If you are a regular to Mysterious Universe, you’ll know that one of my particular interests when it comes to UFOs and the paranormal is that of the Men in Black. I don’t think there’s a single MIB case out there that isn’t weird. But, some are really weird. Such as the one I’m going to share with you today. It comes from a source in British Columbia who provided the following story to me in 2013. It’s a case that is made notable by the fact that it predates the MIB phenomenon that has developed since 1947. In fact, it dates back to the 1930s. The source began: “Hello Nick; I have a MIB story that comes from a pretty good source. 1930s. MIB met at a prairie crossroads by a Ukrainian man. Very interesting outcome. It should be noted that the three brothers from Ukraine that were involved in this encounter also encountered incredible strange phenomena on their farm. If you would like to read about it I will relate it as told by one of the brothers. Of course, I asked for more information. And got it.

The source continued: “I was told this by a reliable source, a family friend that did not BS. He was one of the three brothers that immigrated to Saskatchewan from Ukraine in the 1930s. These people, I suspect brought with them some beliefs that resulted in very strange activity on their farm. They had no wives, just three brothers. Some mornings they would find the horses’ manes and tails ‘braided’ in a very impressive fashion, but so tight that the horses would not allow them to be undone due to pain from pulling, so they cut them off. One night the brothers awoke to their barn on fire. They fought the fire with water from buckets to no avail as the barn burned to the ground. As morning approached they went in very tired to wash the smoke and ash from their face and hands. With the smoking ruins of their barn on their minds they went for a well earned sleep. When they awoke later that same day, they gazed out at their barn…exactly as it was before it had burned. Or had it really burned? Who knows, but it was it had always been.

“One of the brothers was walking down the prairie dirt road when he came upon a very clean well dressed man at a ‘crossroads.’ The man wore a black high class suit with a tail and a fancy stove pipe hat, all black and no dust, but clean. The Farmer said to him, ‘What you doing out here all dressed up like that?’ As he spoke those words he was taking from his pocket his corn cob pipe to fill and talk a while. Upon seeing the corn cob pipe the MIB said ‘Oh, what a very nice pipe’ as he admired it. The MIB pulled from his pocket a very expensive looking silvery-looking pipe and offered to trade if the farmer would. The old Ukrainian said, ‘What, this old thing?’ and quickly traded. This seemed to end the conversation, as the farmer sped home to show everyone at home. When the MIB saw the farmer’s corn cob pipe, the MIB was transfixed by the pipe and appeared to be amazed by it; he wouldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Apparently there were other people over for a stay at the time, and they all marveled at the beautiful pipe that had been traded from the MIB. It was proudly put on the fireplace mantle and stayed there as they all went to bed for the night. When they awoke the next day, apparently the ‘spell’ had been broken because where the beautiful silver pipe had been proudly displayed on the mantle was instead a stick!! Yes, a stick. I am thinking that with the farmer came some hypnotic spell to allow them all to see the silver pipe. The brother’s name was Alex Delawski and he told me this happened. There were more strange things too but this is what he told me. A side occurrence: For the last week or so I have been falling asleep with YouTube videos playing about MIB. I was in the back bedroom of my mobile home and I heard a loud knocking on my door. It was quite a loud and unmistakable sound of a closed fist on the door. I was surprised to see no-one and continued to look through the widows. There were no tracks in the fresh snow!”

Another weird saga in the world of the MIB.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-01-2020 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

NASA scientists are testing fungus, pursuing the possibility of building a lunar base and other space habitats from natural, living materials, according to a recent press release. The concept is simple, but profound: What if life-sustaining environments could be grown instead of built? This idea could revolutionize current planetary exploration efforts. Growing on-site structures from mushrooms is a promising prospect, a real possibility that may dramatically reduce weight and energy costs when compared to other options.

“Right now, traditional habitat designs for Mars are like a turtle — carrying our homes with us on our backs – a reliable plan, but with huge energy costs,” said Lynn Rothschild, the principal investigator on the early-stage project. “Instead, we can harness mycelia to grow these habitats ourselves when we get there.

NASA began research and development on the idea in 2018, but in 2020 scientists are continuing the work, aiming to find out just how feasible the plan is for Martian colonization. Researchers are now seeking ways to help mushroom mycelium grow in Martian soil. If they are successful, explorers could establish viable colonies by growing off-world settlements without the need to transport bulky building materials. These natural environments present the ultimate sustainability model, providing strong, lightweight living space that is also flexible, insulated, flame-retardant, radiation-protected, and self-healing. Want to add an addition? No need to hire a contractor. Just add water (or something like that). Of course the structures would be non-toxic and, at the end of their life cycle, could be plowed under to become fertilizer for future space gardens.

Not actually the moon, but quite a simulacrum, a moon-shaped, giant puffball mushroom bigger than my head. Who’d have thought I could find a use for this mushroom selfie?

Dormant spores could be activated with water and the right conditions. Photosynthetic bacteria would serve as fungus food, triggering growth. The mushroom architects could be bio-engineered to extrude bioplastics, latex, and other materials. Perhaps they could even provide light through harnessing a natural property in some mushroom species, bioluminescence.

The myco-architecture prototypes are being developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is no stranger to mushroom fueled innovation, but this takes tech to new heights.

Ultimately, the project envisions a future where human explorers can bring a compact habitat built out of a lightweight material with dormant fungi that will last on long journeys to places like Mars. Upon arrival, by unfolding that basic structure and simply adding water, the fungi will be able to grow around that framework into a fully functional human habitat – all while being safely contained within the habitat to avoid contaminating the Martian environment.

This research is supported through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, known as NIAC, and is part of a field known as synthetic biology – the study of how we can use life itself as technology, in this case fungi. We’re a very long way from being able to grow useable habitats for Mars, but the early-stage research is well under way to prove the potential of these creative solutions. That work all starts with experimenting with fungi.

Science fiction often imagines a mechanized future, dominated by cold, dead metal environments and gigantic machines. But I’m rooting for a stranger, “greener” tomorrow, populated by adorable, glowing shroom rooms at home and throughout the galaxy. We could really use more sustainable building options on Earth right now. Hopefully, NASA won’t reserve these living technologies for other planets. Look for them popping up like fungal friends in a neighborhood near you. 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-01-2020 om 20:05 geschreven door peter  

Why has the task force set up to investigate the cause and/or find the owners of the mysterious giant drones seen for weeks now flying in formation over parts of Colorado and Nebraska suddenly shut down … saying it’s not needed because it found ‘nothing criminal’? Could it be because the owner is our own military testing secret futuristic aircraft … aircraft that may be the same genre as those mysterious “Tic Tac” UFOs witnessed by US Navy pilots who have also never received an explanation of what they saw? That’s the theory proposed by a former military intelligence expert and investigative reporter after analyzing videos of the drones. Is he right? Is our own military testing secret technology on its own people (again)? Or is it trying to stir up UFO talk to hide real advanced technology (also again)?

“I’m guessing it’s Navy related. I’ve seen several videos that have gotten me into this. I’m a debunker and I’ve never jumped on the UFO bandwagon. But as I’m watching these videos, I’m seeing some objects that look a lot like a tic-tac would be. There’s one where an aircraft is zooming by at a ridiculous speed.”

Why can’t anyone identify the drones?

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Star Online, Mike Turber appears to be the first expert to link the mysterious Colorado drones to the mysterious USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFOs. Turber is a well-known investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert who served in the Air Force as an Electronic Operations Specialist. If his name sounds familiar, he was involved in the investigation of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. More recently, he has been touting the idea (along with a few other people) that the 2004 USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” UFOs are actually secret US military aircraft. Thus it may come as no surprise that he believes the Colorado drones are also military aircraft tests and possibly Tic Tac aircraft as well.

“As far as I know, they very well could be these tic-tacs but I have no inside knowledge of what these are and can’t really confirm anything.”

That’s not exactly a rousing endorsement of his own claim. Few if any eyewitness accounts of the Colorado drones, including those of local law enforcement, have stated anything unusual about their speed and, since all occurred at night, none seem to have reported a Tic Tac shape, just blinking lights. Unfortunately, Turber attracts skepticism with some of his other past claims, including that he himself has flown in a gravity-defying Tic Tac and … get ready … so has President Trump during his trip to North Korea as a way of impressing Kim Jong-Un.

Stranger things have happened.

OK, that seems kind of far-fetched, but so does the blanket denial by the government task force set up to investigate the fleets of giant drones flying in formation that they’re doing anything criminal and shutting things down without even identifying the owners or locating their base or even the alleged vehicles controlling them. That leaves the sightings open to a wide variety of conclusions and theories and the officials don’t seem to mind … which draws even MORE skepticism and theories.

Are the Colorado drones of the same technology as the Tic Tac UFOs? Until they’re positively identified by SOMEONE, anything is possible.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-01-2020 om 19:03 geschreven door peter  

As a follow-up to my “M.I.B.: You Want Weird? You’ve Got It!” article, I thought I would share another case with you. From a firsthand eyewitness we have a compelling story of Men in Black, thinly-veiled threats, and what may have been some form of secret, underground, military facility in Arizona. As the witness states: “The following event took place in the spring of 1998 around 2PM. The approximate location the event occurred is about 15 miles SE of the Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge, which is a remote desert area off the Colorado River with the closest town being Parker, Arizona. Growing up in Lake Havasu City, you are surrounded by hundreds of miles of open desert with mountain ranges and endless dirt roads that are great for off-roading. The area this event took place is dotted with abandoned mines which we often explored. I was driving my Jeep and my buddy was behind me in his Toyota Land Cruiser.

“The road we were on was a dirt road no different than any other dirt road in the area. The area was fairly flat with a lot of low brush and creosote bushes.  I pulled off the right side of the road to look around.  There were no signs, no marking, no dirt piles; nothing at all out of the ordinary. I got out of my truck and waked about 30 feet. I came across a hole about 15’ across, I don’t know how deep it was but there was no end in sight. This hole was not visible from the road at all because of the low bushes that are all over in this area. The hole went straight down. Since I have seen a lot of mines, I had come to know what the surrounding area of a mine looks like.  The area surrounding the mine is always disturbed with dirt piles from the excavation, roads to the mine and often times warning or no trespassing signs and fences.

“This particular hole had no disturbances at all. I only found it because I stumbled upon it by accident. I was surprised that there were no signs or safety fences at all. Aside from the natural camouflage of the surrounding bushes there was no attempts made to hide this hole. The only camouflage to hide the hole was the fact that there was nothing at all such as sign or roads to lead you to believe there was a hole there.   Within a minute or 2 of us seeing the hole, a black suburban with dark tinted windows rolled up on us.  We saw it coming up the road but by the time we saw it, it was almost to our location.  I have no idea how they knew we were there so quickly. Two men, wearing all black military fatigues, with black hats and black sunglasses, got out of the driver and passenger side.  Both were Caucasians about 6’ tall carrying side arms. They shut their doors and simply said, ‘You need to leave.’

“Being a bit of a smart ass at times and with no fences or signs showing private property or no trespassing, I figured the desert is for everyone. I simply said, ‘I don’t see any signs saying no trespassing.’ I said it more as a joke because I really don’t like to be messed around with so I wanted to see how serious they were. With no emotion whatsoever the driver simply said: ‘I will ask you one more time to leave now.’ He never took his sunglasses off or made any other movements at all. I got the point and we drove off. I really did not think too much about it back then because there are a lot of mines out there. I am now 39 and looking back and looking into similar stories, I can now say it was likely not just a mine. If it were a mine, there would have been much more security to prevent injury.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-01-2020 om 18:28 geschreven door peter  

Elon Musk wil tegen 2050 een miljoen mensen naar Mars sturen - HLN.be

Bron: Business Insider

De plannen van de ruimtevaartpionier om de rode planeet te koloniseren zijn niet nieuw. In september vorig jaar werd op de lanceerbasis van zijn ruimtevaartbedrijf SpaceX in Texas een prototype voorgesteld van een ruimteschip dat mensen en vracht op termijn naar Mars en de maan moet brengen. Met het tuig, dat de naam Starship kreeg, zouden mensen al vanaf 2025 naar Mars kunnen reizen. NASA zegt ten vroegste vanaf 2030 een bemande missie naar Mars te kunnen sturen.

Lees ook

Excentrieke Japanse miljardair zoekt vriendin voor reis rond de maan

Op Twitter deelde Musk donderdag wat meer details over dat plan. Hij hoopt de komende tien jaar maar liefst duizend Starships te bouwen. Daarmee wil Musk op termijn drie ruimteschepen per dag lanceren naar Mars, met aan boord telkens honderd man. Binnen dertig jaar moet de kolonie op Mars zo een bevolking van maar liefst een miljoen mensen hebben. Een verhuis naar een buitenaardse stad moet volgens de Teslabaas “mogelijk zijn voor iedereen die dat wil. Voor wie geen geld heeft, zullen er leningen beschikbaar zijn.” Hij voegde er nog aan toe dat er heel wat jobs zullen zijn op Mars.

 AFP 

Elon Musk

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

19-01-2020 om 17:39 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica Black Project? Senator Privy to 'Intelligence Secrets' Once Visited South Pole

Lockheed’s Skunk Works is responsible for the development of stealth fighters and even more exotic projects. Steve Justice, former Director for Advanced Systems there, now serves as COO for Tom Delonge’s To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science. Justice suggested in an interview one objective of TTSA was to reverse-engineer technology recovered from UAPs, or UFOs.

When browsing through declassified CIA files: we found something interesting. One of the most “in-the-know” Senators (Allen Ellender) from the 1970s, who oversaw Senate appropriates to the intelligence community and special “secret projects” took a peculiar trip to Antarctica in 1971.

The CIA catalogued papers related to his trip in a half-dozen different documents. We reviewed Ellender’s entire file and only came across one formerly classified as top secret (now declassified). It occurred after he returned from Antarctica, discusses a [redacted] vehicle, and in the meeting, Ellender also warned about concealed intelligence expenditures. We don’t know if his trip to Antarctica is connected to his insider knowledge of secret projects.

But this is one of the first times there has been evidence in the public record suggesting a potential link. Or, we could just be reading too much into this. Let us know what you think in the comments.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Underground Alien Base Beneath Mount Hayes Alaska Discovered By An Intelligence Analyst

By the late 1980s, the Stargate Project was in full swing. Declassified files show the US government had used remote viewing, the ability to psychically see locations at a distance, for over a decade.

via https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

When browsing through CIA archives, we found something that made us do a double take: the apparent discovery of three extraterrestrial bases by an intelligence analyst.

The obscure handwritten document, sub-classified “Sun Streak” under preview of the DoD’s Defense Intelligence Agency, describes secret, underground facilities.

One is reported beneath Mount Hayes, Alaska. Despite its status as the highest mountain in the state’s eastern range, Hayes is rarely climbed due to its remoteness and inaccessibility.

It’s also at the epicenter of what locals call the Alaska Triangle…a hot spot for reports of unexplained lights, vanishing hikers and even diminutive beings living in the wilderness.

So, what exactly did the U.S. government discover? And could a subterranean facility have anything to do with strange reports in the area dating back decades?

 

Description of Personnel Associated ET Bases:

• https://www.cia.gov/library/readingro...

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 16:38 geschreven door peter  

What appears to be a massive cloaked flying saucer-like UFO has been caught on camera hovering in the sky near Las Vegas.

The video recorded on January 15, 2020 by Rafa Torres who was on the way to Las Vegas came across the strange looking cloud and decided to film the phenomenon. Forward the video to when Rafa lowers the window to get a clear view of the UFO.

Often lenticular clouds have been mistaken for cloaked UFOs particularly in the shape of a "flying saucer", but in this case it is without a doubt a cloaked UFO since there are defined shapes, shadows as well as edges on top of the cloud indicating the upper part of the UFO.

 

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 16:24 geschreven door peter  

Hoag's Object Is a Galaxy Within a Galaxy Within a Galaxy (and Nobody Knows Why)

19-01-2020 om 01:32 geschreven door peter  

“Hoeveel bomen denken jullie tegen te komen in de ruimte?”: camouflagepakken van Amerikaanse Space Force leiden tot hoongelach - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

De Space Force plaatste een foto van de nieuwe uniformen op Twitter. En dat leidde tot een hele reeks opmerkingen rond de mismatch tussen camouflage-uniformen en de ruimte. 

De volgende tweets passeerden alvast de revue. “Hoeveel bomen verwachten jullie tegen te komen in de ruimte?” Of nog: “In de ruimte kan niemand horen hoe belachelijk je bent. En: “Ruimtecamouflage, perfect om op te gaan in de uitgestrekte ruimteweiden.” Anderen stellen voor om een uniform in sterrenhemelstof te dragen of posten foto’s van hoe zwart de ruimte eruitziet. 

De ruimtemacht reageerde met de boodschap dat de huidige militaire uniformen hergebruikt worden. “Op die manier hoeft er niet geïnvesteerd te worden in het ontwerp en de productie van nieuwe exemplaren”, klinkt het. “De leden zullen bovendien gelijken op hun collega’s als ze met hen samenwerken op de grond.”

De Space Force telt momenteel één lid, generaal en bevelhebber Jay Raymond. De ruimtemacht werd op 21 december officieel in het leven geroepen. Het is de eerste keer sinds 1947 -toen de luchtmacht een afzonderlijke eenheid werd- dat er een nieuw legeronderdeel bijkomt.

{ https://www.hln.be/  }

19-01-2020 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

Toyota stelt vliegende taxi voor: “We kunnen revolutie ontketenen” - HLN.be

Bron: ANP/Belga

“De luchtvaart is voor Toyota een doel op lange termijn”, zegt de grote baas Akio Toyoda. “Hiermee hebben we de mogelijkheid om een revolutie te ontketenen in de toekomstige levensstijl van mensen en hun manier van transport. We hopen mensen de vrijheid van mobiliteit en plezier te kunnen bezorgen, ook in de lucht.”

Joby heeft al een schets van zijn ‘vliegtuigje’ naar buiten gebracht. Eerder sloot het bedrijf een deal met Uber om in tenminste twee steden een luchttaxinetwerk op te zetten. Het duurt waarschijnlijk wel nog jaren voor de eerste taxi’s de lucht in kunnen. Daarvoor is ook toestemming nodig van luchtvaartautoriteiten.

Luchtvaart leeft de laatste tijd bij meer autobedrijven. Hyundai kondigde onlangs al aan dat het vliegende taxi’s wil gaan ontwikkelen voor Uber. De Zuid-Koreanen zijn al een tijdje bezig met een vliegende auto, de Personal Air Vehicle. Die is elektrisch aangedreven en kan verticaal opstijgen en dalen.

“Ook voor goederen”
Toyota meent dat het toestel niet alleen ingezet kan worden voor vervoer van personen, maar ook van goederen. Het zou een ideale oplossing zijn voor de verkeersdrukte en de luchtkwaliteit in binnensteden, maar ook voor het transport van mensen op het platteland.

De combinatie van de vliegtechniek van een klein vliegtuig en een helikopter leidt tot nul uitstoot, relatief hoge vliegsnelheden en weinig geluidsoverlast. Bovendien denkt Toyota dat de kosten van het gebruik en onderhoud beperkt zullen zijn.

VIDEO's, geselecteerd door peter2011

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

19-01-2020 om 00:49 geschreven door peter  

The Shroud of Turin Meets Science

In this article we will be taking a look at the length of linen that for centuries was purported to be the burial garment of Jesus Christ – What is The Shroud of Turin, and was it really used to wrap the body of Jesus?

Let’s take a closer look…

The Holy Shroud

The Holy Shroud (or Santa Sindone as it’s known in Italy) has been held since 1578 in Turin’s royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista. It is 4.3 metres long and 1.1 metres wide.

The strange, haunting cloth seems to show a pair of faint images of the back and front of a man. This man has a very gaunt look to his facial appearance and is thought to have been about 5 foot 7 inches tall.

The material and these images give the appearance that a body had been laid lengthwise along one half of it, then the other half had been folded over so that it covered the front of the man’s body.

What’s really fascinating about the images is that they seem to show the same injuries that Christ would have had, when you consider the crucifixion – thorn marks on the head, lacerations (as if from flogging) on the back, and blood stains all over the shroud.

Geoffroi de Charnay

The Holy Shroud first popped up in historic records when the famous knight, Geoffroi de Charnay, was spotted with it in his possession. From here it is then recorded as going on exhibition in 1389…but the local bishop of Troyes branded it a joke and a fake.

However, popes from Julius II onward have all taken it’s authenticity for granted.

In 1453 Geoffroi de Charnay’s granddaughter, Marguerite, handed the Holy relic over to the house of Savoy at Chambéry. It stayed here until it was unfortunately damaged by fire, then water in 1532.

The shroud was then taken to the new Savoyard capital of Turin in 1578, where it has been exhibited on rare occasions since. A replica usually takes it place for public viewing.

Authenticity

So, is it authentic or not?

Was this the cloth that Jesus’s body was wrapped in?

Very hard question to answer…

In the 1970’s, tests began to find out whether or not the images were the result of paints or other pigments, even fire or scorch marks. All the results came back inconclusive.

In 1988 the Vatican provided three laboratories in different countries with tiny samples of the shroud, so that they could carry out carbon-14 dating. All three labs concluded that the shroud was dated from between 1260 and 1390. Certain experts now believe that these tests were false, and their methods used were wrong.

The Vatican still recommends that Christians continue to worship the shroud as a holy relic.

If you have any thoughts or opinions on the subject we have covered here, please leave them in the comment section below.

• https://realparanormalexperiences.com

Other videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Anunnaki Reptilian Tyrants & The Origins of Humankind

The Anunnaki are a group of deities who appear in the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Descriptions of how many Anunnaki there were and what role they fulfilled are inconsistent and often contradictory. In the earliest Sumerian writings about them.

R. Scott Lemriel writes: “My work is entirely focused on direct experience-based presentations that assist the true individual being or Atma (the spherical energy form that is not nuclear in nature and not the body) or what people on Earth refer to as Soul without knowing what this actually is, what it looks like, or how to move it around the grand multi-dimensional creation.

So many mind-blowing and fascinating other-worldly topics are discussed in this very interesting episode of AGE OF TRUTH TV with guest R. SCOTT LEMRIEL, who calls himself a direct experience-based hidden truth revealing researcher. He is also a published author, and international guest presenter of deliberately hidden or subconsciously suppressed truth and a music producer. This is an eye-opening interview by Age Of Truth TV presenter, Lucas Alexander.

Other videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 00:10 geschreven door peter  

UFO Recorded By Space Station Camera Darting Around, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 17, 2020
Location of sighting: Earths orbit from space station
Source: 

• https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/ShowQueryResults-Lightcycle.pl?results=Latest_ISS_Imagery
  
  

I was looking at the latest photos taken by the space station today and noticed a glowing oval UFO that was moving around in the distance. The UFO would go up and down and then move to the right and left. Its only seen in 7 photos, but when they are put together, you can see the erratic movement of this craft.  This is incredible proof that the space station is being watched, visited and even scanned by alien craft. 
Scott C. Waring 

{  https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

18-01-2020 om 23:51 geschreven door peter  

Proof That NASA Is A Spy Agency Using The Space Station To Do Its Dirty Work, UFO Sighting News.

{  https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

18-01-2020 om 23:46 geschreven door peter  

What appears to be a massive cloaked flying saucer-like UFO has been caught on camera hovering in the sky near Las Vegas.

The video recorded on January 15, 2020 by Rafa Torres who was on the way to Las Vegas came across the strange looking cloud and decided to film the phenomenon. Forward the video to when Rafa lowers the window to get a clear view of the UFO.

Often lenticular clouds have been mistaken for cloaked UFOs particularly in the shape of a "flying saucer", but in this case it is without a doubt a cloaked UFO since there are defined shapes, shadows as well as edges on top of the cloud indicating the upper part of the UFO.

Examples of lenticular clouds ( peter2011 )

Lenticular cloud over Mombacho Volcano

Lenticular Cloud over Harold's Cross Dublin Ireland taken at 11:30AM, 30th June 2015

Looks like two UFOs hovering over Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station; it is a research station on King George Island, off the coast of Antarctica. Wasn’t Antarctica a big part of the film X-Files? Photo #37 by Acaro

Orange sunrise and UFO clouds over Sierra Nevada. Photo #41 by Juan Tello

Lenticular Kind of Day. The photographer noted, “A huge group of lenticular cloud amass around Mount Iwate, a stratovolcano in Japan.” Photo #12 by jasohill

{http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

18-01-2020 om 23:20 geschreven door peter  

VIDEO: UFO Orbs flying above Marcy, New York 12-Jan-2020

New 2020 UFO sighting recorded over Marcy, New York. This event happened on 12th January 2020 and it was just submitted to MUFON.

Witness report:

 4 orbs on captured on video. They are not balloons they would stop & change direction.

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

18-01-2020 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

In November 2019, Popular Mechanics revealed previously unheard eyewitness accounts of the U.S. Navy’s encounters with UFOs while conducting training off the coast of San Diego in the fall of 2004. These are now known as the Nimitz encounters, so named for the fighter pilots of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group who spotted the strange flying objects.

Some of the Nimitz witnesses told Popular Mechanics that the brief “Flir1” video—released for public viewing by the UFO research group To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science and included below—is merely a small piece of a much longer video that the government is keeping a secret. According to these Navy veterans, the video they saw showed many more details of an unknown aircraft seeming to defy the known laws of physics as it effortlessly evaded some of the world’s best fighter jets. In December 2019, Chad Underwood, the former F/A-18 pilot who originally filmed the UFO encounter, told New York magazine that Flir1 is indeed a “little video cut” of his original recording.

But retired U.S. Navy Commander David Fravor, who first observed the “Tic Tac” from the cockpit of his Super Hornet in 2004, has pushed back on all claims that a longer video exists. The same goes for the Department of Defense (DoD). The Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence, meanwhile, responded to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for more Nimitz records by saying it had discovered “certain briefing slides” related to the encounter “that are classified TOP SECRET.” The Navy has determined that “the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States.”

Consistent with the entire Nimitz event, the bizarre history of this grainy black and white video seems to challenge logic and defy reality. The video has a peculiar and convoluted path that spans a decade and a half, covers thousands of miles, and includes shadowy characters known only by pseudonyms.

The saga is centered on a puzzle of contradictions, as the Navy has confirmed that the objects shown in Flir1 (as well as those seen in two other clips, "Gimbal" and "Go Fast," filmed in 2015), are genuinely “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” or UAP. But the service has also said these three widely circulated videos are “not cleared for public release.”

What follows is a thorough examination of the video’s convoluted history that, for the first time, sheds light on exactly how the clip—which we were never meant to see—made its way into the mainstream. This is the tale of the tape.

GETTY IMAGES

THE LEAK

On December 16, 2017, when To The Stars released the now-famous “Flir1” video, the organization did so with a caveat: “It is the only official footage that has been released.” Easily overlooked, this distinction by the UFO “public benefit” company from former blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge was significant. That’s because it wasn’t actually the first time the video was in the public domain.

On February 3, 2007, a person using the pseudonym “thefinaltheory” posted a thread on Above Top Secret, an obscure message board site for discussions of conspiracy theories and paranormal events. The title: “Observations of an Actual UFO.”

The anonymous user shared details of a UFO encounter they said occurred while they were aboard a naval aircraft carrier off the coast of Mexico in 2005. After hearing rumors of the ship encountering a UFO, using their position, which they described as “working in the computer field,” thefinaltheory said they accessed the ship’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET). To their surprise, on the ship’s secure server, thefinaltheory said they discovered many files confirming something strange was going on around the Navy fleet.

Describing what they found on SIPRNET, thefinaltheory said:

“I found many videos and powerpoint briefs (navy standard) and written reports and even message traffic that was being passed through our radio division. It was all there. I couldn’t believe it at first, but then our ship called in the Air Force because even the captain didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

thefinaltheory described one particular video they found amidst the many files (albeit using terrible spelling and grammar):

It was taken directly from the cockpit camera of one of our ships fighter pilot jets F-18 I believe but cant be sure. It was in black and white and showed the altitude, the pilots “nickname” and the tempurature and all those little critical stats.

The UFO was floating extremely still in mid air, this was 30,000 ft above ground level. It looked literally and i mean LITERALLY just like a disk, no stupid traingles or any gimicky things like Independence Day or whatever. It looks exactly how the goverment wants you to NOT think it looks like. It’s simply put, a disk.

So it was floating, the figher pilot tried to get numerous locks on the UFO but everytime the cross hairs tried to hone in the crosshairs scaled back and forth. I dont know how to put it into words well, but I know what i saw. Crosshairs move in and move back out, it couldnt get a lock whatsoever.

After about I say 10 seconds or so the UFO started to move. It moves in ways that we have never seen before, it spontaniously moved in a half circle upward and paused once again. Then it suddenly teleported about five times all over the pilots screen. The movement is instant and cannot be followed. It simply put, is amazing and so fast the eyes cant see it.

There was a bright light and suddenly it dissapeared, out of sight.

ABOVE TOP SECRET

When thefinaltheory said they’d sneaked files about the encounter off the SIPRNET, but forgotten where they’d put a disc with the material, he was met with extreme skepticism and criticism by others in the forum. A fellow user declared the claim “one of the worst thought out stories I have read here in forever.”

Like countless similar and seemingly dubious UFO witness accounts, thefinaltheory’s story would likely have faded away into internet oblivion … had it not been for his reemergence the next day on the forum.

Under a new post titled, “Fighter Jet UFO Footage: The Real Deal,” thefinaltheory posted a Navy Event Log of a UFO encounter that occurred on November 14, 2004, along with a link to a grainy black and white video clip titled “F4,” both of which they said had been smuggled off of the Navy’s SIPRNET back in 2004. [Editor’s note: The original clip has since been removed.]

By the date and details contained in the event summary, including the description of “Fast Eagle 110” (the squadron nickname and aircraft number of the plane flown by Fravor) and the sighting as “an airborne contact which appeared to be capsule shaped (wingless, mobile, white, oblong pill shaped, 25-20 feet in length, no visible markings and no glass),” thefinaltheory was indisputably describing the now-famous 2004 Nimitz UFO encounter.

More significantly, a full decade before its “first official release,” the “F4” video clip thefinaltheory shared by in 2007 was the exact same clip that’s become more popularly known as “Flir1.”

A side-by-side comparison and analysis of the two videos provided by Dave Beaty.

In contrast to the acclaim the “Flir1” video received when the New York Times published it in December 2017, most Above Top Secret users trashed thefinaltheory’s clip. “Sorry, it’s totally uninspiring video of a dot,” one user said.

One such critic was the UFO researcher and Above Top Secret administrator Isaac Koi (a pseudonym to protect the person’s identity for professional reasons), who believed at the time that thefinaltheory’s story and video were bogus. “Within a few hours of the video being posted online, I tracked the video back to a website run by a group called Vision Unlimited located in Germany,” Koi tells Popular Mechanics. “Since that group specialized in producing footage, including special effects, I originally tentatively concluded the footage was a hoax.”

But thefinaltheory defended the authenticity of the video, explaining it was uploaded on the German film server to try and avoid the implications associated with removing and leaking classified military materials. The excuse didn’t stick with most detractors.

Except for their two initial message threads, thefinaltheory hasn’t posted on Above Top Secret or otherwise publicly surfaced since February 2007. But when the “F4” video reemerged as “Flir1” in 2017 as an important piece of one of the most compelling UFO puzzles in modern history, the anonymous user was vindicated. Still, the world had many of the same questions about that grainy clip

After the UFO video’s more ceremonious release, rather quickly, savvy internet sleuths tracked down thefinaltheory’s original postings from over a decade prior. Thanks to the internet archive Wayback Machine, questions of why a seemingly classified video first appeared on the server of a German film company that specializes in CGI effects were reinvigorated.

With notions of government mistrust inherently intertwined with the UFO topic, the link between the freshly minted 2017’s “Flir1” and peculiar past of 2007’s “F4” video became red meat for the conspiracy zeitgeist.

While reporting this story, Popular Mechanics tracked down an individual claiming to be thefinaltheory. Still fearing reprisal, even under the assumed pseudonym, the individual did not wish to speak on the record. However, the equally enigmatic Koi agreed to assist by providing an overview of how the “F4” video made it to the web in the first place.

According to Koi, back in 2007, after thefinaltheory located the lost materials, he provided them to another Above Top Secret member with the username “Cometa,” who lived in Germany. Koi said friends of Cometa, who worked at Vision Unlimited, agreed to upload and host the video on their server.

Phillip Schneider, the owner of Vision Unlimited, Phillip Schneider, tells Popular Mechanics the company did not produce the video, and he and other employees were unaware of who uploaded the clip in 2007. “I talked to all my coworkers and former coworkers, and they said they don’t know [anything] about it,” Schneider says. Clips, logs and mails [were] stored on an old server, so we can’t check back anything.” The owner indicated a former colleague may have uploaded it without his knowledge.

Regarding the clip on the Wayback Machine, Schneider says, “The server link ‘extern’ means external, so this was the low security area of our ftp data exchange between customers, friends, and so on. Maybe someone used our FTP to post the video link.”

In a statement to Popular Mechanics, Susan Gough, the Senior Strategic Planner for the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs Office, confirmed the authenticity of the video uploaded to Vision Unlimited, saying Navy officials became aware that the video had been posted online in 2009.

“With respect to the 2004 sighting by aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68); that video was widely shared throughout the ship at that time,” Gough writes. “In 2007, one of those crewmembers posted the video onto the public web.”

But in terms of investigating the video leak, Gough writes, “Given the time since recording (approximately 5 years), the widespread distribution of the recording within the ship at the time of recording, and the size of the crew at the time (approximately 5,000), it was determined that there was no way to accurately determine who might have released the video.”

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So how would thefinaltheory have been able to download materials off their ship’s secure server? Vincent Aiello, a former F/A-18 pilot and member of the VFA-94 “Mighty Shrikes” strike-fighter squadron aboard the USS Nimitz in 2004, tells Popular Mechanics that such a swipe is entirely possible.

“Once a recording of their tape was made in CVIC [the ship’s intelligence center], there was less control,” Aiello says. “Indeed, someone could have used a thumb drive to download something off the SIPRNet.”

The enlisted eye-witnesses Popular Mechanics previously spoke with all agreed, although unlawful, that it was equally possible for someone to have hooked up a CD/DVD drive and burned the files off the SIPRNET onto a disc.

Since no event summary has been officially released and is assumed to still carry a security classification, Aiello, who hosts the Fighter Pilot Podcast, declined to review the leaked summary provided by Thefinaltheory. Aiello did, however, confirm an event summary is completed after every flight. “Standard operating procedure was to pass through CVIC immediately after landing to debrief one of the squadron intelligence officers on duty,” he says. “They would ask a series of questions or have us fill out a simple form of what was experienced on that particular flight.”

So while there doesn’t appear to be any grand conspiracy with the 2007 leak of the UFO video, when it comes to the more fashionably released “Flir1,” clip, more confusion and contention eagerly fill in the blanks of ambiguity and the unknown.

U.S. AIR FORCE

THE RELEASE

Doubling down on a statement previously issued by the Navy, Gough tells Popular Mechanics that “Flir1,” “Gofast,” and “Gimbal,” all circulated by the To The Stars, were never cleared for public release.

“An internal review, not a formal investigation, determined that while a request had been submitted in August 2017 to the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) for release of the videos to government and industry partners for research purposes, DOPSR did not grant final approval for the videos to be released to the general public,” Gough writes.

In an interview with Popular Mechanics, the man who applied for the release of the videos, Luis Elizondo, staunchly defended against any accusations he’d deliberately tried to circumvent DoD policies or hadn’t followed proper procedures.

Luis Elizondo, the Director of Government Programs and Services for To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science.

TO THE STARS ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCE

“I initially requested the videos be cleared for restricted release to industry partners, however, it was DOPSR, not me, who suggested the videos be released in an unrestricted manner,” Elizondo says. “The emails on this exchange are out there now. They’ve been made public, so people can see this for themselves, precisely how this occurred.”

A series of emails obtained by Popular Mechanics via FOIA offer a behind-the-scenes look at the release of the three videos.

Based on the released emails, on August 9, 2017, in an apparent follow-up with an official with DOPSR (the agency tasked with control and release of DoD materials), Elizondo stated, “I sent a larger e-mail earlier but it appears it was too large to send all at once. As such, I have sent three (3) separate emails to facilitate this review.” At the time, Elizondo was working out of the Special Programs Management Office with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD[I]).

On the same day as Elizondo’s follow-up, another email from an individual whose name has been redacted stated, “Just to be clear… we should consider these files to be SECRET//NOFORN until I am able to establish that they are to be considered U//FOUO [for official use only].”

Two weeks later, on August 23, Elizondo sent another follow-up email to DOPSR saying, “If it is easier for you or more streamline, then please consider our request for unrestricted release.” The following day, an employee with DOPSR replied, “If the service-level OCA verifies to me (simple one-sentence email is fine) that removing the metadata from the videos makes them UNCLASSIFIED, please feel free to move forward with release.” Two other individuals, one from OUSD(I) and the Navy, were CC’d in the email response.

Through the same FOIA request, Popular Mechanics obtained a copy of the form used to request the release of the videos. Dated August 24, 2017, the form contains a DOPSR stamp, which indicates “Cleared For Open Publication.”

A copy of the form Elizondo used to request the release of the videos. Dated August 24, 2017, the form contains a DOPSR stamp, which indicates “Cleared For Open Publication.”

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

What isn’t explicitly clear from the chain of internal emails is Elizondo’s claim that it was DOPSR that suggested the release be amended for unrestricted release. In an effort to investigate Elizondo’s claims, Popular Mechanics was able to locate and verify the identity of an individual who was involved in the release of the videos back in 2017. The person agreed to provide their recollection of the events, provided a guarantee of anonymity.

According to the individual, their specific job would not have included the investigation of UAP or UFOs. However, they were involved with the process of releasing the videos. Not shown in the series of emails, the person recalled, in their coordination with DOPSR, it was suggested it would be easier if the request was amended to “unrestricted.” Subsequently, the person said this information would have been passed along to Elizondo.

In a follow-up, Elizondo declined to discuss any details regarding the individual with whom Popular Mechanics had spoken. However, Elizondo says his email to DOPSR changing the status to unrestricted was confirmation of a suggestion made by them to another individual, and not simply an out-of-the-blue request made on his part.

Speaking on behalf of the Secretary of Defense’s Office, Gough elaborates, “The videos were not cleared for general public release because DOPSR did not receive final approval from Navy. Navy’s approval would have included PA review from Navy’s PA office (Public Affairs).” After the videos appeared in the New York Times in 2017, Gough indicates that an investigation was conducted to determine if the videos were considered classified. “The investigation determined the videos were not classified.”

In October 2017, former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge announced the launch of To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, which would soon leak Flir1 to the world—and hire Elizondo.

YOUTUBE/MANIFESTA PROD

Ever since the DoD came out and said the videos were “not cleared for general public release” last fall, it’s been widely assumed that Elizondo—who now works as Director of Global Security and Special Programs at To the Stars, the very organization that released the clips to YouTube—was ultimately responsible for circumventing the final approval by the Navy. However, when asked who was responsible for the misstep in not getting the videos cleared for general public release, Gough points the blame elsewhere: “DOPSR, in this specific case.”

Given he’d ultimately go to work with To the Stars a little over a month after the leak, some have been understandably suspicious of Elizondo’s intentions in applying for the release of the three UFO videos.

Did Elizondo plan to use his government position for the benefit of his future private employer?

“Absolutely not!” he says. “I never even met Tom [DeLonge, founder of To the Stars] until long after the request was initiated. I resigned only after multiple attempts to brief the Secretary [of Defense] failed. It had nothing to do with the release of the videos!”

In a live broadcast on October 11, 2017, DeLonge excitedly announced the launch of To the Stars, his new UFO consortium. Appearing to confirm what Elizondo now says, during his introduction, the visibly giddy DeLonge describes how he’d heard of the existence of a mysterious government insider, however, only days prior did he actually get the chance to meet this person and discover it was Elizondo. “Days ago! Days ago! This person finished his career at the Department of Defense, as one of the senior covert intelligence officers in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” DeLonge says breathlessly.

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18-01-2020 om 16:46 geschreven door peter  

THE WAKE

Since the original July 2017 request was limited to “industry partners,” and was only changed to “unrestricted release” at the suggestion of DOPSR, Elizondo explains, “[To the Stars] was not initially considered an industry partner at the time the release was being initiated, but it was also not being deliberately excluded either.”

By Elizondo’s account, it appears he at least peripherally knew DeLonge was working toward forming a collective of professionals to tackle the UFO mystery. However, if the request was made in expectation of To the Stars’ later establishment, based on Elizondo’s initial July request, it would seem the videos may not have not initially be intended to made public.

A copy of Elizondo’s resignation letter.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Regardless, the career intelligence agent is firm in saying the decision to walk away from over two decades of government service wasn’t an easy choice to make, and it was something he didn’t ultimately decide to do until early October 2017. An unverified letter addressed to the Secretary of Defense, which was leaked on social media, appears to show Elizondo’s resigning from the DoD on October 4.

Elizondo’s final straw wasn’t an event, but a “realization that the boss was never going to receive his briefing unless something drastic happened,” he says. “I knew by resigning, he would eventually see my resignation letter. Resigning in DoD is usually done as a measure of professional protest while refraining from disruptive action that might hurt the DoD. Let’s not forget that only a year later, Mattis did the same thing.”

The “boss” Elizondo references was then-Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James Mattis. During his conversation with Popular Mechanics, Elizondo reiterated something he’s frequently mentioned in the past, which was the tremendous respect and admiration he has for General Mattis.

In December 2018, General Mattis resigned as Secretary of Defense after failing to convince President Donald Trump to reconsider the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

By acknowledging it was DOPSR that made a procedural error, the Pentagon has absolved Elizondo of any wrongdoing when it comes to the video’s public release. However, Elizondo has still faced past scrutiny about other aspects of his release request. Namely, some have questioned why he described the subject area of the videos on the release form as “UAV, Balloons, and UAS” instead of “UFOs” or the government’s new buzz word, “UAP.” (By DoD established definition, “UAV” and “UAS” represent “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” and “Unmanned Aerial System,” respectively. Not “unidentified.”)

“Look, the idea that the government, or someone in government, might have an interest or be investigating UFOs is sensitive information in the sense that there were very few people in the building that knew about our program and the [DD 1910 form] is supposed to be an unclassified document that anyone can read,” says Elizondo. “I can’t simply write the word ‘UFO’ in the request to people who were not cleared for it. However, rest assured the OCA was always included in this request so the right people always knew what this request was about ” said Elizondo.

By “OCA,” Elizondo is referring to the “Original Classification Authority,” which in this case was the Navy. To Elizondo’s point, on the request for release form, the OCA point of contact is listed as a Navy official. Additionally, someone whose name and information is redacted is CC’d throughout the chain of emails. And in the final email from DOPSR saying if the “service-level OCA” verifies the videos are unclassified to “please feel free to move forward with release,” someone with a Navy email address is also CC’d. In a statement, the Pentagon tells Popular Mechanics, “The U.S. Navy retains custody of the source videos for the 2004 and 2015 sightings.”

To illustrate the unpopular nature of the topic of UFOs, as it relates to the Pentagon, Elizondo points to the fact the Navy never took any real action to hold the person accountable for leaking the “F4” video in 2007. “Just my opinion, but I doubt they wanted to bring a UFO case into court and so it was better to just let sleeping dogs lie,” he says.

Over the last two years, the Pentagon has definitely had a difficult time being consistent or concise when it comes to UFOs and UAPs. So far, the Pentagon has gone back and forth, and seems unable to decide if anyone, much less Elizondo, ever officially investigated UFOs for the DoD.

At the same time, the one thing all parties continue to agree on is what the objects shown in the videos represent: “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” But what, exactly, are those?

An artist’s 3D rendering of the USS Nimitz 2004 "Tic Tac" UFO, shown hovering over a sea surface disturbance while approached by an F/A-18 hornet.

JMK (CC BY-SA)

For some, the Pentagon’s stance that object in the film is yet still “unidentified” means that whatever it is, it’s “exotic,” and even possibly extraterrestrial. Meanwhile skeptics say, “unidentified” means just that, and thus there could easily be a prosaic explanation, such as an error with the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system or even a misidentified flock of birds.

In an effort to try and clear up the debate, Popular Mechanics sought the help of a digital forensics expert to analyze the video. Having processed over 1,000 cases, including high-profile investigations like U.S. vs Zimmerman, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, Primeau Forensics is regarded as one of the nation’s leading digital forensics experts. Provided copies of both the “F4” and “Flir1,” clips, Michael Primeau, the co-owner of the business, agreed to take a look and see what information could be gleaned from the videos.

After analyzing the clips, Primeau indicated in order to provide an accurate professional opinion, the digital chain of custody would have to be determined, which would include examining the digital video equipment that originally captured the recording.

“Some components could be estimated,” Primeau says, however, based solely on the information contained in the released videos, “the error rate would simply be too high, and conclusions would not be based on an accurate confidence level.”

When asked if there was enough with just the video to meet the threshold of legally admissible evidence or make a definitive conclusion, Primeau says, “Based on preliminary forensic video analysis, it is my opinion that the FLIR video recordings provided cannot be relied upon as true and accurate, and therefore should not be admissible as evidence in a court of law.”

While Primeau says no definitive conclusion can be reached based solely on the publicly available video evidence, one intriguing element still remains: The U.S. Navy clearly should have had access to all of the necessary equipment and information that would have allowed it to arrive at a more definite conclusion.

Speaking generally, Gough confirms investigations into reported sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena are performed, and with incidents involving UAP encounters by the Navy, any investigation would include the Navy reaching out to other services to determine whether they might have aerospace craft in the vicinity at the time of the sighting. In light of this, when asked again, Gough once again sticks to the company line—but it’s just as intriguing as ever.

“The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena.”

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18-01-2020 om 16:43 geschreven door peter  

New Hubble Data Helps Reveal Ring Nebula’s True Form

By using data from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with infrared data from ground-based telescopes, researchers were able to view the Ring Nebula’s true shape and construct a precise 3D model of the nebula.

The Ring Nebula’s distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new twist.

“The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it’s like a jelly doughnut, because it’s filled with material in the middle,” said C. Robert O’Dell of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He leads a research team that used Hubble and several ground-based telescopes to obtain the best view yet of the iconic nebula. The images show a more complex structure than astronomers once thought and have allowed them to construct the most precise 3-D model of the nebula.

“With Hubble’s detail, we see a completely different shape than what’s been thought about historically for this classic nebula,” O’Dell said. “The new Hubble observations show the nebula in much clearer detail, and we see things are not as simple as we previously thought.”

The Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years from Earth and measures roughly 1 light-year across. Located in the constellation Lyra, the nebula is a popular target for amateur astronomers.

This planetary nebula’s simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective: our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star. Hot blue gas near the energizing central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary.

Credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

Previous observations by several telescopes had detected the gaseous material in the ring’s central region. But the new view by Hubble’s sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3 shows the nebula’s structure in more detail. O’Dell’s team suggests the ring wraps around a blue, football-shaped structure. Each end of the structure protrudes out of opposite sides of the ring.

The nebula is tilted toward Earth so that astronomers see the ring face-on. In the Hubble image, the blue structure is the glow of helium. Radiation from the white dwarf star, the white dot in the center of the ring, is exciting the helium to glow. The white dwarf is the stellar remnant of a sun-like star that has exhausted its hydrogen fuel and has shed its outer layers of gas to gravitationally collapse to a compact object.

O’Dell’s team was surprised at the detailed Hubble views of the dark, irregular knots of dense gas embedded along the inner rim of the ring, which look like spokes in a bicycle wheel. These gaseous tentacles formed when expanding hot gas pushed into cool gas ejected previously by the doomed star. The knots are more resistant to erosion by the wave of ultraviolet light unleashed by the star. The Hubble images have allowed the team to match up the knots with the spikes of light around the bright, main ring, which are a shadow effect. Astronomers have found similar knots in other planetary nebulae.

All of this gas was expelled by the central star about 4,000 years ago. The original star was several times more massive than our sun. After billions of years converting hydrogen to helium in its core, the star began to run out of fuel. It then ballooned in size, becoming a red giant. During this phase, the star shed its outer gaseous layers into space and began to collapse as fusion reactions began to die out. A gusher of ultraviolet light from the dying star energized the gas, making it glow.

The outer rings were formed when faster-moving gas slammed into slower-moving material. The nebula is expanding at more than 43,000 miles an hour, but the center is moving faster than the expansion of the main ring. O’Dell’s team measured the nebula’s expansion by comparing the new Hubble observations with Hubble studies made in 1998.

The Ring Nebula will continue to expand for another 10,000 years, a short phase in the lifetime of the star. The nebula will become fainter and fainter until it merges with the interstellar medium.

Studying the Ring Nebula’s fate will provide insight into the sun’s demise in another 6 billion years. The sun is less massive than the Ring Nebula’s progenitor star, so it will not have an opulent ending.

“When the sun becomes a white dwarf, it will heat more slowly after it ejects its outer gaseous layers,” O’Dell said. “The material will be farther away once it becomes hot enough to illuminate the gas. This larger distance means the sun’s nebula will be fainter because it is more extended.”

In the analysis, the research team also obtained images from the Large Binocular Telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona and spectroscopic data from the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Baja California, Mexico.

Related Studies:

• Studies of NGC 6720 with Calibrated HST WFC3 Emission-Line Filter Images–III:Tangential Motions using AstroDrizzle Images
• Studies of NGC 6720 with Calibrated HST WFC3 Emission-Line Filter Images–II:Physical Conditions
• Studies of NGC 6720 with Calibrated HST WFC3 Emission-Line Filter Images–I: Structure and Evolution

Images: NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), G.J. Ferland (University of Kentucky), W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Credit for Large Binocular Telescope data: David Thompson (University of Arizona); NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

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18-01-2020 om 16:05 geschreven door peter