Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
20-02-2020
ᵀᴴᴱ WESTALL UFO ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ STRANGENESS ᴛʜᴀᴛ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡᴇᴅ
ᵀᴴᴱ WESTALL UFO ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ STRANGENESS ᴛʜᴀᴛ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡᴇᴅ
(Illustrated by Nicholas Eveleigh)
THE CLAYTON SOUTH UFO ENCOUNTER
Amysterious event takes place, in a land considered “far away” by most. Hundreds of children witness something they cannot explain, but no one believes them. The few adults present, teachers no less, are coerced into silence. Students vanish into thin air. The presence of a foreign unknown military force. An idealistic American scientist travels to the under side of the world looking for answers, eventually disgraced, he takes his own life. UFO sightings fluctuate, a man reports a UFO sighting and unusual experience, claiming that his car is being sucked into ethereal lights on an isolated road. Three days later, a fatal car accident occurs at the exact location where the strange event took place. You might be thinking I’m describing the events of some sci-fi drama series, only a great many individuals, to this day, would attest that all, if not most of these claims were entirely true. The least disputed detail of all the strangeness, is the sighting of an unidentified flying object, a flying saucer.
It was 11:00 am, Wednesday, April 6th, 1966, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. What no doubt may have presented itself as an ordinary day at Westall High school, would have drastically changed the moment voices began to shout, “look up in the sky, it’s a flying saucer!”
Immediately, a sense of frenzy, fear, wonderment and exhilaration resonated among the students, because as many eyewitnesses will tell you, as they looked to the clear blue morning sky, there was a silver flying saucer performing aerial feats beyond the capabilities of the (publicly known) aircraft of the day.
As hundreds of students charged toward an area nicknamed ‘The Grange’ where a paddock converged onto a grove of pine trees (today a nature reserve) beyond the edge of the school, numerous eyewitness reports claim that the flying saucer actually lowered into the tall grass. Causing a circular impression that remained after the UFO ascended, some noting also a swirling inner pattern. The UFO was not alone in the sky, according to many eyewitnesses, a number of small airplanes (claims as high as 5) were tailing it. (Though there were no reports of any unusual activity made by Air traffic control or the Royal Australian Air force. To this day, the alleged ‘5 pilots’ have never come forward).
There have since been claims that children, one girl identified only as “Tanya” and others that were closest to the unidentified object when it made its descent, passed out and lay unconscious on the ground around it. Eyewitnesses make the claim that even an ambulance attended the scene to see to the students seemingly suffering physiological effects of the experience. It is claimed by one eyewitness, that “Tanya” was never seen again, after succumbing to some physiological effect from the experience, never returning to school after the event on April 6th.
All up, it is believed the aerial chase, the landing and high speed escape/disappearance happened within a window of approximately 20 minutes. 20 minutes, according to most of the vocal eyewitnesses that has profoundly effected their lives.
(Dr. James E. McDonald)
In interviews conducted by American Physicist/Ufologist, Dr. James E. McDonald roughly one year later, he managed to speak with science teacher Andrew Greenwood who was there that fateful day. Greenwood upon realizing the frenzy sweeping up outside among the students, headed outside to get a look at what they were reacting to. Andrew Greenwood described the UFO as a “round, silver object about the size of a car with a metal rod sticking up in the air.” He then remarked that one of the first things to occur after the event took place, was the headmaster instructed all students to return to their classrooms, after which Greenwood said “he [the headmaster] gave the school a lecture and told the children they would be severely punished if they talked about this matter and told the staff they could lose their jobs if they mentioned it at all.”
From there, according to those who tried to speak out about the event, an element of secrecy and suppression arose. Military vehicles were seen around the area, the site was under total lockdown. Ironically, exactly as virtually every film surrounding such an event would have you believe. Men in camouflaged uniforms were reportedly seen by dozens of the eyewitnesses still vocal on the issue now more than half a century on. The unusual thing about men in camouflage is that in Australia during the 1960’s, neither the Australian nor the British had incorporated it into the military uniforms. Suggesting a possible involvement of either a group, outside of a national government, or even the U.S government which did/does have a presence on Australian soil.
There is talk of suppression of information surrounding this incident. I don’t know how things were managed at the time, perhaps due to the nature of news in the 1960’s it simply did not receive the coverage it might if it occurred today. Though, anecdotally, I would have to agree that something does seem unusual about the records. In researching the event through the usual channels, archives of Australian public newspaper records, the entire year of 1966 in Australia seems oddly slim. Searching terms like “UFO”, “Westall”, “Flying Saucer” were actually proving fruitless. So then I changed the search purely based on date.
In Melbourne, 1966, possibly by coincidence, 1966 draws a blank. So then I started checking other states, in case stories made it to further away Newspapers. When I looked up ‘The Canberra Times’, checking through dates around early April I didn’t find any mention of the Westall UFO event (though perhaps I was just lazily looking in all the wrong places). I did however, find this story, reported in Canberra, about a story that happened in Victoria, approximately 2 hours NW from the Westall incident, mere days after the UFO was sighted at the back of the school:
“MELBOURNE, Monday. — The current world-wide spate of sightings of flying saucers was brought closer to home today by a report by a Maryborough man. Mr Ronald F. Sullivan, a 38-year-old builder of Victoria Street, Maryborough, said he had seen an unidentified flying object on the Bendigo to St Arnaud Road last Monday. Three days later a youth was killed when his car ran off the road at the place where Mr Sullivan said he had seen the object.
Mr Sullivan said, “the headlights on my car were suddenly diverted to the right, for no apparent reason. And if I had followed them I would have run off the straight stretch of road. The fact that I am an experienced driver, and know the district well, saved my life. I managed to stop before I crashed.
Then I saw a display of gaseous lights in all colours of the spectrum in a nearby paddock. The object rose about 10 feet in the air. It later disappeared”, Mr Sullivan said.
Mr Sullivan said he drove on to Wycheproof where his headlights were checked and found to be in perfect order. He went to the crash scene with police on Friday. “We all noticed there was a depression about five inches deep in the freshly ploughed paddock, about 50 feet from the fence. It was about five feet in diameter.” Mr Sullivan said. Police at Maryborough, Castlemaine, Bealiba and Newstead said today they had all heard reports of flying saucers in the area. They have not been able to find the cause of the accident in which the youth, Gary Taylor, 19, of Carnegie, died.”
—THE CANBERRA TIMES, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1966
It’s also claimed that the chemistry teacher at Westall High, Barbara Robins, had access to a camera and was hastily snapping photographs of the UFO during the 20 minute frenzy. There are a great many photographs claiming to be taken during this event, but when I cross referenced them (reverse google search) every single one was linked to other UFO sightings, though that is common in many news stories, surrounding issues even outside of the paranormal. It’s been suggested that Barbara Robins had her camera and film confiscated and was coerced into silence.
Ultimately, in my opinion, this is more a story about suppression than anything else. It has endless possible explanations, but these are the top four I could come up with.
Mass Hysteria, somehow something potentially non-existent has been blown way out of proportion. Disingenuous recollections of a misinterpreted reality. This is actually the least likely scenario, in my mind.
Extraterrestrial or Ultraterrestrial life with access to highly advanced technology, presented itself to hundreds of Australian schoolchildren. For whatever reason, some “agency” (government or otherwise) wants to keep it a secret, suppressed knowledge.
Certain groups on this planet have access to technology that far surpasses what is currently available to the masses. Information is power, and the power is being kept from the general people. Those that rule the world don’t want individuals to be self-sufficient and able to thrive off of the nipple of “the system“.
The whole thing was setup. The entire experience was orchestrated. “They” wanted to test how a group would react to something like this, then how they could suppress it.
Some estimations to the total number of witnesses of UFO phenomenon (of varying levels and vicinity of encounters) in Victoria around the 6th of April, 1966 are approximately 300 individuals. 300 individuals that saw “a flying saucer” at a very low altitude. This wasn’t a craft people were squinting to see through the clouds, this was something narrowly avoiding telegraph poles (as one witness claimed). All said and done, in this account of strange events, there is one major thing to ask yourself. Someone in all of this is lying, that much is certain. The question that only you can truly ask yourself is, who? Did the students decide to create some charade? For the fun of it? For fame? They didn’t achieve any, the story barely got out. Or is the reason that seemingly “military” types were involved almost instantly, liaising with the powers that be, because certain people know certain things, that the rest of us are not allowed to understand.
If you think time will reveal the answers naturally, that the truth will rise to the surface on it’s own accord, like cream, remember this event happened over half a century ago. Many of the eyewitnesses have spent their entire lives waiting to make sense of what they saw, like something would emerge from the woodwork and link the pieces together. That day, unfortunately, has yet to come. Unless something changes, something gives out, the secrets will remain secrets, dormant and unknown.
According to UFO-Hunters.com as of the year 2020, there are over 200220 sightings reported and that number expected to continue to grow as more people around the world continue to more avidly monitor and record the activity of the skies.
Iron Age Temple Uncovered in Jerusalem Challenges Biblical Claim
Iron Age Temple Uncovered in Jerusalem Challenges Biblical Claim
The famous Temple of Solomonmight not have been the first or only temple in the Holy Land.
Dating to around 900 BC, an Iron Agetemple located near Jerusalem negates the long-held idea the ancient Kingdom of Judah (southern Israel) only had one temple, the First Temple, better known as Solomon's Temple, which was operational between 10th century BC until it was destroyed in 586 BC.
The Iron Age site of Tel Motza, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) outside Jerusalem, has been known of since the early 1990s and archaeologists found the remains of a settlement dated to the Neolithic period (about 6000 BC). In 2012 a settlement from the First Temple period was discovered containing a cultic structure and 36 wheat granaries, indicating that Motza was part of an ancient economic center, and it is the presence of this one ancient religious complex that challenges the history of Judah presented in the Bible.
The Tel Motza Iron Age temple excavation site in Jerusalem.
Judah Was Not As Well Established As The Bible States
A new study of the temple by co-researcher Shua Kisilevitz, a doctoral student of archaeology at Tel Aviv University in Israel and an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and review co-author Oded Lipschits, the director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, was published in the January/February issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine. In the article the researchers say the temple had been built about 900 BC and that they think it operated until the early 6th century BC.
And where this discovery is controversial is that the existence of this temple means that people living close to Jerusalem had their own place of worship, a cultic temple, which in itself suggests the rule of the Jerusalem high priests was “not so strong”, and that the kingdom was “not so well established” as the Bible leads us to believe, Kisilevitz and Lipschits, told Live Science .
Oldest Known Horse Depictions In Judah
A report in the Daily Mail detailing the study says the ancient temple could have held about 150 congregants who worshiped the god Yahweh, but they also used idols to communicate with the divine in the same period as the First Temple. This contradicts the Jewish Bible that details the religious reforms of King Hezekiah and King Josiah, who consolidated worship at Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and allegedly stopped ‘all’ cultic practices out of its walls.
Kisilevitz told Live Science that the temple was a rectangular building with an open courtyard at the front that would have been a focal point for cultic worship, and inside they found a stone built sacrificial altar near pits for dead animal bodies. Two human-like and two horse-like clay figurines were discovered smashed and buried in the courtyard, which was thought to have been associated with a rainfall, fertility and harvest ritual of some kind. The researchers added that the horse-like figurines may be the “oldest known depictions of horses from the Iron Age of Judah.”
Figurine of a horse found in Tel Motza Iron Age temple in excavation site.
The teams of archaeologists at Tel Motza unearthed dozens of grain storage silos (granaries) and associated administrative and religious buildings. This informs us that Tel Motza sold grain to the nearby Jerusalem. Over time, the settlement is believed to have become an agricultural and economic “powerhouse,” the researchers wrote in the magazine piece. They also speculate that perhaps the temple was permitted to exist by the high priests at Solomon’s Temple, because it was part of the granary and didn’t threaten centralized control of the kingdom.
During the time this temple was functional, new political groups and alliances emerged in the Levant, and it is believed that in the face of these changes people maintained traditional religious practices. The researchers said this was evident in the temple’s artifacts and architecture, which they say are reminiscent of religious traditions from the ancient Near East that had been practiced since the third millennium BC.
Figurine of a ram found in Tel Motza Iron Age temple excavation site.
The discovery and analysis of this ancient Iron Age temple not only enlightens historians on the state formation of Judah during this period. It also determines that the state was nowhere near as centralized as it would later become and that in its formative days it depended not solely on the administrative elite at Solomon’s Temple, but on trading relationships with nearby settlements like Tel Motza, and maybe others yet to be discovered.
Top image: Main: The Tel Motza Iron Age temple excavation site in Jerusalem. Source: Skyview / Israel Antiquities Authority . Inset: Ancient figurines of people found at Tel Motza. Source: Clara Amit / Israel Antiquities Authority
De neanderthalers waren een stuk verfijnder en beschaafder dan eeuwenlang werd aangenomen, blijkt eens te meer uit een nieuw onderzoek.
De wetenschap verwijst het cliché van de neanderthaler als een menselijke ondersoort in alle betekenissen van dat woord almaar nadrukkelijker naar de prullenmand. Nieuw onderzoek stelt dat beeld van een primitief wezen, dat alleen maar met een steen in een hand gruizige keelklanken zou brommen, nog wat meer bij aan de hand van een gelijkenis met een wel erg menselijk aanvoelend ritueel.
Bloemen en kransen
Voor het eerst in twintig jaar werd in het eldorado van de neanderthalexperts, de Shanidargrot in de Koerdische Autonome Regio in Irak, weer een geleed skelet opgegraven: een geraamte waarvan botten, beenderen en andere lichaamsdelen nog grotendeels met elkaar verbonden waren. En dat opent nieuwe onderzoeksperspectieven rond een hypothese die specialist Ralph Solecki in de jaren 50 van de vorige eeuw formuleerde. Uit de aanwezigheid van pollen in begraafplaatsen leidde deze Amerikaanse archeoloog toen af dat neanderthalers, net zoals de mens, met bloemen afscheid namen van een overledene.
De botten van de linkerhand van een neanderthaler, gevonden in de Shanidargrot. Credits: Graeme Barker
Dat leidde tot een decennialange controverse, want niet alle wetenschappers waren ervan overtuigd dat de bloemen wezen op doodsrituelen, laat staan begrafenissen tout court. En bij uitbreiding twijfelden zij sterk aan de veronderstelling dat neanderthalers ook maar enige culturele verfijning van die orde hadden. De nieuwe vondst door een team van de universiteiten van Cambridge, Birkbeck en Liverpool (John Moores) maakt het nu mogelijk dit stukje neanderthalerbeschaving verder te verkennen met de nieuwste technieken, zoals CT-scans en DNA-onderzoek.
Culturele complexiteit
‘Inscripties in grotten, decoratieve schelpen en klauwen van roofvogels… De voorbije jaren zijn er steeds meer aanwijzingen en bewijzen gekomen dat neanderthalers een stuk gesofisticeerder waren dan werd gedacht,’ stelt onderzoekleidster Emma Pomeroy. ‘Wat hun dodenrituelen betreft waren we tot nog toe aangewezen op decenniaoude resten en onderzoeken met intussen verouderde technieken. Maar als nu blijkt dat zij de Shanidargrot inderdaad gebruikten als een kerkhof, met bijhorende rituelen bovendien, dan wijst dat op een culturele complexiteit van een nog net iets hogere orde en een grotere gelijkenis met de mens dan verondersteld.’
Findings From NASA's Juno Update Jupiter Water Mystery
Findings From NASA's Juno Update Jupiter Water Mystery
The JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter's southern equatorial region on Sept. 1, 2017. The image is oriented so Jupiter's poles (not visible) run left-to-right of frame. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill › Full image and caption
The mission publishes its first stream of data on the amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere - the first findings on the gas giant's water since the agency's 1995 Galileo mission.
NASA's Juno mission has provided its first science results on the amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere. Published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy, the Juno results estimate that at the equator, water makes up about 0.25% of the molecules in Jupiter's atmosphere - almost three times that of the Sun. These are also the first findings on the gas giant's abundance of water since the agency's 1995 Galileo mission suggested Jupiter might be extremely dry compared to the Sun (the comparison is based not on liquid water but on the presence of its components, oxygen and hydrogen, present in the Sun).
An accurate estimate of the total amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere has been on the wish lists of planetary scientists for decades: The figure in the gas giant represents a critical missing piece to the puzzle of our solar system's formation. Jupiter was likely the first planet to form, and it contains most of the gas and dust that wasn't incorporated into the Sun.
The leading theories about its formation rest on the amount of water the planet soaked up.Water abundance also has important implications for the gas giant's meteorology (how wind currents flow on Jupiter) and internal structure. While lightning - a phenomenon typically fueled by moisture - detected on Jupiter by Voyager and other spacecraft implied the presence of water, an accurate estimate of the amount of water deep within Jupiter's atmosphere remained elusive.
Thick white clouds are present in this JunoCam image of Jupiter's equatorial zone. At microwave frequencies, these clouds are transparent, allowing Juno's Microwave Radiometer to measure water deep into Jupiter's atmosphere.
The image was acquired during Juno's flyby on Dec. 16, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill Full image and caption
Before the Galileo probe stopped transmitting 57 minutes into its Jovian descent in December 1995, it radioed out spectrometer measurements of the amount of water in the gas giant's atmosphere down to a depth of about 75 miles (120 kilometers), where the atmospheric pressure reached about 320 pounds per square inch (22 bar). The scientists working on the data were dismayed to find ten times less water than expected.
Even more surprising: The amount of water the Galileo probe measured appeared to be still increasing at the greatest depth measured, far below where theories suggest the atmosphere should be well mixed. In a well-mixed atmosphere, the water content is constant across the region and more likely to represent a global average; in other words, it's more likely to be representative of water planetwide. When combined with an infrared map obtained at the same time by a ground-based telescope, the results suggested the probe mission may have just been unlucky, sampling an unusually dry and warm meteorological spot on Jupiter.
"Just when we think we have things figured out, Jupiter reminds us how much we still have to learn," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Juno's surprise discovery that the atmosphere was not well mixed even well below the cloud tops is a puzzle that we are still trying to figure out. No one would have guessed that water might be so variable across the planet."
Measuring Water From Above
A rotating, solar-powered spacecraft, Juno launched in 2011. Because of the Galileo probe experience, the mission seeks to obtain water abundance readings across large regions of the immense planet. A new kind of instrument for deep space planetary exploration, Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) observes Jupiter from above using six antennas that measure atmospheric temperature at multiple depths simultaneously. The Microwave Radiometer takes advantage of the fact that water absorbs certain wavelengths of microwave radiation, the same trick used by microwave ovens to quickly heat food. The measured temperatures are used to constrain the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, as both molecules absorb microwave radiation.
The Juno science team used data collected during Juno's first eight science flybys of Jupiter to generate the findings. They initially concentrated on the equatorial region because the atmosphere there appears more well-mixed, even at depth, than in other regions. From its orbital perch, the radiometer was able to collect data from a far greater depth into Jupiter's atmosphere than the Galileo probe - 93 miles (150 kilometers), where the pressure reaches about 480 psi (33 bar).
"We found the water in the equator to be greater than what the Galileo probe measured," said Cheng Li, a Juno scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. "Because the equatorial region is very unique at Jupiter, we need to compare these results with how much water is in other regions."
Northward Bound
Juno's 53-day orbit is slowly moving northward, as intended, bringing more of Jupiter's northern hemisphere into sharper focus with each flyby. The science team is eager to see how atmospheric water content varies by latitude and region, as well as what the cyclone-rich poles can tell them about the gas giant's global water abundance.
Juno's 24th science flyby of Jupiter occurred on Feb 17. The next science flyby takes place on April 10, 2020.
"Every science flyby is an event of discovery," said Bolton. "With Jupiter there is always something new. Juno has taught us an important lesson: We need to get up close and personal to a planet to test our theories."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency contributed the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper and the Ka-Band translator system. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
The Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico will gather data to be analysed by the Seti Institute. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty
Astronomers will sweep the entire sky for signs of extraterrestrial life for the first time, using 28 giant radio telescopes in an unprecedented hunt for alien civilisations.
The project is a collaboration between the privately-funded Seti Institute and the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico, one of the world’s most powerful radio observatories. Gaining real-time access to all the data gathered by VLA is considered a major coup for scientists hunting extraterrestrial lifeforms and an indication that the field has “gone mainstream”.
Normal astronomy operations will continue at the VLA, which was featured in the 1997 film Contact, but under the new arrangement all data will be duplicated and fed through a dedicated supercomputer that will search for beeps, squawks or other signatures of distant technology.
“The VLA is being used for an all-sky survey and we kind of go along for the ride,” said Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley Seti centre. “It allows us to in parallel conduct a Seti survey.
“Determining whether we are alone in the universe as technologically capable life is among the most compelling questions in science, and [our] telescopes can play a major role in answering it,” said Tony Beasley, director of The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which runs the VLA.
The first phase of the project, installing new cables, has been funded by John Giannandrea, a senior Apple executive and trustee of the Seti Institute, and Carol Giannandrea.
The VLA project is one of a wave of upcoming Seti initiatives sketched out at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Seattle on Friday.
Jill Tarter, an emeritus researcher at the Seti Institute, gave updates on Panoseti, a proposed observatory in the prototype stage of development designed to continuously watch a large portion of the sky. If funding is secured, Panoseti will comprise two geodesic domes covered in half-metre lenses, giving it the appearance of a giant pair of insect eyes. The ability to simultaneously watch a vast expanse of sky would make it uniquely suited to spotting transient signals, such as the flash of a distant powerful laser. “To catch that kind of thing you really do want to be looking when the signal comes your way,” said Tarter ahead of her talk.
The veteran Seti scientist said the field had been boosted in the past decade by the discovery that about a fifth of stars host planets in the “habitable zone”.
“Now that there might be more habitable real estate out there than we ever imagined early on … it seems to make this next question about intelligent life more realistic,” she said. “It’s not as far on the fringes as it once was – it’s almost mainstream.”
Others are hunting for less intelligent varieties of alien life. Speaking at the same session at AAAS, Victoria Meadows, who leads Nasa’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory at the University of Washington, described observations planned with the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch next year.
Three Earth-sized planets orbiting a cool, dim star called Trappist-1 in the constellation of Aquarius will be high up on the hit list. Computer models suggest the Trappist-1 system is among the most promising for finding planets with atmospheres and temperatures that would enable liquid water to exist on the surface.
“The James Webb Telescope will be able to tell us whether they have atmospheres like the Earth or Venus,” said Meadows. “It gives us our first real chance to search for gases given off by life on another planet. We’re basically going to get to study Earth’s cousins.”
Siemion also announced the second tranche of results from the $100m (£76m) Breakthrough Listen Initiative: no alien transmissions have been detected so far.
The latest survey, the most comprehensive to date of radio emissions, included the first search of the “Earth transit zone”. The transit zone search targeted 20 stars in positions where the hypothetical inhabitants of these solar systems would be able to observe the Earth’s shadow flickering across the sun. This method of detection has allowed astronomers to identify thousands of exoplanets and determine whether their conditions are potentially habitable.
“This turns that around and says, ‘What if some other civilisation were watching our sun?’” said Siemion.
If there is, it is either watching quietly or watching from some of the other 200bn stars in the Milky Way.
As the latest technology advances bring scientists a step closer to answering the question of whether anyone or anything is out there, there are still issues to be ironed out over best practice in the event that an alien civilisation is detected.
Stephen Hawking warned against attempting any form of contact, suggesting the outcome for humans would not necessarily be good. Siemion disagrees. “Personally I think we absolutely should and I think without a doubt, we would,” he said. “Part of being human is wanting to reach out into the unknown and wanting to reach out and make connections.”
He is less decisive about what Earth’s message should be, however. “I don’t know … I spend absolutely zero time thinking about that,” he said. “I guess I would just say, ‘Hello’.”
Saturn's most Earth-like moon looks a bit less likely to host life, thanks to quantum mechanics, the weird rules that govern subatomic particles.
Titan, the second largest moon in our solar system after Jupiter's Ganymede, is unique in two ways that have convinced some researchers that this moon might host extraterrestrial life: It's the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere, and it's the only body in space, besides Earth, known to definitely have pools of liquid on its surface. In Titan's case, those pools are frigid lakes of hydrocarbons, closer to the gasoline in a car than the oceans on Earth. But some researchers have suggested that complex structures could arise in those pools: bubbles with special properties that mimic ingredients found to be necessary for life on our planet.
On Earth, lipid molecules (fatty acids) can spontaneously arrange themselves into bubble-shaped membranes that form the barriers around the cells of all known life-forms. Some researchers think this was the first necessary ingredient for life as it formed on Earth.
On Titan, researchers have speculated in the past, an equivalent set of bubbles might have emerged, these consisting of nitrogen-based molecules called azotosomes.
But for those structures to arise naturally, the physics has to work just right in the conditions actually present on Titan: temperatures of about minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 185 degrees Celsius), without liquid water or atmospheric oxygen.
Previous studies, using molecular dynamics simulations — a technique often used to examine the chemistry of life — suggested that such bubble structures would arise and become common on a world like Titan. But a new paper, published Jan. 24 in the journal Science Advances, suggests that those earlier simulations were wrong.
Using more complex simulations involving quantum mechanics, the researchers in the new paper studied the structures in terms of their "thermodynamic viability."
Here's what that means: Put a ball at the top of a hill, and it's likely to end up at the bottom, a position of lower energy. Similarly, chemicals tend to arrange themseIves in the simplest, lowest-energy pattern. The researchers wanted to know whether the azotosomes would be the simplest, most efficient arrangement for those nitrogen-bearing molecules.
Titan represents a "strict test case for the limits of life," the researchers wrote in their paper. And in this role, the moon fails. Azotosomes, the simulation showed, just aren't thermodynamically viable on Titan.
This work, the researchers said in a statement, should help NASA figure out what experiments to include on its Dragonfly mission to Titan, planned for the 2030s. It's still theoretically possible that life emerged on Titan, the researchers said in the paper, but such life would likely not involve anything we'd recognize as a cell membrane.
The ever-growing number of satellites and orbital debris in space prompted calls for change at a House hearing, although how this will be legislated is still under consideration.
At issue is the rise of privately owned satellite constellations by companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb. Satellites today are smaller and more affordable than the big machines of past decades, thanks to advancements in technology. But with fleets of small satellites comes other risks, such as more chances for them to slam into each other. And high-profile near misses are starting to become more common.
"This is one of the most important and rapidly evolving issues facing our ability to operate in space," said Kendra Horn, D-Okla., chair of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, in her opening statement at the hearing in Washington, on Feb. 11.
Two large, defunct and uncontrollable satellites nearly collided in orbit two weeks ago, passing about 60 feet (18 meters) from each other — narrowly avoiding a collision that could have sent thousands of pieces of "space junk" into low Earth orbit. And in late 2019, the European Space Agencyhad to redirect one of its satellites to reduce the risk of a collision; the other satellite operator, SpaceX, did not respond to requests to move its own machine out of the way.
This doesn't even mention the numerous confirmed examples of space collisions and space junk over the decades that in some cases, are still causing problems today. For example, the International Space Station has changed its orbit in the past to dodge dangerous space debris. Space assets such as weather satellites, telecommunications links and the GPS navigation system for the United States are among the vital links of space infrastructure that could be knocked out if collisions continue.
The U.S. Department of Defense has a catalog of more than 20,000 known space objects, Horn said, although this number has a couple of limitations. The catalog only represents unclassified satellites or objects, and it also indicates the number of trackable objects. There are some things in space that are just too small to be tracked with current technology.
"Space is going to get more crowded," Horn said, as thousands of new objects join what's already in space. The SpaceX Starlink constellation could have more than 12,000 satellites alone in a few years, and (besides the collision concern) it already is raising concerns from astronomers for its bright objects blocking night-sky observations.
The House subcommittee commissioned a few experts to speak on how lawmakers can address this problem, under a provision in the 2020 NASA budget to carry out research and development activities concerning space debris mitigation, and to consider a strategy for space situational awareness research and technology.
The solutions proposed were diverse, but for the most part, the experts said it will likely involve using several government entities that could include NASA, the Department of Commerce and other possibilities. There may be some private industry involvement as well.
Public-private partnerships
One possibility is finding more sources for satellite data outside of the Department of Defense. "We need better data," said subcommittee ranking member Brian Babin (R-Texas), adding that the Department of Defense cannot release all data for national security concerns — and it does not see everything.
Babin suggested that the Department of Commerce could form a partnership with the private sector. It already has experience with regulating standards such as export controls, he said. It also already gives a "light touch" to emerging industries, he pointed out — such as its careful relationship in the 1990s with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that assigns internet addresses, among many other functions.
Brian Weeden, the Secure World Foundation's director of program planning, testified as a witness for the subcommittee. He said alerts are already coming from private industry nonetheless. It was LeoLabs, a private American company, that first sent out the alert about the possible 2020 collision in a tweet three days before the event, he said — based on ground-based tracking radars. But he warned the current infrastructure is "dangerously insufficient to face the growing number of space challenges."
But Commerce is not the only federal entity that could step up to help solve the space junk crisis.
International collaboration
Much of space law rests on precedent, taking into account how things are done in international waters or on the continent of Antarctica (where multiple countries have jurisdiction). For that reason, scholar Ruth Stilwell called for considering the "high seas" as one area where space policymakers could turn for legislation. (Stilwell is an adjunct professor at Norwich University and a senior non-resident scholar at the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University.)
Stilwell called for an "international agreement on standards and behaviors," with a transition to new space traffic management taking into account the needs of various space players. Whatever the framework is, however, it would need government oversight of some sort. "You can only be a good actor with rules to follow," Stilwell added later in the hearing. "You can't expect somebody to be a good actor if rules do not exist."
There is also concern that by handing space traffic control to big entities like Commerce and a few private companies, other voices (such as smaller companies) could be lost in the space world. "We need to ensure the expertise developed in small communities is not lost in the transition phase," Danielle Wood, the director of the space-enabled research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said at the hearing.
While NASA does have expertise in the space domain, the agency doesn't have all the expertise that other ones have — which is why Joanne Gabrynowicz, professor emeritus of space law at the University of Mississippi Law Center, called for an interagency solution. "There is no one agency who has it all," Gabrynowicz said at the hearing, referring to other government agency possibilities for managing space traffic.
NASA also has numerous other things to think about, Weeden said in a separate piece of testimony — including its mandate to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 and then move on to Mars. "NASA could do it, but my sense is they will be overwhelmed by all the other things," Weeden said.
If people don't act quickly, there is the risk that space debris could lock out the possibility of future missions for a while, if a collision creates pieces of debris that slam into other satellites and break them up, too. (This is known as the Kessler Syndrome.)
Over time the collisions would stabilize, noted Daniel Oltrogge, who is founder and administrator of the Space Safety Coalition, but the effects would still be felt. "By the time it does [stabilize], you have a huge number of small particles out there, and some fragments … that are quite large," said Oltrogge, who is also chair of the space traffic management space governance task force for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
More subcommittee hearings will be coming up to discuss what to do next.
Are They Alive... Antarctica Melting Ice Is Revealing Something No One Thought Possible!
Are They Alive... Antarctica Melting Ice Is Revealing Something No One Thought Possible!
As the ice melts, through volcanic activity and human intervention, the world will be watching as this mysterious land reveals the secrets it has held for so long.
Any artifacts recovered that would give us free or clean energy will be covered up and hidden away under the Vatican for sure until they can dumb it down make it dirty and charge us monthly for it! AC
The military hires private companies to do the research so they don’t have to disclose what’s going on. Private companies don’t have to answer to congress. Kens32052
It’s called nuclear destruction and guess what, never trust the miss leading information given here, they lie and withhold info because too much knowledge to the public will disrupt these governments agenda to control all our minds. Drygrass
SPACEX WANTS TO SEND REGULAR CITIZENS INTO SPACE — HERE'S HOW
SPACEX WANTS TO SEND REGULAR CITIZENS INTO SPACE — HERE'S HOW
A human-carrying capsule will help a lucky few live out their space travel dreams.
SpaceX has teamed up with a private space tourism company to send up to four private citizens into space.
Space Adventures, a Washington, D.C.-based firm, announced Tuesday that it will work with Elon Musk's firm to host a voyage using the Crew Dragon capsule. The mission, the Crew Dragon's first free-flying mission, could be the first such space tourism trip powered entirely by American spaceflight technology. A launch could take place as early as 2021.
“This historic mission will forge a path to making spaceflight possible for all people who dream of it, and we are pleased to work with the Space Adventures’ team on the mission,” Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said in a statement.
The mission will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 reusable rocket to send up a Crew Dragon capsule. The rocket will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, a common launch site for SpaceX's missions. Timing is unclear, but the company suggests a window stretching from late 2021 to mid-2022. Following "a few weeks" of training in the United States, the group will lift off and fly for up to five days.
It could mark a momentous occasion in commercial spaceflight history. Over the course of 2001 to 2009, Space Adventures flew over 36 million miles in eight separate missions. Its clients have non-professional astronauts like Dennis Tito, Richard Garriott, Mark Shuttleworth and others. But all successful orbital missions used Roscosmos Soyuz rockets, and this arrangement was put on hold after the rockets became the only means of reaching the International Space Station.
SpaceX, a private company founded by Musk in 2002, routinely sends satellites and cargo into space but has never flown a human. The Crew Dragon, developed as part of NASA's Commercial Crew program, is designed to send astronauts to and from the International Space Station. With this new announcement, the Crew Dragon could also expand human spaceflight and bring tourists along for the ride.
The Space Adventures website failed to load in the wake of the announcement, but the team also shared a video with more details via its YouTube account:
"Honoring our combined histories, this Dragon mission will be a special experience and a once in a lifetime opportunity – capable of reaching twice the altitude of any prior civilian astronaut mission or space station visitor,” Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, said in a statement.
The company has big plans for the trip. Its official announcement states that the trip will offer the chance to "break the world altitude record for private citizen spaceflight," offering a chance to see Earth like no other human since NASA's Gemini program in the 1960s.
It's not the first time SpaceX has announced plans to send private citizens into space. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa plans to use the under-development Starship to fly around the moon with a team of six to eight artists. The "Dear Moon" voyage is expected to take around five days, and passengers will be encouraged to create art capturing their experience. The mission is scheduled to take place in 2023.
But like the Starship, the Crew Dragon is still under development. The first manned flight could take place as early as the first half of 2020, with SpaceX reportedly looking at May 7 as a possible launch day. But as the project has already experienced delays during development, a further delay is not entirely out of the question.
AFPSpaceX-CEO Elon Musk tijdens een persconferentie over de SpaceX Crew Dragon demo-missie in maart 2019.
WETENSCHAPIn samenwerking met een Amerikaanse firma voor ruimtetoerisme zoekt de Amerikaanse raketbouwer SpaceX vier privépersonen voor een ruimtereis. De prijs van het ticket is nog niet geweten.
Bouwer van de Falcon-draagraket SpaceX heeft een overeenkomst gesloten met Space Adventures, met zetel nabij Washington. Die firma werkte samen met het Russische ruimtevaartbureau Roscosmos om acht ruimtetoeristen met een Russische Sojoez naar het Internationaal Ruimtestation ISS te brengen en terug te halen.
SpaceX, het bedrijf van Tesla-kopstuk Elon Musk, biedt nu de kans om mee te vliegen met zijn door een Falcon-9 gelanceerde Crew Dragon, of de bemande versie van zijn onbemande cargo die voor rekening van het ruimtevaartbureau NASA instaat voor vervoer naar en van het ISS. Die Crew Dragon moet binnen enkele maanden - echt bemand - voor het eerst vliegen, maar wanneer precies is nog niet bekend.
De raketbouwer beklemtoont ruimtetoeristen geen verblijf in het ISS aan te bieden. SpaceX geeft geen details over de datum, de duur en het programma van de trip. Voorzitter Eric Andersen van Space Adventures zei dat de vlucht twee keer zo hoog kan gaan als voorgaande missies van een amateur-astronaut of bezoeker van het ruimtestation. Dit wentelt op ongeveer 400 km hoogte rond onze planeet.
Concurrentie
Ook werkzaam in de sector van het ruimtetoerisme zijn Virgin Galactic en Blue Origin. Zij werken aan trips tot 80 à 100 km hoogte of de grens van de ruimte, voor enkele minuten, voor 250.000 dollar of meer. SpaceX zal ongetwijfeld duurder zijn.
Met een Falcon-9 heeft SpaceX maandag nog eens 60 satellieten tegelijk voor zijn Starlink-constellatie voor wereldwijd breedbandinternet gelanceerd. Het netwerk omvat zodoende al 300 kunstmanen.
Voor de eerste keer sinds 2016 kon de teruggekeerde eerste rakettrap echter niet landen op een droneschip in de Atlantische Oceaan. Die trap werd ook al gebruikt bij drie eerdere lanceringen. Het lijkt onwaarschijnlijk dat het in zee geplofte ding nog eens gebruikt zal kunnen worden.
Archaeologists say a group of people tunnelling into the side of a country road in search of a race of pre-Polynesian giants' skeletons could be damaging the archaeological record.
A representative of local iwi, Ngāti Taahinga, who have tīpuna and taonga buried in the limestone-rich north Waikato area's caves, has described the group's actions as "disturbing".
The group say this bone belongs to a giant pre-Polynesian human and could be more than 2500 years old. Experts say it's likely from a moa. Photo / Supplied
RNZ understands one member of the group is a caver, but none are trained archaeologists.
Since 2016, the group has recorded progress of the dig by sharing photos, videos and written updates on a blog that has been viewed more than 88,000 times.
Otago University associate professor of bioarchaeology Dr Siân Halcrow worries about the number of people who might come across the blog and believe the information being put out on it.
"It does really highlight what some New Zealanders think, in terms of pre-Māori conspiracy theories, with really racist undertones. It's not grounded in fact, so people should be aware."
Though the group has tried to keep the location of the cave secret, RNZ has been able to confirm its whereabouts and contact the landowner, who was unaware of the dig and said the group did not have his permission to be tunnelling into his property.
Under cover of darkness
The secretive group has been sporadically digging out the tube-like cave for close to four years, often under the cover of darkness. They are yet to find any real evidence of the supposed giants they call the "tall ones", although they say they have already found several bones in the cave.
The group has determined one is the leg bone of an 8 foot tall human and could be up to 2500 years old. "This here, my friends, is a human bone of a pre-Polynesian inhabitant," a male voice says in a video of the hollow bone posted online by the group. "You can tell by the triangular shape. It's most likely a tibia, which would make this… individual 8ft 4 inches tall… Regardless of its length, this is an older bone than any human being in New Zealand. What do our detractors say now, we wonder?"
Experts say the bone probably belongs to a moa.
The lack of evidence hasn't hampered the enthusiasm of the group's apparent leader, who does not reveal his name online but goes by the initials 'IJ'.
"Providing proof of 8' humans to the world will be bigger than finding Tutankhamen," he tells RNZ, via email, adding that the discovery will be "the most talked about worldwide story of the millennium."
Tuakau man Maurice Tyson says the cave may contain the skeletons of Spanish flu victims. Photo / RNZ, Claire Eastham-Farrelly
A spokesman for Heritage New Zealand - the government entity tasked with protecting New Zealand's historic and cultural heritage - is less excited. Although it's illegal to modify or destroy any part of an archaeological site without authority from Heritage New Zealand, the spokesman says he has "no reason to believe that the purported cave is an archaeological site". In other words, the experts don't think the cave contains any evidence of pre-1900 human activity - giant human bones or otherwise.
The farmer who owns the land is fuming. Despite writing on the blog that "the land owner knows and approves of what we do", the property owner told RNZ he was unaware of the dig, and the group did not have his permission.
The 'Tall Ones'
There are many myths, rumours and oral histories pertaining to what lies beneath the crumpled farmland that spreads along the west coast, between Port Waikato and Raglan. Some are more far fetched than others.
Al Mannering, who grew up on a farm in the Waikaretu Valley where the tunnel is being dug, recalls stories of a pou whenua (carved wooden post) being found near a sharp bend when the road was cut, which he says may have signified a nearby urupā. He also recalls seeing a human femur about 2cm longer than his own. "And I am 6ft."
Another story comes from 88-year-old Maurice Tyson, who has lived in nearby Tuakau since he was a teen. He tells of a 'crypt' filled with 14 or more 8ft tall skeletons being uncovered by road workers, then quickly reburied by archaeologists, as part of a wider conspiracy to keep New Zealand's true history a secret.
Tyson doesn't claim to have seen the skeletons, or their reburial - but says the story was told to him by the road workers who found them. He has multiple theories about who the skeletons belong to - from victims of the Spanish flu to WWII Japanese soldiers.
On self-proclaimed "astro-archaeologist" Martin Doutre's CelticNZ website, an article describes a tribe of tall "Aztec type Maoris" [sic] referred to as the "Tall Ones" who lived in north Waikato caves and were eaten to extinction. The article mentions a "secret burial cave" that is "packed with the dead of the tribe."
It is these stories that seem to have inspired IJ and his crew, (who use the initials BM, YM, RL Davidson and MD on their blog,) to tunnel into the limestone cave in a bank on the side of Waikaretu Valley Rd.
"In the following pages and over the next three years or so you will find digital photos and information, along with video, that will prove that the 'tall ones' actually existed and that they were here long before Maori ever arrived and took the land from them," the blog reads.
"Maori, as we know them, did not possess an empty land as taught in the school books these days or as printed these days in the media - Polynesian's, in fact, came to a land already occupied and then they conquered it [sic] … What is inside our cave, when we finally reach the cavern part, will eventually prove this".
Disturbing approach
Though some believe the group is motivated by racism, Eru Whare of Ngāti Taahinga, who is chairman of Pukerewa Marae which is near the cave, is giving IJ and his crew the benefit of the doubt. "I wouldn't put it down to racism. I think it would be a lack of education and understanding of cultural values," he says.
But it's still hard for Whare to understand how or why something like this would be done without talking to iwi first - especially if it's human bones the diggers are searching for. "We have a number of caves back home [in the Waikaretu Valley] and there's still some of our loved ones buried in there. In our history and our culture we always talk about our bones. Where we come from, that's where our bones are. So in an urupā, or this case a cave, when you remove the bones from a place where we laid our dead or our loved ones, it removes that whole spiritual, tapu essence.
The group tunnel into the limestone caves. Photo / Supplied
"It's very hard for our people to try and decipher why people would do such things. And whether they are looking for, you know, big giants or moas. I mean I can understand... But for guys just going in there without any consultation. Well, that's something else. That's a pretty disturbing approach."
Grounded in racist ideologies
Despite the group's raison d'etre being the search "for those here long before the Polynesian migrations occurred," there is no evidence of human habitation of Aotearoa New Zealand prior to the arrival of Polynesians. "Every professional archaeologist will tell you the same," Waikato-based archaeologist Sian Keith says.
The pervasive myth that an earlier population of Moriori was displaced by Māori has been repeatedly rejected by academics. So have suggestions that, prior to the arrival of Polynesians, the country was settled by Egyptians, Celts, Greeks, Chinese, Melanesians, or Phoenicians by people like Doutre and Ross Baker of the One New Zealand Foundation (which opposed the return of land to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi), Bryan Mitchell who believes New Zealand was first settled by a Scottish cattle farmer in the 12th century, Ross Wiseman, Noel Hilliam, Gary Cook and former National Front secretary Kerry Bolton.
More recent stories by writer Barry Brailsford of a mystical, peace-loving, non-Māori race which colonised New Zealand 2000 years before Polynesians arrived, were described as "virulent myth" by archaeologist Atholl Anderson. As with stories of Moriori pushed to justify British colonisation, Brailsford describes the purported peace-loving race as having been killed by Māori.
"These conspiracy theories are really grounded in racist ideologies. They need to be pulled apart for what they are," bioarchaeologist Siân Halcrow says. "There's no cover up."
University of Waikato teaching fellow Dr M Dentith, who studies conspiracy theory, fake news, and secrecy, agrees. "Quite a lot of these theories are used to make some variation of the claim 'Well, if white people were here first, then the Treaty is null and void', or 'We did to Māori only what they did to our distant ancestors'," Dentith says. "My interest is largely in the kinds of 'evidence' people like this put forward in support of their conspiracy theory that the government and Māori are hiding the existence of a pre-Māori, white civilisation here." Like Eru Whare, Dentith links the prevalence of these ideas back to a lack of education about the history and prehistory of Aotearoa.
IJ and his crew appear to loosely subscribe to Brailsford's theory. On the blog, IJ writes of his belief that the "true ancient history" of this country has been "covered up, secreted away, and legislated against" by academics, iwi and archaeologists.
Canterbury Museum curator Paul Scofield calls alternative theories about pre-Polynesian inhabitants of New Zealand "crackpot" and says the north Waikato cave dig reminds him of a low-cost version of a Dutch-American textiles magnate's 20 year search for gold buried by Spanish pirates on Juan Fernandez Island, off the coast of Chile. But he says nothing can be done about the removal of moa bones from the cave if it is on private land, as there is no legislation protecting the extinct birds' remains.
Talk of cover-ups and academic conspiracies frustrates archaeologist Sian Keith. "One of our jobs as archaeologists is to assess, retrieve and analyse the data from historic sites," she says. "We work with tangible evidence, scientific dating, environmental analysis, and engaging with iwi and hapu who have a rich oral tradition. There are many specialists working in the archaeological field who are passionate and thorough.
"The evidence for pre-Māori inhabitants, of any origin, simply isn't there. If it was, the professional community would have identified it and it would be common knowledge. Archaeologists are not secretive, the work we do is carefully managed under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act, and investigations and excavations have to be formally reported on."
It doesn't matter to the diggers. The most recent update on their progress was posted online by IJ and MD last week. They expressed surprise at the lack of social media reaction to the bone they found. The tunnel they have excavated is now about 14 metres into the hillside. There is still no cavern in sight.
A secretive group who spent four years tunnelling into the side of a country road in search of a mythical race of pre-Polynesian giants' skeletons have called off their dig.
But one of the diggers, who has revealed his identity via Facebook, has warned a "reiki protection is on the cave dig".
The diggers have excavated a tunnel bout 14 metres into the hillside.
Photo: Supplied
Last week, RNZ revealed iwi, academics and the landowner were concerned by the anonymous group's dig in the Waikaretu Valley, west of Huntly.
The group say this bone belongs to a giant pre-Polynesian human and could be more than 2500 years old. Experts say it's likely from a moa.
Photo / Supplied
The group, who updated their progress on a blog, were searching for evidence of pre-Polynesian inhabitants of New Zealand.
They believed they had found a bone in the tunnel that belonged to a giant human up to 2500 years old.
But after viewing photos and a video of the bone, multiple experts told RNZ it likely belonged to a moa.
The dig was done without the consent of the landowner, or consultation with iwi who have tīpuna and taonga buried in the north west Waikato area's limestone caves.
Archaeologist Dr Siân Halcrow expressed concern that the group's fossicking behaviour could damage the archaeological record.
In a blog post on Saturday, the group announced they would abandon the dig, writing that the world will "now never know for sure if this cave was filled by hand specifically to hide some fourteen 8'+ pre-Polynesian skeletons."
In the post, the group said they would focus on three other locations in their search for proof that a race of eight foot humans beat Polynesians to become the first humans in Aotearoa, which they told RNZ would be "the most talked about worldwide story of the millennium."
Today, Rodney Davidson, a reiki practitioner from Northland, confirmed he was involved in the dig.
He posted a warning on Facebook: "Be aware that a Reiki protection is on the cave dig and has been since the start too. It has made it,s [sic] presence felt on at least two occasions to great benefit in fact. Abuse it in anyway and there will be a ' result ' ! I have no control over this so all your choice!"
There is no evidence of human habitation of Aotearoa New Zealand prior to the arrival of Polynesians.
The pervasive myth that an earlier population of Moriori was displaced by Māori has been repeatedly rejected by academics.
The 1916 and 1946 editions of the School Journal taught generations of school children many myths about Moriori. They include that they were wiped-out by Māori during an 1835 invasion, and that they were conquered due to their inferiority.
A true account of the history of the iwi is about to be entrenched in law.
Other alternative histories suggest that prior to the arrival of Polynesians, the country was settled by Egyptians, Celts, Greeks, Chinese, Melanesians, or Phoenicians.
Halcrow said "conspiracy theories" about the settlement of New Zealand by non-Polynesians were "grounded in racist ideologies."
She raised concerns about the number of people following the group's blog, saying, "It does really highlight what some New Zealanders think, in terms of pre-Māori conspiracy theories, with really racist undertones. It's not grounded in fact, so people should be aware."
Eru Whare of Ngāti Taahinga, chairman of Pukerewa Marae which is near where the group was digging, said, "I wouldn't put it down to racism. I think it would be a lack of education and understanding of cultural values."
"It's very hard for our people to try and decipher why people would do such things. And whether they are looking for, you know, big giants or moas. I mean I can understand... But for guys just going in there without any consultation. Well, that's something else. That's a pretty disturbing approach."
University of Waikato teaching fellow Dr M Dentith, who studies conspiracy theory, fake news, and secrecy, said theories about pre-Polynesian inhabitants of New Zealand were often used to make some variation of the claim, "'Well, if white people were here first, then the Treaty is null and void', or 'We did to Māori only what they did to our distant ancestors'".
“(The world will) now never know for sure if this cave was filled by hand specifically to hide some fourteen 8’+ pre-Polynesian skeletons.”
There’s a mini war of sorts underway in New Zealand over … giants! A reporter for Radio New Zealand (RNZ) has brought to light a hunt that has been underway for some time for evidence of giants that the searchers believe lived on the island prior to the Polynesians who arrived between 1250 and 1300 and developed the Māori culture. The group calls itself Tangata Whenua (Māori for “people of the land”) and, according to its website, has been secretly digging (often at night) a cave or tunnel since 2016 in the Waikato region in northern New Zealand for evidence of the 8-foot tall giants that they believe have been found before in 16 locations. The website states that the group knows of four of these sites and, earlier this month, they found what they claim is part of a femur from what would have been a being 7’10” to 8’4″ tall and lived 2500 years ago. (You can read the account and see a photo here.)
“But after viewing photos and a video of the bone, multiple experts told RNZ it likely belonged to a moa.”
Moa
RNZ reporter Susan Strongman has been reporting on the secret dig that has annoyed the landowner, who says they never asked permission, and archeologists and indigenous people, who say the hunters are not archeologists and risk harming historical artifacts and human remains. Strongman raised the heat on the group by revealing the name of one member — Rodney Davidson, a reiki practitioner from Northland. In a response on the group website and on his Facebook page, he defended the hunt, criticized Strongman and admitted that the group has stopped looking in that area, so no one will ever know for sure in the cave has giant skeletons in it. He said they will continue their clandestine searches in the other caves whose locations are apparently still secret.
“Be aware that a Reiki protection is on the cave dig and has been since the start too. It has made it,s [sic] presence felt on at least two occasions to great benefit in fact. Abuse it in anyway and there will be a ‘ result ‘ ! I have no control over this so all your choice!”
Along with the warning that a reiki aura or shield is protecting the cave, Davidson also gave out her twitter and email addresses for his supporters to send their responses – supporters whose numbers he claims have risen since she broke the story.
Meanwhile, experts like Otago University associate professor of bioarchaeology Dr Siân Halcrow agree that the bone is probably from a moa (a large extinct flightless bird resembling the emu), there is no evidence of any humans or human-like species of any size on New Zealand prior to the Māori (thus, no evidence that the Māori killed them off – a popular but unproven theory), and any searches for pre-Polynesian giants are disconcerting.
“It does really highlight what some New Zealanders think, in terms of pre-Māori conspiracy theories, with really racist undertones. It’s not grounded in fact, so people should be aware.”
Māori
Archaeologist Sian Keith told RNZ that archeologists seek evidence and are passionate and thorough, so talk of coverups and secrecy in his field are upsetting. That may be true among his own colleagues, but there are plenty of stories from Egypt, Central America and other archeology sites that would disagree.
As with any war of words, deep-seated beliefs, secrecy, conspiracy theories and conflicting information, this one is far from over.
UFO encounters happen all over the world, to people from all walks of life. It is an all-encompassing phenomenon that includes a wide range of different reports that run the range from the slightly odd to the downright insane. Some of the most exciting and intriguing of these are those encounters that have occurred between aircraft pilots and something seemingly not of this world, and one of the best known and most mysterious cases of this is the time Iranian fighter jets engaged something very weird and seemingly aggressive in their skies.
It all began with a series of strange phone calls. On September 19, 1976, at approximately 11:30 PM, the Imperial Iranian Air Force command post at Tehran, Iran, began receiving panicked calls from concerned citizens in the Shemiran city district, who claimed to be witnessing unusual bright lights moving about in the sky. The Iranian Air Force at first assumed this to be conventional aircraft or helicopters, but it was soon found that there was nothing scheduled to be in the sky at that time that could be creating the phenomena, and so assistant deputy commander of operations General Yousefi personally contacted the control tower at Mehrabad International Airport and then looked out over the landscape to see with his own eyes a very bright object like a star travelling across the sky, only far too large and bright to be a regular aircraft or star.
In the meantime, more calls were coming in from frightened citizens, and the commander felt it would be prudent to investigate the disturbance further. To this effect he authorized an F-4 Phantom II jet to be scrambled at Shahrokhi Air Force Base in Hamadan and sent to go take a look and possibly intercept. As the jet approached it began to experience various technical malfunction and glitches, with the instrument panel falling to work properly and communications ripped through with heavy static, which all got bad enough that the pilot was forced to abort and head back towards base. Oddly, the plane supposedly began to function normally as soon as he left the area, suggesting that perhaps the unearthly object had been responsible. Undeterred, the Iranian Air Force sent up another F-4, which was able to get a radar signature for the mystery object, which they estimated was similar to that of a passenger jet, although the blinding nature of the light it emitted prevented an accurate judgement of size. Whatever it was then reportedly shot away from the approaching fighter with a sudden, breathtaking burst of speed and acceleration, and the chase was on.
F-4 Phantom
The fighter was able to pace the fleeing UFO but not gain on it, yet the crew, composed of a Lieutenant Parviz Jafari and Lieutenant Jalal Damirian, was able to make some observations. Other than the immense, nearly blinding brightness of the object, it was also noticed that it had an array of rectangular lights upon it that alternated between red, blue, green, and orange in some inscrutable rapid pattern. As they stared in awe and tried to catch up to it, the mysterious unidentified aircraft reportedly at several points ejected into the air a total of four smaller objects, one of which headed right for its pursuers, causing the alarmed pilot to try to lock onto it with a missile, but he would later report that the targeting system suddenly went haywire and all communications with base were cut off. This aggressive smaller object showed no signs of slowing down, inexorably approaching at very high speed, and thinking that this was perhaps a missile of the unidentified object’s own, the fighter took emergency evasive maneuvers. According to the crew, they took a deep dive, and the smaller object followed their movement to chase them some distance before turning around to join its larger brethren. The large UFO then shot off at mind-boggling speed and the jet’s instruments went back online. On their way back to base they apparently would see another smaller object, which apparently descended to the desert below. The pilot Jafari would later say of these objects in a press conference:
Four other objects with different shapes separated from the main one, at different times during this close encounter. Whenever they were close to me, my weapons were jammed and my radio communications were garbled. One of the objects headed toward me. I thought it was a missile. I tried to launch a heat seeking missile to it, but my missile panel went out. Another followed me when I was descending on the way back. One of the separated objects landed in an open area radiating a high bright light, in which the sands on the ground were visible. We could hear emergency squash all the way, which was reported by other airliners flying at the time and continued for another couple of days.
It would indeed later turn out that a passenger airliner had also had their equipment disrupted, and additionally the large object had also apparently been visually observed by air traffic control on the ground. Rather eerily, air traffic control claimed that as the F-4 made its approach to land they observed another object or craft, this one cylindrical and with a light on each end and a flashing light in its center, appear and follow the fighter back towards base. This second object would then apparently pass dangerously close over the fighter and do a fly by over the base, causing the control tower to lose all power as it did, only for everything to return to normal when it was gone. It would then reportedly be seen again some time later by a pilot over the Mediterranean, as well as by the crew and passengers of a passenger airliner over Lisbon, Portugal, and also over Morocco. An Iranian air traffic control officer at the time would later say of the incident:
When they heard our report and the report of the pilots, they concluded that no country is capable of such technology, and all of them believed it was a strange object from outer space.
Another odd little detail is that when the area where the “probe” was claimed to have been dropped was investigated, locals claimed that they had heard a loud noise and seen a bright light on the evening in question, although no physical evidence was apparently found. The whole strange incident would be investigated by not only the Iranian authorities, but also the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran, the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and there have been many attempts to try and explain it all over the years. There have been many conventional explanations offered, such as that what was seen was a rocket, meteor, or the re-entry of a decaying satellite, or that this was a misidentified astronomical body such as Venus or Jupiter, but none of these really seem to fit all of the odd features of the case. These objects were witnessed by numerous experienced, qualified personnel such as pilots, military officers, and air traffic control workers, which makes it unlikely they would make such an observational mistake. There is also the detail that something was jamming equipment aboard the jets, which is hard to explain away and has left authorities and researchers of the case puzzled. It has been suggested that this could have been the result of pilot error and faulty, under-maintained equipment, but there is also the report that an air control tower was temporarily disabled as well.
Was this all explainable with mundane explanations? Is it all a perfect brew of witness error and malfunctioning equipment? Or was this something more bizarre? The Tehran UFO incident has become a very exciting case for several reasons. The object was seen by multiple witnesses, ranging from residents to military personnel and pilots, many of whom are highly reliable observers and all of whom describe the same thing within the same time frame. There is also the strange anomaly that at least three separate aircraft experienced technical malfunctions and equipment jamming similar to electromagnetic effects during the event. Finally, it was very well investigated, with no official explanation ever offered. Whatever is going on here has remained very much discussed in UFO circles, and it remains a true unexplained case for the files, perhaps doomed to remain locked in a limbo of debate and speculation for a very long time.
The entire saga of the US military’s modern investigations into UFOs has been clouded in confusion, obfuscation, and a whole alphabet soup of acronyms—AATIP, AAWSAP, UAP, etc.—which has enabled the Pentagon to avoid actually answering the real question: is there something weird going on or not? Since the story of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program broke in 2017, the Pentagon’s story has gone from acknowledging that AATIP investigated “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs, not UFOs, which is rather important to them), to saying AATIP had nothing to do with UAPs. Add to this the strange list of AATIP funded projects and the former head of AATIP starting a side-project with Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge and you’ve got the dumbest possible byzantine labyrinth that could maybe lead to “soft disclosure.”
This week, however,Popular Mechanics reported that they had obtained leaked documents dating to 2009 which show that not only did AATIP investigate UFOs, but they also investigated them as possibly otherworldy or interdimensional phenomena and continued to do so beyond 2012, the year AATIP was “officially” shuttered. Furthermore, AATIP took an interest in the paranormal phenomena at Utah’s famed Skinwalker Ranch with an interest in harnassing whatever’s going on there for defense purposes. Paranormal weaponry, that’s just what we need, right?
It even looks like a UFO.
The leaked documents come from Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). It is a 494-page “Ten Month Report” compiled by BAASS for the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP), the contracting division of the broader AATIP program. Bob Bigelow, the billionaire founder of Bigelow Aerospace, is a well-known figure in the UFO world. Bigelow’s private research group the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) was stationed at Skinwalker Ranch for years after the billionaire purchased the property. Bigelow Aerospace’s involvement with AATIP has also been well-publicized.
In 2008, BAASS was awarded a $10 million contract by AAWSAP for a guaranteed year with a 5-year option. According to Popular Mechanics, the “Ten Month Report” was one of many such reports given by BAASS to AAWSAP through the duration of the contract. Throughout the document, it is clear that what is being investigated is not an unknown foreign weapons system. From the Popular Mechanics piece:
From cover to cover, the BAASS report references the government’s new buzzword for UFOs: UAP. However, nowhere could Popular Mechanics find a single reference to foreign (terrestrial) advanced aerospace weapon systems, or projected technological innovations based on current industry trends.
Contrary to the Pentagon’s recent sidestepping, it seems clear that what was being investigated was something not just unidentified but completely unknown. Here’s an incomplete list of topics covered in BAASS’s “Ten Month Report” as summarized by Popular Mechanics:
●Overview of the BAASS Physics Division’s efforts to conduct research on advanced aerospace vehicles, including the development of standardization for measurement of physical effects and signatures associated with UAP.
● Overview of BAASS research for measuring and gleaning the effects on biological organisms from UAP.
● Mention of Skinwalker Ranch in Utah as a “possible laboratory for studying other intelligences and possible interdimensional phenomena.”
● Strategic plans to organize a series of intellectual debate forums targeted to broad audiences pertaining to the “potential disclosure of an extraterrestrial presence.”
● Mention of BAASS program dubbed “Project Northern Tier,” which involved securing documents related to instances where dozens of UFOs flew over restricted airspaces of facilities housing nuclear weapons.
● Project databases of UAP-related materials compiled through various partnerships, and the intent to expand these databases by coordinating with foreign governments.
● Summaries of multiple UAP events both inside the U.S. and in foreign countries.
● Photographs of UAPs provided by various sources, including foreign governments.
Cover of the BAASS “Ten Month Report”
These reports are technically the property of BAASS and, due to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, are conveniently excluded from FOIA requests. Attorney Josh Budray told Popular Mechanics:
“Unfortunately, the government attempting to evade FOIA by contracting out its responsibilities is nothing new. Both federal and state FOIA statutes strive to eliminate such obvious gamesmanship—avoiding transparency and disclosure obligations by contracting out functions—but whether they are successful in doing so is an entirely different story.”
There’s honestly too much in the Popular Mechanics report to summarize here, and it is recommended that you take a read for yourself. Seriously, it’s huge. Other leaked documents obtained include a 54-page report on the physiological effects of exposure to UFOs, as well as proof that AATIP operated beyond its official closure in 2012.
While much of what is in the leaked documents have been in the realm of solid assumptions since the AATIP story first broke, they have still been assumptions. The Pentagon has admitted that footage such as that from the USS Nimitz does show “unidentified aerial phenomena,” it has always been delicately handled from a position that “unidentified” might mean “we just don’t know who built it.” While these leaked documents reveal nothing about the nature of these phenomena (because of course not), they do show that whatever AATIP and BAASS were, and likely are, studying is completely weird and has been treated accordingly by the Pentagon.
Disc-shaped UFOs spotted on mountain ridge in Antarctica
Disc-shaped UFOs spotted on mountain ridge in Antarctica
There have been a number of unexplained Google Earth sightings in Antarctica recently and now zooming in on a mountainous region, we found what appears to be several disc-shaped UFOs on a mountain ridge of the Victory Mountains.
Whether the UFOs have crash landed, part of a secret military project or may be of extraterrestrial origin, is not clear, but there is clearly a lot of activity around these disc-shaped objects.
First location:
2 UFOs and operational base
UFOs: 40 meters in diameter
Coordinates: 73° 4'46.72"S 73° 4'46.72"S
Second location:
3 UFOs and operational base
UFOs: 10 meters in diameter
Coordinates: 73° 4'50.32"S 167°41'36.31"E
How many hours of scouring Google Earth must it take to find these things?
The mountain range where the object was found lies on Antarctica‘s northern coast near Australia.
Huge bright object recorded over Lake Mary, Florida 17-Feb-2020
Huge bright object recorded over Lake Mary, Florida 17-Feb-2020
This stationary unidentified flying object was seen and filmed in the sky above Lake Mary in Florida on 17th February 2020.
Witness report:
Observed Orange Star like object. Driving into work on Lake Mary Blvd. stopped at traffic light on Lake Mary Blvd and Lake Emma and witnessed a star like orange object, so I decided to record it, not realizing that there was a object above it with all kinds of lights, a long cigar shape. (Attached recording) Got to work at 3300 Exchange Place, Lake Mary and decided to get my camera and started recording to see if I could find the object and I got it on camera. Then I saw another object to bottom right, plus the orange one, and cigar one which was high. Then all of a sudden an object (green) appears above the cigar object, and beams down at something in the ground and then disappears! I continued to record until I had to go into work.
Massive UFO Fleet Appears Over Pennsylvania, Expert Claims
Massive UFO Fleet Appears Over Pennsylvania, Expert Claims
KEY POINTS
A fleet of UFOs appeared over a community in Pennsylvania
Some of the bright objects appeared in large clusters
The objects could be satellites orbiting Earth
Anew video shows an alleged fleet of UFOs flying over a community in Pennsylvania. As seen in the clip, the strange objects were moving slowly in the same direction.
The video was taken by an eyewitness as he was driving with his family in King of Prussia. It was shared on YouTube by Scott Waring of ET Data Base.
In the video, clusters of bright orbs can be seen in the sky. Although they did not appear to follow a specific formation, all of them were moving in the same direction. Some of them were moving slowly while the others remained stationary.
“Personally observed with my family on the way home from the King of Prussia Mall, heading eastbound multiple bright lights in the sky remaining stationary,” the eyewitness stated. “Have video taken in car while observing. This is unexplainable unless there is some type of unknown military aircraft I am unaware of.”
Interestingly, the bright orbs appeared in different parts of the sky. Some of the objects were grouped in large clusters. Based on the brightness of the objects and since there were no stars in the sky when the video was taken, Waring noted that other people most likely saw the strange objects too.
Hopefully, videos taken by other eyewitnesses of their sightings could shed light on the nature of the strange objects.
“The UFOs were moving slowly, glowing and following the same path,” Waring wrote in a blog post. “I do not hear the objects over the sound of the cars on the freeway. This must have been recorded by others. Thousands of people must have seen this so I am expecting a few more videos to come in.”
Although it is not yet clear what the objects were, it is possible that the bright orbs were only satellites. Back when SpaceX launched the first batch of Starlink satellites in May last year, the event sparked numerous UFO sightings due to the formation of the satellites. As seen in the photos, the satellites orbited Earth together and appeared like a “train of stars” in the sky.
A photograph of a screen shows infra-red video of taken from a Mexican Air Force patrol aircraft of 7 bright objects flying over the eastern coastal state of Campeche on March 25, 2004.
From 2007 to 2012, a small team of military investigators looked into sightings of unidentified flying objects—yes, UFOs—from an office deep inside the Pentagon. The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, championed by former U.S. senator Harry Reid, paid contractors to analyze close encounters between military pilots and mysterious airborne objects.
Some of those close encounters probably involved secret military prototype front-line pilots didn’t know exist. Others, however, remain unexplained — and could be revolutionary for human civilization.
“Just because something’s unexplained doesn’t mean that it’s extraterrestrial, of course, but I never say never,” Nick Pope, who ran the British military’s own UFO investigative unit in the early 1990s, told me via email. “Extraterrestrial visitation might be unlikely, but if a single case turned out to be true, it would be a game-changer.”
One 2004 incident, in particular, has befuddled skeptics. Two U.S. Navy fighter pilots flying off the coast of southern California tracked an airliner-size, cigar-shaped object that appeared to hover and maneuver in ways that seem to exceed conventional aeronautics. “I have no idea what I saw,” David Fravor, one of the pilots, told The New York Times.
“There are still those observations that defy explanation—observations by highly trained individuals such as fighter or airline pilots who would recognize aircraft shapes and aircraft movements,” Luis Elizondo, the head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and related UFO efforts until his October resignation, told me via email.
“The basic instinct of intelligence personnel looking at the most convincing UFO sightings is to assume that they’re secret prototype aircraft or drones, developed either by another nation, or by another part of the government—but in a situation where the information is so compartmentalized nobody else can get access,” Pope said.
“Another theory is that some of these sightings are attributable to some sort of atmospheric plasma phenomenon that science doesn’t yet fully understand,” Pope added, using the scientific term for electrified air.
“Many UFO sightings in the southwest United States during the 1980s were actually secret advanced military aircraft such as the Lockheed F-117 and Northrop Grumman B-2,” Elizondo said.
There has been no shortage of rumored or confirmed, high-performance military prototypes in recent years that could account for UFO sightings. The U.S. Air Force secretly developed the RQ-170 stealth spy drone in the early 2000s, finally admitting to its existence only after a photographer spotted one at an airfield in Afghanistan in 2007. It’s unclear whether sightings of the RQ-170 explain any recent UFO reports.
More recently, the Air Force has been working on a bigger and ever stealthier spy drone called the RQ-180, along with the new radar-evading B-21 bomber. In 2014, a mysterious, wedge-shaped aircraft—possibly an early technology demonstrator for the B-21 program—was photographed flying over Kansas.
The military and the defense industry have also been hard at work on so-called “hypersonic” aircraft and space-planes capable of flying at speed exceeding Mach 5. Some of those efforts are public. Others, such as Lockheed Martin’s self-funded SR-72 hypersonic spy plane, remain cloaked in secrecy.
The abundance of secret prototypes plying American skies gives plenty of cover to government investigators and skeptical outsiders whose impulse is to dismiss possible evidence of alien life. “That said, there are those in government—including, clearly, some of the intelligence officials who worked in the AATIP—who are prepared to think the unthinkable, and say that some of these things might be extraterrestrial,” Pope said.
The 2004 video seems unexplainable now. But remember, many similarly mysterious UFO sightings in the past turned out to be military prototypes. Maybe aliens really are buzzing Planet Earth. But if history is any guide, it’s more likely the Pentagon’s own advanced aircraft that are making surprise appearances in front of baffled pilots.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.