of astronomy: they found a single source in the sky that flashed. Perfectly. Every 1.33 seconds. This source, whatever it was, pulsed a burst of radio energy. And then turned off. And then did it again, exactly 1.33 seconds later
It was astounding. How could something in nature produce something so regular and periodic?
Hewish and Burnell didn't really believe that they had found evidence for an extraterrestrial alien civilization, but you never know, right? As an "inside joke" within the community they dubbed this source LGM-1. That stands for Little Green Men (and the first such one to be encountered).
Whatever it was, there was a lot of excitement around it. But once another similar source was discovered on the opposite side of the sky, and then another, and then another, and then another, astronomers sadly put away the LGM moniker. They got a new name: pulsars, short for pulsating quasar. It turns out that pulsars have absolutely nothing to do with quasars, but you can't fault astronomers in the 1960s for not really knowing what was going on. Especially after coming off the high of potentially finding alien life.
The theoretically minded folks in the community quickly devised a solution to explain their behavior. They had known for some time of a hypothetical object called a neutron star, formed when a massive star dies and compresses its core down to crushing extremes. At the time they were just hypothetical objects, but the pulsar provided a way to test if they were real.
Because of their extreme gravity coupled with extreme electric and magnetic fields, these neutron stars could rotate up to incredible speeds and shoot out jets of radiation from their poles. These jets sweep around like a lighthouse, with the Earth sometimes getting caught in the blast. From our perspective we won't see the beam all the time, just a brief flash as the it washes over us.
A pulsar.
One of the most extreme, exotic objects in the known universe. Second only to - and perhaps exceeding - the strangeness of black holes themselves. The odd, repeating signal Burnell and Hewitt found in the 1960s wasn't an alien, but it just might be more fascinating after all.
We humans can now peer back into the virtual origin of our universe. We have learned much about the laws of nature that control its seemingly infinite celestial bodies, their evolution, motions and possible fate. Yet, equally remarkable, we have no generally accepted information as to whether other life exists beyond us, or whether we are, as was Samuel Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, “alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea!” We have made only one exploration to solve that primal mystery. I was fortunate to have participated in that historic adventure as experimenter of the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment on NASA’s spectacular Viking mission to Mars in 1976.
On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question.
When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life. Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results. Instead the agency launched a series of missions to Mars to determine whether there was ever a habitat suitable for life and, if so, eventually to bring samples to Earth for biological examination.
NASA maintains the search for alien life among its highest priorities. On February 13, 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said we might find microbial life on Mars. Our nation has now committed to sending astronauts to Mars. Any life there might threaten them, and us upon their return. Thus, the issue of life on Mars is now front and center.
Life on Mars seemed a long shot. On the other hand, it would take a near miracle for Mars to be sterile. NASA scientist Chris McKay once said that Mars and Earth have been “swapping spit” for billions of years, meaning that, when either planet is hit by comets or large meteorites, some ejecta shoot into space. A tiny fraction of this material eventually lands on the other planet, perhaps infecting it with microbiological hitch-hikers. That some Earth microbial species could survive the Martian environment has been demonstrated in many laboratories. There are even reports of the survival of microorganisms exposed to naked space outside the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA’s reservation against a direct search for microorganisms ignores the simplicity of the task accomplished by Louis Pasteur in 1864. He allowed microbes to contaminate a hay-infusion broth, after which bubbles of their expired gas appeared. Prior to containing living microorganisms, no bubbles appeared. (Pasteur had earlier determinted that heating, or pasteurizing, such a substance would kill the microbes.) This elegantly simple test, updated to substitute modern microbial nutrients with the hay-infusion products in Pasteur’s, is in daily use by health authorities around the world to examine potable water. Billions of people are thus protected against microbial pathogens.
This standard test, in essence, was the LR test on Mars, modified by the addition of several nutrients thought to broaden the prospects for success with alien organisms, and the tagging of the nutrients with radioactive carbon. These enhancements made the LR sensitive to the very low microbial populations postulated for Mars, should any be there, and reduced the time for detection of terrestrial microorganisms to about one hour. But on Mars, each LR experiment continued for seven days. A heat control, similar to Pasteur’s, was added to determine whether any response obtained was biological or chemical.
The Viking LR sought to detect and monitor ongoing metabolism, a very simple and fail-proof indicator of living microorganisms. Several thousand runs were made, both before and after Viking, with terrestrial soils and microbial cultures, both in the laboratory and in extreme natural environments. No false positive or false negative result was ever obtained. This strongly supports the reliability of the LR Mars data, even though their interpretation is debated.
In her recent book To Mars with Love, my LR co-experimenter Patricia Ann Straat provides much of the scientific detail of the Viking LR at lay level. Scientific papers published about the LR are available on my Web site.
In addition to the direct evidence for life on Mars obtained by the Viking LR, evidence supportive of, or consistent with, extant microbial life on Mars has been obtained by Viking, subsequent missions to Mars, and discoveries on Earth:
Surface water sufficient to sustain microorganisms was found on Mars by Viking, Pathfinder, Phoenix and Curiosity;
Ultraviolet (UV) activation of the Martian surface material did not, as initially proposed, cause the LR reaction: a sample taken from under a UV-shielding rock was as LR-active as surface samples;
Complex organics, have been reported on Mars by Curiosity’s scientists, possibly including kerogen, which could be of biological origin;
Phoenix and Curiosity found evidence that the ancient Martian environment may have been habitable.
The excess of carbon-13 over carbon-12 in the Martian atmosphere is indicative of biological activity, which prefers ingesting the latter;
The Martian atmosphere is in disequilibrium: its CO2 should long ago have been converted to CO by the sun’s UV light; thus the CO2 is beingregenerated, possibly by microorganisms as on Earth;
Terrestrial microorganisms have survived in outer space outside the ISS;
Ejecta containing viable microbes have likely been arriving on Mars from Earth;
Methane has been measured in the Martian atmosphere; microbial methanogens could be the source;
The rapid disappearance of methane from the Martian atmosphere requires a sink, possibly supplied by methanotrophs that could co-exist with methanogens on the Martian surface;
Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface;
Formaldehyde and ammonia, each possibly indicative of biology, are claimed to be in the Martian atmosphere;
An independent complexity analysis of the positive LR signal identified it as biological;
Six-channel spectral analyses by Viking’s imaging system found terrestrial lichen and green patches on Mars rocks to have the identical color, saturation, hue and intensity;
A wormlike feature was in an image taken by Curiosity;
Large structures resembling terrestrial stromatolites (formed by microorganisms) were found by Curiosity; a statistical analysis of their complex features showed less than a 0.04 percent probability that the similarity was caused by chance alone;
No factor inimical to life has been found on Mars.
In summary, we have: positive results from a widely-used microbiological test; supportive responses from strong and varied controls; duplication of the LR results at each of the two Viking sites; replication of the experiment at the two sites; and the failure over 43 years of any experiment or theory to provide a definitive nonbiological explanation of the Viking LR results.
What is the evidence against the possibility of life on Mars? The astonishing fact is that there is none. Furthermore, laboratory studies have shown that some terrestrial microorganisms could survive and grow on Mars.
NASA has already announced that its 2020 Mars lander will not contain a life-detection test. In keeping with well-established scientific protocol, I believe an effort should be made to put life detection experiments on the next Mars mission possible. I and my co-experimenter have formally and informally proposed that the LR experiment, amended with an ability to detect chiral metabolism, be sent to Mars to confirm the existence of life: non-biological chemical reactions do not distinguish between “left-handed” and “right-handed” organic molecules, but all living things do.
Moreover, the Chiral LR (CLR) could confirm and extend the Viking LR findings. It could determine whether any life detected were similar to ours, or whether there was a separate genesis. This would be a fundamental scientific discovery in its own right. A small, lightweight CLR has already been designed and its principle verified by tests. It could readily be turned into a flight instrument.
Meanwhile a panel of expert scientists should review all pertinent data of the Viking LR together with other and more recent evidence concerning life on Mars. Such an objective jury might conclude, as I did, that the Viking LR did find life. In any event, the study would likely produce important guidance for NASA’s pursuit of its holy grail.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Ex-NASA-wetenschapper: we hebben al leven gevonden op Mars. Dit is de smoking gun
Ex-NASA-wetenschapper: we hebben al leven gevonden op Mars. Dit is de smoking gun
Er zijn onderhand miljarden gespendeerd om antwoord te krijgen op één simpele vraag: is er leven op Mars?
Voormalig NASA-wetenschapper Gilbert Levin schrijft in een opiniestuk voor Scientific American dat we tijdens de Vikingmissie in 1976 al leven hebben ontdekt op de rode planeet.
NASA stuurde twee Vikinglanders naar Mars om experimenten uit te voeren.
Positief
De smoking gun volgens Levin: tijdens het experiment dat hij leidde werden tekenen van leven gevonden.
De lander vermengde bodemmateriaal met een oplossing bestaande uit voedingsstoffen.
Als er micro-organismen in de bodem zaten, dan zou er tijdens het experiment koolstofdioxide vrijkomen, zo was de gedachte.
Beide Marslanders testten positief op micro-organismen, aldus Levin.
Allerlei ontdekkingen
Maar volgens de NASA leverden andere experimenten ‘geen duidelijk bewijs op voor de aanwezigheid van levende micro-organismen in de bodem nabij de landingsplaatsen’.
Ook na de Vikingmissies zijn er allerlei ontdekkingen gedaan op Mars die wijzen op de aanwezigheid van leven, stelt Levin.
Wormen
Hij noemt onder meer de ontdekking van water, methaan, ammoniak en een soort ‘wormen’ die op foto’s van Marsrover Curiosity zijn te zien.
Levin benadrukt dat de NASA sinds de missies in 1976 verzuimd heeft om te zoeken naar direct bewijs voor buitenaards leven.
A large cluster of glowing lights was filmed over North Carolina’s largest coastal lagoon recently by a man who was traveling by ferry, sparking theories about the origin of the unusual glowing objects.
The observer, William Guy, was crossing Pamlico Sound via ferry from Ocracoke Village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks to Swan Quarters, according to the UFO Sightings Hotspot YouTube Channel, which featured Guy’s video of the objects. The incident occurred on September 18, 2019.
“Look, nothing in the sky, at all,” Guy can be heard saying as he pans the camera along the horizon, before framing the objects and asking, “Can anybody tell me what that is?”
The Daily Star added to the conspiracy speculation, quoting viewers online who advised that “Earth is under heavy observation,” implying that the objects were alien spacecraft.
So what were the objects?
In likelihood, the lights were nothing more than a military training operation being undertaken over the coast. As to the specific source of these lights, they appear to resemble chaff flares, a variety of countermeasure that is commonly used during training exercises, as can be seen in the video below:
According to a North Carolina Military Affairs Commission Map Atlas for 2016, much of the air space above the Outer Banks is a designated Protection Area for the Marine Corps, the primary use for which involves helicopter flight operations. “The Marine Corps has three bases along North Carolina’s southeastern coastline, and uses several auxiliary fields for flight operation training,” the Atlas states. “The Marines have two air stations in the area and helicopter training is a big part of their operations.”
More relevant to the observation of lights over Pamlico Sound, the Atlas further notes that, “The Marine Corps Protection Areas encompass several counties around the Pamlico and Neuse rivers and also includes some flight routes between the Marine bases and Raleigh, where some helicopter operations occur.” It notes that additional flight routes exist in the southern part of North Carolina, which are also included with the designated Protection Areas.
Incidentally, the lights over Pamlico Sound were filmed on the 72nd birthday of the U.S. Air Force, as it traditionally recognizes Sept. 18, 1947, as its birth date.
It is also worth noting that earlier in the month, the Army had announced it would be conducting a series of “unconventional warfare exercises” in 21 North Carolina counties. According to the Charlotte Observer, these operations are called Robin Sage training, which “can be likened to live-action role playing in the extreme, with hostile engagement playing out between Special Forces students, volunteer civilians and soldiers.”
However, these training exercises concluded on September 12, and appear to have been conducted mainly with civilians and soldiers on the ground, rather than by air. Nonetheless, this is further indication that the various branches of the military often do conduct training exercises that it sometimes deems “unconventional,” which may at times give rise to misinterpretation or confusion.
In the case of the lights filmed over Pamlico Sound, it’s all too tempting to speculate that we’re “seeing them aliens,” although the more likely cause is just another military exercise over one of the Marine Corps’ designated Protection Areas. Of course, that’s not to say that unusual things of the aerial variety don’t turn up in military airspace from time to time.
While the U.S. government seems to be preoccupied with tariffs on conventional Chinese goods, someone needs to be keeping an eye on that country’s future products. Why? Well, for one thing … it’s China, the country which put the first rover on the far side of the moon. When that country unveils a flying saucer it calls the Super Great White Shark … is it too late?
Could this be the future of air travel ?
Image Credit: Chinese Internet
“According to published technical data, the “Super Great White Shark” armed helicopter can carry 2 crew members, with a length of 7.6 meters, a height of 2.85 meters, a rotor diameter of 4.9 meters, a maximum takeoff weight of 6 tons, and a maximum flying speed of 650 thousand per hour. Meter, the practical ceiling is 6000 meters.”
Classic non-cake-pan flying saucer
The Chinese news source thepaper.cn reported on the 5th China Tianjin International Helicopter Expo held last week at the China Aviation Helicopter Industry Base of Tianjin Binhai New Area Airport Economic Zone under the headline: “”UFO” debut, “Super Great White Shark” armed helicopter.” Calling it a helicopter doesn’t change the obvious – it looks like a two-person flying saucer that would definitely be a UFO. OK, it’s more like a two-person flying cake pan (see it here and here), but perhaps that’s a diversionary tactic to make the rest of the world believe that China thinks a flying cake pan is a “Super Great White Shark.” In fact, thepaper.cn quotes an unnamed source who hints that there’s much more going on.
“At the moment, there are many different explorations for future helicopter designs, some of which are sci-fi, but this is not a slap in the air. This kind of exploration is beneficial.”
The Drive reports that helicopters are losing their usefulness over the battlefield – especially at high altitudes — and all of the superpowers are trying new designs to replace them. It also points out that the flying saucer design is not new (like the real Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar and the alleged Nazi flying saucers) but the technology of drones may finally be ready to upscale successfully … and be large enough and safe enough to accommodate human pilots.
But, but … it still looks like a flying cake pan! Or a flying robotic vacuum cleaner!
That may be why the Chinese are emphasizing the Super Great White Shark’s teeth (planned armaments include a 20mm automatic cannon, air-to-ground precision-guided munitions and air-to-air missiles) because it didn’t demonstrate its fins and tail (maximum altitude of 19,700 feet and top speed of 400 miles per hour). The prototype at the helicopter show did not get off the ground, even enough to make one think it’s just a sophisticated hovercraft – which it also looks like (see for yourself here).
As David Letterman might ask after reviewing the coverage of the “UFO” “Super Great White Shark,” is this anything?
It’s from China. You’d better believe it is. Will we find out if it’s a real flying saucer before it’s too late? That depends on whether the other superpowers develop one before China does. Could it already be operational somewhere? Perhaps that’s a question for the pilots from the USS Nimitz.
Elon Musk Says SpaceX Is Stil Building a Third Drone Ship – for Falcon or Starship?
Elon Musk Says SpaceX Is Still Building a Third Drone Ship – for Falcon or Starship?
Unprovoked on October 9th, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted “A Shortfall of Gravitas” – the name of a third drone ship settled on a year and a half ago – and reaffirmed that plans were still afoot to build a third rocket recovery vessel.
This is the first update on SpaceX’s newest drone ship in more than a year and comes just a few months after drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) – formerly stationed in California – was sent through the Panama Canal. News that A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) is still in the works raises the questions: what’s the holdup and what role(s) will the new drone ship play in SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet?
Back in July 2018 and just shy of half a year after ASOG’s development was revealed, CEO Elon Musk indicated that the drone ship could be completed and ready for recovery operations as early as “next summer”, or Q3 2019. Now two weeks into Q4 2019, this can be interpreted in several ways, with the most likely explanation being that SpaceX’s naval contractor of choice is running behind schedule while building the new drone ship.
That’s the simplest explanation and operates under the assumption that Musk’s February 2018 comments remain true, meaning that ASOG is first and foremost (if not entirely) meant to support dual side booster landings for future Falcon Heavy launches and an increased Falcon 9 flight rate. However, recent developments give reason to believe that this may no longer be the guiding motivation behind SpaceX’s construction of a new drone ship.
Most notably, over the last several months of 2019, it has become increasingly clear that SpaceX plans (or hopes) to shut down its West Coast Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) launch facilities for anywhere from 9 to 18 months. In just the last few days, word broke that Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) believes that it will be able to open an East Coast polar launch corridor (essentially the same thing VAFB offers) just months from now, and SpaceX hopes to be its first user as soon as February 2020.
Along those lines, SpaceX took the step of sending West Coast drone ship JRTI on a several-week journey across the Panama Canal. The drone ship has since stopped in Louisiana for what is assumed to be maintenance and it remains unclear if JRTI will head to Port of Brownsville (Texas) to support Starship test flights or to Port Canaveral to essentially fill the role ASOG was initially meant to.
Major activity in Morgan City for Just Read the Instructions!
The cut-off wings have been lifted off of the droneship by a crane and are now sitting to the side.https://t.co/y7W4goawbI
After passing through the Panama Canal, JRTI headed East, only to stop in Morgan City, Louisiana for what is assumed to be maintenance and possible upgrades.
As such, it’s no longer clear if SpaceX actually has a need for ASOG, at least as it was described last year. If SpaceX is moving JRTI east for the indefinite future, OCISLY and JRTI could easily support the Falcon 9 launch rates needed for Starlink and dual Falcon Heavy side booster recoveries, although Falcon Heavy is not scheduled to fly again until late-2020.
This leaves one obvious option left to explain ASOG’s continued existence and delayed debut: SpaceX may have paused work for a variety of reasons and changed ASOG’s design to account for a new role in the recovery fleet. That new role would likely center around the extremely rapid progress SpaceX is making with Starship as it pursues a series of ambitious flight tests that could begin before the end of 2019.
Starship heads towards orbit atop a Super Heavy booster.
(SpaceX)
Of note, an August 2019 Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) of East Coast Starship launches revealed that SpaceX’s initially plans to land all Super Heavy boosters on a drone ship stationed a few miles off the Florida coast. Starship may also require drone ship landings in the early stages, at least until SpaceX is able to complete the environmental review and licensing process needed before it can begin to land Starship/Super Heavy at Pad 39A and Landing Zones 1 and 2.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see where drone ship JRTI heads after its Louisiana interlude and hopefully find out soon whether ASOG is a drone ship copy or something else entirely.
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Mount Shasta is a very powerful beacon to the indigenous peoples of northern California and southern Oregon. It is also the rumored home of Bigfoot, citizens of Lemuria, The Great White Brotherhood, and regular UFO sightings.
Towering Mount Shasta is the prominent centerpiece of northern California, rising like a glimmering diamond in a field of evergreens. Mount Shasta is situated at the intersection of three western mountain ranges: the Sierra Nevada to the southeast, the Cascades extending north to British Columbia, and the western Klamath Range. At 14,162 feet (4,249 m), Shasta is the second highest of the Cascade Range volcanoes and is home to California’s five largest glaciers. Mount Shasta rises more than 10,000 feet (3,300 m) from its base, soaring abruptly over a landscape of relatively level ground. Because it is physically unconnected to any nearby mountain Shasta is visible for a hundred miles in all directions on a clear day. This cone-shaped stratovolcano is relatively young, as is evident by the lack of extensive glacial erosion. Tiny sulfur vents just below the summit suggest this dormant volcano is merely taking a geological nap. Long regarded as a place of intense energy, the “Gentile Giant” Mount Shasta possesses a visible and majestic presence. New Age mystics believe it represents our planet’s version of the human being’s first or root chakra, located near the base of our spine. This theory then expounds that the mountain connects to our collective survival.
Also included in the extensive list of Shasta mysteries are unexplained mound clusters at different locations around the mountain. Some mounds near Goose Lake were created by Ducks Unlimited for birds to nest, but others defy rationalization. Archaeologists and geologists are in stark disagreement with one another, each claiming the other must explain the mounds. Large boulders are oddly found at the top of some mounds, rather than rolling down over time by the forces of gravity. Many of the mounds do not show signs of deterioration or erosion. What’s more, no Native American group claims responsibility, nor do any such groups have a history of creating mounds in this part of the world. At a twin cluster of mounds near the small town of Tennant there are mounds surrounded by interconnected moats. Although the moats are usually dry it is clear that water somehow interacts with the two clusters. Seen from above, the Tennant Water Mounds take on the appearance of crop circles because of their unusual geometric shapes. Nature certainly does not create anything this perfect. It is possible that an eccentric rancher with a penchant for sacred geometry created the mounds with a bulldozer as a watering hole for his livestock. By why go to so much trouble? Those who believe in the underground city of Telos offer another explanation. When the dew point reaches an optimum level, the moats around the mounds are filled by a channel connecting to an underground water source. When filled, the water molecules are excited to the point that they can self-regulate the mounds by clearing the moats of any debris. Once in operation the water mounds serve the purpose of creating lenticular cloud cover for entering or exiting spacecraft. It wouldn’t be the most far out Shasta theory. After all, unexplained sightings of ape-men, UFOs and hooded phantoms are reported every year. Such stories only enhance the mystery and legend of this powerful mountain.
Brad Olsen is author of nine books including two in his Esoteric Series: “Modern Esoteric” and “Future Esoteric.” An award-winning author, book publisher and event producer, his keynote presentations and interviews have enlightened audiences at Contact in the Desert, Human Origins, UFO MegaCon, DisclosureCon, and dozens of radio (including Coast to Coast, Ground Zero, and Fade to Black) and television shows (including Ancient Aliens, America Unearthed, Beyond Belief, and Mysteries of the Outdoors). Brad is a founder and co-producer of the How Weird Street Faire in the SOMA neighborhood of his home-base San Francisco. The Chicago native’s esoteric writing continues to reach a wide audience while he continues breaking ground in alternative journalism, public speaking, illustration and photography.
Special Report: Clones (The Missing and the Human Genome Project)
Special Report: Clones (The Missing and the Human Genome Project)
This Report was only accomplished through my tireless efforts to uphold my indigenous rights and freedoms to practice my culture privately and unimpeded. – Sovereign Crown Denderah
(Note on LQ video: Those labels on the children in the playground were superimposed on to them. It was not on the original video. They are NOT Citizens. They Are Indigenous!)
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was the international, collaborative research program whose goal was the complete mapping and understanding of all the genes of human beings. All our genes together are known as our "genome."
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
The Latest on Skinwalker Ranch, Nick Pope's Experience "Storming" Area 51 & More - Alien Con Dallas 2019
The Latest on Skinwalker Ranch, Nick Pope's Experience "Storming" Area 51 & More - Alien Con Dallas 2019
From the Vatican’s plans to baptize an alien to the infamous Element 115 that Bob Lazar claims to have discovered when he worked near Area 51, every interesting topic it seems was covered at Alien Con Dallas 2019. Highlights include Nick Pope’s experience “storming” Area 51, new investigations at Skinwalker Ranch, a debate between “Ancient Aliens” stars about Bob Lazar’s credibility, Giorgio Tsoukalous’ recent research into ocean mysteries, and more.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.