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.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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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...
06-10-2020
The Carter Administration’s Attempt to Create a NASA UFO Commission
The Carter Administration’s Attempt to Create a NASA UFO Commission
Forty-three years ago was the last time the U.S. government considered creating an official commission to investigate and report on UFOs. Despite Washington’s efforts to dissuade the public from any interest in UFOs through the 1969 issuance of the University of Colorado’s Condon Report, UFOs continued to appear. Eight years later, with President Jimmy Carter in office, his administration thought the time was right to officially request that NASA look into the phenomenon.
As put by a NASA scientist in a memo issued around the same time, however, “undertaking a formal [UFO] study at this time appears fraught with perils.” Needless to say, the commission was never finalized, and the 1977 deliberations between NASA, the White House, and other governmental agencies are an almost-forgotten episode in the official history of American ufology.
Jimmy Carter, UFO Witness
The inauguration of Jimmy Carter as the thirty-ninth President of the United States ushered a new round of expectations in the UFO community. After all, it could be said he was a member of that community. President Carter, who was a former Georgia governor, peanut farmer, and U.S. Navy nuclear engineer, not only claimed to have seen a UFO but officially reported it. In terms of UFO data, President Carter’s sighting is not an impressive incident, falling into the category of nocturnal light. The sighting would surely be forgotten if Carter had not become the president.
Steven Spielberg mentions Jimmy Carter potentially releasing UFO information in this video.
The first account of Carter’s sighting appeared in October 1973—during that year’s big UFO flap—when dispatches from Georgia quoted the governor’s first statement on UFOs: “I’ve seen one myself.” The story was picked up in the press, prompting the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Maryland to send UFO questionnaires to the Georgia State Capitol. Carter personally filled out both questionnaires and gave permission to use his name as a witness. According to the questionnaires, the sighting occurred “shortly after dark” in October 1969 when Carter and ten other “members of Leary Georgia Lions Club” were “outdoors waiting for a meeting to begin at 7:30 p.m.” The sighting lasted between ten to twelve minutes and the object, located at “about 30 degrees above the horizon,” was described as “about the same size as the moon, maybe a little smaller, varied from brighter/larger than planet to apparent size of the moon.”
President Carter’s UFO story reemerged as he gained prominence during the 1976 presidential campaign. On June 8, the National Enquirer published a short interview with Carter in which he said, “I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one,” adding that “I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky.” In that interview, Carter also made an important promise to the American public: “If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.”
Ironically, the only ufologist to really investigate Carter’s sighting was skeptic Robert Sheaffer. The main clue was that Carter claimed to have seen the object while visiting the town of Leary to lecture at the local Lions Club. In his book, The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence, Sheaffer recounts that his effort to locate additional witnesses was difficult, but he was finally able to find one who remembered seeing, “like a blue light or something or other in the sky that night.”
However, Sheaffer soon discovered that there was a problem with the date given by Carter as the date of the sighting. Carter always said that in the sighting occurred in October 1969, but the Lions Club in Leary had disbanded in February of that year. Sheaffer eventually located the official records of the meeting at the Lions Club International Headquarters. The exact date of Carter’s speech in Leary was January 6, 1969, “nine months earlier than Mr. Carter’s recollection had placed it.” Furthermore, after computing the position of the planets for that date, Sheaffer discovered that “Venus was a conspicuous evening star, nearing its maximum brilliance. Venus was . . . at 7:15 PM, at about 25º elevation, in virtually the exact position where Carter had placed his UFO.”
The result of Sheaffer’s investigation was mostly ignored because it robbed the public of identifying the president as a witness to a genuine UFO. Yet, there is a high probability that what Carter saw could have been explained. The visual tricks that Venus can play in the eyes of the beholder have been known for decades by competent UFO investigators like Allan Hendry, who has characterized Venus as “the real champion” of the stars and planets that tend to cause UFO sightings.
The sighting, however, was only one aspect of President Carter’s link to ufology. The other was his campaign promise to release all the UFO data held by the government. Stanley Schneider, assistant to President Carter’s White House Science advisor Frank Press, later admitted to the New York Times that “public interest in this has been brewing for several months, slowly building up . . . It was getting to be more than we could handle.” In fact, so many letter about UFOs were sent to President Carter that Virginia ufologist Larry Bryant eventually published a book on the letters entitled, UFO Politics at the White House: Citizens Rally ‘Round Jimmy Carter’s Promise. One indicator of the campaign’s impact was revealed by U.S. News & World Report in its April 18, 1977 edition. Under the heading of “Official Word Coming on UFOs,” the magazine stated that “before the year is out, the Government—perhaps the President—is expected to make what is described as ‘unsettling disclosures’ about UFOs . . . based on information from the CIA.”
NASA’s UFO Past
In an attempt to achieve UFO disclosure, the White House had difficulty in developing a coherent policy, and thus, NASA became the logical candidate. Unlike the U.S. Air Force, NASA had never been officially involved in the UFO controversy, although a link between the two surfaced occasionally. Popular UFO articles, books, and movies often displayed UFO photos taken by NASA astronauts, but the great majority of these images were explained by prosaic phenomena such as lens flares, booster rockets, or items ejected from space capsules.
White House science advisor Dr. Frank Press (left) with President Jimmy Carter.
Image credit: American Institute of Physics
While NASA never officially investigated UFOs, it did produce a few UFO-related documents such as the Kennedy Space Center’s “NASA Management Instruction (KMI 8610.4)” of June 28, 1967, regarding “Processing Reports of Sightings of Space Vehicles Fragments.” The four-page-document signed by the space center’s director, Kurt H. Debus, contained procedures dealing primarily with manmade space vehicles, but KMI 8610.4 added that “reports of sightings of objects not related to space vehicles” were also included: “It is KSC policy to respond to reported sightings of space vehicles fragments and unidentified flying objects as promptly as possible.” The document provided definitions of “Space Vehicle Fragment” and “Unidentified Flying Objects,” and KSC personnel were instructed to “call in unidentified flying object reports to the Patrick Air Force Base Command Post.”
Additionally, NASA’s name appears often in connection with mysterious space crashes such as the one in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965, which later led to a lengthy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against NASA by journalist Leslie Kean. The space agency also appeared as a “forwarding” office in several declassified documents from other government branches.
NASA’s Response to the White House
It was against this background that NASA found itself tasked with official UFO responsibility early on in the Carter administration. That segment of the population that believed Earth was being visited by aliens had not forgotten Jimmy Carter’s campaign promise. The president’s science and technology advisor, Frank Press, became the White House official in charge of the UFO problem, but outside help was sought when the White House became overwhelmed with UFO mail. Press stated in his July 21, 1977 letter to NASA administrator Robert Frosch “that the focal point for the UFO question ought to be NASA.”
President Carter giving the Robert Goddard award to NASA Administrator Robert Frosch.
Image credit: NASA
“There appears to be a national revival of interest in the matter with a younger generation becoming involved,” wrote Press, adding that “this is a public relations problem as much as anything else.” Press’s problems were twofold: First, the most immediate issue was how to deal with the growing number of correspondence regarding UFOs being received by the White House. Second, Press has to face the substantive issue of whether there was any truth to the UFO phenomenon and he believed that a new “panel of inquiry could be formed by NASA” to review the UFO evidence and “see if there are any new significant findings.”
First letter by White House science advisor Frank Press to NASA Administrator Bob Frosch stating that “the focal point for the UFO question ought to be NASA.”
Image credit: Huneeus Collection
Subsequent FOIA requests revealed that even before Frosch responded to Press on September 6, 1977 the U.S. Air Force was already meddling in the affair. One of the most significant and prophetic pieces of paper to come out of this period is a four-line letter written on September 1, 1977 by Colonel Charles H. Senn, the chief of the air force’s community relations division. The addressee was another former air force man, Lieutenant General Duward L. Crow, who was, at that time, the assistant deputy administrator of NASA. Along with an enclosed “UFO Fact Sheet and standard response to UFO public inquiries” that Crow had requested, Senn wrote, “I sincerely hope you are successful in preventing a reopening of UFO investigations.” Considering what took place in the ensuing months, when NASA literally turned down an official request from the White House, one does not need to be particularly conspiratorial to see that the air force was not a neutral party in this drama. Before Frosch’s response to Press was sent on September 6, the letter was rewritten twice by Crow.
Colonel Senn’s letter to retired Lieutenant General Crow, with a highly suggestive phrase about “preventing a reopening of UFO investigations.”
Image credit: NASA/Huneeus Collection
Bob Frosch’s letter was courteous, but not encouraging. The strategy for responding to UFO inquiries from the public through “form letters” and “information sheets” was discussed, as both NASA and the air force had discovered long ago that it was the most economical method. It obviously had its problems, continued Frosch, such as the lack of a “focal point for technical appraisal of sightings.” No quick action was to be taken regarding the proposed UFO panel or commission, wrote Frosch, “before . . . we should assure ourselves that an inquiry is justified.” His suggestion, therefore, was to name “a NASA project officer to review reports of the last ten years” and “provide a specific recommendation” by the end of the year.
Press’s response to Frosch a week later stated he was “pleased . . . that NASA can handle the public inquiries” so as to “relieve my staff of a responsibility we are not equipped to handle.” Frosch never said in his letter that NASA would handle the mail for the White House; instead, he had only referred to the air force and NASA’s experience in using form letters. Press agreed fully with Frosch that the NASA commission was something that should be weighed carefully and wrote, “I can understand your reluctance to commit the agency to a formal program.” He conceded that it was up to the space agency to review the UFO situation as it best saw fit.
NASA’s review of the UFO question was not a formal study, but an in-house analysis of the options available. The key document is a four-page memo, “UFO Study Considerations,” dated November 8, 1977 written by Dr. Noel Hinners, NASA’s associate administrator for space science. Dr. Hinners considered “the question of what NASA could reasonably do in both the short and the long term,” he wrote in his memo to NASA’s assistant administrator. The scientist went about his task in a straightforward manner, outlining succinctly the current UFO scene which included
“Widespread interest” with about half of the American population believing “something” exists;
Interest in forming a “specialized agency” in the United Nations;
A formal study group being set up by the CNES, NASA’s counterpart in France;
Several solid private UFO organizations in the USA “with responsible membership”;
An increase in reports of what Hinners referred to as “the near encounter type”; and
A wider acceptance within the UFO community of a government cover-up, meaning not only that the Government “knows far more than it has released,” but that it “may even have pieces of UFO hardware in hand.”
Dr. Hinners analyzed the problems facing a NASA UFO review: the “apparent lack of any tangible or physical evidence for laboratory analysis,” and the “absence of any sound scientific protocol for investigating the phenomenon firsthand.” The word “apparent” in the first line is to be noted while the word “absence” in the second line is questionable. After three decades of amateur investigations, by 1977, civilian UFO organizations had achieved a degree of this so-called “scientific protocol.” Other problems outlined by Dr. Hinners were the abundance of “secondary source materials” or “hearsay”; the prejudices on the part of investigators; hoaxes; “the delicate interface,” as Hinners put it, between the government and UFO witnesses; and “the danger of projecting an inaccurate NASA or Administration image.” Dr. Hinners’s conclusion was that, “all in all, undertaking a formal study at this time appears fraught with perils.”
First page of Dr. Noel Hinners’ key internal NASA document, “UFO Study Considerations,” of November 8, 1977.
Image credit: NASA/Huneeus Collection
Dr. Hinners presented two choices to NASA. The first option was to reject the White House’s idea for “the Federal government and specifically NASA, to investigate the UFO phenomenon.” As Dr. Hinners opined, this option would give added fuel to the “charges of cover-up” by the UFO community, but it would also avoid “controversy . . . within the science community NASA deals with.” There were budgetary advantages too in keeping the current policy of form letters and not spending extra resources, but Hinners had the intelligence of pointing out that choosing this option “would also be begging the question.”
The second option was for NASA to consider creating a commission to investigate the topic. This option seemed almost identical to the early, positive days of the Condon Committee. Basically, Hinners’s thought was that the commission could request major UFO organizations “to submit their ‘best’ cases,” put “this material into a usable format,” update and revise it, and finally “ask for a peer review.” On the basis of this preliminary study, NASA would decide whether some form of permanent UFO investigative branch should be established. Hinners also recommended something that was later used by Bob Frosch in his final and formal rejection of the commission that, “as a minimum, having gone so far and this publicly, NASA should stand ready to investigate new hard evidence that might come in.”
In late November 1977, the White House decided to go ahead publicly with formally requesting a NASA UFO commission. The wire services carried the story and quoted David Williamson, NASA’s assistant for special projects, saying the agency was “not anxious” to study UFOs. Like Dr. Condon, Williamson appeared to disqualify any existence of UFOs before any official conclusion had been reached. “There is no measurable UFO evidence such as a piece of metal, flesh or cloth,” he said.
When Bob Frosch finally responded to Frank Press on December 21, 1977, nobody in Washington was surprised. The main theme was “the absence of tangible physical evidence available for thorough laboratory analysis” coupled with the willingness to analyze “any bona fide physical evidence from credible sources” submitted to NASA. Frosch also mentioned the lack of “a sound scientific procedure for investigating these phenomena” as a reason that a study “would be wasteful and probably unproductive.” The shadow of Dr. Condon, deceased since 1974, seemed to pervade this letter. Condon had concluded eight years earlier that science could not be expected to gain anything by studying UFOs. Frosch reached the same conclusion without even embroiling himself in a thousand-page report at a cost of over half a million dollars. After turning down the White House’s request, Frosch left a way out, just in case, writing, “I wish in no way to indicate that NASA has come to any conclusion about these phenomena as such; institutionally, we retain an open mind, a keen sense of scientific curiosity, and a willingness to analyze problems within our competence.”
In 1978, NASA released its revamped “Information Sheet No. 78-1” on UFOs. It stated that other than answering UFO-related mail sent to the White House, “NASA is not engaged in a research program involving these phenomena, nor is any other government agency.” The six-page document was an updated version of the old air force form letter, yet NASA added an interesting paragraph not to be found in the Pentagon’s counterpart: “Reports of unidentified flying objects entering United States air space are of interest to the military as a regular part of defense surveillance. Beyond that, the US Air Force no longer investigates reports of UFO sightings.” In other words, NASA provided an admission that NORAD and the U.S. military still keep an eye on UFOs with possible national security implications. The NASA document quoted extensively from the administrator’s letter about the “bona fide physical evidence” and lack thereof.
First page of the NASA Information Sheet Number 78-1 on “Unidentified Flying Objects,” the new revamped governmental form letter on UFOs to come out of the Carter failed ufological initiative.
Image credit: NASA/Huneeus Collection
It is interesting to see how quickly and effectively the government muzzled this revival of UFO interest. Although numerous FOIA lawsuits were being pursued by researchers, many months and even years would pass before some of these documents were obtained, processed, and publicized. But, the interaction between the White House, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force during this little known episode in President Carter’s administration offers a window into how the federal government deals publicly with ufology. The failed NASA UFO commission attempt by the Carter administration in 1977 is the last time the U.S. government even considered launching a new formal study. Given the current state of affairs in Washington, it’s extremely unlikely that a new effort will be attempted anytime soon, but the phenomenon itself is certainly not likely to go away.
Colonel Senn’s phrase becomes reality in this AP newswire story published in the NY Times on December 28, 1977, “NASA Refuses to ReopenInvestigations of U.F.O.’s.”
Image credit: NY Times/Huneeus Collection
A version of this article originally appeared in Issue #23 (December/January 2014) of Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.
Nick Pope worked for the Ministry of Defence investigating UFO reports in the 90s. Now he is a UFO pundit, often speaking to media outlets around the world on the UFO topic. In this interview, we will discuss recent news and Nick’s thought on what will come of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s request for UAP reports from the US military.
Science has proven that “hominids” have lived on this planet for a very long time. It has also proven that Homo Sapiens Sapiens have not.
Our ancestors arrived here as interstellar prisoners approximately fifty thousand years ago.
The optimal conditions for our exile were:
no memory of former lives
no tools or technology
a planet hospitable to our life form far from intergalactic civilization
no direct contact or interference in development
periodic monitoring and assessment
Based on certain facts, there have been theories stipulated, in various timelines, which support the concept that our entire planet was created as a sort of prison.
According to one theory, it is a prison for the observation of our species. For another theory, Earth is a spiritual prison.
Let’s keep an open mind about this, as it is only natural that when a theory is brought forth, supporting something different than what was taught in school, most people dismiss it without even considering the evidence.
Researchers have discovered the true colors of a group of fossilized insects, trapped in amber approximately 99 million years ago in Myanmar. The ancient insects include cuckoo wasps, soldier flies, and beetles, all bursting in metallic blue, purple, and green colors.
Comparisons between original and altered metallic colors in cleptine wasps. Credit: NIGPAS.
Nature is very visually rich but fossils rarely retain evidence of an organism’s original color. Nevertheless, paleontologists are now finding ways of teasing out colors from well-preserved fossils, whether they be dinosaurs and flying reptiles or ancient snakes and mammals.
Knowing the color of extinct species is actually very important, as it can tell researchers many things about the behavior of the animals. Colors could have been used to attract mates or warn off predators or even help with temperature regulation, for example. Knowing more about them can also help researchers know more about ecosystems and environments.
For the new study, a research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) looked at 35 individual amber samples with fantastically preserved insects trapped inside. The fossils were found in an amber mine in northern Myanmar.
“The amber is mid-Cretaceous, approximately 99 million years old, dating back to the golden age of dinosaurs,” said Cai Chenyan, the lead author, in a press release. “It is essentially resin produced by ancient coniferous trees that grew in a tropical rainforest environment. Animals and plants trapped in the thick resin got preserved, some with life-like fidelity.”
Colors in nature usually fall under three main categories: bioluminescence, pigments, and structural colors. The amber fossils found retained structural colors, which tend to be intense and rather eye-grabbing (including metallic colors) and are produced by microscopic light-scattering structures located on the heads, bodies, and limbs of animals.
The researchers polished the fossils using sandpaper and diatomite powder. Some pieces of amber were polished into very thin slices, making the insects clearly observable and the surrounding amber matrix almost transparent in bright light. The images included in the study were edited to adjust for brightness and contrast.
“The type of color preserved in the amber fossils is called structural color,” said Pan Yanhong, a co-author of the study, in a statement. “The surface nanostructure scatters light of specific wavelengths” which “produces very intense colors,” said Pan, adding that this “mechanism is responsible for many of the colors we know from our everyday lives.”
Diverse structural-colored insects in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar.
Credit: NIGPAS.
Among all the fossils, the cuckoo wasps were particularly stunning, with their heads, thorax, abdomen, and legs featuring hues of metallic blue-green, yellow-red, violet, and green. The color patterns were a close match to cuckoo wasps alive today, according to the research. Other standouts included blue and purple beetles and metallic dark-green soldier flies.
The researchers used electron microscopy to demonstrate that the amber fossils have a “well-preserved exoskeleton nanostructure that scatters light.”
“Our observations strongly suggest that the color preserved in some amber fossils may be the same as displayed by the insects when alive, some 99 million years ago,” wrote the authors in the study. “This is moreover corroborated by the fact that metallic blue-green coloration is frequently found in extant living cuckoo wasps.”
Stone Age Rock Tombs Found Near Göbekli Tepe Provide More Ancient Clues
Stone Age Rock Tombs Found Near Göbekli Tepe Provide More Ancient Clues
Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey, is regarded as one of the most importantStone Agearchaeological sites in the world. It has changed our view of how civilization developed. Recently, archaeologists working not far from Göbekli Tepe have made further discoveries related to the Stone Age complex.
They have found a large number of Stone Age rock tombs that could help to solve some of the mysteries of this prehistoric complex and the area that surrounds it. The excavation of the Stone Age rock tombs is near to the place where a Stone Age figure known as the Balıklıgöl statue or Urfa man, dating to 9000 BC, was also found.
Experts from the Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality were collaborating with personnel from the Culture and Tourism Ministry, who were investigating the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area, when they discovered the Stone Age rock tombs. They came across the burial site in the Old Town of Şanliurfa, not far from where some stunning mosaics of hunting Amazons were previously unearthed. The rock tombs are believed to have been part of the same cultural area as Göbekli Tepe.
The Urfa Man Is Much Like The Eye-Idols Found At Göbekli Tepe
The enigmatic Urfa man figure appears to be related to the distinctive T-shaped statues found at Göbekli Tepe , in particular in their ‘”double V-shape neck design”, according to Ancient Origins . The haunting empty staring eyes of the Urfa man have been likened to the so-called eye-idols found at Göbekli Tepe. The Urfa man figure is about 6 feet (1.80 meters) high and was most likely used for ceremonial or religious purposes and was possibly an idol. Hurriyet Daily News states that it has been called by experts the “oldest naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human.”
The Urfa Man with its empty eyes, which was found not far from the recently discovered Stone Age rock tombs in Turkey.
According to Zeynel Abidin Beyazgül, the mayor of the Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality, “a total of 662 shanty houses were demolished in the area and 61 rock tombs unearthed.” The rock tombs come in a variety of sizes and they appear to have been built later than Göbekli Tepe. However, it is believed that these tombs will provide evidence on the prehistoric site and its builders.
One of the so-called eye-idols found at Göbekli Tepe .
The Stone Age Mysteries of the Incredible Göbekli Tepe Site
Göbekli Tepe is a tell or massive earthen mound in the south-east of Turkey, a 30-minute drive from the city of Şanlıurfa. Göbekli Tepe dates to approximately 10,000 BC and was built and used by Stone Age people. It is home to the world’s oldest megalithic structure , which is comprised of 200 monumental T-shaped standing stones arranged in circular formations. The function of the site is not known but it was probably religious, and many view it as the world’s oldest temple. Göbekli Tepe is providing new evidence for the development of civilization and has already proven that Stone Age societies were much more sophisticated than once thought. In 2018, the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, but much of it is unexcavated and there are still many mysteries surrounding this incredible site.
The massive Göbekli Tepe earthen mound in the south-east of Turkey, a 30-minute drive from the city of Şanlıurfa, where the Stone Age rock tombs were recently discovered.
This is what makes the recent finding of the Stone Age rock tombs so exciting. The Mayor of Şanlıurfa told Yeni Şafak “We believe that the excavations we will carry out in the area where artifacts similar to the discoveries in Göbekli Tepe are going to be very significant.” Any links between the tombs at Kizilkoyun, and the UNESCO Heritage site is important because it could throw new light on Stone Age civilizations. The Mayor is quoted by Turkish Express as saying that “the excavations around the Kızılkoyun Necropolis will contribute to solving the mystery in surrounding Göbekli Tepe .” The Göbekli Tepe burial site is famous for the variety of its burials and funerary art.
More Discoveries Expected From The Kizilkoyun Necropolis
Investigations at the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area Stone Age rock tombs will continue, and any artifacts found at the site will be interpreted to determine if they are connected to Göbekli Tepe . There is great hope that the digs at the rock tomb site will solve some of the Göbekli Tepe mysteries that are still unsolved.
The mayor is quoted by Hurriyet Daily News as saying that “Şanlıurfa is already preparing for more discoveries, let humanity expect new surprises.” The burial ground is only one of many historic locations in the Turkish city, known as Edessa in ancient times, a strategically important center to several empires in classical antiquity.
Top image: The Stone Age rock tombs recently found at the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area not far from Göbekli Tepe .
The search for a habitable exoplanet has been a frustrating one. Although we've found a bunch of rocky planets orbiting at the right distance from their star, further investigation has so far mostly yielded nothing but barren poisonous rocks lashed with deadly stellar flares.
But according to new research using computer modelling to explore the conditions that could exist on different types of exoplanets, there could be places out there where life absolutely thrives - even more than it does on Earth.
And it all has to do with oceans.
"Our work has been aimed at identifying the exoplanet oceans which have the greatest capacity to host globally abundant and active life," explained geophysicist Stephanie Olson of the University of Chicago.
"Life in Earth's oceans depends on upwelling (upward flow) which returns nutrients from the dark depths of the ocean to the sunlit portions of the ocean where photosynthetic life lives. More upwelling means more nutrient resupply, which means more biological activity. These are the conditions we need to look for on exoplanets."
Olson and her team used software called ROCKE-3D developed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies to model rocky exoplanets. They modelled a range of different exoplanets to explore which would be the most likely to develop and sustain life, based on ocean circulation.
They found that thicker atmospheres combined with slower rotation rates and the presence of continents all produced higher upwelling rates.
"It shows us that conditions on some exoplanets with favourable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth."
We know that salty oceans are likely out there, beyond the Solar System. In addition to Earth, we know Mars was once rather watery, for instance. And there are the moons, too - Europa, Enceladus, Callisto and Ganymede number among the large moons in the Solar System that appear to have liquid oceans.
These nearby worlds don't meet the criteria laid out by the research, though. Mars is dry and has a thin whisper of an atmosphere, and the moons listed have barely-there atmospheres as well; we're also currently unsure of their continental status.
But there are a lot more exoplanets out there in the galaxy than there are moons in the Solar System. Last year, scientists released an estimate that up to 35 percent of all known exoplanets bigger than Earth should be rich in water.
So far, the first criterion in the search for habitable exoplanets has been whether a planet is in the "habitable zone" - where temperatures are not so hot that liquid oceans would vaporise, nor so cold that they would freeze.
This new research adds some parameters that could be employed on future searches, and may even inform the development of instrumentation optimised for detecting said parameters.
"In our search for life in the Universe, we should target the subset of habitable planets that will be most favourable to large, globally active biospheres," Olson said, "because those are the planets where life will be easiest to detect - and where non-detections will be most meaningful."
Although we’re all from here, Earth isn’t necessarily the best planet to live on in the Universe, according to new research. A new study lists two dozen such “superhabitable” planet candidates for further research.
Image via Pixabay.
It is quite an unexpected turn of events, but the planets identified in the new study all show some properties that could make it a better home for earthlings than Earth itself.
The study, published by researchers from Washington State University, also detail why these planets were chosen. Some are older, some larger, others wetter and slightly warmer than Earth. Some of them even orbit ‘better’ stars than our own Sun, and are expected to exist for longer.
Better than the original
“With the next space telescopes coming up, we will get more information, so it is important to select some targets,” said Schulze-Makuch, a professor with WSU and the Technical University in Berlin.
“We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours.”
All the 24 maybe-superhabitable planets are over 100 light years away from Earth, so for the time being, they’re far beyond our grasp. However, with concentrated effort and data pooled from current and future telescopes, such as from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the LUVIOR space observatory, and the European Space Agency’s PLATO space telescope, we could glean enough data to see whether they’d be nice places to live.
Schulze-Makuch, a geobiologist with expertise in planetary habitability, worked with astronomers René Heller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Edward Guinan of Villanova University to first determine which criteria would make a planet superhabitable. Then, they dredged through data of the over 4,500 known exoplanets to see which would fit.
A habitable planet isn’t necessarily one that has life, but one that has the right conditions to sustain life as we know it — things like pleasant temperatures, liquid water, magnetic fields, and breathable atmosphere.
The team looked at systems with stars similar to our Sun (G-class stars) and planets orbiting them in the liquid water zone — not too far nor too close. But since G-class stars have a lifespan of just 10 billion years, and it took life on Earth 4 billion years to evolve, this means they’re not the best candidates for life, as they can consume their fuel before anything spawns on the planets that orbit them. That’s why the team also looked at the cooler, dimmer K-class dwarf stars, which have lifespans of 20 billion to 70 billion years.
While this gives the planets more time to develop life, the authors argue that we shouldn’t be looking at ones that are too old. In order to be habitable, a planet needs a protective magnetic field — the ones that don’t end up like Mars is today. Those magnetic fields are generated in their core, and they’re powered by geothermal energy — which itself is produced by radioactive decay inside the planet. The Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, meaning it hasn’t yet expended its cache of geothermal energy. The authors thus argue that we should be looking for exoplanets 5 billion to 8 billion years old.
As far as size is concerned, we should look for something slightly larger and heavier than our own. Exoplanets that are at least 10% larger than Earth would have more habitable land but provide almost the same experience as living here. One around 1.5 times heavier should be able to better retain its geothermal energy and have enough gravity to keep its atmosphere intact.
Size and mass also matter. A planet that is 10% larger than the Earth should have more habitable land. One that is about 1.5 times Earth’s mass would be expected to retain its interior heating through radioactive decay longer and would also have a stronger gravity to retain an atmosphere over a longer time period.
Another element they’d look for is more water, especially in the form of moisture, clouds, and atmospheric humidity. A surface temperature of around 5 degrees Celsius (8 Fahrenheit) higher than on Earth, alongside extra moisture, would probably be better suited to life as we know it today. They argue that these elements make rainforests on Earth more biodiverse than forests in colder, drier areas.
None of the 24 exoplanets meet all the criteria, but one of the candidates has four.
“It’s sometimes difficult to convey this principle of superhabitable planets because we think we have the best planet,” said Schulze-Makuch.
“We have a great number of complex and diverse lifeforms, and many that can survive in extreme environments. It is good to have adaptable life, but that doesn’t mean that we have the best of everything.”
The paper “In Search for a Planet Better than Earth: Top Contenders for a Superhabitable World” has been published in the journal Astrobiology.
A brutal attack on an Iron Age town in northern Spain during the mid-fourth or late third century B.C. left more than a dozen bodies — men, women and children — scattered and smoldering in the streets, as the town burned.
Injuries inflicted upon the people who died were horrific. One person was decapitated, two had severed arms, and the remains of nearly half of the individuals showed signs of mutilation, archaeologists recently discovered.
New analysis of the victims' bones — the first detailed investigation of their injuries — suggests that they were murdered by a neighboring community during either a calculated power grab or an act of revenge.
The site of the massacre was once a bustling, economically thriving town called La Hoya, located in northern Spain's Rioja Alavesa region. It was occupied from the 15th century B.C. to the third century B.C., and at its peak was home to about 1,500 people. Archaeologists uncovered the prehistoric settlement in 1935, and excavated it from 1973 until around 1990, uncovering about 15% of the site, the scientists reported in a study published today (Oct. 1) in the journal Antiquity.
Though only a fraction of La Hoya was excavated, it was immediately clear that something terrible had happened there. Burned skeletons — at least 13 complete and partial remains — were found lying in the streets and inside buildings. One adult male had been decapitated, though the archaeologists did not find his skull. Damage to his right clavicle and shoulder bone revealed that his attacker struck more than once, according to the study.
Bone injuries of another male victim suggested he had been stabbed repeatedly from behind; a teenage girl suffered an amputated arm, which was found a short distance from her body, still wearing five copper-alloy bracelets, the researchers reported. They found no signs of weapons near the bodies. Nor were there any defensive injuries, and the damage appeared to have been inflicted at close range. All of these clues pointed to a surprise attack.
"LHY6" and "LHY3," two of the La Hoya skeletons, were discovered in a street at the site. After the massacre, the town was likely abandoned and the bodies were not buried. (Image credit: Antiquity Publications Ltd/Photos by T. Fernández-Crespo)
Scattered craft items, hobbled livestock and vessels filled with recently harvested cereal grain suggest the attackers invaded La Hoya during a market day in the summer or early autumn. By deliberately choosing a time when public spaces would be crowded, the attackers would have ensured a higher number of casualties, according to the study.
Yet despite the display of abundant goods in La Hoya at the time of the attack, the city was unplundered and its riches untouched, hinting that the motivation for the violence was political rather than for economic gain, the scientists said.
Signs of trauma are visible on the right humerus and right femur belonging to "LHY1," one of the murdered individuals at La Hoya. (Image credit: Antiquity Publications Ltd/Photos by T. Fernández-Crespo)
A violent legacy
The Roman occupation of Iberia, beginning in 218 B.C., was brutal, and has long been credited with sparking cycles of regional violence and upheaval. Two Roman massacres in Iberian towns — Cerro de la Cruz in 150 B.C. to 130 B.C. and La Almoina in 75 B.C. — are known from archaeological evidence. In Cerro de la Cruz, the Romans enslaved 10,000 people and beheaded 500 of them; in La Almoina, they shackled and executed 14 unarmed men. There, one man was beheaded, another was pierced by a javelin, and several had all of their limbs cut off, according to the study.
However, the La Hoya carnage predates Roman conquest in northern Spain, so it's possible that political instability and deadly clashes between Iberian rivals were already well underway prior to the arrival of Roman forces, the scientists reported.
An attack on La Hoya, which was politically and economically important in the region, likely had dramatic repercussions on the balance of local power, "by either creating a power vacuum or by consolidating the position of a rival community," the study authors reported.
Because the bodies were left unburied, the village was probably abandoned after the slaughter. Some who have analyzed the La Hoya site previously suggested that the townfolk may have regrouped and continued to live in La Hoya for centuries after the massacre, according to the study. But the preserved aftermath of the attack and the condition of the remains make that scenario highly unlikely, "given the scale of death and destruction revealed by the excavations," the scientists wrote.
It often seems that the history of humanity is mostly just the history of warfare, and that’s especially true with the history of Europe, where entire ages are named for the wars and conflicts that took place in those time periods. No culture dominates both history and warfare like the ancient Romans, so one would believe that means the ancient Romans were the first Europeans to wage full-scale warfare. And one would be right … until now.
“Between the mid fourth and late third centuries BC, the site was subjected to a violent attack, its inhabitants killed and the settlement burned. Here the authors present osteological analyses for a massacre: decapitations, amputations and other sharp-force injuries affecting a wide cross section of the community. They interpret the massacre as an instance of conflict between rival local communities, contributing to a growing picture of the scale and nature of violence in Iron Age Europe.”
In a recent study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers led by Teresa Fernández-Crespo of Oxford University to a fresh look at remains discovered in the 1950s in La Hoya, an Iron Age town in what is now the Basque Country of northern Spain. Located in the Ebro River valley, La Hoya was a major town – the archeologists determined it had protective walls, streets and large buildings erected by the Berones, a Celtic culture. The Berones ruled the area from the 15th century BCE until about 300 BCE when they disappeared. New analysis of 13 remains gave Fernández-Crespo the definitive reason why.
“One adult male shows clear evidence of decapitation: his fourth cervical vertebra is completely bisected by an oblique cut, consistent with a single blow to the neck from left to right, at a downward angle.
“Although no clear defensive wounds have been identified, the most plausible explanation for the trauma observed is that it could have been inflicted during a face-to-face encounter in which the victim tried to confront his attacker.”
A male and a teenage female had their right arms amputated. The position of the female and her arm indicated it had been thrown away (with bracelets still on it) and she crawled to it until she died, either from blood loss or a stab in the back. Two more males had “sharp force injuries potentially inflicted from behind by bladed weapons – some swords and daggers were recovered in a nearby cemetery. (Photos here.) All of the skeletons showed signs the victims had been set on fire and were found unburied, indicating the perpetrators left them dead or dying in the streets.
As gruesome as the violence was, the cause was the real shocker. The archeologists found no evidence of raiding, pillaging or destruction of property in this thriving Iron Age marketplace. That leaves only one other reason for the massacre:
“Given the site’s location in a natural boundary area, the attack may have been a consequence of power struggles and territorial ambitions between neighbouring pre-Roman polities.”
Power and politics – of course. But the key phrase in the study is “pre-Roman.” La Hoya is the only known Iron Age Iberian site whose destruction occurred before the Roman conquest and occupation began in 218 BCE and warfare became the order of the day – Live Science reports that Roman massacres occurred in Cerro de la Cruz in 150 BCE to 130 BCE and La Almoina in 75 BCE.
It appears the massacre of La Hoya was so brutal and complete, the few survivors never came back. Who could have done this? The study concludes that pre-Roman Iberian Age societies waged political battles for power, dominance and destruction long before the rest of Europe became the war-mongering area it remains to this day. The last line of the study sums it up in terms George Orwell would enjoy … and modern humans should remember:
“Certainly, the Romans were not alone in being able to “make a desert and call it peace”.”
Make a desert and call it peace. Seen any of that lately?
LA Marzulli: The Mysterious Book of Enoch! The Nephilim and the Fallen Angels
LA Marzulli: The Mysterious Book of Enoch! The Nephilim and the Fallen Angels
COAST TO COAST AM INSIDER Archived Show – Author of The Nephilim Trilogy, Lynn Marzulli discussed his research into ancient manuscripts, UFOs, fallen angels and a race called the Nephilim. The Nephilim were giants of extraordinary size and strength who were the offspring of fallen angels and human women, Marzulli explained, citing the Book of Enoch’s account of the legendary race.
Remains of Nephilim as large as 14 feet tall were on display in the first century AD, he noted. According to Marzulli, the fallen angels (or inner-dimensional beings as he sometimes calls them) who fathered the Nephilim are still allowed access to our planet and in recent times have been mistaken for extraterrestrials.
Light Beings, Wormholes and Real Stargates With William Henry
Light Beings, Wormholes and Real Stargates With William Henry
Light Beings, Wormholes and Real Stargates with William Henry
COAST TO COAST AM INSIDER Archived Show – Investigative mythologist William Henry returned for a discussion on ‘Starwalkers,’ which he defined as light beings that are able to traverse the universe or connect with other dimensions, via wormholes or stargates.
Such travelers are described in ancient creation mythologies as well as depicted in ancient Egyptian & Sumerian art, he said. Further, Tibetan lamas were said to dissolve their bodies into pure energy and travel through the stars.
Hey I found some ancient stairs and railing statues in a Mars photo today. The stairs a perfectly shaped and even, but much of the stairs has long since eroded over time. However parts of the right side of the railing and carvings in it still exist. I colored the stairs yellow and the railing statues blue. When I took the stairs and flipped and adding to itself to make one whole staircase, the end result is exactly as you would expect...a stairway. Obviously these are the stairs of an ancient temple. The stairs would fit a person about 1.5 meters tall.
There were a few other structure. One large piece of machinery in the background. A curly snake like appendage coming from a statue and a primitive statue of two people in an embrace. Strange, but not really for any civilization.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Below I took the photo of the stairs, flipped it and added it to itself to make 100% finished stairs.
Strange snake like appendage on machinery. Below.
Huge structure of machinery in black visible below.
Two people or aliens in an embrace. Primitive art.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
White UFO Seen Over Caterbury, New Hampshire, USA, Oct 1, 2020, UFO Sighting News. MUFON
White UFO Seen Over Caterbury, New Hampshire, USA, Oct 1, 2020, UFO Sighting News. MUFON
Date of sighting: Oct 1, 2020 Location of sighting: Caterbury, New Hampshire, USA The eyewitness was driving through Caterbury when he noticed a silver orb near the clouds. He tried his best to record it, but keeping an eye on the road was clearly more important. Lucky for us, he also kept an eye and camera on the UFO. The object is round and does seem to be deliberately flying near the clouds. It may have been hiding within one of them and decided to move to a new cloud. At the end of the video is a close up in slow motion. This is 100% alien in origin. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Silver sphere in clouds moves slowly while shape shifting until it blasts away from me. Sun reflecting off it while it appears to be struggling to launch off. You can see it clearly in the video even though it is small. Video zoomed and slowed down.
Strange Craft Over New York, New York, Oct 4, 2020, UFO Sighting News. MUFON Report.
Strange Craft Over New York, New York, Oct 4, 2020, UFO Sighting News. MUFON Report.
Date of sighting: Oct 4, 2020 Location of sighting: New York, New York, USA Source: MUFON #111687 This new video has a triangle shaped UFO passing over New York yesterday. The UFO wasn't alone but had a whole fleet of craft following along with it. The objects were seen during sunset, which is the most common time of the day to see a UFO. These strange dark objects don't have any jets investigating them, so I believe that they did not show up on radar. Very odd indeed. Scott C. Waring - Taiwan Eyewitness states:
I filmed a fleet of 10 to 12 ufo's flying over restricted air space of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Oct 4, 2020 at 6pm est. The one closest to me was chevron or cone shaped and was black while the others in the distance twinkled silver to the eye. I thought drones but anyone could drop bombs into Yankee Stadium via drones so no one is supposed to fly anywhere near it let alone 10 ufo's. They made no sound and my video is short because I didn't believe I captured anything nothing showed on my screen. Please tell me what this is and if anyone else reported it. Thanks.
Muhammad Ali Talks About Seeing UFOs On Johnny Carson Show, Gets Laughed At, Sept 7, 1973, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Muhammad Ali Talks About Seeing UFOs On Johnny Carson Show, Gets Laughed At, Sept 7, 1973, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of interview: Sept 7, 1973
Location of interview: Hollywood, California, USA
Guys, Muhammad Ali...the heavy weight boxing champion of the world, otherwise known as the Peoples Champion...has been my idol since I was in 1st grade, but I was only 5 years old at the time of this interview, so I missed it and its totally new to me...blowing me away. He was a poet, a man of character, an example to all striving to improve and rise to the top. But I found an old interview of him and Johnny Carson and out of nowhere with a straight face of concern...Ali brings up the subject of UFOs.
Ali opens up, changing the subject with the words, "I've been studying UFOs." At this point you hear laugh tracks as if he were joking, but his face is expressionless and dead serious. At a time when Muhammad Ali could have opened the publics minds to the possibilities of alien life, Johnny Carson makes jokes and the audience laughs it off.
Ali talks about having seen UFOs while out running in the early mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3am and 5 am. But the audience laughs at him about it. He has had over 16 sightings of UFOs and probably more over his lifetime. He even said on the show that a person in Washington DC working for a UFO bureau named Harold Sulken who gave Ali some documents, photos and films of actual UFO. Who was Harold Sulken, and did he work for the US government? We may never know. But I would say he did, probably worked on Project Blue Book.
Ali took time away from doing an interview about a national fight that would have earned him more money and publicity, just to talk about a serious matter that he thought the world needed to hear. Again, Ali has impressed me...like the champion he always was and will be.
UFO video filmed over New Hampshire on 1st October 2020.
Witness report:
Silver sphere in clouds moves slowly while shape shifting until it blasts away from me. Silver sphere in clouds moves slowly while shape shifting until it blasts away from me. Sun reflecting off it while it appears to be struggling to launch off. You can see it clearly in the video even though it is small. Video zoomed and slowed down
NASA UFO sighting: Mysterious object above Earth on ISS live feed baffles viewers
NASA UFO sighting: Mysterious object above Earth on ISS live feed baffles viewers
A MYSTERIOUS UFO spotted on the NASA International Space Station live feed has sparked an online frenzy, with the baffling footage recording more than 50,000 views.
Mysterious footage of a UFO spotted on the International Space Station (ISS) live feed has sent the Internet into a meltdown. Footage posted online from the ISS live stream sees an object floating towards the Earth before disappearing out of sight. The mysterious UFO then reappears 30 minutes later and looks as if it is drifting towards the space station itself.
The nature of the strange object baffled viewers online who offered a range of theories concerning its origins.
The footage of the object, posted on the YouTube channel MrMBB333, has recorded more than 50,000 views at the time of writing.
The host of conspiracy channel, which is dedicated to mysterious sightings, suggested it could be a mysterious "man-made" object.
He said he first thought the bizarre object was the moon, but then claimed that the moon was bigger than the object seen in the ISS live feed.
Footage posted online from the ISS live stream sees an object floating towards the Earth
(Image: IG)
The nature of the strange object baffled viewers online who speculated about its origins
(Image: IG)
The host said: "It looks too small to be the moon.
"It looks like the same colour of the space station.
"We know the space station is man-made, it's metal alloy.
"That looks like the same colour.”
Social media users were left divided about the floating unknown object
(Image: IG)
Social media users were left divided about the floating unknown object.
One viewer disputed claims it was the moon, saying: "I could be mistaken but I don't think the moon would have crossed from one side to the other in 30 minutes."
Other users believed the object is some kind of extraterrestrial creature, saying: "The 'thing' from ISS camera looked like it was 'crawling' when it moved."
In a fun cosmic coincidence, researchers used old Kepler spacecraft data to discover an Earth-sized exoplanet with an orbital period of 3.14 days, a number that matches the mathematical constant pi.
Artist’s concept of K2-315b, which has on orbital period of 3.14 Earth-days, the same value as the mathematical constant pi.
Image via NASA Ames/ JPL-Caltech/ T. Pyle/ Christine Daniloff/ MIT.
If you love both exoplanets and math, you’ll love this. In recent years, scientists have discovered a growing number of Earth-sized worlds orbiting distant stars. Now scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have announced one whose orbital period matches the value of pi: that is, this planet orbits its star every 3.14 Earth-days. For those not mathematically inclined … pi is the numerical sequence that describes the ratio of the circumferenceof any circle to the diameter of that circle. No matter how big or little the circle may be, this ratio will always equal pi. And that makes pi one of the most important mathematical constants. The exoplanet is labeledK2-315b, but scientists are calling it the pi planet.
The pi planet was discussed in a new peer-reviewed paper published in The Astronomical Journal on September 21, 2020.
As Prajwal Niraula, lead author at MIT, noted in a statement:
Indeed, no one is suggesting that there is anything too bizarre about this, or that aliens are involved, since many exoplanets have been discovered with very short orbital periods like this. This one just happens to match the value of pi. Go figure.
The pi planet – K2-315b – is almost the same size as Earth; its radius is 95% that of our own planet. That’s also about the same size as Venus, and like our nearby sister world, it is a blisteringly hot place, with temperatures up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius). Not quite as hot as Venus, but still very inhospitable. It orbits a red dwarf (or M dwarf) star that is cooler than our sun and only about one-fifth as large, called EPIC 249631677, which is 186 light-years (57 parsecs) from Earth. The tight orbit of only 3.14 days means that the planet is moving fast around its star, at 181,000 miles per hour (291 km per hour). But even though scientists think that this world is rocky, like Earth, the close proximity to its star and resulting searing temperatures make it very unlikely to be habitable for any kind of life.
K2-315b was first discovered in 2017 in archival data from the Kepler Space Telescope (pictured here in artist’s illustration).
This would be too hot to be habitable in the common understanding of the phrase.
K2-315b was discovered in data first obtained by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope back in 2017, during the K2 extended mission, which ended in 2018. It was considered to be a candidate planet, but then subsequent observations by SPECULOOS (The Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars), a network of ground-based telescopes, confirmed it as a planet. There are four 1-meter telescopes at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, named after the four Galilean moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. There is also one more identical telescope called Artemis in Tenerife, Spain. The finding also shows how valuable archival data can be. As de Wit commented:
We now know we can mine and extract planets from archival data, and hopefully there will be no planets left behind, especially these really important ones that have a high impact.
While looking through the old data, Niraula found 20 dips of the star, which occurred when the planet transited in front of it from our vantage point. Those dips repeated every 3.14 days, indicating a probable planet orbiting the star. In order to be sure, however, the researchers needed to determine the best window of time in which to catch the transits. As another co-author, Benjamin Rackham, said:
Nailing down the best night to follow up from the ground is a little bit tricky. Even when you see this 3.14 day signal in the K2 data, there’s an uncertainty to that, which adds up with every orbit.
The four 1-meter SPECULOOS telescopes at the Paranal Observatory in Chile were used to help confirm the existence of the pi-Earth exoplanet.
Rackham had developed a new algorithm to try to predict when the transits would occur. As it turned out, February 2020 should be a good time to catch these transits, and it worked. The researchers saw three clear transits: two with the SPECULOOS’ telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, and the third from Artemis, in the Northern Hemisphere.
The confirmation of this planet by SPECULOOS isn’t too surprising, since those telescopes are designed to detect Earth-sized planets around nearby dwarf stars. Another co-author, Artem Burdanov, said:
These ultracool dwarfs are scattered all across the sky. Targeted ground-based surveys like SPECULOOS are helpful because we can look at these ultracool dwarfs one by one.
The planet is also close enough that scientists using the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be able to analyze its atmosphere. There’s also a good chance that even smaller planets will be found. From the paper:
The confirmed planet is well suited for comparative terrestrial exoplanetology. While exoplanets transiting ultracool dwarfs present the best opportunity for atmospheric studies of terrestrial exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope, those orbiting mid-M dwarfs within 100 parsecs such as EPIC 249631677b will become increasingly accessible with the next generation of observatories.
Prajwal Niraula at MIT, lead author of the new study.
There will be more interesting planets in the future, just in time for JWST, a telescope designed to probe the atmosphere of these alien worlds. With better algorithms, hopefully one day, we can look for smaller planets, even as small as Mars.
While the orbit of K2-315b matching the beginning of the pi mathematical constant may be a fun coincidence, the discovery also shows, again, that there are many Earth-sized worlds out there waiting to be found. A quickly growing number have already been discovered, and scientists fully expect that many more will be as well in the years ahead.
Bottom line: Astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet with an orbital period that matches the mathematical constant pi.
Was Bolivia-Peru the Sunset Land of the Sumerians?
Was Bolivia-Peru the Sunset Land of the Sumerians?
In an article on the Fuente Magna Bowl, April Holloway highlighted the evidence of Sumerian writing in South America. The Fuente Magna Bowl and Pokotia monument indicate that Sumerians may have formerly lived in South America.
The possibility that the writing on the Fuente Magna Bowl was used by the Sumerians, and the identification of Sumerian placenames on the Altiplano suggest that Bolivia and Peru may represent the "Tin Land of the West" or the "Sunset Land", of Sumerian inscriptions.
A figure on the Fuente Magna bowl.
(Courtesy of Bernardo Biados’s research team)
The Fuente Magna Bowl was found to have two types of scripts engraved on the inside.
(Courtesy of Bernardo Biados’s research team)
Kuga-ki
The Sumerians mention a land in the West called Kuga-ki where they mined valuable metals. Dr. A.H. Sayce said that Tin-land in Sumerian was KUGA-KI. Sayce made it clear that Sumerians claimed that they obtained tin from this land.
Prof. A.H. Sayce
The ancient Sumerians were great navigators. Sumerian Ships sailed to Egypt, Northeast Africa, and the Indus Valley in search of metals and goods to support their industry and popular demands for goods by the people. Samuel N. Kramer in The Sumerians , said that Egypt in the Sumerian inscriptions was Magan, and the Indus Valley was called Dilmun.
King Sargon in 2700 BC mentions that Kuga-Ki was part of his Empire. Prof. Sayce, in a paper named “Geography of Sargon of Akkad”, published in the journal Ancient Egypt , translated a document written by a 8th Century B.C., Assyrian official . The document stated that Sargon I , Empire included "the countries from the rising to the setting of the sun, which Sargon the . . . king conquered with his hand," included amongst many other lands "the Land of Gutium," "the land of the Muru (or Amorites)" and (Kuga-Ki) "the Tin-land country which lies beyond the Upper Sea (or Mediterranean)."
Bronze head of a king, most likely Sargon of Akkad.
Sayce believed that Kuga-Ki was probably located in Spain. The presence of the Fuente Magna Bowl suggests that Kuga-Ki was in South America instead of Spain. Since Kuga-Ki was west of the Mediterranean it was probably the name for some region in North or South America, because the Americas lie west of the Meditteranean Sea, while Spain lies on the Meditterranean.
A.H Verrill and R. Verrill, in Americas Ancient Civilizations , and J. Bailey in Sailing to Paradise , maintain that the area around Lake Titicaca may have been called Lake Manu by the Sumerians. According to the Verrills and Bailey, traditions claim that Sumerians made many visits to the land west of the Mediterranean, which they called the Kuga-ki. The traditions make it clear that Sumerians sailed to Kuga-ki in their Magur ships. Cuneiform tablets make it clear the Magur ships could carry 18.5 metric tons of precious metals.
Mining Operations
The Sumerians probably first made contact with Kuga-kivia, the Atlantic currents that take you from Africa to Brazil. Prospectors probably reached Brazil, and sailed down the Amazon river until they found large tin deposits in Bolivia-Peru. The major center for mining in Bolivia-Peru is and was Potosi.
Once they established mining operations in Kuga-ki, local people probably began to work in the mining operations and adopted many Sumerian customs, linguistic terms and the social technology of writing, i.e., the Proto-Sumerian script. This means that writing has a long tradition among the people of Bolivia-Peru as Clyde Winters writes in Ancient Scripts in South America .
Kingdom of the Antis
The Andes may have been the Tin land or Kuga-Ki of the Sumerians. The Andes mountains were originally called Antis. This area was formerly called Antisuyo, Kingdom of the Antis. This was also the homeland of the Antis Indians. In the Quechua language spoken by many Indians in the area, antis means copper. Antis was also the name for the native peoples who formerly lived in this part of South America.
Antis is probably of non-Quechua origin. The Chipaya language, another Native American language spoken in the area, is different from Quechua and Aymara. Some researchers claim Chipaya is closely related to the Maya languages which are spoken in Mexico.
This part of Bolivia is famous for the rich minerals found in the area. Many of these metals are found at the Bolivian Altiplano, near Lake Poopo, an inland sea, which was formerly connected to the Pacific Ocean by rivers now dried up.
“Salar de Uyuni is part of the Altiplano of Bolivia in South America. The Altiplano is a high plateau, which was formed during uplift of the Andes mountains. The plateau includes fresh and saltwater lakes as well as salt flats.”
The Bolivian Altiplano is the largest plain in the world. It contains two inland seas: Lake Titicaca and Lake Poopo. This area high in the Andes mountains makes it an apt location for Lake Manu or the ‘Cloud Lake’ of the Sumerians, where metals were mined in the Mountains of Sunset, the land situated west of the Mediterranean Sea.
Lake Poopo is fifty miles (80 km) long. The lake was surrounded by mountains on all sides and canals. Satellite pictures indicate that deep canals formerly existed near Lake Poopo. It is a shallow sea a few feet deep. Lake Poopo is a salty sea, sometimes known to dry up.
Kuga-Ki, The western Tin Land of the Sumerians
(Courtesy author)
Lake Titicaca and Lake Poopo are connected by the River Desagua dero. The companion Lake of Poopo, was Lake Uru. The city of Oruro is located near Lake Uru.
Rich Mountain
The metals found near Lake Poopo include copper, tin, gold and silver. Here we find metals being extracted in the cities of Oruro and Corocoro where gold and copper were mined. The names for these cities suggest a Sumer origin. In Sumerian the name for city is uru. The suffixes –oro for the cities around Lake Poopo, is strikingly similar to uru.
It is also interesting to note that a major center in this area for mining is Potosi. Potosi is famous for its tin deposits. At Potosi we find the Potosi mountain which is made of solid tin and was called Mount Catavi.
The Potosi area was a major center of mining. In the 1550’s, the Spanish began to exploit the silver found at Potosi Hill. The Spanish called Potosi Hill, Cerro Rico or “Rich Mountain”. As a result of the Spanish attempt to fully exploit the riches in this area “a horrific” number of Indians died in the mines. Hugh Thompson in The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland , vividly describes this tragedy.
Thompson says that “the mine consumed the labor-force of Bolivia’s Altiplano. If they didn’t die, they were ground down by the apology for a wage that was paid to them. Within a generation, the population of those parts of the Altiplano used for mine conscription was halved. Within another generation it had halved again. And still Potosi continued to exact its quota”.
Potosi, the first image in Europe. Pedro Cieza de León, 1553.
In modern history Potosi has been a center for the mining of tin, copper, lead and silver. Located near Tihuanaca, Potosi may have been a center of Sumerian settlement in ancient times like the cities of Oruro and Corocoro. Bailey suggests that Potosi may relate to the Sumerian term Patesi, the Sumerian term for ‘priest king’.
The metals mined on the Altiplano were transported along the Pilcomyo River (or Rio de la Planta today). The Sumerians may have transported metals from Bolivia across the Atlantic to ancient Sumer. A great route for the shipment of tin from Kuga-ki was down the River Plate, eastward across the Atlantic, past the Cape of Good Hope, via the Indian Ocean to enter the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.
Symbols
In addition to affinity between the symbols found on the Pokotia monolith, Fuente Magna bowl, and Incan weaving, we also find that these symbols are identical to signs engraved on Moche bricks. A common feature of Huanca or carved Inca stones are steps cut into the rock.
Clyde Winters in Ancient Scripts in South America: The Sumerians in South America , has shown that the Inca Throne, an immaculately carved set of shallow steps, is similar to Proto-Sumerian signs. Other signs from huacas or carved stones at Rodadero Hill and the White Stone at Chuquipalta relate strikingly to the writing found on the Pokotia and Fuente Magna bowl.
In addition to Sumerian influence on South American writing systems, it is interesting to note that the Pokotia statue and Tiahuanaco monuments share similar headdresses and rib impressions along the chest area. This indicates a relationship between the builders of these monuments.
Pokotia statue, left and Tiahuanaco statue, right.
In the region where Kuga-ki probably existed in South America we have the Aymara language. Aymara terms relate to Sumerian terms. This is not surprising given the decipherment of the Pokotia statue and the Magna Fuente bowl. These documents indicate that the Sumerians had established many aspects of their religion in Bolivia.
The linguistic evidence supports the view that the Sumerians living in Kuga-ki were miners. The Sumerian term for copper was urudu; this term agrees with the Aymara terms for gold 'ouri' and copper 'anta, yawri'. The similarity between urudu and, yawri and ouri suggest that the Sumerians may have been the first people in the area to exploit the metals found throughout the Titicaca area and Bolivia.
The presence of Sumerian terms in the Aymara language, Sumerian place names, and Sumerian writing on the Fuente Magna bowl and Pokotia statue make it obvious that Sumerian civilization was formerly widespread in South America. This leads me to believe that Bolivia and Peru may have represented Kuga-ki, the ‘Tin Land of the West’ mentioned in the Sumerian inscriptions.
Top Image: The Andes mountains at Sunset ( CC BY 2.0 )
If an apocalypse is a good sign of extraterrestrial life, does that mean Earth is inhabited by space aliens? That’s a good question with debatable answers that can only be addressed by civilizations on other planets looking at us. At least, that’s the case if you buy the argument presented by a leading astrobiologist who thinks an apocalypse would either be an unusually visible event form afar or a reason for an advanced civilization to send out visibly loud distress signals. This may sound like an alternative opening for the Superman saga, but it’s a real proposal in Scientific Americanby Caleb Scharf, the head of astrobiology at Columbia University, and it’s worth considering.
“For example, the trigger for that trauma might be when species approaches a particular level of planetary dominance. With their civilization reaching a tipping point of scale that is far more likely to produce detectable technosignatures for distant astronomers—whether as infrared excesses from waste energy or a flood of peculiar atmospheric compounds from polluting industrial processes.”
Is Scharf speculating what alien starwatchers are seeing from a small planet orbiting an average star in a spiral galaxy? He doesn’t say, but that’s one scenario he paints that could catch the eye of Earth astronomers or future space travelers looking for intelligent life. Of course, assuming we’re also an intelligent species, it should be apparent that a planet glowing from an apocalyptic event may not be the best place to visit for a while. On the other hand …
“Apart from passive technosignatures, like rapid climate change, the launch of interplanetary or interstellar spacecraft could, if beamed-light propulsion is utilized, produce potent signals detectable elsewhere in the cosmos. Communications with a growing population of exploration vehicles and settlements within a planetary system, or with probes launched to other stars, could also create a noisy beacon for other species to detect. Even efforts to terraform other worlds (and of course this is stretching the realm of possibilities a little), would present a rather shocking event to advanced alien observers steadily tracking the properties of a system.”
Scharf says a bright or loud signal may not be a bad sign but a busy signal (throwback reference for those who remember landlines) showing the advanced activities of a civilization. Communications is certainly something that could be a life-on-Earth signal we emanate, along with rocket or missile launches. So could large fires (we’re doing that), solar panels (that too) or intentional signals to other planets (we’re noisier than we thought). Are we sending an unintentional signal or an early apocalyptic one to others? This has already raised concerns with the increase in SETI projects. Conversely, if we see a signal, should that be the focus of future space missions?
“There is a catch though, and it relates to the well-worn ideas of the Fermi paradox. By the time a species is compelled into doing any of these things, and even before its planetary environment is pushed to a Klaxon-like tipping point, perhaps it simply fails. There is no Hail Mary, there isn’t even a noticeable last gasp, instead it all just shuts down.”
Just like on Krypton when Jor-El had just enough time to launch Kal-El/Superman before the planet was destroyed, these signaling ETs may be too late – if not now, probably by the time we not-so-advanced beings figure out a way to travel across light years. Perhaps that’s a warning – the technology that enables space travel is also destructive, and human nature has shown a decided trend towards the latter. Is that an Earth trait or one common to all similar life forms? Scharf offers a ray of hope:
“Even if they’re experiencing their own apocalypse, we would learn critical things about the properties of a great filter; that there might be time yet to slither past it, and that at least we still have a way to go.”
Slither? Forget looking for an apocalypse someplace else … is he implying something about a certain shape-shifting alien species on Earth surviving a human-created apocalypse?
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
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