Godlike Power and Monster Malevolence: Mishipizheu of Lake Superior

In Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 song  The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald , he figuratively blames the sinking of that ship on the “witch” of November. Folks more familiar with Ojibway mythology might, however, have pointed to Mishipizheu, one of the most important of the underground mythological creatures of the Northeastern and Midwestern North American tribes.

This pictograph of the Great Lynx known as Mishipizheu was created by Ojibway spiritual leaders at Agawa Rock in Lake Superior Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada.

( Chris Hill  / Adobe Stock)

Was Mishipizheu a God or a Monster? 

The “Great-Lynx” Mishipizheu blurs the line between god and monster and thus sheds light on what it takes to be one or the other. The Ojibway, an indigenous people from southern  Canada and the northern Midwestern United States, believed Mishipizheu was a giant lynx-like creature. An apt description would be that the Mishipizheu was a horned panther covered in copper scales with razor-sharp spikes down its back and a long flexible tail. 

According to Ojibway mythology, Mishipizheu lived under the vast waterways of their territory in the Canadian Shield, in and near the Great Lakes. It exercised complete control over the waterways and had a mean-streak which had to be placated with  copper or tobacco offerings lest it use its tail to create violent whirlpools or harsh waves to drown the people residing in the area. 

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On the one hand, we might consider him a god as he exercised supernatural power over a vast area of waterways and accepted tokens or  sacrifices for his cooperation with human endeavors. On the other hand, he is primarily a malevolent presence, drowning those who forget their offerings to him, creating tumult capriciously with a whip of his tail, and standing in opposition, in many stories, to the heroic Thunderbird. He was godlike in his power, but monster-like in his malevolence.

The SS. Algoma went down on Lake Superior in 1885. It was the worst loss of life in the history of Lake Superior.

( Public domain )

The Malevolent Intentions of Mishipizheu the Underwater Panther

It is no wonder that a malevolent spirit was felt to inhabit Lake Superior. Some people believe Mishipizheu has sunk at least 400  ships on the lake in recorded memory alone, in addition to the Edmund Fitzgerald. Some have even said that the island of Michipicoten, in Ontario (Canada) in the northeastern part of Lake Superior, is the primary abode of Mishipizheu, when he is not swirling through underground tunnels and caverns throughout the region. 

The belief of  indigenous tribes  of the region is that Mishipizheu lives and travels through a vast system of tunnels and caverns underlying the vast waterways of Midwestern United States and  Canada, often wreaking havoc on those who sail those waters. But, why?

Mishipizheu guards the vast amount of copper which, to this day, lies within the  Great Lakes . Native inhabitants of the Great Lakes region, stretching back to about 7,500 BC, discovered copper that was 99% pure in Lake Superior, in veins or just lying around in nugget form. Initially they used the copper for spear points and tools, but as a larger social organization developed the copper was used for personal ornamentation denoting social standing. 

There was only one problem. Lake Superior was not a gentle lake to those extracting the copper, in fact it was quite fierce. The fierceness was attributed to a creature which seemed obviously to be guarding the  copper. Hence the existence of Mishipizheu. Indeed, if we dig a little deeper, the belief in this creature points to why  monsters were created in the first place. In pre-scientific cultures, folks often attributed evil intentions or ill will to events possessing no evil intentions or ill will. 

To this day, in some villages, when someone falls ill a shaman might declare that a personal enemy sent an evil spirit to possess the victim. A person does not just fall ill, someone or something must desire that. Thus it is with the sea and other bodies of water. Unpredictable tragedies occurred and we were quick to attribute the tragedies to an invisible malice or ill will. Anything other than natural causes. 

We seem to be wired, for whatever reason, to be super-keen to perceive and attribute malice and malevolence to adverse things that happen to us. It was too difficult for us to believe that things affecting us negatively could just happen. Mishipizheu became the figuration of the malice of the sea, part godlike in his scope, mostly monstrous in his intentions. But, interestingly, we attributed a reason for his malice – his irrational desire to possess all the copper in Lake Superior.

Stormy sky over Lake Superior, the home of Mishipizheu.

( boundlessimages / Adobe Stock)

Mishipizheu Ancillary Stories

The odds are that the origin of the Mishipizheu myth is derived from the destructive power of Lake Superior and other violent waterways of the Canadian Shield and the emotionally painful tragedies caused by the unpredictable harshness of these bodies of water. Mishipizheu became the malicious element causing the lake to harm innocent people. From this initial birth of the  monster, various tribes added on stories, which is not uncommon in myth-making. In fact, we can look at Mishipizheu as a good example of the possible evolution of a myth.

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Hunting and gathering peoples often have animistic beliefs. Every natural element has a spirit, even stones and streams. Perhaps it was recognized early on that Lake Superior’s was not a gentle spirit. Lake spirits often became personified in world  mythology. If you can imagine one being or creature controlling the lake, it is easier to deal with this entity through sacrifice and bargaining. 

Once you create a god, spirit or monster that you can appease or cajole, then stories concerning the exploits of this being can be constructed. You can even think of the Greek myths this way. Zeus was once a sky and thunder spirit. Then, through story-telling, he morphed into the leader of a pantheon and a character in a rich mythological tradition.

Some of the stories concerning Mishipizheu even purport that he engaged in acts of benevolence, thus adding to his stature as a god and not solely a  monster. In one story Mishipizheu was responsible for the primordial flood. In another story, we learn that swamps and quicksand are due to his slithering on the ground when he chose to take shortcuts from river to river. 

In one particular mythological tale, Mishipizheu is referred to as the ancestor of all  snakes, due to the belief that he was hit by lightning and shattered into thousands of those creatures. Another story tells of Mishipizheu the trickster. A shaman seeks a powerful medicine from Mishipizheu who happily complies. Unfortunately, the medicine only works for the shaman as he remains healthy while he watches his family and loved ones deteriorate and die around him.

Artists rendering of the famed Mishipizheu.

(Australopithecusman /  CC-BY-SA)

Final Verdict On Mishipizheu: Godly Extortion or Defender of Humanity

So is Mishipizheu more monster than god? What might tip the scales is that he does not engage in acts of benevolence. He is predisposed to cause harm continually and only will desist from this if he receives, basically, extortion money. But gods receive extortion money too, do they not? Did the ancient Greeks not placate Poseidon before sea travel? It seems that the gods like to be appreciated and remembered but are also quick to do good things for good people. They also might need to be coaxed a little into supplying help.

And it is not like the gods are a constant threat which has to be avoided. So the scales would seem to tip more toward  monster in this case, yet one interested in mythology might ask whether a primarily malevolent “god” is possible. Or, dare we stretch and say that  Mishipizheu was not at all malevolent but merely attempted, as well as he could, to steer humanity away from the world bought through copper, in an attempt to keep humanity living in a land of paradise.

• Top image: The malevolent Mishipizheu monster-god of Lake Superior.
• Source: SJB1995 /  CC-BY-SA

By Daniel Gauss

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03-08-2021 om 21:31 geschreven door peter  

The Disc of Sabu: Ancient Egyptian Water Pump or Alien Hyperdrive?

There is no doubt that the Ancient Egyptian civilization is filled with wonders and mysteries beyond our comprehension. An exceptionally old culture that reaches far back to the early dawn of man’s advancement, Egypt left behind it many man-made wonders. From the enormous pyramids, the giant statues, and the sprawling mortuary temples, their monuments are many and glorious. 

While some of these are easy to understand, study, and explain, others remain an absolute mystery. One such enigma is the so-called “Disc of Sabu”, a curious stone object that almost defies all logic. Over the years, many odd theories arose have arisen in an attempt to uncover its true purpose.

The Tomb of Prince Sabu

Anyone visiting the sprawling museum of antiquities in  Cairo will be awed by the wealth of Ancient Egyptian treasures contained inside it. From the famed treasures found in the Tomb of  Tutankhamun, to the pharaonic statues and well-preserved mummies, this museum is the number one stop for all lovers of this ancient culture. But while you will be dazzled by these popular treasures, one curious item can be easily overlooked. The Disc of Sabu.

This odd item is circular in shape and measures roughly 610 millimeters (24 inches) in diameter and roughly 104 millimeters (4 inches) in height. It was discovered in 1936 by a renowned British Egyptologist, Mr. Walter Bryan Emery, and has been dated to the earliest periods of Ancient Egypt.

Emery devoted his career to excavations in the Nile River valley, and between 1935 and 1939 he conducted numerous surveys and digs in the burial grounds of Saqqara. The resting grounds of many high-status individuals from the early dynastic period, Saqqara is one of the oldest and largest necropolises from Ancient Egypt.

The Necropolis at Saqqara

(Jose Javier Martin Espartosa / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

Of course, digging in Saqqara yielded many important and valuable items, but none so odd as the Disc of Sabu. Emery discovered it while excavating the tomb of Prince Sabu, a First Dynasty governor and the son of the famed Pharaoh Anedjib. The latter was the fifth ruler of the First Dynasty, and succeeded the powerful Pharaoh Den.

Sadly, little is known of Anedjib’s son, Prince Sabu. He did not succeed his father on the throne, but still received an honorable burial at Saqqara. History does not record a lot of details about the dynastic relations in the First Dynasty, so we may never know of Sabu’s fate, his exact role in the court, or the political events of that time. Emery writes that Sabu was likely a high official and an administrator of a province, both during the reigns of Pharaoh Den (likely his grandfather), and his father Anedjib.

The Mysteries Beneath the Sands of Saqqara

The Mastaba (tomb) of Prince Sabu was discovered on the very edge of the plateau in the northern part of Saqqara. It was situated roughly 1.7 kilometers (1.1 miles) north of the iconic  Stepped Pyramid of Djoser . Designated as “Tomb 3111”, it was excavated by Emery on January 10th, 1936. 

The tomb consisted of seven funerary chambers, each strewn with assorted grave goods. The largest room held the body of Prince Sabu, which was accompanied by many funerary items. Most of these were nothing out of the ordinary - animal bones, flint implements, pottery vessels, ivory items, stone bowls. But one item stood out like a sore thumb: Emery discovered a curious disc, broken into numerous pieces.

The Disc of Sabu

(Gretarsson /  Public Domain )

Once painstakingly re-assembled, the Disc of Sabu intrigued many leading Egyptologists. The disc-shaped object resembles a round-bottomed bowl and has three extremely thinly carved, curving lobes at roughly 120 degree intervals around the bowl’s periphery. These lobes are separated from the rim by three biconvex holes. 

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In the center of the disc is a thin tube, roughly 10 centimeters in diameter. The object is constructed of  metasiltstone, elsewhere referred to as  schist. This is a porous, fragile rock that would be extremely difficult to carve - especially in such delicate detail.

Schist is comprised of coarse grains and characterized by elongated minerals in marked layers. It has the propensity to flake when worked, and can be crushed very easily when tools are applied to it. So here we have our first mystery: how was the disc carved in such fine detail? 

When asking this question, we need to consider the age of the disc. Prince Sabu’s tomb is dated to circa 3,000 BC, making the disc at least 5,000 years old! It is believed that the tools used back then were made of stone and copper, which would make fine craftsmanship quite challenging, if not impossible, especially on such a fragile material as schist stone. Somehow, the Disc of Sabu seems out of place in a tomb of a First Dynasty noble.

An Ancient Egyptian Puzzle

The next mystery is the purpose of this object. Over the years, many convincing theories surfaced. Almost immediately following its discovery, the disc was “dismissed” as being a “vase” or  “incense burner” , or simply a trivial decorative or ceremonial item. But many believe that this is far, far from the truth. One glimpse and just the basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering offers a wholly different interpretation – this disc could be a part of a mechanism.

There are marked similarities between the disc and a modern pump impeller

(Asurnipal /  CC BY-SA 3.0 )

One resourceful amateur historian may have solved the mystery. Armed with a 3D printer, this person created an accurate replica of the disc of Sabu in an attempt to prove his own theory: the disc was an ancient “impeller”, a part of a centrifugal  pump. When placed in a housing and propelled at high speed via the small shaft at its center, the disc was extremely efficient at displacing water. 

Furthermore, when propelled without a housing to direct the displaced water, the disc creates a powerful vortex. Observing these recorded experiments makes one thing clear: the curiously folded lobes and a slightly concave shape of the disc are there for a purpose. Thanks to the intricately carved details, the disc is able to displace water with ease, and is seemingly a crucial component of a water pump mechanism.

One fact supports this theory: Ancient Egypt depended on  irrigation. Later in their history they perfected water management through basin irrigation, a process that allowed them to control the rise and fall of the river. Thus they managed to maximize their crops and boost their agricultural capabilities. So, why should it be odd to consider that they made attempts at creating an advanced design that would help them irrigate land quickly and efficiently?

An even older clay object dated to the Predynastic  Naqada II period (3650 - 3300 BC) is oddly similar to the disc of Sabu.  This object shows three “snakes” leaping up from the center of a disc that looks extremely similar to the Sabu disc, complete with the central shaft and the three biconvex holes. Could this clay object represent three water spouts being propelled from the disc? It seems very likely.

Proof of Ancient Astronauts?

But schist does not seem a strong enough material for a pumping mechanism. This suggests something else: were craftsmen from the First Dynasty of Egypt attempting to recreate an older object using the tools and materials available to them, an object they perhaps did not completely understand? 

Many theories suggest that the disc of Sabu is just a schist stone replica of an original item made from metal. It is even suggested that the object was discovered amongst the remnants of an older, more advanced civilization, one that preceded the earliest history of Ancient Egypt.

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The renowned  Swiss author, Erich Von Däniken , is one of the leading proponents of the theory that extraterrestrials or superior, advanced civilizations influenced early humans. He suggests that the Disc of Sabu was an Egyptian stone copy of an internal component from an extraterrestrial ship’s  hyperdrive, or more simply a stone model of a  flying saucer . Others likened the disc to the advanced light-rimmed flywheels that were developed in the 1970’s by Lockheed missile engineers, and there are indeed plenty of similarities. 

Does the Disc suggest alien contact with Ancient Egypt?

( Matrioshka / Adobe Stock)

Some however have proposed a much simpler role for the disc. They state that the three lobes were used to hold strands of  silk or rope: when the disc was spun, it would weave the three strands into one, creating twine and thicker ropes. This theory is often dismissed as simply too straightforward: the Egyptians would not go to such extreme lengths to create the disc just to weave fibers when other methods were available quite early on.

There are other theories, some more extreme than the others. One  French author suggests that the Disc of Sabu is just one of many that were an integral part of an early “factory”. This complex theory explains how the Ancient Egyptians manufactured Sodium Carbonate within  pyramids using advanced systems and technologies. 

As can be seen, a lot of proposals simply swerve into the realms of the impossible, and seem more based on wish-fulfilment than sound archaeology. Ancient hyperdrives, factory complexes, steering wheels, and other unlikely suggestions are simply impossible to prove.

Certainly More than a Vase

On the other hand, mainstream science has a suspicious tendency to dismiss every suggestion that the disc is part of a mechanism. Mainstream archaeology considers the disc to be an incense burner, or – bluntly – a  vase. 

Going to such extreme lengths to polish and shape the super-delicate schist stone into such a complex form simply to create a “vase” seems, on the face of it, unlikely. Even the process used to create the disc is difficult to explain, given its age. But, if we accept the fact that this is something craftsmen of the First Dynasty were able to create with the  tools at their disposal, the question still remains: for what purpose? It seems clear that the disc of Sabu was part of something complex.

Schist was a popular choice for funerary carvings through Ancient Egypt

(Daderot /  Public Domain )

Walter Bryan Emery made note of his discovery in his  Great Tombs of the First Dynasty , mentioning it as simply “a container in the form of a schist bowl.” He later mentioned it again in his work  Archaic Egypt , where he described it as a “cachivache” – a knick-knack or trinket, a gadget. 

However, several sources point to the fact that he was well aware of the problem it posed in scientific circles, where it was described “as a small hole that threatens to become a much larger one”. It is perhaps, for this reason, that the Disc of Sabu is often overlooked in scholarly literature. In fact, little is known at all about Prince Sabu, his tomb, or his peculiar disc.

Ancient Doesn’t Mean Primitive

In the end, it remains entirely possible that the Disc of Sabu was a crucial part of a more advanced design, one likened to a water pump. Considering the fact that the experiments using a disc replica were highly successful in that role, it could certainly function as one. 

Ancient Egypt was highly dependent on irrigation to survive in the desert

( dejank1 / Adobe Stock) 

With an adequate housing, water outlet, and means of propulsion, the Disc of Sabu could have easily displaced large amounts of water, quickly and efficiently. And given the need for  irrigation in Ancient Egypt , the pieces of the puzzle quickly seem to fall into place. Given how unusual the design of the disc is, and given how useful a pump of this kind would be, it seems beyond coincidence that the disc would not be used for that purpose.

Perhaps it is time that we looked at the early Egyptians from a different perspective. Even though Prince Sabu lived 5,000 years before present, it doesn’t mean he and his contemporaries weren’t able to observe the world around them and come up with logical and ingenious solutions to the problems of their time. Even so, plenty of aspects about this disc cannot be easily explained, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

• Top image: The Mysterious Disc of Sabu.                         
• Source: Christian Hart /  Public Domain

By Aleksa Vučković

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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03-08-2021 om 21:10 geschreven door peter  

Neanderthals Hunted with Leaf-Shaped Spears, Archaeologists Say

Archaeologists say they have found a 65,000-year-old leaf point in a cave in the Swabian Jura, Germany.

“This discovery represents the first time a leaf point has been recovered from a modern excavation, allowing us to study the fresh find with state-of-the-art methods,” said Professor Nicholas Conard, a researcher at the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment.

“The last time archaeologists in the region recovered such artifacts was in 1936.”

The leaf point was found at the archaeological site of Hohle Fels, a cave in the Swabian Jura of Germany.

The artifact is 7.6 cm (3 inches) long, 4.1 cm (1.6 inches) wide, 0.9 cm (0.35 inches) thick, and has a mass of 28 grams.

“Our results document how the tool was made, used and why it was discarded,” Professor Conard said.

“Thanks to a series of four ESR-dates the find is securely dated to over 65,000 years ago.”

“Until now finds of leaf points were interpreted as belonging to the period between 45,000 and 55,000 years ago — the last cultural phase of Neanderthals in Central Europe,” he added.

“The new results demonstrate that our assumptions about the dating of the cultural groups of the late Neanderthals were wrong and need revision.”

Using detailed microscopic analyses, the researchers found that the leaf point was mounted on a wooden shaft.

“Damage to the tip indicates that the artifact was used as a hafted spear point, and that the spear was likely thrust into prey rather than being thrown,” they said.

“Neanderthals used plant-based glue and bindings made from plant fibers, sinew, or leather, to secure the leaf point to the spear.”

“They clearly used the spear for hunting. While they re-sharpened the tool it broke, leading to its discard.”

“Neanderthals were expert stone knappers and knew exactly how to make and use complex technologies combining multiple parts and materials to produce and maintain deadly weapons,” said Dr. Veerle Rots, a researcher at the University of Liège.

“Homo heidelbergensis used sharpened wooden spears for hunting too, but their spears lacked mounted stone points like those used by Neanderthals.”

The team’s results appear in two papers in the journal Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg and the journal Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte.

_____

• Nicholas J. Conard & Alexander Janas. Ausgrabungen im Hohle Fels: Fundschichten aus dem Mittelpaläolithikum und Neues zur Jagdtechnik der Neandertaler. Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2020: 60-65
• Veerle Rots et al. 2021. A Leaf Point Documents Hunting with Spears in the Middle Paleolithic at Hohle Fels, Germany / Eine Blattspitze belegt die Jagd mit Speeren im Mittelpaläolithikum am Hohle Fels, Deutschland. Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 30: 1-28

{ http://www.sci-news.com/ }

03-08-2021 om 20:42 geschreven door peter  

Look up at the stars tonight. Those twinkling diamonds are several thousand light-years away. Our planet is just a grain of sand on a virtually endless beach, a small dot in a gigantic galaxy. Is it the only dot with life on it? That’s a question humankind has been asking ever since we started to understand the basics of astronomy thousands of years ago. Now, we’re closer than ever to finding the answer, as an unprecedented crush of ultrapowerful telescopes and interplanetary missions try to trace where else life might possibly exist. Today’s Daily Dose travels to the far reaches of the universe on that search, taking you through the latest breakthroughs and the people behind them. Curious? You should be.

COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE

Age-Old Search

Some 2,500 years ago, two Greek philosophers looked to the sky and wondered if humans were alone in the universe. Today, many scientists believe the question is a no-brainer. For decades, one of the fundamental laws of physics formed the basis of our understanding of life on Earth. The law of increasing entropy insists that energy tends to dissipate instead of coming together: pour ink in water and watch it diffuse. If that’s true for the universe, then the sublime marriage of millions of cells and molecules for the creation of life on Earth could be a low-probability fluke that needn’t repeat itself. But some researchers now believe that the existence of extraterrestrial life doesn’t necessarily violate that basic law: In fact, they argue, it could be what drives the creation of living beings.

Count the Stars

And then there’s simple math to consider. There are billions of galaxies in the universe, each one home to tens of billions of stars circled by at least a planet each. See where I’m going? From the first astronomer eager to catch audio signals using radio in the early 1900s to the rovers currently exploring Mars, our fascination with outer space has always in part had to do with the hunt for potential neighbors beyond our planet. Sophisticated new tools, including the soon-to-be-deployed largest telescope in history, are capable of exploring the atmosphere of planets trillions of miles away, potentially bringing us within reach of an answer.

Move Over, Mars

While Mars has long been the poster child for out-of-Earth exploration, (it is, after all, the most similar to Earth in many ways), scientists are expanding their horizons. In fact, researchers at Washington State University have already identified more than 20 planets outside our solar system that could sustain life even better than Earth (don’t pack your bags just yet though; they are all more than 100 light-years away). Meanwhile, even as it waits for a robotic rover to deliver Martian samples by the end of the decade, NASA wants to explore one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa. The agency is planning to send a mission to probe Europa’s frozen oceans and volcanoes as early as 2024. Another moon catching everyone’s attention is Titan, Saturn’s largest, where a mission will be launched to analyze liquid methane lakes in 2027.

Not So Fast

But some scientists are urging caution, saying the broadly accepted global guidelines on how to respond to a potential alien encounter are not enough. Physicist Mark Buchanan worries that these new civilizations could be more advanced and powerful than ours. “Most stars in our galaxy are much older than the sun. If civilizations arise fairly frequently on some planets, then there ought to be many civilizations in our galaxy millions of years more advanced than our own,” he wrote in The Washington Post in June. On the opposite side is a slightly more eerie argument: If these super smart aliens wanted to kill us all, they would have already done it.

Wait, Are They Already Here?

What if we’re the aliens on Earth? While a recently declassified report on alleged UFO sightings by U.S. navy pilots raised more questions than it provided answers, some prominent scientists have been positing a much more interesting theory: that life on Earth could have actually originated on Mars, making us, well, Martians. How? Life forms when planets cool down and liquid water eventually emerges. Evidence is increasingly pointing to the fact that Mars formed and cooled down before Earth, and that it had methane (an ingredient for the birth of life). Add that to the theory that various forms of life travel across the universe through asteroids and other debris, and you have a hypothesis more credible than distant sightings by pilots that could be explained in part by optical illusions.

Who Are the Aliens?

Scientists have recently discovered more than 2,000 stars from where Earth would be visible when it passed in front of the sun. That means that aliens with powerful telescopeson planets near those stars could actually be looking at us without visiting us on UFOs. The good news? Hector Socas-Navarro, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, says that if there’s life out there, we currently have a good chance of finding it. “The new large telescopes will allow us to scrutinize the chemical composition of many exoplanet atmospheres,” he tells OZY. “With those tools, we could find life elsewhere within the next 10 to 20 years.”

HOW ARE WE FINDING THEM?

Telescopes

From the moment Galileo Galilei, one of modern astronomy’s founding fathers, pointed his telescope upward in the 1600s, the instrument has been central to our understanding of the universe. It helped early scientists study the surface of our moon and discover Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons. Since then, telescopes have evolved in ways the Italian astronomer probably never dreamed of. In 1931, American engineer Karl Jansky’s giant rotating antennas detected the first radio signal from the center of the Milky Way. And more than seven decades later, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope identified thousands of planets that orbit around stars other than the sun between 2009 and 2018.

Best Bet

While China and the European Space Agency — apart from America — are investing in new rovers to explore Mars’ surface, modern versions of the telescope represent our best shot at discovering the truth about possible extraterrestrial life. China recently unveiled one of the largest single dish observatories in the world, so sensitive that it can detect anything from dead stars to hydrogen in distant galaxies. Meanwhile, NASA is preparing to send up the James Webb Space Telescope this year. This $10 billion observatory will work from space, its state-of-the-art technology allowing it to look through the gas and dust that usually obscure the view for other telescopes.

The Future

Telescopes are poised to become ever more sophisticated, with the ability to provide better images of smaller planets located farther away. The Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile and the European Extremely Large Telescope (brownie points for original naming) are both due to be up and running by 2025. They promise to deliver images so sharp scientists might be able to identify the fine imprint that molecules leave in the atmospheres of other planets, tracking clues to the possibility of life. Another Harvard University-led project will search for possible technologies aliens might have discarded as junk. Meanwhile, other researchers are developing ultrafast light-driven nanocrafts, similar to the ones aliens could have, to launch toward Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to ours (about 25 trillion miles away) that could potentially harvest life. Why is it so important to search for life elsewhere? Astrophysicist Socas-Navarro tells OZY the answer is simple: “All the life that we know descends from one line. Biology has only one sample to work with in trying to understand life itself and how it originates. It’s like trying to study medicine in a world with only one person.”

THE NEXT GALILEOS

Yuri Milner

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson aren’t the only billionaires locked in a space race. Milner, an Israeli Russian businessman and one of the moneybags behind Facebook and Twitter, founded Breakthrough Initiatives in 2015 and has invested more than $200 million in the search for alien life on Jupiter, Saturn and in the clouds over Venus. The businessman, who was named after the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to venture into space, has always been interested in what is out there. “I think it is only appropriate that we, as a civilization, devote at least some resources to try and ask the biggest existential questions; for example, are we alone in the universe?” he told CTech. But his biggest strength might be his proximity to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who heads a state with one of the world’s most sophisticated space programs at its disposal.

Latinas in Nasa

Latinos represent just 7% of NASA’s workforce, though they constitute 18% of the U.S. population. For Hispanic women, making it to NASA can be as hard as getting to Jupiter. Mexican Ali Guarneros Luna is shattering that glass ceiling, remaking the space agency’s reputation for a new generation. Growing up in Mexico, she read about space missions in an encyclopedia — and was instantly hooked. Then, at the age of 12, she immigrated to California with her mother after an earthquake devastated her native Mexico City in 1985. After high school, she gave up on her college dreams to support her four children. After she finally went back to school and earned two degrees, a professor convinced her to try out for NASA. She now works as part of the Agency’s small satellite technology program, which develops new tools for space missions, and is a top safety expert at the agency. Shooting for the stars has paid off for her.

You

But you don’t need to be a space engineer to satiate your curiosity about possible alien life. All you need is a telescope and a ton of time. NASA is recruiting amateur astronomers keen to observe planets from outside our solar system as they pass in front of the sun. The idea is that mass observation will help build a body of data pointing to the time and frequency at which these planets travel near the sun, allowing more experienced astronomers to know when to point the larger telescopes.

IN POP CULTURE

Fact or Fiction?

If they exist, what do aliens look like? Are they green and cute as in E.T., tall and skinny as in Signs, human-looking like Sally from 3rd Rock From the Sun or perhaps angry and gooey like in Aliens? For decades, popular culture has stepped in where science has been unable to answer questions. Some argue these stories reflect other social fears (think about the many reports of UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969 during the Cold War).

Mirror, Mirror

OK, that’s Hollywood. What do scientists say about the way aliens might actually look? That we should look at evolution, and keep an open mind. They argue that the way we humans look is pretty much a result of necessity (two eyes for wide vision, two ears for stereo audio, two legs to stand up and grab things from high up). Each species is different, based on their own evolutionary needs. So aliens can actually look completely different to us. Where we are going wrong is that we are only imagining beings similar to creatures on Earth.

Man on Mars

What if we could combine scientific research with the spectacle of films? A series of cool new documentaries does just that, exploring some of the questions NASA scientists are asking themselves and offering a front-row seat to their findings. Among them is Nat Geo’s Mars, a documentary-style fiction series that takes viewers on a trip over the next few decades as humans settle on Mars. Spoiler alert: It will take more than finding a new habitable planet to rid humanity of its problems.

{ https://www.ozy.com/ }

03-08-2021 om 20:18 geschreven door peter  

Motion activated security camera (Uniden-AppCam) mounted on shed activated and sent alert to phone. On inspection it shows a clear UFO Fastwalker. 

UFO shows up in only one single frame This single image of a UFO proves that crafts equipped with advanced technology flying through the sky that are not visible to the naked eye due to their enormous speed.

source: www.mufon.com

  

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

03-08-2021 om 18:43 geschreven door peter  

Navy Photographer captured flying saucer on Catalina Island, California 1966

Navy Photographer Lee Hansen captured this footage on Catalina Island, California, April 15th 1966 at 9.45 am.

A Navy Photographer Lee Hansen captures this footage of this object with no apparent flight control surfaces or engine On this „clear, clear day“ he describes the object as „silver with a shadow underneath as though as metallic“ and „maybe 20 meters across“ – quote end.

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

03-08-2021 om 18:18 geschreven door peter  

X-RAY ECHOES BEHIND BLACK HOLES PROVIDE “EXTREME” PROOF EINSTEIN WAS RIGHT

The massive gravity of a black hole actually bent X-ray echoes from around its back.

WHEN SCIENTISTS FIRST TURNED the X-Ray space telescopes NuSTAR and XMM-Newton toward a supermassive black hole in the center of a distant galaxy with the memorable name of IZwicky1, they knew their mission:

How could it be that some of nature’s darkest forces are also some of its brightest? Black holes are called black holes for a reason. Yet, the hot gasses that fall into black holes become superheated and glow intensely.

This was a question the international team aimed to solve. Instead, they wound up confirming Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity in one of its most extreme tests to date.

Through a serendipitous observation of exceptionally bright X-ray flares around the supermassive black hole and careful analysis of the flare’s “echoes,” researchers were able to prove that what they were actually seeing were X-ray reflections from behind the black hole.

The black hole’s massive gravity was bending the X-ray light around the corner, so to speak.

“It’s really further confirmation that this light bending is still working as Einstein predicted it, even when the gravity gets really strong and really close to a black hole,” Dan Wilkins tells Inverse. Wilkins is the paper’s first author and a Stanford University research scientist.

“It’s confirming what we already knew,” he says, “but at a more extreme scale.”

These findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

WHAT’S NEW

In his Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Einstein discusses two interrelated theories — one being general relativity, a concept proposed in 1915.

The theory of general relativity suggests that a massive object can warp space-time around it, creating what we experience as gravity. This facet of the theory has been proven many times, perhaps most famously during a solar eclipse in 1919, when astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed that the sun’s gravity bent the light from stars — just as Einstein predicted.

“IT’S GRAVITATIONAL LENSING AT ITS MOST EXTREME.”

Astronomers have since used the gravity of distant galaxies to see around them toward even more distant objects, a phenomenon known as “gravitational lensing.”

But this new work takes gravitational lensing to a whole new level, according to Wilkins.

“It’s not just light being reflected a little bit. It’s coming from all the way behind the black hole, being bent all the way around into our line of sight,” he says. “It’s gravitational lensing at its most extreme.”

HOW THEY DID IT

 As stellar gas and dust fall into a supermassive black hole, they flatten out and spin around it in a disk, like water going down a drain, Wilkins says. This creates a high-intensity glow in the visual and X-ray parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

His team was measuring the X-rays when “all of a sudden, it started emitting what we refer to as X-ray flares,” he says. “Suddenly the X-rays got about 2.5 times brighter for a very short period of time.”

The extremely bright flares reflect, or echo, off of the spinning disk of hot gas around the black hole.

Echoes, and the flares that cause them, are known phenomena, but Wilkins says the team began noticing extra echoes they hadn’t anticipated.

“These were the echoes from the backside of the disk,” he says. “The echoes that come off the far side of the disk — the part that is hidden by the shadow of the black hole — actually get bent around the edge of the black hole.”

WHY IT MATTERS — In the big picture, the new findings add one more brick in the column of evidence supporting general relativity. There are also implications for better understanding galaxies, stars, and black holes themselves.

It’s thought that most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their center, including our own Milky Way. Better understanding how these supermassive black holes function could help scientists better understand their possible role in galaxy formation, according to Wilkins.

And in the process of verifying the gravitational bending of the X-rays around this particular supermassive black hole, the researchers also developed a new tool to help them study other black holes. Most such objects are too distant to photograph, but Wilkins says they can now use measurements of X-ray echoes as a sort of sonar “to reconstruct that picture, of that map, of the extreme environment outside a black hole.”

WHAT’S NEXT

The immediate next step for Wilkins and other researchers is to refine the new techniques to get better and better measurements of X-ray echoes, as well as a better picture of what the area around a black hole actually looks like.

New X-ray space telescopes, such as the European Space Agency’s Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics (ATHENA) — planned for the early 2030s — could be a big help.

“It will be the biggest X-ray telescope we’ve ever launched and having a bigger telescope, we will have a much more detailed view,” Wilkins says. “We will get a clearer and clearer picture of this extreme environment just outside the black hole and find out what is happening to this gas in its final moments before it falls in.”

Abstract: The innermost regions of accretion disks around black holes are strongly irradiated by X-rays that are emitted from a highly variable, compact corona, in the immediate vicinity of the black hole. The X-rays that are seen reflected from the disk, and the time delays, as variations in the X-ray emission echo or ‘reverberate’ off the disk provide a view of the environment just outside the event horizon. I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1) is a nearby narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy. Previous studies of the reverberation of X-rays from its accretion disk revealed that the corona is composed of two components: an extended, slowly varying component extending over the surface of the inner accretion disk, and a collimated core, with luminosity fluctuations propagating upwards from its base, which dominates the more rapid variability. Here we report observations of X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in I Zw 1. X-ray reflection from the accretion disk is detected through a relativistically broadened iron K line and Compton hump in the X-ray emission spectrum. Analysis of the X-ray flares reveals short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole. The energy shifts of these photons identify their origins from different parts of the disk. These are photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk, and are bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field. Observing photons bent around the black hole confirms a key prediction of general relativity.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

03-08-2021 om 01:17 geschreven door peter  

Watch NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity explore intriguing Raised Ridges in new video

03-08-2021 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

Bezos' Blue Origin protested SpaceX deal, but GAO said NASA didn't break any laws.

03-08-2021 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

Over a decade ago, scientists made just such a discovery, when an analysis of data from NASA's ICESat satellite revealed that variations in ice elevation in West Antarctica reflected a vast mass of subglacial water movement underneath the ice sheet.

Prior to the discovery, it had been thought that hidden meltwater lakes – deeply concealed at the bottom of the ice sheet, where the ice meets the continental bedrock underneath – existed in isolation, cut off from one another.

But in 2007, researchers found that fluctuations in the height of Antarctica's surface ice signified the movement of water flowing between a hidden network of subglacial lakes, which alternately fill and drain before their water escapes to the Southern Ocean.

The new lakes discovered.

(Siegfried et al./NASA Goddard/YouTube)

Now, the ICESat mission's follow-up – ICESat-2, launched in 2018 – is giving scientists an even keener glimpse at this mysterious, deeply buried lake network, while revealing two lakes never before discovered.

"The discovery of these interconnected systems of lakes at the ice-bed interface that are moving water around, with all these impacts on glaciology, microbiology, and oceanography – that was a big discovery from the ICESat mission," says glaciologist Matthew Siegfried from the Colorado School of Mines.

"ICESat-2 is like putting on your glasses after using ICESat, the data are such high precision that we can really start to map out the lake boundaries on the surface."

In a new study, Siegfried and fellow researchers compiled altimetry data from ICESat-2 and the original ICESat mission, along with measurements taken from CryoSat-2, an ice-observing satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

By combining the datasets – encompassing the period from 2003 to 2020 – the researchers are able to monitor active subglacial lakes at timescales shorter than ICESat-2's repeat cycle (the 91-day gap before it can observe the same region again).

"Surface deformation due to active subglacial lakes filling and draining provides one of the few remotely accessible windows into the evolution of basal water systems; these systems are otherwise hidden beneath up to 4 km [2.5 miles] of ice and remain one of the major physical uncertainties on projections of future ice sheet dynamics," the researchers write in their paper.

"ICESat-2 laser altimetry can not only extend the record of subglacial lake activity but also provides better understanding of hydrological processes by capturing denser and more precise spatial detail."

In addition to giving us a more detailed look at the activity and outlines of known subglacial lakes in Antarctica – of which there are over 130 already documented – the analysis found two anomalies that appear to be hidden lakes, previously undetected.

These potentially active lakes – called Lower Conway Subglacial Lake (LSLC) and Lower Mercer Subglacial Lake (LSLM), lie near previously discovered lakes, and may have been missed by the original ICESat mission, falling within the narrow gaps between its observations.

In this region – underneath the Mercer and Whillans ice streams in West Antarctica – the lake system, which is dominated by two large active subglacial lakes (Conway Subglacial Lake and Mercer Subglacial Lake), appears to be in the midst of its third drainage event since ICESat observations began in 2003.

Just a few weeks ago, one of the same researchers involved here – glaciologist Helen Fricker from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography – co-authored a related study, detailing a dramatic lake drainage event in East Antarctica, where a surface lake on a floating ice shelf vanished in the space of days.

Far below the ice sheet in West Antarctica, the water draining from subglacial lakes is also thought to eventually flow into the ocean, although the concealed escape route is much harder to visualize.

"These are processes that are going on under Antarctica that we wouldn't have a clue about if we didn't have satellite data," Fricker says.

"We've been struggling with getting good predictions about the future of Antarctica, and instruments like ICESat-2 are helping us observe at the process scale."

• The findings are reported in Geophysical Research Letters.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

03-08-2021 om 00:31 geschreven door peter  

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 02 - 08 - 2021

UFO Fleet Sighted Over Mexico City ( July 29, 2021 )

Impressive daytime UFO fleet recorded in Mexico City on July 29, 2021 by Juan Carlos Gutierrez.

STATEMENT : Horda de ovnis en mexico : UFO horde in mexico

ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : juan carlos gutierrez pozos

ORIGINAL VIDEO URL : https://youtu.be/8rrkWPDjm9c

They are everywhere

UFO Sighted In Mammatus Clouds Over Mount Rushmore On Opening Day

Fast moving UFO was sighted in UFO looking Mammatus Clouds Over Mount Rushmore On Opening Day

UFO at approx 10 sec mark

Mammatus is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically a cumulonimbus raincloud, although they may be attached to other classes of parent clouds. The name mammatus is derived from the Latin mamma.

Mammatus clouds are some of the most unusual and distinctive clouds formations with a series of bulges or pouches emerging from the base of a cloud. The shape of mammatus formations can vary widely; from the classic protruding shape, to a more elongated tube hanging from the cloud above.

Mount Rushmore reopend after wildfires caused the monument to close. 1/04/2021

UFO Sighted Over Vancouver, Canada ( July 28, 2021 )

Amazing UFO was sighted over Vancouver Canada on 28/07/2021. Here I present the original and following with approach and speed reduction.

More evident every day

• credit : G.S.J.

UFO Sighted Over Bronx, New York ( August 1, 2021 )

Fast moving UFO was sighted over the Bronx, New York on August 1, 2021 

STATEMENT : Bronx New York 8-01-2021 7am

They are everywhere

• credit : Christian Acosta

Sphere UFO Sighted Over Mexican Highway ( August 1, 2021 )

Impressive geometrical defined sphere UFO was sighted beside a Mexican Federal Highway on August 1, 2021 : Sphere UFO has a geometrical shape in the three-dimensional space that is the surface

• credit : Evanise Santos

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

02-08-2021 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

Is it possible there are people out there who may not really be people, after all? How about constructed creatures? I’m talking about things that might be created and grown. It might sound outlandish (in fact, it is outlandish!), but bear with me. One particular story from 1973 comes to mind: the October 1973 Hickson-Parker “alien abduction” affair. The case is made notable by the fact that the creatures the pair encountered were not taken away by the typical large-headed, dwarfish, black-eyed aliens (the Greys). They weren’t even of the benevolent-looking, so-called “Space Brothers” variety of the 1950s. Nope, this particular breed of E.T. was described later by the shocked and undeniably traumatized men as being humanoids, but with faces that appeared to be almost masked, and heads from which three carrot-style aerials protruded. On top of that, they had large crab-like or lobster-like claws. Then matters got even worse: when the things from another world were practically on top of terrified Parker and Hickson, both men were rendered into a state of paralysis. Whether due to some technology of the aliens, or provoked by overwhelming fear, remains unknown. Maybe it was a combination of both. Suddenly, the entities seized the pair, who were manhandled onto the UFO. Like most abductees, Hickson and Parker were quickly reduced to the equivalents of lab rats. When the trauma-filled encounter was over, the pair was dumped back on the edge of the river.

Hickson and Parker, shortly after the 1973 incident.

Now, let’s look at the 1952 saga of the Flatwoods Monster of West Virginia. Although the creature involved in the incident is referred to as a monster, there’s not doubt it was a constructed thing. Flatwoods, West Virginia, is situated in Braxton County and is a town of less than three hundred people. It dates back to the latter part of the 19^th century and makes for a pleasant visit. The landscape is wooded and hilly, and provides a captivating picture. For such a tiny town, though, Flatwoods has become famous: it was the location of one of the most legendary of all UFO encounters of the 1950s. September 12, 1952 was the night on which something bizarre, out of this world, and beastly paid Flatwoods a menacing visit that they have still never forgotten, decades on. Or, those same townsfolk were the manipulated targets of a very strange experiment. The expert on the story is Frank C. Feschino, Jr. His extensive research into the case led him to write an excellent book on the subject: The Braxton County Monster. He says that on the night when the town was destined to forever become famous, a strange, bright object fell from the sky in a hilly area in town. Feschino expands: “A group of schoolboys saw the object maneuver across the sky and seemingly fall to Earth.” He asks: “Was it a meteor, plane or anything they could explain? The boys and two adults headed off to look for the object. Soon a twelve-foot tall being from the downed craft terrified these innocent people.”

Looming before the hysterical band of intrepid souls was an approximately ten-feet-tall, floating monster, which appeared to be humanoid in shape, and which had a large black cowling behind its head – that gave the entire head a kind of “Ace of Spades” appearance – and that was possibly even cloaked. Oddly, its lower half was ice-cream cone-shaped and had wires and cables running from it. This issue of the cone-shaped lower portion led flying saucer sleuths to later suggest the monster my actually have been encased within some kind of remotely piloted vehicle. As the creature then turned its attention to the group, and wildly fired laser-like beams from its eyes, the brave band was suddenly brave no more. They didn’t wait to see what might happen next. One and all fled, screaming – possibly for their lives. Mrs. May breathlessly shouted to the boys to follow her to her home, which they all did. On arrival, and possibly as a result of exposure to the noxious odor that hung around the hill, several of the boys became violently ill, feeling nauseous and even outright vomiting. Kathleen May quickly and shakily called the local police, who, rather intriguingly, were busy responding to reports of what was described as an “airplane crash” in the area. It turns out that no such crashed aircraft was ever found. The mystery is still a mystery.

How about the Black-Eyed Children? They appear to be far more robot-like than living beings. For example, there’s their pale skin that actually appears to be more like plastic or rubber. When they try and find ways to get into the homes of people, and asked to be invited in, it’s as if the words they’re saying mean nothing to them. In other words, it’s like a recording. And what about created creatures that look like other people? A perfect example revolves around the late writer, Brad Steiger. We might say that, back in the 1960s, Brad found himself “copied.” A sinister situation, to be sure. Brad said: “I suspect a human agency involved in a strange campaign that was conducted regarding Steiger imposters who spoke at various conferences around the United States. On occasions the imposters allegedly conducted themselves very well, thus making the whole enterprise of Counterfeit Steigers a seemingly futile project. On other occasions, the imposter’s assignment was quite obvious.”

Brad continued: “On an unfortunate number of occasions, I received letters complaining of my outrageous and insulting behavior while speaking at a conference. There were claims that I had openly berated my audience, calling them stupid for accepting the very premise of UFOs. A close friend happened to arrive on the scene after one pseudo-Steiger had departed and tried his best to assure the sponsors of the event that the rowdy, disrespectful speaker could not have been the real Brad.  In his letter, my friend warned me that he had visited a number of lecture halls where the imposter had damned his audiences. “Someone seems out to damage your reputation,” he advised. “In a most bizarre twist, dozens of men and women have approached me at various lectures and seminars, congratulating me about the manner in which I bested Carl Sagan in debate. The event allegedly occurred after a lecture when I happened to bump into the great scientist in a restaurant.  The eatery, according to the witnesses, was crowded with those who had attended the seminar, and they egged on a debate between myself and Sagan.  I mopped up the floor with him, countering his every argument against the reality of UFOs. The truth is that I never met Sagan, therefore, neither had I ever debated him. But from coast to coast, there are those who claim to have witnessed my triumphal bout. Even more individuals claim to have been in the audience when I delivered a rousing message from the Space Brothers in Seattle.  Regardless of how often I deny that I was not in Seattle at that time and have never channeled the Space Brothers, those who were at that event are puzzled why I would deny my eloquence.”

Creatures that aren’t born, but constructed and rolled off of conveyor-belts? Maybe.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

02-08-2021 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

Two huge red rocks with 'complex organic matter' have been discovered in the asteroid belt that shouldn’t be there

• 203 Pompeja is about 70 miles in diameter, while 269 Justitia is 35 miles across

• Both of the asteroids were discovered by astronomers back in the 19th century  

• Experts have now found they're redder than any other body in the asteroid belt

• This suggests they formed beyond Neptune before ending up in the belt, which is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

Scientists have discovered two giant rocks in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars that shouldn't be there. 

The asteroids, called 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia, resemble trans-Neptunian objects – those that are found beyond the eighth planet in our Solar System.  

Both have 'complex organic matter' on their surface and are redder than any other object in the asteroid belt.  

 The two asteroids - 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia - could have formed in the vicinity of Neptune and been transplanted to the main belt region during a violent phase of 'planetary migration'

'This discovery therefore provides new evidence that planetesimals formed at the outer edge of the Solar System have moved to the asteroid belt within Jupiter's orbit,' says JAXA, the Japanese space agency, in a statement. 

203 Pompeja is about 70 miles (110 km) in diameter, while 269 Justitia is 35 miles (55km), according to JAXA. 

203 Pompeja is the only 'very red' asteroid known so far among the approximately 250 bodies with diameter larger than 70 miles found in the asteroid belt, the experts report. 

Both were discovered in the 19th century, but their colour was detected through visible and near-infrared spectroscopic observations from the Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Hawaii and Seoul National University Astronomical Observatory (SAO) in Korea. 

Generally, objects in the inner solar system tend to reflect more blue light because they don't have complex organic compounds like carbon and methane.

Objects in the outer solar system – past Neptune – are redder because they do have a lot of these compounds, which are red in the visible and near-infrared light wavelengths. 

So the fact that both are redder than any other 'D-type' body (which were thought to be the reddest objects in the asteroid belt until now) suggests they originated from the outer solar system.

Figure showing the evolution of the Solar System shows how the two 'very red' asteroids ended up in the asteroid belt (often referred to as the 'main' belt). D-type bodies are generally 'reddish' and were thought to be the reddest objects in the asteroid belt until now

'In order to have these organics, you need to initially have a lot of ice at the surface,' study author Michaël Marsset from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told the New York Times. 

'So they must have formed in a very cold environment. Then the solar irradiation of the ice creates those complex organics.' 

If the asteroids were too close to the Sun, temperatures would not allow those ices to exist, Marsset said. 

What's more, the characteristics of 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia are supportive of a theory known called the Nice model.

The theory – developed in the French city of the same name – goes that that when the giant planets first formed they were closer to the Sun than they are today. 

Artist's impression of the asteroid belt - the region of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where most of the asteroids in our Solar System are found orbiting the Sun

NASA explains: 'The planets interacted with each other and with the surrounding small bodies and eventually underwent an instability, in which Neptune, Uranus and Saturn moved outwards and Jupiter moved inwards.'

This theoretically would have brought the two ultra-red asteroids from beyond Neptune into the asteroid belt over several millions of years. 

The Nice model also supports the idea that there was an additional Neptune-like planet that was ejected from the Solar System, commonly referred to as Planet Nine.  

The new research was led by Sunao Hasegawa at JAXA and published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

Explained: The difference between an asteroid, meteorite and other space rocks

Read more:

• iopscience.iop.o...
• 2 Red Objects Were Found in the Asteroid Belt. They Shouldn’t Be There. - The New York Times

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

02-08-2021 om 22:55 geschreven door peter  

The asteroids orbit at about 2.7 and 2.6 times the Earth-sun distance, well within the asteroid belt. 203 Pompeja, at about 70 miles across, appears to be structurally intact, whereas 269 Justitia, only 35 miles or so, is likely a fragment of a previous collision. Because of their stable circular orbits, scientists think that the objects have settled into this space long ago.

Objects in our solar system, enriched with organic material, reflect blue light, whereas objects with organic materials outside the solar system glow red. The reason behind the red surface is many organics, perhaps the building blocks of life on Earth.

Objects with such organics have a lot of ice at the surface. Based on this fact, scientists assumed that things must have formed in a very cold environment. Then the solar irradiation of the ice creates those complex organics.

203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia are special because they appear more red than anything else seen in the asteroid belt. The finding, if correct, would offer evidence for planetary migration in the early solar system.

Most of these leftover objects in the present day are known as trans-Neptunian objects and orbit in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune. Many are red in color. 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia both appear to match them.

Josh Emery, a planetary scientist from Northern Arizona University who was not involved in the paper, said, “People have been talking about some fraction of asteroids coming from the Kuiper belt for quite a while now. The research “definitely takes a step” toward finding evidence to support that hypothesis.”

Karin Öberg from Harvard University, who was not involved in the new study, told New York Times, “It’s an exciting discovery with implications for the origins of life.”

Journal Reference:

1. Sunao Hasegawa et al. Discovery of Two TNO-like Bodies in the Asteroid Belt. DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac0f05

{ https://www.techexplorist.com/ }

02-08-2021 om 22:40 geschreven door peter  

Brandon Fugal: The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Season 2 Interview

Posted by: Alejandro Rojas  

Brandon Fugal is the owner of Skinwalker Ranch. As the Chairman of Colliers International in Utah, Brandon is one of the most prominent businessmen and real estate developers in the Intermountain West. From an early age, he has also been fascinated with the mysteries of our universe and the question of whether or not we are alone. In 2016, Brandon purchased Skinwalker Ranch from aerospace tycoon Robert Bigelow in order to investigate and study the strange and unexplainable phenomena that has been reported there for more than two centuries.

The team at Skinwalker Ranch (From L-R: Kaleb Bench, Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Brandon Fugal, Bryant “Dragon” Arnold, Thomas Winterton, Tom Lewis, Kandus Linde, Jim Morse)
Photo by HISTORY
Copyright 2021

Alejandro Rojas: When was it you first heard about the ranch and what is it that you heard?

Brandon Fugal: The ranch was first brought to my attention when I was at Barnes and Noble, back in 2006, and saw Dr. Colm Kelleher and George Knapp’s book The Hunt for the Skinwalker on the shelf. I actually bought it and read it on the weekend. I found it to be very interesting. And that was about it. 

I read the book, found it interesting, especially as it relates to being a Utah property and, you know, a very intriguing account of strange activity not far, just hours, from where I live. But upon finishing the book, I put it on the shelf and didn’t really think about it any further until 2015 when I was contacted by two of Robert Bigelow’s science advisors with the question as to whether I would be willing to entertain a potential joint venture or acquisition of the property for the purpose of advancing the research beyond what Mr. Bigelow had done for 20 years. I had developed a good relationship with these science advisors through another effort that I had been involved with a decade ago.

They had a high degree of respect for me, thankfully, and confidence that I would be a worthy successor to Mr. Bigelow’s interest in a program regarding the property. I quickly agreed. I was intrigued and quickly agreed to meet with Mr. Bigelow to discuss a potential joint venture or acquisition of the property. I flew down to Las Vegas to meet with he and others, including Dr. Kelleher, to discuss not only the history of the property and their investigation, but a new structure moving forward. Upon meeting them, I disclosed to them that I was approaching the topic as a healthy skeptic and that I had never seen a UFO, ghost, or anything of the sort. And that I believe that there was most likely a natural prosaic explanation for what had been reported in the book and on the property.

They were amused and shared with me the reality of what their investigation revealed. They also disclosed that the ranch had been part of a five-year Pentagon black budget program studying the UFO phenomenon and that, although the results of that investigation remain classified and confidential – how do I say this? The phenomenon is real. It was interesting, so we took the discussion forward. I had my attorneys work with his legal counsel and in April of 2016 I acquired the property. 

I first saw the property one week before closing on the purchase, flying in on my private helicopter with Jim Morris, who you see on the History Channel series as the ranch manager. I have had a long relationship with Jim Morris in that he was my first big commercial real estate developer client when I was 18 years old, back in 1991, when he was developing class A office buildings in our market. As a confidant and someone with military experience, I felt it was important to bring him with me to inspect the property for the first time and establish this new phase of ownership and investigation.

He also was very skeptical and had never seen anything unusual in his life that would qualify as a UFO sighting or paranormal experience. He has had a special relationship with the Indian tribes spanning decades, raising millions of dollars for scholarships and providing financial aid,  and his great respect for the Native American people has been a key part of our community engagement.

Rojas: So are you still as skeptical as you were about something unusual going on at the ranch?

Fugal: No. So people ask me all the time whether I am now a believer based on what we have seen and recorded during my ownership of the ranch. The honest, most direct answer I can provide is that I am not a believer. I am an experiencer. I know for a fact that it is real and have witnessed with my own eyes, with other credible witnesses at my side, what can only be described as daylight sightings of exotic craft over Skinwalker Ranch.

Rojas: Do you mind describing one of those incidents?

Fugal: Yeah. You bet. For the first six months of my ownership and stewardship of the property, I did not personally witness or see anything unusual. But, six months into our investigation, I had an experience while entertaining a visiting dignitary and his security detail that involved an undeniable sighting of what can only be described as a 40 to 50 foot long silver, grayish disc-like object that performed maneuvers that were stunning and defy conventional explanation.

This was in broad daylight with multiple witnesses present. During that same afternoon, we experienced everything from our smartphones being completely drained from about 80% charge to zero to other electromagnetic anomalies, even acute medical episodes that attended the incidents that occurred on that fateful day.

Skinwalker Ranch as featured on HISTORY’S new series “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” premiering March 31 at 10PM ET/PT

Photo by History Copyright 2021

Rojas: Lue Elizondo, who worked on that Pentagon program that you had referred to earlier had stated that a lot of the pushback in the Department of Defense (DoD), and one of the main reasons they kind of pared it down to a UFO project, as opposed to the other paranormal phenomenon that they were looking at, is that there were a lot of insiders who felt what they were dealing with was demonic. Do you believe that there’s anything angelic or demonic related to the phenomenon going on at the ranch?

Fugal: Good question. I am asked on a daily basis whether I believe that what we are observing is extraterrestrial, inter-dimensional, or spiritual in nature. And my honest answer is “all of the above.” I believe what we are observing and documenting involves all of the above. I think there is a spiritual aspect to what we are encountering at Skinwalker Ranch. There are definitely malevolent and benevolent forces at work and we’ve had negative experiences from time to time that have resulted in people being hospitalized. 

Rojas: Yeah. I talked with Travis Taylor about some of those incidents.

Fugal: Yeah. Travis Taylor himself. I mean, Dr. Taylor, he ended up going to the hospital with injuries that were difficult to explain.

Rojas: How did you feel about the results of the first season of the show?

Fugal: Very pleased. In fact, when we commenced filming the team for season one of the investigative series, I gave the disclaimer to the crew and the History Channel that you can’t schedule or conjure up the paranormal or strange activity. It doesn’t work that way. The phenomena witnessed on the ranch is transient in nature and unpredictable. So I was surprised when, during the first day of flying Dr. Taylor out to the ranch for the first time on the helicopter, within minutes, he and our team started seeing things happening that were unusual. And it only got more pronounced as days and weeks passed by.

We conducted a series of experiments over several months, including, rocketry, balloon, instrumented, balloon experiments, ground penetrating radar, resistivity studies, and other research. On every occasion, both our team and third-party experts and consultants involved, experienced unusual activity and events.

Rojas: When it comes to the first season of the show, is there one incident or investigation that stands out to you as being the most compelling or shocking to you?

Fugal: Yeah, the cow dying and upon investigating the body, having a number of unusual events occur. Those included multiple types of smartphones malfunctioning while in the presence of the dead animal, trifield meters going crazy, and then, upon reviewing the cameras, surveillance footage, seeing an unidentified flying object up there, above the animal, just before its death. It all combined to present some of the most compelling evidence of high strangeness on the ranch. I mean, I am often reminded that correlation is not causation. However, you cannot ignore a rapid fire combination of events, including electromagnetic anomalies, physical distress, and what can only be described as UFO activity occurring without giving it some credibility. We immediately brought to the site a veterinarian to study the animal on camera and he concluded that the animal died of stress induced pneumonia. The circumstances surrounding the rapid death of the animal and the correlating strange events continue to baffle the team. In addition, the fact that the animal carcass has remained untouched by any scavenger activity since, underscores how unusual this event.

Rojas: I’ve talked to some of the previous investigators and your investigators. Something they have in common is this thing called the, I think it’s been labeled, the hitchhiker phenomenon, where when you go to the ranch and have an experience, sometimes they’re having unusual experiences after that, in their own homes. Have you experienced that?

Fugal: No, thankfully I have not had that experience, personally. But I do know members of my team and visitors that have had that experience. Strange activity following them home and even terrorizing their family.

Rojas: I’ve even got to talk to a couple of the spouses who are not happy about that, the weirdness that they’ve experienced after these guys would come home.

Fugal: Well, it’s a known fact that numerous participants, including military operatives, refuse to ever set foot on the property again due to the negative experiences that they have had, including phenomena following them home. Even Mr. Bigelow has had experiences that have followed him, resulting in his refusal to ever visit the property ever again.

Rojas: Wow. So, season two. I know Dr. Taylor’s very excited about what they have found and been able to record for season two. Can you tell us a little bit about the amount of compelling stuff that we’ll be seeing in season two of the show?

Fugal: Absolutely. What you will see is a definite progression regarding our efforts and investigation. We take more aggressive measures to study not only what is below, but above the ranch with this new season, and bring to bear our advanced instrumentation in service to learning the secret of Skinwalker Ranch.

Rojas: I guess my last question, because we’re about out of time, is, how do your colleagues feel? How have they reacted to you buying this ranch and participating in this sort of research?

Fugal: The business community has been surprisingly supportive and I have had a number of executives reach out to me privately with their own experiences. I never intended to reveal my identity as owner of the most infamous, scientifically studied paranormal hot spot on the planet. But I elected to go public last year in order to present the fully transparent account of our investigation. And my stewardship, even though the effort at Skywalker ranch is a dramatic departure from what I focus on 95% of the time in my conventional business efforts, it is an inspiring and intriguing part of my life.

Popular Posts:

• Bob Lazar Area 51 documentary narrated by Mickey Rourke
• George Knapp – The Government’s UFO and Paranormal Study: The Skinwalker Ranch – Sept. 18, 2018
• A Survivor at Roswell: The Truth About the One that Walked Away
• Paul Hynek – Project Blue Book and Dr. J. Allen Hynek – January 1, 2019
• The science of proving an object was created by an extraterrestrial civilization
• Jeremy Corbell – The Genesis of “Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers” – November 27, 2018
• How US Intelligence Community Insiders Got the Senate’s Attention Regarding UFOs
• George Knapp Hunt for the Skinwalker Interview Transcript
• Unidentified Review: History Series Takes UFOs to a New Level of Credibility
• Pentagon Can’t Keep Their Story Straight on UFOs/UAP

{ https://www.openminds.tv/ }

02-08-2021 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

West Virginia witness captures triangle UFO on video

Posted by: Roger Marsh 

A West Virginia witness at Barbour County reported watching and videotaping an object with four lights in a triangle shape, according to Case 79238 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

Cropped and enlarged witness photo.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness was outside at Stonewall Resort with three others at 6:18 a.m. on September 5, 2016, when the incident began.

“We were heading to the top of the hill to get our machinery out for the morning job,” the witness stated.“It was pretty dark out still so we sat there waiting for it to get a bit brighter out so we could see what we were doing.”

Cropped and enlarged still frame from witness video.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness then noticed the object.

“I happened to look up at the stars like I do sometimes. I noticed a bright light moving in the sky. I pointed it out asking what the heck it was. One of our guys said it’s just an airplane. I disagreed. Airplanes have different lights. At the time it just looked like a solid light moving in a straight direction but shifting side-to-side as well.”

The witness was able to get some low level video of the object.

“I grabbed my phone and zoomed in as close as I could to get a video. My phone goes zoomed up to 4x, but it’s a cheap Android so the quality was bad. I decided to take a photo as well. There was another one some distance away you can see in the photo.”

Cropped and enlarged still frame from witness video.

(Credit: MUFON)

The witness then reviewed the photo and video at home.

I zoomed in on that photo and I was shocked. I showed my girlfriend as well. What was a single light was actually four lights in a triangle shape. The way they are facing doesn’t match the direction it moves.”

Barbour County is a county located in north-central West Virginia. Population 16,589. West Virginia State Director Fred Saluga is investigating. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

Popular Posts:

• Bob Lazar Area 51 documentary narrated by Mickey Rourke
• George Knapp – The Government’s UFO and Paranormal Study: The Skinwalker Ranch – Sept. 18, 2018
• A Survivor at Roswell: The Truth About the One that Walked Away
• Paul Hynek – Project Blue Book and Dr. J. Allen Hynek – January 1, 2019
• The science of proving an object was created by an extraterrestrial civilization
• Jeremy Corbell – The Genesis of “Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers” – November 27, 2018
• How US Intelligence Community Insiders Got the Senate’s Attention Regarding UFOs
• George Knapp Hunt for the Skinwalker Interview Transcript
• Unidentified Review: History Series Takes UFOs to a New Level of Credibility
• Pentagon Can’t Keep Their Story Straight on UFOs/UAP

{ https://www.openminds.tv/ }

02-08-2021 om 22:06 geschreven door peter  

The CHEOPS satellite accidentally spotted a rare exoplanet with no known equivalent. The satellite detected this unique exoplanet while looking for two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system.

This planet called ‘Nu2 Lupi d’ is located 50 light-years away in the constellation Lupus (Latin for Wolf), around a star called Nu2 Lupi. It is about 2.5 times the size of Earth and almost 9 times its mass.

What’s more, scientists used measurements with archival data from other observatories and numerical models to characterize the density and composition of the planet and its neighbors. They found that the planet has a rocky interior. It has far more water than the Earth. However, the water is not liquid; instead of taking high-pressure ice or high-temperature steam, making the planets uninhabitable.

The CHEOPS satellite was two exoplanets in a nearby planetary system that was found in 2019. In 2019, Swiss astronomers announced the detection of three exoplanets around this bright, Sun-like star. The three exoplanets have masses between those of Earth and Neptune (17 times the Earth) and take 12, 28, and 107 days to circle their parent star.

Yann Alibert, professor of astrophysics at the University of Bern and co-author of the study, said, “We knew that already for the two inner planets, which led us to point CHEOPS to the system in the first place. However, the third planet is quite far away from the star; no one was expected to see its transit!”

“This proved a game-changer, as it is the first time an exoplanet with a revolution period of over 100 days has been spotted transiting a star that is bright enough to be visible to the naked eye.”

David Ehrenreich, professor at the University of Geneva and mission scientist of CHEOPS, who co-signed the study, said, “Due to its relatively long period, the amount of stellar radiation reaching the planet is mild in comparison to many other discovered exoplanets. The less radiation a planet receives, the less it changes over time. Therefore, a planet with a long period could have retained more information about its origin.”

“But so far, the few such exoplanets astronomers had found orbited faint stars. In other words: little of their light reaches Earth and therefore makes them difficult to study. Not this time: Since its bright host star is quite close to us, it is easier to study. This makes it a golden target for future study with no known equivalent.”

Photobomb is a term for an object when it suddenly enters into the camera’s field of sight during the taking of a photograph. The same case happened with CHEOPS. The satellite was taking pictures of a planetary system 50 light-years away, and suddenly it spotted this unique exoplanet photobomb.

The team was led by the Universities of Geneva and Bern and members of the National Center of Competence in Research PlanetS.

Journal Reference:

1. Delrez, L., Ehrenreich, D., Alibert, Y. et al. Transit detection of the long-period volatile-rich super-Earth ν2 Lupi d with CHEOPS. Nat Astron (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01381-5

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.techexplorist.com/ }

02-08-2021 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

To Understand UAP, We Need Megapixel Imagery

If any of them represent advanced technology, high-resolution photographs might tell us whether they’re metaphorically labeled “Made in China” or “Made on Exoplanet X”

02-08-2021 om 18:54 geschreven door peter  

UFO or mysterious meteor explosion? Bizarre video of green sky in Turkey has divided the internet

By Simran Kashyap

Ankara, Aug 02: A Bizarre video shows a green-tinted meteor streaking over the city of Izimir, Turkey, falling in the mountains with a loud bang before disappearing behind the landscape with a bright flare. The occurrence sent shockwaves through social media, eliciting wild rumors.

Bizarre 'meteor' explosion caused the skies to turn green in Turkey.   

Photo Credit: YouTube

The bizarre event happened on Saturday, which has shocked residents, has given rise to sparking speculation of the object being a falling satellite or an Unidentified flying object (UFO).

The video shows a ball of fire plummeting from the sky as it hides behind the clouds for a very brief moment, it bursts into a blinding light, turning the whole sky green.

The glow further intensifies until it makes everything disappear into white before the ball of fire collapses somewhere in the remote lands with a loud bang.

In yet another clip how an huge incandescent green glow before the meteor appears to crash into Earth at around 2am on Saturday.

The video clip of the incredible meteor fall, a piece of a space junk, a falling satellite, or even a crashing UFO, has been shared on various social media platform

Meanwhile, the associate director of the Aegean University Observatory, Dr. Hasan Ali Dal gave an explaination with a much more mundane and likely explanation for the occurrence. The scientist told local media the object was part of a meteor shower that began 'raining' over Earth last week and will continue to do so until the end of next month.

It usually peaks around August 11, with some 50 meteors per hour observed at that point. The objects are rarely large enough to reach the ground,

The green tint of the Izmir meteor has a simpler explanation, too. The color of its trail likely stems from its chemical composition, signaling that it contains large amounts of nickel.

{ https://www.oneindia.com/ }

02-08-2021 om 18:44 geschreven door peter  

HERE'S WHY THE US MILITARY RECRUITED OFFICIAL UFO HUNTERS

BY S. FLANNAGAN 

UFO hunters have been watching the skies in growing numbers since the Roswell incident in 1947, when rumors spread that a crash site in New Mexico — reported to be that of a U.S. Army air balloon — was, in fact, that of an extraterrestrial aircraft (via History). Since then, various sightings have reawakened a wave of public interest in UFOs, while the presence of aerial phenomena in popular culture arguably peaking in the 1990s, when the TV show "The X Files" became a worldwide smash and brought the idea of secret government agencies investigating classified occurrences into the mainstream. And interest in UFOs has only grown in the 21st century, thanks in part to the internet acting as a meeting place for like-minded enthusiasts and for the easy sharing of information (not all of it credible).

But in recent years, discourse around UFOs has reached fever pitch, thanks to a number of convincing videos of potential UFOs encountered by the U.S. military, as well as shocking reports that have outlined just how seriously the military is taking the threat. In 2017, The New York Times published a lengthy feature article exposing the presence of a secret Pentagon initiative called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), first established in 2007, the activities of which remained widely classified. The article reported that the program was run by Luis Elizondo, a former counterintelligence special agent who had previously served in the U.S. Army in South Korea (via The Infographic Show).

THE WORK OF THE ADVANCED AEROSPACE THREAT IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM

The New York Times article, titled "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program," caused a stir because it conclusively showed that the U.S. military took UFO sightings seriously — and had done so for a long time. It claimed that the AATIP was initially established at the behest of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who in 2007 was particularly prominent as the majority leader of the Senate, and that the program was awarded some $22 million over the course of its five-year existence, during which it investigated scores of UFO sightings from around the world.

Confirmation of the existence of the AATIP showed that the U.S. military's interest in UFOs was far from academic, while details emerging concerning the program's activities were highly pragmatic and related to concerns over national defense. As described by The Infographics Show, the military views UFOs as the presence of advanced military technology that far exceeds the capabilities of the current aircraft of the U.S. Air Force. As a result, the secondary function of the AATIP was to provide scientists with research funding into technologies emerging from the very edge of theoretical physics; research into dark matter, hyperdrives, and even interdimensional travel were all reportedly funded by the AATIP to explain the flight paths of UFOs — with the intention of integrating its findings into future U.S. military technology.

REAL STORIES BEHIND UFO SIGHTINGS

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BY DAVID G. TAYLOR

UFOs have been a mainstay of science fiction since at least the 1950s. Their persistence in popular culture is due to real-life witnesses sighting and identifying these supposedly unidentified flying objects as extraterrestrial spacecraft. Is such an outlandish claim the only explanation these sightings? As it turns out, many of the most famous UFO cases can be attributed to more mundane phenomena than extraterrestrials failing to turn on their vehicles' invisibility shields. Below are some notable UFO sightings and close encounters, along with alternative explanations.

MOUNT RAINIER SIGHTING

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The terms "flying saucers" and "UFOs" became nearly synonymous with one another during the twentieth century. The correlation likely originates from a June 1947 UFO sighting near Mount Rainier in Washington state. While flying his plane, Kenneth Arnold saw a group of objects soaring about 20-25 miles north of him in a V-formation. He estimated the objects were traveling about 1700 miles per hour, and described them as crescent-shaped. He notably stated that they flew "like a saucer if you skip it across the water."

Arnold reported the sighting, and the news spread like wildfire. A headline writer or editor somewhere misunderstood Arnold's description of the UFOs' movement and wrote that the objects looked, not moved, like saucers. Thus, the phenomenon of flying saucers entered popular culture. But what were the objects that Arnold saw? Most likely it was a flock of pelicans, and Arnold simply misjudged the size and distance.

THE ROSWELL INCIDENT

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Perhaps the most famous UFO incident of all time is the alleged alien spacecraft that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. In June of that year, a rancher named William Brazel found some debris about 75 miles north of Roswell. Roswell Army Air Field sent investigators after they got word of the incident. The local newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, initially reported that the debris was from a flying saucer. It later corrected this story, writing that the debris was actually a destroyed weather balloon.

The U.S. government disclosed in a 1994 report that the balloon was part of the once-classified Project Mogul, which involved attaching surveillance equipment to high-altitude balloons to detect Soviet nuclear tests. No one at Roswell Army Air Field knew anything about Project Mogul, so a weather balloon was the most rational explanation. Some UFO proponents, nevertheless, still contend that the U.S. Army covered-up the spacecraft's crash. The reality is that the "incident" was mostly forgotten until the National Inquirer re-published the uncorrected version of the story by the Roswell Daily Record about thirty years later. Conspiracy theories then began to multiply like rabbits.

HOPKINSVILLE GOBLINS

On August 21, 1955, the Sutton family was having a gathering of about eleven relatives and friends at their home near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. One of the guests, Billy Ray Taylor, went out to to get a pail of water from the family well, and allegedly saw a flying saucer streak through the sky and land nearby. Shortly afterward, at about 8 p.m., a horde of four-foot tall, gremlin-like aliens began to surround the house — the group shot at the creatures, but the aliens seemed impervious to bullets. The family then fled and reported the incident to the police.

The subsequent investigation by the local police found no evidence of the creatures. Most likely, the sighting was the combination of alcohol intoxication and an encounter with two great horned owls. These owls are nocturnal, territorial, and quite large. Running up on one at night would certainly be alarming. Furthermore, a meteor shower was occurring during that time, which would explain the "flying saucer" that Taylor witnessed.

BETTY AND BARNEY HILL

Perhaps the most famous UFO abductees are Betty and Barney Rubble — er, Hill. The couple was allegedly taken by aliens while returning from vacation to their home in New Hampshire, on September 19, 1961. The couple claimed to have seen a light in the sky and, after returning home, they realized that they had lost two hours of time. Under hypnosis, more than two years later, the Hills recounted that aliens took them aboard their ship and subjected them to experiments. They described the aliens as short, grey beings with big, black eyes. Does this sound familiar? It should, because this description is consistent with what is popularly known as "grey" aliens. The Hills are the ones largely responsible for popularizing this depiction of extraterrestrials.

The couple's tale is suspect, however, given that just a few days before their hypnosis sessions, on February 10, 1964, the popular science fiction show, The Outer Limits, broadcast an episode entitled "The Bellero Shield" that included a similar-looking creature. Moreover, Betty Hill drew a star map that she claimed to have seen on board the alien ship. Many UFO proponents argue that this is compelling evidence that her abduction took place. Scientist Carl Sagan, however, notably debunked Betty's map. Simply put, there is no evidence that the Hill abduction ever occurred. Nevertheless, the Hills' story was adapted into a popular book, Interrupted Journey, and the upcoming movie Captured.

THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES

During the night of February 24, 1942 and into the early morning of February 25, the U.S. military fired about 1400 anti-aircraft shells into the skies above Los Angeles. When the smoke cleared, there were thousands of distraught citizens, but no enemy aircraft wreckage littering the streets. The Los Angeles Times displayed the above picture in its February 26, 1942 issue, which appears to show searchlights honing in on an aircraft of some sort. Some UFO enthusiasts believe that the photo shows the military shooting at a flying saucer. More likely, the false alarm was caused by the sighting of a meteorological balloon (see pages 285-286 of this Air Force history document) combined with a case of twitchy nerves. The "Battle of Los Angeles" occurred less than three months after the Battle of Pearl Harbor. Tensions were high, as many believed that another attack by the Japanese military on the U.S. west coast was imminent.

But what about the picture? Back then, the editors of the Times used ink to darken the sky, and paint to brighten the searchlights and lens flares. The result is an image that seems to depict something in the sky. It's more difficult to reach this conclusion after viewing the original, untouched image.

WESTFALL UFO

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About 200 people allegedly saw a UFO in Melbourne, Australia on April 6, 1966. The witnesses — mostly students and teachers of the Westall High and State schools — reported watching three metallic objects drifting through the sky for about 20 minutes, starting at 11 a.m. The most likely explanation is that these UFOs were balloons from the HIBAL program — a joint US-Australian operation from 1960-1969 that sent large, metallic balloons up into the atmosphere to measure radiation levels. One balloon drifted off course and briefly touched down near the schools. It then took off again and several aircraft pursued it, which explains the multiple sightings. Plus, we have to consider the overactive imaginations of the children present at the time.

"FIRE IN THE SKY"

In 1975, Travis Walton was reportedly abducted by a UFO while working as a lumberjack in Arizona. Six of his friends and co-workers claimed to have witnessed his abduction. Walton reappeared several days later, and the story he told of being subjected to experiments by extraterrestrials eventually became the basis for his 1978 book, The Walton Experience, and the 1993 movie, Fire in the Sky.

However, the whole incident was probably a hoax perpetrated by Walton and his friends for financial gain. The story appeared in the National Inquirer days after the alleged incident — the publication awarded Walton and his friends $5,000 for their story, after the group passed polygraph tests that the tabloid funded. It is has also been reported that several members of the Walton family were UFO enthusiasts prior to Travis's abduction. The totality of this information, combined with a lack of testable evidence and the proven fact that polygraph results are totally useless, casts doubt on Walton's story.

WILLIAM SCHAFFNER: MIA

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William Schaffner was a pilot in the United States Air Force who, in 1970, was stationed at Royal Air Force Base Binbrook in Lincolnshire, England. UFO enthusiasts argue that on September 8, 1970, Schaffner was sent to intercept an unknown object over the North Sea, and was then abducted by extraterrestrials. Schaffner's plane, a RAF Lightning, was recovered virtually undamaged from the bottom of the sea. Most notably, the cockpit canopy was shut, meaning Schaffner hadn't ejected. Supporters of the abduction theory point toward the plane's pristine condition, combined with the absence of a body, to be evidence that the UFO scooped up Schaffner.

A BBC investigation, however, determined that Schaffner died due to a series of unfortunate events. Schaffner was not in pursuit of a UFO, but was engaged in an exercise that he was not sufficiently trained to complete. He attempted to fly low, under his target (a Shackleton reconnaissance aircraft), but hit the sea. His ejector seat failed, leading him to escape from the cockpit and drown shortly afterward.

THE PHOENIX LIGHTS

For about 106 minutes on the night of March 13, 1997, several hovering lights appeared in a V-shaped formation in the skies above Phoenix, Arizona. The Phoenix Lights, as they came to be called, are notable because hundreds of people witnessed and even videotaped the eerie event. Did these lights belong to a huge, silent UFO that wanted to get a closer look at the Phoenix area, or is there a more prosaic explanation?

It may be disappointing to some, but these lights were flares used by the military. More specifically, the flares seen by witnesses in 1997 were likely left from a training session by the visiting Maryland Air National Guard. The flares seem to be suspended in the night sky, because they are attached to parachutes that slow their descent.

UFO CRASH IN AURORA, TX

The small town of Aurora, Texas is perhaps most notable for an UFO that allegedly crashed into a windmill there in 1897. Several paranormal television programs, including the UFO Files, UFO Hunters, and Ancient Aliens have dedicated episodes to the crash. S.E. Haydon first reported the incident in an article for the Dallas Morning News in 1897. He claimed that the townspeople buried the sole occupant of the crash — possibly a Martian — in the local cemetery.

Haydon's story just sounds like a tall tale, so it should come as no surprise that he likely created it out of whole cloth. As a Time article from 1979 quoted one Aurora resident, Etta Pegues: "Haydon wrote it as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora. The railroad bypassed us, and the town was dying." Another theory is that Haydon and his friend, Judge J.S. Proctor, whose windmill the "alien" spacecraft destroyed, were simply trying to amuse themselves and their peers. Proctor wrote a similar far-fetched article about the crash in his local newspaper, the Aurora News. Either way, no one has been able to find the alien's remains, if they even exist, in the town's cemetery. Although those Martian flowers may be a dead giveaway.

{ https://www.grunge.com/ }

02-08-2021 om 18:17 geschreven door peter