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
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
30-11-2019
Fossilized Fish Being Examined By NASA Rover On Mars, Photo, Nov 30, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Fossilized Fish Being Examined By NASA Rover On Mars, Photo, Nov 30, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
I was looking over Curiosity rover photos and found a fish fossil that the rover arm was examining. I could only find one photo with the fish fossil in it. Its not the only fish fossil I have ever found and reported, but actually the third or fourth over the years. This fossil has good detail, so good that had it been found on earth...there would be no doubt about what it is. I can make out its eye, mouth, sharp upper and lower ridges and its tail. Its lower stomach area clearly collapsed inward due to it drying out before becoming a fossil.
This photo was taken back in May 26, 1996. As the camera panned upward it settled on a glowing UFO near the shuttle Endeavor. The UFO then began to move away and upward. When I tried to find other photos of what happened next...I only found the next photos location to say"No Browse Image Available." This is the same NASA index where I found the legendary and viral photos of the Black Knight Satellites which I released back in 2011. This is 100% proof that the Shuttle Endeavor was visited by an alien ship while in orbit for those ten days. Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Linda Moulton Howe discloses alien secrets beneath the ice in Antarctica
Linda Moulton Howe discloses alien secrets beneath the ice in Antarctica
There is a huge secret hidden beneath the ice in Antarctica. Military whistleblowers report large alien structures under two miles of Antarctic ice.
It all started when Linda Moulton Howe received a shocking and astonishing email from a retired 60 year old U.S Naval officer first class engineer on the extremely strange events happening in the Antarctic.
The Naval Officer (Navy Seal Spartan 1) experienced and saw, like a huge opening in the ice in a no-fly area, when they were crossing with a medical emergency on board.
Then, Navy Seal Spartan 1 walked an alien hallway inscribed with mysterious hieroglyphs and tells Linda that Antarctica’s alien presence spans centuries, linked to Star Gate portals around Earth and beyond our solar system.
The new revealing documentary is now available at:
Astronomers discover supermassive black hole in the Milky Way galaxy 70 TIMES larger than the Sun that according to current scientific understanding should NOT exist
Astronomers discover supermassive black hole in the Milky Way galaxy 70 TIMES larger than the Sun that according to current scientific understanding should NOT exist
Black hole, dubbed LB-1, has a mass that is 70 times greater than the sun
Experts say it's impossible for something this size to form in the Milky Way
It couldn't have bee formed by a supernova, but by another physical mechanism
Astronomers have discovered a black hole in the Milky Way so massive that it challenges existing models of how stars evolve.
Called LB-1, this black hole is 15,000 light years from Earth and has a mass 70 times greater than the Sun.
LB-1's large mass falls into a range known as the 'pair instability gap' where supernovae should not have produced it, leading experts to believe this is a new kind a black hole, formed by another physical mechanism.
The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100 million stellar black holes but LB-1 is twice as massive as anything scientists thought possible, said Liu Jifeng, a National Astronomical Observatory of China professor who led the research.
Scroll down for video
LB-1 (artist impression) is 15,000 light years from Earth and has a mass 70 times greater than the Sun. The black holes's large mass falls into a range known as the 'pair instability gap' where supernovae should not have produced it
'Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution,' he added.
Scientists generally believe that there are two types of black holes.
The more common stellar black holes -up to 20 times more massive than the Sun -- form when the center of a very big star collapses in on itself.
Supermassive black holes are at least a million times bigger than the Sun and their origins are uncertain.
But researchers believed that typical stars in the Milky Way shed most of their gas through stellar winds, preventing the emergence of a black hole the size of LB-1, Liu said.
'Now theorists will have to take up the challenge of explaining its formation.'
The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100 million stellar black holes, but LB-1 is twice as massive as anything scientists thought possible, researchers say
David Reitze, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the discovery, told AFP: 'Astronomers are still only beginning to grasp 'the abundance of black holes and the mechanisms by which they form.'
Stellar black holes are usually formed in the aftermath of supernova explosions, a phenomenon that occurs when extremely large stars burn out at the end of their lives.
'LB-1's large mass falls into a range 'known as the 'pair instability gap' where supernovae should not have produced it,' Reitze said.
'That means that this is a new kind a black hole, formed by another physical mechanism!'
LB-1 was discovered by an international team of scientists using China's sophisticated LAMOST telescope.
Additional images from two of the world's largest optical telescopes -Spain's Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Keck I telescope in the United States -confirmed that the size of LB-1, which the National Astronomical Observatory of China said was 'nothing short of fantastic'.
WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?
Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light.
They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around.
How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole.
Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy.
Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.
When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space.
Reusachtig zwart gat ontdekt dat eigenlijk niet kan bestaan. Astronomen staan voor een raadsel
Reusachtig zwart gat ontdekt dat eigenlijk niet kan bestaan. Astronomen staan voor een raadsel
Chinese astronomen hebben een supermassief zwart gat ontdekt dat zo zwaar is, dat er nog geen verklaring voor bestaat.
En dit is nog maar het topje van de ijsberg, zeggen sterrenkundigen.
De studie is woensdag gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Nature. Het zwarte gat, met de naam LB-1, is 70 keer zo zwaar als de zon en staat op ongeveer 15.000 lichtjaar afstand.
Op de schop
Wetenschappers gingen er tot nu toe vanuit dat zwarte gaten in onze Melkweg niet veel zwaarder kunnen zijn dan 20 zonnemassa’s.
Het kan dus eigenlijk niet bestaan.
Als het resultaat klopt, moeten de theorieën over het ontstaan van zwarte gaten op de schop.
Uitdagende taak
Hoofdonderzoeker Liu Jifeng van de nationale sterrenwacht van China legde uit dat LB-1 twee keer zo groot is dan welk ander zwart gat in de Melkweg dan ook (en het zijn er naar schatting zo’n 100 miljoen).
“Zulke zware zwarte gaten zouden volgens de huidige modellen helemaal niet moeten bestaan in ons sterrenstelsel,” zei Jifeng.
Theoretici staan nu voor de uitdagende taak om met een verklaring te komen, voegde hij toe.
Nieuw soort
Natuurkunde David Reitze van het California Institute of Technology zei dat dit ‘een nieuw soort zwart gat is’.
In april onthulden wetenschappers de eerste foto van een zwart gat, gemaakt door de Event Horizon Telescope.
Wat is de kans dat voor de tweede keer binnen een korte tijd er wederom een object van buiten ons zonnestelsel langs komt?
Er wordt bovendien gezegd dat dit object onder een vreemde hoek van boven het zonnestelsel binnen komt, allemaal toeval of toch niet?
Wat opvalt is dat we nu in een kort tijdsbestek een tweede bezoeker hebben in ons zonnestelsel die hier niet thuis hoort. Dat is opmerkelijk want voor zover ons bekend is dit nog nooit eerder voorgekomen.
De komeet werd afgelopen zomer ontdekt door de Oekraïense amateurastronoom Gennadiy Borisov, naar wie het object ook is vernoemd. Onderzoekers denken dat het object uit het eigen planetenstelsel is geslingerd, nadat het tot een bijna-botsing kwam met een planeet.
Ze kletsen natuurlijk maar een stuk in de ruimte, want ze hebben werkelijk geen flauw benul wat dit object hier komt doen en waarom het hier is.
Een lezer schrijft (dank!) naar aanleiding van bovengenoemd nieuwsbericht het volgden
Graag mag ik uw site elke dag een paar keer checken om te zien of er nieuwe artikelen zijn geplaatst. Wellicht heeft u over het volgende al de nodige informatie ontvangen, maar ik stuur het u toch graag toe. Rond 7/8 december zal een komeet-achtig object de zon en de aarde passeren op een afstand van 300 miljoen kilometer. Het heeft een staart, maar gedraagt zich niet als een komeet, zo wordt geschreven. En het heeft een rode gloed.
Ik moest daarbij denken aan eerdere artikelen van u over Niburu en "komeet-planeet".
Er wordt geschreven dat de baan van het object van bovenaf komt door het zonnestelsel, en er dus zo doorheen is met ongelooflijke snelheid. Tegelijkertijd wordt vermeld dat het ruim een half jaar in het zonnestelsel blijft tot in 2020.
Zelf werk ik met droomboodschappen welke elke nacht doorgenomen. In de afgelopen jaren zaten daar meerdere bij over Niburu. In de afgelopen maand kwam o.a. de datum van 8 december door. In het Italiaans, ik weet nog niet precies waarom. De kortste afstand van het object tot de zon blijkt bereikt te worden rond 8 december. Misschien heeft het niks met elkaar te maken, maar ik vind het wel frappant.
Tot zover de lezer met een zeer interessant verhaal. Bovenstaande foto is enkele dagen geleden gemaakt en laat zien hoe groot de komeet is ten opzichte van de aarde.
Hiermee is het object te klein om de planeet Nibiru te kunnen zijn die naar verluid minimaal zes keer zo groot is als de aarde. Maar, het zou natuurlijk heel goed een soort voorbode kunnen zijn van de komst van het minizonnestelsel waartoe de planeet Nibiru behoort.
In dat kader is natuurlijk ook vorig jaar de eerste bezoeker van buiten ons zonnestelsel, Oumuamua, zeer interessant. Dit object had duidelijk alle kenmerken van een soort verkenner.
Eerder dit jaar hadden we te maken met een vreemd ruimteobject, dat werd omschreven en geclassificeerd als een komeet en dat van buiten ons zonnestelsel scheen te komen.
Sinds ons artikel zijn er alleen nog maar meer vragen gerezen over dit object dat inmiddels de naam Oumuamua heeft gekregen. Het object dat van een ander zonnestelsel kwam, om de zon draaide en weer verdween in de ruimte. The Minor Planet Center heeft bijgedragen aan de naamgeving, wat zoveel betekent als eerste boodschapper van ver weg.:
Accordingly, the object A/2017 U1 receives the permanent designation 1I
and the name ʻOumuamua. The name, which was chosen by the Pan-STARRS team, is
of Hawaiian origin and reflects the way this object is like a scout or
messenger sent from the distant past to reach out to us (ʻou means reach out
for, and mua, with the second mua placing emphasis, means first, in advance of).
Volgens de European Southern Observatory (ESO) is Oumuamua een object dat we nog nooit eerder hebben gezien en bestaat het uit rots of metaal met een roodachtige kleur.
Het object moet er ongeveer als volgt uit zien. Een ander fenomeen is dat het om haar eigen as lijkt te draaien en dat de lichtintensiteit varieert.
Men probeert wanhopig om voor dit alles logische verklaringen te vinden, maar slaagt daar niet zo erg in.
Men vermoedt dat het uit de buurt komt van de ster Vega, maar ook dat schijnt niet te kunnen omdat in de tijd dat Oumuamua daar is vertrokken, die ster op een heel andere plek stond. Nu denken ze dat het object misschien wel helemaal nergens thuishoort en als een soort los projectiel door de ruimte zwerft.
De wetenschap zit (ook) wat dit object betreft met de handen in het haar, want niet één van de normale verklaringen past.
Waar we hier over praten, is een groot moederschip dat ons hier met een bezoek heeft vereerd. Dat is de enige logische verklaring en ook is er ook één die past in de omschrijving van het object en de gedragingen.
Nu komen er via NASA berichten dat een team van wetenschappers met behulp van gegevens van de Hubble ruimtetelescoop en andere bronnen heeft vastgesteld dat Oumuamua opeens accelereert en van koers is veranderd.
En dan zijn er natuurlijk nog de frappante voorspellingen van de Chileense astronoom Muñoz Ferrada, die medio vorige eeuw al sprak over de komst van de planeet Niburu die zich zou gedragen als een komeet.
WAT VEROORZAAKT DEZE VREEMDE CIRKEL OP BUIENRADAR ? ( VIDEO )
WAT VEROORZAAKT DEZE VREEMDE CIRKEL OP BUIENRADAR ? ( VIDEO )
Wanneer je wilt weten waar je in ons land de komende uren buien kunt verwachten of hoelang het duurt voordat het droog wordt, dan kijk je op de buienradar.
In het algemeen zijn dit soort radars vrij betrouwbaar, maar nu gebeuren er vreemde dingen bij Buienradar.
Een buienradar bestaat eigenlijk nog niet zo gek lang en toch zijn we al heel erg gewend aan dit fenomeen.
In het algemeen kan een radar gedefinieerd worden als een elektronische installatie is,die bedoeld is om de omgeving af te zoeken naar objecten in de lucht, op het land of in de zee. Deze objecten zijn bijvoorbeeld vliegtuigen, raketten, schepen of auto's. De objecten worden via een beeldscherm zichtbaar gemaakt.
Een radar zendt via een antenne radiogolven (elektromagnetische straling) uit en ontvangt de door de objecten gereflecteerde radiostraling, oftewel echo, weer op via (meest dezelfde) antenne. Uit de aard van de ontvangen echo kunnen gegevens van het object bepaald worden ten opzichte van die radar, zoals richting, afstand, hoogte, vorm en snelheid.
Vanwege het zgn. Doppler- effect- d.w.z. dat de golflengte van de radiogolven verandert naarmate de afstand tot de bron groter of kleiner wordt- kan ook bekeken worden wat de intensiteiten van de neerslag in een wolk zijn en tevens wat de windkracht en - richting is; ook geldt dat hoe meer er van het signaal wordt teruggekaatst, des te intensiever de neerslag is.
Even kort door de bocht betekent dit dat de radar iets uitzendt wat weer teruggekaatst wordt. Hoe meer solide het object of hoe intensiever de neerslag des te sterker wordt de weerkaatsing. Kijk met dat in het achterhoofd even naar de volgende beelden van Buienradar die wij donderdagochtend kregen opgestuurd van een lezer (dank!).
Is het een natuurlijk fenomeen, waarbij onweersbuien een perfecte cirkel vormen? Of hebben we hier te maken met weermanipulatie, waarbij misschien technieken zoals HAARP worden gebruikt?
Feit is dat de radar iets teruggekaatst krijgt en omdat het Buienradar is, neemt men aan dat het neerslag is. Echter, we hebben eerder gezien hoe een weerradar gek kan doen als er bijvoorbeeld een ufo in de buurt is. Zoals dat gebeurde in Mexico, waar in 2012 een sigaarvormige ufo met een enorme snelheid de Popocatepetl vulkaan in dook.
Onderstaande afbeelding is afkomstig van de weerradar van Intellicast van 27 oktober, de dag dat een Ufo de vulkaan Popocatepetl in vloog. Het beeld bleef de hele dag online tot en met 28 oktober.
Hier zie je heel duidelijk de vorm van de vortex.
Het centrum van de vortex ligt precies op de plaats waar de vulkaan zich bevindt.
Was er misschien ook bij ons een verborgen ruimteschip of ufo? Een groot object dat zich verborgen hield in de dikke wolkenlaag en daardoor verscheen als een cirkelvormige onweersbui.
Dat dit helemaal niet vergezocht hoeft te zijn blijkt wel uit het feit dat de dag ervoor aan de Engelse oostkust ook een merkwaardig object werd waargenomen in de lucht.
De combinatie onweersbuien en ufo's komt in de praktijk heel veel voor en dan is er natuurlijk nog de mogelijkheid dat er zich boven Nederland een soort dimensieportaal heeft geopend, iets waarover wij regelmatig schrijven.
Kortom, wie het weet mag het zeggen, maar vreemd is het wel. Hierna nog wat bewegende beelden van het object boven Engeland.
Artificial Intelligence BREAKTHROUGH: 'Better than human' AI algorithm beats brain in test
Artificial Intelligence BREAKTHROUGH: 'Better than human' AI algorithm beats brain in test
AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence algorithm designed to interpret images and video has beaten human scientists at mapping active neurons in the brain, a shocking new study has claimed.
Bio-engineers studying the complexities of the brain in mice chart out each individual neuron as it fires off during periods of activity. Using a process known as two-photon calcium imaging, scientists see bright spikes and flashes of light in the brain – nerve impulses firing off in response to stimulus. The process is incredibly slow, arduous and requires scientists to circle every single neuron, which lights up like a lightbulb. However, an incredible artificial intelligence algorithm tested by Duke University in North Carolina, US, has proven to be much more effective at the job.
A Duke study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found the AI automated process is as accurate but considerably faster.
The algorithm, according to its lead author, appears to be “better than human experts”.
Duke University said in a statement: “This new technique, based on using artificial intelligence to interpret images, addresses a critical roadblock in neuron analysis, allowing researchers to rapidly gather and process neuronal signals for real-time behavioural studies.”
Typically, the human-led process of mapping neuron activity in a 30-minute-long video would take researchers anywhere from four to 24 hours.
Artificial intelligence trialled by Duke, on the other hand, was able to complete the process in mere minutes.
Artificial intelligence: AI algorithms are as accurate and faster than human experts
(Image: GETTY)
The AI proved faster and does not require food, hydration, toilet breaks or sleep to operate at peak performance.
Sina Farsiu, an associate professor of engineering at Duke, said: “As a critical step towards complete mapping of brain activity, we were tasked with the formidable challenge of developing a fast automated algorithm that as accurate as humans for segmenting a variety of active neurons imaged under different experimental settings.”
Fellow Duke researcher and professor Yiyang Gong said: “The data analysis bottleneck has existed in neuroscience for a long time – data analysts have spent hours and hours processing minutes of data, but this algorithm can process a 30-minute video in 20 to 30 minutes.
“We were also able to generalise its performance, so it can operate equally well if we need to segment neurons from another layer of the brain with different neuron size or densities.”
And Somayyeh Soltanian-Zadeh, a Duke PhD student and the study’s lead author said: “Our deep learning-based algorithm is fast and is demonstrated to be as accurate as, if not better than, human experts in segmenting and overlapping neurones from two-photon microscopy recordings.
Algorithm is fast and is demonstrated to be as accurate as, if not better than, human
Somayyeh Soltanian-Zadeh, Duke University
Deep learning algorithms give scientists and researchers a chance to trawl through cast amounts of data with relative ease.
AI algorithms can be trained to identify different parts of a complex image for a specific purpose – in this case, to track firing neurons.
Duke’s researchers were so impressed with the algorithm’s ability to beat humans, they have made their software publicly available to the public.
Artificial intelligence: AI algorithms rapidly track firing neurons in mouse brains (pictured)
(Image: DUKE UNIVERSITY)
The scientists are confident the application of AI in researcher can boost the speed at which bio-engineers study the mysteries of the brain.
Ms Soltanian-Zadeh said: “This improved performance in active neuron detection should provide more information about the neural network and behavioural states, and open the door for accelerated progress in neuroscience experiments.”
The news comes after scientists have developed a machine capable of predicting the future.
Artificial intelligence: Deep learning can be trained to interpret images
(Image: GETTY)
Experts in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence have also warned the rise of intelligent machines threatens to displace millions of people from their workplaces.
Nisreen Ameen, a lecturer at Queen Marty University of London, argued in an article for The Conversation higher education might be affected by smart technologies.
She said: “Artificial intelligence is set to have a significant impact. And not just on teaching and learning, but also on the whole student experience – innovation infused with traditional academic processes.
“This will change the classroom experience and how universities communicate with students, with lectures and marking potentially done by robots.”
Authored by Dagny Taggart via the organic pepper blog
Experts have been warning us about potential dangers associated with artificial intelligence for quite some time. But is it too late to do anything about the impending rise of the machines?
Once the stuff of far-fetched dystopian science fiction, the idea of robot overlords taking over the world at some point now seems inevitable.
The late Dr. Stephen Hawking issued some harsh and terrifying words of caution back in 2014:
The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded. (source)
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, warned that we could see some terrifying issues within the next few years:
The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. Please note that I am normally super pro technology and have never raised this issue until recent months. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast — it is growing at a pace close to exponential.
I am not alone in thinking we should be worried.
The leading AI companies have taken great steps to ensure safety. They recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen… (source)
Experts say it is time to study “machine behavior.”
Last week, a team of researchers made a case for a wide-ranging scientific research agenda aimed at understanding the behavior of artificial intelligence systems. The group, led by researchers at the MIT Media Lab, published a paper in Nature in which they called for a new field of research called “machine behavior.” The new field would take the study of artificial intelligence “well beyond computer science and engineering into biology, economics, psychology, and other behavioral and social sciences,” according to an MIT Media Lab press release.
Scientists have studied human behavior for decades, and now it is time to apply that kind of research to intelligent machines, the group explained. Because artificial intelligence is doing more collective ‘thinking,’ the same interdisciplinary approach needs to be applied to understanding machine behavior, the authors say.
“We need more open, trustworthy, reliable investigation into the impact intelligent machines are having on society, and so research needs to incorporate expertise and knowledge from beyond the fields that have traditionally studied it,” said Iyad Rahwan, who leads the Scalable Cooperation group at the Media Lab.
Machines are making decisions and taking action without human input.
Rahwan explains:
“We’re seeing the rise of machines with agency, machines that are actors making decisions and taking actions autonomously. This calls for a new field of scientific study that looks at them not solely as products of engineering and computer science but additionally as a new class of actors with their own behavioral patterns and ecology.” (source)
“We’re seeing an emergence of machines as agents in human society; these are social machines that are making decisions that have real value implications in society,” says David Lazer, who is one of the authors of the paper, as well as University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer and Information Sciences at Northeastern.
We interact numerous times each day with thinking machines, as the press release explains:
We may ask Siri to find the dry cleaner nearest to our home, tell Alexa to order dish soap, or get a medical diagnosis generated by an algorithm. Many such tools that make life easier are in fact “thinking” on their own, acquiring knowledge and building on it and even communicating with other thinking machines to make ever more complex judgments and decisions—and in ways that not even the programmers who wrote their code can fully explain.
Imagine, for instance, a news feed run by a deep neural net recommends an article to you from a gardening magazine, even though you’re not a gardener. “If I asked the engineer who designed the algorithm, that engineer would not be able to state in a comprehensive and causal way why that algorithm decided to recommend that article to you,” said Nick Obradovich, a research scientist in the Scalable Cooperation group and one of the lead authors of the Nature paper.
Parents often think of their children’s interaction with the family personal assistant as charming or funny. But what happens when the assistant, rich with cutting-edge AI, responds to a child’s fourth or fifth question about T. Rex by suggesting, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had this dinosaur as a toy?”
“What’s driving that recommendation?” Rahwan said. “Is the device trying to do something to enrich the child’s experience—or to enrich the company selling the toy dinosaur? It’s very hard to answer that question.” (source)
There is still a lot we don’t know about how machines make decisions.
What hasn’t been examined as closely is how these algorithms work. How do they evolve with use? How do machines develop a specific behavior? How do algorithms function within a specific social or cultural environment? These issues need to be studied, the group says.
There is a significant barrier to the type of research the group is proposing, however:
But even if big tech companies decided to share information about their algorithms and otherwise allow researchers more access to them, there is an even bigger barrier to research and investigation, which is that AI agents can acquire novel behaviors as they interact with the world around them and with other agents. The behaviors learned from such interactions are virtually impossible to predict, and even when solutions can be described mathematically, they can be “so lengthy and complex as to be indecipherable,” according to the paper. (source)
And, there are ethical concerns surrounding how AI makes decisions:
Say, for instance, a hypothetical self-driving car is sold as being the safest on the market. One of the factors that makes it safer is that it “knows” when a big truck pulls up along its left side and automatically moves itself three inches to the right while still remaining in its own lane. But what if a cyclist or motorcycle happens to be pulling up on the right at the same time and is thus killed because of this safety feature?
“If you were able to look at the statistics and look at the behavior of the car in the aggregate, it might be killing three times the number of cyclists over a million rides than another model,” Rahwan said. “As a computer scientist, how are you going to program the choice between the safety of the occupants of the car and the safety of those outside the car? You can’t just engineer the car to be ‘safe’—safe for whom?“ (source)
The researchers explain that it will take experts from a host of scientific disciplines to study the way machines behave in the real world, as a press release from Northeastern University states. “The process of understanding how online dating algorithms are changing the societal institution of marriage, or determining whether our interaction with artificial intelligence affects our human development, will require more than just the mathematicians and engineers who built those algorithms.”
As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over. Reaching that point, even those who don’t watch sci-fi movies can see the possibility of rogue robots and AI machines using computer logic to eliminate the one thing that could stop their takeover – humans – and initiating a robot apocalypse. Fortunately, some computer scientists in California have developed an algorithm that trains robots to always avoid the bad, human-elimination decisions and stay on the path of good, obedient servitude instead. How well do you think this will work?
“We want to advance AI that respects the values of its human users and justifies the trust we place in autonomous systems.”
In a Stanford University press release announcing the publication in the journal Science of the paper “Preventing undesirable behavior of intelligent machines,” Emma Brunskill, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and senior author of the paper, illustrates the alleged noble goal of robot and AI developers – making them tools for the good of humankind – and describes the algorithm she and her colleagues have designed to accomplish – and hopefully guarantee – that goal.
“We show how the designers of machine learning algorithms can make it easier for people who want to build AI into their products and services to describe unwanted outcomes or behaviors that the AI system will avoid with high-probability.”
The idea is to describe bad decisions and behaviors mathematically. While “don’t do this or the patient will die” decisions are easy to describe, behaviors such as gender bias – a line AI is crossing as it’s used more and more to evaluate employment or school applications – requires a sense of fairness that is obviously much harder to define mathematically. The Stanford researchers modified the algorithm in a program designed to predict the future grade point averages of students and it learned to avoid bias toward one gender. While “fairness” is much more vague than “life or death,” the researchers believe it can – and should – be built into all AI using their algorithm.
Does all of this sound familiar? The paper refers to this solution as a “Seldonian algorithm” and fans of Isaac Asimov will recognize that obvious reference to Hari Seldon, the mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor in Asimov’s “Foundation” sci-fi series. Seldon developed psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allowed him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. It worked for Hari Seldon … will it work for us?
“Given the recent rise of real-world ML applications and the corresponding surge of potential harm that they could cause, it is imperative that ML algorithms provide their users with an effective means for controlling behavior. To this end, we have proposed a framework for designing ML algorithms and
shown how it can be used to construct algorithms that provide their users with the ability to easily (that is, without requiring additional data analysis) place limits on the probability that the algorithm will produce any specified undesirable behavior.”
Why do humans want us to avoid bad behavior when bad behavior is so much fun?
In the paper’s conclusion on using machine learning (ML) algorithms to change robot behavior, that nasty word “probability” pops up. The algorithm is not a 100% guarantee of robot apocalypse prevention and even if it were, it depends on humans using it in all applications. Just as it’s easy to imagine a robot apocalypse, it’s easy to imagine it being caused by unscrupulous businesses leaving the “bad behavior prevention algorithm” out to cut costs or make more profits.
Henry Lee was the 19th century expert on sea serpents, as we have seen in several articles I wrote last week. As far as the 20th century is concerned, however, there is no doubt about to whom the crown was passed. It was one Bernard Heuvelmans, whose work, In the Wake of the Sea Serpents, is the defining book on the subject. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman – who, with Patrick Huyghe, wroteThe Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mysterious Denizens of the Deep – said of Heuvelmans, who died in 2001: “From 1948 on, Heuvelmans exhaustively sought evidence in scientific and literary sources. Within five years he had amassed so much material that he was ready to write a large book. That book turned out to be Sur la piste des betes ignorees, published in 1955, and better known in its English translation three years later as On the Track of Unknown Animals.” As for In the Wake of the Sea Serpents, it became a classic – and, to this day, it very much remains a highly important research tool for creature-seekers everywhere.
Of particular significance is Heuvelman’s theory – based upon 358 sightings – that there are far more than just one kind of animal that falls into the sea serpent category. Heuvelmans’ list of creatures is an important one. It not only describes the physical appearances of the animals: it also reveals which kinds of creatures are most often seen – at least, at the time that Heuvelmans compiled his list. He began with what he termed the “long-necked” type, for which Heuvelmans had forty-eight reports. This particular group, he added, had necks that ranged from long to “very long,” a “median hump on the back,” and a pair of horns on the head. As for the color of the creatures, they were typically mottled.
Second on Heuvelman’s list was the “merhorse.” It had, said Heuvelmans, a “long floating mane,” huge eyes, a long neck, and whiskers on the face. For this entry, Heuvelmans had studied no less than thirty-seven cases. The third entry was focused on “many-humped” animals. As their title suggests, they had a “string of dorsal humps of virtually equal size.” The necks were not overly large, and had white stripes on their necks. Now, we move onto the “many finned” beast of the deep. As for these creatures they had “several triangular fins looking like a huge crest.” They also had a jagged crest on the spine and “prominent” eyes. Then, there was the “super otter.” Heuvelmans described it as having “a slender medium-length neck” and a “long tapering tail.” The color was beige or grey, according to the thirteen sightings that Heuvelmans had in his files.
The “super eel” plays an important role in Heuvelmans’ work, as in more recent times reports of massive eels are growing and growing. Twelve reports that Heuvelmans had on file allowed him to make a good image of the animals. They had a long neck, one which formed “am extension of the head.” The tail was “long [and] tapering,” “Leaps out of the water and falls back with a splash,” Heuvelmans told his readers. “The marine saurian” was very much like a crocodile, albeit seen in an “oceanic habitat.” Then, there was the “father-of-all-the-turtles.” Yes, we’re talking about giant turtles, a subject that I will return to here at Mysterious Universe on a later occasion. And, finally, Heuvelmans introduced his followers to “yellow belly,” a beast that was yellow with black stripes. Heuvelmans said of his list that, “It is not surprising that the types based on a few not very detailed sightings have few determining characteristics. It follows that the least well-defined types may include several different species, not necessarily related to one another.”
If you are into Cryptozoology and have not yet read Heuvelman’s classic book, you really should!
Villagers spooked by huge glowing oval-shaped UFO in the sky over Krasnodar, Russia
Villagers spooked by huge glowing oval-shaped UFO in the sky over Krasnodar, Russia
Astrange phenomenon has been filmed in the sky above a field by two friends while driving in a rural area in Krasnodar Region in Russia on November 27, 2019.
Wondering what the strange sky phenomenon could be, they decided to stop their car to take a closer look at the brightly shining oval-shaped object, hanging motionless in the air.
Although some people suggest that the phenomenon is just a sunset, the witnesses are convinced that they have filmed something that cannot be explained.
Weird object emitting red glow moving across the sky in Bradford, UK
Weird object emitting red glow moving across the sky in Bradford, UK
While driving on the highway near Bradford on November 26, 2019, Juran Harrison noticed a huge object in the sky that seemly emitted a red glow on which he decided to film it.
According to Thetelegraphandargus - Juran said: "I would describe it as a burning red light, was moving sideways then down and away leaving a slight trail behind it, then, as quickly as it appeared, it is gone."
The footage, taken from a car shows the bright red glowing object moving across the sky above the roofline.
Did Anunnaki Ancient Aliens Build A Civilization On Earth Before Humans?
Did Anunnaki Ancient Aliens Build A Civilization On Earth Before Humans?
Discusses whether Out-of-Place Artifacts are evidence of a Lost Human or Ancient Anunnaki Alien Civilization
‘Out-of-Place Artifact’ (OoPArt) is a term coined by American naturalist and cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson for an object of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest found in a very unusual or seemingly impossible context that could challenge conventional historical chronology by being too advanced for the level of civilization that existed at the time, or showing human presence well before humans were supposed to exist.
The question that we are ultimately confronted with is who built the lost Civilization before human beings?
Was it the Ancient Anunnaki Aliens as suggested by alternative historical theories or some other unknown entity/ies?
The question persistently posed by Out of Place Artifacts is whether they are evidence of advanced past Ancient Alien or Lost Human Civilization.
Zechariah Sitchin and other proponents of the Ancient Astronaut Theory suggest that such artifacts are evidence of an Ancient Alien Civilization, whilst on the other end of the unacknowledged History spectrum you have Graham Hancock and others taking the position that it is evidence of an advanced Human Civilization.
We’ve covered the Anunnaki angle considerably as part of the ongoing ‘Anunnaki Chronicles‘ series, and today, we shed light on the alternative Graham Hancock argument on whether the past reveals the presence of an Ancient Alien or Lost Human Civilization.
The Evidence For A Lost Civilization
According to Hancock, the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis emerges from ancient texts and traditions when they are read in the light of modern space-exploration technology. However, at present NO ancient archaeological site and NO ancient text or tradition provides persuasive evidence for the ancient astronaut hypothesis.
In his view, if one examines the original source material upon which Sitchin drew, and comparing what you find to how Sitchin presented it in his Earth Chronicles series, you would see that Sitchin has created a gigantic work of science fiction masquerading as fact.
As such. Out of Place Artifacts, the anomalies of history and prehistory pointed to by advocates of the ancient astronaut hypothesis are far better and more elegantly explained as emanating from a lost, advanced HUMAN civilization of prehistoric antiquity than from high-tech alien visitors from another Planet.
His verdict on whether the past reveals an Ancient Alien or Lost Human Civilization is therefore that it is a lost Human Civilization that we should credit and not Ancient Aliens.
Top 5 Anomalies & Out Of Place Artifacts
1. Klerksdorp Spheres
Resembling the ‘Death Star’ in Star Wars, the Klerksdorp Spheres were found by Miners in South Africa and their origin remains unknown.
They were found in rock dated 2.8 billion years old and their presence in this Archaeological layer remains perplexing.
2. The Antikythera Mechanism
The next perplexing artifact was recovered by sponge-divers from a shipwreck off the coast of Antikythera, Greece. Its a sophisticated mechanism of gears whose existence 2000 years ago cannot be explained.
3. The Battery Of Babylon
The 2000 Ancient Battery of Babylon was unearthed in Baghdad in 1938. The device could create an electric charge, and this find is particularly remarkable since we only invented batters in 1799.
4. Egyptian Helicopoters & Inca Planes
The mystery of the flying machines of the Gods continues to reign. Our previous entry on the Vimana Epics of Ancient India also shed some light on this extraordinary question.
Hieroglyphs such as those at the Egyptian Temple at Abydos only add to the mystery as they depict Helicopters, submarines and supersonic jets…Meanwhile Golden Ancient Inca Model Aircraft suggest the presence of aviation technology amongst the Ancient Civilizations of South America.
The suggestion that Ancient Civilizations possessed advanced Aviation Technology which we are only beginning to understand today remains, and the jury is still out on how that will be eventually resolved.
5. The Piri Ries Map
Last but not least, is the Piri Ries Map.
In 1929, a group of historians found an amazing map drawn on a gazelle skin. Research showed that it was a genuine document drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a famous admiral of the Turkish fleet in the sixteenth century.
The controversy lies in that the Piri Reis map shows the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and the northern coast of Antarctica. The northern coastline of Antarctica is perfectly detailed even though the map was drawn 300 years before it was discovered, drawing the coastline in perfect detail even though it was under ice.
Conclusion: Anunnaki Ancient Aliens or Lost Human Civilization?
Whether Historical anomalies like Ancient Megalith Structures and Out of Place Artifacts demonstrate the existence of an Ancient Alien or Lost Human Civilization remains contested…Perhaps the answer lies in combining both theories instead of adopting a mutually exclusive approach to either theory.
In Ancient Aliens Debunked, our previous entry based on a documentary by the same name which you can read here, we also noted that the Ancient Astronaut Theory was not always correct in its interpretation of certain Out Of Place Artifacts, sometimes making exaggerated claims in order to shore up support of itself.
Nevertheless, its clear that unanswered questions remain and various new lines of enquiry continue to develop, expanding and enriching our understanding of the Human story…That in itself is progress, and we will continue to follow the latest revelations in an effort to answer what is perhaps Humanity’s ultimate question.
The Anunnaki Ancient Astronuat Theory also continues to provoke interest and debate on the question of our origins and whether the Historical Timeline of Civilization provided by the current historical paradigm is correct.
In Realm Of The Elohim, our own E-Book based on Zechariah Sitchin’s Lost Book of Enki, an effort was made to provide accessible and digestible information on the Ancient Astronaut Theory and the activities of the Anunnaki from the landing on Earth, the setting up of the first Base station at Edin, the creation of man, great deluge and the Nuclear destruction of Sumer up to the rise of Babylon under Marduk.
It also explores the implications of the Anunnaki Ancient Astronaut Theory for the existence of God and Spirituality
Due to the ongoing debate and interest on the topic especially online, a list of online references and Documentaries is also included for further individual research and exploration.
For more on Out of Place Artifacts and the Lost Human Civilization argument, peep the Ancient Astronaut Archive video below, as well as Graham Hancock’s website and his seminal work on the lost ancient Human Civilization, ‘Fingerprints Of The Gods’.
If you would like to explore more interesting Alternative History on the Anunnaki, you can click the Archive links below:
The Google Powered Search Box on the Home Page with custom links to official Egyptology and Sumerian Archaeological Texts, Records and Documentaries will also help you along your quest.
For decades, academic researchers have dismissed the study of UFOs as pseudoscience. But as the evidence becomes harder and harder to ignore, some organizations are finally taking steps to make the field legitimate.
For as long as humans have claimed they’ve seen UFOs—and it’s been a long, long time—the established scientific community has more or less considered them to be nonsense. While that hasn’t changed much, even as we’re in the midst of a modern ufological renaissance, some renegade scientists are fighting to bring academic rigor to UFO research.
Take Richard Hoffman, a 25-year information technology expert on contract with the U.S. Army’s Material Command at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. As a Senior Lead Architect, he keeps the Army’s digital infrastructure running and safe from attack.
He’s also a UFO researcher.
“The scientific community still has to deal with the decades of stigma associated with what they see as pseudoscience or fringe science,” Hoffman tells Popular Mechanics. “Many scientists do have interests in the phenomena, but are most often discouraged by others to embrace it so they hide it.”
Hoffman is one of three board members who run a nonprofit scientific organization known as the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). Unknown or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is the current rebranding of unidentified flying objects (UFO), a term that many believe to carry too much cultural baggage.
“There are very few UFO organizations remaining today,” Hoffman says. “Of the few that do remain, they each have their unique contributions to the phenomena, but most are in data collection roles versus long term scientific study of cases.”
The difference with the SCU—and it’s a big one—is that it collects data that can be analyzed and studied by scientific experts, subsequently generating peer-reviewed papers published in journals and on websites, says Hoffman. The SCU doesn’t collect day-to-day UAP sighting reports, but rather, digs into the more complex cases where multiple sensory data like radar tracks and video may exist.
Library of CongressGetty Images
An Objective of Legitimacy
The SCU played a significant role in studying the Nimitz UFO Encounter, when it released a nearly 300-page report on the incident. The requisite refresher: Two year ago, the New York Times posted a story about Navy pilots who intercepted a strange object off the coast of San Diego in November 2004 and captured video of the object with their F-18’s gun camera.
Earlier this month, Popular Mechanics published a story about several other military personnel who also witnessed the Nimitz encounter on their radar systems and over their ship’s video system.
The SCU paper examined the available public data and testimony available regarding the case and concluded that the “results suggest that given the available information, the AAV’s capabilities are beyond any known technology.”
To be clear, the SCU hasn’t concluded that some non-human intelligence is responsible. Fully aware of the significant gaps in data, the organization has suggested that “the public release of all Navy records associated with this incident to enable a full, scientific and open investigation is strongly recommended.”
The UFO research community is used to having scant data on UFO incidents. The vast majority of cases are purely anecdotal. When physical evidence or data is available, the well-established ufological conspiracy and myth-making machines begin to put that data in jeopardy.
“To date, there hasn’t been an extensive and well-funded scientific investigation of these phenomena using state-of-the-art investigative tools and a dedicated investigative team,” Robert Powell, an SCU board member and device physics expert, tells Popular Mechanics. The SCU is aiming to change that. Membership in the organization requires a resume submission, and a committee meets to thoroughly vet each new member.
So who makes up the 69 active members of the SCU, exactly? Mostly scientists, former military officers, and former law enforcement personnel with technical experience and investigative backgrounds, Powell says. And the credentials are impressive: Try “two current and one former NASA PhDs, and members with backgrounds that include Lockheed, NORAD, and the U.S. Space Command,” he says.
To begin bridging the gap between the UFO research community and the scientific community, the SCU has a team in place that will begin a peer-reviewed journal. “Initial plans are for the journal to be biannual with the first published journal in the first half of 2020,” Powell says. “Anyone wishing to submit a paper to the journal should contact SCU.”
BettmannGetty Images
Fighting the Stigma
Yet for all the promising progress, the SCU and similar organizations are still facing an uphill battle. The decades-long taboo surrounding UFOs and their study is thoroughly entrenched in established scientific and academic communities. They are, in essence, a dirty subject that can kill a professional career.
In 1953, the Robertson Panel was formed to look at UFO reports at the behest of the government due to a string of odd aerial objects being spotted over Washington, D.C. the previous year. The panel concluded in its classified report that UFOs posed no risk to national security, and proposed that the National Security Council actively debunk UFO reports with the intention to ideologically inoculate the public to ensure UFOs become the subject of ridicule. The Panel even recommended that UFO investigative and research groups be monitored by intelligence agencies for subversive activity.
Seventeen years later, the infamous Condon Report, which was a product of the U.S. Air Force and the University of Colorado, was responsible for the death of the Air Force’s UFO study, Project Blue Book. The report became embroiled in controversy when a memorandum was released explaining that the report itself had to “trick” the public into thinking the study was objective, but would ensure that the final and official position is that all UFO incidents were hoaxes, delusion and human error.
“The wind is changing on this, just like it is on a lot of things.”
Officially, UFOs became the subject of ridicule. Tie that in with the rise of new-age UFO prophets and cults, stories of space men from Venus, alien bases in Antarctica, and the merging of UFO and conspiracy cultures, and those who used empirical data or maintained a rational and logical research approach became lumped into the same subculture as people claiming to be alien channelers or time-traveling alien ambassadors who often use people’s gullibility to earn a living.
It’s no wonder academics, professionals, and scientists publicly shy away from the subject. In research for this article, one physicist from a university in New York expressed their discomfort and asked that their name not be used because they were still trying to get tenure.
“I don’t get the sense the scientific community is any more interested or open than it was before,” Alexander Wendt, a political science professor at the Ohio State University, tells Popular Mechanics. “But what has changed, I think, is the politics. I think that the wind is changing on this, just like it is on a lot of things. And it’s probably young people in particular who are driving the change and are more open.”
Geography PhotosGetty Images
Forging a Scientific Future
Wendt, who has done academic work on the UFO question and presented a lecture at TEDx Columbus on the science of UFOs, sits on the board of UFOData, a project designed to create high-tech observation systems to monitor the skies and track anomalous phenomena. He knows that the taboo exists surrounding UFO research, and getting any grant money to study UFOs is still impossible. According to Wendt, neither the government nor any established scientific organizations are going to fund UFO research. The solution seems to be crowdfunding or finding private donors who will invest in these projects.
UFOData isn’t the only group engaged in observational studies. For three decades, Project Hessdalen, a small observatory station that monitors a valley in Norway subject to strange light phenomena, has been jointly funded by the Østfold University College and personal donations. Another organization, the UFO Data Acquisition Project (UFODAP), is also building small computer units designed to monitor and track aerial oddities. Using multiple sensors, the UFO Data Acquisition Unit is designed to record and track UAP, as well as provide metadata which can be analyzed.
Hoffman recognizes that contemporary ufology still makes academics and scientists nervous. Even with the recent announcement by the Navy that UAP do violate American airspace and that the Pentagon was running the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, people are starting to ask more questions and some scientists are starting to participate.
“We are encouraged by this and believe it will continue to advance, however, the UFO community itself is composed of factions which continue to make scientists cringe,” Hoffman says. “SCU is attempting to support scientists and serious researchers by focusing on what science can do to advance their interests. They see us as being a safe place where conspiracy theories are non-existent and scientific methodologies win.”
So while the existence of UFOs is no longer up for debate, their source very much is. The UFO community has always been comprised of cultural and social renegades who haunt the fringes of mainstream culture, subjects of ridicule more than respect. While some still smirk at the thought of anomalous aerial objects occupying our skies, the information slowly coming out into the public domain is starting to prove that these objects may not be a laughing matter.
Whether the source of some of these data-rich UFO incidents is secret government technology, an alien nonhuman intelligence, or something fundamentally beyond our physical and philosophical understanding, we’re left to wonder, as countless thinkers and, yes, even scientists, have before, “What if?”
NASA releases strange 'music' heard by 1969 astronauts
NASA releases strange 'music' heard by 1969 astronauts
NASA has made public a recording of strange "music" that astronauts reported hearing in 1969 while on the far side of the Moon, out of radio contact with the Earth.
The Apollo 10 command module Charlie Brown piloted by US astronaut John W. Young is seen from the lunar module Snoopy after separation in lunar orbit on May 22, 1969
The story behind these unusual whistling noises was showcased Sunday night in a show on the cable channel Discovery, as part of a series called "NASA's Unexplained Files."
The noises reportedly were heard in May 1969 by the Apollo 10 astronauts as they circled the Moon, months before the first astronauts stepped foot on the lunar surface on July 21 that same year.
The three astronauts on board were Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.
The sounds, which lasted about an hour, were recorded and transmitted to mission control in Houston.
A transcript of the text was released in 2008, but the actual audio has only just been made public.
"You hear that? That whistling sound?" asks Cernan, describing it as "outer-space-type music."
The trio felt the sounds were so strange that they debated whether or not to tell the chiefs at NASA, for fear they wouldn't be taken seriously and could be dropped from future space missions, according to the Discovery show.
NASA says the sounds could not have been alien music.
An engineer from the US space agency said the noises likely came from interference caused by radios that were close to each other in the lunar module and the command module.
Astronaut Al Worden, who flew on Apollo 15, disputed that explanation, saying "logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there's something there," according to the Discovery show.
But Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11, who became the first person to fly around the far side of the Moon by himself while Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were walking on the surface, said he too heard "an eerie woo-woo sound" but accepted the explanation of radio interference.
In fact, he'd been warned ahead of time, he wrote in his book, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys.
"Had I not been warned about it, it would have scared the hell out of me," he wrote.
"Fortunately the radio technicians (rather than the UFO fans) had a ready explanation for it: it was interference between the LM's and Command Module's VHF radios."
While most of the Star Wars saga has been filmed on sound stages in England and Australia, the filmmakers behind the ongoing space opera have sometimes traveled to real-life places to create the alien worlds of a galaxy far, far away. Here are 20 Star Wars movie locations you can visit in real life.
1. AJIM, TUNISIA
George Lucas used various locations around Tunisia to film exteriors for the desert planet Tatooine, most notably the ferry port town ofAjim. The town was used for the exteriors of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home, which was actually an old mosque, plus the Mos Eisley Spaceport in A New Hope.
2. THE HÔTEL SIDI DRISS // MATMATAT-AL-QADIMAL, TUNISIA
The Hôtel Sidi Driss in Matmatat-Al-Qadimal, Tunisia was used as the Lars homestead (Luke Skywalker’s childhood home) in A New Hope. The hotel consists of five pits, four of them reserved for lodging and sleeping, the fifth dubbed the “Star Wars pit.” Guests can dine in the Lars family dining room, now the hotel’s restaurant. The set dressings were removed after filming in 1976, but returned in the year 2000 in order to film scenes for Attack of the Clones. Ever since, the decorations have remained. Fittingly, it's more commonly known as the "Star Wars hotel."
3. DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA
George Lucas used Death Valley National Park for pickup shots after shooting in Tunisia for A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The area between Sierra Nevada and the Mojave Desert, along with Tunisia, were used to make the desert planet of Tatooine come to life, most notably in the scene when Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and R2-D2 for the first time.
For Return of the Jedi, Twenty Mule Team Canyon in Death Valley was used to film the scene in which C-3PO and R2-D2 travel to Jabba's Palace.
The Empire Strikes Back'ssnowy opening battle scene on the ice planet Hoth was filmed on the Hardangerjøkulen Glacier, the sixth largest glacier in Norway.
5. FINSE, NORWAY
At the foot of the Hardangerjøkulen glacier is the small railroad town of Finse, Norway, which is located between Oslo and Bergen, and was used as the Rebel Alliance’s Echo Base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. While shooting in 1979, a snowstorm hit the small town, allowing director Irvin Kershner to shoot two key scenes: Luke Skywalker's escape from the Wampa cave, as well as the young hero's interaction with the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi before he is rescued by Han Solo. Both scenes were shot just outside of the Finse 1222 Hotel.
In A New Hope, Lucas used ancient Mayan ruins, located in Guatemala's Tikal National Park, as the exterior of the Rebel Alliance’s Massassi Outpost.
7. YUMA DESERT, ARIZONA
Instead of returning to Tunisia for Return of the Jedi, the film's producers chose to shoot Buttercup Valley in Arizona's Yuma Desert for the Sarlacc Pit sequence. Jabba's Sail Barge and the Sarlacc Pit took more than five months to build, and more than 5500 cast and crew members lodged in Yuma during filming in 1982.
8. REDWOOD NATIONAL AND STATE PARKS, CALIFORNIA
California's Redwood National and State Parks portrayed the Forest Moon of Endor, the Ewoks’ home world, in Return of the Jedi. Several scenes, such as the speeder bike chase and the Ewok ambush, were shot in the parks’ many redwood groves in Marin County, which is close to Lucas’s home at Skywalker Ranch.
Most of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were shot at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney using green screen. However, Lucas would occasionally send crews out to capture scenery in various locations around the world for the plate photography used in background shots.
One of the real-life places shot for Revenge of the Sith was the beautiful mountain range of Grindelwald, Switzerland, which was used as the backdrop for the planet Alderaan, Princess Leia’s home.
10. VILLA DEL BALBIANELLO // LENNO, ITALY
The Lake Retreat where Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala go into hiding in Attack of the Clones is located at the Villa del Balbainello in Lenno, Italy. Originally built in 1787, the villa overlooks Lake Como and served as a monastery before it was turned over to the National Trust of Italy in 1988. Villa del Balbainello makes another appearance at the end of Attack of the Clones, as the location for Anakin and Padme’s wedding.
The Palace of Caserta in southern Italy, just northeast of Napoli, was used to shoot the interiors of the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Originally built for Bourbon King Charles III in the 1750s, the Palace of Caserta is also the largest royal residence in the world.
12. PHANG NGA BAY // PHUKET, THAILAND
The beautiful island backdrop of Phang Nga Bay in Thailand was used as plate photography for the planet Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s birthplace, in Revenge of the Sith. For certain scenes, shots of Guilin, China were combined with Phang Nga Bay.
Lucas used England's Whippendell Wood for two scenes in The Phantom Menace: In the first instance, it's where Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet Jar-Jar Binks; the other shows the Wood as a sacred place for Jar-Jar's species, the Gungans.
14. PLAZA DE ESPAÑA // SEVILLE, SPAIN
The beautiful Plaza de España in Seville, Spain was used for the exterior of Theed on Naboo in Attack of the Clones. Anakin and Padme walk through the plaza before the pair go into hiding in the Lake Country.
15. MOUNT ETNA // SICILY, ITALY
LUCASFILM
Although Lucas actually didn’t shoot on Mount Etna, his team used Italy’s most active volcano for plate photography for the epic light saber battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Mount Etna was actually erupting during filming, so Lucas sent a film crew to capture its flowing lava.
16. SKELLIG MICHAEL, IRELAND
LUCASFILM
The island planet of Ahch-To, which the exiled Luke Skywalker called home at the end of The Force Awakens, is actually the island of Skellig Michael, which is located about 7 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. Around 600 CE, a group of monks built a monastery that sits more than 600 feet above sea level, along with hundreds of rock steps to reach the top. Today, it’s a popular tourist attraction for Star Wars fans because it’s where Rey received her Jedi training in The Last Jedi.
17. RUB' AL KHALI DESERT // ABU DHABI, UAE
LUCASFILM
From Rey’s scavenger marketplace to Poe Dameron and Finn’s crash landing in The Force Awakens, the desert planet of Jakku was filmed in a large section of the Rub' al Khali desert known as “The Empty Quarter,” which is located a few hours away from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The Star Wars cast and crew filmed for six months in the largest contiguous sand desert in the world under the production title “Avco,” named after the L.A. movie theater where director J.J. Abrams watched the original Star Wars for the first time in 1977.
Located near the crest of the Andes is Salar de Uyuni, the Earth’s largest salt flat. It stretches more than 4000 square miles across southwest Bolivia and was used as the filming location for Crait, a mineral planet covered in white salt and red soil where the Resistance held its last stand against the First Order in The Last Jedi. The salt flat was created when prehistoric lakes dried up during the last Ice Age and left more than 10 billion tons of natural salt behind.
19. LAAMU ATOLL, MALDIVES
INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC, A DIVISION OF LUCASFILM ENTERTAINMENT
During the climax of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the Rebel Alliance, led by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), breaks into an Imperial Base located on the planet Scarif to steal the top secret blueprints for the Death Star.
Director Gareth Edwards used Gan and Berasdhoo—two very large islands in the Laamu Atoll island cluster in the Maldives—as the filming location for Scarif, a remote tropical planet in the Outer Rim. "Scarif is based on a paradise world, so we had to go to paradise to film it," Edwards said during Star Wars Celebration in 2016.
In addition, the interior of the Imperial Security Complex on Scarif was mostly filmed in the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London, England. Film crews worked on an exciting chase scene through the subway station between midnight and 4 a.m. when it was closed to the public.
In The Last Jedi, Canto Bight is a casino city on the planet Cantonica, where Finn and Rose embark on a mission to find a master codebreaker to disable the First Order’s new weapon. Director Rian Johnson used the walled seaside city of Dubrovnik, Croatia as the filming location for the lavish city.
Dubrovnik, which is known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” was also used as the filming location for King’s Landing on Game of Thrones. So the Croatian city gets double the nerd cred for Game of Thrones and Star Wars fans alike.
Fox News reporter Chad Pergram spent the day looking into a strange security threat on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning that has left security officials stumped.
Both the U.S. Capitol and the White House were on lockdown after the restricted airspace was breached and fighter jets were scrambled. The problem is that after several hours, no one knows what it was or even if it was real.
NBC News✔@NBCNews
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DEVELOPING: Airspace violation reported in Washington, DC, and fighter jets have been scrambled, law enforcement officials tells @NBCNews.
White House on lockdown.
NBC News✔@NBCNews
DEVELOPING: Airspace violation reported in Washington, DC, and fighter jets have been scrambled, law enforcement officials tells @NBCNews.
White House totally on lockdown. All press being sheltered in place inside briefing room. Similar reported response at the a U.S. Capitol + congressional office buildings
“With security incident this morning, Fox has specifically inquired whether Capitol security systems may have been hacked or if this may have been a ‘test’ by nefarious forces to judge how people may have responded,” Pergram tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Fox is told neither of those scenarios were in play.”
He explained that Fox was told that security officials are still baffled and some even received different versions of a report on what happened, down to even the location and speed of the alleged aircraft.
“Officials heard it was ‘hovering’ and were even given ‘knots’ measuring its speed. But they still don’t know what it was,” Pergram continued.
“We don’t know what the hell it was,” one knowledgeable source told Pergram. He explained that the security doesn’t know “if it was birds, a ‘weather anomaly,’ a drone or what.”
Chad Pergram✔@ChadPergram
Security officials still baffled by this morning’s Congressional security threat: “We don’t know what the hell it was,” said one knowegeable source. They don’t know if it was birds, a “weather anomaly,” a drone or what
Fox is told security officials got different info as to location & speed regarding the aircraft in question potentially posing a security risk in DC today. Officials heard it was “hovering” & were even given “knots” measuring its speed. But they still don’t know what it was
With security incident this morning, Fox has specifically inquired whether Capitol security systems may have been hacked or if this may have been a “test” by nefarious forces to judge how people may have responded. Fox is told neither of those scenarios were in play.
Fox is told security officials got different info as to location & speed regarding the aircraft in question potentially posing a security risk in DC today. Officials heard it was “hovering” & were even given “knots” measuring its speed. But they still don’t know what it was
A new, theoretical type of time crystal could run without outside help
A new, theoretical type of time crystal could run without outside help
Long-range interactions between particles may create a structure that regularly repeats in time
Time crystals, a state of matter that repeats itself in time, were first created in 2012. But those materials require prodding from external sources like lasers to produce their rhythmic behavior. Now, scientists have proposed a new type of crystal that would operate free from outside influences.
A newly proposed type of time crystal could stand alone.
Time crystals are structures that repeat regularly in time, just as a standard crystal is composed of atoms arranged in a regularly repeating pattern in space. Scientists first created time crystals in 2016 (SN: 10/26/16). But those crystals require periodic blasts from a laser to initiate their rhythmic behavior.
Now, two scientists have sketched out a theoretical blueprint for a new version of the odd state of matter. Their time crystal would persist without any input from the outside world, the pair reports in the Nov. 22 Physical Review Letters.
First proposed in 2012 by theoretical physicists Frank Wilczek of MIT and Alfred Shapere of the University of Kentucky in Lexington (SN: 2/16/12), the idea of time crystals was initially controversial. Researchers soon proved a no-go theorem stating that, under typical conditions, time crystals couldn’t exist.
But wiggle room remained: Two situations not included in the no-go theorem left open the possibility of creating the unusual materials. One exception was systems for which energy is input from the outside, for example, via lasers. That’s what’s known in physics terminology as “driving” the system, and it’s how scientists had created all time crystals until now (SN: 5/4/18).
But theoretical physicists Oleksandr Kyriienko of the University of Exeter in England and Valerii Kozin of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik wanted to design a self-sustaining time crystal. “We said, ‘We don’t want to drive the system at all,’” Kyriienko says.
The pair exploited the second exception to the no-go rule — systems that involve very long-range interactions, in which atoms or other tiny particles separated by large distances could influence one another. Such long-range effects don’t typically occur in nature: Two atoms on opposite sides of a room normally don’t exert forces on one another, for example.
Based on such interactions, the researchers came up with a new time crystal scenario, consisting of a collection of many such particles, each with a spin — a quantum version of angular momentum. Interactions between the particles’ spins would be configured so that particles near and far would influence one another simultaneously, via some unspecified quantum gymnastics in the laboratory. And particles in the time crystal would be highly entangled with one another, meaning they share quantum links that can persist at large distances (SN: 6/15/17).
Under such conditions, distant parts of the time crystal could affect one another. The result is that the correlation between the spins — whether neighboring particles’ spins were aligned or not — would endlessly oscillate in time in a regular pattern, producing a time crystal, the researchers say.
Scientists have typically studied systems of particles in which the interactions are short-range, or local. But researchers have long known that “something weird occurs once the locality is violated,” says physicist Haruki Watanabe of the University of Tokyo, one of the researchers who proved the no-go theorem. “So I wouldn’t be surprised by these kinds of behaviors of long-range interacting systems,” he says.
But it’s unclear whether such systems could be created in the laboratory. It’s not an easy feat to produce long-range interactions between many particles at once. “I don’t think it is possible to realize the long-range interacting system they proposed,” Watanabe says. But Shapere is optimistic, suggesting that scientists might use quantum computers or cold atoms to create the proposed time crystal or one like it.
When Wilczek and Shapere first came up with the idea of time crystals, the pair had envisioned a system that would operate without any outside input. “This paper brings us much closer to that original idea,” Shapere says.
Step aside, Ceres. There's a new smallest dwarf planet in town.
The asteroid Hygiea may qualify as a dwarf planet — and it could steal the title of the smallest dwarf planet in the solar system!
Astronomers have captured high-resolution imagery of Hygiea, the fourth largest rock in the Asteroid Belt. And low and behold, Hygiea is spherical in shape. That's a pretty important dwarf-planet marker, and the only one Hygiea was missing until now.
Asteroids boast a variety of shapes, but the rounded shape of dwarf planets shows that they had enough mass for its own gravity to pull it into this round shape. Hygiea already met the other requirements for dwarf-planet classification since it orbits the sun, is not a moon orbiting another planet and has not cleared other objects out of its own orbit.
Hygiea, a contender for the smallest planet in the solar system, is featured in this new image from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. (Image credit: ESO/P. Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS))
So, how big is this potential new member of the dwarf planet family? The team of astronomers, led by researcher Pierre Vernazza of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France constrained Hygiea's size, and estimated its diameter is just over 267 miles (430 kilometers). For comparison, Hygiea is less than one-fifth the width of its most famous cousin, Pluto, which has a diameter of about 1,491 miles (2,400 km).
Ceres held the title of smallest dwarf planet until now, with a diameter of almost 590 miles (950 km).
Before Hygiea can be officially upgraded to dwarf planet status, the International Astronomical Union — the same group of astronomers who were responsible making Pluto a dwarf planet — must review all the evidence and take a vote.
"Thanks to these images, Hygiea may be reclassified as a dwarf planet, so far the smallest in the solar system," Vernazza said in a statement from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which manages the SPHERE instrument that produced the high-resolution imagery in the study. SPHERE (which stands for Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) sits atop the Very Large Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.
"Thanks to the VLT and the new generation adaptive-optics instrument SPHERE, we are now imaging main belt asteroids with unprecedented resolution, closing the gap between Earth-based and interplanetary mission observations," Vernazza added.
A new study published Oct. 28, 2019 in the journal Nature Astronomy found that Hygiea is spherical, potentially making it the smallest dwarf planet in the solar system. Vesta and Ceres are also dwarf planets.(Image credit: ESO/P. Vernazza et al./L. Jorda et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS))
A study detailing the new findings was published today (Oct. 28) in Nature Astronomy.
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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.
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