In a hurry to get somewhere on the other side of the world? In an hour? Then you need to join the Space Force. What … what? That seems to be the advice of a retired United States Air Force general who claims the Space Force already has the technology to build a craft capable of being anywhere on Earth in an hour. If you’re not interested in fast travel, he has some Space Force technology for homebodies too – the newest branch of the armed forces also has the capability to deliver wi-fi and energy from space. Holy Nikola Tesla!

“The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and making friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental.”

The next generation of one-hour pizza delivery?

Late last month, Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast, commander of the Air Education and Training Command at the San Antonio-Randolph Base in Texas, revealed this and more in a speech entitled “The Urgent Need for a U.S. Space Force” delivered to an audience at Hillsdale College in Washington D.C. Kwast (he retired earlier this year) believes it’s not just advanced technology that will determine who will lead the world in space but also who has the values to protect human rights from exploitation by the market forces, industries, militaries and governments that guard the technology. That responsibility, in Kwast’s mind, belongs to the Space Force.

“The power of space will change world power forever. As a historian, reflecting on the fact that throughout the history of mankind… technology has always changed world power. But the story of rejecting new and holding and clinging to the paradigms of the past is why no civilization has ever lasted forever, and values are trumped by other values when another civilization figures out a way of finding a competitive advantage. The nature of power, you either have it and your values rule or you do not have it and you must submit. We see that play out again and again in history and it’s playing out now.”

But wait a minute, you say. The Space Force is still a proposal, not an actual branch of the military … right? That’s true … although this week the Democrats in Congress and White House negotiators agreed to authorize the creation of the Space Force in exchange for a policy establishing 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers. Neither has anything to do with the other, but that’s how government works these days. Kwast should be happy to hear the news because he warns that China (it’s always China) is already building its space force. But wait a minute again, you say. Didn’t Kwast say we have advanced technology for ultra-hypersonic travel and Tesla’s dream of wireless energy from space already “on the bench”?

Unfortunately, that’s where he falls back on that old diatribe about China beating us to 5G technology. Why is he worried about 5G when it’s such low tech to flying anywhere in an hour and getting energy from space? It would have been nice if he had given more insights on those and perhaps explained how today’s manufacturers – hungry for new business – and today’s workers – ready for more jobs – can capitalize on this. All we really have are mysterious triangular aircraft sightings and rumors.

While it’s great that people like retired Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast are hinting about this advanced technology, seeing is believing. After all, we’re still waiting for flying cars.

Quantum physicist Deep Prasad previously hinted that he had an encounter with extraterrestrials which is why he became so interested in UFOs and aliens. And just recently he came forward with his story. On Thanksgiving, Prasad posted his experience to Twitter and it is one interesting story to say the least.

It’s a pretty lengthy story (the full transcript can be read here as well as on Prasad’s Twitter account), so I’ll just summarize the most important and highly interesting parts.

He began the post by stating that on February 1^st of this year, around 9:40 a.m., he became paralyzed and witnessed three strange beings that were communicating in a mysterious and incomprehensible language. The words/sentences that he saw were written in a sort of hieroglyphic texts/symbols and the only word Prasad understood was “DNA” – which he read at least three different times.

He noticed that he was no longer in his room and was somewhere he didn’t recognize. One of the beings jumped on top of him and walked towards Prasad’s head. At that point, he felt “the most blissful, euphoric feeling” that he ever had. After experiencing that “oneness” feeling for a few minutes, he was knocked out and lost consciousness, but immediately woke back up.

He experienced “impossible electrical anomalies” wherever he went for approximately two weeks after the encounter. He then went to the SCU conference where he met Lue Elizondo along with other people who shared his interest in UFOs and aliens.

As for his emotional well-being, Prasad claimed to have still felt the feeling of “oneness” for about two weeks after the encounter and had lost any feelings of depression, stress, anxiety and trauma. He said that he was unable to feel fear and had nothing but love for everyone. He also became spiritual after his encounter. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling that way and even considered getting an MRI in order to find out which parts of his brain were “rewired”.

He did, however, begin to have dreams where he was looking at the inside of a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the beings in his dreams communicated with him telepathically. He even saw an unidentified craft only weeks after his experience with the aliens. As a matter of fact, he had a total of four UFO encounters since his experience – two of them he was able to record.

He finished off his story by stating that he was “grateful for the experience” and that he’s thankful for everyone that he has met since his encounter. But wait, there’s more! Prasad drew a picture of what the alien beings looked like (the sketch can be seen here). So, was he really transported to an alien craft where he witnessed extraterrestrials? Like I said, it’s one interesting story to say the least.

In space, no one can hear you scream or cry yourself to sleep at night because you’re lonely … until now. Over the weekend, a SpaceX cargo ship delivered an emotion-sensing AI robot to the International Space Station in a second attempt to provide astronauts with an empathetic companion for long space flights. It also brought a Budweiser barley experiment to test how the malting process – a part of beer brewing – works in space. Is the beer in case the robot doesn’t work … or to help the astronauts really open up to it?

“The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important. It’s trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on.”

In an interview with Reuters, Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2 – the second generation of the Crew Interactive Mobile Companion — describes the esoteric purpose of the round ball of bot which is supposed to help astronauts forget that they’re out in space all alone … and also forget the original CIMON, launched in 2018 and sent back in 2019 after it got all moody on the crew – at one point saying, “Be nice, please. Don’t you like it here with me?” CIMON also raised concerns about privacy and security because its cameras and microphones were on 24/7 and could not be controlled by the crew.

“The new CIMON has a built-in switch that enables the data streams from all cameras and microphones to be interrupted from the ISS. The astronaut has control over CIMON at all times, which was especially important for us.”

Judith Buchheim, a researcher at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich who helped evaluate the ethics of the experiment, described the improvements made to CIMON-2 to CNN. CIMON-2 has better orientation capabilities – hopefully ending the “Spaceball” nickname for the smiley-faced floating bot. CIMON-2 also has a better self-learning AI brain behind it.

“With the help of the IBM Watson Tone Analyzer from the IBM cloud in Frankfurt, it is now able to evaluate the emotions of the astronauts and respond to the situation in an appropriate way if this is desired by the astronauts, or if its emotional analysis capabilities are being tested as part of an experiment. This allows CIMON-2 to transition from a scientific assistant into an empathetic companion, as required.”

That all sounds promising in a non-HAL kind of way. CIMON-2 isn’t really controlling anything on the ISS – it’s just supposed to respond to astronaut needs of the technical and emotional kind. They’d better hope it doesn’t get moody like its predecessor because CIMON-2 is on a 3-year mission … and this time, the astronauts are brewing adult beverages. Maybe they can loosen CIMON-2 up with a tall cold one.

“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t … is that beer?”

An Iron Age shield that was discovered in Yorkshire, England has been called “the most important British Celtic art object of the millennium”. The shield was found in a “warrior grave” that was unearthed in Pocklington last year at a housing development site called “The Mile”.

The shield was part of an astonishing 'warrior grave' featuring the remains of a Celtic man, weapons, a chariot and two upright pony skeletons

The face of the 30-inch bronze shield (pictures can be seen here) contained swirling and asymmetrical patterns along with a central raised boss. In fact, the swirling pattern was quite common in early Celtic art and the “La Tène” culture that inhabited Europe from approximately 450-1 B.C. Additionally, it had a puncture hole that would have been made by a sword and there was evidence of repair work done to the shield.

The fact that there was a puncture hole from a sword is very interesting, as that type of shield was previously thought to have been more of a ceremonial item than something used in battle. “The shield features a scalloped border. This previously unknown design feature is not comparable to any other Iron Age finds across Europe, adding to its valuable uniqueness,” explained Paula Ware from MAP Archaeological Practice.

The shield when it was first unearthed

Archaeologists unearthing the warrior shield together with the remains of the man

( MAP Archaeological Practice Limited )

She went on to say, “The popular belief is that elaborate metal-faced shields were purely ceremonial, reflecting status, but not used in battle,” adding, “Our investigation challenges this with the evidence of a puncture wound in the shield typical of a sword. Signs of repairs can also be seen, suggesting the shield was not only old but likely to have been well-used.” There was one other similar shield uncovered from the Thames River in 1849 – called the Wandsworth shield – and is currently in the British Museum.

In addition to the shield, other remains found in the grave include two humans, two horses, and sacrificial pigs. In fact, the two horses were positioned in such a way that they appeared as though they were leaping out of the grave, indicating a belief in the afterlife. There was also an upright chariot as well as other artifacts such as a brooch that was made from bronze and red glass.

The shield was discovered lying face down underneath a man’s skeleton. The remains are believed to date back to around 320-174 B.C. The owner of the shield was a man who passed away after the age of 46 and was probably a much respected member of the community because there were six pigs that were buried beside him as sacrificial offerings. He was buried adjacent to a younger man who was injured before his death.

As for what caused the older man’s death, it’s highly likely that he didn’t die in battle but from natural causes associated with old age. “We don’t know how the man died. There are some blunt force traumas but they wouldn’t have killed him,” said Ware.

This Iron Age discovery is certainly a significant find. “The magnitude and preservation of the Pocklington chariot burial has no British parallel, providing a greater insight into the Iron Age epoch,” Ware noted.

If you’re a fan of the panspermia theory that life may have been transported to Earth on an asteroid or meteorite, then this story is for you. Researchers studying a mysterious microbe found living in volcanoes put some on a diet of nothing but meteorite material and the tiny creatures not only survived but thrived. For skeptics who wondered how a life form could survive a long trip on a space rock, here’s your answer – they ate their stone ship … leaving just enough to survive the fiery entrance through Earth’s atmosphere. Plausible? Provable? Let’s find out.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of meteorite fragments consumed by M. sedula. © Springer Nature / Scientific Reports / Tetyana Milojevic et al

“Nanoscale resolution ultrastructural studies of meteorite grown M. sedula coupled to electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) points to the redox processing of Fe-bearing meteorite material. Our investigations validate the ability of M. sedula to perform the biotransformation of meteorite minerals, unravel microbial fingerprints left on meteorite material, and provide the next step towards an understanding of meteorite biogeochemistry.”

That’s research-paper-speak for “We fed some Metallosphaera sedula microbes a meteorite from Northwest Africa and it loved it.” In a paper published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, an international team of researchers explains how their search for Earth life forms that could survive on Mars led them to Metallosphaera sedula, a microbe found in sulfur-rich environments like hot springs, volcanic fields and acid mine drainage pools that have high metal ion concentrations, low pH and high temperatures … in other words, they already live on the closest thing we have to Mars on Earth.

Meteor meal home delivery for a Metallosphaera sedula?

M. sedula’s taste for heavy metal of the Periodic Table kind has led it to be used to remove iron sulphide or pyrite from coal. However, volcanoes aren’t Mars. For something closer to real extraterrestrial soil, University of Vienna astrobiologist Tetyana Milojevic and her colleagues turned to the chondrite meteorite Northwest Africa 1172 (NWA 1172). Discovered in Tabelbala, Algeria, in 2000, Milojevic told Science Alert that “NWA 1172 is a multimetallic material, which may provide much more trace metals to facilitate metabolic activity and microbial growth.”

“Yummy,” said the M. sedulas. The team prepared a culture of the microbes and spread them on a sterilized slice of NWA 1172 and on a pile of pulverized powder. A control group of the microbes was fed ground-up samples of the copper-iron-sulphur Earth mineral chalcopyrite. Under microscopy, the researchers watched as the M. sedula ate more and grew faster on the meteorite meal. As they ate, the microbes emitted tiny bubbles which may have helped catalyze the metals and reduce their toxicity. When they were done feeding, the researchers could see clear evidence of where they dined, which will help determine if other meteorites carried similar metal-eating microbes to Earth.

Were here! What’s for dinner?

It looks like M. sedula and other similar metal-eating microbes could live on Mars and perhaps even survive a trip on a meteor. Is this proof of panspermia? Are we the descendants of Metallosphaera sedulas?

“Our work provides a deeper insight into the biologically-mediated processing of extraterrestrial material and implications for natural samples, representing a special interest for space exploration missions.”

Was that a maybe?

One of the more intriguing rumors surrounding Area 51 suggests that the vast majority of the top secret work undertaken there is handled not on the surface, but deep below it – in hollowed-out chambers, tunnels, and vast underground installations. Certainly, there is no shortage of stories suggesting that is the case. The few, overhead, satellite photographs of Area 51 that are in the public domain show very little evidence of massive facilities: just extensive runways, hangars and a few other buildings, and that’s about it. The undeniable sparse imagery has led to suspicions that the bulk of Area 51 is situated way below the surface of the Nevada desert. That is almost certainly the case.

In an article titled “How Area 51 Works,” Jonathan Strickland and Patrick J. Kiger say: “Some allege that what you can see on the surface is only a tiny part of the actual facility. They believe that the surface buildings rest on top of a labyrinthine underground base. Others claim the underground facility has up to 40 levels and that it is attached via underground railways to other sites in Los Alamos, White Sands and Los Angeles.”

In January 2017, the U.K.’s Daily Express newspaper said the following of Jan Harzan, the Executive Director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON): “Mr. Harzan claims there is a secret underground facility built into the base of the Papoose Mountains, in Lincoln County, Nevada, where recovered alien space crafts and extraterrestrial beings are kept hidden away.”

Atlas Obscura states: “While the base is said by conspiracy theorists to be the site of everything from time travel research, an underground transcontinental railroad, and of course a secret lab where aliens work with the government to reverse-engineer alien technology, there is little evidence for any of the fanciful claims that people have made. It is almost certainly true that much of the base is underground, but it’s more likely use is just as exciting – a secret experimental aircraft testing space of a terrestrial nature – many of which could easily be considered unidentified flying objects.”

And, then, there’s the matter of a certain secret base located in Utah. The name of this rival to Area 51 in the secrecy and conspiracy stakes is the Dugway Proving Ground. It is, however, referred to as Area 52. Situated less than ninety miles from Salt Lake City, the DPG covers a massive amount of Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert. The origins of the facility date back to the 1940s. It was in early February 1942 – and in the wake of the events at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – that then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed a degree that effectively handed over to the War Department more than 100,00 acres of Utah land – on which what is now the Dugway Proving Ground would be built. And the War Department set about not just constructing the base itself, but significantly-sized underground bunkers and facilities, too.

The goal was to create for the United States’ Government the ultimate base for the study and development of chemical warfare agents. As the years progressed, so did the size of the Dugway Proving Ground. Thirteen years after President Roosevelt gave the go-ahead, close to 300,000 additional acres of Utah land was handed over to the military. Today, the figure is in excess of 800,000 acres. And the work of the DPG has expanded too – yes, chemical warfare is still a big part of the base’s mandate. As is, now, research into biological warfare and deadly viruses.

In a thread at the Above Top Secret website, one commentator said that they had heard “…stories about installations being built to the South of Wendover, Nevada which is West of Dugway and also very, very remote. There are stories of a 17-story building underground out there.” Others speak of deep and massive tunnels that link the Dugway Proving Ground with a variety of Utah-based military facilities. Former employees talk about huge elevators that transport people to lower-levels of the base; the rumors are that there no less than eight levels below the surface area – all engaged in highly-classified work and all having the ability to withstand a nuclear strike, even a direct one.

As a follow-up to my article on the strange subject of “Alien Big Cats” seen in U.K.-based Crop Circles, I thought I would share something else with you. Namely, a report of a very different – but no less intriguing – “phenomenon” involving these strange and intricate field-based formations. As I noted in the first article: “Since 2011, I have received no less than nine more reports of people seeing  huge black cats in the Crop Circles of England; all of them in Wiltshire, except for an ABC seen roaming around Chartley Castle, Staffordshire, England in 2015. Rather notably, a Crop Circle was found in a field adjacent to Chartley Castle in the summer of 2006. I know that for sure because me, my dad, and my ex-wife Dana were there to see the creation a day after it was made.” All of which brings us to today’s article.

Back in March 2009, a certain feature appeared in the pages of the U.K.’s newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. It had a decidedly eye-catching headline. It went as follows: “Dog Walker Met UFO ‘Alien’ With Scandinavian Accent.” Well, that’s quite a title, to say the very least! The article was written by journalist Sarah Knapton. The story surfaced into the public domain thanks to the U.K. government’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Among the UFO-themed files that the Ministry of Defense released was one that focused on Crop Circles. And, in an amazing fashion, too. Sarah Knapton wrote in her article that the story told of how “a dog walker claimed she met a man from another planet who said aliens were responsible for Crop Circles.”

The woman – whose name is unknown, unfortunately – had made a phone-call to a  military base, a Royal Air Force facility at Wattisham, Suffolk, England. It was clear to the person on the other end of the phone that something very weird had happened. It all went down on the night of November 20, 1989. Yes, we’re talking about more than thirty years ago now. It was around 10:30 p.m. on that night when the woman was out walking her dog. While doing so a man came up to her – quite out of the blue, I should stress – and who spoke to her with what was clearly a Scandinavian accent. Not only that, he was attired in a “light-brown garment like a flying suit.”

The official documentation on the woman’s encounter state the following: “He asked her if she was aware of stories about large circular flattened areas appearing in fields of wheat, and then went on to explain that he was from another planet similar to Earth, and that the circles had been caused by others like him who had traveled to Earth.” The alleged E.T. told the woman that he meant her no harm at all, but stressed that “they were not to have contact with humans for fear that they would be considered a threat.” The woman was said to have been “completely terrified” (yes, that is how the document-writer described it) by the confrontation.

Indeed, the woman got more and more anxious for the safety of herself and her dog, and suddenly and quickly headed off to her home. As the woman exited the area, she couldn’t fail to hear a “loud buzzing noise” behind her. She turned around and was amazed to see what the Ministry of Defense described as “a large, glowing, orange-white, spherical object rising vertically” from a clump of very nearby trees. The Royal Air Force operator carefully wrote everything down – and listened carefully, too. In fact, the phone conversation went on for about an hour, chiefly because the military operator was convinced that this was a “genuine call” and not the work of a maniac or a prankster.

It’s hard to know what to make of all this. After all, the story – with its human-looking alien, the man’s “flying suit,” and his foreign accent – sounds like one of those wacky tales that dominated the “Contactee” movement of the 1950s. It must be remembered, though, that the story was taken seriously – hence why it ultimately became one of the Ministry of Defense’s “real X-Files.” True or not, the tale adds yet another layer of undeniable weirdness to the phenomenon of Crop Circles.

Reports of alien encounters range across the board, and go back to perhaps ancient times. From numerous disparate cultures come inexplicable reports of encounters with mysterious beings from beyond our understanding, and Japan certainly has some of these as well. One very curious case comes from a group of fishermen who came across a strange craft floating upon the sea, holding within it a curious stranger and which has gone on to become a great Japanese mystery.

Although there are various versions of the alleged encounter, perhaps the most well-known and detailed is that found within the pages of an 1825 manuscript called Toen shōsetsu, by Kyokutei Bakin. The story goes that in February of 1803, a group of fishermen toiling away on the coast of Hitachi province saw something very odd bobbing out on the waves, which appeared to be some sort of bizarre vessel the likes of which none of them had ever seen before. They approached it in their boat and could see that the top of the somewhat disc-shaped object, described as looking like a rice pot or an incense burner, seemed to be made of some sort of reddish wood with windows embedded within it, whereas the bottom was covered with metal plates, the whole of which measured approximately 11 feet high and 18 feet wide. The windows seemed to have metal bars over them, as well as resin coating their edges, perhaps to keep water out. For all appearances it seemed to be some sort of ship, although like nothing they had ever seen and seemingly drifting about aimlessly, and the curious fishermen towed it back to shore.

With the otherworldly craft safely on shore, they were surprised to peer in through one of the windows to see that it was adorned with what looked like a bed, sheets, soft carpets of unknown style and fabric, a bottle, and foods like cake and meat strewn about, and that the walls seemed to have been engraved with various strange symbols or letters from some unknown language. However, more startling than any of this was who they found cowering within, for it seemed the vessel had a passenger. There sitting within the craft in hiding was a young woman of around 18 to 20 years of age, standing around 5 feet tall and described as being strikingly, almost ethereally beautiful, with very pale, pinkish skin and thick red hair laced with white extensions that appeared to be made out of some kind of fur and all peppered with white powder. In her hands she held a simple wooden box that she clutched protectively as the fishermen stared down at her with mouths agape. Her elegant clothes were said to be of an unknown fabric, and were long, flowing, and very smooth like silk.

The fishermen tried to speak to the mysterious woman, but she replied in a strange language they were unable to comprehend, and it seemed as though she could not understand what they said either. Throughout all of this she held that box defensively, not allowing anyone to get anywhere near it. Unable to talk with this stranger and not sure how to proceed, the fishermen supposedly ended up pushing what they called the utsuro-bune, or “hollow ship” back out to sea, where it bobbed off towards the horizon out of sight, leaving the enigmatic woman and the secret contents of that box a complete mystery. When the fishermen went back to their village and told the others, one of the elders speculated that it was a princess from a foreign land who had been banned from her homeland, possibly after having had an affair with a commoner.

The tale of the Utusro-Bune would appear again in the works Hyōryū kishū (1835) and Ume-no-chiri (1844), each time with slightly different details but essentiall telling the same repor, and it was over the years printed in several Edo era news sources as well. Similar tales of mysterious strangers appearing by see in otherworldly vessels can also be found in the lore of other areas of Japan as well, making it seem as though it must surely just be a myth and legend. Yet, even considering the nebulous origins of the story it has sometimes been suggested that this might have been an actual event that really happened, and there have been ideas on what might have occurred here.

If there was any reality to the tale, one of the main theories on what those fishermen saw was a Russian woman who had either drifted away from a wrecked vessel, or had intentionally come to try and negotiate trade with the then notoriously isolated Japanese or even to spy on them. This would explain her foreign appearance, striking red hair, bizarre clothing, and incomprehensible speech and writing. It also might explain the bizarreness of her craft, as it might have just been a Russian design the Japanese were not familiar with. A more fringe idea is that this was an early example of a UFO and alien encounter in Japan, even though the strange craft is never described as flying or doing anything other than bobbing aimlessly in the water, nor does it exhibit any particularly advanced technology, the windows sealed with tree resin, and the woman is by all descriptions exotic, but human in appearance, yet UFO enthusiasts have often explained this away by saying that it might have been a submersible craft or a crashed UFO.

Of course there is also the idea that this was just a sensationalized, made up account, as were common back in that era. If this had been real, then in this age of Japan’s very strictly controlled borders it would have had to been reported to the Daimyo and proper authorities immediately, yet there is no official record of the incident among the tomes of other reports of shipwrecked sailors and whalers on Japan’s shores. It is also somewhat odd that the story includes just sending the strange woman on her way with no follow-up or opportunity to find her again, making it all rather convenient for anyone who was making it all up. In the end, we are left to wonder what was really going on here. Was this a foreigner finding herself on these shores for purposes we will never understand? Was it just a sensational report and myth building? Or was this perhaps a visitor from much farther away than Russia? The mystery of the Hollow Ship of Japan remains an enigma.