Contrary to Neil Sedaka, breaking up doesn’t seem to be hard to do at the Russian space program Roscosmos – it announced over the weekend that it is breaking off all relations with the International Space Station by 2024. Was it something NASA said about that pesky leak on the Russian side it took them over a year to find?

“We have agreed with our ISS partners the term of operation at the station – 2024. After this period, the decision will be made based on the technical condition of the station modules, which have mostly expired their service life, as well as our plans to deploy a new generations. When we make a decision, then we will start negotiations with our partners on the conditions and forms of interaction after 2024.”

After Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov appeared on the Sunday program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” and spilled the beans, Roscosmos quickly issued a press release confirming it. Interfax.ru added that this contradicts Vladimir Soloviev, Flight Director of the ISS Russian Segment, who said in early April that the life of the ISS could be extended until the 2030s and beyond, and Russia would be there for the duration. That is NASA’s plan as well — the Leading Human Spaceflight Act to extend operations of the ISS to 2030 was confirmed by Congress in December 2018.

Buh-bye!

The Roscosmos announcement also confirms that Russia is not abandoning the idea of a permanent space base – it plans to build its own. The new Russian National Orbital Service Station (ROSS) was announced a week ago and early estimates put its cost at $6 billion. That seems highly optimistic – the estimated total cost for the ISS is $150 billion – and it’s also disappointing to China’s space program, which was hoping Russia would provide cooperation for its own space station that is expected to be operational by 2022. That could still happen, possiblly while Russia  builds its own station.

This announcement comes as Russia celebrates the 60th anniversary of the launch that made Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first human in space, NASA astronauts made their last trip in a Russian space capsule as SpaceX takes over taxiing to the ISS, and Russia announced its plans to send a lander to the Moon for the first time since 1976. This latest announcement is probably just another step in Russia’s plan to return to space dominance in a race that has grown from two to a very crowded field. It remains to be seen if Roscosmos can catch up on its own. If the recent problems on the Russian side of the ISS are any indication, it has a lot to improve upon.

Я думал, ты принес изоленту! (I thought you brought the duct tape!)

What would Neil Sedaka say?

Do do do
Down dooby doo down down
Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down
Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down
Breaking up is hard to do

“Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” by Neil Sedaka

“Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down”? Is that a message to Russia to come down to Earth and come to your senses? Good luck with that, Neil.

Out in the cold, gray expanse of the Arctic Ocean, north of mainland Europe, is the remote Norwegian archipelago of Spitzbergen, now mostly known as Svalbard. It is a frigid, somewhat hostile domain once used as a base of operations for whalers and miners, with most of the land covered by glaciers and intersected by numerous fjords, and enveloped in a near eternal night during the frigid winter months. It is a sparsely inhabited, largely untouched and unspoiled realm of majestic natural beauty, and it is also the location of a series of very bizarre supposed UFO crashes.

The first of two supposed UFO crashes in the area of Spitzbergen supposedly begins in 1946, when a General James H. Doolittle was allegedly sent to the region by the Shell Oil Company for the purpose of investigating aerial phenomena in the area that were being called “ghost rockets.” Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen would then claim that a crashed UFO had been recovered in the area by the British and U.S. governments, claiming that sailors serving aboard the U.S.S. Alabama had told her that the mysterious craft had been recovered by Doolittle in Spitzbergen and whisked away to the U.S. for study. The story would basically end here, with her taking the truth to her grave when she died in 1965, but it would not be the last time something like this would be reported from the region.

Settlement in Spitzbergen

In June of 1952, a squadron of six Norwegian jet planes had just started summer maneuvers over Spitsbergen. As they sped over the Hinlopen Straits their radios began crackling and emitting static before anomalously cutting out entirely to leave them with no way to communicate with each other. In the meantime, radar showed that an unidentified object was fast approaching, but the pilots themselves could see nothing visually. The fighters circled the area for some time, when Air Captain Olaf Larsen purportedly looked down to see a metallic disc lodged into the snow frosted landscape down below, measuring 40 to 50 meters in diameter and shiny and bright enough to stand out in the snowy landscape. Further inspection would reveal that machinery and cables could be seen, as well as a series of jets around the side and what appeared to be a broken cockpit protruding from the icy ground. When they were finally able to get back to base and report what they had found, an expedition was sent to the apparent crash site, and a report in the German newspaper, Saarbrücker Zeitung would say of what was found:

A precise inspection of the remote-controlled flying disc that landed on the Nordaustlandet of Spitsbergen due to interference problems, led to the following indisputable information. The flying object, which has a diameter of 48.88 meters and slanting sides, is round and was unmanned. The circular steel object, is made out of an unknown metal compound, resembles a silver disc. After ignition, 46 automatic jets, located at equal distances on the outer ring, rotate the disc around a plexiglassed center ball, that contains measuring and control devices for remote control. The measuring instruments (gauges) have Russian symbols. The action radius of the disc seems to be more than 30.000 km, and the altitude over 160 km. The flying object, which resembles one of the legendary “flying saucers”, has sufficient room for high explosive bombs, possibly nuclear bombs.

In the wreck of the apparatus an expert is said to have discovered a radio piloting transmitter with a nucleus of plutonium transmitting on all wavelengths with 934 hertz, a measure that has been unknown so far. The investigation has also shown that the flying saucer crashed because of a defect in its radio piloting system. The saucer which carried no crew. The steel used in the construction is an unknown ally. It consists of an exterior disc provided at its peripheral with 46 automatic jets. This disc pivots around the central sphere which contains the measurement and remote-control equipment. The Norwegian specialists assumed that the disc had started from the Soviet Union and had gone down over Spitsbergen due to a mistake in transmitting or receiving, being incapacitated because of the hard landing. The strange, remote-controlled, unmanned jet plane will be brought to Narvik on board a ship for further investigation.

OK, so although weird, this was obviously just some sort of Russian experimental aircraft of some sort, right? Well, that is what it would seem to be at first, yet the story would continue to pick up new information and evolve. As the story got out into the open it would pick up new details, such as that of a report that supposedly came forth from a Colonel Gernod Darnhyl, of the Norwegian General Staff, who supposedly made the statement:

The Spitsbergen crash was very rewarding. True enough, our science still faces many riddles. I am sure, however, that they can soon be solved by these remains from Spitsbergen. A misunderstanding developed, some time ago, when it was stated that the flying disc was probably of Soviet origin. It has – this we must state emphatically – not been built by any country on earth. The materials are completely unknown to all experts, either not to be found on Earth, or processed by physical or chemical processes unknown to us. We must tell the public what we know about the unknown flying objects. A misplaced secrecy may well one day lead to panic! We now have material at hand, on which we can start. That means laboratories can start the work right away and they might give us preliminary results shortly. Norwegian scientists think that the material from Spitsbergen can only give away its secrets by nuclear crushing; this because it does not change either at absolute zero, when air is liquified, or at the highest temperatures technically possible with our technology. Also, every chemical treatment has been tried. Scientific results will only be released subsequent to a UFO conference in London or Washington.

So now it is not a Russian aircraft? Curiouser and curiouser. Before long, there were ever more fantastical stories surrounding the purported UFO crash, such as a report in Uruguayan newspaper El Nacional, of Montevideo. In the report, it is claimed that the Norwegian scientist Hans Larsen Løberg had made clear that the craft had actually come down at the German island of Helgoland, in the North Sea, and was definitely not Russian, having no discernible engine, nor any rivets, fuses or bolts, and speculated to have operated on “magnetic forces.” Løberg also apparently stated that the craft had some sort of “beam weapon” on board, as well as the remains of actual alien bodies. The report reads in part:

The material used was as light as aluminum, but very much harder, and probably much heat-resistant. Of the things found in its interior, they noticed some water that was three times as heavy as normal water, and a few pills which were taken to be food. There was also an apparatus which probably was a radio. It was quite small and had no antenna. They also found some books, probably navigational instructions, in a completely unknown writing. The doors of the spaceship were open. Just inside of the doors were 7 bodies, burned beyond recognition. Scientists are of the opinion, according to Larsen Løberg, that the bodies were of men at the age of between 25 and 30 years, about 1,65 m tall. All had perfect sets of teeth. The reason for the crash of this saucer, he thought, had to be that it was affected by the American hydrogen-bomb explosions. The material of the spaceship, and its apparatus, resisted the enormous heat, but the crew burned to death.

And just like that, the story has gone from a mysterious crash that could be anything or nothing at all to a downed alien spaceship with dead aliens on board. After this the whole story becomes hazy and there is not much to corroborate any of it, with many different versions offered up over the yeas that only further serve to muddy the waters as to what is going on. Indeed, there seems to be little to link any of this to an actual factual basis, and it lurks within the realm of strange cases that will probably be discussed over and over again, but which have no concrete evidence that can ever lead us in the direction of a real answer. The verdict of many in the UFO field is that this is an obvious hoax that has gotten out of control to take on a life of its own, with Norwegian ufologist Ole Jonny Brænne coming to the conclusion:

The conclusion therefore has to be that the Spitsbergen story (and the Helgoland story too, for that matter) is nothing but a classic H-O-A-X! The original authors, mainly J.M.M. and Sven Thygesen (if that was their real names), had a cursory knowledge of Norwegian military aircraft, but far from good enough. Even if this case does not hold any water, I will venture my way with a little prophecy: This story will, with great certainty, continue to be the subject of books as well as magazines during the 1990s. There will always be “researchers” who think this story deserves their enthusiastic attention, and cannot settle down with factual arguments which clearly show the story to lack any basis in reality.

Was this a hoax, or was there something more to it? Opinions seem to be divided on this case, which only further fuels speculation and debate. Did something crash out there in that snowy wilderness and was it covered up? Why has it evolved to add new details over time? It this the truth slowly coming out or the result of mere embellishment? Just what happened out there in the wilds of that remote place? The mystery remains, and we may never know for sure.

When a local famer was conducting land improvement work in the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, he stumbled upon an ancient tomb that archaeologists have described as being “untouched”, “highly unusual”, and a “significant” find.

After a big stone slab was turned over, that’s when the farmer found a slab-lined chamber underneath it. Upon further inspection, there was a sub-chamber located off of it which is believed to be the front part of the tomb. So far, a very smooth oval-shaped stone as well as what appeared to be a human bone have been found. It is believed that the tomb dates back at least to the Bronze Age (between 2000 BC and 500 BC) and could possibly be even older than that.

Archaeologists from the National Monuments Service and the National Museum of Ireland went to the location in order to perform the first survey of the area. While it is thought to be a Bronze Age tomb, there are several notable features that have archaeologists thinking it may be older as Mícheál Ó Coileáin explained, “But the design of this particular tomb is not like any of the other Bronze Age burial sites we have here.” “This is a highly unusual tomb. It’s possible that it’s earlier but it’s very difficult at this early stage to date it.”

Dr. Breandán Ó Cíobháin, who is an archaeologist and place names expert, went into further details on the significance of the discovery, “This tomb appears to be completely untouched and in its original state and contains human remains.” “That is very rare. It is an extremely significant find as the original structure has been preserved and not interfered with, as may have occurred in the case of other uncovered tomb.”

He went on to describe how the tomb’s layout may provide very important details, “In the south-west of Ireland we have a significant number of wedge tombs, in Cork and Kerry in particular.” “The majority are generally orientated to the west and south-west. It is not clear why but it may represent celestial or lunar alignments.” He added that this particular tomb in the Dingle Peninsula is different from the others, “Wedge tombs are usually visible above ground, this one is completely concealed.” “It is very well built and a lot of effort has gone into putting the large cap stone over it. It’s not a stone that was just found in the ground. It seems to have some significance.” He said that it could have been a ritual site with a burial.

(Not the tomb found in the Dingle Peninsula.)

He added that since the tomb is underground and hasn’t been fully explored yet, it’s hard to confirm its layout.

Authorities have stated that they won’t be commenting any further on the discovery until a full survey of the site has been completed. Pictures of the tomb can be seen here.

The tomb was uncovered in recent days during land improvement works being carried out by a farmer