Where Did the Polynesians Really Come From?

Oceania was the last region to be settled by humans and the last part of Oceania to be settled by humans was Polynesia. Polynesians are famous for their voyages to remote islands in distant parts of the Pacific. Using outrigger canoes, they founded a society across islands stretching in a triangle from the Hawaiian Islands to Easter Island to New Zealand. That society was reasonably well-connected by trade, language, culture, and religion, despite its distribution over such a large area.

One major question today is where did the Polynesians originally come from? Several theories have been proposed over the years, but one which is gaining ground is that the Polynesians originated from Taiwan, parts of Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia. Another intriguing area of study is the genetic connection between Polynesians and South Americans.

Could the Polynesians Have Origins in South America?

One early theory of the origin of Polynesians is that they came from South America and sailed west, eventually reaching the Polynesian triangle. This was proposed by the archaeologist, writer, and explorer Thor Heyerdahl , who even constructed a Polynesian outrigger canoe and, with a team, sailed it west of Easter Island from the South American coast. This demonstrated the feasibility of using a primitive craft such as an outrigger canoe to cross the Pacific.

Girls Carrying a Canoe in Samoa by John La Farge. ( Public Domain ) Polynesian outrigger canoes may have been used to cross the Pacific.

The thing to remember about experimental archaeology is that just because something could have theoretically been done doesn’t mean that it actually happened that way. Although it is plausible that Polynesia was settled by ancient South Americans; all the genetic, linguistic, and ethnographic evidence points toward a predominantly southeast Asian origin.

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The Express Train or Slow Boat to Polynesian Origins

The two main theories today are called the Express Train Hypothesis and the Slow Boat Hypothesis. The Express Train Hypothesis says that Polynesians originally come from Taiwan by way of the Philippines and Melanesia. According to this view, Polynesians are mainly a part of a migration wave that came out of Taiwan.

The western part of Polynesia was settled between 3000 and 1000 BC by people from Taiwan via the Philippines as well as parts of New Guinea. Eastern Polynesia was settled beginning around 900 AD as Polynesian voyagers began to set out from Tonga and Samoa and other islands of western Polynesia to settle the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island, among other islands of the region.

According to the Slow Boat Hypothesis, the ancestors of the Polynesians are of Austronesian descent and still have a connection to Taiwan, but the ancestors of modern Polynesians spent several centuries intermarrying with people of Papuan and Indonesian lineage before setting out to Polynesia.

Depiction of possible Tahitian warrior dugouts. ( Public Domain ) Much of the origins of Polynesians remains uncertain.

The first view is supported by linguistic and ethnographic data, but there is genetic evidence for the second hypothesis. Genetic studies have shown, for example, that a significant percentage of the Polynesian population has y-chromosomal DNA haplogroups coming from Papua New Guinea while most of the mtDNA comes from haplogroups in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

This suggests some degree of intermarriage between Polynesians and other Austronesian groups as well as non-Austronesian groups. Another possible line of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that there is a gap in the language evolution of Polynesian Austronesian languages. Polynesian languages have features that no other Austronesian languages possess. This could be because of interaction with Papuan and Indonesian populations.

Reconstruction of the face of a Lapita woman. National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. (Yanajin33/ CC BY SA 3.0 ) Genetic studies have shown that most mtDNA in Polynesia comes from Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Are there Amerindian Connections to Early Polynesians?

It is even possible that Thor Heyerdahl may have been partly right about an Amerindian connection . Genetic studies of the Rapa Nui of Easter Island reveal a small percentage of Native American ancestry (8%). To be fair, this study also revealed 16% European ancestry for the Rapa Nui.

However, the genes and haplogroups associated with European descent are much less degraded due to recombination than those associated with Native American descent, making it clear that European haplogroups are from 19th century Europeans intermarrying with the natives. The genes associated with Native American ancestry are much older, suggesting a date closer to the 13th-15th centuries AD for these elements entering the genes of the Rapa Nui .

However, a study in 2020 has suggested that the date for Polynesians meeting South Americans should be pushed back even further, to around 1150 AD. The nature of those genetic links and the location for that first contact also differs from previous beliefs. As Ed Whelan writes:

“Genetic evidence appears to prove that Polynesians are related to present-day Indigenous people, especially from the coast of Colombia and Ecuador. Interestingly, the DNA study concludes that the earliest contact was on Fatu Hiva, an island in the South Marquesas islands, sometime around 1150 AD, and not Rapa Nui which is much closer to the coast of South America.”

Is it possible that Amerindian cultures are partially responsible for the colonization of Polynesia, or at least part of it, after all?

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Genetic analysis appears to prove that Polynesians have genetic roots tracing back to diverse regions across the Pacific and the Americas, denoting the mixed origin of the population. 

(Ruben Ramos-Mendoza / Nature)

Although it is possible that South American voyagers sailed to Polynesia to meet the Rapa Nui or another group of Polynesians, the Polynesians are known to have been more skilled at seafaring at the time, so it is more likely that it was the Polynesians who came to the Americas. The Polynesians may have come to South America to trade with the natives, and as a result may have ended up also bringing home South American brides.

Intriguingly, there is circumstantial evidence for pre-Columbian contact between Native Americans and Polynesians - chicken bones that have been found at an archaeological site on a beach in Chile that appear to predate the coming of the Spaniards.

Regardless of where the Polynesians originally came from, their ancestry appears to be more complex than initially thought. The more we learn about historical genetics , the more we realize just how convoluted the communication and intermarriage between different populations was in the past.

If we go far back enough, current thinking is that we are all a mixture of many lineages of mankind which originally diverged from a single lineage that goes back to Africa, perhaps 200,000 years ago.

• Top Image: A Wa'a Kaulua (double canoe) of Hawaiian Nobility of the 18th Century. Polynesia was inhabited by skilled seafarers. Source: Herb Kawainui Kāne

By Caleb Strom

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

Elongated Skulls Found in Completely New Region of Peru

Five sets of human skeletal remains have been discovered by investigators in Peru and, surprisingly, two of the five have elongated skulls. The find has been made in an area where this type of skull has never been found before. To add to the story, local knowledge speaks of a race of ‘Gentiles’ (pronounced ‘jenteelez’), who were larger than the indigenous people living in the region.

The History of Elongated Skulls in Peru

Throughout history, many cultures have artificially deformed the skulls of babies in order to achieve a flattened or elongated shape, which was often associated with the ruling or elite classes . Examples of this artificial cranial deformation (ACD) have been uncovered in Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, and the Americas from ancient times, as well as Oceanic and African tribes in modern times. When examined, most of these skulls exhibit features common to modern skulls, such as 3 cranial plates and sutures, as well as a brain size of around 1200-1400 cc.

But in 1928, Julio Tello , a Peruvian archaeologist, came across extraordinary elongated and oversized skulls in a cemetery in Paracas, Peru. These skulls had a cranial capacity that far exceeded the norm for modern humans

Paracas skulls, found on the south coast of Peru.

( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

These examples were baffling due to their size and unorthodox structure , and remain so to this day. In fact, DNA testing performed in 2014 perhaps just muddied the water more, when a geneticist reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far”. And then later testing at labs in Canada and the USA claimed they were from “the Haplogroup (genetic population group) of H2A, which is found most frequently in Eastern Europe, and at a low frequency in Western Europe.”

So when it comes to elongated skulls in Peru, there is clearly much more work needed in order to reach any conclusions regarding how or what has caused the misshapen forms and abnormal capacities.

The recent find involves examples of skulls that seem to have roughly normal capacity but are misshapen. What is most exciting about this find, however, is the location of the discovery.

Locations of Elongated Skulls in Peru

Paracas is a desert peninsula located within Pisco Province on the south coast of Peru, and the skulls there are known to range from 2800 to 800 years old. An example found in 2015 was a mummified baby’s skull with an enlarged cranium . This finding is suggestive of a genetically elongated skull since the process of ACD takes at least 6 months to produce the desired effect.

Other elongated skulls have been located in Nazca, 111 miles (178 km) to the south and dated from 200 to 100 BC, Tumbes 935 miles (1500km) to the north of Paracas, and Colca Valley in the south-east of the country (from the Collagua people and dated 1100 to 1450 AD ).

Proto Nazca deformed skull, c 200–100 BC.

( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

The elongated skulls discovered by Philip J.S. Jones and his indigenous friends are not as voluminous as the Paracas examples, and it is not currently established whether their unconventional shape is a result of ACD or a genetic factor. However, the significance of the find is that they have been found in an entirely new region, with no other extended skulls found anywhere near it previously. This, along with the local folklore, demanded further investigation.

Side and front angle of skulls.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Well Worth a Call

When I was first approached by Philip J.S. Jones, I administered my usual measure of skepticism. I was intrigued, but in my position working with a successful website I am lucky enough to get a bunch of emails of the ‘discovery’ type each month. They range across the spectrum of possibilities and various levels of excitement. It’s part of the thrill of the role. Each day one learns something new, and each day one ‘discovers’ something previously unknown (even if it was only previously unknown to me).

However, the following kind of email doesn’t drop into one’s inbox everyday:

“At the end of 2018 I found some skeletons with skulls that have extended crania, in a previously undiscovered tomb in the Peruvian Andes at about 3400m above sea level. They are said to come from a long lost civilization, called the "Gentiles" locally. This is an important discovery as these types of skulls were unknown in the area.”

When someone writes to say they have found some elongated skulls, and the clincher – ‘I’ve got pictures’, the adrenaline begins to rise.

One of two elongated skulls discovered in the mountains in the Cuzco region of Peru, North of Abancay.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

How to ‘Come Across’ Elongated Skulls in Peru

Philip J.S. Jones is someone who could be described as an explorer, or perhaps these days as a ‘seeker’ personality, although he would probably refer to himself as ‘just a normal bloke’. But his exploits stray far from the norm. ‘Normal blokes’ don’t end up high in the Peruvian Andes gallantly defending a local community from incumbent mining companies - and winning. Normal blokes don’t just happen to be in the right place at the right time with the courage, grit, and qualifications to save a community’s homeland. ‘Normal blokes’ take a hike to Machu Picchu and shoot a selfie.

Now, elongated skulls are not a new discovery, and, although they are rare, there are still hundreds of them in various museums around the world. But finding one (or more) is just not the kind of thing that happens every year or even every decade, and for any archaeologist, or even anyone curious about dipping into mankind’s ancient origins, this is likely to be ‘once in a lifetime’ stuff. Eat your heart out Brien Foerster !

Two of the skulls show distinct signs of elongation.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

So how did this extraordinary find come about?

In 2008, Philip first visited South America and, as many of us do, he fell in love with the continent and its unusual and intriguing people. And because he ‘could build things’ he found himself off that well-beaten track, building a dormitory in a village in the mountains, a place he would return to almost every year over the next decade.

In 2018, he was making one of his regular visits to his now long-time friends when one of those friends iterated a local folk tale, known as “ Los Tres Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas ”, which Philip has since put to paper. This tale talks of a lost race of people known as ‘Gentiles’ - a different race who once lived in the region and were “said to be taller than the Chanca tribe” and thriving in the region in the years before the 1530 AD. Legend has it that the Gentiles were banished to live underground by a firestorm sent down upon them by the gods as punishment for their greed.

Although interesting, what brought about the discovery of interest here was the viewing of a documentary a few days later that discussed the Paracas skulls. Speaking of them with his friends, Philip was told there were examples of these to be found in caves in the surrounding mountains, and some had extended mandibles to boot! (Presumably longer than the Habsburgs).

Some of the skulls include teeth, but no mandibles have been recovered.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Seeking Out the Extended Skulls

Once Philip had heard there were long skulls in those hills, I imagine it was hard to shake them out of his own cranium, which, incidentally, appears to be fairly ordinarily shaped.

And so it was, the small group of Philip, Vilma (his friend), and two wily 15-year-olds called Tania and Wilder, set off from the tiny pueblo near where the skulls were found. After a treacherous hike (as it is dramatically portrayed by Philip in his book, ‘ The Three Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas’ ), they found what is described as a ‘worked cave’, having some human modification to transform it into somewhat of a tomb (common in the mountain cave tombs found in the Andes). Here they did make a find, but not exactly what they were seeking. Yes, there were some human remains, but there were no skulls attached.

Disappointment is a feeling often associated with exploring, seeking, and archaeology, but the antidote to this can be perseverance, and it was just two weeks later that Philip received word that Wilder had gone on his own quest for skulls and, in a staggering spot of luck (or perhaps the reward for perseverance), had been successful.

Fifteen-year-old Wilder, demonstrating admirably the invaluable contribution of local knowledge in this type of investigation, had come across the skulls that are the subject of this report. They were found in a completely different tomb, somewhere in the mountains nearby. It is highly likely that this tomb was previously known to the local community through the ages, but had been long forgotten.

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Three of the skulls, including the two extended skulls.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Ramifications of the Find

So we have the discovery, almost completely by chance, of evidence of extended crania in a new region of Peru, around 100 miles (150 km) north of Abancay. It shows that the tradition of modifying skulls spread wider than was previously known; or that there was a separate race with odd-shaped skulls living in the region - the Gentiles?

To find out the details of this find, such as their antiquity, cranial capacity and origin, the skulls will need to be sent off to laboratories with the appropriate equipment, and this will require a suitable institution to take interest. So, for now, confirmation of the reach of the artificial cranial modification tradition in Peru – or indeed the existence of ‘Gentiles’ – remains in the realms of amateur interpretation, with questions that still abound. For now, the skulls are in the safe hands of the authorities in a remote community high in the Andes in South Central Peru.

You can discover more about how a lawyer from England happens across elongated skulls in Peru, the legend of the Gentiles, and more, in Philip’s books, The Three Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas’ , and ‘ A Peruvian Diary’ , or even tune in for more of Philip’s fascinating discussions on Strange But True Radio .

• https://www.facebook.com/hughan88/
• Top image: Several of the extended or elongated skulls being measured. Source: © Philip J.S. Jones

By Gary Manners

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Sea Monster Discovered in Hull of King’s Ship

During the summer solstice of 1495 AD, the royal flagship Gribshunden of the Danish King Hans, also known as King John of Denmark, sank when sailing from Copenhagen to Kalmar, Sweden, where it was to meet Sten Sture the Elder as part of Hans’s claim to the Swedish throne. The shipwreck was discovered by sport divers in the 1970s, but unaware of its significance they didn't alert archaeologists until 2000. The Gribshunden shipwreck, from the late medieval period, came to media attention when archaeologists salvaged a fabulously well-preserved wooden figurehead of a dragon-like monster from the stern and brought it to the surface, probably the only one left in the world from a 15 ^th century ship.

Buried in silt in the ancient hull of the ship, archaeologists have now discovered a barrel containing the skeleton of what appears to be an ancient sea monster measuring two meters (6.56 feet) long. Having applied DNA analysis to the sea monster’s remains, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have announced that the remains come from an Atlantic sturgeon. It appears that King Hans was aiming to demonstrate both power and grandeur to Sten Sture by presenting the giant fish, but the Gribshunden caught fire and sank, taking with it the monster’s skeleton which has remained on the bed of the Baltic Sea for over five hundred years.

The Gribshunden shipwreck came to media attention when archaeologists salvaged a fabulously well-preserved wooden figurehead of a dragon-like monster from the stern and brought it to the surface.

( Blekinge Museum )

The 120,000-Million-Year-Old Legacy About To Go Extinct

The Atlantic sturgeon is a prehistoric fish that has existed for more than 120 million years. Its long, hard, upturned snout, has four sensory barbels on the side of its mouth which is soft and toothless. Famed for its eggs, which are used for caviar, this bony ancient-looking fish has no scales but five rows of bony plates, called scutes, which protect its head and body. While males can weigh up to 90 pounds (41kg), females can weigh up to 160 pounds (72.5kg). Atlantic sturgeons can live for more than 60 years and while males do not reach sexual maturity until they are at least 10 years old, females take nearly 20 years to mature.

The largest Atlantic sturgeon ever recorded was caught in America’s Chesapeake Bay , measuring over 4.2 meters (14 ft) long and weighing almost 370 kilos (811 lbs). The Atlantic sturgeon was an important fishing industry commodity from colonial times up until the early 20th century. However, in 2012 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  officially declared the Atlantic sturgeon an endangered species, defining it as “almost extinct.” Today it is illegal to fish for, catch or harvest Atlantic sturgeon or their eggs.

Skeletal remains of the ancient sturgeon were found in a barrel buried in silt in the hull of the shipwreck.

(Lund University / Science Direct )

Ancient Sea Monster Preserved in the Pantry of a King’s Ship

Discovered fifty years ago, King Hans’s shipwreck was well preserved in the Baltic Sea’s high salt oxygen-free environment, and an absence of deteriorating shipworms has offered researchers data about how royal ships in late Middle Age Europe functioned. But it was the discovery last year of a wooden barrel in the royal pantry that uncovered the giant fish.

In a press release , Dr. Stella Macheridis, a researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University, said “it is a really thrilling discovery” and that it has been “very exciting” to work with the ancient sea monster . The professor also added that when the fish remains were first discovered, they instantly knew it was a sturgeon because of its bony plate armor.

Skeletal remains of the ancient sturgeon which measured two meters long.

(Lund University / Science Direct )

A Monstrous Tool of Propaganda

While the scientists knew the fish was a sturgeon, it was incorrectly assumed to have been a European sturgeon, commonly found in the Baltic Sea at that time. However, the new DNA analysis revealed it was an Atlantic sturgeon, the species currently on the endangered list and nearing extinction. King Hans must have planned on seriously impressing the Swedes with the ancient sea monster !

Maria C. Hansson, the molecular biologist at Lund University who carried out the DNA analysis, said that for her the discovery is “of major significance” because it offers a glimpse of what the Baltic Sea looked like before we interfered with it. Thanks to the discovery we now know that the Atlantic sturgeon was a member of that ancient ecosystem. In order to reanimate the creature, the professor claims that by using underwater DNA it might be possible “to recreate what it looked like previously.”

• Beast from the Deep: Rare wooden figurehead salvaged from historic Danish shipwreck
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• Legendary Sea Monsters of the Past May Not Be Myth After All

Sturgeon remains are rare archaeological finds. Thanks to this breakthrough discovery in an ancient royal environment, it is now known that the giant creature was a symbol of high status and power in the medieval period. Brendan P. Foley, marine archaeologist at Lund University, and project coordinator for the excavations, explains that the sturgeon located in the ships pantry was “a propaganda tool” that would have served a political function. As such it provides archaeologists with crucial information about medieval European politics, religion and economics.

• Top image: Buried in silt in the hull of the Gribshunden shipwreck, archaeologists have now discovered a barrel containing the skeleton of what appears to be an ancient sea monster measuring two meters long. Source: Reuseableart

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte}

02-09-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED AFTER A FIGHTER PILOT CHASED AFTER A UFO

BY NICHOLAS VRCHOTICKY

On October 1, 1948, World War II veteran fighter pilot George F. Gorman, then serving in the North Dakota Air National Guard, decided to get in some night flying practice while the conditions were ideal. Gorman was soaring along in his P-51 Mustang, reports History, when he encountered something he'd never seen before: a glowing white orb.

Being such an oddity, Gorman flew closer to the orb to check it out. He reports that the orb was blinking on and off until he came close to the object, at which point it remained a steady white. Gorman estimated the object was roughly six to eight inches in diameter. The object must have sensed the plane's presence somehow, because it banked sharply to the left when Gorman approached it.

The pilot gave chase, but the object wasn't having it. According to Gorman, the orb accelerated faster and moved more sharply than any craft he'd ever seen in the air. At two points during the chase, the object and Gorman played a game of chicken, with Gorman pulling away at the last second during the first encounter and the orb doing the same during the second. After the second near-collision, the orb shot up vertically and climbed so fast that the P-51 Mustang stalled out in its chase. All in all, Gorman says he followed the object for nearly half an hour. After landing, Gorman reported that the object had no exhaust trail and made zero sounds.

Before you start thinking that George Gorman was some sort of kook, you should know that several other sources saw the object as well. This includes one other pilot, two air traffic controllers, and two Civil Aeronautics Authority employees who were on the ground. Gorman was checked out by government investigators who found him to be stable and trustworthy, so insanity is out the window.

The P-51 from the chase was examined by a U.S. Air Force investigator from Project Sign, which would later be named "Project Blue Book." What is Project Blue Book? According to another entry at History, it's the Air Force project that investigated UFOs and UFO phenomena. The Project Sign investigation showed increased radioactivity from Gorman's aircraft. To be fair, this could have been caused by trying to follow the orb at high altitudes.

The object was too highly advanced to have been new Cold War tech of the times, but was ultimately rationalized as a weather balloon, in the same way the National Security Agency rationalized the Roswell incident: Rapid movements of the "balloon" were caused by the air movement created from Gorman's P-51. Gorman never spoke publicly about the incident, which was then classified for decades. "Weather balloon." Sure, yeah, right.

{ https://www.grunge.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

Martian dust devil seen skipping across the red planet

Researchers had to process the images to make this impressive dust devil really stand out.

 by Tibi Puiu

 

Although Mars’ atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth’s, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t just as complex and dynamic in many regards. Mars has cyclonic storms, clouds, seasons, and — as NASA recently illustrated in a fantastic video — dust devils.

This one-of-a-kind footage was recently recorded by Curiosity rover’s Mastcam at Gale Crater. It shows a Martian dust devil casually moving from the left of the frame towards the right.

Seeing the same atmospheric phenomena common on Earth on another planet in such detail is both fascinating and scientifically valuable. Right now, Gale Crater is in its “windy season” and recordings like this can help scientists better understand how atmospheric movements affect Mars’ climate.

Dust devils on Mars form under the same conditions as in Arizona’s desert. These rotating columns of air pick up dust and debris typically on clear summer days when the ground is very hot. The hotter part of the ground heats the air directly above it, whose temperature becomes higher than the surrounding air, so it rises, punching through the cooler air above and creating a vertical column of warm, rising air. If there is a gust of wind, the arrangement is blown sideways.

On Earth, dust devils are pretty small ranging in height from 10 to 100 feet. But in 2012, NASA caught an amazing dust devil that was half a mile tall, and 100 feet wide. It was far from the biggest — dust devils were recorded in the several miles high range.

This particular dust devil recorded on Sol 2847 (a ‘sol’ is a day on Mars) was active for just 5 minutes but the video was fast-forwarded to span just a couple of seconds.

Because they’re much more powerful than on Earth, dust devils on Mars are thought to play an important role in the planet’s climate. These transport vast amounts of fine particles of dust from the surface to the upper atmosphere. The dust alters the albedo or reflectiveness thereby directly influencing the temperature on the surface of Mars.

“These give us the most information about dust devils, such as where they initiate, how they evolve, and how much variety there is in size, dust-content, and duration. Looking at how fast they’re moving and in what direction also tells us about the background wind speed and direction at their location,” Claire Newman, Atmospheric Scientist at Aeolis Research, wrote in a NASA blog post.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

01-09-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

A hole in the ground is just a hole in the ground … unless it’s a mysterious Siberian crater, 165 feet deep, and has something about it that Siberia’s leading crater expert tells The Siberian Times:

“This object is unique. It holds a lot of additional scientific information, which I am not yet ready to disclose.”

Huge craters that seem to appear overnight with no advance warning or visible explanation have been plaguing Siberia for the past few years. Yamal (the name means End of the Earth) Peninsula in northern Russia is where the first ones were found starting in 2014. Rumors of giant sandworms, alien spaceships, secret government weapons, hungry reindeer (really!) and other strange theories were considered before scientists like Vasily Bogoyavlensky of the Russian Oil and Gas Research Institute in Moscow settled on hydrolaccoliths or pingos, which are mounds of frozen water, soil and methane gas which build up pressure as climate change warms the permafrost until they explode and collapse. Well, that’s the accepted theory.

Craters belong on the Moon, not in Siberia

“Through the cracks, natural gas got into the melting ice core, filled it and the pingo erupted. It was also heated by a stream of warmth coming from the bowels of the earth through the cracks … It’s a very interesting process, which we have never observed before.”

Bogoyavlensky was baffled in 2014 when he inspected his first crater, but methane was always a possibility for him. While most scientists blamed the pingo explosions and collapse on the heat of climate change, one in 2016 generated this unusual theory from Vladimir Melnikov – the Head of the Faculty “Earth’s Cryosphere” at the Tyumen State Oil and Gas University.

“There was a grass and lichen cover on the Yamal Peninsula. But with increasing number of reindeer, the [vegetation] gets overgrazed. The reindeer are eating too much. No moss, no cover to reflect [sunshine] from the soil surface.”

Who points the finger at reindeer … other than other reindeer playing games? Another strange incident occurred in 2015, when an expedition was sent to inspect a crater containing what appeared to be a metallic object, possibly a spaceship.

“At this moment their call ended, and we could not reach them again. When we sent a back-up helicopter to the site there was no sign of the three-man team. They have vanished. The crater was empty.”

That story seemed to disappear too.

Where did they go?

While many are pushing the climate-change-melting-permafrost-triggering-pingos-making-craters explanation, some are blaming overly aggressive natural gas mining by Russian companies. Could that be what Bogoyavlensky is not yet ready (or perhaps afraid to) disclose?

“In a number of areas, pingos – as we see both from satellite data and with our own eyes during helicopter inspections – literally prop up gas pipes. In some places they jack up the gas pipes… they seem to begin to slightly bend these pipes.”

It’s not clear how close this latest crater is to the nearest city or village (photos here), but many have been close. They also seem to grow over time as sides collapse and the crater fills with water. The scariest aspect is that they’re generally big, deep, unannounced … and happening more frequently every year.

Giant new 50-metre deep 'crater' opens up in Arctic tundra

By Anna Liesowska

Blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of metres from epicentre of the funnel at the Yamal peninsula.

The new funnel filmed from air by the team of Yamal-based TV station.

Picture from July 2020 by Vesti Yamal

The recently-formed new hole or funnel is the latest to be seen in northern Siberia since the phenomenon was first registered in 2014.

It was initially spotted by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment. 

A group of scientists then made an expedition to examine the large cylindrical crater which has a depth of up to 50 metres.

Such funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface.

Pictures of B1, the very first funnel seen in summer 2014 on the Yamal peninsula, and a map of the first four funnels in both Yamal and Taymyr peninsula.

Pictures: Vasily Bogoyavlensky

Scientist Dr Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading researcher at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, said: ‘What we saw today is striking in its size and grandeur. 

'These are the colossal forces of nature that create such objects.’

The 'crater' - these holes are called hydrolaccoliths or bulgunnyakhs by scientists - is given the number 17, and is seen as the most impressive of the large holes to suddenly appear in recent years as the permafrost thaws. 

Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of the Russian Oil and Gas Research Institute in Moscow, told Vesti Yamal: 'This object is unique. It carries a lot of additional scientific information, which I am not yet ready to disclose. 

'This is a subject for scientific publications. We have to analyse all this, and build three-dimensional models.’

A new funnel was noticed by chance by a crew of Vesti Yamal TV as they were flying from an unrelated assignment.

Pictures from July 2020 by Vesti Yamal

The craters appear because ‘gas-saturated cavities are formed in the permafrost…

’In a literal sense, a void space filled with gas with high pressure. The covering layer distends, the thickness of which is 5-10 metres approximately.

Explosions have happened in swelling pingos, or mounds in the tundra which erupts when the gas builds up under a thick cap of ice. 

Bogoyavlensky has previously claimed that human activities, like drilling for gas from the vast Yamal reserves could be a factor in the eruptions. 

He is concerned at the risk of ecological disasters if pingos build up close to a gas pipelines, production facilities or residential areas. 

‘In a number of areas, pingos - as we see both from satellite data and with our own eyes during helicopter inspections - literally prop up gas pipes,’ he said previously.

‘Crater’ sounds too boring, ‘pingo’ sounds too cute and ‘hydrolaccolith’ sounds too scientific. Climate-change-induced methane explosion hole sounds like the real (not to mention scary and depressing) cause, but as long as drilling goes on and scientists are suspicious and hesitant to speak … these Siberian craters will continue to be mysterious.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-09-2020 om 22:54 geschreven door peter  

There’s one thing you can say for sure about the Men in Black: they’re very weird. Witnesses to the M.I.B. describe them as looking pale and gaunt. Their skin sometimes appears plastic-like, and completely free of lines. Sometimes they wear wigs. On other occasions they sport large, wrap-around sunglasses. And, perhaps strangest of all, they seem to not understand what food is. If it is offered to them, they simply stare at it. There’s another aspect to the M.I.B. weirdness. It’s the matter of their vehicles. They are just as weird as the M.I.B. themselves. I guess it’s something we should expect. With that said, let’s now take a look at some of the stranger, car-based cases that have a tie to the Men in Black. We’ll begin with a friend of mine, Tracie Austin, author and radio-host. Like me, Tracie is originally from the U.K., but now lives in the United States. She told me of a very strange experience she had late one night back in the U.K. in the 1990s.

As she drove along the road, Tracie said: “…I noticed there was an old, black Lincoln car coming towards us in the opposite direction. Although it was old, it looked new, but it was an old style, and it was totally out of place. And, coming from England, in Cheshire, that’s just not the kind of car you see: an American Lincoln. That’s what I thought: what’s an American car doing here? As the car approached us – coming the other way – I tried to see who the driver was, but I couldn’t see anybody. I’m not saying the car was driving itself, but I just couldn’t make out anyone. No-one. I could see it had really shiny bumpers and there was no [license] plate, at all. And I noticed that with every car behind that Lincoln, it was like it was the leader of the pack. I could see the drivers of the cars behind were all kind of ‘switched off.’ It looked like an automatic mode. Like they were in a daze. It was very, very odd.  We got down the road and my friend said: ‘Did you see the way that vehicle was moving?’ I said, ‘No, what do you mean?’  He said: ‘The wheels were going around, but they weren’t touching the ground.’ It was just like it was hovering, but not high, or I would have known. I was too busy trying to see the driver. I just said: ‘Oh, my God.'” Moving on to another case…

Nick Redfern and a sinister (but cool) car…

As bizarre as it might sound, there are a number of reports on record of black cars (A) entering and exiting UFOs late at night; and (B) of apparent aliens exiting UFOs and getting in cars. Yep, I know: it’s really weird. Back in 2009, longtime Ufologist Tim Beckley shared just such a story with me. Tim said: “I remember one incident where I was lecturing and a gentleman – a professor at the college where I was lecturing – came up to me  and told this story about how he was driving outside of a town in Michigan. It was rather late at night,  and he saw these lights in the woods. He pulled over, and there was no other traffic coming in either direction, but there was already another car parked at the edge of the road.” Tim continued: “He described seeing some sort of ship in the distance – a UFO. A group of human-like aliens got out of the UFO, walked to the car – which was a Cadillac, or something like that. He watched them and could see they looked human. They just got in the car and drove off. But then, a couple of weeks later, he sees one of the same guys in a supermarket. These reports sound farfetched, but there’s so many of them of what seem to be aliens being able to move among us.”

Dr. Josef Allen Hynek was provided with the details of a fantastically-strange MIB encounter, that occurred in a small Minnesota town in late 1975, and that falls firmly into just such a category. Ironically, no UFO was seen on this particular occasion, but the chief witness was harassed by the driver of a large, black Cadillac on a particular stretch of highway, and who nearly forced the man into an adjacent ditch. The irate man quickly righted his vehicle and headed off in hot-pursuit, only to see the black Cadillac lift into the air and, quite literally, disappear in the blink of any eye!

For Robert Easley, a resident of Defiance, Ohio, the weirdness began in the early hours of July 11, 1967. He was woken up by the sound of his phone ringing. Easley quickly answered it – perhaps fearing it was someone with bad news. It was actually a woman who wanted to report a sighting of two UFOs over the town – a sighting that was still going on. Easley jumped into his car and sped off into the night. It turns out that Easley was shadowed all the way by a black Cadillac, very often the preferred mode of transport for the MIB. The car had no license plates, which is typical, too. As for the driver, who kept very close to Easley’s vehicle, his upper body and head were silhouetted and dark. That was not good news. The MIB soon vanished, however, taking another road and leaving Easley worried and slightly paranoid. On the night of July 15, the MIB returned, yet again in his black Cadillac, following Easley for a number of nail-biting miles. Tim Beckley tells the story of what happened next: “When [Easley] pulled into his driveway, the unknown car sped off. Later that evening as he sat talking with his girlfriend on the front porch, the car came down the road and stopped right in front of the house, as soon as the topic of UFOs entered their conversation. Easley could feel the man looking at them. When they got off the subject the car left, but when they got back on it about an hour later, the same car came back again. It was as if the driver could hear what they were saying or read their minds.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-09-2020 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

If you thought it was strange that the huge Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico was damaged and shut down by a single cable accident, you’re not alone. If you were suspicious about the asteroid that passed by Earth recently so close that it set a record yet no one seemed to have seen in coming, you’re not alone either. If you think those two event might be related, you’re part of a growing group that wonders if the telescope was sabotaged to prevent it from detecting that the asteroid was actually a UFO. Was it?

“One of the auxiliary cables that helps support a metal platform in place above the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, broke on Monday (Aug. 10) causing a 100-foot-long gash on the telescope’s reflector dish. Operations at the UCF-managed observatory are stopped until repairs can be made.”

The University of Central Florida (UCF) manages the massive telescope (second in size only to China’s newly-opened Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST)), which has survived hurricanes (including Maria in 2017), tropical storms and earthquakes since it went operational in 1963. The single 3-inch-diameter cable causing the shutdown was said to have snapped for no apparent reason – on a telescope that is constantly monitored and maintained and has never had an accident of this kind, even during high storm winds. Suspicious yet?

The Arecibo Observatory

“The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun. We didn’t see it coming. [Sunday’s] close approach is [the] closest on record. If you discount a few known asteroids that have actually impacted our planet.”

Paul Chodas, who is the director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, didn’t see asteroid ZTF0DxQ or 2020 QG coming on August 16th. The Palomar Observatory in California, didn’t detect it until around six hours after it passed by. NASA’s announcement used the excuse that the SUV-sized asteroid was “tiny.” Suspicious yet?

“The Arecibo radio telescope was knocked out of commission just a few days before, lands the possibility that this was a coordinated effort, so they could not see that this asteroid coming in, or what it actually was, a cigar-shaped UFO.”

Podcaster Daniel Liszt, aka Dark Journalist, brings the two suspicious events together and wonders if ZTF0DxQ was actually an SUV-sized UFO. His YouTube video generated many responses agree with him, as did a similar shorter video by UFO Sightings Hotspot.

With 2020 being such a strange year and the Pentagon and the mainstream media being more open than ever about UFOs, it’s no surprise that the options were considered, the connections were made and people were suspicious. But … is it really possible?

2020 QG detected by NASA’s Zwicky Transient Facility (or was it something else?)

Let’s start with the cable. Who would sabotage a valuable telescope just to keep it from seeing a single unusual space object? Why only this one? Could it really have been the only telescope in the world that could see ZTF0DxQ – whatever it was? While it was the closest, ZTF0DxQ was one of many asteroids that have flown by without NASA or anyone else seeing them. Was this one so unusual that it had to be kept hidden from the public? If any amateur astronomers (who have been observing a lot more events lately since the pandemic shutdown) recorded it, should they keep it to themselves? To get fully conspiratorial, could this be a coordinated smokescreen to distract the public’s attention from something else? After all, this IS 2020!

What do you think? At this point, a connection between Arecibo and ZTF0DxQ seems creative but coincidental, not conspiratorial. However, all that could change if more information is uncovered.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-09-2020 om 21:15 geschreven door peter  

Synchronicities: Roswell and the MJ12 Documents

Nick Redfern

Now and again, we all have a strange coincidence. Some people view them as simply that and nothing else at all. Then, there are those like me who believe in the phenomenon of synchronicities. It’s a phenomenon defined like this by Psychology Today: “Synchronicities are events connected to one another not by strict cause-and-effect, but by what in classical times were known as sympathies, by the belief that an a causal relationship exists between events on the inside and the outside of ourselves, a crosstalk between mind and matter—which is governed by a certain species of attraction. Jung believed that synchronicities mirror deep psychological processes, carry messages the way dreams do, and take on meaning and provide guidance to the degree they correspond to emotional states and inner experiences.”

Carl Jung

At the Psychreg site we learn the following: “Contrary to popular belief, the notion of synchronicity is not inconsistent with a scientific mindset. Indeed, Carl Jung developed his ideas on synchronicity in part through discussions with Albert Einstein. He wrote about synchronicity only after Wolfgang Pauli, another father of quantum mechanics, convinced him to do so. Synchronicity has some features in common with the physical phenomenon of entanglement, whereby physical particles at vast distances from each other have been found to interact instantaneously.”

All of this brings me to my own synchronicities. Or, in this case, one specific event. It all went down in late 2005. That was when I was due to fly to Puerto Rico for a week with Redstar Films of Canada. It’s a company run by a good friend of mine, Paul Kimball. The plan was to make a documentary on the Chupacabra and other mysterious phenomena on the island. It all went well. What I’m going to share with you now, however, is what happened just before my plane took to the skies. It goes as follows: As I sat on the tarmac, waiting for the Puerto Rico-bound plane to take off from Chicago’s airport, I got chatting with the guy who was sitting next to me. It transpired that he served with the U.S. Army, and had a fiancé who lived on the island, who he was going to visit. They were due to marry in 2006. Bob was his name and, after I told him of my reasons for traveling to Puerto Rico, we got into a brief, but deep and entertaining, discussion about all things paranormal and mysterious. Bob told me that he had heard all sorts of odd stories on the island about the Chupacabra, about aliens, and about underground bases. He then asked me about my opinions on Roswell. His question was close to something like this: “Wasn’t there a secret group that supposedly hid the Roswell story? And didn’t some files supposedly surface from them a few years back?”

“Yeah,” I replied, adding words like these: “It was called MJ12, which was supposed to be this group of high-fliers in the government and the military who were keeping it all under wraps. But, I think that the files were disinformation to hide the real truth.” Namely, a dark and disturbing human experiment angle. I added: “The MJ12 researchers have got it all back to front.” At the exact moment that I uttered those words, an aircraft passed us slowly on an adjoining runway; and, out of the window, I could see that its tail-numbers ended: 12MJ. I stared, utterly startled.  MJ12 back-to-front.  The gods of synchronicity were certainly playing strange mind-games with me that day. What it all meant, I don’t know. But, it was a suitably weird start to an even more weirder week of creature-seeking!

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-09-2020 om 21:04 geschreven door peter  

The Alpha-Draconians: Reptilian Alien Race - Humanoid Robots - WhatWeKnow

The alpha draconians predate Humans well over hundreds of millions of years. They are sapient reptoids who were “seeded” here, by another unknown and vastly superior reptilian who are loosely identified as Tiamatians. They appeared into our reality from another dimension, somewhere from what the Hindu Sanskrittexts refer to as Lokas and Talas. The points of entry into our known universe is suspected to be through a gateway at Thuban or Alwaid.

The propagation on Earth initially began with the seeding of dinosaurs. As sauria blooded dinosaurs evolved into Iguanodontia, dinosaur intelligence became more sapient. Eventually, they became upright and walked as bipedals, known as Saurians. As they became more sapient, they also developed telepathy. Over the course of millions of years their societies became highly advanced to the point that the Saurians developed a space program even more sophisticated than what we know to be as NASA.

The Saurians may have been aware of their history, and identified or perhaps longed to find the Alpha Draconian stargate that their progenitors came from. In time, these advanced saurians became known as the Cekahrr who developed what ufologists know today as, the Alpha Draconian Empire.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

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01-09-2020 om 20:23 geschreven door peter  

1.5 Meter Skull Found On Mars Near Jar, Sept 1, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Sept 1, 2020 (Taiwan Time)
Location of discovery: Mars Sol 1524-1520
Source photo: 

• http://www.gigapan.com/galleries/13476/gigapans/193579

I was looking around a photo for some ancient artifacts when I came across this huge jar and skull. They sit side by side and I wonder did the skull once rest on this round jar like pedestal? Now if this skull is a fossil...then at 1 meter by 1.5 meters...that would be one tall alien! There is no way to know for sure 100% without actually examining the skull in person, but I do believe it is an artistic rendition enlarged and probably once had colored stone eyes and objects decorating it. It would be something to see in pristine condition. It should be abundantly clear that NASA has been lying to the public all along. If I had control of the rovers and satellite HD close ups...I could confirm or dismiss these objects in minutes. But if NASA is not using the rovers to do this...then we all know why...because these are ancient alien artifacts. The USA always hides such things that may be an advantage for the US to know about...they call it a matter of national security. Such knowledge must be shared, its a crime against humanity to hide it. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

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01-09-2020 om 18:08 geschreven door peter  

Glowing Orbs Seen Over Beach On Island In Florida, July 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: July 2020
Location of sighing: Okaloosa Island, Florida, USA

An eyewitness on an island in Florida caught sight of several glowing orbs flying around the sky and hen the orbs unite and fly together. Strange how they move around the sky over the beach as if they want to be seen. Drones cannot be ruled out, since such tech does exist today, however the UFOs seem to want to be seen. Perhaps aliens are taking a more serious stance toward revealing their existence to the world. There is also lightning in the background flashing...which UFOs are known to cause. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

Eyewitness states: 

Very interested in what other people think these lights may be! I only saw the lights in the sky - they did not come from the sea that I know of. One guy to my right not seen in the footage was also looking but I checked around and I couldn't find any other people who seemed to notice the sky.... makes you wonder how often we are missing something !! I'm actually an Arkansan haha ... was on vacation:) yes I was so perplexed to see these ... I know people say drones but my husband was in the USAF and he does not think those are drones so.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

01-09-2020 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

Black Hole Discovered Using World Wide Telescope, Sept 1, 2020, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Sept 1, 2020
Location of discovery: Taurus Constellation
Map: 

• http://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/
  
  

I found something on a sky map that looks very similar to the first black hole photo ever recorded. In the above screenshot, you see a side by side comparison. They have the same shape, color, shadows, dark center. There can be no doubt that this object is a black hole that I found in the Taurus constellation. But the fact is, using this map I have seen other such objects...so, black holes seem to be more common that astronomers thought. But If I can find these black holes...they why haven't they? And if astronomers of the world have...why haven't they reported them? Perhaps there are so many out there that earths future may look shorter than we thought. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

01-09-2020 om 17:56 geschreven door peter  

UFO Half Size Of Moon Passes Sun In SOHO Images, Aug 29, 2020, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

The above and below images have added shadows to bring out the detail. SCW

Date of sighting: Aug 29, 2020

Location of sighting: Earths Sun

Source photo: 

• https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov//data/REPROCESSING/Completed/2020/c2/20200829/20200829_0724_c2_1024.jpg

I found a huge UFO near our sun today. The UFO is about 1/2 the size of our moon. When I add darkness to bring out the details (in 2 photos above) I find that the detail of the craft becomes apparent. There are two wing like arms on each side. The craft also is pointed in the front area and is wide and flat in the back area of the ship. There is a blur around the craft...which I believe to be a force field protecting the ship. I have to say I was surprised at the above screenshots details. I had not expected to find such a high quality outline of the craft and shield area. It is expelling something out the back of the craft, but I believe that it must in order to appear as a meteor or comet to force all astronomers into believing its not a UFO. But...we are smarter than than aliens think. 

Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

01-09-2020 om 17:51 geschreven door peter  

It seems as if NASA forgot to put the ISS live stream on a blue screen something which they normally do when a UFO comes into view.

During a recent NASA live stream, cameras on board the International Space Station (ISS) recorded a UFO as it leaves Earth's atmosphere.

The unknown object does not pass in front or behind earth. When analyzing and adding a close-UP screen, you can clearly see that it leaves the atmosphere to disappear into space.

  

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

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

01-09-2020 om 17:31 geschreven door peter  

Government Create A Task Force to Investigate UFOs That Might Pose A National Security Threat

The Pentagon launches a new investigative team to dig into bewildering UFO sightings and events reportedly spotted by U.S. military personnel, officials confirmed Friday.

Officially set up in early August, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) will be run by the Department of the Navy. The official Pentagon launch of a new probe unit follows increasing focus from Defense officials and Congress on puzzling UFOs spotted near restricted airspace and military bases.

In a press release published Friday, Pentagon officials wrote that they established the UAPTF to gain insight into and improve its understanding of the nature and origins of UFOs or what they officially referred to as UAPs. The task force’s mission is to detect, analyze, and catalog UFOs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Defense personnel did not immediately clarify what pushed the formation of the new task force. Still, the department later released three videos caught by U.S. Navy pilots that look to show airborne objects operating beyond physics. The aerial phenomena captured on videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified,’ the agency revealed. Shortly after the release, President Trump described the footage as “a hell of a video…I just wonder if it’s real.”

In May, multiple hazard reports highlighting encounters between unidentified aerial phenomena and Navy aircraft were made available to the public via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee also voted to require the Defense Department to make an elaborated report for the public, synthesizing all UAP-related data collected so far.

Pentagon officials said in a statement on Friday that the safety of their personnel and the security of their operations are of paramount concern. The information added that the Defense and the military departments take the case very seriously and examine each report.

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

01-09-2020 om 17:12 geschreven door peter  

Three big threats to satellites — and what to do about them (op-ed)

By Herbert O. Funsten  

Space weather, nukes and more.

Space junk is making low Earth orbit crowded.

(Image: © Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock)

Herbert O. Funsten is a space scientist and leader of the Intelligence and Space Research division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Since the dawn of the space age in 1957, 80 countries and intergovernmental organizations have launched more than 9,000 objects into space — with nearly 800 in just the past year. While the benefits of this explosive rise in space-based ventures are many (better communications, scientific advancements and stronger national security, to name a few), there are drawbacks as well. The more congested space is, the more contested it becomes, creating challenges for both national and global security. 

Here's a look at three of the biggest threats to satellites and what's being done to counter them. 

• Related: Satellite quiz: How well do you know what's orbiting Earth?

1. Space weather

Space might seem like an empty, vacuous void, but in reality, the space environment is extraordinarily dynamic. Our solar system is bathed in a continuous shower of cosmic rays and salvos of energetic particles from solar storms — all of which can penetrate a satellite, microscopically fry its electronics, and, in extreme cases, render it useless.

One solution is to predict space weather to give satellite operators the chance to temporarily shut down part or all of a spacecraft to protect it. But this is surprisingly difficult. How do you forecast a space storm?

Recent scientific innovations hold promise. For example, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a new machine-learning computer model accurately predicts damaging radiation caused by the intensification of Earth's Van Allen radiation belts two days prior to the storm, the most advanced notice to date. 

The new model predicts future events by being trained and validated with existing satellite data sets from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and Los Alamos sensors to learn important behavior patterns among the blobs of particles. With the expectation that similar, subtle patterns may repeat themselves in the future, the data-informed model — powered by deep-learning algorithms — makes forecasts by capturing critical indicators that are precursors to those future events. The Los Alamos team is now working to make the model better at predicting severe radiation events in near-Earth space, allowing earlier forecasts. 

• Related: Anatomy of sun storms and solar flares (infographic)

2. High-altitude nuclear explosions 

If an adversary wanted to disable hundreds of satellites and severely hobble a country, launching a nuclear weapon into low-Earth orbit (LEO) and detonating it could do the trick. Although nuclear explosions in space have been banned since 1963 by international treaty, we need to be able to protect our space assets from a rogue nuclear event by knowing where we can move our satellites and for how long. We would also like to know if there are ways to reduce or eliminate any artificial radiation belt created by the blast. 

To move a satellite, researchers here are developing a new solid-fuel rocket that could be stopped and restarted multiple times (something that has previously been a handicap of solid fuel thrusters) so satellites in LEO could quickly maneuver to a safer orbit. Solid rocket fuel is high thrust, safe, and low cost, plus it can be stored for extremely long periods of time. Los Alamos tests have successfully and safely demonstrated the ability to stop and restart the motor. 

As for eliminating an artificial radiation belt, Los Alamos is partnering with NASA to send the first linear electron accelerator into space. The accelerator will produce an electron beam that can be used as a "virtual antenna" to generate the types of electromagnetic waves that are known to scatter electrons out of the radiation belts. 

This new understanding, and a suite of new computer simulations being developed at Los Alamos, will let researchers determine if the experiment could be scaled up to actively scatter radiation belt electrons into the atmosphere where they would be harmlessly absorbed, no longer posing a threat to commercial and military satellites. This would go a long way to reducing the threat posed by a rogue nuclear blast in space.

3. Congestion in space

Currently, almost 3,000 operational satellites orbit Earth, and that number is rising due to the proliferation of launch opportunities for small satellites, primarily into LEO. Soon, we Earthlings will likely be launching more than 1,100 satellites per year, rapidly increasing the risk of collisions. Just one small crash could result in debris of thousands of BB-sized pellets hurtling through space in different directions at thousands of miles per hour. If just a few of those BBs hit another satellite, the shredded satellite would create more orbital debris, starting a runaway chain reaction.

Researchers at Los Alamos are working to mitigate that risk by developing an optical "license plate" for satellites called ELROI (yes, after the boy on "The Jetsons"). Solar-powered and the size of a Scrabble tile, it emits a unique series of faint blinks that are imperceptible to the naked eye, but can be observed with a small telescope to quickly identify and locate the satellite. Analogous to the beacon system on commercial aircraft to monitor and control air traffic around the globe, this license plate could be affixed to every spacecraft launched into orbit to track their movements. Then, if two satellites looked like they were on a collision course, the operators could be notified so they could maneuver the satellites out of the way (perhaps with the help of the aforementioned restartable solid-fuel rocket). 

ELROI could also potentially help track adversarial spacecraft that might be used for nefarious purposes. A launch is hard to hide, but once you're in space, it's easy to get lost in the crowd, which makes space an appealing place for countries with illicit motives to operate in. While these countries are unlikely to identify their secret spacecraft with a license plate, if all other spacecraft were identifiable, it would be easier to pinpoint and track the needle in the haystack. 

As space becomes more congested — and contested — the importance of protecting our assets becomes more critical. By investing in scientific research, we can make sure that, for every potential threat, we have technological answers. 

• Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

01-09-2020 om 01:24 geschreven door peter  

Submarine could explore seas of huge Saturn moon Titan

By Mike Wall 

The sub could be ready to launch in the 2030s, researchers said

Researchers have proposed sending a submarine to explore the huge Saturn moon Titan's frigid seas of methane and ethane.

(Image: © NASA Glenn/NIAC)

A submarine could explore alien seas just a few decades from now.

Researchers have been crafting a concept mission that would send a submarine to Saturn's huge moon Titan, which sports lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons on its frigid surface.

Such a mission, if approved and funded by NASA, could be ready to launch in the 2030s, potentially paving the way for even more ambitious submarine exploration down the road, the concept's developers said.

• Related: Amazing photos: Titan, Saturn's largest moon

"We feel that the Titan submarine is kind of a first step before you go do a Europa or Enceladus" sub mission, Steven Oleson, of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio, said last month during a presentation with the agency's Future In-Space Operations working group.

Europa and Enceladus — moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively — both harbor huge oceans of liquid water. But these two water bodies are buried under ice shells and would therefore be tougher to drop a sub into than Titan's surface seas.

A weird and potentially habitable world

At 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) wide, Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system. The only one bigger is Jupiter's Ganymede, which has Titan beat by just 75 miles (120 km).

But size isn't all that makes Titan special. For example, the giant moon is the only world beyond Earth known to host stable bodies of liquid on its surface — those seas and lakes of liquid methane and ethane, some of which are bigger than North America's Great Lakes. 

In addition, Titan's thick atmosphere likely hosts complex chemistry involving organic molecules, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. As a result, many astrobiologists view Titan as a promising potential abode for life, suggesting that native organisms could be swirling in the moon's air or swimming in its lakes and seas.

Those swimmers would be very different from anything that exists here on Earth, given that they'd be making a living in liquid methane or ethane rather than water. Titan's surface is far too cold for water to remain liquid, but scientists think the moon hosts a salty sea of the stuff deep underground, like Enceladus, Europa and a number of other solar system bodies.

It's therefore possible that Titan hosts two completely different and separate ecosystems — a surface world of "strange life" that overlies a realm of more familiar (to us, anyway) water-reliant organisms.

• Related: The 6 most likely places for alien life in the solar system

Exploring the hydrocarbon seas?

Most of what we know about Titan we've learned from the $3.2 billion Cassini-Huygens mission, which studied Saturn and its many moons up close from 2004 through 2017. The bulk of this work was done by NASA's Cassini Saturn orbiter, but significant contributions also came from the Huygens lander, a European Space Agency-Italian Space Agency probe that touched down on Titan in January 2005.

NASA is working on a Titan spacecraft of its own — an eight-rotor drone called Dragonfly, which is scheduled to launch in 2026. If all goes according to plan, Dragonfly will land on Titan in 2034, then study the moon's complex chemistry and potential habitability at a number of different locations.

A submarine could be the next step in Titan exploration. The agency has not selected the Titan sub idea as an official mission, but Oleson and his team did get two rounds of funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which seeks to spur the development of potentially game-changing exploration ideas and technologies. Those two NIAC grants, worth $100,000 and $500,000, were awarded in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

The main goal of the NIAC work was to draw up a basic engineering blueprint of a potential Titan sub, Oleson said.

"Is it possible?" he said during the FISO presentation. "What kinds of technologies are needed? What's unique about that environment?" 

The uniqueness is multilayered. For instance, though Titan is huge for a moon, it's much smaller than Earth, sporting just 14% of our planet's gravitational pull. That means a Titan sub wouldn't experience nearly as much pressure on its hull as a sub would at the same depth on Earth.

And the Titan sub would be cruising through a different medium than the ones here on Earth do. But that's not necessarily a negative, either. A submarine could push through liquid hydrocarbons fairly easily, Oleson said, and the stuff is transparent to radio signals, enabling communication with the craft even while it's submerged.

Those communications could reach the sub directly from Earth or be relayed via a Titan orbiter, depending on the mission architecture. 

• Related: Amazing Saturn photos by NASA's Cassini spacecraft

A standalone Titan submarine would need to be big — about 20 feet (6 meters) long, with a weight (on Earth) of 3,300 lbs. (1,500 kilograms) — to accommodate the requisite communications equipment, Oleson said. A sub with an orbiter companion, by contrast, could fit the same science instrumentation into a body just 6.5 feet (2 m) long, with a weight of about 1,100 lbs. (500 kg).

That science gear should include, at the bare minimum, a chemistry package that analyzes liquid samples, a surface imager, a depth sounder, a weather station and an instrument that measures the physical properties of the surrounding sea, Oleson and his team determined. Additional instruments could analyze seafloor samples and image the ocean bottom, among other tasks.

The researchers also investigated the possibility of staying on the surface with a boat, which would probe the Titanic depths intermittently with small, instrument-laden devices called dropsondes. This would be a less risky option, but the reward would be lower as well, Oleson said.

"We're losing out on science, just from the fact that we can't submerge and do a lot of these tests," he said of the boat idea.

A standalone submarine or a sub-orbiter duo would likely be flagship missions, Oleson said. Flagships are NASA's most expensive and ambitious missions, with price tags generally in excess of $2 billion these days. Examples include Cassini-Huygens, the Mars rover Curiosity and the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance, which launched toward the Red Planet in late July.

NASA might be able to pull off a Titan boat mission via its New Frontiers program, Oleson said. New Frontiers missions, such as Dragonfly and the New Horizons Pluto probe, cost significantly less than flagships. Proposals for the latest round of New Frontiers funding, which resulted in Dragonfly's June 2019 selection, had to abide by a cost cap of $850 million (not including launch or mission-operations costs).

All versions of a Titan sea explorer would be nuclear-powered, just like Cassini and Dragonfly. Saturn lies 10 times farther from the sun than Earth does, so sunlight is spread pretty thin on Titan. (And a solar-powered submarine would probably be a bad idea even here on Earth, given that such vehicles make a living plying dark depths.

Launch in the 2030s?

Titan's high northern latitudes host almost all of the moon's lakes and seas, including the two most intriguing submarine-exploration targets, Kraken Mare and Ligeia Mare. 

Both of these bodies are enormous. Kraken Mare covers about 154,000 square miles (400,000 square km) and is at least 115 feet (35 m) deep. Ligeia Mare has an area of 50,000 square miles (130,000 square km) and a maximum depth of 560 feet (170 m).

Like Saturn, Titan has seasons that last around seven Earth years apiece. It would be best to explore Kraken or Ligeia during Titan's northern summer, when a spacecraft could image shorelines in visible light and communicate directly with mission controllers on Earth, Oleson said. 

A 2045 arrival at Titan would therefore be a good choice, he said. If the mission included an orbiter for communications, arriving during the northern springtime, around 2040, is also an option, Oleson added.

The journey to Saturn takes about seven years, so a Titan sub mission of any type would need to launch in the 2030s (unless we want to wait another three decades for the seasons to shift again). 

That timeline "would be fine with us — to be able to get this ready in the next decade to push there," Oleson said.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life.

Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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31-08-2020 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Japanese company SkyDrive Inc. says it envisions a society where flying cars are an "accessible and convenient means of transportation."

AE

By Anthony Esguerra

SCREENSHOT FROM A VIDEO OF THE SD-03 FLYING CAR MODEL TEST FLIGHT BY SKYDRIVE.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT/SKYDRIVE

Looks like futuristic fantasies of flying cars zipping through the sky just became closer to reality. 

Japanese company SkyDrive Inc. announced on Friday, August 28, that it had successfully conducted a public test flight for its new SD-03 flying car model—billed as the first demonstration of its kind in Japan.

The SD-03 was tested at 10,000-square-meter (approximately 2.5-acre) Toyota Test Field, one of the largest test fields in Japan, the company said in a statement.

The single-seater aircraft-car mashup was manned by a pilot who circled the field for about four minutes before landing. The company said that the pilot was backed up by technical staff at the field who monitored conditions to ensure flight stability and safety. 

SkyDrive CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said the company hopes to see its technological experiment become a reality by 2023.

“We are extremely excited to have achieved Japan’s first-ever manned flight of a flying car in the two years since we founded SkyDrive in 2018 with the goal of commercializing such an aircraft,” Fukuzawa said. 

“We want to realize a society where flying cars are an accessible and convenient means of transportation in the skies and people are able to experience a safe, secure, and comfortable new way of life,” he added. 

Designed to be the world’s smallest electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) model, the flying car measures two meters high by four meters wide (six feet high by 13 feet wide). It takes as much space on the ground as two parked cars. 

“We believe that this vehicle will play an active role as your travel companion, a compact coupe flying in the sky,” said Takumi Yamamot, the company’s design director. “As a pioneer of a new genre, we would like to continue designing the vehicles that everyone dreams of.”

The company has not listed a price for the aircraft as of yet, though executives feel confident that sci-fi enthusiasts and busy commuters alike will take to the new mode of transportation. According to the company’s timeline, they envision the SD-03 to be operating with “full autonomy” by 2030.

“The company hopes that its aircraft will become people’s partner in the sky rather than merely a commodity and it will continue working to design a safe sky for the future,” the company said in its statement.

{ https://www.vice.com/en_us }

31-08-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter