The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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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!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
28-12-2020
Hello, Venus! Solar Orbiter spacecraft makes first swing past planet
Hello, Venus! Solar Orbiter spacecraft makes first swing past planet
The joint U.S.-European Solar Orbiter spacecraft had an appointment with Venus this morning (Dec. 27), the first in a series of planetary flybys to hone the probe's orbit on its journey to the sun.
Solar Orbiter reached its closest approach to Venus at 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT), when the spacecraft was about 4,700 miles (7,500 kilometers) from the top of the planet's cloud tops. The probe, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in February, bound to spend seven years studying our sun. But to get as close to our star as scientists want to, the spacecraft needs to make some loops, starting with today's flyby of Venus. And if you're flying a spacecraft past a planet anyway, you may as well try to get a little data out of the adventure.
"Solar Orbiter is of course a mission not designed specifically to take Venus observations," Daniel Müller, project scientist for the mission at the European Space Agency, said at a news briefing held on Dec. 10 at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held virtually this month. "We are always looking for bonus opportunities to do science, so yes, we will be doing observations when we approach Venus."
However, the spacecraft's main goal of studying the sun does limit what work it can do flying past Venus. A key constraint comes from the spacecraft's sun-wary design. "We always need to point our heat shield toward the sun, that cannot be changed," Müller said. "The telescopes are all looking through the heat shield in the solar direction."
So no Venus images for us from this spacecraft. But while scientists are particularly excited for the detailed views of the sun's poles that Solar Orbiter will eventually provide, the spacecraft also carries a suite of instruments that focus on the immediate environment, and for these, direction isn't an issue.
During today's flyby, scientists gathered data using the spacecraft's magnetometer, radio and plasma waves instrument and some of the sensors on the energetic particle detector. Given those instruments and Solar Orbiter's distance from Venus, the observations will have a limited impact on science.
"At those kinds of distances, looking at how Venus interacts with the solar wind that's flowing past it is going to be the key thing we're looking at," Tim Horbury, a physicist at Imperial College London and principal investigator of one of Solar Orbiter's instruments, said during the same panel.
Unlike Earth, Venus doesn't have a magnetic field, so the solar wind interacts directly with the planet instead of with that field. "It's a very different interaction," Horbury said.
And because today's maneuver marks Solar Orbiter's first swing past Venus, the team wasn't sure what to expect scientifically from the flyby. The mission team was in communication with the spacecraft during the flyby, but it will be a few days before scientists can dig into the data the instruments gather during the operation, according to ESA.
"We'll really be looking out for new and interesting things," Müller said. "We can't really say yet what they will be."
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Alien hunters are investigating a mysterious radio signal from our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri - causing the biggest excitement since the 'Wow' signal in 1977
Alien hunters are investigating a mysterious radio signal from our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri - causing the biggest excitement since the 'Wow' signal in 1977
By Ryan Morrison For Mailonline
Pictured, a not-to-scale representation of how far away Proxima B is from Earth compared to Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object which was launched in 1977
A strange radio signal was first detected by the Parkes telescope in early 2019
It was a 'short-lived' signal and astronomers can't identify the original source
Astronomers are looking to see if any human-made source could be responsible
The star is 4.2 light years from the Earth and includes an Earth-like rocky planet
A mysterious radio signal from our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri, is being 'carefully investigated' by a team of alien-hunting astronomers.
Researchers from the Breakthrough Listen Project – a £70m initiative to find alien life through radio telescopes – have been studying the radio waves since April 2019.
Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years from Earth and has two confirmed planets, a Jupiter-like gas giant and a rocky world called Proxima b in the habitable zone.
The signal was spotted by the Parkes radio telescope in Australia in April or May 2020, according to a report in The Guardian, and, unlike previous radio bursts hasn't been attributed to any Earth-based or near-Earth human-created source.
It is likely that this signal has a natural explanation, but that hasn't stopped alien-hunting astronomers from listening more closely than they normally would.
The team say this is one of the most exciting radio signals since the 'WOW!' signal in 1977 that led many to speculate it originated from a distant alien civilisation.
Artist's rendering of Proxima Centauri system. Portrayed on the right, Proxima c orbits in about 5.2 years around its host star. The system also comprises the smaller Proxima b, on the left, discovered in 2016 that orbits in the 'habitable zone' closer than Mercury is to the Sun
Proxima b is an Earth-like rocky world that orbits within the 'habitable zone' of Proxima Centauri – that is an area where liquid water could flow on the surface of the planet.
However, as Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, the habitable zone is very close to the star, meaning the planet is likely tidally locked and exposed to intense radiation, making it unlikely any civilisation has been able to form – at least on the surface.
The radio signal was detected in the 980MHz range, and shifts in the frequency detected by the Parkes telescope are consistent with the movement of a planet.
This suggests it could be evidence of a third planet within the system, rather than signs of an alien civilisation, something researchers say would be 'very unlikely.'
Pete Worden, director of Breakthrough Initiatives, said the signals are likely interference from Earth-based sources we can't yet explain.
However, he told The Guardian that it was important to wait and see what the project scientists conclude from their close examination of the signal.
The beam being investigated hasn't been spotted since the first observation in April or May 2019, causing astronomers to speculate it is similar to the 'Wow! signal.
This was a short-lived radio signal detected from a distant star system by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in the US in 1977, and labelled with the word 'WOW!'.
Until now, that has been the best possible candidate astronomers have had to work with for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence - although like this new signal, very little is known about it or what unleashed the signal in the first place.
In this image from the Hubble Space Telescope is our relative neighbour Proxima Centauri, a low mass star in the triple-star Alpha Centauri system. Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye due to its small size - eight times smaller than the Sun
The team from Breakthrough Listen are currently preparing a research paper on the findings, although no date for publication has been set.
Proxima b: The nearest exoplanet to the Earth
Proxima b is the nearest exoplanet to the Earth and the closest planet to the star Proxima Centauri.
It orbits within the habitable zone of the star - but as Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf and much smaller than the Sun this zone is very close to the star.
Proxima b orbits its star every 11.2 Earth days and has a mass of about 1.2 times that of the Earth.
The rocky world is subject to solar winds 2,000 times those experienced on Earth from the Sun.
While it is within a zone where liquid water could form - these stellar winds make it unlikely life could evolve.
The planet was discovered in August 2016 and is likely tidally locked.
For these reasons, despite being in the habitable zone, its actual habitability has not been established.
Studies have suggested the planet could have surface oceans and a thin atmosphere, but that hasn't been confirmed.
Astronomers won't know if it has water or an atmosphere until it can be seen transiting in front of its star - which has yet to happen.
If water and an atmosphere are present, even with the extensive radiation, it could be possible life has developed on the planet.
Scientists hope the James Webb Space Telescope - due to come online next year - could detect the atmosphere of Proxima Centauri b.
There is also a theoretical mission to send a probe to the planet in 2069 to search for biosignatures.
The initiative was launched by Silicon Valley tech investor Yuri Milner in 2015 to look for stray or intentional alien signals and designed to last a decade.
Breakthrough Listen involves listening out for 'technosignatures' within the range of signals coming from the universe and signatures from human-made objects.
Speaking to the Guardian, Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist from the University of Westminster, said it was incredibly unlikely this signal is from an alien civilisation.
'We've been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities,' he told The Guardian.
The professor of science communication said if there is intelligent life as close as Proxima Centauri then it is likely the galaxy is teeming with life.
'The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality,' he said.
Proxima b is also likely to be constantly bathed in stellar radiation, making it unlikely liquid water and life 'as we know it' could have formed on the rocky world.
An earlier study by University of Sydney researchers found that Proxima Centauri has regular coronal mass ejections that hit the nearby rocky planet.
This discovery was based on a different radio signal that is thought to have been caused by a particularly large ejection or solar flare from the star.
These solar flares would kill all life on a planet too close - and Proxima b is within this danger zone, and so likely showered with sterilising particles on a regular basis.
The planet is also likely tidally locked - just like the Moon is with the Earth - due to its close proximity to the star, meaning one side is always day, the other night.
'It's hard to imagine how you can have a stable climatic system and all the things you need to get from bacteria, which are hardy, up to intelligent animal life forms, which certainly are not,' Dartnell told the Guardian.
'But I'd love to be proved wrong,' he added.
It is possible there are other planets, slightly further from the star, that have yet to be discovered by astronomers, but they are likely too far away for liquid water to form.
KEY DISCOVERIES IN HUMANITY'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE
Discovery of pulsars
British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar.
Since then other types of pulsars that emit x-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted.
Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnatised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could come from aliens.
'Wow!' radio signal
In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the nigh sky above Ohio spotted a powerful radio signal so strong that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data.
In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the nigh sky above Ohio spotted a powerful radio signal so strong that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data
The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.
Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the 'Wow! signal', which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.
Fossilised martian microbes
In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs.
The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984.
Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike.
Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike (pictured)
However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated.
They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils.
Behaviour of Tabby's Star in 2005
The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015.
It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star.
The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015 (artist's impression)
Recent studies have 'eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure', and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals.
Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2015
In February this year astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away.
Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star 'Trappist-1', and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life.
Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them.
Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said 'this is just the beginning.'
The Parkes Observatory in Australia detected radio signals from Proxima CentauriCSIRO/A. Cherney
Astronomers have spotted what may be the strongest candidate yet for an alien signal. Researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project have found an unusual beam of radio light coming from around our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri, according to a report in The Guardian on 18 December.
Any purported discovery of aliens always has to be taken with scepticism. That is especially true in cases where a signal appears to be a possible technosignature, a sign of alien technology rather than simply life beyond Earth. The Breakthrough Listen team has been extremely cautious about this find. “No one is claiming it’s a technosignature,” tweeted Pete Worden, chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
In fact, the researchers aren’t claiming much about it at all. News of the signal came to light by a researcher speaking to The Guardian before the scientific paper on it has been published – the data analysis isn’t yet complete, so nobody can be sure exactly what this strange radio beam is. All we know so far is that it is peculiar.
“The Breakthrough Listen team has detected several unusual signals and is carefully investigating,” Worden tweeted. “The strongest and most persistent are all from Proxima.”
The team detected several signals while examining data gathered by the Parkes Observatory in Australia in a 2019 search for stellar flares from Proxima Centauri. Nearly all of the signals flagged by Breakthrough Listen’s algorithms as potential extraterrestrial beacons turned out to be from human-made technology like satellites – except for one.
This odd signal lasted about 3 hours and was concentrated in a very narrow range of wavelengths – a range that isn’t generally used by our satellites and spacecraft. It was the first signal to pass through Breakthrough Listen’s first round of checks, which are mainly designed to weed out signals that actually originate from Earth. The researchers have named it Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, or BLC1.
However, Worden urged caution and stressed that the Breakthrough Listen team still believes these signals will turn out to be radio interference from Earthly technology, rather than contact from an alien civilization. All previous signals the team has detected have been quickly explained by Breakthrough Listen’s first round of tests, but the researchers will have to run additional checks they have never used before on this new signal, says Jason Wright at Pennsylvania State University. They are running those checks now.
If it is truly a signal from Proxima Centauri, that is interesting not only because it is our solar system’s nearest stellar neighbour at just 4.2 light years away, but also because we know that it has at least two planets.
“Proxima is also neat because some people have speculated that if there is a lot of technology in the galaxy and if you wanted to communicate over long distances, sending the signal directly is a pretty inefficient way to do it,” says Wright. “It’s like how if I call you on the phone, my mobile phone is not directly sending your phone a radio signal.”
The idea is that advanced aliens would be more likely to set up a network that could look somewhat like an interstellar cellphone system, with many interconnected nodes relaying messages across the galaxy. “If extraterrestrial civilisations are doing that, we wouldn’t expect to get a lot of signals from distant stars, we’d expect to find them from nearby stars,” says Wright.
We will know whether BLC1 is just Earthly interference in the next few months, after Breakthrough Listen researchers run more tests and officially publish their investigations. Even if they rule out interference from our own satellites or spacecraft, astronomers will run through many other possible explanations before they conclude it is aliens. The team will be keeping a close eye on our closest neighbour.
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
Dr. Steven Greer on Remote Viewing, Higher State of Consciousness, and The Contact
The work that medical doctor, researcher and author Steven Greer continues to do through the organization CSETI has made some tremendous breakthroughs in establishing contact with an intelligent phenomena, often perceived as UFOs, Light Phenomena and strange looking entities.
Steven demonstrates that there is a conscious connection being established with this phenomena and on many occasions they are being caught on camera.
Something Falling From the Sky in Southern West Virginia! - Must Video
Something Falling From the Sky in Southern West Virginia! - Must Video
Hmm. So. did they go to where it landed? Was its landing spot afire? I would have to know a lot more/ Why end it as it., “landed”? Did it land? Meteorite?
Days Of Noah Reloaded - Hybrids Walk Among Us - A Documentary
Days Of Noah Reloaded - Hybrids Walk Among Us - A Documentary
Ordo Ab Cho is the Latin phrase for “Order Out of Chaos”. Professor Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a Freemason and a political and social scientist at the University of Berlin (1817-1831), maintained that man could shape history and achieve ultimate peace only through repetitive episodes of controlled conflict between opposing forces.
Hegel advocated the idea that men must create, manipulate and manage that conflict in order to create a pre-determined outcome – the controlled change, the synthesis. Bible Prophesies Chaos Ahead – The present turmoil we find ourselves in is child’s play compared to the world upheaval just ahead as foretold in the Bible. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. Rev 9:15
Huge cigar shaped UFO filmed over Andes mountain range, Chile
Huge cigar shaped UFO filmed over Andes mountain range, Chile
During a flight from Puerto Montt to Santiago a plane passenger filmed a huge partially cloaked cigar-shaped UFO over Andes mountain range in Chile on November 11, 2020.
My name is Rodrigo from Chile, on 11/11/2020 on the sky flight H272 from Puerto Montt to Santiago (departure 18:36, arrival 20:14 hours).
Approximately arriving in Santiago at 8:00 p.m., I was looking at the landscape (Andes mountain range) the only "cloud" (dark and fat, in the shape of a worm) catches my attention, "rain cloud" style, above the peak of the Montana. From my window at an angle of about 65 degrees.
As the plane was parallel to the "cloud", I noticed that it began to be "clearer" (I thought it was "something" normal of the winds and altitude) and it was there that at the right point of the cloud, it made a " small flash of white light "that caught my attention and amazement (in a matter of second), I couldn't believe what I was seeing,
I was stunned, when I turned around and saw inside the cabin if someone was looking at the same thing as me, the person closest to me, I was in an intermediate seat to mine (Mrs. Older) sleeping with masks (I also had the mask on), when trying to take my cell phone that was locked and is unlocked with facial recognition, I lost valuable seconds when using alphanumeric unlock. After enabling the cell phone, I focus on the "cloud"
As can be seen, "it was no longer a rain cloud", but it took the form of something solid and clearer.
After the first photo, go to video in slow motion format (effect that was used when making videos to my daughter), where "you can see that it is no longer a cloud" but a "solid disk" (it passed all its metamorphosis),
It was impressive to see the "UFO" (calmly in my house and thanks to google map, look for the reference hill, when measuring, it showed me that the UFO was approximately 6 kilometers long).
When the plane moves away from the UFO, at first glance it gives a visual effect of fading on the horizon, it may be an optical effect, but when occupying filters in the video the UFO was still but getting smaller.
At that moment the plane makes a U-turn preparing the landing, at that moment I thought I had already lost sight of the UFO, and to my surprise I see it again at another point of the Andes mountain range, on the horizon, where I take my cell phone , I unlock it for the last photo and video of the UFO. Mufon.
Israel’s Former Space Security Chief Claims Aliens Exist, And Trump Knows
Israel’s Former Space Security Chief Claims Aliens Exist, And Trump Knows
In interview with Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper, former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate Haim Eshed said the U.S. government has been in contact with extraterrestrials from a “galactic federation.” NBC News’ Bill Neely reports.
In January, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope was declared fully operational in China’s Guizhou province. Beijing’s steadfast commitment to improving the nation’s position as a leader in the basic sciences can be gleaned from the fact that the construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) was completed in five years, a remarkable achievement for a project of its technical complexity. The scientific mandate of FAST is many ways quite conventional for a telescope of its size, including detection of “fast radio bursts” – bursts of extremely powerful radio-waves from deep space of varying duration whose origins remains a mystery. (In September last year, FAST detected a significant number of such bursts from a single source, a feat that could only be achieved due to the telescope’s sensitivity.)
It is, however, the inclusion of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in FAST’s scientific agenda that has attracted the most media attention, not always savory. A February 2016 New York Times article on FAST, for example, was headlined “China Telescope to Displace 9,000 Villagers in Hunt for Extraterrestrials.” Other media reporting emphasized the inclusion of SETI in the telescope’s research mandate at the expense of commenting on its potentially path-breaking use to study natural cosmic phenomena such as pulsars (distant geriatric stars made of exotic nuclear matter).
There is also no fundamental reason, as astronomers has now come to see, why detection of alien life may always need radio astronomy. Increasingly, search for “techno-signatures” – signs of advanced alien intelligence – now includes scanning other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, predominantly infrared waves. But that said, recent revisions of the estimates of the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy alone (up to 300,000) – sharpened by recent advances in exoplanetology – points to the increasing probability of their detection.
China’s SETI road
It is interesting to think of how China and the rest of the world would react if – and this is a mighty “if” – China’s new mega radio telescope manages to detect an alien signal. What immediate steps would Beijing take if this were to happen during Xi Jinping’s (indefinite) tenure? As strategic competition between Washington and Beijing heats up and talks of a new Cold War abound, how would the United States and other allied powers react to the fact that the greatest discovery in human history was made possible through the efforts of an authoritarian, repressive regime? Would this mark an intensification of the rivalry between the China and the West, or lead to its decline?
The irony of this thought experiment of course is in the fact that we are now forced to contemplate the possibility that it is China and not the United States that is in the pole position to detect a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence. And in many ways, this was in the making for some time.
While the American radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico – the second-largest of its kind, after the Chinese dish – became iconic in the public’s imagination when it came to SETI, in 1993 the U.S. Congress terminated all research funding for what one American senator famously described as “Martian hunting season at the taxpayer’s expense.” (The SETI program at Arecibo, which lasted for a year till federal funding for it was stopped, was pioneered by astronomer Jill Tarter, widely assumed to be model for the character of Ellie Arroway, the protagonist of the movie and novel Contact. Early on in the movie version, Arroway’s SETI time on the Arecibo telescope is cancelled by a dismissive federal science administrator.)
This is not to say that American astronomers have stopped SETI research: substantial funding has since flowed from private sources. Most significantly, in 2015 Russian Silicon Valley billionaire (with serious Kremlin links) Yuri Milner announced a $100 million “Breakthrough Listen” initiative to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Milner’s funding continues to help the SETI program through the U.S. National Science Foundation-supported Green Bank Telescope, for example.
But private initiatives like Milner’s are international in character. For example, Breakthrough Listen is actively collaborating with the FAST project. While China has advertised FAST as an integral part of international collaborative efforts, it is controlled by the Chinese state directly. The ultimate arbiter of how of the new telescope’s time will go into the search for SETI is Beijing’s prerogative.
If directing state resources toward SETI is not an obstacle for China, could state ideology be so? Marxism-Leninism, the liturgy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has no problems imagining the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Writing in 1980, Soviet astronomer Boris A. Voronstov-Vel’yaminov noted the broad congruence between SETI and his state religion: “Dialectical materialism teaches that the infinite universe harbors an infinite number of inhabited worlds and that life will unfailing spring up where favorable opportunities present themselves.” (While doing so he also took a swipe at the Russian Orthodox Church, remarking that it was, on the other hand, altogether not comfortable with speculations about extraterrestrial life.) At a more concrete level, Soviet astronomers like Nikolai Kardashev were pioneers in detailed theoretical models of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Could there be other reasons why the Chinese may not be comfortable with idea of extraterrestrial intelligence? On this point many have drawn from the writings of Chinese science-fiction phenomena Liu Cixin. In Liu’s telling, the search for SETI may not be such a good thing after all. Based on China’s historical experience – and the “century of humiliation” narrative that finds such a significant place in Xi’s China – he has argued that humanity’s relationship with a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilization may be fundamentally adversarial, resembling that of the hunter and the hunted. (Liu serves as an adviser of sorts to the FAST project.)
The Days After First Contact
Irrespective of the beliefs the leadership in Zhongnanhai holds when it comes to extraterrestrial civilizations, what happens if the FAST dish does receive a signal that, after processing, is determined not to have been generated by any natural astrophysical process?
As SETI Institute astronomer Seth Shostak points out, there are no binding international protocols that would require Beijing to make the discovery internationally known. But if China were to keep the option of non-disclosure open, its astronomical community must analyze the signal and definitely rule out any natural origins of the signal by itself. (Note that, as with recent claims around an unusual star or an interstellar rock that was found in our solar system , the majority of the international astronomical community would vastly prefer natural over artificial explanations.)
Following this, based on China’s recent domestic political behavior and the international environment, one can plausibly posit the following chain of events.
Leading Small Groups (LSGs) – “coordinating bodies that address important policy areas that involve several different (and occasionally competing) parts of the bureaucracy” – are a Chinese governance mechanism that have grown in importance under Xi Jinping. Given that dealing with the aftermath of the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence signal is likely to involve getting the science and technology, as well as the national-security bureaucracies to work together, it quite likely that Xi will form one exclusively to deal with it, just as he did for the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
While Xi has personally led key LSGs in the past, whether he himself oversees this one will depend on whether he sees a personal risk in doing so. (For the coronavirus LSG, Xi has let Premier Li Keqiang lead it, perhaps as a way to insure himself should the crisis prove to unmanageable.)
It is highly unlikely that news of this discovery – if not precise details such as its coordinates or content – can be confined to a few in the scientific and political leadership, and impossible if it is a result of an international collaboration using FAST, say with Milner’s Breakthrough Initiative. As soon as words gets out, the CCP will attempt to milk the discovery domestically, arguing that it proves superiority of the Chinese model. This signaling through state-controlled social media such as the microblogging site Weibo will be a further attempt at regime consolidation, especially if the discovery comes at a time when Xi assesses that the Party’s grip over power is slipping. It will be accompanied by aggressive perception-shaping exercise along the line on the discovery the CCP sets.
What about the reaction from the rest of the world? If the details of the FAST signal are not released publicly, there is bound to be Western skepticism – “fake news,” some could exclaim. This reaction will partly be because of the culture of secrecy that permeates Chinese science, leading to an understandable hesitance on the part of many to accept claims from Chinese scientists at face value.
This comes on top of the fact that any suggestions that an astronomical event or object may be artificial is inevitably met with serious skepticism and the discoverer(s) subject to personal attack at times irrespective of their scientific credentials. For Chinese scientists, such attacks may have serious professional and even personal costs, as biophysicist He Jiankui discovered after his claims about the world’s first gene-edited babies were met with international skepticism as well as outrage.
But it could also be due to an ideological backlash: many Western governments may not be readily willing to concede that an authoritarian rival may succeed where they have failed. At a time when the U.S.-China relationship is increasingly acquiring a zero-sum character across the spectrum – political, economic, scientific-technological – and at least one leading American expert has endorsed the clash-of-civilization thesis when it comes to her country’s relationship with China, conceding to the Chinese claim may indeed prove to be politically difficult.
Of course, China’s own stance when it comes to releasing the details of the signal – the coordinates of the source as well as the content of the signal if it was a nonrecurring one-time-only event – will determine much of the international response. Here, the People’s Republic will have two choices, assuming that the discovery was the result of sole efforts of Chinese scientists: release the details to bolster its own credibility (knowing that if the claim was to be dismissed it would do serious damage to China’s international reputation) or keep it a secret. What may ultimately determine Beijing’s choice?
To understand it, note that the ETI signal could be of two different type: a “directed” signal that carries a message (a broadcast, if you wish) or an “undirected” one that could originate from an artificial source but not carry an meaningful information content (for example, energy remnant from some advanced technology of a civilization that harnesses the energy of an entire star or even an entire galaxy – a “Type II” or “Type III” civilization in the Kardashev scale). The difference between the two – whether a signal is part of intelligent communication or simply a technological artifact of alien origin – can be estimated by measuring its Shannon entropy, for example.
If China determines that not only is the signal directed but it has the potential to carry significant amount of information, it may weigh the benefits of keeping the signal secret versus revealing it more carefully for the simple reason that such a message may potentially carry information about very advanced (and therefore useful) technologies. (An advanced technology-blueprint bearing signal was the premise of Contact.) However, note that Chinese scientific achievements are still quite uneven – for example, the People’s Republic was unable to find enough researchers to analyze the FAST data a couple of years ago. It may very well determine that deciphering the message will require coordinated international effort.
Should China indeed release the details of the signal – thereby establishing conclusively that there is intelligent life outside Earth – what would the long-term American reaction be? Just as the Soviet Union’s success in launching the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957 caused the United States to dramatically increase its investment in science and technology, a FAST signal is likely to provoke a similar response especially at a time when American leaders are openly competing with Beijing for technological dominance. But the flip side to this otherwise happy development – just as during the original Cold War – would be the resulting military-technological contest exacerbating already deteriorating US-China relations.
In the 2016 movie Arrival, the worldwide detection of messages from an extraterrestrial intelligence forces the United States, China, and Russia to cooperate despite their individual misgivings – about each other’s as well as the aliens’ intention. The reality, if and when such a time comes, may unfortunately be much more complex.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
NASA SUGGESTS SENDING BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBODOG TO MARS
NASA SUGGESTS SENDING BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBODOG TO MARS
NASA
DAN ROBITZSKI
Good Boy
NASA scientists have an unusual idea for exploring the surface of Mars: sending a four-legged robot dog.
Specifically, researchers suggested that a modified version of Boston Dynamics’ dog-like Spot robot would make for a great alternative to the classic Mars rover, Live Science reports. The idea is that they’re better suited to cover long distances and rough terrain — and could even help map out possible locations for the type of human outpost NASA hopes to eventually establish on the Red Planet.
Mecha-Laika
Scientists are already testing out the idea, equipping a Spot robot with new gear that could help it navigate and plot its surroundings, according to Live Science‘s account. The prototype robodog, nicknamed Au-Spot, would be able to cross terrain that’s inaccessible to a wheeled rover and do so much faster, while also hiking around obstacles and standing back up if it falls over.
“Toppling does not mean mission failure,” the NASA scientists said while presenting the idea at Monday’s annual American Geophysical Union meeting, according to Live Science‘s reporting. “Using recovery algorithms, the robot can self-right from a multitude of falls.”
Den Dweller
Part of Au-Spot’s mission would be to explore and develop maps of Martian caves and tunnels, according to Live Science, in search of suitable locations for a human outpost. For now, it’s doing test runs in hallways and tunnels that mimic Martian terrain in California.
“These behaviors could one day enable revolutionary scientific missions to take place on the Martian surface and subsurface, thereby pushing the boundaries of NASA’s capability in exploring traditionally inaccessible sites,” the scientists said.
Using the Keck I telescope, a team of astronomers has measured the distance to the ancient and farthest galaxy called GN-z11. The galaxy is so distant that it defines the very boundary of the observable universe itself.
According to astronomers, this discovery could shed light on a period of cosmological history when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.
Professor Nobunari Kashikawa from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo is driven by his curiosity about galaxies. In particular, he sought the most distant one to observe to find out how and when it came to be.
Kashikawa said, “From previous studies, the galaxy GN-z11 seems to be the farthest detectable galaxy from us, at 13.4 billion light-years, or 134 nonillion kilometers (that’s 134 followed by 30 zeros). But measuring and verifying such a distance is not an easy task.”
Astronomers measured the redshift of GN-z11. This refers to the way light stretches out, becomes redder the farther it travels. By measuring how stretched these telltale signatures are, astronomers can deduce how far the light must have traveled, thus giving away the target galaxy’s distance.
(Upper) The arrow points to the most distant galaxy in the universe. (Lower) Carbon emission lines observed in infrared. When it left the galaxy, the signal was ultraviolet light in the region of 0.2 micrometer, but it was redshifted and stretched to over 10 times that to about 2.28 micrometers. Credit: Kashikawa et al.
Kashikawa said,“We looked at ultraviolet light specifically, as that is the area of the electromagnetic spectrum we expected to find the redshifted chemical signatures. The Hubble Space Telescope detected the signature multiple times in the spectrum of GN-z11. However, even the Hubble cannot resolve ultraviolet emission lines to the degree we needed. So we turned to a more up-to-date ground-based spectrograph, an instrument to measure emission lines, called MOSFIRE, which is mounted to the Keck I telescope in Hawaii.”
The emissions from GN-z11 were captured in detail using MOSFIRE. This allowed them to make a much better estimation of its distance than was possible from previous data. When working with distances at these scales, it is not sensible to use our familiar units of kilometers or even multiples of them; instead, astronomers use a value known as the redshift number denoted by z.
Astronomers improved the accuracy of the galaxy’s z value by a factor of 100. If subsequent observations can confirm this, then the astronomers can confidently say GN-z11 is the farthest galaxy ever detected in the universe.
Journal Reference:
Linhua Jiang et al, Evidence for GN-z11 as a luminous galaxy at redshift 10.957, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-01275-y
The Main Purpose Of The Apollo-20 Was An Investigation Of The Mysterious Places In Delporte Craters?
The Main Purpose Of The Apollo-20 Was An Investigation Of The Mysterious Places In Delporte Craters?
During the Cold War, which lasted for decades, the Western and Eastern blocs were overtaking everything they could. Whether it was in propaganda, military power, military spending, or technology. As is often said, during the war, the development of technology is sharply upward, as evidenced, for example, by Nazi death squads V1 or the development of tanks during the First World War. During the cold, the race for the extraction of the universe began, thanks to which the technology went up again sharply. As we know, the first man in the universe was Yuri Gagarin of the USSR and the first visitor to the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong. New spaces in space bring with them new mysteries.
After the first landing on the moon surface, missions like Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and the last flight to the Moon – Apollo 17 (hereinafter referred to as A-XY) took place. However, according to the conspirators, flights like A-18 and 20 were also made, while A-18 was filmed and we have been reviewing it for a long time, but now we can not deal with it. But let’s look at the A-20 mission.
It all began when July 26, 1971, launched Earth A-15, which recorded a monster object reminding the alien ship for the month. After the next years, the A-20 was designed to explore three kilometers long and five-meter tall ships. A few decades later, specifically in 2007, strange videos that „flooded“ YouTube began to spread. On them were short films from the astronauts (from the alleged Soviet-American crew) who shot the landings, the interior of the ship (in which a figure of a woman called „Mona Lisa“ lying), a flight around the ship, and also the views of the alien small town. Videos at first glance look really mysterious and real. A huge extraterrestrial ship and still the remains of an extraterrestrial race somewhere in the month? The conspiracy sites have immediately grabbed this topic.
A 76-year-old man living in Rwanda, Africa, said that the mission was launched on August 16, 1975, and was aimed at ISZAK D at Delporte Craters. This man is called William Rutledge (he changed his identity, resided, moved to the African state) and claimed to have been a member of the secret crew. They were supposed to be a complete Captain Dr. William Rutledge, Dr. Leona Snyder and the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was the first man in the open universe. The aforementioned William was supposed to add videos to YT under the name Retiredafb, but later, almost all of the videos in the account were deleted, and today we find only one wretched movie. Later, he started to release videos, but this time he called ValValientThor (also a mysterious concept that we will be discussing later).
ELON MUSK WILL RUN INTO TROUBLE SETTING UP A MARTIAN GOVERNMENT, LAWYERS SAY
ELON MUSK WILL RUN INTO TROUBLE SETTING UP A MARTIAN GOVERNMENT, LAWYERS SAY
SPACEX
VICTOR TANGERMANN
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is steadfast in realizing his dreams of establishing a permanent colony on Mars, but any new government there will face immense legal challenges.
We got an early glimpse of what such a future society could look like, buried deep inside the user agreement for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service.
“For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the terms of service read. “Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”
Musk has previously pondered what such a government could look like. During SXSW 2018, Musk told audiences that “most likely, the form of government on Mars would be something of a direct democracy… where people vote directly on issues instead of going through representative government.”
Lawyers, however, have their doubts about SpaceX’s abilities to set up a Martian state. In fact, several told The Independent in a new story, what SpaceX has laid out in its Starlink user agreement isn’t radically different from space treaties that have been signed over the years.
“The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together,” Randy Segal, of the law firm Hogan Lovells, told the newspaper.
For instance, the 2020 Artemis accords stipulate that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
Musk may be taking baby steps toward nationbuilding already, Segal said.
“He could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution… just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles,” Segal told The Independent. “Does it have any precedent or enforceability? The answer I’d say is clearly no; but if you say something enough, people might come around.”
Frans Von der Dunk, a space law expert at Nebraska College of Law, brought the question down to Earth by pointing out that it would probably be many years before anybody even gets to Mars, nevermind considers setting up a government there.
“I have to defer to the true scientists here, some of which might claim 10 years, others more like a century or more,” der Dunk told The Independent. “I would probably position myself somewhere safely in the middle.”
The European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now Costing $1.5 Billion
The European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now Costing $1.5 Billion
Funding is an extremely important aspect of any large-scale science project. The whims of financial controllers can greatly expand or completely sink the efforts of hundred or thousands of other workers. Many times, funding announcements for large scientific projects focus on cuts or “cost-savings” which hobble the eventual end system they are trying to build. But recently the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced it had actually increased the budget for the under-construction Extremely Large Telescope(ELT) by 10%.
The total cost of the project has now reached €1.3 billion ($1.59 USD). Originally approved and funded in 2012, construction of the actual observatory started in 2014 at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The construction relies on a consortium of contractors, both from the ESO’s funding nations as well as Chile itself. In fact, 80% of the budget from the project goes directly to those contractors.
Artist’s conception of the completed ELT. Credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions / ESO
It has been a bumpy road for those contractors though, as the original funding for the projects had a two phase approach. The first “Phase I” part of the project would result in a fully function ELT, though it would be significantly less functional than originally envisioned. A second phase, with its own pot of money, would then be used to bring the telescopes up to the specification that was originally laid out for it.
More recently, the ELT underwent what ESO calls a “total cost exercise”, which monitors the project to ensure that it is living up to expectations. As part of this exercise, the ESO Council (the organization’s funding body) approved a 10% project budget increase that will achieve the goals originally laid out in Phase II of the plan. These improvements include atmospheric monitoring equipment, more laser guided star trackers, and a whole new technical outbuilding in nearby Armazones.
Construction site for the ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in the remote Chilean Atacama Desert. Credit: G. Hüdepohl/ESO
One thing the increased budget did not seem to affect was the timeline. Barring any major technical hiccups or budgetary disasters, the ELT is still on track to receive its first light sometime in 2025.
On blind dates, we search for others that resemble us, at least at some level. This is true in our personal life but even more so on the galactic dating scene, where we have been seeking a companion civilization for a while without success. While developing our own radio and laser communication over the past seven decades, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) focused on radio or laser signals from outer space—two kinds of electromagnetic “messenger” that astronomers use to study the cosmos.
Over the same period, we have been also launching probes, like Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11 and the New Horizons spacecraft, towards interstellar space. These could eventually reach alien civilizations, passively announcing our existence. But in 1960, at the dawn of the space age, Ronald Bracewell noted in a Nature paper that a physical space probe could also search for technological civilizations across interstellar distances. SETI should therefore explore this technique as well—a timely notion in the era of multimessenger astronomy, ushered most recently by the detection of gravitational waves.
This sort of exploration obviously could work both ways. Thanks to data collected by the Kepler space telescope, we now know that about half of all sunlike stars host a rocky Earth-size planet in their habitable zone. Within this zone, the planet’s surface temperature can support liquid water and the chemistry of life. The famous Drake equation quantifies (with large uncertainties) the likelihood of receiving a radio signal from another civilization in our Milky Way galaxy. But it does not apply to physical probes that might arrive at our doorstep. The distinction resembles the difference between a cell phone conversation at the speed of light and the exchange of letters through surface mail.
It also suggests an addendum to the Drake equation: the number of probes in a volume of interstellar space can be expressed as the number of stars times the average number of probes produced per star, N. The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, contains a close pair of sunlike stars (A and B) bound to a more distant dwarf star (C). This triple star system is about four light years away—but the nearest probe could be much closer—at a distance that is smaller by a factor of (3N)1/3. In fact, this probe would be within the Earth-sun separation if civilizations produce on average a quadrillion (N~1015) probes per star over their lifetime.
If each probe weighs a gram, similar to what has been proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, then the total mass of a quadrillion probes would be comparable to the weight of a kilometer-size asteroid—completely negligible in the planetary mass budget. Such a meteor strikes the Earth every half a million years, and its size is smaller by a factor of several tens than the Chicxulub K/Pg impactor that killed the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. Clearly, the actual number of interstellar probes would depend on the abundance and lifetime of technological civilizations per star, as well as the weight of each probe and the sophistication of its production technology.
My forthcoming book, titled Extraterrestrial, tells the story of the discovery of `Oumuamua, meaning “scout” in the Hawaiian language, by the Pan-STARRS facility in Hawaii on October 2017. As the first interstellar object detected near Earth from outside the solar system, it looked weird, unlike any comet or asteroid seen before within the solar system. The book details the unusual properties of `Oumuamua: it had a flattened shape with extreme proportions—never seen before among comets or asteroids, as well as an unusual initial velocity and a shiny appearance. It also lacked a cometary tail, but nevertheless exhibited a push away from the sun in excess of the solar gravitational force.
As a regular comet, `Oumuamua would have had to lose about a tenth of its mass in order to experience the excess push by the rocket effect. Instead, `Oumuamua showed no carbon-based molecules along its trail, nor jitter or change in its spin period—as expected from cometary jets. The excess force could be explained if `Oumuamua was pushed by the pressure of sunlight; that is, if it is an artificially-made lightsail—a thin relic of the promising technology for space exploration that was proposed as early as 1924 by Friedrich Zander and is currently being developed by our civilization. This possibility would imply that `Oumuamua could be a message in a bottle.
In September 2020, another unusual “asteroid” was discovered by-Pan STARRS, showing an excess push by sunlight without a cometary tail. This object, labeled by the astronomical name 2020 SO, was not unbound like `Oumuamua but instead on an Earthlike orbit around the sun. After integrating its orbit back in time, it was found that 2020 SO is a stray rocket booster, left over from a crash of the Surveyor 2 lunar lander on the surface of the Moon in 1966.
Nevertheless, its discovery lends credibility to the notion that thin artificial objects with a large surface-to-mass ratio can be distinguished from natural objects based on their excess push away from the sun without a cometary tail. There is no way that `Oumuamua could have originated from our planet based on its high local speed, its large size and the inclination of its trajectory. Another way to put it is that `Oumuamua spent a fraction of a year within the orbit of the Earth around the sun, and we know of no human-made object that was propelled to its trajectory over the year preceding its discovery.
When taking a vacation near a beach, I enjoy studying natural seashells, but on rare occasions I encounter an artificially made plastic bottle. Similarly, astronomers regularly spot naturally made rocks when monitoring comets or asteroids from the solar system, but perhaps `Oumuamua represents our first encounter with a plastic bottle, manufactured by an advanced technological civilization. Lightsails can be designed to weigh a gram per tens of meters squared of surface area, comparable to the area of `Oumuamua.
Interstellar probes could also maneuver to preferred trajectories that are not drawn from a random distribution. In particular, it is beneficial to bring them to rest relative to the star they intend to probe. In that case, the gravitational attraction by the star will pull them straight towards it. The focusing of their trajectories will enhance their density in the vicinity of the star, allowing more of them to travel through the habitable zone and spy for any technological signatures there. In the outer envelope of the solar system, such slow-moving probes would be hidden among the numerous icy rocks of the Oort cloud, that are loosely bound to the sun halfway to Alpha Centauri.
If the senders of the probes prefer to remain anonymous, they might choose to deposit them in the galactic parking lot, the so-called local standard of rest, which averages over the random motions of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. In this neutral frame of reference, it is not possible to identify where they came from. Surprisingly, `Oumuamua started in that frame before entering the solar system.
The data we gathered on `Oumuamua are incomplete. To learn more, we must continue to monitor the sky for similar objects. The realization that we are not alone will have dramatic implications for our goals on Earth and our aspirations for space. When reading the news every morning, I cannot help but wonder whether we are “the sharpest cookies in the jar.” Are there extraterrestrials smarter than us in the Milky Way? The only way to find out is by surveying the sky for the multitude of messengers that they might be using.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Avi Loeb
Avi Loeb is former chair (2011-2020) of the astronomy department at Harvard University, founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He also chairs the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies and the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project, and is a member of President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Loeb is the author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in January 2021.
The off-the-grid shelters offer 111 square feet of living space and cost $17,500 per pod.
All images courtesy of Jupe
“Jupe is an off-grid escape from the city, whether to the middle of a sprawling desert, a windswept cliff by the sea or your own backyard,” the startup’s official website reads. “Units are easy to assemble anywhere and WiFi-enabled, providing equal connection to the natural and digital world.”
“Experiencing the natural wonders of the world shouldn’t mean being forced to disconnect while staying in a less-than-inspirational living space,” CEO Jeff Wilson said in a press release. “During these times when most of us are craving a true escape, Jupe provides an experience perfectly suited for socially distanced travel.”
Monolith Excitement
According to Jupe’s site, the aluminum-reinforced pods can fit a Queen-sized bed, end tables, a desk and chair — and an “average-sized monolith,” for some reason.
“We turned to ideas that inspired and excited us,” Wilson said. “Remember that monolith from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’? It last sent signals to Jupiter from the moon. It seems that a few of those blueprints were bounced back to Earth. We intercepted them and created Jupe.”
If you’re wiling to spend a little more, you can deck out your Jupe with smart speakers, a locking safe, and even solar panels for the full off-the-grid experience.
Jupes can be pre-ordered for a refundable $99 deposit.
RELATED PHOTOS AND VIDEO, selected and posted by peter2011
Jupe is made of interconnected aluminium masts that provide support for the geometric shape that’s designed to be reminiscent of an “interstellar shuttle.”
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
The sides are made of fire-resistant canvas, while the floor is wood tiling.
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
Jupe designers said that the structure was designed as “a work of art rather than a simple dwelling.”
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
Though it’s only 111 square feet inside, Jupe feels surprisingly roomy, with 11 foot-tall ceilings. There’s enough room for a queen-size bed, a desk, chair, and ottoman.
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
The floor also opens up into storage cubes, totaling more than 38 cubic feet of storage space.
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
The front window can open into a large panorama to take in views.
Jeff Wilson
Jupe urban escape pod.
Each unit comes with solar panels, a 200 Ah battery system, and WiFi router, with the option to add on dimmable LED lighting and a Sonos speaker with Alexa.
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
The Jupe can be flat-packed down onto the base frame for easy transportation.
Sam Gezari
Jupe urban escape pod.
It can be reassembled anywhere, even off the grid, thanks to solar power and batteries.
The year was 1979, and a man by the name of Robert Taylor was a forestry worker for the Livingston Development Corporation, in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland. He was a respected war hero, was known as a good, honest worker, and was not prone to spinning wild yarns or getting into trouble, so when on November 8, 1979 he stumbled back from a trip to a hill called Dechmont Law looking disheveled, with cuts on his face, torn clothes, and looking somewhat the worse for wear, people were very concerned. When the visibly shaken man had gotten his head together, he would begin spinning a spectacular tale of bizarreness that has gone on to become a well-known and much discussed piece of UFO lore.
According to Taylor, he had gone out with his dog to do a routine check on the fences, gates, and a sampling project going on in the area. Since there were no direct roads to the remote location, he parked his truck on the nearby M8 expressway and he and the dog made their way into the woods of Dechmont Law on foot. As they progressed through the forest, Taylor says he was startled to see the startling sight of a dark grey metallic “flying dome” around 20 feet in diameter and 30 feet high hovering in the air of a clearing just above the forest floor, apparently kept aloft by an array of “small propellers” around its outer rim. As he looked on in wonder at this bizarre sight, he would claim that the air was pervaded by a smell like “burning brakes.” Very strange indeed, but it was about to get even stranger still.
Taylor claimed that before he had even had time to really process the sheer bizarreness of what he was witnessing, two small spheres detached from the larger craft, which were described as having protrusions and nodules all over them and as looking like “sea mines,” and which started rapidly rolling along the ground to approach the frightened man as they issued a “plopping, sucking sound.” These mysterious spheres reportedly then “grabbed” him with sets of protruding spikes and began pulling him towards the large dome as he struggled against them. He would claim that he believed they had been emanating some sort of toxic gas, as the acidic smell of burning rubber got unbearable and he felt the strength leaving his limbs. The whole time his dog was barking ferociously at the objects.
At this point Taylor apparently lost consciousness, and when he awoke he was lying face down in the clearing, which was now empty and with no sign of the otherworldly dome or its malevolent spheres. He found that his clothes had been shredded and that he had cuts and abrasions on his face and body, whether due to his struggle with the spheres or inflicted directly on him he did not know. Taylor had then made his way back to his truck, but was unable to start it, the engine completely dead, and so had stumbled all the way home on foot. Whatever those objects had done to him was still in his system at the time, because he did not seem to have full control of his body and had trouble speaking. When he came staggering to his home in this rambling, dazed, barely coherent state his wife immediately called the police and an investigation would ensue.
Police at first treated this as a common assault, and wrote up Taylor’s mutterings of UFOs and spiked killer spheres as just the rantings of his stressed mind, but they nevertheless went to the scene to investigate and see if they could get some information about the perpetrator. The area where the dome had allegedly appeared was found to have flattened grass, and to contain 32 anomalous holes in the ground, which were about 3.5 inches in diameter each and formed a strange semi-circular pattern, as well as ladder-like marks that looked like the treads of a bulldozer, which were confined to just the clearing and did not come from or lead to anywhere. Authorities tried to find out what could have made the marks by contacting the Livingston Development Corporation, and one investigator would say of this:
After examining every piece of machinery they had up there, we did not find anything to match. These marks just arrived. They did not come from anywhere or go anywhere. They just arrived as though a helicopter or something had landed from the sky. An object of several tons had stood there but there was nothing to show that it had been driven or towed away. There appeared to be no rational explanation for these marks.
Robert Taylor in the clearing
In the meantime, Taylor’s ripped clothing was examined by forensics experts, who came to the conclusion that they had been torn by something hooking into them and pulling sharply upward, which when taken with the tread marks made the story of domes and spiked discs sounding less and less far fetched by the minute. Police would ultimately log the incident officially as an assault, but there was nothing more they could do except ponder the strange clues surrounding it all. For his part, Taylor would adamantly insist that his story was true all the way up to his death in 2007, and considering what an upstanding citizen he was many people believed him. What has come to be known as the Robert Taylor Incident, Livingston Incident, or Dechmont Woods Encounter, has since gone on to become a much discussed and highly regarded possibly genuine UFO incident, and UFO researcher and author Malcolm Robinson has said of it:
This case stands head and shoulders above any other Scottish case and has the prestigious hallmark of being the only case officially investigated by the police and forensic science laboratories in Great Britain. Most, if not all, British UFO researchers would say that this one case provides the best evidence that something, not of this Earth, occurred in that lonely wood and which today, stands the test of time as being one of the biggest UFO cases in the annals of British UFOlogy.
Of course there are skeptics of the whole thing, and other possibilities have been offered above and beyond that Taylor was attacked by aliens. For instance the strange markings in the ground have been speculated to have been left by the water company that had been laying a cable duct through the area and had been storing a large collection of PVC pipes near the clearing. Taylor’s story of the dome, the spheres, and the physical effects he experienced have been suggested as being the result of him suffering an isolated attack of temporal lobe epilepsy, which can cause the physical symptoms described and cause hallucinations, which could have all been exacerbated by a case of meningitis Taylor had struggled with not long before the ordeal. It could have also been that he had mistaken a nearby water tower for being an alien craft in this disoriented state. Other theories are that he had consumed hallucinogenic berries, that he had suffered a stroke, that he had seen a mirage of the planet Venus, or simply that he just made the whole thing up. There has never been any definitive answer, and considering that the sole witness has passed away we will probably never know for sure, but the legacy of this case lingers on today and probably will for some time to come.
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Are there other intelligent lifeforms in the universe besides humans capable of founding a civilization? That’s the million-dollar question that people of all walks of life have, to their best of their ability, attempt to answer. There are many theories that attempt to explain the utter lack of, well, alien signals. For instance, one new study concludes that intelligent life may have appeared several times in the Milky Way, however, the vast majority of these civilizations have wiped themselves out already.
Ever since people first realized we are all living on a giant rock orbiting one of many stars, a heartbreaking thought must have crept the mind: we’re not that special after all. But since there are countless stars in the Milky Way, and countless galaxies in the universe, there must be other civilizations out there. This thought comes as a consolation, so we might not be the only ones drifting through the frightening darkness of outer space.
But if it’s true that we’re not that special after all, where is everybody else? Enrico Fermi, the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, thought about this long and hard, and his correspondence with fellow scientists on the subject has remained known in history as the ‘Fermi Paradox’ — the notion that there is a virtually limitless number of stars, but nevertheless you don’t see any life floating around besides us. Where is everybody?
It’s believed there are between 100 and 400 billion planets in the Milky Way. Considering intelligent life appeared on one, it’s reasonable to consider there should be at least some other kind of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.
Millions of years of technological progress mean that an intelligent species should have the capability to travel to distant stars and even other galaxies. Just look at how our world has changed in the past 100 years alone.
According to mathematicians Duncan Forgan and Arwen Nicholson from Edinburgh University, self-replicating spacecraft traveling at one-tenth of the speed of light — admittedly a quick speed — could traverse the entire Milky Way in a mere 10 million years. This means that civilization could potentially colonize the whole galaxy in a mere couple of millions of years. Except it didn’t happen.
Then there’s the Drake equation, first proposed in 1961 by American astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake, which describes the variables involved in fostering intelligent life. This equation estimates the number “N” of civilizations in the Milky Way based on variables such as the rate of star formation, the number of planets in solar systems that may support life, or the necessary technological prowess to signal a civilization’s existence.
Drake’s equation was made famous by the late Carl Sagan, who featured it during an episode of his timeless series Cosmos. But since Sagan first talked about Drake’s equation, much has changed. Thanks to observations by the Kepler telescope, we now have a much firmer grasp of how many Earth-like worlds may be out there.
In a new study, researchers affiliated with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, as well as a high school student, have updated Drake’s equation with all the new things scientists have learned in the past decades, including the prevalence of sun-like stars harboring Earth-like planets or the frequency of supernovas that are unfriendly to life.
When they modeled the evolution of the Milky Way, the researchers found that life was most likely to emerge around 13,000 light-years from the galactic centers, where there is the greatest density of sun-like stars. The optimal time frame for the development of alien civilizations was also estimated at 8 billion years after the formation of the galaxy. For comparison, Earth is about 25,000 light-years from the galactic core and complex intelligent life evolved around 13.5 billion years after the Milky Way formed.
Earth is actually located outside the Milky Way’s hotspot of words likely to foster civilizations. Credit: Cai et al./arXiv.
In other words, this study suggests that there are other regions of the Milky way where life is more likely to appear than in our corner of the galaxy. What’s more, other civilizations might have had a five billion-year headstart. The problem is they may have had a headstart for their self-annihilation.
According to the researchers, most civilizations that have appeared before us have likely self-annihilated. Other civilizations that are still active in the galaxy are likely young, due to the propensity of intelligent life to eradicate itself. Over a long-enough timeframe, the probability of self-annihilation borders on certainty.
“As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic aspect for the practice of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence),” the authors wrote in their study that appeared in the pre-print serverarXiv.
“Our results also suggest that our location on Earth is not within the region where most intelligent life is settled, and SETI practices need to be closer to the inner Galaxy, preferably at the annulus 4 kpc (kiloparsec) from the Galactic Center.”
The search for alien life is nowhere settled, though. The study’s biggest limitation is its sample size of confirmed civilizations: just one. Humans are biased to think that other civilizations might behave just like us. As such, these inherent biases may cloud our judgment, believing that other civilizations might also nuke themselves out of existence.
Was watching the live cam and noticed two small black objects in the distance below. The objects were matching speed with the space station and there were two of them. At first I thought it could be the ISS shadow...but there are two of them! So I ruled that out. Something is keeping a close eye on the space station. The UFOs speed is equal to the space stations. This is 100% proof that aliens are keeping a close eye on humanity. We shouldn't call them aliens, we should call them watchers.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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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.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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