During the Second World War, many pilots—both Allied and Axis fighters, and above Europe and the Pacific—reported observations of unusual aerial phenomena. Generally appearing as one or more lights, and often reddish in color, these aerial specters would often pace aircraft, flying off to the side, directly in front of, or in pursuit of the observing pilot and crews.

Known today as “Foo Fighters,” there have been a variety of interpretations as to what their ultimate source and nature might have been. Theories range from Nazi experimental weapons (a seemingly unlikely notion, if indeed Axis pilots had observed them as well), to unique varieties of natural luminous phenomenon akin to ball lightning.

Beginning in 2012, the Washington Post featured a number of articles on such phenomenon as “red sprites,” “blue jets,” “elves,” and other odd electrical phenomena of the upper atmosphere, which very likely could explain some of the Foo Fighter reports from the Second World War.

However, there are always the occasional outliers, and as far as Foo Fighters go, while many can most likely be explained as electrical phenomena that would have been virtually unknown at the time of the war, a few reports do seem to point to something more tangible.

One very atypical Foo Fighter report from close to the end of the Second World War was logged by the Eastern Air Command, South East Asia, in its Weekly Intelligence Summary for June 1, 1945. The incident occurred over Truk (known since the end of World War II as the Chuuk State, one of four such states in the Federated States of Micronesia).

“A B-24 of the 11th Bomb Group on a snooper mission over Truk during the early morning hours of 3 May 1945, encountered what may prove to be as baffling a phenomena (sic) as the balls of Ught seen by the B-29s while over the Japanese mainland,” the report states, referencing previous sightings of Foo Fighter-like illuminations observed previously by pilots over the Pacific.

The report then gives the following account of the incident:

“The B-24 first observed two red circles of light approaching the plane from below while still over the Truk atoll. One light was on the right and the other was seen on the left of the B-24. The light on the left side turned back after one and one half hours. The one on the right remained with the bomber until the B-24 was only 10 miles from Guam. From the time that the B-24 left the atoll, the light never left its position on the right side. It was reported by the crew members as sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and sometimes longside the B-24 and always about 1200 to 1500 yds distant.

The light followed the B-24 in dives from 11,000 to 3,000 feet, through sharp course changes and even brief cloud cover always keeping its same relative position and distance. At one time, the pilot turned into the light and he definitely reports no closure occurring. During the night, high cirrus clouds masked the moonlight and no part of the object was observed except the light.”

This statement is curious, in that the report seems to indicate that while only the light produced by the object could be seen at night, in daylight there seemed to be more of it that became visible. Had the report left us with no more than this, it would indeed have proven to be a tantalizing—and frustrating—case where limited details leave far too much to the interpretation of the reader.

However, in the final line from the report, we do glean this much more about the strange aircraft that had been escorting the B-24: “At daybreak, the light changed to a steady white glow and a possible wing shape with a silver glow was noted by some members of the crew.”

Indeed, this description of a “wing shape” possessing a “silver glow” (metallic reflection?) would seem to be quite different from the essentially nebulous reports of ball lightning-like manifestations that comprise most Foo Fighter observations. Here, we appear to have a description of what sounds like an object that was being observed producing the illumination.

If the details given in this report do represent a physical object or aircraft that had been producing the light, it raises a number of questions. What had the “aircraft” been, and could other Foo Fighter reports (which occurred mostly at night) have possessed similar attributes, particularly if the observers had managed to see the object in daylight, as the crew here had done?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-11-2019 om 01:32 geschreven door peter  

Image of Aliens Seen In A Stabilized Footage

Excited by the mystery of a famous video captured in Turkey over a decade ago, some citizens over the internet processed it through a stabilization tool, revealing strange images that could bewilder even seasoned ufologists.

The enigma started back when a Turkish night guard Yalcin Yalman began recording a video of bright, crescent-shaped objects that appeared and regularly hovered over the Marmara Sea close to the resort village of Kumburgaz in 2008.

His pastime made him famous as a UFO spotter, and his videos immediately went viral because of their authenticity confirmed by several experts and witnesses who saw similar objects at the time of recording.

The device Yalman used was not impressive at all because the original videos were very shaky. When zoomed in or out, the quality and definition of the unstabilized recording dropped significantly. It led some skeptics to suggest the UFO was an American stealth drone or other advanced aircraft.

The Kumburgaz videos were stabilized many times, including the last one surfacing online just this week. YouTube channel Unidentified Aerial Phenomena made it available on the video-sharing site. Adobe Premiere video editing tool was used for video stabilization to try solving the mystery of the greenish dots in the center of the lit-up crescent.

Many netizens hailed the clip of its high definition and outstanding quality as they noticed a striking resemblance between the perceived look of aliens and the magnified dots.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

14-11-2019 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

14-11-2019 om 01:02 geschreven door peter  

Ancient nanostructures found in Ural mountains are out of place and time

By Leonardo Vinti / Epoch Times

An Oopart (out of place artifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that, given their level of technology, are completely at odds with their determined age based on physical, chemical, and/or geological evidence. Ooparts often are frustrating to conventional scientists and a delight to adventurous investigators and individuals interested in alternative scientific theories.

In 1991, the appearance of extremely tiny, coil-shaped artifacts found near the banks of Russia’s Kozhim, Narada, and Balbanyu rivers brought about a debate that has continued to this day. These mysterious and minuscule structures suggest that there may have been a culture capable of developing nanotechnology 300,000 years ago.

These manufactured coils were initially discovered during geological research associated with the extraction of gold in the Ural mountains. These pieces include coils, spirals, shafts, and other unidentified components.

The ancient coil-shaped artifacts were found in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

Image source .

According to an analysis from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Syktyvkar, the largest pieces found are mostly copper, while the smallest are made of tungsten and molybdenum.

While the largest of these objects measure 1.18 inches, the smallest are only 1/10,000th of an inch, and many exhibit Golden Mean proportions. Their shape suggests that they are manufactured and not naturally occurring metal fragments. In fact, they have been found to closely resemble the same miniature components of contemporary nanotechnology.

A magnified image of one of the nano coils found in the Ural Mountains.

Photo credit: Mysteries of the World, Herbert Genzmer and Ulrich Hellenbrand

Though some have asserted that these tiny structures are merely debris left behind from test rockets being launched from nearby Plesetsk space station, a report from the Moscow Institute determined that they are far too old to have come from modern manufacturing.

In 1996, Dr. E.W. Matvejeva, from the Central Scientific Research Department of Geology and Exploitation of Precious Metals in Moscow, writes that, despite being thousands of years old, the components are of a technological origin.

The pieces were found at a depth between 10 and 40 feet, in a geological stratus between 20,000 and 318,000 years old.

How were humans able to manufacture such tiny components in the distant past, and what were they used for? Some believe that the coils prove the human race enjoyed a sophisticated level of technology in the Pleistocene era, while others assert that the findings are the work of extra-terrestrials.

The artifacts have been studied at four different facilities in Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. However, further research into these tiny structures seems to have ended in 1999 with the death of Dr. Johannes Fiebag, a principal researcher of the find.

• The article ‘ Russia’s ancient nanostructures’ was originally published on The Epoch Times and has been republished with permission.
• Featured image: The nano spirals found in the Ural Mountains. Image source .

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

14-11-2019 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Treks into Vacuum Chamber for Red Planet Survival Tests

13-11-2019 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

Watch a Brilliant Fireball Flash Over St. Louis' Historic Arch (Video)

13-11-2019 om 23:30 geschreven door peter  

Five US sailors speak out 15 years after the USS Nimitz UFO encounters and say videos of mysterious flying 'Tic Tac' objects were turned over to 'unknown officials' and evidence was destroyed

• Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, Patrick Hughes, Ryan Weigelt, and Kevin Day served in the US Navy during the USS Nimitz UFO encounters in 2004
• The five have now come forward saying electronic data that recorded the 'unidentified aerial phenomena' was taken by 'unknown individuals' 
• Previously, the incident was only backed by a grainy, black-and-white video of the 'Tic Tac'-shaped objects and a former Topgun fighter pilot eyewitness' story 
• The sailors say they too were witness to when Navy fighter jets were harassed and outperformed by the UFOs off the South California coast
• After the data tapes were confiscated by the mysterious individuals, ship recorders also were wiped clean, say the new witnesses

By RALPH R. ORTEGA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Five men who served in the US Navy have come forward to say they witnessed the mysterious 'Tic Tac'-shaped, unidentified flying objects that harassed and outperformed fighter jets off the coast of Southern California in 2004.

The witnesses also claim that two mysterious individuals confiscated videos of the incident, and that all other evidence at the time was wiped from data recording equipment. 

Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, Patrick Hughes, Ryan Weigelt and Kevin Day say they were enlisted in the Navy when the USS Nimitz UFO encounters happened in November 2004.

Scroll down for video 

Kevin Day (pictured) as senior chief operations specialist on the USS Princeton said that on or around November 10, about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, he noticed 'weird' radar tracks near the area of San Clemente Island

Ryan Weigelt (pictured left) was the leading petty officer and power plant specialist for an SH-60B 'Seahawk' helicopter aboard the USS Princeton says by chance he saw video footage of an F/A-18 trying to keep up with the elusive Tic Tac. Gary Voorhis (pictured right) says he caught a glimpse of the USS Princeton's advanced tracking systems to look at the unidentified flying objects

A black and white grainy video taken from an F/A-18F Super Hornet in November 2004 shows a mysterious unidentified flying object that outmaneuvered the powerful fighter jet. An image from the video is shown

Previously, the mysterious incident was only backed by a grainy, black-and-white video taken by fighter jets when they encountered what the Navy acknowledged was an 'unidentified aerial phenomena', and an eyewitness account given by one of the pilots of the aircraft, reports Popular Mechanics. 

That witness, Navy Commander David Fravor, has expressed doubt over the accuracy of the stories the five have told about the incident. 

In response, the five say its disappointing to learn Fravor believes their accounts are inaccurate. However, they stand by their claims and insist the only reason they went public was to support Fravor and their fellow sailors. 

'That's what it's always been about since day one,' Turner, a former petty officer aboard the USS Princeton says. 

Voorhis, also a petty officer on the Princeton, which was a part of the USS Nimitz carrier group, said he heard radar technicians on the vessel saying they were getting 'ghost tracks' and 'clutter on the radar, reports Popular Mechanics.

As the only system technician on board, Voorhis said a possible malfunction was a concern and that the high-tech hardware was recalibrated because of what was assumed were false radar returns.

'Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer', Voorhis says. 

'Sometimes they'd be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they'd be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots', he recalls of the radar readings. 

Day, who was in the Princeton's Combat Information Center serving as an operations specialist senior chief, was watching over the airspace, in charge of protecting the strike group. 

'My job was to man the radars and ID everything that flew in the skies', Day said in the documentary film The Nimitz Encounters.

Day said that on or around November 10, about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, he noticed 'weird' radar tracks near the area of San Clemente Island.

'The reason why I say they're weird [is] because they were appearing in groups of five to 10 at a time and they were pretty closely spaced to each other. And there were 28,000 feet going a hundred knots tracking south,' Day said in the documentary.

Weigelt, in a YouTube clip, who at the time was the former leading petty officer and power plant specialist for an SH-60B 'Seahawk' helicopter, remember hearing Day's name being called over the Princeton's communications system.

'Senior Chief Day, his name, was being called over the comms, no bulls**t, every two minutes', Weigelt said. 'I recall hearing something, like a big, real-world scenario was going on, but I just didn't really understand'.

Voorhis added that he caught a glimpse of the ships' advanced tracking systems to look at the objects.

Patrick Hughes (pictured) while serving on the USS Nimitz says he secured the data recorders from an early warning aircraft, the E-2 Hawkeye, that was initially sent by Senior Chief Operations Specialist Kevin Day to investigate the unidentified objects 

Jason Turner (pictured) says he saw videos of the unidentified flying objects doing their impossible maneuvers that were not part of ab original grainy, black and white video of the encounter

'When they'd show up on radar', Voorhis says, 'I'd get the relative bearing and then run up to the bridge and look through a pair of heavily magnified binoculars in the direction the returns were coming from'.

The objects were too far away for Voorhis to get a good look, but he could still tell they were moving erratically. 

'I couldn't make out details, but they'd just be hovering there, then all of a sudden, in an instant, they'd dart off to another direction and stop again', Voorhis says. 'At night, they'd give off a kind of a phosphorus glow and were a little easier to see than in the day'.

Around November 14, the objects had been tracked for about a week, Popular Mechanics reports. 

With an air defense exercise scheduled that day, Day says he convinced his commanding officer to intercept what was showing up on the radar readings, which is how Fravor was sent on to make his encounter with what an unofficial 'executive summary' would describe as an object with elongated egg or a 'Tic Tac' shape. It was approximately 46 feet in length.

An unofficial 'executive summary' describes unidentified objects that harassed and outperformed US Navy fighter jets in November 2004 as having an elongated egg or a 'Tic Tac' shape. The objects were approximately 46 feet in length 

Unable to see even with high-powered binoculars, Voorhis, Day and others on the Princeton had to listen to live communications of the incident. The objects managed to elude the fighter jets with 'an advanced acceleration, aerodynamic, and propulsion capability'. 

Fravor and his wingman, unable to keep up with the 'Tic Tac', returned to the Nimitz. Lieutenant Chad Underwood, on a follow up flight, successfully took a grainy, black and white video of the objects. 

Navy Commander David Fravor was flying in an F/A-18F Super Hornets as part of the  USS Nimitz carrier group when he encountered an 'unidentified aerial phenomena'. The Nimitz is pictured in 2001 along the coast of Chile

Turner, however, says he saw videos of the objects doing their impossible maneuvers that were not  part of Underwood's footage.

'This thing was going berserk, like making turns. It's incredible the amount of g forces that it would put on a human. It made a maneuver, like they were chasing it straight on, it was going with them, then this thing stopped turning, just gone. In an instant', he recalls. 

'The video you see now, that's just a small snippet in the beginning of the whole video. But this thing, it was so much more than what you see in this video'.

By chance, Weigelt inside the Princeton's CIC says he saw video footage of an F/A-18 trying to keep up with the elusive Tic Tac, Popular Mechanics reports. He too says the footage was longer than what shows on Underwood's video.

'I was in there for quite a while and it was on the screen the whole time. I could not tell you how long, but it was playing when I went into combat and it was playing when I left,' Weigelt said in a YouTube interview.

Voorhis also recalls longer video footage, he tells Popular Mechanics.

'I definitely saw video that was roughly 8 to 10 minutes long and a lot more clear', he says. Voorhis was convinced the objects were not conventional aircraft.

'Umm, no!' he says with a laugh. 'In the video I saw, you got a good sense of how the pilot was having a difficult time trying to keep up with this thing. It kept making tight, right angle turns.'

Navy Commander David Fravor (pictured with his wife) previously had been the only person to come forward with an account how his jet encountered a mysterious flying object in November 2004 off the coast of Southern California

On board the Nimitz, Hughes, a petty officer, was unaware of the objects.

Instead, as an aviation technician, he was focused on his job of securing hard drive data recorders from early warning aircraft, the E-2 Hawkeye.

'We call them bricks, but they contain the software to run the airplane and they also record or can record a lot of the data that the air crew sees during the flight', said Hughes in a YouTube interview.

He was performing the routine task on November 14, he says, unaware that the drives he was securing had come from the Hawkeye Day first sent to intercept the mysterious objects.

After the data bricks were secured, Hughes said his commanding officer came to him with two unknown individuals.

'They were not on the ship earlier, and I didn't see them come on. I'm not sure how they got there', said Hughes of the two men.

The commanding officer ordered Hughes to turn over the secured drives.

'We put them in the bags, he took them, then he and the two anonymous officers left', Hughes says, Popular Mechanics reports.

Meanwhile, Voorhis had a similar experience on board the Princeton.

The USS Princeton (pictured) was a part of the USS Nimitz carrier group, which encountered unidentified flying objects in November 2004. The objects harassed and outperformed Navy fighter jets off the coast of Southern California for at least a week

'These two guys show up on a helicopter, which wasn't uncommon, but shortly after they arrived, maybe 20 minutes, I was told by my chain of command to turn over all the data recordings', says Voorhis.

He says he also was told to reload recorders for the ship's Combat Engagement Center, because it had been wiped clean, along with optical drives that had all the radio communications.

'They even told me to erase everything that's in the shop—even the blank tapes'.

On the flight deck, Weigel says the two men had arrived on a helicopter wearing generic flight suits. They later boarded one of his detachment's SH-60B choppers, flew away and returned later with 'a bunch of bags', he says.

Both men went into the 'Admiral's Quarters' on board the Princeton and a guard was staged outside of the door.

Fravor, in a January interview on The Fighter Pilot Podcast, confirms that his squadron's video tapes of the Tic Tac incident had mysteriously vanished, but that he thought they were accidentally erased.

'You know how it is when you go to and from cruise', Fravor said. 'Someone goes, 'What are these? Hey, they look like blank 8mm tapes. We'll just use them'.

While acknowledging the disappearance of data records, Fravor has taken issue with the five sailors and their stories, insisting that only he and the three other pilots were the true witnesses.

While speaking at the McMenamin's UFO festival in May, Fravor said no one signed non-disclosure agreements and that there were no 'men in suits' who had shown up on the ships.

'There's still groups of people making stuff up, like someone came out on ours and was talking about, he's like, I saw the whole video, the whole video is like 10 minutes long and it was doing all this. That's bulls--t', he said on the podcast, Joe Rogan Experience on October 5.

The pilot says that as one of the top 20 highest ranking members of the carrier group, and he would have known about any formal investigation.

'Okay, I'll give you credit, if they did, why wouldn't they show up and talk to the guys who witnessed it, chased it, and one of the senior guys in the battle group'? Fravor asked.

Voorhis says he noticed the objects far off in the distance, but that he did not see Fravor's intercept. 'His intercept? Nope, we were too far away, plus I would not have known about it or the bearing of it. Just that it was happening'.

Hughes, in The Nimitz Encounters documentary, claims a friend and aircrew member on the E-2 Hawkeye aircraft admitted he did sign an NDA about the incident. The claim wasn't verified by Popular Mechanics. No witnesses interviewed by the news outlet said they had signed the agreements.

Navy Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight had been flying about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego (pictured) in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets (pictured) when they encountered an unidentified flying object described as a 'Tic Tac'

Fravor's version of the encounter has him and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight flying about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets carrying two CATM-9s in November of 2004. 

Fravor told the New York Times that the operations officer aboard the Princeton had been communicating with the pair during their mission and said, 'Well, we've got a real-world vector for you'. 

The operator said for the past two weeks the Navy cruiser had been tracking mysterious aircraft. The objects would first appear at 80,000 feet, and then speed toward the sea before stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. They then either shot back up into the sky or dropped off of radar.

Fravor and Slaight were instructed to investigate the objects by the radio operator on the Navy cruiser.

The two pilots followed their instructions and as they closed in, they were alerted by the operator that they could not tell which were the objects and which were the fighter jets.

At first, Fravor nor Slaight could see anything and nothing was on their radars.

But then Fravor looked down to the sea and noticed that the waves were breaking over something below the surface, causing the sea to churn. Hovering about 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some sort that was whitish, 40 feet long and oval in shape, Fravor recounted.

He described to the Times that it was jumping erratically but not moving in any specific direction. Fravor began a circular descent in an effort to get a closer look, but the object began ascending toward him as if it were trying to meet him halfway, he explained.

He then abandoned his slow circular descent and decided to fly straight towards the object. But then he said it quickly flew away.

'It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen', he told the Times before adding that he was 'pretty weirded out'.

Fravor and Slaight then spoke with the operations officer on their Navy cruiser and were told to fly to a rendezvous point about 60 miles away, which is called the cap point in aviation parlance.

As they were flying, the Princeton radioed again saying that radar had picked up the strange aircraft. 'Sir, you won't believe it', the radio operator said, 'but that thing is at your cap point'.

'We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point', Fravor said.

Once they arrived, the object had disappeared and the two fighter jets returned to the Nimitz. Fravor said that he was made fun of after people aboard the ship had learned of his encounter.

A sixth witness, who asked to remain anonymous and was unaware that five new witnesses had come forward, also confirmed what had happened regarding the objects.

'I do remember the events of 2004 very well', says the witness, who at the time was an Operations Specialist aboard the Princeton. 'The decision was made to scramble two fighter jets to investigate. From what the pilots described, the movement of the UFO was defying the laws of physics'.

Popular Mechanics didn't provide the witness with any of the previous claims.

'What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms', the witness says. 

'We were all pretty shocked and it was an unspoken rule not to talk about it because we had secret clearances and didn't want to jeopardize our careers'. 

An operations specialist aboard the USS Princeton (pictured), who asked to remain anonymous and was unaware that five new witnesses had come forward, also confirmed what had happened regarding the objects in the USS Nimitz UFO encounters

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

13-11-2019 om 23:02 geschreven door peter  

Lost ‘Atlantean Treasures’ Unearthed in Crete

Archaeologists have discovered large quantities of treasure, which may be called ‘Atlantean treasures,’ in ancient Minoan-era buildings in Crete. Excavations conducted this year by Lasithi Antiquities Ephorate on the western part of the islet Chryssi, a municipality of Ierapetra, eastern Crete, have unearthed an ancient Minoan settlement, which according to the Greek Ministry of Culture , supported a “flourishing economy” so advanced it had built stone tanks in which marine species were cultivated.

According to Greek City Times , archaeologists discovered “a big building” with many rooms dating to the Early Minoan to Late Minoan Era around 1800-1500 BC. Broken murex shells were discovered in the residences’ rooms. Ancient people used this for the industrial production of “ purple paint ” and this single discovery proved to the researchers that purple dye manufacture occurred much earlier than previously thought.

Beads found during excavations on the western part of the islet Chryssi. ( Greek Ministry of Culture )

Minoan Treasure Hoard

The archaeologists reported that the first room they discovered back in 2018 was probably a warehouse. But this year, two further rooms were excavated in which a long inventory of “ treasures” were found. The Greek Ministry report listed: a gold ring, 26 golden beads, and a gold bracelet. There were also five copper bracelets and a copper ring; and among the heaps of glass beads four were colored “ Egyptian blue ” and 10 were crafted from lapis lazuli . An agate seal was found displaying a ship with an animal’s head as a stern and a monkey was also found carved into a stone amulet.

• Secrets of the Four Gold Rings from the Tomb of the Griffin Warrior Revealed
• 4,000-year-old Minoan shipwreck discovered in Turkish waters
• Ancient Underwater Ruins Found off the Coast of Spain… Atlantis Again?

A collection of gold beads found at the site. 

( Greek Ministry of Culture )

The nature of these 3,500-year-old artifacts tells the archaeologists that they had once belonged to “ aristocratic members of society.” And in another treasury they found a large saw and three cooper vases weighing a total of 68 kg (149.91 lbs.) including the largest example ever found in Crete. Inside one of the vases the rare discovery was made of a tin ‘talent’ (unit of weight) which is only the second one ever found in Crete.

A copper vase found at the site. 

( Greek Ministry of Culture )

Atlantean Treasures?

By now many of you will be tapping your fingers briskly, thinking to yourselves “so where are the artifacts from the lost continent of Atlantis?” This ancient advanced island-dwelling civilization was first mentioned in 355 BC by the Greek philosopher Plato in his book ‘ Timaeus,’ in which a character named Kritias gives an account of “Atlantis” existing more than “9,000 years before his time” and located beyond the Pillars of Hercules. This story, claimed Kritias, was told in his family for many generations since it was first received by his ancestor, Solon, from a priest during a visit to Egypt.

However, according to Atlantipedia, many archaeologists support The Minoan Hypothesis, including  K.T. Frost, a professor of history at Queen's University in Belfast; archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos, and seismologist A.G. Galanopoulos. Essentially, this theory points towards the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea as the inspiration for Atlantis, which around 1500 BC saw the collapse of the Minoan Empire , right at the same time this newly discovered settlement was fully functional.

Lost Nation, Misinterpretation?

The Minoan Hypothesis is not without its criticism, for example, how did Plato get the location and time so wrong - 10 times wrong? Scholar A.G. Galanopoulos suggested a translation mistake from Egyptian to Greek caused an extra zero to be added, meaning “900 years ago” became 9000 years ago. What’s more, the distance from Egypt to Atlantis became 250 miles (402.34 km) from Plato's 2,500 miles (4023.36 km). Therefore, if this theory stands up, the new discoveries made in Crete could be called “Atlantean.”

While not everyone accepts the Minoan Crete theory of the story of Atlantis, a convincing case is made by National Geographic in an article discussing the collapse of the Minoan civilization in the late 15th century BC. One popular theory is that the volcano on Thera (modern-day Santorini) exploded around the 16th century BC “killing thousands” and burying cities, leading to the collapse of Crete.

Stories of the Minoan decline are believed to have transformed into the legends of Atlantis as described by the Greek philosopher Plato, but many archaeologists argue that Crete’s cities were unaffected for several generations after the volcano.

• Atlantis Revealed: Plato's Cautionary Tale Was Based On A Real Setting
• What Became of Atlantis: The Flood from Heaven
• The Curious Phaistos Disc – Ancient Mystery or Clever Hoax?

Minoan Echoes

The Minoan culture flourished from 2700 BC until it began declining around 1450 BC and finally ending around 1100 BC, and it was what is called the first “ advanced civilization ” of Europe to develop massive building complexes, make wide ranges of tools, create stunning artwork and writing systems, and control a massive network of maritime trade.

Around the time this newly discovered settlement thrived, in the mid-15th century BC, archaeologists have found evidence of an invasion, including several burned palaces in central and southern Crete, and signs that many settlements were abandoned shortly thereafter. Despite its abrupt ending, the influence of Crete penetrated through time and heavily influenced the Mycenaean Greeks , who adopted the Cretan writing system , Linear B, which became the basis for the Greek language.

Mycenaean tablet (MY Oe 106) scripted in linear B coming from the House of the Oil Merchant. The tablet registers an amount of wool which is to be dyed. Male figure is portrayed on the reverse. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, n. 7671.

( CC BY SA 3.0 )

Thus, Greek culture. And therefore, every glass, gold, and silver bead discovered on the islet Chryssi are indeed “treasures.” Maybe even Atlantean treasures .

• Top Image: A gold ring is one of the so-called ‘Atlantean treasures’ found at the excavation site. Source: Greek Ministry of Culture

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

13-11-2019 om 22:24 geschreven door peter  

New Evidence That An Extraterrestrial Collision 12,800 Years Ago Triggered An Abrupt Climate Change for Earth

By Christopher R. Moore - Science & Astronomy 

The muck that's been accumulating at the bottom of this lake for 20,000 years is like a climate time capsule.

(Image: © Christopher R. Moore)

• This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Christopher R. Moore, Archaeologist and Special Projects Director at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program and South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina

What kicked off the Earth's rapid cooling 12,800 years ago?

In the space of just a couple of years, average temperatures abruptly dropped, resulting in temperatures as much as 14 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in some regions of the Northern Hemisphere. If a drop like that happened today, it would mean the average temperature of Miami Beach would quickly change to that of current Montreal, Canada. Layers of ice in Greenland show that this cool period in the Northern Hemisphere lasted about 1,400 years.

This climate event, called the Younger Dryas by scientists, marked the beginning of a decline in ice-age megafauna, such as mammoth and mastodon, eventually leading to extinction of more than 35 genera of animals across North America. Although disputed, some research suggests that Younger Dryas environmental changes led to a population decline among the Native Americans known for their distinctive Clovis spear points.

Conventional geologic wisdom blames the Younger Dryas on the failure of glacial ice dams holding back huge lakes in central North America and the sudden, massive blast of freshwater they released into the north Atlantic. This freshwater influx shut down ocean circulation and ended up cooling the climate.

Some geologists, however, subscribe to what is called the impact hypothesis: the idea that a fragmented comet or asteroid collided with the Earth 12,800 years ago and caused this abrupt climate event. Along with disrupting the glacial ice-sheet and shutting down ocean currents, this hypothesis holds that the extraterrestrial impact also triggered an "impact winter" by setting off massive wildfires that blocked sunlight with their smoke.

The evidence is mounting that the cause of the Younger Dryas' cooling climate came from outer space. My own recent fieldwork at a South Carolina lake that has been around for at least 20,000 years adds to the growing pile of evidence.

(Image credit: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock)

What would an Earth impact leave behind?

Around the globe, scientists analyzing ocean, lake, terrestrial and ice core records have identified large peaks in particles associated with burning, such as charcoal and soot, right at the time the Younger Dryas kicked in. These would be natural results of the cataclysmic wildfires you would expect to see in the wake of Earth taking an extraterrestrial hit. As much as 10% of global forests and grasslands may have burned at this time.

Looking for more clues, researchers have pored through the widely distributed Younger Dryas Boundary stratigraphic layer. That's a distinctive layer of sediments laid down over a given period of time by processes like large floods or movement of sediment by wind or water. If you imagine the surface of the Earth as like a cake, the Younger Dryas Boundary is the layer that was frosted onto its surface 12,800 years ago, subsequently covered by other layers over the millennia.

In the last few years, scientists have found a variety of exotic impact-related materials in the Younger Dryas Boundary layer all over the globe.

These include high-temperature iron and silica-rich tiny magnetic spheres, nanodiamonds, soot, high-temperature melt-glass, and elevated concentrations of nickel, osmium, iridium and platinum.

While many studies have provided evidence supporting the Younger Dryas impact, others have failed to replicate evidence. Some have suggested that materials such as microspherules and nanodiamonds can be formed by other processes and do not require the impact of a comet or asteroid.

(Image credit: Christopher R. Moore)

A view of 12,800 years ago from White Pond

In the southeastern United States, there are no ice cores to turn to in the quest for ancient climate data. Instead, geologists and archaeologists like me can look to natural lakes. They accumulate sediments over time, preserving layer by layer a record of past climate and environmental conditions.

White Pond is one such natural lake, situated in southern Kershaw County, South Carolina. It covers nearly 26 hectares and is generally shallow, less than 2 meters even at its deepest portions. Within the lake itself, peat and organic-rich mud and silt deposits upwards of 6-meters thick have accumulated at least since the peak of the last ice age more than 20,000 years ago.

(Image credit: Christopher R. Moore)

So in 2016, my colleagues and I extracted sediment from the bottom of White Pond. Using 4-meter-long tubes, we were able to preserve the order and integrity of the many sediment layers that have accumulated over the eons.

(Image credit: Christopher R. Moore)

Based on preserved seeds and wood charcoal that we radiocarbon dated, my team determined there was about a 10-centimeter thick layer that dated to the Younger Dryas Boundary, from between 12,835 and 12,735 years ago. That is where we concentrated our hunt for evidence of an extraterrestrial impact.

We were particularly looking for platinum. This dense metal is present in the Earth's crust only at very low concentrations but is common in comets and asteroids. Previous research had identified a large "platinum anomaly" – widespread elevated levels of platinum, consistent with a global extraterrestrial impact source in Younger Dryas layers from Greenland ice cores as well as across North and South America.

Most recently, the Younger Dryas platinum anomaly has been found in South Africa. This discovery significantly extends the geographic range of the anomaly and adds support to the idea that the Younger Dryas impact was indeed a global event.

Volcanic eruptions are another possible source of platinum, but Younger Dryas Boundary sites with elevated platinum do not have other markers of large-scale volcanism.

More evidence of an extraterrestrial impact

In the White Pond samples, we did indeed find high levels of platinum. The sediments also had an unusual ratio of platinum to palladium.

Both of these rare earth elements occur naturally in very small quantities. The fact that there was so much more platinum than palladium suggests that the extra platinum came from an outside source, such as atmospheric fallout in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial impact.

My team also found a large increase in soot, indicative of large-scale regional wildfires. Additionally, the amount of fungal spores that are usually associated with the dung of large herbivores decreased in this layer compared to previous time periods, suggesting a sudden decline in ice-age megafauna in the region at this time.

While my colleagues and I can show that the platinum and soot anomalies and fungal spore decline all happened at the same time, we cannot prove a cause.

The data from White Pond are, however, consistent with the growing body of evidence that a comet or asteroid collision caused continent-scale environmental calamity 12,800 years ago, via vast burning and a brief impact winter. The climate change associated with the Younger Dryas, megafaunal extinctions and temporary declines or shifts in early Clovis hunter-gatherer populations in North America at this time may have their origins in space.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Allen West/NASA/Sedwick C (2008) PLoS Biol 6(4): e99/Marting Southeast Archaeological Center)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. 

 

{ https://www.space.com/news }

13-11-2019 om 21:38 geschreven door peter  

Meet Arrokoth: Ultima Thule, the Most Distant Object Ever Explored, Has a New Name

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by the distant Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) on Jan. 1, 2019. The object, the most distant ever visited by a spacecraft, is now called Arrokoth.

(Image: © NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/National Optical Astronomy Observatory)

Like the Powhatan people, New Horizons has strong ties to Maryland and the greater Chesapeake Bay region. The mission is run by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. And New Horizons team members discovered Arrokoth using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. The scientists also relied heavily on Hubble observations to plan the flybys of both Arrokoth and Pluto. 

The epic Pluto encounter, which took place in July 2015, was the centerpiece of New Horizons' primary mission. The flyby of Arrokoth was the focus of the probe's extended mission, and it occurred when New Horizons was about 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth. 

Arrokoth, which the New Horizons team nicknamed "Ultima Thule," is one of many frigid bodies way out in the Kuiper Belt, the solar system's "third zone" beyond Neptune's orbit. Small Kuiper Belt objects such as Arrokoth are time capsules of a sort, having existed more or less unchanged for more than 4 billion years, scientists say. (New Horizons found that the much larger Pluto, by contrast, shows signs of relatively recent geological activity.)

"Data from the newly named Arrokoth has given us clues about the formation of planets and our cosmic origins," New Horizons team member Marc Buie, also of SwRI, said in the same statement. "We believe this ancient body, composed of two distinct lobes that merged into one entity, may harbor answers that contribute to our understanding of the origin of life on Earth."

According to conventions established by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the discoverers of a cosmic body have the privilege of naming it. The New Horizons team got the consent of Powhatan tribal representatives before proposing Arrokoth to the IAU, NASA officials said. And Rev. Nick Miles of the Pamunkey Tribe, which was part of the original Powhatan Confederacy, opened the Arrokoth naming ceremony at NASA headquarters today with a traditional Algonquian song. 

"We graciously accept this gift from the Powhatan people," Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in the same statement. 

"Bestowing the name Arrokoth signifies the strength and endurance of the indigenous Algonquian people of the Chesapeake region," Glaze added. "Their heritage continues to be a guiding light for all who search for meaning and understanding of the origins of the universe and the celestial connection of humanity."

• Destination Pluto: NASA's New Horizons Mission in Pictures
• New Horizons' Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule: Full Coverage
• New Horizons May Make Yet Another Flyby After Ultima Thule

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 21:17 geschreven door peter  

A Star Ejected from the Milky Way's 'Heart of Darkness' Has Reached a Mind-Blowing Speed

13-11-2019 om 21:06 geschreven door peter  

1st Methane, Now Oxygen: Another Possible 'Biosignature' Gas Is Acting Weird on Mars

By Mike Wall -  Science & Astronomy 

But don't assume that Mars microbes are responsible.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover imaged these drifting clouds on May 17, 2019, the 2,410th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, using its black-and-white Navigation Cameras.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Another possible biosignature gas is behaving strangely in Mars' air.

We already knew, thanks to NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, that methane levels in the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater rise significantly during the summer months and that concentrations of the gas have spiked dramatically several times over the past few years, for unknown reasons. And now, a new study reports that the six-wheeled robot has observed something similar with oxygen, another potential sign of life. 

"We're beginning to see this tantalizing correlation between methane and oxygen for a good part of the Mars year," study co-author Sushil Atreya, a professor of climate and space sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said in a statement. "I think there's something to it. I just don't have the answers yet. Nobody does."

Related:

• Amazing Mars Photos by NASA's Curiosity Rover (Latest Images) 

(Image credit: Melissa Trainer/Dan Gallagher/NASA Goddard)

The newly reported results come courtesy of Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, a small chemistry lab that the rover carries on its body. The mission team has been using SAM to characterize the Red Planet's atmosphere and analyze samples of dirt and drilled rock since Curiosity landed inside Gale Crater in August 2012.

The new study, which was published online Tuesday (Nov. 12) in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, provides a detailed look at the SAM atmospheric measurements from 2012 to 2017. The data show that the air inside Gale Crater is 95% carbon dioxide (CO2) by volume, 2.6% molecular nitrogen (N2), 1.9% argon (Ar), 0.16% molecular oxygen (O2) and 0.06% carbon monoxide (CO). 

There are no surprises in those numbers. But the team found that O2 levels don't follow the same seasonal patterns as those other gases, rising considerably higher than predicted in the spring and summer and falling below expected levels during the Gale Crater winter.

And that was definitely a surprise.

"The first time we saw that, it was just mind-boggling," Atreya said.

The researchers checked and rechecked SAM's accuracy, determining that the instrument is working just fine. And they investigated multiple possible explanations but didn't find one that bears up under scrutiny. For example, the summer O2 boost could theoretically result from the splitting of CO2 or water molecules in Mars' atmosphere. But it would take five times more water in the air than has been observed to make that happen, study team members said, and CO2 doesn't break apart with the requisite speed.

So the O2 variation, like the methane fluctuations, remains mysterious for now.

"We're struggling to explain this," study leader Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in the same statement. "The fact that the oxygen behavior isn't perfectly repeatable every season makes us think that it's not an issue that has to do with atmospheric dynamics. It has to be some chemical source and sink that we can't yet account for."

(Image credit: Melissa Trainer/Dan Gallagher/NASA Goddard)

But the mystery does not justify jumping to the conclusion that Mars microbes are involved, the scientists stressed. Indeed, some kind of geological process is likely responsible, study team members said. (Both methane and oxygen can be produced by abiotic and biological processes.)

Curiosity is not equipped to determine whether oxygen or methane was produced by living creatures. But more data could shed additional light on this Mars mystery, and SAM will keep sniffing the Red Planet air.

"For me, this is an open call to all the smart people out there who are interested in this: See what you can come up with," Trainer said. 

• The Search for Life on Mars: A Photo Timeline
• Photos: Ancient Mars Lake Could Have Supported Life
• Ancient Mars Lakes & Laser Blasts: Curiosity Rover's 10 Biggest Moments in 1st 5 Years

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 20:47 geschreven door peter  

Scientists baffled after discovering ancient mummified cat is a ‘scam’ in shock revelation

SCIENTISTS were left baffled with what they found inside a 2,500-year-old mummified Egyptian cat, according to reports.

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

13-11-2019 om 16:26 geschreven door peter  

Archaeology breakthrough: Scientists discover Peruvian settlement older than Machu Picchu

RESEARCHERS have uncovered a huge settlement that pre-dates Machu Picchu in an unprecedented South American ancient civilisation discovery.

13-11-2019 om 16:09 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica shock: Mysterious blacked-out structure vanishes on Google Earth - sparks alarm

A MYSTERIOUS “alien structure” in Antarctica has surfaced and then vanished on Google Earth, sparking a range of conspiracy theories about its origins after some suggested it had been “blacked-out”.

13-11-2019 om 13:40 geschreven door peter  

13-11-2019 om 13:15 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Intelligent Life Proven To Exist On Mars, Nov 2019, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Nov 12, 2019
Location of discovery: Mars
Source photo: 

• http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/218643
  

I was searching a Mars photo and found some really interesting alien artifacts. These objects are very old and worn from erosion from wind and time, but they are still easy to make out. 

I found a face of a person. It looks male, with a war helmet on that goes far down its neck and shoulders. There was a landed alien ship on a hilltop. It stood on three leges and its engines almost look like jet engines in design. There was a door and doorway into a small structure. This door is not more than 7 inches tall and yet, it would fit the human like statues I have found over the years. I also found another landed ship, but its viewed from its side and has no landing gear down, but instead sits on its belly. I found a huge gun sticking out the top of the hill. The outline of it makes it look very modern and what you would normally see on a Navy battleship. 

Its more than obvious that NASA is not doing the job that they are being paid to do. I don't believe NASA ever intends on telling the public the truth. They will hold it back until the day private ships travel to Mars and release the truth of what they find. Until then...never trust NASA, because what I show you here is 100% proof of ancient alien life on Mars. 
Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 13:03 geschreven door peter  

UFO Buzzes Blue Angels To Test Military Tech, Nov 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Nov 2, 2019
Location of sighting: Valdosta, Georgia, USA
Source: MUFON #104459

This just in from MUFON. A report of a black triangle craft buzzing around the famous Blue Angels. The black triangle is seen in all the photos and does change distance from the jets. In one photo (above) you see it came so close to the nose of a jet that it could have easily hit the aircraft by accident. I believe aliens are interested most in the technology that humans have and use. This info allows aliens to more accurately predict the future of humanity. The Blue Angels are some of the most high tech jets with the worlds most skilled pilots. Of course aliens would have interest in scanning them...and I also believe that the UFO was also racing them, like a test of skill of both crafts and pilots. Yes, some species of aliens have huge egos and being better than other species seems to be of the utmost importance. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

I was doing a job just south of Moody AFB when an air show was going on. We saw the Blue Angles flying around and a few minutes later we heard the planes coming towards us again so I got my phone out to take some video. I was bad at using the phone quick enough to get to video mode so i took several still photos. We were excited to see the Famous Blue Angels show plane planes that close to us. When I got home that day I took a look at the photos to show off what we had the pleasure of seeing that day. I then zoomed in to see the planes close up as possible and WHAM. I could not believe that there was an object in the photos that was flying near the Blue Angles group. I know good and well they would not have anything in the same airspace as them. No Way The object could only be seen after I zoomed in on the photos. We did not see the object during the live event. I zoomed in on all 4 photos I took and the object is in them all and it was definitely moving as were the planes. You will see in all 4 pics the UFO object i noticed.

Below is the UFO with added light to allow us to see it better. 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 12:42 geschreven door peter  

The Navy UFO Witnesses Speak Out - PART I

The Witnesses

 By Tim McMillan

These men also share a connection of being witnesses to one of the most compelling UFO cases in modern history: the Nimitz UFO Encounters, an event that the Navy recently confirmed indeed involved “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

Largely overshadowed by a grainy black-and-white video, and a former Topgun fighter pilot eyewitness, these veterans offer new and intriguing details on what occurred with the Navy’s Strike Carrier Group-11 as it sailed roughly 100 miles off the Southern California coast in 2004—details that a former career intelligence agent who investigated the Nimitz Encounter while at the Pentagon can neither confirm, deny, or even discuss with Popular Mechanics.

Ultimately, these five men—the “other” Nimitz witnesses—could be key to understanding an event that a leading aviation defense expert says “likely wasn’t ours.”

So whose was it?

THE INTERCEPT

Stationed on the USS Princeton, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, as the Nimitz carrier group went underway in early November 2004 for a routine training exercise, this would be the last time former Petty Officer 3rd Class Gary Voorhis would set sail aboard a Navy vessel.

Having already done almost six years in the Navy, including two combat tours, Voorhis was ready to transition to life outside the world of passionless grey metal hulls and vast leavening seas.

“The group was going to be deploying in a few months and there was a bunch of new systems, like the Spy-1 Bravo radar,” Voorhis tells Popular Mechanics. “It was really about getting all the kinks out.”

While chatting with some of the Princeton’s radar techs, Voorhis says he heard they were getting “ghost tracks” and “clutter” on the radars. For Voorhis, the Princeton’s only system technician for the state-of-the-art Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and AEGIS Combat System, news of these systems possibly malfunctioning was especially concerning.

Fearing the ship’s brand new AN/SPY-1B passive radar system was malfunctioning, Voorhis says the air control systems were taken down and recalibrated in an effort to clear out—what’s assumed to be false radar returns.

“Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer,” Voorhis says. “Sometimes they’d be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they’d be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots. Their radar cross sections didn’t match any known aircraft; they were 100 percent red. No squawk, no IFF (Identification Friend or Foe).”

The USS Princeton Command Information Center.

PIXEL-PUSHRFLICKR

Sitting in the Princeton’s Combat Information Center (CIC), Operations Specialist Senior Chief Kevin Day was tasked with the critical role of protecting the airspace around the strike group. “My job was to man the radars and ID everything that flew in the skies,” Day said in the documentary film The Nimitz Encounters.

On or around November 10, 2004, roughly 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, Day began noticing strange radar tracks near the area of San Clemente Island. “The reason why I say they’re weird [is] because they were appearing in groups of five to 10 at a time and they were pretty closely spaced to each other. And there were 28,000 feet going a hundred knots tracking south,” Day said in the documentary.

In another YouTube clip, Ryan Weigelt, the former Leading Petty Officer and power plant specialist for the SH-60B “Seahawk” helicopter, recalled the tone aboard the missile cruise at the time.

“Senior Chief Day, his name, was being called over the comms, no bullshit, every two minutes.” Weigelt said. “I recall hearing something, like a big, real-world scenario was going on, but I just didn’t really understand.”

While Day and the Princeton’s air traffic controllers continued to monitor the strange radar returns, Voorhis says he began to take the opportunity to use the ship’s advanced tracking systems to catch a glimpse of whatever these objects were.

“When they’d show up on radar,” Voorhis says, “I’d get the relative bearing and then run up to the bridge and look through a pair of heavily magnified binoculars in the direction the returns were coming from.” Describing what he saw during the daytime, Voorhis says the objects were too far off to make out any distinguishing features, however, he could clearly see something moving erratically in the distance.

“I couldn’t make out details, but they'd just be hovering there, then all of a sudden, in an instant, they’d dart off to another direction and stop again,” Voorhis says. “At night, they’d give off a kind of a phosphorus glow and were a little easier to see than in the day.”

By November 14, the strange returns had been continuously showing up for close to a week. With an air defense exercise scheduled for that morning, Day convinced his commanding officer to let him direct aircraft to attempt an intercept of these anomalous radar returns. Day’s decision led the VFA-41 Squadron Commander David Fravor to encounter what an “unofficial executive summary” later described as “an elongated egg or a ‘Tic Tac’ shape with a discernible midline horizontal axis” of approximately 46 feet in length.

An unofficial executive summary of the Nimitz encounter.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

With the intercept too far away for even high-powered binoculars, Voorhis, Day, and the rest of the Princeton could only listen to the live communications chatter, as the unidentified craft effortless evaded the two fighter jets by demonstrating “an advanced acceleration, aerodynamic, and propulsion capability.” Outmaneuvered by an object that’s colloquially become known for its shape as the “Tic Tac,” Fravor and his wingman returned to the USS Nimitz.

In a subsequent flight by another F/A-18, thanks to a state-of-the-art ATFLIR targeting pod, Lt. Chad Underwood would successfully capture video of the “Anomalous Aerial Vehicle,” or “AAV.”

The guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) transits the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. NAVY/PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS KELSEY J. HOCKENBERGER

For 13 years, the incredible story of the U.S. Navy being harassed and outperformed by UFOs went largely unknown by the greater public. However, in December 2017, after To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science—a verbosely named UFO think tank founded by former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge—and the New York Times published a 1:16 clip of the ATFLIR video, the world suddenly became very familiar with the “Nimitz encounters.”

What hasn’t been discussed, however, is what the Nimitz’s enlisted witnesses say happened after the now famous intercept with the “Tic Tac.” Their testimony raises many more questions, debate, and even some controversy.

THE MYSTERY

Like many of the other sailors aboard the USS Princeton, former Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Turner knew something was up, but didn’t exactly know what had been going on inside the CIC. It was only during a chance encounter while delivering supplies to the ship’s Signal Exploitation Space that Turner found himself being another unwitting witness to the Nimitz’s UFO event.

A video playing on one of the console monitors immediately caught Turner’s eye. In it, the “Tic Tac” performed a number of seemingly impossible maneuvers, not seen in the brief clip released in 2017. Turner described what he saw in the Nimitz Encounters documentary:

“This thing was going berserk, like making turns. It’s incredible the amount of g forces that it would put on a human. It made a maneuver, like they were chasing it straight on, it was going with them, then this thing stopped turning, just gone. In an instant. The video you see now, that’s just a small snippet in the beginning of the whole video. But this thing, it was so much more than what you see in this video.”

Even now, Turner still appears visibly disturbed by whatever it is he saw that day. “I asked a good friend of mine who worked in that area, is this the training we’re going through?” he tells Popular Mechanics.

“No,” the friend replied. “This is real life.”

Equally by chance, during the time of the now-famous intercept, after being called to have a conversation with another detachment, Ryan Weigelt found himself inside the Princeton’s CIC. According to Weigelt, a video of an F/A-18 trying its best to catch the elusive “Tic Tac” was playing on the monitors. Like Turner, Weigelt says what he saw was a lot longer than the brief clip released in 2017.

“I was in there for quite a while and it was on the screen the whole time. I could not tell you how long, but it was playing when I went into combat and it was playing when I left,” Weigelt said in a YouTube interview.

Voorhis tells Popular Mechanics that he, too, saw a much longer and clearer version of the ATFLIR video through the ship’s Top Secret LAN network. “I definitely saw video that was roughly 8 to 10 minutes long and a lot more clear,” Voorhis says.

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets fly a combat patrol.

SSGT. AARON ALLMONWIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Did what he saw resemble any type of conventional aircraft?

“Umm, no!” he says with a laugh. “In the video I saw, you got a good sense of how the pilot was having a difficult time trying to keep up with this thing. It kept making tight, right angle turns.”

The most shocking claim these Navy veterans make is in what they say happened with all the data tapes for the various systems that recorded these UFO events.

THE VISITORS

Miles away from Voorhis, Day, Turner, and Weigelt, on the deck of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, Petty Officer Patrick “PJ” Hughes was unaware of the unidentified objects the Carrier group had been dealing with for the past several days. Instead, as an aviation technician, one of Hughes’ jobs was to secure the hard drive data recorders from the airborne early-warning aircraft, the E-2 Hawkeye.

“We call them bricks, but they contain the software to run the airplane and they also record or can record a lot of the data that the air crew sees during the flight,” said Hughes in a YouTube interview.

On November 14, as Hughes performed this routine task, he was unaware that the E-2 hard drives he was securing away in a classified safe had just come from the Hawkeye that Day first tried to use to intercept the mysterious UFOs.

Shortly after securing the data bricks, Hughes said he was visited by his commanding officer and two unknown individuals. “They were not on the ship earlier, and I didn’t see them come on. I’m not sure how they got there,” said Hughes of the two men.

According to Hughes, his commanding officer told him to turn over the recently secured harddrives. “We put them in the bags, he took them, then he and the two anonymous officers left,” Hughes said.

Inside the Princeton, Voorhis had a similar encounter. “These two guys show up on a helicopter, which wasn’t uncommon, but shortly after they arrived, maybe 20 minutes, I was told by my chain of command to turn over all the data recordings for the AEGIS system,” says Voorhis.

RELATED STORY

• 

The Complete History of UFO Sightings

In addition to turning over his data tapes, Voorhis says he was told by this chain of command he needed to reload the recorders for the ship’s advanced Combat Engagement Center (CEC) because it had also been wiped clean, along with the optical drives with all the radio communications. “They even told me to erase everything that’s in the shop—even the blank tapes.” Voorhis says the only other time he can recall having to turn over his tapes like this was after an aircraft crash during one of his combat deployments.

Up on the Princeton’s flight deck, Weigel says the two men initially arrived on the Princeton via helicopter, wearing generic flight suits. According to Weigelt, the men boarded one of his detachment’s SH-60B helicopters and flew off for a time before returning with “a bunch of bags.” Weigelt says the two men retired to the “Admiral’s Quarters”on the Princeton and a guard was staged outside of the door.

The USS Princeton (CG 59) pulls alongside USNS Bridge (T-AOE 10) for an underway replenishment (UNREP).

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST SEAMAN JOSHUA CASSATTWIKIMEDIA COMMONS

THE DOUBTER

In a January interview on The Fighter Pilot Podcast, Cmdr. David Fravor told fellow retired F/A-18 pilot and host Vincent Aiello that the squadron’s video tapes of the “Tic Tac” intercept had mysteriously vanished. Fravor said he believes it’s likely the tapes were inadvertently recorded over.

“You know how it is when you go to and from cruise,” Fravor said. “Someone goes, ‘What are these? Hey, they look like blank 8mm tapes. We’ll just use them.”

In an interview with Popular Mechanics, Aiello detailed the processes for securing flight tapes as Fravor mentioned. Though these materials are classified, a number of different qualified squadron personnel would have access to the safe where the tapes would have been kept.

“It’s very common, even for tapes you’ve marked and want to save, to inadvertently get put back into circulation, handed out, and recorded over,” Aiello says. “I think Cmdr. Fravor’s opinion on how the tapes went missing is the most plausible explanation. However, a lot of squadron personnel have access to those materials, so it leaves the door open that someone could have intentionally taken them.”

Though Fravor has acknowledged the disappearance of data records, the Nimitz’s most well-known witness has equally pushed back on some of the enlisted sailor’s accounts.

Speaking at the McMenamin’s UFO festival this past May, Fravor admonished some of the “other witness” accounts, saying only the four pilots involved ever personally saw the “Tic Tac,” that no one was asked to sign non-disclosure agreements [NDA], and that “men in suits” never showed up on the ships.

During an October appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Fravor said, “There’s still groups of people making stuff up, like someone came out on ours and was talking about, he’s like, I saw the whole video, the whole video is like 10 minutes long and it was doing all this. That’s bullshit.”

Fravor told Rogan that he was one of the top 20 highest ranking members of the carrier group, and had there been any kind of formal investigation, he’d have known about it.

“Okay, I’ll give you credit, if they did, why wouldn’t they show up and talk to the guys who witnessed it, chased it, and one of the senior guys in the battle group?” Fravor asked.

Voorhis claims that in the days prior to the intercept, he witnessed indistinct objects far in the distance. But regarding Fravor’s intercept, he says, “His intercept? Nope, we were too far away, plus I would not have known about it or the bearing of it. Just that it was happening.”

“I JUST KNEW THEY WERE THERE FOR A REASON, TO DO SOMETHING THEY HAVE TO DO, AND JUST STAY THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.”

None of the witnesses Popular Mechanics spoke with claimed they’d seen Fravor’s intercept of the unknown object.

In The Nimitz Encounters documentary, Hughes said a friend and aircrew member on one of the E-2 Hawkeye aircraft told him he had to sign an NDA about the incident. Since the E-2 planes would have been in Carrier Wing Nine’s Airborne-Early Warning Squadron VAW-117 (“The Wallbangers”), and not strike fighter squadron under Fravor’s command, the possibility exists that the E-2’s squadron commander could have issued an NDA to their crew without Fravor’s knowledge. However, Popular Mechanics has not verified what Hughes was told. None of the witnesses we spoke with claimed they had signed an NDA.

From left: David Fravor, filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, and claimed “Area 51 whistleblower” Bob Lazar.

TWITTER/JEREMY CORBELL

The Nimitz’s enlisted witnesses stand by their claims that two unknown officials showed up shortly after the UFO incidents. However, they don’t describe them as being the sinisterly sounding “Men in Black,” as Fravor has implied.

According to Weigelt, it wasn’t at all uncommon to have people coming and going that weren’t stationed on the ships. For him, it was only when he heard Voorhis’ and Hughes’ accounts that the arrival of the two individuals on the Princeton seemed to become related to the UFO events.

“I just knew they were there for a reason, to do something they have to do, and just stay the hell out of their way,” Weigelt said.

“Squadron aircrew wouldn’t normally be notified if the ship’s radar or other information was being used for an investigation,” says Guy Snodgrass, a former F/A-18 pilot, Topgun instructor, and communications director for former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis.

While Snodragss wouldn’t comment directly on the UFO event, he said he served alongside the weapons systems officer inside Fravor’s plane during the intercept.

“He’s a talented weapons systems officer (WSO) who has dedicated himself to the naval aviation profession,” Snodgrass says about the pilot, who has never spoken publicly and Popular Mechanics is choosing not to name, as he is still serving in the U.S. Navy. “He also has the acumen to correctly characterize anything out of the ordinary that he might have seen, so I would bias towards giving his account more, not less, weight.”

“What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms,” the witness says.

SGT. SARA WAKAI

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 01:45 geschreven door peter  

The Navy UFO Witnesses Speak Out - PART II

The Witnesses

 By Tim McMillan

THE DEFENDERS

While investigating these claims, Popular Mechanics was able to locate and speak to a previously unknown witness who was with the Nimitz carrier group in 2004. Unaware of some of their fellow shipmates previously coming forward, and out of concerns related to security oaths, the witness agreed to speak only under the condition of anonymity.

“I do remember the events of 2004 very well,” says the witness, who at the time was an Operations Specialist aboard the USS Princeton. “The decision was made to scramble two fighter jets to investigate. From what the pilots described, the movement of the UFO was defying the laws of physics.”

Popular Mechanics didn’t provide the witness with any of the previous claims.

“What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms,” the witness says. “We were all pretty shocked and it was an unspoken rule not to talk about it because we had secret clearances and didn’t want to jeopardize our careers.”

Regarding whether or not there was originally a longer recording than the infamous UFO intercept, Aiello says that’s “entirely possible.”

“FROM WHAT THE PILOTS DESCRIBED, THE MOVEMENT OF THE UFO WAS DEFYING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.”

“The 8mm tapes in use at the time had two hours of recording time, and it was not uncommon for aircrew to leave it on for most of the flight,” Aiello says. “It’s plausible that they simply recorded a short segment of the tapes down in CIC, but that the rest of the tapes were available … up until they were either recorded over or whatever happened.”

Aiello, who was on the Nimitz aircraft carrier in 2004 but was assigned to another strike-fighter squadron, says he doesn’t have any direct information on the incident, but he’s willing to offer his opinion based on his experience as a military fighter pilot for over 20 years.

The enlisted witnesses say it’s disappointing to hear Fravor suggest some of their accounts are inaccurate. However, they all stand by their experiences, and equally support Fravor’s account. For them, they say the only reason they ever came out with their story was to support Fravor and their fellow sailors. “That’s what it’s always been about since day one,” Turner says.

But even if Fravor isn’t buying the witnesses’ stories, that doesn’t mean others don’t believe.

“The combination of those aviators, the Princeton Aegis Radar operators, and the E-2 crew convinced me beyond a doubt of the veracity of the story,” says Paco Chierici, a former F-14 pilot, author of Lions of the Sky, and the person credited with first sharing the news of the Nimitz event in a 2015 Fighter Sweep article. “I know those people and how that world works. There is no way it could have been fabricated or misinterpreted.” (Fravor did not respond to several requests for an interview.)To be clear, the only Nimitz witness Chierici personally knows is Fravor. “But,” he says, “I know these people. I worked and lived with them for 20 years, operating at very high tempos and stress levels. They’re all, from the enlisted radar operators, to the squadron COs, incredibly professional and competent. The absolute best at what they do.”

From Left: Patrick “PJ” Hughes, Dave Beaty, Kevin Day, Gary Voorhis, and Jason Turner.

DAVE BEATY

THE TRUTH...

By the Nimitz’s “other” witnesses’ accounts, there’s overwhelming evidence to suggest someone was very interested in this event when it occurred. Since none of the witnesses or pilots involved say they were ever interviewed at the time, it appears the most significant concern for the witnesses was the ship’s electronics data. What this data reveals, however, remains a mystery.

Popular Mechanics spoke with the man who says he investigated UFOs while working for the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Intelligence: Luis Elizondo. When asked about the existence of a longer video than what’s been publicly released, Elizondo—who now serves as the Director for Global Security and Special Programs for To the Stars Academy—says, “Unfortunately, I’m unable to comment at this time as to what is in the possession of the U.S. government.”

Elizondo simarily parried additional questions about the missing electronic data, saying only, “A comprehensive investigation was conducted, including various data sources, in which conclusions remain in the providence of the U.S. government.” On whether or not other non-Navy sources were used during this investigation, Elizondo says he was “unable to confirm or deny any information as it relates to coordination with other U.S. Government elements.”

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As for whether or not other data sources (which may or may not exist) helped influence the Navy’s public stance that these objects are still “unidentified,” Elizondo is coy. “It is certainly plausible,” he says, “in addition to the other numerous reports by pilots in the U.S. Navy.”

And as far as why other data may be being withheld from public release, Elizondo says this could have more to do with what was used than what was actually recorded.

“Many of the systems and the manner in which data is collected remains classified in order to protect tactics, techniques, and procedures,” says Elizondo. “I am not at liberty to discuss any of those systems.”

Elizondo says he would “absolutely” encourage other military witnesses to come forward with their accounts. “Many of our service members are highly trained observers,” he says. “Data obtained by these types are always considered valid observations, although the nuances may not be immediately known.”

Nick Cook, the former aviation editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly, says there are a number of reasons why personnel might have boarded ships and seized electronic data. “It could mean it was sensitive information,” he says. “It could mean this was an exercise.”

Regarding the latter possibility—that this was a secret military test of some sort—Cook, a career defense journalist, says in his opinion it was unlikely this was a classified test. “It’s not impossible, but I wouldn’t think it’s likely. It would be so against the norm of my experience with how the black world conducts testing.”

Having spent a decade investigating the potential for secret highly advanced aerospace technology, and publishing these efforts in The Hunt for Zero Point, Cook was cautious in offering any definite conclusions as to what the Nimitz carrier group had encountered. Cook says it’s possible, but not likely, that the “Tic Tac” was some type of classified drone.

“I searched for 10 years, and never found any compelling evidence that the type of technology exists,” Cook says. “[That] doesn’t mean it couldn’t still exist … I just never found any smoking gun for it.”

But when pushed, the career aviation journalist, soberly says, “In the balance of probabilities, I don’t think it’s ‘ours’.”

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

13-11-2019 om 01:44 geschreven door peter