Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
08-08-2021
UFOs Are Already A Fact, But What About Alien Implants?
UFOs Are Already A Fact, But What About Alien Implants?
The case of Alien abductions and alien implants has been a fascinating subject for years, if proven to be true, it could be considered as one of the best pieces of evidence that points towards the existence of otherworldly beings.
After years of researcher on the UFO phenomena by different individuals worldwide, there is a tremendous amount of “official” information that has been made available for people around the globe.
The National Archives of the United Kingdom, for example, published in 2013 a wide range of information ranging from testimonies of sightings, photographs and even drawings to prove human contact with extraterrestrial beings.
Whether aliens exist or not is something that has “never” been officially answered yet the question has not changed for years, even though in the last decade, tremendous evidence has been made averrable which directly points towards the existence of not only extraterrestrial beings, but beings from other “dimensions”.
Since ancient times, there have been clues that have suggested an interaction between extraterrestrials and humans.
In modern days, factors such as the strange markings on the body and implants extracted from people claiming to have been abducted have fueled the idea that these otherworldly beings actually exist and have interacted with humans.
Dr. Roger Leir, a specialist in podiatry (Podiatry or podiatric medicine is a branch of medicine devoted to the study of diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and lower extremity) and arguably the most famous person in regard to the removal of extraterrestrials implants said to have performed around 17 surgeries in which suspicious objects, “implants” were extracted.
According to Dr. Leir, an amazing feature is that all of these alleged implants are the size of a pencil tip but extremely magnetic in nature, and some had too high frequency for their size.
Other items that were examined had meteorite fragments in common; metals such as gallium, germanium, platinum, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium. Research also found a diversion of nickel in quantities that lab analysis could not explain, nickel content of isotope ratio unknown to our planet.
According Ph.D. Alex Mosier specialist in Physical Chemistry, who examined the pieces together with Leir, fibers were found that are very similar in nature to carbon nanotubes which suggests that the fragments were designed or manufactured and it was impossible to find artifacts like these in nature.
They have to be processed, requiring complex engineering and are not easy to manufacture. These objects have also been scientifically researched by some of the world’s most prestigious laboratories such as Los Alamos National Lab, New Mexico Tech and the University of California in San Diego.
Dr. Leir, who also worked as a medical consultant in the Mutual UFO Network, said that the people from which they extracted these strange objects had no visible scars or interruption in the integrity of the skin.
There were no signs of inflammation but X-ray tests clearly showed embedding, which seemed nearly impossible.
So far, medicine has had a phobia about tests which are linked to ufology. Very few scientists and doctors have dared to enter into debate regarding the matter, especially due to their professional prestige.
So what are these objects that have been proven to exist? If these objects point towards an otherwordly origin, what other evidence do we need?
Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It's vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity."
">NASA’s InSight lander, presented in three studies in this issue, provide clues to the composition of Mars
Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system and the fourth planet from the sun. Iron oxide is prevalent in Mars' surface resulting in its reddish color and its nickname "The Red Planet." Mars' name comes from the Roman god of war.
">Mars. Researchers across these studies report preliminary findings from the Insight mission and begin to map — for the first time — the interior of a planet apart from Earth.
“These three studies provide important constraints on the present-day structure of Mars and are also key for improving our understanding of how the planet formed billions of years ago and evolved through time,” write Sanne Cottaar and Paula Koelemeijer in a related Perspective.
Studying a planet’s interior layers — its crust, mantle and core — can reveal key insights into its formation and evolution, as well as uncovering any geomagnetic and tectonic activity it hosts. Such deep interior regions can be probed by measuring the waves that travel through the planet’s body following seismic events like a quake. Such methods have been instrumental in surveying the internal characteristics of Earth.
The two largest quakes detected by NASA’s InSight appear to have originated in a region of Mars called Cerberus Fossae. Scientists previously spotted signs of tectonic activity here, including landslides. This image was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
In early 2019, NASA’s Martian lander InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) began to detect and record marsquakes from its position on the surface of Mars, including several subcrustal quakes that resemble tectonic events on Earth. Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun and colleagues used marsquakes and ambient seismic noise to image the structure of the Martian crust below the InSight landing site, finding evidence for a multi-layered crust with either two or three interfaces. Extrapolating this data to the entire planet, Knapmeyer-Endrun et al. show how the average thickness of Mars’ crust lies between 24 and 72 kilometers (km).
Amir Khan et al. used direct and surface reflected seismic waves from eight low-frequency marsquakes to probe deeper and reveal the structure of Mars’ mantle to a depth of nearly 800 km. Their findings suggest that a thick lithosphere lies close to 500 km below the surface and, like the Earth, likely has a low-velocity layer beneath it. According to Khan et al., Mars’ crustal layer is likely highly enriched in heat-producing radioactive elements, which heats this region at the expense of the planet’s interior.
Illustration of NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight)
Credits: NASA
Deeper still, Simon Stähler and colleagues used the faint seismic signals reflected off the Martian core-mantle boundary to investigate the Martian core. They found that Mars’ relatively large liquid metal core has a radius of nearly 1,830 kilometers and begins roughly halfway between the surface and the center of the planet, suggesting that the planet’s mantle consists of only one rocky layer, rather than two, like in Earth. According to Stähler et al., the findings indicate that the iron-nickel core is less dense than previously thought and enriched in lighter elements.
“Direct seismic observations on Mars represent a major leap forward in planetary seismology,” write Cottaar and Koelemeijer. “Over the coming years, as more marsquakes are measured, scientists will refine these models of the red planet and reveal more of Mars’ enigmatic mysteries.”
“Upper mantle structure of Mars from InSight seismic data” by Amir Khan, Savas Ceylan, Martin van Driel, Domenico Giardini, Philippe Lognonné, Henri Samuel, Nicholas C. Schmerr, Simon C. Stähler, Andrea C. Duran, Quancheng Huang, Doyeon Kim, Adrien Broquet, Constantinos Charalambous, John F. Clinton, Paul M. Davis, Mélanie Drilleau, Foivos Karakostas, Vedran Lekic, Scott M. McLennan, Ross R. Maguire, Chloé Michaut, Mark P. Panning, William T. Pike, Baptiste Pinot, Matthieu Plasman, John-Robert Scholz, Rudolf Widmer-Schnidrig, Tilman Spohn, Suzanne E. Smrekar and William B. Banerdt, 23 July 2021, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abf2966
“Seismic detection of the martian core” by Simon C. Stähler, Amir Khan, W. Bruce Banerdt, Philippe Lognonné, Domenico Giardini, Savas Ceylan, Mélanie Drilleau, A. Cecilia Duran, Raphaël F. Garcia, Quancheng Huang, Doyeon Kim, Vedran Lekic, Henri Samuel, Martin Schimmel, Nicholas Schmerr, David Sollberger, Éléonore Stutzmann, Zongbo Xu, Daniele Antonangeli, Constantinos Charalambous, Paul M. Davis, Jessica C. E. Irving, Taichi Kawamura, Martin Knapmeyer, Ross Maguire, Angela G. Marusiak, Mark P. Panning, Clément Perrin, Ana-Catalina Plesa, Attilio Rivoldini, Cédric Schmelzbach, Géraldine Zenhäusern, Éric Beucler, John Clinton, Nikolaj Dahmen, Martin van Driel, Tamara Gudkova, Anna Horleston, W. Thomas Pike, Matthieu Plasman and Suzanne E. Smrekar, 23 July 2021, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abi7730
“Thickness and structure of the martian crust from InSight seismic data” by Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun, Mark P. Panning, Felix Bissig, Rakshit Joshi, Amir Khan, Doyeon Kim, Vedran Lekic, Benoit Tauzin, Saikiran Tharimena, Matthieu Plasman, Nicolas Compaire, Raphael F. Garcia, Ludovic Margerin, Martin Schimmel, Éléonore Stutzmann, Nicholas Schmerr, Ebru Bozdag, Ana-Catalina Plesa, Mark A. Wieczorek, Adrien Broquet, Daniele Antonangeli, Scott M. McLennan, Henri Samuel, Chloé Michaut, Lu Pan, Suzanne E. Smrekar, Catherine L. Johnson, Nienke Brinkman, Anna Mittelholz, Attilio Rivoldini, Paul M. Davis, Philippe Lognonné, Baptiste Pinot, John-Robert Scholz, Simon Stähler, Martin Knapmeyer, Martin van Driel, Domenico Giardini and W. Bruce Banerdt, 23 July 2021, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abf8966
The arrogant mentality that saw Galileo derided still exists today, claims Harvard professor who wants to prove aliens exist
The arrogant mentality that saw Galileo derided still exists today, claims Harvard professor who wants to prove aliens exist
Chris Sweeney
Chris Sweeney is an author and columnist who has written for newspapers such as The Times, Daily Express, The Sun and Daily Record, along with several international-selling magazines. Follow him on Twitter@Writes_Sweeney
A new initiative aims to finally find out if we really are alone by investigating UFO sightings. Some think it’s a waste of time but what if the mainstream dismissal of aliens has blocked astronomers from pursuing their theories?
Galileo Galilei was locked up after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy. That was 1633, but Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University is going through his own tribulations. The eminent scholar is viewed by some as controversial, which sparked an outpouring against his new initiative to finally answer the question, ‘are we alone?’ It is called the Galileo Project, and aims to provide data and evidence about what is flying above us. No more fighter jet cockpit cameras, vague eyewitness testimony, or reports from a hacker who infiltrated the CIA’s network.
The idea is simple: obtain good quality images and study them, but many of Loeb’s peers have already shot him down in flames. He admitted: “The reason I am doing what I’m doing is not because I enjoy the pain of the wounds inflicted on me on Twitter, that’s not a very pleasant experience.
“The only reason I’m willing to go through it is because I think it’s an extremely important question for the future of humanity. That’s probably the most important scientific question you can ask. It’s not about me, we should be open, rather than assume we know the answer in advance, that’s what Galileo taught us.”
Even though the Galileo Project was only launched last week, it has already attracted the attention of amateur astronomers, as thousands have landed emails in Loeb’s inbox. The venture was partly in response to the US government’s June 2020 Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) report, which offered more questions than answers.
“You expect the scientific community to be blue sky, open minded, but the government seems to be more open minded in declaring that and the scientific community ridicules it out of a habit. There is this tendency of staying conservative and not dealing with it, which I think is inappropriate,” Loeb said.
Oddly, Loeb didn’t plan to start the Galileo Project, the interest stemmed from his book, ‘Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth’, about the unexplained object glimpsed from a Hawaiian observatory in 2017. Arriving at his office recently, he was informed a new research fund had been created in his name. Loeb said: “Soon after I had a multi-billionaire on the porch of my home with questions about my book.”
The next morning, the fund had $1.75 million from two mystery donors. Loeb added, “That never happens in academia, you have to understand that. A lot of people seek funding and work very hard to get funding and most often don’t get funded, but here I didn’t engage in any fundraising.” The cash allowed him to follow his instinct and recruit a team of 50 scientists.
It will also enable him to buy telescopes, cameras and computer systems.
The Galileo Project is going after two types of targets, and the first is UAPs. Loeb explained: “Astronomers usually look at distant objects so if a bird flies above the telescope, it’s ignored. We will pay attention to that bird and make sure it’s a bird, and not something else. We’ll be looking at the sky but not focusing on the usual suspects that astronomers are looking at far away, we’re looking at nearby objects. It’s a fishing expedition, you throw the hook and you don’t know what kind of fish you will find, and then you get as much data as possible.”
The other is interstellar objects from outside our solar system. Loeb continued: “I’m not after recruiting thousands of people with their cell phones looking at the sky, we want a large telescope more than 10cm in size or up to a metre, that’s 1,000 times the aperture of a cell phone. We want to read off the label if it’s Made in Country X versus Made on Planet Y.”
The US government report confirmed to Loeb the gaping lacuna in the status quo. The wrong people are investigating matters, he believes. “That report was an admission of failure of these intelligence agencies as that is their job, they are paid to figure out what flies in the sky,” he said. “I realised that this subject should not be limited to the talking points of politicians or military personnel, it should be in the realm of science because you would never ask a plumber to bake you a cake.”
That’s not to say that The White House doesn’t have some fascinating information, but it doesn’t share it with academics because of the well-worn reason of national security.
Loeb said: “The data the government has was gathered by classified sensors, they are sensors monitoring the sky and the US government prefers its adversaries not to know what sensors it is using. It cannot release the data for that reason, not because all of the data is classified.
“Frankly, I’m not interested in that data, I want to collect my own data. I behave like that kid that is told by adults this is the truth, often they don’t pay attention, the kids want to find it by himself or herself by checking it out. Science is an extension of our childhood curiosity and about reproducible evidence.”
The Galileo Project should swing into action in 12 months. What members of the public may be surprised to discover is that Loeb is not actually expecting to see aliens, he is looking for their equipment. That for him will be enough to prove there is a more advanced species than us in the universe.
Loeb said: “We live in the 21st century, not in the Dark Ages, and we know that if we have the instruments that can collect the evidence we need, we should just go ahead and do it, rather than argue forever philosophically whether it makes sense or not, or ridicule it. The right approach is this is an intriguing question because it could indicate there is a smarter kid on the block, we should consider that possibility.”
There is a valid reason why Loeb anticipates only seeing machinery. “Biological creatures were not selected by Darwinian evolution to survive in space, it takes light which travels at the fastest speed, four years to reach us from the nearest star,” he said.
“If you imagine chemical rockets that we use to cross the galaxy, it would take them 100 million years. No biological creature can survive that long even if you have multiple generations because of the impact of cosmic rays, but there is no need to send them, you can send artificial intelligent systems.”
And expanding on his theory, it truly does become hard to visualise. Loeb said: “If there was a civilisation, more advanced than we are, that sent self-replicating AI systems, that are connected to 3D printers that can make more of the same as they get to other places, you could easily full up the Milky Way galaxy with such probes within a billion years, and most of the stars in the universe formed billions of years before the Sun. If you just imagine another star that predated us, that’s enough to fill up the galaxy with probes.”
Once the cameras and computers are calibrated, Loeb will place them in different parts of the world. Mountaintops are a likely spot but if he can reach $10 million in funding, then he will have over 100 sets of equipment to deploy in a variety of locations. He said: “Then we will have a high likelihood of resolving this question of what UAPs are all about. If it turns out to be some atmospheric phenomena that we’ve never anticipated, so be it. We will just report back and clear up the fog.”
Underlining how tough it may be is the fact that NASA has already snubbed Loeb. But with his status as a professor at the world’s most prestigious university, he is hoping to inspire others to push the boundaries. He said: “Around the same time (of the US government report) the head of NASA Bill Nelson said scientists should look into that, I was very happy to hear that so I approached people under him and said ‘here I am, to serve and make your boss happy’. Nobody got back to me.
“This subject appeals to the public, it’s an opportunity if it were to be brought to the mainstream of science to attract more funding to science, and to attract talent into science, young people that will become scientists because it’s exciting.”
The example of Galileo is inescapable. Loeb is staking a lot on his theory and generations to come could look back at him as we now do at the famed Italian astronomer. Who else is leading an educated surge to countenance that we may not be the shot callers that we think we are?
Loeb said: “I don’t think we’re special or unique and the reason I say that is whenever we’ve pretended we’re really special, it ended up being wrong. We thought we were the centre of the universe, that’s wrong and that’s what Galileo showed by looking through his telescope.
“The philosophers at the time said, ‘we know the Sun moves around the Earth and you’re claiming the Earth moves around the Sun, therefore, we will not look through our telescope because we know the truth’.
“They put him in house arrest, today he would have been cancelled on social media. Reality doesn’t care what we say, we can pretend there are no neighbours and there is no smarter kid on the block by not looking through our windows and closing the curtains, that won’t get rid of that smarter kid.
“The point is not to repeat again the mistakes made during the days of Galileo.”
In a report submitted to the United Nations in January 1979, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) classified the objects as "UFOs until identified", but said the "prospect of extra terrestrial intervention being proved is regarded as extremely remote".
The document is one of a large group of declassified documents regarding "Unidentified Flying Objects" at Archives New Zealand, which came from New Zealand's post at the UN between 1977 and 1982.
In the briefing, DSIR debunks one film of the famous event, but has trouble in doing the same with TV1's footage.
What we learned from the United States UFO Report
The United States released a report on UFOs earlier this year.
"Both Crockett's and TV1's films are highly distorted," the briefing reads.
"Crockett's film now considered unmeritous because of visual discrepancies produced by filming through an argosy window. DSIR have actually duplicated Crockett's results by shining a torch light onto the plane's window.
"TV1's film proving more interesting as it was a straight shot free of any distortion produced by filming through glass and plastic.
"However, aberrations are apparent in the film which is making it difficult to analyse. DSIR are now converting the film to computer readout and are hopeful that distortions can be erased."
DSIR said atmospheric conditions could explain false radar readings at the time of the sightings, where both Christchurch and Wellington air traffic control registered signals.
They said the readings weren't consistent with the sightings of pilots, or ground sightings.
"DSIR are not willing to make definite statements yet but their conjecture is that the objects filmed will turn out to be no more than general illumination (possibly produced by Jupiter or Venus) on the horizon.
"The objects remain classified as UFOs until identified. Prospect of extra terrestrial intervention being proved is regarded as extremely remote."
UNCREDITED/AP
UFO sightings have received significant media coverage in recent months. This 2015 image from video provided by the US Department of Defense shows an unexplained object as it soars high along the clouds, travelling against the wind.
Other documents show the lobbying New Zealand received from the nation of Grenada, which wanted the United Nations to "initiate, conduct and co-ordinate research into the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects and related phenomena".
New Zealand was chairing the Western European and Other States Group in November, 1978, when Grenada wanted to table their suggestion, and was not too pleased at the suggestion.
"We are disenchanted with Grenada resolution and would hope that the item can be disposed of without vote," one document reads.
"If put to the vote our inclination would be to vote against."
UNSPLASH
A report to the United Nations in 1979 said the "prospect of extra terrestrial intervention being proved is regarded as extremely remote".
Another document said: "A number of countries who were members of the Outer Space Committee (particularly Austria) were unhappy at the proposal. They felt it would damage the Committee's credibility and divert resources from more imporant work."
New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it shared the opinion of the committee.
"The matter is not appropriate for discussion in a United Nations context.
"We would hope, therefore, that the matter would be disposed of without vote.
"If put to the vote a negative vote would be appropriate though the delegation has discretion to abstain in appropriate company."
Grenada eventually pulled its pursuit of an UFO investigations unit in the UN, at the urging of the United Kingdom.
UFOs, UAPs—Whatever We Call Them, Why Do We Assume Mysterious Flying Objects Are Extraterrestrial?
UFOs, UAPs—Whatever We Call Them, Why Do We Assume Mysterious Flying Objects Are Extraterrestrial?
For better or worse, sightings of unidentifiable things in the sky have become inextricably linked to spacecraft from outer space.
Still unidentified: Navy pilots tracked and photographed what appeared to them to be a fast-moving object off the Florida coast in 2015. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Earlier this summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a much publicized nine-page report titled, with deliberate blandness, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” Although the report was requested by Congress, in many ways it was the culmination of three-and-a-half years of public attention to military reports regarding unidentified flying objects. ODNI did not use the acronym “UFO,” which dates back to the 1950s (government officials now prefer “UAP,” for unidentified aerial phenomena), and never even mentioned the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin for the sighted objects. But that didn’t keep news outlets from concluding that the report “stops short of ruling out aliens.”
Military and intelligence officials have consistently framed these mysterious incidents in terms of national security. The Preliminary Assessment stated that ODNI’s charge from Congress was to provide policymakers with an overview of “the challenges associated with characterizing the potential threat posed by UAP.” The office was directed to focus on “identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries.” Even those who promote the study of UFOs agreed that possible military threats—not extraterrestrials—were the focus of the new report.
So why do the press and social media keep bringing up aliens? Because, for better or worse, sightings of unidentifiable things in the sky have become inextricably linked to visitors from outer space. Aliens are now our default explanation for such events, and the reason is no accident: For nearly 75 years, people have worked hard to make it the default.
When reports of flying saucers first began to surface during the summer of 1947, extraterrestrials were hardly brought up. Yes, there were some who took seriously the prospect that Martians or other beings from outer space were behind all the commotion. Kenneth Arnold—the man credited with first reporting a UFO sighting—is said to have encountered a distraught woman in an Oregon café, who ran out sobbing and shouting, “There’s the man who saw the men from Mars,” adding that she “would have to do something for the children.”
Most people, though, didn’t take this possibility seriously. Opinion writers tended to think it most likely that the U.S. or Soviet Union were testing experimental rockets or aircraft. The general public also seemed dubious that flying saucers might be the work of extraterrestrials. In August 1947, George Gallup published the results of a poll in which he asked those surveyed—all Americans—what they thought the flying objects reported in the newspapers might be. Twenty-nine percent thought witnesses had been mistaken, 15 percent thought they were secret American weapons, and one-third said they didn’t know. If there were people who believed they were ships from outer space, their responses were included among the nine percent who answered “other.”
A Dutch survey in October 1952 revealed similar sentiments in the Netherlands, with no apparent support for the idea of alien visitors. And 43 percent confessed that they had no idea what the flying saucers were.
The fact that almost half the general public in the late 1940s and early 1950s were undecided about the nature of UFOs meant that, in principle at least, they were open to different explanations. This provided an opportunity in 1950 for pulp and entertainment writers Donald Keyhoe (The Flying Saucers are Real), Frank Scully (Behind the Flying Saucers), and Gerald Heard (The Riddle of the Flying Saucers) to find receptive readers for their claims that unidentified flying objects were visitors from outer space. Over the course of the 1950s, first local, then nationwide flying saucer clubs and groups sprouted up across the United States. These offered subscribers both a way to keep up with UFO news through newsletters and bulletins, and a forum for speculating about the intentions of the extraterrestrials free from fear of public ridicule.
By 1956, the terms “unidentified flying object” and “UFO” were being used in place of “flying saucer” by some military officials and amateur civilian researchers. Within a decade and a half, the acronym UFO had effectively replaced its predecessor. If the new terminology was meant to bring precision to reports of sightings, however, it achieved nothing of the kind. Just as any account of an odd thing in the sky had been quickly branded by media outlets to be a potential flying saucer, so too “UFO” served as a convenient rubric under which the media categorized just about any perplexing observation. All the while, “UFO” continued to carry with it the same association with aliens that “flying saucer” once had. The current term, “unidentified aerial phenomena” is a prisoner of this same past.
What then, should we make of this most recent report? Does it add anything new to the long history of UFOlogy? How does it compare with previous official statements?
Unfortunately, the document is thin on details, so there is much we don’t know. What we have been told, however, is that the Department of Defense has formed an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) to study the issue. For the purposes of the report, this task force examined 144 incidents involving U.S. government personnel and assets, all of which occurred between November 2004 and March 2021. Most of the cases are considered explainable, though they haven’t all been completely explained due to the fact that “the reporting lacked sufficient specificity.”
The most worrying UAP episodes for national security-minded readers involved 18 outlier instances in which it was reported that the object displayed “unusual flight characteristics.” In these cases, investigators could not rule out the possibility that it was the result of sensor errors, cyberattack, or misperception. In the end, intelligence authorities recommend increased funding to the task force to develop a more robust data collection and analysis system.
This is by no means the first government fact-finding effort in this arena. After 1947, the U.S. Air Force established a series of UFO investigation task forces, the most prominent being Project Blue Book during the years 1952-1969. In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency convened a small panel of consultants to look into the matter. Finally, the Air Force sponsored a scientific study of the UFO phenomenon by the University of Colorado between 1966 and 1968.
Civilian UFO researchers and enthusiasts have soundly criticized these undertakings for what they see as evidence of bias and secrecy. Nevertheless, in all these cases, officials publicly concluded that most reports of UFOs were explicable and presented no reason for concern, and that the residue of inexplicable cases did not pose a national security threat.
In short, the ODNI Preliminary Assessment is all too familiar. Modern investigation of UAPs has been hampered by inconsistent standards of reporting and limited resources, and as in the past, officials on the whole appear unruffled by such reports. And once again, government agencies leave room for ambiguity in admitting that there are a number of anomalous incidents.
ODNI’s preliminary report does break some new ground, however. It clearly states that most unidentified aerial phenomena reported are physical objects. It also admits that a culture of dismissiveness and ridicule within the military and intelligence communities has inhibited witnesses from coming forward, which may partly explain the shortcomings in reporting. In fact, the Preliminary Assessment appears to open the way for more scientists and technical experts to join the discussion, although how they should do that remains unclear.
We can expect that intelligence analysts will continue to monitor the situation. Activists will take to social media to demand full disclosure by government agencies. And both skeptics and believers in alien visitation will come away feeling that their side has won the day. Far from the end of the UFO controversy, this is just the beginning of a new chapter.
UK's top military brass refuse to rule out existence of extraterrestrial UFOs
UK's top military brass refuse to rule out existence of extraterrestrial UFOs
A senior defence source told the Daily Star Sunday that the government was having to very carefully word its statements on the existence of aliens and the presence of UFOs in our skies
By Sean Rayment
Aliens may well be shooting through the skies above us
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Military bosses have refused to rule out the existence of extraterrestrials.
The Ministry of Defence admitted it had been receiving reports of UFO sightings for more than 50 years.
But the Government said that because none of them posed a threat to UK security it had “no opinion on the existence of extraterrestrials”.
One senior defence source said last night he believed the Government was worried about commenting on alien life.
He said: “The MoD can’t deny the existence of UFOs because there are reports coming in every week, so it tries to fudge the issue by saying that no UFOs have posed a military threat.
Unidentified Flying Objects have been spotted in the skies above the UK with worrying frequency
“It’s interesting that it doesn’t mention anything about UFOs which don’t represent a threat.”
Details of the Government position was revealed in a Freedom of Information request.
An MoD spokesman said: “While I note your interest in Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, you may wish to be aware that the MoD has no opinion on the existence of extraterrestrials.
The MoD did not rule out the existence of UFOs(Image: Getty Images)
“This is because, in over 50 years, no UFO sighting reported to the department has indicated the existence of any military threat to the UK.”
Author Nick Pope, who used to run the British Government’s UFO Project, said: “The MoD’s response is disappointing, but predictable.”
Back in June, the Star reported how more than 200 close encounters have been reported in Yorkshire over the past two decades.
The latest came at the end of May, when a jet passenger filmed a long cigar-shaped object flying close to their aircraft as it cruised over the county.
Dark Disk Over Manhattan, New York, Aug 7, 2021, UFO Sighting News.
Dark Disk Over Manhattan, New York, Aug 7, 2021, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Aug 7, 2021
Location of sighting: Manhattan, New York, USA
Source: MUFON
This dark craft was caught over Manhattan yesterday. I'm not too surprised that only one report came in about it, since many people hide inside to stay safe from covid worldwide. At first I thought it might be a smoke ring made by a volcano amusement ride, but its unlikely there is anything like that open let alone working during covid. Then I thought it could be a dark cloud that got hit by a wind stream...which might explain it shooting away at the end of the 57 second video. But I have a feeling it's much more. I believe its a alien craft, disk shaped and has a black smoke tinting (coloring) on its clock around it. I do think this is an alien craft observing the public below. Aliens are watching us.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Eyewitness states:
The audio was removed because I was freaking out & cussed while recording this thing. I couldn't believe what I was looking at it really freaked me out!
Major General John A. Samford On UFO And “Flying Saucers”, Pentagon, Washington, DC, 07/31/1952
Major General John A. Samford On UFO And “Flying Saucers”, Pentagon, Washington, DC, 07/31/1952
The first featured film was shot four months after the genesis of Project Blue Book, and two days after a press conference held by the Air Force to address a rash of UFO sightings over Washington, D.C. In this interview, Major General John A. Samford explains the Air Force’s mandate to identify and analyze potential threats that come by air, while also assuring the citizenry that there was no known threat. Also present in this film to offer a differing opinion is Major Donald Keyhoe. Keyhoe was a vocal believer in the existence of extraterrestrial visitors. His book, The Flying Saucers are Real, is referenced in this interview.
The Real Story of the ‘Bearded God’ Named Quetzalcoatl
The Real Story of the ‘Bearded God’ Named Quetzalcoatl
Many myths have cropped up in the centuries since Columbus landed upon the shores of Hispaniola. While some of these myths have come to be seen for what they are, many more persist in the zeitgeist as fact. One such myth is that the Aztecs believed that Hernan Cortes, the leader of a band of conquistadors, was in fact a reincarnated deity by the name of Quetzalcoatl.
As the story goes, the Aztec believed in a white, bearded god named Quetzalcoatl, who, long ago, had disappeared into the east. Before he left, however, he promised to return. When Cortes and his crew of Spaniards came ashore in Mexico in 1519, many thought they were gods.
And when their march inland took them to the Aztec emperor’s doorstep, he recognized who Cortes truly was. A pious man, Montezuma proclaimed Cortes was in fact Quetzalcoatl himself, come to fulfill the prophecy. He then graciously handed over the keys to his empire to the bearded, white god.
This tale has become so pervasive in the modern ethos that I even learned it in my 9th grade world history class. Told by our teacher that this story was historical fact, I went on believing the myth for years. It wasn’t until graduate school, when I became more interested in the history of the Atlantic World and the colonial societies it produced, that I learned that the story of a white bearded god named Quetzalcoatl was a myth.
In this article, I’d like to explore this myth, examining why it’s untrue, how it came about, and why both European and Indigenous people of post-Conquest Mexico came to believe in it. But first, let’s quickly delve into the history of the real Quetzalcoatl and his theological origins in Mesoamerica.
The Real Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent
The Plumed Serpent made his first appearance in the archaeological record over 2,000 years ago. In the heartland of the Olmec civilization, at a site known as La Venta in the present-day state of Tabasco, Mexico, archaeologists discovered a carving of a snake sporting a beak and feathered crest, with birds (or quetzal in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs ) on either side. Under the Olmecs, La Venta flourished from 900 BC to somewhere between 300 and 200 BC. Credited as the mother of civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmec spread their culture throughout the region, including their belief in the Plumed Serpent deity.
A photo of La Venta Stela 19, the earliest known representation of the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica.
The next great civilization that left signs of worshiping Quetzalcoatl was Teotihuacan. While scholars do not know who built and inhabited this magnificent ancient city, its people etched their reverence for Quetzalcoatl into stone. The site contains three large pyramids: the Pyramid of the Sun, the Citadel, and the Temple of Feathered Serpent.
Built around 150 AD, the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, also known as the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, was the third largest pyramid in the city. Made up of seven tiers, the facade of the pyramid swarms with carvings of snakes. The symbolism of Quetzalcoatl here is intriguing.
Archaeologists have argued that the ornate headdresses found on the serpents represent time. This suggests the people of Teotihuacan gave Quetzalcoatl a role in the creation of the calendar, a role he would continue to play in later civilizations. Though Teotihuacan lay abandoned by 750 AD, it represents an important point in the evolution of Quetzalcoatl in Mesoamerican thought.
By the time the Aztecs emerged on the scene in fourteenth-century Mesoamerica, Quetzalcoatl had become an important god for many peoples of the region. And during the centuries of the Aztecs’ rise to power, the god came to play a variety of roles in Aztec belief .
For one, they credited him with the creation of the universe, humanity, the calendar, and their most important crop, corn. The Aztecs also drew upon long standing traditions that associated Quetzalcoatl with science, arts, and learning, as well as the planet Venus. And, as if this were not enough, he was also closely associated with rain.
Despite the various roles and deeds ascribed to Quetzalcoatl in Aztec theology, he was not the most important god worshipped in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. Indeed, nowhere in the traditions of the Aztec, or the Olmec, Toltec, Maya, or numerous other cultures for that matter, did the Plumed Serpent god disappear, promising one day to return.
So how did this myth come about? As with most historical phenomena, many events fed into the Cortes-as-Quetzalcoatl legend, like tributaries into a river. Perhaps one of the first to occur, chronologically, was a simple matter of mistranslation.
When the Spanish arrived on the Mexican coast in 1519, they were a complete unknown in the Mesoamerican world. Thus, as the Spanish made their way inland, the towns they passed, and sometimes destroyed, had no idea what to call them.
In sixteenth-century Mesoamerica, part of a person’s identity was their city of origin or the social role they filled. Eventually, Nahuatl speakers denoted the Spaniards as Caxtilteca, or people of Castile; but that was years in the future. For now, no one knew from whence the Spanish had come, and so could not label them in traditional fashion.
It seems, however, that many people in the region were impressed with Spanish guns and horses. After all, nothing like this existed in Mexico at the time. When the Spanish recorded the interactions they had with the various peoples of central Mexico, they noted that these people called them ‘teotl.’ In Nahuatl, teotl can mean god, and this was the translation the Spaniards latched onto.
But, teotl had other meanings as well. As historian Matthew Restall explains, “it could be combined with other words… to qualify them not as specifically godly or godlike, but as fine, fancy, large, powerful, and so on.”
Impressed by the horses and goods the Spanish brought with them, the people who met Cortes on his march inland surmised the Europeans were important people. And, lacking any other way to distinguish them in speech, used the word ‘teotl’ to denote this, which later Spanish chroniclers misinterpreted as ‘god.’
Not So Reverent Actions
If the Aztecs had truly believed that Cortes was a god, Cortes himself would certainly have made note of it. But in all the letters he wrote to King Charles V in which he attempted to establish political and moral legitimacy for the war he started, he never mentions it. Even when describing his first encounter with Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, Cortes portrays Montezuma as recognizing the Spaniard’s humanity. In a letter to Charles V, Cortes recounted how Montezuma told him, “See that I am of flesh and blood like you and all other men, and I am mortal and substantial.”
Whether or not Montezuma ever actually spoke those words, we can never know. But, if the Aztec emperor had proclaimed Cortes’s divinity, why did the conquistador leave it out of his letter? Surely, such a thing would have gone far in his attempts to justify the conquests he sought in the New World.
Additionally, in the midst of the battle for that conquest, the Aztec did not sit passively by and watch the Spanish take their capital of Tenochtitlan. While they found Spanish horses and guns rather fascinating, the Spaniards themselves had quickly worn out their welcome.
In traditional Aztec warfare, soldiers captured enemies for sacrifice, which was thought to be an honorable death. In their war against the conquistadors, however, Aztec warriors delivered a devastating blow to the back of their opponent’s head whenever they could. In pre-conquest Tenochtitlan, such a death had been reserved for the city’s criminals.
Through the re-examination of the word ‘teotl’ and closer look at the actions we know the Aztecs took in regards to the Spanish presence , we can say with certainty they did not view Cortes as a god. To get a better understanding of how this myth came to permeate both European and Mesoamerican histories of the conquest, we need to examine the works of prominent thinkers in post-conquest Mexico.
Planting the Seeds of a Myth
One of the most prominent of these thinkers is the Franciscan friar Toribio de Benavente, known to history as Motolinía. While in the decades following the Aztec-Spanish War, many Spanish chroniclers made mention of the variant forms of teotl used to identify the conquistadors, most left it at that. They simply observed its use, telling their readers it translated as ‘god’ or ‘gods’ and moved on. But Motolinía took it a step further.
He saw this mistranslation as evidence of God’s approval. Writing about the conquest and post-conquest era while living in the Valley of Mexico as a missionary, Motolinía noted that the Nahua people “called the Castilians teteuh, which is to say gods, and the Castilians, corrupting the word, said teules.” For Motolinía, the use of this word denoted that the Mesoamericans had been awaiting the Spanish arrival. As Restall notes, this “anticipation… proved the Conquest was part of God’s plan for the Americas.”
Some 30 years after Motolinía scribbled those words, the Cortes-as-Quetzalcoatl myth reached its penultimate form in the work of Bernardino de Sahagún. Known as the Florentine Codex , this gargantuan work comprised 12 books that took around 45 years to compile.
Spaniards disposing of the bodies of Moctezuma and Itzquauhtzin in the Florentine Codex.
An intelligent man with an aptitude for languages, Sahagún travelled to Mexico as part of the Franciscan order’s attempts to convert the Indigenous populations to Christianity. During his time there, Sahagún learned to speak Nahuatl.
With his newly earned Nahuatl skills, Sahagún recruited the children of Nahua elites to work with him on creating the Codex. With Sahagún essentially filling the role of project manager, his Nahua assistants wrote most of the Florentine Codex .
This gave the Codex a decidedly Indigenous point-of-view on the conquest of Mexico. Yet, in this text composed by young Aztec scholars in the decades following the conquest, we see the following depiction of Montezuma preparing for Cortes’s arrival:
“When Moteucçoma heard the news, he immediately sent people for the reception of Quetzalcoatl, because they thought it was him who was coming, because they were expecting him daily.”
Even though the form of the Cortes-as-Quetzalcoatl myth so many of us were taught as children didn’t come about until the 1560s, some forty years following the fall of the Aztec empire, both European and Nahua populations had reason to buy into it.
By the time the Florentine Codex was published, the days of the conquistadors were long gone and Spain’s New World empire established. For some Europeans, the notion of Indigenous inferiority sufficed as an explanation for the success of the Spanish conquistadors. Other Spaniards who immigrated to the colony built on the ruins of the Aztec empire, known as New Spain, undoubtedly observed the unjust treatment the Indigenous populations faced at the hands of the Spanish empire.
Luckily, the Cortes-as-Quetzalcoatl myth helped to assuage, at least in part, whatever guilt colonists may have felt. As historian Camilla Townsend put it, the myth showed that “the Europeans had not only been welcomed, they had been worshipped.”
The Nahua had the opposite question to answer: How did we fall from power? The Nahua who helped Sahagún create the Florentine Codex knew the Indigenous populations of the New World were not inferior to the Europeans. After all, their ancestors had built the most sophisticated city in the world, Tenochtitlan, and the Aztec empire had never before known defeat. And on top of that, they had personal memories of fathers and grandfathers who had fought against Cortes and his conquistadors.
To account for the fall of the Aztec from power, the Nahua writers of the Florentine Codex ascribed a generally positive attribute, piety, to their ancestors, rather than the negative attribute used by some Europeans, inferiority. By explaining the Aztec loss through this positive lens, the Nahua of post-conquest Mexico could remain confident in their ancestor’s strength and intelligence, while also accounting for their defeat in the Aztec-Spanish War. Could Montezuma and his empire be blamed for losing if they had been stunned, even just temporarily, by overwhelming reverence to their gods?
The Cortes-as-Quetzalcoatl myth had been building steam for a few decades before work on the Florentine Codex began. By the 1560s, it had reached its final form, the one that survives to this day. In order to truly understand what happened in the years of the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico, indeed to understand the history of European colonization in general, we must expose this myth, and others like it, as falsehood.
Myths like this deny agency to the colonized, cause European victory to seem inevitable when it was not, and keep us from knowing the true, much more interesting story.
Top Image:Quetzalcoatl, detail. Source: Manzanedo/ Deviant Art
Meet our sun's 'solar twin': NASA discovers a nearby star that may be just 600million-years-old and looks like a young version of the sun… and it could shed light on how life formed on Earth
Meet our sun's 'solar twin': NASA discovers a nearby star that may be just 600million-years-old and looks like a young version of the sun… and it could shed light on how life formed on Earth
NASA astronomers used multiple observations to study a nearby young star
Kappa 1 Ceti has a similar mass, radius, temperature and brightness to the sun
The star is much younger than the sun at just 600 to 750 million years-old
This means astronomers can use it as an analogue for a young solar system
In a NASA study they looked at the likely power of stellar winds from the star
A nearby star that looks like a young version of the sun has been discovered by NASA astronomers, and it could shed light on how life on Earth first formed.
The star, Kappa 1 Ceti has a similar mass and surface temperature to our sun, is about 30 light years away, the team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said, adding it is just 600 to 750 million-years-old.
The sun is considered middle-aged, at 4.6 billion-years-old, so finding a similar star in its younger years can help understand conditions in the early solar system.
'The work allows scientists to better understand how [the sun] may have shaped the atmosphere of our planet and the development of life on Earth,' said NASA.
Part of the work involved studying coronal mass ejections and stellar winds flowing from the young star to see how the sun's expulsions may have impacted the Earth.
Illustration of what the sun may have been like four billion years ago, around the time life developed on Earth
An artist concept of a coronal mass ejection hitting young Earth's weak magnetosphere
HOW DO STARS FORM?
Stars form from dense molecular clouds - of dust and gas - in regions of interstellar space known as stellar nurseries.
A single molecular cloud, which primarily contains hydrogen atoms, can be thousands of times the mass of the sun.
They undergo turbulent motion with the gas and dust moving over time, disturbing the atoms and molecules causing some regions to have more matter than other parts.
If enough gas and dust come together in one area then it begins to collapse under the weight of its own gravity.
As it begins to collapse it slowly gets hotter and expands outwards, taking in more of the surrounding gas and dust.
At this point, when the region is about 900 billion miles across, it becomes a pre-stellar core and the starting process of becoming a star.
Then, over the next 50,000 years this will contract 92 billion miles across to become the inner core of a star.
The excess material is ejected out towards the poles of the star and a disc of gas and dust is formed around the star, forming a proto-star.
This is matter is then either incorporated into the star or expelled out into a wider disc that will lead to the formation of planets, moons, comets and asteroids.
It is impossible to go back billions of years to the early solar system and see what the sun was like when life first formed on planet Earth.
However, there are more than 100 billion stars within the Milky Way, with one in ten of which are of a similar size and luminosity to our own star.
Many of these stars are in the early stages of development.
'Imagine I want to reproduce a baby picture of an adult when they were one or two years old, and all of their pictures were erased or lost,' said study author Vladimir Airapetian from NASA.
'I would look at a photo of them now, and their close relatives' photos from around that age, and from there, reconstruct their baby photos,' he said.
'That's the sort of process we are following here – looking at characteristics of a young star similar to ours, to better understand what our own star was like in its youth, and what allowed it to foster life on one of its nearby planets.'
Kappa 1 Ceti is one such solar analogue star, within our stellar neighbourhood.
The star is located about 30 light-years away, which NASA says in space teerms is like living on the next street over.
Study second author, Meng Jin, a heliophysicist with the SETI Institute and the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in California said it is a 'twin' of the sun when it was young.
The team adapted existing models of the solar system to try and predict some of the more difficult to measure characteristics of Kappa 1 Ceti.
This includes the strength of stellar winds and coronal ejections coming from the star as they flow out towards any potential planets - yet to be formed or discovered - within the system.
They used data from a range of space telescopes include Hubble, TESS, NICER and the ESA XMM-Newton satellites.
Like human toddlers, young stars are known for their high bursts of energy and activity - released in the form of a stellar wind.
Stellar winds, like stars themselves, are mostly made up of a superhot gas known as plasma, created when particles in a gas have split into positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons.
The most energetic plasma, with the help of a star's magnetic field, can shoot off away from the outermost and hottest part of a star's atmosphere, the corona, in an eruption, or stream more steadily toward nearby planets as stellar wind.
'Stellar wind is continuously flowing out from a star toward its nearby planets, influencing those planets' environments,' Jin said.
Global structure of the stellar magnetic corona of 1 Ceti in 2012 (left) and 2013 (right panel), with the superimposed plasma pressure along the field lines specified by the colour bars.
KAPPA 1 CETI: A TWIN OF THE YOUNG SUN
Name: Kappa 1 Ceti Constellation: Cetus
Known planets: None
Spectral type: G5
RA: 03h 19m 21.6960s
DEC: +03° 22′ 12.712″
Distance: 29.81 light years
Mass: 1.037 solar masses
Radius: 0.95 solar radius
Luminosity: 0.85 times the sun
Temperature: 9,814 F
Age: 600-750 million years
Kappa 1 Ceti is a yellow dwarf star 30 light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Cetus.
It has a rapid rotation, once every nine Earth days and so far no exoplanets have been discovered.
It is regarded as a good candidate to host terrestrial planets similar to Earth.
It is about the mass of the sun, with a radius 95 per cent that of our own star, but is only 85 per cent as bright.
It is relatively young, at a few hundred million years old making it a good candidate to explore the sun's past. Younger stars tend to generate hotter, more vigorous stellar winds and more powerful plasma eruptions than older stars do.
Such outbursts can affect the atmosphere and chemistry of planets nearby, and possibly even catalyse the development of organic material – the building blocks for life – on those planets.
Stellar wind can have a significant impact on planets at any stage of life.
But the strong, highly dense stellar winds of young stars can compress the protective magnetic shields of surrounding planets, making them even more susceptible to the effects of the charged particles.
The sun is a perfect example of this process and how it changes over the lifetime of the star - from youth to middle-age.
Compared to now, in its toddlerhood, our sun likely rotated three times faster, had a stronger magnetic field, and shot out more intense high-energy radiation.
These days, for lucky spectators, the impact of these particles is sometimes visible near the planet's poles as aurora, or the Northern and Southern Lights.
Airapetian said that four billion years ago these lights would have been visible from many more different places around the globe than they are today.
That high level of activity in our sun's early years may have pushed back Earth's protective magnetosphere, and provided the planet with the right atmospheric chemistry for hte formation of the first biological molecules.
This wouldn't have happened for Venus, which was close enough to have its atmosphere torched, or Mars too far away for the radiation to reach at strength.
Similar processes could be unfolding in stellar systems across our galaxy and universe including in Kappa 1 Ceti.
'It's my dream to find a rocky exoplanet in the stage that our planet was in more than four billion years ago, being shaped by its young, active star and nearly ready to host life,' Airapetian said.
'Understanding what our sun was like just as life was beginning on Earth will help us to refine our search for stars with exoplanets that may eventually host life.'
The team used multiple instruments including Hubble and TESS to study the star to see how it compares to the young sun
THE SUN: YELLOW DWARF STAR IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Name: Sun Known planets: Eight Spectral type: G2 Distance: 2.7×10^17 km Mass: 1.9885×10^30 kg Radius: 696,342 km Luminosity: 3.828×10^26 W Temperature: 9,929 F Age: 4.6 billion years
The Sun is the star at the heart of the Solar System, it is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, radiating energy supporting life on Earth.
It has a diameter of 1.39 million km, and is 330 times the mass of the Earth.
Three quarters of the star is made of hydrogen, followed by helium, oxygen, carbon, neon and iron.
It is a G-type main sequence star and is sometimes called a yellow dwarf.
The Sun formed from the gravitational collapse of matter in a large molecular cloud that gathered in the centre.
The rest flattened into an orbiting disc that formed planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
Multiple agencies have sent instruments into space capable of measuring the stellar winds from the sun - but it is not yet possible to directly observe the stellar wind of other stars in our galaxy, like Kappa 1 Ceti, because they are too far away.
When scientists wish to study an event or phenomenon that they cannot directly observe, scientific modelling can help fill in the gaps.
While scientists have previously modelled the stellar wind from this star, Airapetian said they used more simplified assumptions than the new NASA study.
The basis for the new model of Kappa 1 Ceti is the Alfvén Wave Solar Model, which is within the Space Weather Modelling Framework, that works by inputting known information about a star, including its magnetic field and ultraviolet emission line data, to predict stellar wind activity.
When the model has been tested on our Sun, it has been validated and checked against observed data to verify that its predictions are accurate.
'It's capable of modelling our star's winds and corona with high fidelity,' Jin said.
'And it's a model we can use on other stars, too, to predict their stellar wind and thereby investigate habitability. That's what we did here.'
Previous studies have drawn on data gathered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to identify Kappa 1 Ceti as a young solar proxy, and to gather the necessary inputs for the model, such as magnetic field and ultraviolet emission line data.
'Every model needs input to get output,' Airapetian said, adding that to get useful output the input needs to be from a solid data source, or multiple sources.
'We have all that data from Kappa 1 Ceti, but we really synthesised it in this predictive model to move past previous purely observational studies of the star.'
The team is now working on a project looking more closely at the particles that may have emerged from early solar flares, as well as prebiotic chemistry on Earth.
The researchers hope to use their model to map the environments of other Sun-like stars at various life stages.
Specifically, they have eyes on the infant star EK Dra – 111 light-years away and only 100 million years old – which is likely rotating three times faster and shooting off more flares and plasma than Kappa 1 Ceti.
Documenting how these similar stars of various ages differ from one another will help characterise the typical trajectory of a star's life.
Their work, Airapetian said, is all about 'looking at our own Sun, its past and its possible future, through the lens of other stars.'
Clouds of electrons blooming in deep space have been revealed in a whole new level of detail, showing cosmic phenomena unlike anything astronomers have seen before.
Resembling eerie dancing ghosts in space, these colossal specters could reveal new information about the behavior of supermassive black holes – and the complex environment between galaxies.
They are, astronomers discovered, being produced by winds from two active supermassive black holes at a distance of about a billion light-years. They have been named PKS 2130-538, and much about them remains mysterious.
While the 'ghosts' and the two radio galaxies thought responsible for their formation have been seen before, no previous observations have captured them in such glory.
The ghosts, and the galaxies making them.
(Norris et al., arXiv, 2021)
"When we first saw the 'dancing ghosts' we had no idea what they were," explained astrophysicist Ray Norris of Western Sydney University and CSIRO in Australia.
"After weeks of work, we figured out we were seeing two 'host' galaxies, about a billion light-years away. In their centers are two supermassive black holes, squirting out jets of electrons that are then bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind.
"New discoveries however always raise new questions and this one is no different. We still don't know where the wind is coming from? Why is it so tangled? And what is causing the streams of radio emission? It will probably take many more observations and modelling before we understand any of these things."
The peculiar objects were just one in a trove made by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope array, as part of its Pilot Survey of the EMU (Evolutionary Map of the Universe) survey.
One of the most sensitive radio telescopes ever built, and the world's fastest survey radio telescope, ASKAP is designed to see deep into the radio Universe and reveal secrets we had no idea were out there.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No – it's an ORC!
(Norris et al., arXiv, 2021)
That's exactly what it's doing. Last year, the survey revealed the presence of what have been called Odd Radio Circles, or ORCs, which seem to be giant circles of radio emission a million light-years across, surrounding distant galaxies. We still don't know what they are.
To date, the EMU pilot survey has amassed a catalogue of around 220,000 sources of various sorts, many of which had never even been suspected.
"We are even finding surprises in places we thought we understood," Norris said.
"Next door to the well-studied galaxy IC5063, we found a giant radio galaxy, one of the largest known, whose existence had never even been suspected. Its supermassive black hole is generating jets of electrons nearly 5 million light-years long. ASKAP is the only telescope in the world that can see the total extent of this faint emission."
Giant, previously invisible galaxy plumes.
(Norris et al., arXiv, 2021)
Most known radio sources are from active supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. This is because as these black holes devour matter, material is funneled around the outside of the event horizon along magnetic field lines and blasted away from the poles in the form of radio-loud jets.
These sources are the brightest in the radio sky, and therefore that's what radio telescopes tend to pick up. ASKAP is starting to show us the extent of the radio Universe – those fainter sources that we don't usually see, such as synchrotron emission from radio relics in galaxy clusters, and more mysterious objects, like ORCs and dancing ghosts.
And this is just the pilot survey. The EMU survey is expected to continue for years, peering deep into the night to uncover the mysteries in the dark.
"We are getting used to surprises as we scan the skies as part of the EMU Project, and probe deeper into the Universe than any previous telescope," Norris said. "When you boldly go where no telescope has gone before, you are likely to make new discoveries."
Commander assures that the US has the technology to teleport people
Commander assures that the US has the technology to teleport people
Teleportation, or teleportation, is the process of moving objects or particles from one place to another instantly.
Depending on the narrative in question, it may or may not be done using a machine or device. Literally it means “to move at a distance” , understood as a movement that occurs without the need to establish direct physical contact with the object for it to move.
For example, if we teleported the exact copy of a human being, we should destroy the original so that it is considered teleported and not cloned .. Or is it not entirely so?
Late last year, Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, commander of the Education and Training Air Command at San Antonio-Randolph Base in Texas, revealed surprising classified information during a conference in Washington DC.
Kwast, who retired in 2019, believes advanced technology will determine who will lead the world in space. But at one point in the conference, he made a shocking revelation:
“The United States already has the ability to teleport humans anywhere on Earth using radically advanced technology.”
“The technology is in the engineering benches today,” said Lt. Gen. Kwast. “But most Americans and most members of Congress haven’t had time to really look at what’s going on here.”
“But I have had the benefit of 33 years of study and friendship with these scientists. This technology can be built today with non-development technology to take any human being from anywhere on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour ”
According to the official, in addition to people, already existing advanced technologies can provide Wi-Fi and power from space, eliminating the need for mobile phone antennas and chargers, with the technology also applicable at a particular level.
“The power of space will change world power, and it doesn’t have to be a big country to do it,” the former officer emphasized.
“It can be a small island country, let’s say New Zealand, because technology, if optimized, can change world power, and there is nothing you can do if you don’t have that power.”
“You have it and your values govern, or you don’t have it, and you must send it. We have seen it played over and over again in history, and now it is developing. “
Unfortunately Kwast did not specify what kind of technology the US supposedly has to teleport humans, but given the subject of his speech, dedicated especially to the US Space Force, the new branch of the US military.
Kwast, who retired from the Air Force in August, is known to have spoken and written on subjects deemed qualified despite having direct orders not to, and is an active advocate of military dominance in space.
Even The Drive magazine suggested that the retired officer could be chosen to lead the Space Force.
At the conference, Kwast warned that while the United States remained “dominant” in the space at this time, it had to act now to maintain this dominance, because America’s adversaries, particularly China, could “win this race” and then be a real danger in space.
The officer claimed that China is already building a space armada, including “battleships and destroyers” capable of maneuvering and destroying its adversaries, while the United States was not currently developing such ships.
Again a conspiracy theory comes true, and it has been shown that teleportation is not just fiction, it is a reality.
It also shows us how much governments hide, either for security or for following a dark agenda about the technology that exists today, which is much more advanced than we can imagine.
One weird feature of the world of UFOs and aliens is that of the phenomenon of cattle mutilations. This is when cattle or other livestock are found dead and in very strange circumstances. The carcasses are usually cut up, drained of blood, missing soft-tissue organs or other extremities, dismembered, or otherwise mutilated in a variety of ways, always showing a surgical precision to the cuts not consistent with the attack of a predator such as a coyote or mountain lion. There are typically other oddities as well, such as a lack of flies or strange substances seeping from the wounds, which are sometimes even cauterized. Dead, butchered cattle will be reported miles away from where they disappeared or in inaccessible places. There is never any sign of tracks of any perpetrator around the body, no scuff marks or sign of a struggle, and sometimes there aren’t even tracks from the dead animal, as if it has just materialized there or been carefully placed from the air. Usually there is no blood at all, and a distinct lack of decomposition or damage from scavengers. Even insects are usually said to shun these mystery corpses. This is all usually found after the fact, with no explanation, but one case of cattle mutilation going back all the way to the 19th features a witness who saw this happening, and which has remained a controversial case to this day.
One of the only known reports of someone actually witnessing a cow being abducted by aliens, and which would become a spooky case of cattle mutilation, supposedly happened all the way back in 1897, in the rural area of LeRoy, Kansas, in the United States. One evening in April of that year, a local cattle rancher by the name of Alexander Hamilton and his son were apparently woken up at around 10:30 PM by the sound of a “noise among the cattle.” It was at first thought that this was just their dog up to some prankish behavior with the cows outside, but when Hamilton went to the window to look outside, he was astonished by what he saw. He claimed that he witnessed a very strange-looking and enormous “airship” hovering above the cow lot around 600 feet away, with “strange beings” visible within it, and he would say of what happened:
Calling my tenant, Gid Heslip, and my son Wall, we seized some axes and ran to the corral. Meanwhile the ship had been gently descending until it was not more than thirty feet above the ground and we came within fifty yards of it. It consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly three hundred feet long, with a carriage underneath. The carriage was made of glass or some other transparent substance alternating with a narrow strip of some material. It was brightly lighted within and everything was plainly visible-it was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together but we could not understand a word they said. Every part of the vessel which was not transparent was of a dark reddish color. We stood mute with wonder and fright. Then some noise attracted their attention and they turned a light directly upon us. Immediately on catching sight of us they turned on some unknown power, and a great turbine wheel, about thirty feet in diameter, which was revolving slowly below the craft, began to buzz and the vessel rose lightly as a bird.
As the three of them looked on in absolute astonishment, the flying craft seemed to have taken an interest in the cattle below it. In particular, it seemed to float over to and hover above a heifer that it seemed especially drawn to. Then, a very bizarre sequence of events would play out. Hamilton would say:
When about three hundred feet above us it seemed to pause and to hover directly above a two-year-old heifer which was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence. Going to her, we found some material fastened in a slip knot around her neck and going up to the vessel from the heifer tangled in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest.
The following day, Hamilton went out to look for the cow, but could find no trace of it, not even any tracks. There were signs that the animal had been at that spot, but after that it seems to have just evaporated into thin air. The baffled rancher went around to other ranchers in the area, but no one had seen the missing animal. However, he would soon find someone who had made a rather gruesome find a few miles away, of which Hamilton would say:
Coming back in the evening I found that Link Thomas, about three or four miles west of LeRoy, had found the hide, legs and head in his field that day. He, thinking that someone had butchered a stolen beast, had brought the hide to town for identification, but was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the soft ground. After identifying the hide by my brand, I went home. But every time I would drop to sleep, I would see the cursed thing, with its big lights and hideous people. I don’t know whether they are devils or angels or what; but we all saw them, and my whole family saw the ship, and I don’t want any more to do with them.
Rather eerily, it was reported that the remains had no footprints around them, no sign of predator activity, in fact no signs of any struggle, as if they had just been carefully placed there from above. The whole sensational account would be published in the Yates Center Farmers Advocate and once it was out in the wild become big local news. At the time, the region was in the throes of a series of mysterious sightings of strange airships, often described as highly advanced flying machines covered with electric lights and well ahead of anything available at the time, often seen manned by very strange looking humanoid occupants. Such mysterious airships had been sighted in such far-flung places as the Midwest, California, Texas, and Utah, so they were already making the rounds in the news at the time, but Hamilton’s report was especially amazing. When the odd news hit, there immediately came in a deluge of witnesses saying they had seen the same ship in the area where the cow abduction had occurred, and Hamilton even had over a dozen high-profile, well-respected citizens sign an affidavit vouching for his tale and his honesty, including several Sheriffs, pharmacists, attorneys, a banker, a doctor, the State Oil Inspector, the Justice of the Peace, the Postmaster, and the Register of Deeds. Considering that at the time Hamilton was a very respected, upstanding citizen, a stock dealer and successful businessman, most people believed his story and it generated a lot of excitement. One statement made of his impeccable character reads:
Hamilton’s popularity in the community is unmistakable not only on account of his fidelity to duty in public office, but also because of his honorable business career, his fidelity to manly principles and his reliability in private life. During the long years of his residence in Kansas he has left the impress of his individuality for good upon the communities with which he has been connected and he feels just pride in the splendid advancement made by his adopted state. We have never heard his word questioned and that we do verily believe his statement to be true and correct.
Despite how much it had been talked about, the Hamilton cow abduction story would eventually sort of fade away into obscurity until it was dug up again in the 1960s. Jacques Vallee would mention it in his book Anatomy of a Phenomenon (1965), and after that it would feature in a best-selling book by ufologist Frank Edwards in his book Flying Saucers—Serious Business in 1966, which really brought it into the limelight, after which it would be mentioned in various other books and magazine articles over the years. For a long time it was considered to be a very intriguing early UFO account and perhaps the only time a cattle mutilation had been actually witnessed by someone, but a 1977 article in Fate Magazine would take some of the wind out of its sails. Author Jerome Clark would uncover the fact that Hamiton had allegedly at the time been a member of a local “Liar’s Club,” in which prominent citizens would make up wild yarns to see which ones would make it into the news and fool people the most. Clark cited as evidence a 1943 article from a Kansas newspaper called The Buffalo Enterprise, which held the testimony on a Mrs. Donna Steeby of Wichita Kansas, who related how her 93-year-old mother, Ethel L Shaw, had know Hamilton, and that he had told her that it was all a big, wild yarn that had gotten out of hand. Shaw would apparently tell Clark of it all:
How well I remember that beautiful afternoon, almost as though it were yesterday. I, as a young girl about fourteen years old, was visiting in the Hamilton home with Mrs. Hamilton and their daughter Nell when Mr. Hamilton came home from town, put up his team and came into the sitting room where we were visiting. He pulled up a chair and almost immediately began relating this story by saying, ‘Ma, I fixed up quite a story and told the boys in town and it will come out in the Advocate this weekend.’
Not only that, but she also claimed that all of the ones who had signed the affidavit had been members of the very same Liar’s Club, and that he had hoaxed the other airship sightings in the area by using fake airships that he had crafted out of cleaning bags, candles and balsa wood. Clark also mentions the discovery of a Robert Schadewald, an American correspondent of the British publication Fortean Times, who in 1976 uncovered an article in the Buffalo Enterprise of January of 1943 an account by a man named Ed F. Hudson, who claimed that he had been the editor of the Yates Center Farmer’s Advocate and that Hamilton had admitted to faking the sighting and even claimed to have seen the workshop where he had been making his fake UFOs. Hudson would say of this:
I had just bought and installed a little gasoline engine, the first I believe to come to Yates Center, using it to run my machinery replacing the hand-power on the old County Campbell press and kicking the job presses. I invited many of my friends into the back shop to see the engine work. Hamilton was one of them. He exclaimed, ‘Now they can fly,’ hence the airship story that we made up. After we had published it, the story was copied in many of the largest newspapers in the country, England, France, and Germany, some illustrating it with pen-drawn imaginings by their staff artists. There were also hundreds of inquiries from every part of the globe. Soon afterwards there came the various experiments in flight, but I have always maintained that Alex Hamilton was the real inventor of human flight.
This all seems to be pretty damning, and the story has gone on to be seen as a big historical hoax largely thanks to Clark’s article, but there are those willing to defend Hamilton’s story and have raised some points in their defense over the years. For one, Hamilton never really publicly admitted to it all being bogus, and was long dead by that time and was in no position to defend himself. There also is the fact that this is a second-hand tale from an elderly lady, so who is to say that she really knows what she is talking about or is telling the truth herself? As for Hudson, how do we know we can believe him either? There is actually no hard evidence that Hamilton was a part of a Liar’s Club, or that the others who had vouched for him were, just these admissions uncovered long after the fact. Although the main consensus now is that Hamilton was indeed lying, what if he wasn’t? One argument from a defender of his was written by The Last Sisyphus on Medium, who says:
The vast majority of “experts” hold that it was a hoax. A couple thoughts on the issue. One reason “experts” disagree with Hamilton’s testimony is that he belonged to “The Liars Club.” There is no doubt that this was probably the case, but to suggest that Hamilton’s UFO testimony is an elaborate hoax because he was involved in a liar’s club raises questions. The first: Since he was a member of “The Liars Club,” we could, in theory, dismiss every word Hamilton ever said based on his involvement with the group. But that is not fair. Hamilton probably told the truth on a number of occasions despite being a part of a liars club. Why is it not possible that he told the truth about the UFO? (He is, after all, backed by [literally] countless UFO reports.) The second: Hamilton did not give the “hoax” up (if it was, indeed, a hoax). We have no evidence that he admitted his story was a hoax. Also: There were others who witnessed this phenomenon. Hamilton even signed an affidavit (which is not something to joke about — no matter how elaborate the prank) and was practicing law in Leroy, Kansas. The hyper-skeptics have no basis to dismiss this testimony. Nothing. The most radical position for them to hold — while maintaining consistency in their own logic and scientific worldview (ie we are not at the pinnacle of scientific discovery)— is to remain indifferent to Hamilton’s testimony. The wisest response for a skeptic is thus: “We simply do not have enough information to dismiss Mr. Hamilton’s testimony, therefore we must keep silent on the matter.”
While the Alexander Hamilton case has long been written off as a hoax, some people believe Clark’s debunking of it all, some people don’t. We are left to wonder, is this all just a ruse conjured up by the “Liar’s Club” or something more? It is all most certainly a hoax, but some people still seem to defend it, and it has taken on a life of its own and has made its mark. Whatever the case may be, it is still one of the earliest cattle mutilation reports on record, and the only one that seems to have been allegedly witnessed by someone, back in the day when UFOs weren’t really a thing, so true or not it is an intriguing case nonetheless.
Over the years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has very generously released into the public domain numerous pages of UFO-related files from its vaults. Those papers – made available through the terms of the Freedom of Information Act – involve files on more than a few of the Contactees of the 1950s, such as George Van Tassel, Truman Bethurum, George Adamski, Wayne Aho and George Hunt Williamson. Other files of the mysteriously UFO-tied kind, and that the FBI has declassified, include ones on cattle mutilations, extra-sensory perception, crashed UFOs, the controversial Majestic 12 documents, and much more. Although the FBI has declassified literally thousands of its pages on the Contactee movement of the 1950s and later, they have released just one document pertaining to the alien abduction issue. In all probability, of course, that’s because the FBI only ever received just one report from a U.S. citizen claiming to have been carried away by ETs! Nevertheless, that one document is well worth taking a look at. It dates from 1967 and tells – albeit briefly – what sounds very much like a classic alien abduction experience. Notably, the FBI shared the data, and the document, with an agency whose name has been deliberately blacked out in the relevant papers. The likelihood, however, is that that solitary sheet of paper reached the U.S. Air Force’s UFO program, Project Blue Book. The specific date is January 18, 1967 and is captioned as follows: “Unidentified Flying Object Allegedly Sighting [sic], January 17, 1967.”
It reads as follows:
What was I supposed to do?
“At 4:10 a.m., January 18, 1967, [deleted] advised that he desired to report that he had observed a large oblong-shaped object which alighted in the street in front of him when he was on his way home from his television repair shop, the [deleted], Chesapeake, Virginia. He believes that he was taken into this craft which he recalls as being made of a glass-like substance and being transparent. It was manned by several individuals who appeared to be undersized creatures similar to members of the human race, probably not more than 4 feet tall. They were allegedly wearing regular trouser pants and T-shirts. [deleted] believes that he was transported by this craft for an undetermined distance and returned to his point of take-off approximately one hour later. [Deleted] spoke in a coherent manner although he appeared to be under certain emotional strain. He claimed he had not been drinking any intoxicants but he was unable to account for the time between 8:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. he stated he was telephoning from his workshop but had no recollection of being elsewhere between 8:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.”
And that’s where the document comes to its end. As you’ll see, the story that the FBI received was an intriguing one. In fact, it’s not very often that someone jumps in their car and chooses to head-off to the offices of the FBI after allegedly having being kidnapped by black-eyed aliens from another world. Or, even, from another galaxy. While the reference to the aliens allegedly wearing “regular” clothing is admittedly strange, there is no denying, at all, the fact that the experience closely mirrors so many of those accounts of latter day times. There was, for example, the fact that the aliens were “not more than 4 feet tall,” which is something that strongly suggests the man’s captors were of the Grey alien kind that are undeniably ingrained in our pop-culture of today. And, that the victim “was unable to account for the time between 8:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.” is prime evidence of the phenomenon of what is famously known as “missing time.” Okay, it’s not the greatest report of the alien abduction variety; but, in many respects it’s unique, due to it having been handled and scrutinized by the FBI, no less. Who knows what J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI, at the time, thought of it all? Maybe, it didn’t reach him. After all, I’m sure that the FBI had much more to do on that 1967 night than chase down alien abductees. Or, maybe I’m wrong!
A new theory has emerged regarding the “Great Dimming” period of Betelgeuse. Known as one of the biggest and most luminous stars in the night sky (it is located in the Orion constellation), it is also very mysterious.
Between October 2019 and March 2020, this red supergiant star’s brightness dimmed 2.5 times which was the biggest drop in 50 years. Known as the “Great Dimming”, the decrease in brightness caused a drop in surface temperature of about 300 degrees Fahrenheit (149 degrees Celsius).
While scientists scrambled to figure out what was causing such a dim in the star, several theories emerged, such as a giant dust cloud that moved between Earth and Betelgeuse that temporarily blocked us from seeing the light; it was about to go supernova; and “cool star spots” that covered about 70% of the star’s surface. Even though the star’s luminosity had dipped dramatically, the theory of it going supernova was dismissed when it started brightening up again.
Betelgeuse
And now, there is a new theory that suggests a large dark spot is covering parts of the star’s surface. While this is another interesting hypothesis, experts can’t confirm or deny the idea as a large dark spot has never been directly observed on the star.
The research team studied Betelgeuse’s temperature by analyzing the high-resolution near-infrared spectra of the star on four specific dates — January 31, March 19, April 4, and April 6, 2020. These four dates coincide with the dimming and post-dimming phases of the star.
Dr. Sofya Alexeeva explained their research in further detail, “Our method is based on the measurement of titanium oxide (TiO) and cyanide (CN) molecular lines in stellar spectra.” “The cooler a star is, the more these molecules can form and survive in its atmosphere and the molecular lines are stronger in the stellar spectrum.” “In a hotter atmosphere, these molecules dissociate easily and do not survive.”
Since the decrease in brightness caused a surface temperature drop of about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers realized that the results of an earlier study predicting that 70% of the star’s surface was covered in spots was similar to their findings. However, they believe that it is just one gigantic dark spot that is actually quite common on red supergiants.
Spots on our sun captured by amateur astronomer Alan Friedman in July of 2012.
While this is just the most recent of several theories regarding Betelgeuse’s “Great Dimming” period, the mysterious red supergiant star will continue to amaze and baffle us at the same time. (More pictures of Betelgeuse can be seen here.)
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications where it can be read in full.
NASA's Perseverance tries to collect Mars rocks, fails
NASA's Perseverance tries to collect Mars rocks, fails
The Perseverance rover is on a mission to hunt for signs of past life on Mars. But something went wrong in its first attempt to gather rock samples.
Perseverance will explore Jezero Crater for at least one Martian year (687 Earth days)
NASA's Perseverance rover could not collect rock samples from Mars in its first attempt to do so, the US space agency said.
The Mars rover is on a mission to collect rock samples from the Red Planet that can be studied by scientists on Earth. Samples are to be encased in tubes that would be brought back to Earth at a later date.
But the data received by scientists showed that no sample was collected after the drilling process.
The rover is currently stationed on the surface of a large crater. Scientists believe the crater to be the site of a deep lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago. Researchers say it can provide clues about extraterrestrial life.
What did the rover do?
NASA released images of a small mound with a hole in its center next to the rover — the first dug into the planet by a robot.
The drilling process had been successful, scientists say. The engineers are now trying to discover why the rover failed to place a finger-sized rock sample in one of its titanium sample tubes.
"While this is not the 'hole-in-one' we hoped for, there is always risk with breaking new ground," Thomas Zubuchen, the associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, said in a statement.
NASA project scientist Ken Farley said the next step would be using a camera mounted on a robotic arm to inspect inside the hole. He said they might see the broken rock core, or might discover the sample had turned to sand.
"It's a bit deflating because this whole complicated piece of machinery worked fine, the engineering worked just fine, but it seems Mars didn't cooperate," Farley said.
"We will persevere," Farley added.
The whole sampling process takes up to 11 days.
What are Perseverance's tasks?
The Perseverance rover is on Mars to help NASA study Martian geology and past life.
NASA extracts oxygen from CO2 on Mars
It is currently stationed on the surface of Jezero Crater. It landed on Mars in February, following its seven-month journey from Earth that saw it fly about 300 million miles (480 million kilometers) before reaching its destination.
NASA plans to bring around 30 samples back to Earth in the 2030s.
UFO crosses the air route of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules ( July 27, 2021 )
Dark colored UFO crosses the air route of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. A American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft on 27/7/21: Here i present the video and in approach the original.
Every day they are closer and more evident
note : no audio
ORIGINAL VIDEO TITLED : queda de ufo ovni avião
ORIGINAL VIDEO OWNER : Arquivos do Mundo Sobrenatural
UFOs Sighted Over Baltimore, Maryland ( August 5, 2021 )
Strange UFO activity over Baltimore : UFOs were sighted over the night skies of Baltimore, Maryland by Jay Orr on August 5, 2021 : Here I present the original
Every day they are closer and more evident
credit : Jay Orr
Circle Shaped UFO Sighted Over Chile ( August 5, 2021 )
UFO / UAP Sighted Over Ventura, California ( July 31, 2021 )
Strange UFO / UAP or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena was sighted over Ventura, California on July 31, 2021
STATEMENT : VENTURA , CALIFORNIA - 31/07/2021
They're everywhere already
note : no audio : video looped at 16 second mark
credit : H.P.M.B
RELATED VIDEO
UFO Sighted Over Boston, Massachusetts ( August 2, 2021 )
Strange moving UFO was sighted over Boston, Massachusetts on August 2, 2021
STATEMENT : I saw this Tuesday night Here I present the original and in the wake with approach.
More evident every day
credit : Michael Hunter
Nazi Die Glocke Bel Type UFO Sighted Over Switzerland ( July 2, 2021 )
Is this the new Swiss Army Flying Vehicle resembling the Nazi Die Glocke Bell : Sighted over Solothurn Military Base STATEMENT :
The region is a hilly region, as can be seen, and that there are cave systems and some military facilities here. No one is allowed near these military areas, there are definitely some extraordinary things going on here and the army is aware of it. And they hide many things from us. That's why we are not even allowed to go to that area and take images from a distance.
MUFON CASE : 117180 Isla Cristina, Huelva, Spain ( August 5, 2021 )
Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : Objeto a gran velocidad : Object at high speed Long Description of Sighting Report - Case 117180
Me encontraba en la sala manejando la cámara de seguridad con conexión Wifi previamente instalado en el tejado de la casa. Encendí lámpara de infrarrojo desde el portátil en el software del dispositivo unos minutos después contemple un objeto que pasaba a gran velocidad así que inicie la grabación del vídeo. Pude seguir la trayectoria del mismo mediante el control del software.
Long Description of Sighting Report Translated- Case 117180
I was in the living room managing the security camera with a Wi-Fi connection previously installed on the roof of the house. I turned on the infrared lamp from the laptop in the device software a few minutes later I saw an object
Date Submitted : 2021-08-05 Date of Event :2021-07-02 MUFON SUBMITTER FILE : 117180_submitter_file1__Huelva001922001958.mp4 : no audio
Archaeologists have uncovered 2,640- to 2,550-year-old clay moulds for casting spade coins as well as fragments of finished spade coins at Guanzhuang in Xingyang, Henan province, China. The technical characteristics of the moulds demonstrate that the site — which was part of the Eastern Zhou period (770-220 BCE) bronze foundry — functioned as a mint for producing standardized coins.
Spatial distribution of the minting remains in the Guanzhuang foundry’s excavation area: red dots: deposit with clay moulds; green dots: deposits with fragments of finished spade coins.
Image credit: Z. Qu / H. Zhao.
“The origins of metal coinage and the monetization of ancient economies have long been a research focus in both archaeology and economic history,” said Dr. Hao Zhao from the School of History at Zhengzhou University and colleagues.
“The earliest coins are thought to have been minted in China, Lydia (in Western Asia Minor) and India.”
“Of these, the hollow-handle spade coin (kongshoubu) minted in China is a likely candidate for the first metal coinage.”
“The spade coin was an imitation of practical metal spades, but its thin blade and small size indicate that it had no utilitarian function.”
“The earlier spade coins had a fragile, hollow socket, reminiscent of a metal shovel. This socket was transformed into a thin, flat piece in later spade coins, and over time, characters were applied to the coins to mark their denominations.”
“Several versions of spade coins circulated across the Chinese Central Plains until their abolition by the First Emperor of Qin in 221 BCE.”
“Their origin and early history, and the social dynamics under which they were developed, however, remain controversial — a situation paralleled by the century-long debate over Lydian coins.”
Dr. Zhao and co-authors from Zhengzhou University and Peking University uncovered the ancient remains from different stages of the minting process at Guanzhuang in China’s Henan province.
The mint was part of a well-organized, integrated bronze foundry run under the auspices of the Zheng State.
“Guanzhuang is located in the Central Plains of China, some 12 km south of the Yellow River,” the archaeologists said.
“Continuous excavations since 2011 have revealed the general layout of a city, which consisted of two walled and moated enclosures.”
“The city was established in c. 800 BCE and abandoned after 450 BCE.”
“Excavations between 2015 and 2019 have revealed a large craft-production zone in the centre of the outer enclosure, immediately outside the southern gate of the inner city. This area included workshops involved in bronze, ceramic, jade and bone-artifact production.”
“The bronze foundry occupied the largest area. Its main features comprise more than 2,000 pits for dumping production waste, most between 1.5 and 3 m in diameter, with a depth of 1-2.5 m.”
“Alongside ceramic sherds, these pits contained abundant remains related to bronze-casting activities, including crucibles, ladles, bronze droplets, unfinished or broken bronze artifacts, clay moulds, charcoal, and furnace fragments.”
Spade coin SP-1 and its reconstruction; the outer mould (bottom left) is also used to reconstruct the spade coin.
Image credit: H. Zhao.
At the site, the researchers found two fragments of finished spade coins, dubbed SP-1 and SP-2.
“Coin SP-1 is so well preserved that its complete shape can be confidently reconstructed,” they said.
“This example is a typical pointed-shoulder spade coin, with a (restored) full length of 14.3 cm, a shoulder width of 6.35 cm and a maximum thickness of 0.9 mm. The weight of the extant coin is 27.1 g.”
“Reconstructing the volume of its missing feet at around 660 mm3 (4-5g), we estimate that the original weight of SP-1 was no less than 31 g, including the weight of the clay core inside the handle.”
As is typical of the earliest spade coins, there are no inscriptions indicating either the name of the locality where the coin was cast or its face value.
“Coin SP-2 was found in the context dated to the Eastern Han Dynasty (200 CE), and hence the coin must be considered a residual find, as spade coins had long been abolished by this time,” they said.
“Of this coin, only the handle and its clay core survive. They are of exactly the same shape and size as the corresponding portions of SP-1.”
The compositional analysis shows that the copper content of SP-1 and SP-2 is 62.5 and 76.46%, respectively.
“The existence of minting activity at Guanzhuang is further documented by numerous finds of clay cores and outer moulds for casting spade coins,” the scientists said.
“All the moulds are made of reddish fine silt, which was also the primary material for producing clay moulds to cast other types of bronze products at the Guanzhuang foundry.”
Combining the evidence from radiocarbon-dating, mould style and ceramic typology, they suggest that the Guanzhuang foundry was first established around 780 BCE.
During its initial phase of around 150 years, the foundry produced predominantly ritual vessels, weapons and chariot fittings — items used in ceremonies, warfare and other aspects of elite life.
Standardized minting started from the second phase of the Guanzhuang foundry, after c. 640 BCE and no later than 550 BCE, and it made use of the workshop’s existing bronze-production capacity.
“Currently, Guanzhuang is the earliest-known archaeological mint site dated by robust radiocarbon dates in the world, and coin SP-1 is the earliest spade coin — and, more generally, the earliest Chinese coin — recovered from a secure archaeological context,” the authors said.
“The minting techniques employed at Guanzhuang are characterized by batch production and a high degree of standardization and quality control, indicating that the production of spade coins was not a small-scale, sporadic experiment, but rather a well-planned and organised process in the heartland of the Central Plains of China.”
The team’s paper was published this week in the journal Antiquity.
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Hao Zhao et al. Radiocarbon-dating an early minting site: the emergence of standardised coinage in China. Antiquity, published online August 6, 2021; doi: 10.15184/aqy.2021.94
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