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 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 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...
01-03-2023
Passengers Spot Unidentified Objects During Approach to Boston Landing
Passengers Spot Unidentified Objects During Approach to Boston Landing
UFOs filmed from a plane over Boston
A recent UFO sighting has left passengers and aviation enthusiasts alike scratching their heads. On February 9th, 2023, passengers aboard Jet Blue flight B6 178 witnessed a series of strange glowing orbs while approaching Boston for landing. One passenger, who captured the footage on their iPhone 12 Pro Max, shared their experience on Reddit.
The witness reported that they were unsure of the exact location of the flight at the time of the sighting, but believed it occurred approximately 30-45 minutes prior to landing. The video timestamp indicated that it was 7:53 PM, although this was likely in Vegas time as the phone had not yet switched back to east coast time due to being in airplane mode. The orbs were first spotted by the passenger’s friend who was seated in the window seat, and they appeared to be unusually close together, causing concern for the safety of the plane.
Upon reviewing the footage, the orbs appeared to be glowing orange with a yellow or white outer layer. The objects also seemed to change shape, almost like a liquid. The witness noted that they wished they had zoomed in more at the time of filming, but had forgotten about the sighting until they recently stumbled upon the footage on their phone.
The witness was eager for someone to enhance the video to see if more detail could be pulled from the footage. While the format of the video is unknown, the witness offered to send the footage to anyone willing to assist in analyzing it.
UFO sightings are not uncommon, and often there are explanations for what witnesses report as strange objects in the sky. However, in this instance, the orbs’ behavior and the proximity to the plane have raised questions and sparked curiosity among those interested in the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
It’s worth noting that aviation authorities take UFO sightings seriously, and they investigate any sightings that may pose a potential threat to air traffic safety. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) even has a protocol for pilots to follow when encountering UFOs, and they encourage pilots to report any sightings they have.
While this particular sighting may remain a mystery, it serves as a reminder that there is still so much we do not understand about our world and the universe beyond it. Perhaps further analysis of the footage will provide some answers, or maybe it will leave us with even more questions. Either way, the curiosity and wonder that comes with sightings like this are part of what makes life on this planet so fascinating.
Fighter Jets Scrambled and Airspace Closed as Unidentified Flying Object Spotted over Russia
Fighter Jets Scrambled and Airspace Closed as Unidentified Flying Object Spotted over Russia
Pulkovo Airport, St Petersburg
Russian airspace was closed temporarily after reports of an unidentified flying object spotted in the skies over St. Petersburg. The closure of airspace within a 120-mile radius of Russia’s Pulkovo airport caused several domestic flights headed for St. Petersburg to be diverted or sent back to their original point of departure. The incident saw Russian interceptor jets scrambled to search for the unknown object. According to various media reports, the object could have been a large drone.
The incident happened at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, with Russia building up its military forces near the Ukrainian border. The closure of airspace came just weeks after reports of Russia test-firing a missile, leading to concerns about a possible war between the two countries.
The closure of airspace over Russia highlights the increasing threat posed by drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles to air travel. The proliferation of drones in recent years has led to numerous incidents involving near misses with commercial aircraft. In 2018, Gatwick airport in the UK was closed for 33 hours after drones were spotted flying over the airport, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers.
While most drones are used for harmless recreational activities, they can pose a serious threat to air travel if they fly too close to commercial aircraft. As drones become more sophisticated, with longer flight times and higher speeds, the risk to air travel is likely to increase. Air traffic controllers and aviation authorities are taking steps to mitigate the risks posed by drones, including introducing stricter regulations and developing new technology to detect and intercept rogue drones.
It is important to note that while the incident over Russia was initially reported as an unidentified flying object, there is currently no evidence to suggest that it was of extraterrestrial origin. However, the incident has reignited interest in UFOs and aliens, with many people speculating about the possibility of a government cover-up or conspiracy.
Strange, ‘Triangle Shaped’ Flying Object Spotted in Utah Skies!
Strange, ‘Triangle Shaped’ Flying Object Spotted in Utah Skies!
UFO sightings and alien visitations have captured the imagination of people around the world for decades, if not centuries. From the first modern UFO sighting in 1952 to the recent release of the Pentagon’s 2022 UFO report, we have seen numerous instances of mysterious objects in the sky that defy conventional explanation. However, the question remains: are these sightings evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, or merely misidentified natural or human-made phenomena?
The history of UFO sightings is full of interesting anecdotes and controversies. For example, the term “flying saucer” originated from a misinterpretation of a pilot’s description of the motion of UFOs in 1947, and quickly became a popular meme in the media and the public. The famous Roswell incident in 1947, where an alleged crashed UFO and alien bodies were recovered by the military, has been a subject of heated debate and conspiracy theories ever since. The so-called “Men in Black”, mysterious figures who allegedly intimidate or silence UFO witnesses, have become a pop culture icon. These and other stories have contributed to the cultural fascination with UFOs and aliens.
However, the scientific community has generally been skeptical of UFO sightings as evidence of alien visitations. While many scientists acknowledge the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the vast universe, they also emphasize the lack of conclusive evidence that UFOs are of alien origin. Instead, they argue that most UFO sightings can be explained as natural phenomena (such as meteorites, weather balloons, or optical illusions), or human-made technologies (such as experimental aircraft, drones, or hoaxes). Moreover, they note that the burden of proof for extraordinary claims such as alien visitations is very high, and requires rigorous scientific investigation and verification.
Despite the skepticism of the scientific community, UFO sightings continue to occur and attract public attention. The recent release of the Pentagon’s 2022 UFO report, which cataloged hundreds of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) observed by military personnel and surveillance systems, has renewed interest in the subject. The report did not confirm or deny the existence of alien technology behind the UAPs, but called for more research and collaboration among government agencies and scientists. Some experts speculate that the UAPs could be new forms of advanced technology from other countries, or even from non-human sources. Others caution that the UAPs may be misperceived or misinterpreted by human observers or sensors, and that we need more data and analysis to draw any conclusions.
Watch
Strange, ‘Triangle Shaped’ Flying Object Spotted in Utah Skies! Youtube video bellow!
One of the most intriguing recent sightings of a UFO is the “semi-transparent black triangle” spotted over Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2022. The witness recorded several videos of the object, which appeared to be a large and motionless triangular shape hovering in the sky at a high altitude. The object did not resemble any known aircraft or natural phenomenon, and remained a mystery to investigators. While some speculated that it could be a secret military craft or a TR3B, a triangular-shaped aircraft rumored to have been developed by the US Air Force, others dismissed such theories as unlikely or unsupported by evidence. The sighting remains a fascinating example of the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Meteor shower in the night sky over Ben Bulben, Sligo £(Image: Twitter: Corey Whyte - @CoreyWhyte_ and @BestOfSligo)
One of Ireland's UFO hotspots has been revealed with a credible source explaining that Kingsland Observatory in Roscommon has confirmed 40 UFO sightings since 2000.
Dr Eamonn Ansbro runs the Kingsland Observatory and revealed to Dermot and Dave on Today FM and he said that he has recorded around 40 UFO sightings over the last 22 years at the observatory.
Dr Ansbro tells Dermot and Dave that his specific area of interest emerge in the 1990s with widespread reports of 'light ball' activity around Lough Key.
The esteemed astronomer says: "One of the things I have been particularly interested in was light ball activity, specifically in the Lough Key area. So we are set up to study that. We have a camera system composed of 11 cameras pointed towards the sky in two tracking platforms.
"And we have been able to observe and study over the course of two decades this round or cylindrical types of light."
Dermot and Dave point out that these are technically UFOs - in that, they are objects that fly and they haven't been identified. To which the good doctor can't argue.
Dr Ansbro outlines: "If you want to use that definition, it's in the context that it isn't aliens. It's something in our atmosphere that we're trying to understand."
Dr Ansbro says that others have been studying the local phenomenon for the last four or five years as research into 'UAP' intensifies around the globe.
The US government has conducted research into 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena', a more neutral term for such objects or aberrations while very sober and very credible studies are made as they arise.
Eamonn Ansbro at his observatory in Boyle
Dr Ansbro explains: "The old term everyone used and is aware of is UFOs, it's been common for the last 70 years."
But he elaborates that the new term is more often used because some of their areas of study don't fly - and bear with it us on this one - they use a different 'space-time' to us.
The astronomer blows the hosts minds as he explains: "People often say, 'Well, why don't they have clear photos of UFOs, how come they are always blurry?'
"That's because we are dealing with a new type of phenomena - it's seems we have discovered a new space-time situation within the objects as they are casting their light.
"The whole time dilation is different, the space its in and so forth, that's why we get the fuzzy images."
When asked how long it would take to get to the bottom of this mystery, Dr Ansbro said that for 70 years, research funding into this area was prioritised.
And some of this attitude was down to the stigma of improbably 'little green men' tainting proper research into the field. Something which has only changed, according to Ansbro, in the last three years or so.
Eamonn Ansbro at his observatory in Boyle
Dr Ansbro say the US government has had a sea-change in their attitude to funding the research after years of objects appearing over their skies.
Kingsland Observatory was specifically located at Kingsland near Lough Key and it's 'Dark Skies' national park for its low light pollution and has probed the skies relentlessly since the observatory opened there in 2000.
The telescope lens of Kingsland dates back from 1974 and found its way to north Dublin when the light pollution reduced its effectiveness.
It then moved to north Co Dublin to be used in the Super Schmidt but again needed a move in the 1990s when it found its way to Kingsland.
The group continues to expand and recently relocated some of their high-tech observation equipment to a mountain top in south-eastern Spain as even Lough Key has seen some light leaking in from settlements in the area.
Chris Rutkowski, with Ufology Research in Winnipeg, has been collecting and analyzing Canadian data on unidentified flying objects, or unidentified aerial phenomena as they are being called more recently, for nearly 35 years.
(John Woods/The Canadian Press )
Canada's preeminent UFO researcher has seen an uptick in reported sightings of unidentified flying objects in recent days suggesting more Canadians are turning their eyes to the sky after U.S. fighter jets shot down three objects over the weekend.
Chris Rutkowski, with Ufology Research in Winnipeg, has been collecting and analyzing Canadian data on unidentified flying objects, or unidentified aerial phenomena as it's more recently been referred to as, for nearly 35 years.
Following the U.S. and Canadian governments "unprecedented" decision to take action against the objects, Rutkowski has received a number of sighting descriptions, including one on an Ontario highway near Cambridge where someone said they saw a "black rectangle" move across the highway.
"People are keeping a closer eye to the skies and, thankfully, are reporting them so that we can get some data on what people are seeing," Rutkowski said.
Reported sightings of UFOs reached an all-time high in Canada in the 2010s but have been on a steady decline since then.
Ufology Research's most recent study, released earlier this month, suggests there were 768 UFO sightings in the country last year — an increase of about six per cent from the previous year.
Rutkowski found one person in Quebec reported nearly 40 separate sightings, which accounted for the higher number. The number of reported sightings in Canada last year was the fourth-lowest over the past 20 years.
In this image from a 2015 video provided by the U.S. Department of Defense labelled Gimbal, an unexplained object is seen at centre as it soars high along the clouds, travelling against the wind. “There's a whole fleet of them,” one naval aviator tells another, though only one indistinct object is shown. “It's rotating." (U.S. Department of Defense/The Associated Press)
The study says these numbers likely don't show the full picture as individuals are reluctant to report sightings out of fear of being ridiculed or concern for their reputation.
But Rutkowski stresses times have changed in the field.
While the mere mention of the term UFO used to conjure images of alien invasions, tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorists and pop culture extraterrestrial icons Alf and E.T., research around the phenomenon has evolved in government and academic circles.
Canadians are in "good company" if they believe they've seen a UFO as polls conducted suggest that 10 per cent of people in the country believe they've seen an unidentified object in the sky, Rutkowski says.
"When a person reports seeing a UFO — whether you're a pilot or just an average person on the street — you may be seeing something that is quite significant and potentially of value to researchers," he said.
Chris Styles says it's not uncommon to see an increase in reports when events such as this are in the news, but cautions it doesn't mean there has been an increase in the number of flying objects, only that more people are paying attention.
"Sightings breed sightings," the renowned UFO researcher said from Halifax.
Objects shot down
Recent events might have Canadians changing their tune.
American fighter jets took down an unidentified object over the northern coast of Alaska on Friday, one over central Yukon on Saturday and another over Lake Huron on Sunday.
The flurry of close encounters followed what officials said was a Chinese surveillance balloon that floated across the continent two weeks ago and was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. (Randall Hill/Reuters)
While it's not clear where the more recent objects came from or who might have dispatched them, the prevailing theory at the moment is that they were "benign," posing only a threat to passing civilian aircraft, the White House said this week.
Search efforts are underway in a remote stretch of central Yukon to locate the remnants of the object, which Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre said is a "suspected balloon" in a tweet Wednesday.
Government officials on both sides of the border have stated there is no indication the objects were the work of aliens or "extraterrestrial activity."
Recent data from Google Trends points to peoples' innate curiosity about interplanetary visitors and the world beyond Earth.
Map shows the locations of unidentified objects shot down during the past two weeks. (Graphic design by Philip Street/CBC)
On Saturday, UFOs were the third most searched topic in Canada with more than 100,000 searches.
The following day it dropped down to 13th place, while the term aliens has been trending steadily in Canada's North since Sunday.
Rutkowski said every year there are well-documented cases from "good observers" that go unexplained, but it would be, "presumptuous to say those are from outer space and extraterrestrials."
"There probably is life out there somewhere, and somewhere out there they might have developed the ability to travel between the stars … we don't have any proof of that, but the probability is never zero."
In academic circles the notion of studying this phenomenon has been taken more seriously after details about the Pentagon's UFO program were discovered in 2017, says Paul Kingsbury, a professor in the department of geography at Simon Fraser University.
While the U.S. has made co-ordinated efforts to document this issue, there is a disconnect on the Canadian side, Kingsbury says.
He says it's important for the Biden administration and Canada to work transparently with the scientific community so that academics can access information and data that will help identify these objects.
"It would allow the public to more fully understand what these objects are, their nature, what is causing them and the consequences of the many reports of these anomalous objects in our skies," he said.
As Canadians continue to navigate global unrest associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disasters and wars overseas, messaging shrouded in "mixed messages and mystery" can leave people feeling anxious.
"Being transparent wherever possible is also important for peoples' peace of mind," Kingsbury said.
The US has been sending mixed signals over UFOs for 75 years
The US has been sending mixed signals over UFOs for 75 years
A legacy of hype, hysteria and fraud is undermining legitimate inquiry into strange objects often reported in the skies
By Stephen Mihm / Bloomberg Opinion
The spectacle of the US military shooting down three unidentified objects in the space of a week has opened the door to baseless speculations and conspiracy theories, thanks in part to the government’s contradictory messaging, which has toggled between genuine alarm and casual dismissal.
Sadly, this looks a lot like what happened 75 years ago, when sightings of what became known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, led to a media circus that undermined legitimate inquiry into what are now known simply as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP.
This legacy of hype and fraud is with us today. That is unfortunate, given that more recent sightings — many recorded by decorated combat pilots — prompted the US Congress to pass legislation that seeks to get to the bottom of the mystery. Doing so must avoid the rank silliness and deliberate obfuscation that defined our first major engagement with the issue.
Although sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena date back centuries, our collective obsession with flying saucers, aliens, “little green men” and other now-familiar tropes arguably began on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a businessman and pilot, spotted nine objects flying at unfathomable speeds near Mount Rainier in Washington state.
Arnold dutifully reported these to aviation officials. When pressed to describe the movement of the curious craft, he likened it to “a saucer skipping across the water.” This initial report went out across the news wires. Bored reporters eager to make something of the story ran with it, inventing details along the way.
In a few days, journalists had turned Arnold’s movement metaphor into something more material — a “flying saucer.” Arnold complained to veteran journalist Edward Murrow that newspapers had “misunderstood and misquoted me,” but to no avail. The idea of a flying saucer immediately captured the nation’s imagination, sparking a flood of alleged sightings.
Popular culture was not far behind. One month later, country singers Chester and Lester Buchanan issued the first song celebrating the phenomenon: (When You See) Those Flying Saucers. Others followed. In Two Little Men in a Flying Saucer, Ella Fitzgerald crooned about aliens with “little green antennas” who find Earth decidedly wanting and conclude: “It’s too peculiar here.”
Hollywood did its part, too, with several films about alien visitors, most of which featured flying saucers. Sometimes their occupants came in peace (Klaatu, the noble protagonist of The Day the Earth Stood Still), but for the most part, alien visitors had a bone to pick with humans — for example, The Thing From Another World and the classic Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.
US government info on “everything” to do with UFO sightings, held by the CIA, was released and published online on January 14, 2021 .
Retailers sold flying saucer wind-up toys, flying saucer kids’ pajamas and other artifacts testifying to our collective obsession with aliens. All of this went hand-in-hand with thousands of alleged sightings of flying saucers, or what the US Air Force increasingly referred to as UFOs.
Government representatives found the collective obsession with UFOs deeply frustrating. In public, they dismissed the reports, arguing that ordinary citizens, their imaginations inflamed, had mistaken weather balloons, jet planes and meteorites for extraterrestrial craft.
Yet in private, high-ranking officials acknowledged that some sightings, particularly those reported by military pilots and radar, could not be so easily dismissed. In the fall of 1947, General Nathan Twining, then head of the US Air Force Materiel Command, authored a memo on the subject. Reviewing classified data, he concluded that “the phenomena is something real and not visionary or fictitious.”
By “phenomena,” Twining was referring to craft that moved at extraordinary speeds and displayed “extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and motion.”
These aerial vehicles, he reported, generally left no trail and rarely made any noise. They behaved in ways that defied conventional explanations.
PUBLIC MESSAGING
Twining, who would go on to become chief of staff for the US Air Force and eventually chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was extremely circumspect in his assessment. Notably, he did not speculate about extraterrestrials and instead worried that a foreign nation could be responsible.
The air force’s “Project Sign,” begun that same year, studied the phenomena more closely. An initial memorandum — known as the “Estimate of the Situation” — seriously entertained the possibility that at least some of the sightings might be interstellar craft, although leaders of the air force did not take kindly to this unsettling conclusion. They remanded the memo and ultimately shut down Project Sign, replacing it with Project Grudge.
The new initiative was not a dispassionate inquiry, but a deliberate attempt to quell public anxiety. One scholarly account has described it as a “a public relations campaign designed to persuade the public that UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary.”
While it is easy to interpret these initiatives as government cover-ups, the reality is far more complicated and interesting. Their implementation reflected a genuine concern that the task of investigating the torrent of sightings would divert precious time and money from countering the more immediate threat posed by the Soviet Union.
Some strategists even feared that the Soviets might be sowing hysteria about UFOs in order to overload the nation’s air defenses. One CIA analyst said in 1952 that the spate of official and unofficial sightings had overwhelmed the military’s ability to recognize Soviet bombers.
“As tension mounts,” the analyst wrote, “we will run the increasing risk of false alerts and the even greater danger of falsely identifying the real as phantom.”
Still, not everyone got the memo. In 1952, after ground observers and radar picked up fast-moving mysterious objects over the nation’s capital, then-US Air Force intelligence director John Samford held a news conference. He bluntly spoke of “credible observers” reporting “relatively incredible things.”
That same year, a scientific adviser within the CIA warned that “something was going on that must have immediate attention.” He concluded that “sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major US defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.”
SUPERPOWER SUSPICIONS
However, such incidents, impossible to explain and posing no obvious threat to the US and its allies, increasingly took a back seat to dealing with the Soviet Union. Through the later 1950s and 1960s, Project Blue Book, the successor to Project Grudge, successfully quelled the nation’s obsession with flying saucers. Increasingly, UFOs became a risible punchline, akin to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
Fast forward to the 21st century. In recent years, a growing number of aircraft sightings defying the laws of physics has belatedly prompted a federal effort to collect and analyze data. Meanwhile, the damage done by Grudge and Bluebook — what the US director of national intelligence recently described as “sociocultural stigmas” — has made that task difficult.
So does the fact that our newfound interest in the subject is taking place against the backdrop of a growing conflict with another rival superpower: China. The risk that Chinese espionage could become entangled with the UAP question is high.
Witness, for example, the confused and contradictory messaging around the three objects shot down last week in the wake of the downing of a Chinese spy balloon. A day after the US Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said he was not ruling out extraterrestrial origins for the UAPs, a White House spokesperson said: “There is no, again, no indication of aliens or extra terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.”
If we are to avoid a repeat of the mistakes of an earlier era, we must avoid both the popular hysteria and hostile indifference that defined our first engagement with the issue. That means the government and the media must adopt a far more nuanced, transparent approach.
One step in that direction is to acknowledge that there might be things out there that cannot yet be explained, but should be studied with an open mind. If we can pursue that inquiry without succumbing to either skepticism or credulousness, we might finally get to the bottom of the mystery.
Stephen Mihm is a professor of history at the University of Georgia
Oldowan tools, consisting of stones with one to a few flakes removed, are the oldest widespread and temporally persistent hominin tools. The oldest of these were previously known from around 2.6 million years ago in Ethiopia, and by 2 million years ago, they were found to be quite widespread. Now, paleoanthropologists have discovered a new, older fossil site from around 3 to 2.6 million years ago in Kenya, where Oldowan tools were not only present, but were also being used to process a variety of foods, including hippopotamus and bovids. Thus, it appears that these tools were widespread much earlier than previous estimates and were widely used for food processing. Which hominins were using these tools remains uncertain, but Paranthropus fossils occur at the site.
Oldowan tools from the site of Nyayanga in Kenya: a dorsal flake, a ventral flake, and a core.
Image credit: Plummer et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abo7452.
The appearance of Oldowan tools around 2.6 million years ago was a technological breakthrough that used systematically produced, sharp-edged flakes for cutting and cobbles or cores for percussion.
Although the Oldowan is often attributed to the genus Homo, multiple hominin species overlapped with these early tools, and it is possible that other genera, such as Paranthropus, made and/or used them.
Some scientists have linked emergent Oldowan technology to the first access to or more efficient processing of nutrient-rich animal carcasses.
Scientists have unearthed more than 300 stone tools at the Nyayanga site in southwestern Kenya (pictured in 2014, prior to excavation).
PHOTOGRAPH BY T.W. PLUMMER, HOMA PENINSULA PALEOANTHROPOLOGY PROJECT
Others have argued that plant food processing was the primary goal of early Oldowan stone tool usage, with increased carnivory — and butchery with stone tools) being added to the behavioral repertoire after 2 million years ago.
The evolutionary benefits connected with the emergence of Oldowan technology are unclear because of the paucity of Late Pliocene Oldowan sites, previously known only from the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia.
The new finds from the 3.03- to 2.6-million-year-old site at Nyayanga, Kenya, expand the geographic range of the earliest Oldowan tools by more than 1,300 km and the range of Paranthropus by approximately 230 km to southwestern Kenya.
“This is one of the oldest if not the oldest example of Oldowan technology,” said Queens College researcher Thomas Plummer, lead author of the study.
“This shows the toolkit was more widely distributed at an earlier date than people realized.”
Not only were Oldowan tools present, but fossilized bones with associated stone-tool damage demonstrate the tools were used to butcher large animals: hippopotamids and bovids.
Furthermore, use-wear patterns on the tools themselves suggest the processing of plant materials.
“The site featured at least three individual hippos,” Dr. Plummer and colleagues said.
“Two of these incomplete skeletons included bones that showed signs of butchery.”
“We found a deep cut mark on one hippo’s rib fragment and a series of four short, parallel cuts on the shin bone of another.”
“We also found antelope bones that showed evidence of hominins slicing away flesh with stone flakes or of having been crushed by hammerstones to extract marrow.”
“The analysis of wear patterns on 30 of the stone tools found at the site showed that they had been used to cut, scrape and pound both animals and plants”
“Because fire would not be harnessed by hominins for another 2 million years or so, these stone toolmakers would have eaten everything raw, perhaps pounding the meat into something like a hippo tartare to make it easier to chew.”
The discovery of teeth from the muscular-jawed Paranthropus alongside these stone tools begs the question of whether it might have been that lineage rather than the Homo genus that was the architect of the earliest Oldowan stone tools, or perhaps even that multiple lineages were making these tools at roughly the same time.
“The behaviors preserved at Nyayanga are at least 600,000 years older than prior evidence of megafaunal carcass and plant processing and substantially predate the increase in absolute brain size documented in the genus Homo after 2 million years ago,” the authors concluded.
“The Late Pliocene expanded geography of the earliest Oldowan, and new evidence of its use in diverse tasks amplifies our understanding of the adaptive advantage of early stone technology in hominin diet and foraging ecology.”
A paper on the findings was published February 9, 2023 in the journal Science.
Thomas W. Plummer et al. 2023. Expanded geographic distribution and dietary strategies of the earliest Oldowan hominins and Paranthropus. Science 379 (6632): 561-566; doi: 10.1126/science.abo7452
Astronomers Observe Elongated Object near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole
Astronomers Observe Elongated Object near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole
An elongated dust and gas feature named X7 has a mass of about 50 Earth masses and is on an orbital path around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, that would take 170 years to complete.
Morphology evolution of X7’s thermal dust emission between 2002 and 2021: the images are oriented with equatorial north at the top and with Sagittarius A* positioned in the upper left corner of each panel.
Image credit: Ciurlo et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/acb344.
“No other object in this region has shown such an extreme evolution,” said Dr. Anna Ciurlo, an astronomer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“It started off comet-shaped and people thought maybe it got that shape from stellar winds or jets of particles from the black hole.”
“But as we followed it for 20 years we saw it becoming more elongated. Something must have put this cloud on its particular path with its particular orientation.”
X7 has a mass of about 50 Earths and is on an orbital path around Sagittarius A* that would take 170 years to complete.
But that might never happen. Based on its trajectory, Dr. Ciurlo and colleagues estimates that the object will make its closest approach to the supermassive black hole around the year 2036, and then likely spiral toward it and disappear.
“We anticipate the strong tidal forces exerted by the Galactic black hole will ultimately tear X7 apart before it completes even one orbit,” said University of California, Los Angeles Professor Mark Morris.
“Tidal forces are the gravitational pull that cause an object approaching a black hole to stretch; the side of the object closest to the black hole is pulled much more strongly than the opposite end.”
X7 shows some of the same properties as the other strange dusty objects orbiting Sagittarius A*.
Those so-called G-objects look like gas but behave like stars.
But X7’s shape and velocity have changed more dramatically than G-objects have.
As it accelerates toward the black hole, X7 is moving rapidly, clocking in at speeds of up to around 1,130 km per second (700 miles per second).
“It’s exciting to see significant changes of X7’s shape and dynamics in such great detail over a relatively short time scale as the gravitational forces of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way influences this object,” said Dr. Randy Campbell, an astronomer at the W.M. Keck Observatory.
Although X7’s origin is still the subject of debate, the finding suggests that it arose after two stars collided.
“One possibility is that X7’s gas and dust were ejected at the moment when two stars merged,” Dr. Ciurlo said.
“In this process, the merged star is hidden inside a shell of dust and gas, which might fit the description of the G-objects. And the ejected gas perhaps produced X7-like objects.”
“The merger of two stars is very common, especially when they are near black holes.”
“This is a very messy process: the stars circle each other, get closer, merge, and the new star is hidden within a cloud of dust and gas. X7 could be the dust and gas ejected from a merged star that’s still out there somewhere.”
A paper on the findings was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Anna Ciurlo et al. 2023. The Swansong of the Galactic Center Source X7: An Extreme Example of Tidal Evolution near the Supermassive Black Hole. ApJ 944, 136; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/acb344
Webb Discovers Impossibly Massive Galaxies in Early Universe
Webb Discovers Impossibly Massive Galaxies in Early Universe
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have observed six candidate galaxies with stellar masses as high as 1011 solar masses about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang.
Images of six candidate massive galaxies, seen 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. One of the sources (bottom left) could contain as many stars as our present-day Milky Way, but is 30 times more compact.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / I. Labbe, Swinburne University of Technology / G. Brammer, Niels Bohr Institute’s Cosmic Dawn Center, University of Copenhagen.
Webb is equipped with infrared-sensing instruments capable of detecting light that was emitted by the most ancient stars and galaxies.
Essentially, the telescope allows astronomers to see back in time roughly 13.5 billion years, near the beginning of the Universe as we know it.
“We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the Universe,” said Dr. Joel Leja, an astronomer at the Pennsylvania State University.
“These objects are way more massive than anyone expected.”
“This is our first glimpse back this far, so it’s important that we keep an open mind about what we are seeing.”
“While the data indicates they are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that a few of these objects turn out to be obscured supermassive black holes.”
“Regardless, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our Universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change.”
This program obtained multi-band images with Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) in a ‘blank’ field, chosen to overlap with existing Hubble imaging.
“We’ve never observed galaxies of this colossal size, this early on after the Big Bang,” said Dr. Ivo Labbé, an astronomer at Swinburne University of Technology.
“The six galaxies we found are more than 12 billion years old, only 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, reaching sizes up to 100 billion times the mass of our Sun. This is too big to even exist within current models.”
“This discovery could transform our understanding of how the earliest galaxies in our Universe formed.”
Follow up measurements are being carried out to confirm the galaxies and rule out alternative explanations.
“One alternative, equally fascinating, is that some of the objects belong to a new class of emerging supermassive black holes, never seen before,” Dr. Labbé said.
One way to confirm the team’s finding and alleviate any remaining concerns would be to take a spectrum image of the massive galaxies.
That would provide the authors data on the true distances, and also the gasses and other elements that made up the galaxies.
They could then use the data to model a clearer of picture of what the galaxies looked like, and how massive they truly were.
“A spectrum will immediately tell us whether or not these things are real,” Dr. Leja said.
“It will show us how big they are, how far away they are. What’s funny is we have all these things we hope to learn from Webb and this was nowhere near the top of the list.”
“We’ve found something we never thought to ask the Universe — and it happened way faster than I thought, but here we are.”
A paper describing the findings was published in the journal Nature.
Labbé et al. A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang. Nature, published online February 22, 2023; doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05786-2
On July 20, 1969, history was made when Apollo 11 became the first spaceflight to land humans on the moon. It was the culmination of centuries of staring up at the moon wondering what was up there, and a breakthrough new step on our path to the stars, and as people all around the world watched as Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle and Armstrong became the very first person to step on the moon. It remains a landmark achievement for our kind, a stepping stone to the stars and a testament to our desire to explore and reach out over the next horizon, but the Apollo moon landing has long been orbited by various conspiracies, and one of those is that Buzz Aldrin saw UFOs up there and that this information was suppressed.
The story has its beginning with a curious transmission that occurred between Aldrin and mission command in Houston on the third day of the mission as they hurtled toward the moon. In the radio exchange, Aldrin asks, “Do you have any idea where the S-IVB is with respect to us?” which is referring to the third stage of the Saturn V rocket that was jettisoned earlier in the flight. Mission control then responds, “Apollo 11, Houston. The S-IVB is about 6,000 nautical miles from you now. Over.” Aldrin then pauses for around 12 seconds, after which he simply says “Okay. Thank you” and ends the transmission This seemingly innocuous exchange would then be made more mysterious when Aldrin later admitted that they had seen an unidentified shiny white object that seemed to be matching their speed, and UFO conspiracy theorists jumped all over this, taking it to mean that he was admitting to seeing aliens from outer space. Aldrin to his credit tried to squash the spreading rumors by clarifying that although he wasn’t sure exactly what it had been, it had probably been one of four discarded panels that had come off his own spacecraft from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage and were reflecting light. He would clearly say that it was not aliens, saying:
It was not an alien. On Apollo 11 in route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world – it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft. So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And I feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be ‘unidentified.’
Buzz Aldrin
The crew decided to move on and mention it later in mission debrief, Aldrin added. However, while engineers and scientists can be reasonably confident what was seen was one of the panels, to an engineer/scientist, it is still technically 'unidentified,” still technically a “UFO” and so the UFO crowd ran with it. On top of this, according to conspiracy theorists, well, NASA would want us to think it was a panel, wouldn’t they? The idea was that Aldrin was being told what to say, and that the 12 second pause in the original recording of the radio exchange somehow proved that Aldrin was utterly perplexed by whatever it was he was seeing, and that it could not have been something as mundane as a panel. David Morrison, an American astronomer and senior scientist at the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California has further tried to put these rumors to rest by saying:
I just talked to Buzz Aldrin on the phone, and he notes that the quotations were taken out of context and did not convey the intended meaning. After the Apollo 11 crew verified that the objects they were seeing was not the SIVB upper stage, which was about 6000 miles away at that time, they concluded that they were probably seeing one of the panels from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage. These panels were not tracked from Earth and were likely much closer to the Apollo spacecraft. They chose not to discuss this on the open communications channel since they were concerned that their comments might be misinterpreted (as they are being now). Apparently all of this discussion about the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, thus giving the impression that they had seen a UFO.
Nevertheless, the rumor would not die, with much chatter about how Aldrin had seen aliens on the moon, and this wild conspiracy got further fueled in 2018 with a spectacular headline stating that not only had Aldrin in fact seen an alien spacecraft, but that he had passed a lie detector test proving it. Wait, what? The report appeared in an issue of The Daily Star, which stated that secret technology developed by the “Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health” had been used on the astronauts’ acounts on strange sightings in space using a technique for what they claim can tell when people are lying through the frequencies of their voice. In the case of listening to Aldrin talk about his experiences, they said their equipment gave them strong evidence under “laboratory conditions” that, despite him denying it was aliens, his voice frequency says that he was “completely convinced” that he had seen an alien spacecraft. The report would claim:
Aldrin believes what he is saying emotionally but has doubts intellectually. His ego, on a highly spiritual level, is solidly involved. He has a firm belief in what he saw but logical awareness that he cannot explain what he saw; therefore he thinks he should be doubted. His gut level emotions and system of integrity is well grounded with the exception that he has some issues around people asking too much of him and expecting him to take care of things for them. For the benefit of the people, he wants his statements about his seeing a UFO to be believed.
Buzz Aldrin on the moon
It sounds pretty amazing, and the news went absolutely viral, appearing in various news publications and all over the Internet. After all, this was a seasoned, respected astronaut who had been found by a lie detector to have actually seen aliens! Golly Gee! However, the story was very sensationalized, twisted facts, was misleading in its presentation, and is based on a good amount of nonsense. Where to begin with what is wrong with it? Well, first and foremost, The Daily Star is a trashy tabloid, not exactly known for its integrity and high-quality commitment to facts and good journalism, so that should already put up a red flag. Also interesting is that it wasn’t a lie detector test in the official, traditional sense, and it was not done live with Aldrin himself. What happened is that the fancy-sounding Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health used decades-old recordings of Aldrin talking about what he had seen, which had then been "computer analyzed" using some ill-defined “top secret technology” that can somehow tell if a person is lying through the use of bioacoustics, although it is never explained how. It sounds like it could possibly be legit on the surface, until you realize that A) BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health is a for-profit company selling pseudoscientific cures for various health issues, B) while bioacoustics is a real thing, it involves what sounds animals make, how they make them and when they make them, and has nothing to do with lie detectors, and C) they also claim they can not only detect lies with their technology but also “reverse diseases and traumas previously thought to be incurable, to reveal the secrets of our true nature, to enhance our lives, to predict what may be our fate through the frequencies of our voice.” Doesn’t really sound so legit anymore, does it?
There are other problems with the claims as well. For one, the report claims that “Aldrin, Al Worden, Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper all took part in the study,” but unless their technology can also pick up voices from beyond this is impossible because both Mitchell and Cooper are dead. They may have used recordings of their voices, but it is misleading to say that they “took part” in the program. There’s also the fact that even real lie detectors are questionable in their accuracy, so it would be a pretty magical process indeed if they could use their technological wizardry to come to this conclusion with absolute certainty. In the meantime, Aldrin has constantly and repeatedly denied having seen aliens. What seems far more likely is that this is a story that sort of got a bit out of control, propelled by sensational headlines and unfounded speculation. It seems more like a lesson in how a UFO conspiracy legend is birthed more than anything else, but believe it or not the Buzz Aldrin UFO thing is still discussed to this day, the discussion on whether he saw aliens up there or just a panel from his own spacecraft somewhat marring a stunning milestone in history.
It's no secret I'm a big believer in the theory there was once a Martian civilization; a civilization that is now long gone. All we have left is a body of strange, ancient items strewn across the floor of Mars - and that's it. Not at all unlike what we see in the final moments of the 1968 movie, Planet of the Apes, the Martian landscape appears, to me, to be littered with evidence of what was once at least one or several sprawling cities, but all now rendered pulverized and flattened. And a civilization collapsed. In the movie, such a city would turn out to be New York, as the presence of a ruined and pummeled Statue of Liberty makes abundantly and graphically clear. That’s when Charlton Heston’s astronaut character, "Taylor," learns to his sudden horror that he is not on a faraway world, after all, but on Earth, thousands of years after the human race has all but decimated our world and its people. There’s another parallel with that classic movie, too. It concerns one of the primary characters in Planet of the Apes, Dr. Zaius, the Minister of Science. He has spent much of his life terrified by the possible revealing of the true history of the ape planet. Namely, that we, the human race, came first and that, in terms of technology, we were once far ahead of the apes’ society. Zaius’s fear is that opening the equivalent of Pandora’s Box will cause chaos in the world of the apes. So, he takes the only option he thinks is viable: Zaius buries everything, just in case, even if he’s not fully sure of what went on before his civilization emerged. In other words, Zaius knew of an ancient, advanced human civilization. Such scenarios may have occurred in the real world. And on Mars, no less.
(NASA) A "Mars-Henge"? It just might be
Now, let us take a careful look at some of the other imagery that has been collected, studied and placed into the public domain as evidence that there was (and possibly still is) life on Mars. One particular case - that I personally think has a high degree of merit attached to it - concerns what has become known as the “Face-Hugger photograph.” Taken in July 2015 by NASA’s Curiosity Rover, it appears to show a strange creature that looks astonishingly like the monstrous face-invading creatures that appear in the phenomenally successful series of Alien movies. They starred Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley and reaped in an incredible amount of dollars. The story broke in early August 2015. The headlines were predictably sensational. The U.K.’s Metro newspaper ran with the story and titled their feature as follows: “Crab-like alien ‘facehugger’ is seen crawling out of a cave on Mars.” The article included the words of Seth Shostak, a skeptic when it comes to the matter of life on Mars, and the Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETI Research; “SETI” standing for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence.” Shostak said of the strange looking thing and other allegedly anomalous photos that reach him from time to time: “Those that send them to me are generally quite excited, as they claim that these frequently resemble something you wouldn’t expect to find on the rusty, dusty surface of the Red Plane. It’s usually some sort of animal, but occasionally even weirder objects such as automobile parts. Maybe they think there are cars on Mars.”
On the other side of the coin were the words of Scott Waring who, at UFO Sightings Daily, said that: “It does appear alive. It may be a crab-like animal, or it also may be a plant. This object has many arms and one of them goes to the left of the picture a very long ways. That arm is longer than all others. Plant or animal it really doesn't matter. The significance of this is that it shows signs that it is alive. That is everything, but not to NASA.” And, that’s pretty much how the online debate went on: for the world of science the face-hugger was nothing but an example of pareidolia. UFO seekers and conspiracy theorists said otherwise, suggesting that what looked like an eerie, creepy animal was exactly that – an eerie, creepy animal. That it appeared to be in the opening to a small cave and maneuvering up (or, granted, scuttling down) the cave wall with its multiple limbs only seems to add to the theory that NASA had captured on camera a genuine Martian animal – and a very hair-raising one, too! In my view, the spidery, crab-like animal is not a case of the eye seeing what it sorely wants to see. And, the story isn’t quite over: later on, we’ll take a close and careful look at the incredible story of a skilled remote-viewer who, in late 2019, was able to add further, and undeniably astonishing, data to this particular story of the closest things to real-life face-huggers.
Now, what about Mars’ very own dolphin? Say what? Yes. Or not. This is one of the examples that I find difficult-to-impossible to believe is anything but a mark on the landscape that just happens to appear dolphin-like. Which, admittedly, it does. That it is located not at all far from the Face on Mars has ensured that it still provokes debate and commentary. But, it really shouldn’t. A carved dolphin? Not a chance in Hell. Forget it. Moving on, there is what has been termed “The Crowned Face.” A photo taken in the Libya Montes area – a ring of mountains on Mars - by the Mars Global Surveyor appears to show a large face, with a pointed chin, a pair of eyes and a nose. Also, what appears to be crown-like headgear - hence the name that has been attached to it, – whatever “it” may be. On this one, I can go both ways: I’m not convinced that it shows evidence of huge, mega-sculpting of the landscape. On the other hand, I definitely think it is well worth tackling this enigma to a greater degree; if only to relegate it to the “maybe”-box. I should stress, though, that Mars expert Tom Van Flandern was quite enthusiastic about the discovery: “While not near the Cydonia area, this face portrayal is again striking for the richness of its detail, far better than the typical face arising in clouds or geological formations on Earth. The latter tend to be distorted and grotesque when they are more than simply impressionistic.”
“Dinosaur skulls” on Mars don’t impress me in the slightest. I have yet to see one that really jumps out at me. There are a few of them, again captured by NASA’s cameras, but I am not persuaded here. That said, there is one skull-like item that I find very interesting. Obtained by NASA’s Spirit, the photo does appear to show a large skull on the rocky, desert floor of Mars. One can see a pair of eye-sockets. Moreover, those same sockets seem to be in perfect alignment with each other. A nose and nostrils, a robust jaw, and even the vague outline of a bony mouth are all in evidence. The skull is clearly somewhat different to a regular, human skull, in the sense that it seems to be much bulkier. If the anomaly is what it appears to be – the skull of a Martian - it’s hardly likely to look exactly the skull of a member of the Human Race! There is something else too: what look like a pair of protrusions – or what Mike Bara refers to as “jowl-like appendages” – situated around the chin area. They look as if they could inflict serious injury if one got too close. Now, we come to a story that practically circled the globe in 2008. It provoked sensational comments, controversial observations, and wild conclusions. The story suggested that nothing less than the ancient statue of a man wearing a robe, or a woman wearing a long dress – and with one arm poking out - could be seen on the Martian landscape. Also, the statue appeared to be in a sitting position, taking a break from whatever it is that the average Martian does on the average Martian day. It was a story that was picked up by not just the blogs of UFO researchers, but by the likes of CNN, the BBC, and Reuters. And the initial data seemed to be impressive. It would not stay like that.
Ben Radford, of the Skeptical Inquirer, and someone who has yet to see an anomaly that he cannot explain, said: “According to astronomer Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Web site, if the image really is a man on Mars, he’s awfully small: ‘Talk about a tempest in a teacup!’ Plait said: ‘The rock on Mars is actually just a few inches high and a few yards from the camera.’” Plait was correct: despite the extensive coverage that the story got, very few media outlets pointed out that the figure was indeed barely a few inches tall and that the Spirit – which secured the image – was actually extremely close to the “figure” when the photo was taken. Just about all of the reproductions of the photo made it appear as if the viewer was looking at a large object, or a human-sized figure, in the distance.
Mike Bara had an answer for this: he theorized that the admittedly-eerie-looking figure was an ancient, Martian artifact of small proportions. To bolster his argument, Bara showed examples of equally small, carved figures of the Egyptian pharaoh, Khufu. A very small Martian humanoid taking a break on a rock? A tiny piece of rock that seemed to resemble a living being? A carefully fashioned, small statue of the type that Mike Bara offered as a potential answer to the controversy? The questions are several. The answers, however, depend very much upon your own, personal perspective. And still on the matter of perspectives: if only the mainstream media had made it abundantly clear from the beginning that what we were seeing was nowhere near a life-sized figure - but something around the size of a kid’s toy soldier - we would not still be debating on this issue years down the line. And a significant portion of this article could have been seamlessly omitted.
(NASA) Not the Face on Mars. This one is called the Crowned Face. That's two faces on Mars
I sometimes ponder on the possibility that some of our scientists - not unlike Dr. Zaius in their mindsets - might be fearful of what the ramifications could be if history is changed by the opening of that aforementioned box. So, rather like the person who wakes up one morning and finds a lump under one of their armpits, and who refuses to go to the doctor for fear of what they might learn, the truth is ignored, with a hope that it will go away. But, it doesn’t go away. It just piles up more and more. Maybe, that’s how things are with NASA: a case of: "If we forget about the Face on Mars we won’t have to deal with it." But, it’s clearly not going away. Nor are the many other anomalies that are scattered across the Red Planet.
Of course, I can't prove any of this; but, based on what we've seeen so far, I really do have a deep belief that Mars really was once a sprawling, beautiful world. And, at some point in its "life" Mars was all but destroyed. Whether the destruction came by something like a comet or a huge meteorite, I really don't know. Maybe, the Martians went to war with each other and, as a result, they destroyed themselves. If you look at all of the many and varied anomalies that can be seen on the surface of Mars, it's very hard to dismiss all the oddities on the planet: such as the "Marshenge." But, there is something else, too: these connections, in many respects, seem to link with our world in some ways - albeit thousands of years ago. Did Mars and our world once have a connection? If so, did it turn into a planetary war. Such a thing, in my view, is entirely possible. Let's hope nothing like that happens to us.
NOTE:
NASA is an arm of the U.S. Government. Therefore, the two photos included in this article are in the public domain
Strange DNA found in the desert offers lessons in the hunt for Mars life
Strange DNA found in the desert offers lessons in the hunt for Mars life
Story by Joel Achenbach
The Atacama Desert in Chile is just about the driest place on Earth. In spots, it looks a lot like Mars. But it’s not lifeless, even in the hyper-arid regions. Using state-of-the-art equipment to probe the desert rocks, researchers found bits of DNA from an intriguing mix of microbes.
Strange DNA found in the desert offers lessons in the hunt for Mars life
Strikingly, 9 percent of the genetic fragments belong to organisms unknown to science, making them part of the “dark microbiome,” according to a report published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
These organisms are bacteria that are “so strange and different,” as the report puts it, that researchers could not identify any known relatives.
“In almost half of the cases, the databases could not clearly say what we had in our hands,” lead researcher Armando Azua-Bustos, a microbiologist at the Center of Astrobiology in Madrid, told The Washington Post.
And that brings him back to the Mars analogy: The Atacama, he and his scientific colleagues believe, is a brilliant test bed for the search for Martian life. But the same search conducted with versions of the instruments on today’s Mars rovers could barely detect the microbial signatures. That means finding conclusive evidence of present or past life in Martian soils is going to be difficult without bringing samples back to Earth, Azua-Bustos and his colleagues concluded.
The research seems to bolster the long-term Mars exploration strategy of NASA and its partner, the European Space Agency. They are in the midst of a multistage mission called Mars Sample Return. If all goes as planned, samples of Martian soil obtained by NASA’s Perseverance rover — which just celebrated its second anniversary on Mars — will be hauled back to Earth sometime early in the next decade for scrutiny in high-containment laboratories.
But this new research also highlights the challenges facing scientists who want to know the (conjectured) biological history of Mars. Microbial life, especially if extinct and long fossilized, may exist at or beyond the farthest limit of what can be detected with the kind of instruments small enough to be blasted into space and landed on another planet.
Scientists have never found an example of life beyond Earth, but a general assumption is that “habitable” worlds will become inhabited — that life emerges, somehow, under the right conditions. The Red Planet has long tantalized astrobiologists. It was more Earthlike about 3 billion years ago, when it had a thicker atmosphere and liquid water on the surface. Conceivably, there is still cryptic life on Mars, although astrobiologists would be thrilled to find even a microfossil of something that lived billions of years ago.
NASA’s Viking mission of 1976 carried experiments designed to detect life, and one offered an initially promising signal, but most scientists concluded that they’d landed on sterile soil.
Since the Viking mission, NASA has followed a more incremental strategy focused on finding and exploring sites that show evidence of being potentially habitable billions of years ago, when Mars was warmer and wetter. Perseverance and its still active predecessor, the Curiosity rover, have found traces of organic molecules — the kind of molecules that are the basis of life as we know it — on the surface, though this is not by itself proof of a biological origin.
“The question remains whether they are meteoritic, geologic, or biologic,” said Amy Williams, a planetary scientist at the University of Florida and a member of the Curiosity and Perseverance scientific teams.
Williams said the new report from Azua-Bustos and his collaborators is important because it shows that the preservation of organic matter is limited in Mars-like environments and will be difficult to detect even with state-of-the-art laboratory instruments.
“This means that organics detection with spaceflight instruments, like on current and future Mars rovers, may be an even larger challenge, as organic matter is readily broken down in the radiation-bathed Martian surface environment,” Williams said in an email.
Still, the Atacama research shows that even a very arid environment will have layers of sedimentary rock with significant amounts of biological remnants, said Chris House, a Pennsylvania State University geologist and astrobiologist. “It is not really a surprise, but the results might have just shown uniform bleakness,” he said. That’s good news for scientists hoping dry Mars rocks might yield traces of alien biology.
Azua-Bustos is a native of the Atacama who spent years as a winemaker before becoming a scientist. He recalls growing up in a Chilean town where rain would fall only about once a year, always a highlight. There are places, he said, where residents have never seen rain going back multiple generations.
He said he would regularly pass through a region of the desert, called Red Stone, en route to a research site, and one day he decided it would be worth a closer look. The rocks were rust-red because of the presence of a mineral, hematite, that also accounts for the red color of Mars, he said.
More than 100 million years ago, in the age of dinosaurs, the Red Stone site was a river delta, much like the plateau on Mars within Jezero Crater that Perseverance is exploring.
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this portrait of 10 recently collected rock samples on Jan. 31.
Azua-Bustos was surprised by the genetic material of an unfamiliar nature seen in the Atacama research. All life on Earth comes from a common ancestor — so far as we know. There has been speculation, notably from scientist and author Paul Davies, that life could have originated on Earth more than once and to this day there could be a “shadow” biosphere that is simply too weird to fit into our definition of Earth life.
Azua-Bustos, however, defaults to the less spectacular interpretation of the unclassified organisms: This is relic genetic material from life forms long extinct and not previously documented.
The Perseverance rover continues to explore Jezero Crater, digging up and storing samples of Martian soil. The plan is to put another spacecraft on the surface, which would double as a launchpad. Perseverance would then deliver the samples to the lander, which would hurtle the material into orbit. There it would rendezvous with yet another vehicle, a European-built orbiter, that could transport the precious cargo back to Earth for analysis with the best possible lab instruments.
The new research suggests this may be the most effective — and possibly the only conclusive — way to find out if anything was ever alive on Mars.
“We know there are things to detect,” Azua-Bustos said. “But if your instrument is not designed to be able to detect those things, then we have a problem.”
Is there life on Mars? We don’t know the answer to that question yet, but we’re getting closer as more rovers and landers are sent to the Red Planet’s surface and human missions are planned. In order to prepare for these and future missions, NASA and other space agencies needed a place that was dry enough, rugged enough and dusty enough to resemble the Martian surface. They found that the most Martian place on Earth is in Chile – the closest place on Earth is the Atacama Desert west of the Andes Mountains in Chile. It is the driest desert on our planet and the only hot true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. While we don’t know yet about life on Mars, we suspect it could survive there because life appears in some parts of the Atacama Desert – over 500 species of vegetation, some reptiles, a few rodents, penguins, insects and a few others. And now there is one that scientists cannot identify – a “dark microbiome” whose DNA comes from organisms "unknown to science." Could this be the life we should be looking for on Mars?
“Results from Mars so far suggest that organics are not prevalent on its surface, but here we hypothesize that current instrument limitations and the nature of organics in Martian rocks may also hinder our ability to find evidences of life on the red planet.”
The research is led by Alberto G. Fairén, a visiting scientist in the Department of Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University and the senior author of “Dark microbiome and extremely low organics in Atacama fossil delta unveil Mars life detection limits,” published recently in Nature Communications. Fairén and a multi-institution team are testing some old and some new equipment for future Mars missions to determine if the tools are sensitive enough to detect organic compounds that may be quite different from those on Earth. These tests were conducted at the most ‘Mars on Earth’ spot in the Atacama Desert – the Red Stone Jurassic fossil delta, a 100 million-year-old riverbed which resembles Mars’ Jezero Crater and its ancient river delta where the Perseverance rover is roving and the Ingenuity helicopter is flying. The Red Stone delta is 100 million years old, while the Jezero Crater and its delta were not the site of a lake and a river since more than 3 billion years ago, but it’s the best we have for comparison. Like Jezero, it has sandstone, clay and hematite – the iron oxide that makes Mars red. The researchers expected to find more similarities between Jezero and Red Stone. What they found instead was unexpected.
The Atacama Desert - an amazing Martian landscape stand-in
“For this work, the researchers conducted geological tests at Red Stone using four instruments that are currently or will soon be on Mars. They found that Red Stone samples display numerous microorganisms of undetermined classification – what the researchers term “dark microbiome” – and a mix of biosignatures from current and ancient microorganisms that can be barely detected with state-of-the-art laboratory equipment.”
According to the Cornell press release, “Dark microbiome” is a catch-all term researchers use for genetic fragments from organisms “unknown to science. What Fairén and the other scientists found was that nine percent of the genetic fragments analyzed were from dark microbiome and so unusual that they could not compare them to any other known organisms.
"In almost half of the cases, the databases could not clearly say what we had in our hands.”
Microbiologist at the Center of Astrobiology in Madrid and lead author and lead researcher Armando Azua-Bustos speculated that this dark microbiome was from long extinct life forms that have never been found before anywhere on Earth. If they are from ancient Earth, could they also be from ancient Mars? No one can say because no one knows what they are. That’s the problem – the samples are dark microbiome mixed with biosignatures from current and ancient microorganisms that the team barely detected with the most advanced technology on Earth or Mars. Azua-Bustos fears the worst – false positives that would trigger announcements that life has been found, or false negatives which means the Mars instruments missed discovering life because they didn’t recognize the biosignature. What now?
“You need to decide whether is more advantageous having limited capability for analysis on the surface of Mars to interrogate a wide variety of samples, or having limited samples to be analyzed with the wide variety of state-of-the-art instrumentation on Earth.”
The Atacama Desert
One alternative is to leave the best technology on Earth and just send scoopers and rockets to Mars to bring back samples to analyze. Neither of these is cheap, easy or fast … as we have seen. And bringing samples back to Earth leaves the planet and humanity open to exposure to unknown viruses, bacteria or a Martian dark microbiome. NASA is working with the European Space Agency and others to build a lab for the Martian geological samples gathered by the Perseverance rover, but that probably won’t happen in this decade. That’s frustrating, but it gives the engineers more time to develop instruments that can dig deeper into the Martian soil for older samples. Fairén thinks this is the best approach.
“If biosignatures are better preserved at depth, which we expect, there will be more abundance and diversity, and better preservation of biosignatures, in those deep samples. Our instruments in the rover will therefore have more chances to detect them.”
Strange DNA found in the desert offers lessons in the hunt for Mars life
Azua-Bustos says that “We know there are things to detect,” so this means more trips back to the Red Stone in the Atacama Desert with new instruments. This research points out the obvious – all of this talk about sending humans to Mars in the near future is fanciful at best. We can barely get a little mechanical scooper up there to dig up some samples and put them on a return space Uber to a super-secure lab on Earth. It is good to dream but it is better to be realistic and practical – that’s what the space budgets are based on.
Mudlarker Finds Bronze Age Shoe on a UK Riverbank Dated 2,800 Years Old!
Mudlarker Finds Bronze Age Shoe on a UK Riverbank Dated 2,800 Years Old!
A man exploring along a riverbank in northern Kent recently discovered the oldest shoe ever found on United Kingdom soil. Carbon dating tests proved the decayed but still recognizable leather artifact was nearly 3,000 years old, having been manufactured sometime between the years 888 and 781 BC. This incredible age highlights what an absolute miracle this discovery was, as the ancient shoe, which likely belonged to a toddler, was lying out in the open fully visible to anyone who might walk by.
One of the Best Mudlarking Adventures Ever
The small, flattened shoe was spotted by archaeologist Steve Tomlinson, a resident of Ramsgate, Kent who works with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust.
On September 17, 2022, Tomlinson and a colleague, archaeologist Emily Brown, were out walking along rivers in Kent, searching for valuable artifacts that might have washed up along the edges. This activity is known as mudlarking, and archaeologists who do it often find intriguing objects that may be anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries old. The best sites for mudlarking are rivers that feed into the ocean (like the River Thames , for example) and are affected by the rising and sinking of the tides. Mudlarkers will arrive during times of low tide, searching along shores that are normally covered by water.
Someone with an untrained eye might have passed by the shoe without noticing it, or even caring if they did notice. But Tomlinson was actively searching for anomalous objects, and the aged shoe caught his attention immediately.
“The day started well, and between us we had a good selection of finds including plenty of pottery sherds from the Roman period, and various small objects like a small piece of Roman tesserae,” Tomlinson recalled in an article in the Isle of Thanet News :
“We had been out for 3 hours scouring the shoreline, and the tide was turning when we hit the last leg of our day. As we made our way along the foreshore … I came across what looked like a very old shoe-like piece of leather washed up on the mud. It was around 15 centimeters [6 inches] in length.”
Tomlinson and Brown examined the weathered leather of the flattened shoe carefully, trying to estimate its age. The archaeologists concluded that it was most likely an early medieval artifact, meaning it might have been dropped or washed into the river as long as 1,000 years ago.
It might seem unusual that someone finding a shoe next to a river would conclude the object was centuries old. But this wasn’t Tomlinson first time. While mudlarking in 2018, he discovered an Anglo-Saxon shoe sticking out of the mud that was ultimately dated to the 10th century AD.
Expecting a similar result this time, Tomlinson sent his interesting discovery on to the SUERC carbon dating facility in East Kilbride, Scotland. But when the lab revealed the results five weeks later, Tomlinson received one of the great shocks of his life, as he learned he’d underestimated the age of the little old shoe by nearly 2,000 years.
"The date they had given me was just astonishing,"Tomlinson said. “This could be not only the oldest shoe found in Kent, but in the British Isles itself, and a very high possibility that this is also the smallest Bronze Age shoe ever discovered in the world.”
It has now been confirmed that this is the most ancient shoe ever recovered in the United Kingdom. This distinction previously belonged to a 2,000-year-old shoe found in 2005 in a quarry in Somerset.
By modern standards the shoe would be listed as a child size 7, and would be appropriate for a toddler aged around 2-3 years old, explained Mr Tomlinson. The child presumably had lost the shoe while playing in or around the riverbank all those years ago, and it had been lying on the bottom of the riverbank waiting to be found ever since.
Walking Back in Time in a Bronze Age Toddler’s Shoe
Archaeologists are always surprised and delighted when they find ancient items of clothing that are in good enough shape to be studied.
“Prehistoric textiles like this rarely survive and the only chance is by finding them in anaerobic conditions such as bogs and mud (away from the air),”Tomlinson explained.
But even when an organic artifact is preserved for hundreds or thousands of years, it still takes a lot of luck to actually locate it. And Steve Tomlinson was blessed with an inordinate amount of good fortune, as he fully appreciates.
"Finding something like that is quite extraordinary,”Tomlinson confirmed in an interview with Kent Online . "It opens up history too; we just know nothing about these kinds of things."
The ancient toddler’s shoe will be transferred to the British Museum for more analysis. Now that the shoe has been successfully dated to the Late Bronze Age , it will be tested further to see if scientists can learn what animal it came from. Attempts will be made to extract traces of human DNA from the artifact as well, and if this is successful it could reveal the true age, gender and ethnic identity of the child who wore the leather shoe in the first millennium BC.
Top image: The Bronze Age shoe, in situ where it was found on the river edge in Kent, England.
g of getting home, opening the door and realising your child has somehow lost a shoe.
Scientists now think it could be a feeling that tens of billions of parents have felt for millennia.
A 3,000-year-old toddler's shoe from the Bronze Age, dating from between 888 and 781BC, has been discovered in a north Kent riverbed.
A comforting fact is since then at least 62 billion people have come and gone on Earth and many have likely also faced the same shoe problem that parents today often scratch their heads about.
The rare Bronze Age 15cm leather shoe is thought to be the oldest found in the UK and was found by archaeologist Steve Tomlinson, 51, as he was mudlarking in September.
A Bronze Age leather shoe (pictured) thought to be the oldest in the UK was unearthed in north Kent riverbed
Archaeologist Steve Tomlinson, 51, (pictured) discovered the 3,000-year-old shoe that belonged to a toddler
A micro-CAT scan (pictured) of the shoe discovered that the sole was made from several layers
Mr Tomlinson, from Ramsgate, Kent, didn't think much of the find at first but sent it for carbon-dating at a unit in East Kilbride, Scotland.
Five weeks later he received the 'shocking' result that dated the show from the late Bronze Age.
Mr Tomlinson said: 'I thought it was something good but I still thought it was medieval.
'I sent it off for carbon-dating and five weeks later I got a call from a gentleman at the lab who said to me, "I think you better sit down for this".
'I'd had a good day's mudlarking that day - I'd found quite a few Roman pottery shards - but I was not expecting that.
'I could've quite easily missed it but I had an inkling it was something special.
'It's absolutely fascinating.'
The unassuming ‘thing’ on the river beach didn’t slip past finder Steve’s trained eye
The shoe is 15cm long, meaning in today's terms the child would have been a size seven
The child is thought to have been around two or three years old and scientists will do DNA tests to try to determine whether the show's owner was a boy or a girl
An X-ray carried out at Canterbury Christchurch University found the underside of the sole is imprinted with a textile pattern
In today's sizes the shoe would be a size seven and archaeologists think its owner was around two or three years old.
Mr Tomlinson said he is 'confident' it is the oldest of its kind in the UK and possibly the smallest in the world.
'We hope professionals might be able to reconstruct it eventually and that it might go into the British Museum down the line.
'It's of incredible national interest.'
The shoe is now in the care of heritage scientist and archaeological conservator Dana Goodburn-Brown, 63, who specialises in micro-excavation.
Ms Goodburn-Brown said: 'Organic materials like leather, textiles or wood will not survive unless they're somewhere very arid or in mud without oxygen.
'This shoe has been in a silt environment with sediment, without oxygen.
'It's what we call anaerobic conditions .
'It gets to this equilibrium state where it doesn't biodegrade. That's why it's so rare.
'It's amazing that it survived so long.
'The fact that it dislodged from elsewhere and Steve came across it before it started to degrade is incredible.
'We don't know where it originated but it's most likely it was either washed out with cliff erosion, which happens quite regularly in Kent, or emerged during dredging.
Dana, from Sittingbourne, Kent, took the shoe to experts at the University of Kent who examined it under a micro-CT scanner, where they discovered the sole was made up of several layers.
More significantly, an X-ray carried out at Canterbury Christchurch University found the underside of the sole is imprinted with a textile pattern, suggesting it had either been wrapped in or pressed against a piece of material for some time.
The next step is to send the leather for DNA testing to see what they can learn about the shoe's original owner.
Scientists might even be able to tell whether the toddler was a boy or a girl and what animal the leather came from.
The shoe has been conserved by Dana Goodburn Brown, an accredited Archaeological Conservator at DGB Conservation .
KIJK. Unieke beelden van noorderlicht boven grote delen van Nederland. “Zelfs boven Vlaanderen was het poollicht fotografisch zichtbaar”
Boven grote delen van Nederland was zondagavond een bijzonder natuurverschijnsel te zien: het noorderlicht. Dat is een aantal keer per jaar in het noorden van het land te fotograferen, maar is niet vaak met het blote oog te zien. In Vlaanderen was het poollicht niet met het blote oog te zien maar wél te fotograferen.
Hoe verder naar het noorden, hoe beter zichtbaar het poollicht was. Twitteraars legden het bijzondere natuurverschijnsel vast. Maar zelfs in Cuijk, in het noorden van Brabant, was het beeld goed zichtbaar. Daar maakte Van Bernebeek bovenstaande foto.
Wat is het noorderlicht?
Poollicht, aurora polaris, ontstaat wanneer onze zon geladen deeltjes met enorme snelheden richting de aarde slingert. Wanneer deze deeltjes het magnetische veld van onze planeet weten te omzeilen belanden ze via de polen in onze atmosfeer. Daar komen ze, op een hoogte van gemiddeld 100 tot 300 kilometer, in contact met de gassen. Die botsingen veroorzaken de prachtige gloed die we kennen als het poollicht. Afhankelijk van welke gassen de geladen deeltjes tegenkomen (dat verandert met de hoogte) verschilt de kleur. Zie je het poollicht in het noorden, dan spreekt met van aurora borealis of noorderlicht. In het zuiden is het aurora australis, het zuiderlicht. Het was Galileo die in de 17de eeuw de naam aurora borealis introduceerde, verwijzend naar ‘Aurora' de Romeinse godin van het morgenlicht en ‘Borealis' de Griekse god van de noorderwind.
Afhankelijk van de richting en de kracht worden de deeltjes van de zonnestorm naar het zuiden geblazen, legt Van Bernebeek van Weerplaza uit. Dat gebeurt vrij regelmatig boven Scandinavië, waar je het noorderlicht van onderen kunt bekijken. Daar is dan een groene gloed te zien. Door de bolling van de aarde kijken we vanuit Nederland naar de bovenkant van de zonnestorm. Dat licht is rood.
Dat was zondagavond samen met de bijbehorende verticale strepen erg goed te zien. Het verschijnsel komt gemiddeld zo’n zeven keer per jaar voor, maar dan vooral in de noordelijke provincies van Nederland. Meestal is het dan slechts met een fototoestel met lange sluitertijd in beeld te brengen, als er tenminste geen bewolking is. Dat het licht gisteravond zó goed zichtbaar was met het blote oog, en in grote delen van het land, is volgens Van Bernebeek bijzonder.
In Vlaanderen kon je het poollicht trouwens ook zien, al was het enkel met een fototoestel. Zo wist Bart Medaer het in Gierle (Antwerpen) op beeld vast te leggen. Ook de poollicht Facebook pagina van Urania en Ruben Weytjens wisten het noorderlicht te fotograferen vanuit Gent en Limburg.
De social media berichten.
De meteoroloog Wouter van Bernebeek waarschuwde vlak voor het gebeurde al fotografen dat de zonnestorm ons land zou kunnen bereiken. “We kunnen volgen wat een zonnewind doet. Als die naar beneden duikt, naar het zuiden, weet je dat er kans is op noorderlicht dat te fotograferen is. Dat kun je in principe al als zo’n zonnestorm loskomt van de zon, ongeveer drie dagen voor hij hier is. Maar dat hij zó zuidelijk zou komen had niemand verwacht. De laatste keer was in 2015. ”
Meer bijzondere verschijnsels
Gisteravond en de rest van de week is nog een tweede opvallend verschijnsel te zien in de lucht. Aan het begin van de avond kun je twee heldere hemellichamen zien, die opvallend dicht bij elkaar staan: Jupiter en Venus.
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Three UFO Reports, Mexico To Florida! Feb 27, 2023, UFO Sighting News. 100% Raw Footage!
Three UFO Reports, Mexico To Florida! Feb 27, 2023, UFO Sighting News. 100% Raw Footage!
Date of sighting: Feb 27, 2023
Location of 1st sighting: River Maya, Mexico
Location of 2nd sighting: Miami, Florida, USA
Location of 3rd sighting: Sarasota Florida, USA
Hey everyone, check this out. Three different eyewitness videos just came in today and they are all of the same UFO, but in different locations and this baby is big! I as a UFO researcher for the last 20 years have never seen anything like this. It's really strange, very odd, looks like a cloud, but its not, its a solid craft, actually two solid craft one following the other. Absolutely mind-blowing raw footage! This is 100% proof that aliens are putting in the effort to make themselves known to the public. The real question is...how is the US government going to try to cover this one up?
“What’s Up With UAPs?” Exploring the Government’s Interest in UFOs with Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
“What’s Up With UAPs?” Exploring the Government’s Interest in UFOs with Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
Unidentified aerial phenomena, commonly referred to as UFOs, have captured the imagination of people around the world for decades. These sightings of strange objects in the sky have prompted many to speculate about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, sparking widespread interest and fascination. However, as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains in a recent Youtube video, the government’s interest in investigating these phenomena is not based solely on their potential connection to alien life.
According to Tyson, the government’s interest in investigating UFOs is largely motivated by concerns over safety and security. If there is something flying in the sky that cannot be identified, it is important to determine whether it poses a threat to individuals, the economy, or national security. As such, it is reasonable to allocate resources towards identifying and investigating these phenomena.
Despite the common association between UFOs and aliens, Tyson cautions against jumping to conclusions about the nature of these phenomena. As a scientist, Tyson encourages a skeptical, evidence-based approach to studying and investigating the unknown. While it may be tempting to attribute unexplained sightings to alien life, it is important to maintain a rational perspective and consider alternative explanations.
Furthermore, Tyson notes that the prevalence of technology such as smartphones means that any potential alien invasion would likely be reported and documented quickly. With millions of people around the world carrying smartphones capable of recording and sharing videos, it is unlikely that any significant event would go unnoticed or unreported.
In summary, while UFOs and their potential connection to alien life continue to capture the public’s imagination, the government’s interest in investigating these phenomena is primarily motivated by concerns over safety and security. Rather than making extraordinary claims without evidence, it is important to approach these sightings with a scientific mindset, embracing the unknown and seeking to understand the phenomena through rational investigation.
When Rohit Bhattacharya began his PhD in computer science, his aim was to build a tool that could help physicians to identify people with cancer who would respond well to immunotherapy. This form of treatment helps the body’s immune system to fight tumours, and works best against malignant growths that produce proteins that immune cells can bind to. Bhattacharya’s idea was to create neural networks that could profile the genetics of both the tumour and a person’s immune system, and then predict which people would be likely to benefit from treatment.
But he discovered that his algorithms weren’t up to the task. He could identify patterns of genes that correlated to immune response, but that wasn’t sufficient1. “I couldn’t say that this specific pattern of binding, or this specific expression of genes, is a causal determinant in the patient’s response to immunotherapy,” he explains.
Bhattacharya was stymied by the age-old dictum that correlation does not equal causation — a fundamental stumbling block in artificial intelligence (AI). Computers can be trained to spot patterns in data, even patterns that are so subtle that humans might miss them. And computers can use those patterns to make predictions — for instance, that a spot on a lung X-ray indicates a tumour2. But when it comes to cause and effect, machines are typically at a loss. They lack a common-sense understanding of how the world works that people have just from living in it. AI programs trained to spot disease in a lung X-ray, for example, have sometimes gone astray by zeroing in on the markings used to label the right-hand side of the image3. It is obvious, to a person at least, that there is no causal relationship between the style and placement of the letter ‘R’ on an X-ray and signs of lung disease. But without that understanding, any differences in how such markings are drawn or positioned could be enough to steer a machine down the wrong path.
For computers to perform any sort of decision making, they will need an understanding of causality, says Murat Kocaoglu, an electrical engineer at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. “Anything beyond prediction requires some sort of causal understanding,” he says. “If you want to plan something, if you want to find the best policy, you need some sort of causal reasoning module.”
Incorporating models of cause and effect into machine-learning algorithms could also help mobile autonomous machines to make decisions about how they navigate the world. “If you’re a robot, you want to know what will happen when you take a step here with this angle or that angle, or if you push an object,” Kocaoglu says.
In Bhattacharya’s case, it was possible that some of the genes that the system was highlighting were responsible for a better response to the treatment. But a lack of understanding of causality meant that it was also possible that the treatment was affecting the gene expression — or that another, hidden factor was influencing both. The potential solution to this problem lies in something known as causal inference — a formal, mathematical way to ascertain whether one variable affects another.
Computer scientist Rohit Bhattacharya (back) and his team at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, discuss adapting machine learning for causal inference.
Credit: Mark Hopkins
Causal inference has long been used by economists and epidemiologists to test their ideas about causation. The 2021 Nobel prize in economic sciences went to three researchers who used causal inference to ask questions such as whether a higher minimum wage leads to lower employment, or what effect an extra year of schooling has on future income. Now, Bhattacharya is among a growing number of computer scientists who are working to meld causality with AI to give machines the ability to tackle such questions, helping them to make better decisions, learn more efficiently and adapt to change.
A notion of cause and effect helps to guide humans through the world. “Having a causal model of the world, even an imperfect one — because that’s what we have — allows us to make more robust decisions and predictions,” says Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist who directs Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, a collaboration between four universities in Montreal, Canada. Humans’ grasp of causality supports attributes such as imagination and regret; giving computers a similar ability could transform their capabilities.
Climbing the ladder
The headline successes of AI over the past decade — such as winning against people at various competitive games, identifying the content of images and, in the past few years, generating text and pictures in response to written prompts — have been powered by deep learning. By studying reams of data, such systems learn how one thing correlates with another. These learnt associations can then be put to use. But this is just the first rung on the ladder towards a loftier goal: something that Judea Pearl, a computer scientist and director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, refers to as “deep understanding”.
In 2011, Pearl won the A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the Nobel prize for computer science, for his work developing a calculus to allow probabilistic and causal reasoning. He describes a three-level hierarchy of reasoning4. The base level is ‘seeing’, or the ability to make associations between things. Today’s AI systems are extremely good at this. Pearl refers to the next level as ‘doing’ — making a change to something and noting what happens. This is where causality comes into play.
A computer can develop a causal model by examining interventions: how changes in one variable affect another. Instead of creating one statistical model of the relationship between variables, as in current AI, the computer makes many. In each one, the relationship between the variables stays the same, but the values of one or several of the variables are altered. That alteration might lead to a new outcome. All of this can be evaluated using the mathematics of probability and statistics. “The way I think about it is, causal inference is just about mathematizing how humans make decisions,” Bhattacharya says.
Yoshua Bengio (front) directs Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute in Montreal, Canada.
Credit: Mila-Quebec AI Institute
Bengio, who won the A.M. Turing Award in 2018 for his work on deep learning, and his students have trained a neural network to generate causal graphs5 — a way of depicting causal relationships. At their simplest, if one variable causes another variable, it can be shown with an arrow running from one to the other. If the direction of causality is reversed, so too is the arrow. And if the two are unrelated, there will be no arrow linking them. Bengio’s neural network is designed to randomly generate one of these graphs, and then check how compatible it is with a given set of data. Graphs that fit the data better are more likely to be accurate, so the neural network learns to generate more graphs similar to those, searching for one that fits the data best.
This approach is akin to how people work something out: people generate possible causal relationships, and assume that the ones that best fit an observation are closest to the truth. Watching a glass shatter when it is dropped it onto concrete, for instance, might lead a person to think that the impact on a hard surface causes the glass to break. Dropping other objects onto concrete, or knocking a glass onto a soft carpet, from a variety of heights, enables a person to refine their model of the relationship and better predict the outcome of future fumbles.
Face the changes
A key benefit of causal reasoning is that it could make AI more able to deal with changing circumstances. Existing AI systems that base their predictions only on associations in data are acutely vulnerable to any changes in how those variables are related. When the statistical distribution of learnt relationships changes — whether owing to the passage of time, human actions or another external factor — the AI will become less accurate.
For instance, Bengio could train a self-driving car on his local roads in Montreal, and the AI might become good at operating the vehicle safely. But export that same system to London, and it would immediately break for a simple reason: cars are driven on the right in Canada and on the left in the United Kingdom, so some of the relationships the AI had learnt would be backwards. He could retrain the AI from scratch using data from London, but that would take time, and would mean that the software would no longer work in Montreal, because its new model would replace the old one.
A causal model, on the other hand, allows the system to learn about many possible relationships. “Instead of having just one set of relationships between all the things you could observe, you have an infinite number,” Bengio says. “You have a model that accounts for what could happen under any change to one of the variables in the environment.”
Humans operate with such a causal model, and can therefore quickly adapt to changes. A Canadian driver could fly to London and, after taking a few moments to adjust, could drive perfectly well on the left side of the road. The UK Highway Code means that, unlike in Canada, right turns involve crossing traffic, but it has no effect on what happens when the driver turns the wheel or how the tyres interact with the road. “Everything we know about the world is essentially the same,” Bengio says. Causal modelling enables a system to identify the effects of an intervention and account for it in its existing understanding of the world, rather than having to relearn everything from scratch.
Judea Pearl, director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, won the 2011 A.M. Turing Award.
Credit: UCLA Samueli School of Engineering
This ability to grapple with changes without scrapping everything we know also allows humans to make sense of situations that aren’t real, such as fantasy movies. “Our brain is able to project ourselves into an invented environment in which some things have changed,” Bengio says. “The laws of physics are different, or there are monsters, but the rest is the same.”
Counter to fact
The capacity for imagination is at the top of Pearl’s hierarchy of causal reasoning. The key here, Bhattacharya says, is speculating about the outcomes of actions not taken.
Bhattacharya likes to explain such counterfactuals to his students by reading them ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. In this poem, the narrator talks of having to choose between two paths through the woods, and expresses regret that they can’t know where the other road leads. “He’s imagining what his life would look like if he walks down one path versus another,” Bhattacharya says. That is what computer scientists would like to replicate with machines capable of causal inference: the ability to ask ‘what if’ questions.
Imagining whether an outcome would have been better or worse if we’d taken a different action is an important way that humans learn. Bhattacharya says it would be useful to imbue AI with a similar capacity for what is known as ‘counterfactual regret’. The machine could run scenarios on the basis of choices it didn’t make and quantify whether it would have been better off making a different one. Some scientists have already used counterfactual regret to help a computer improve its poker playing6.
The ability to imagine different scenarios could also help to overcome some of the limitations of existing AI, such as the difficulty of reacting to rare events. By definition, Bengio says, rare events show up only sparsely, if at all, in the data that a system is trained on, so the AI can’t learn about them. A person driving a car can imagine an occurrence they’ve never seen, such as a small plane landing on the road, and use their understanding of how things work to devise potential strategies to deal with that specific eventuality. A self-driving car without the capability for causal reasoning, however, could at best default to a generic response for an object in the road. By using counterfactuals to learn rules for how things work, cars could be better prepared for rare events. Working from causal rules rather than a list of previous examples ultimately makes the system more versatile.
Using causality to program imagination into a computer could even lead to the creation of an automated scientist. During a 2021 online summit sponsored by Microsoft Research, Pearl suggested that such a system could generate a hypothesis, pick the best observation to test that hypothesis and then decide what experiment would provide that observation.
Right now, however, this remains a way off. The theory and basic mathematics of causal inference are well established, but the methods for AI to realize interventions and counterfactuals are still at an early stage. “This is still very fundamental research,” Bengio says. “We’re at the stage of figuring out the algorithms in a very basic way.” Once researchers have grasped these fundamentals, algorithms will then need to be optimized to run efficiently. It is uncertain how long this will all take. “I feel like we have all the conceptual tools to solve this problem and it’s just a matter of a few years, but usually it takes more time than you expect,” Bengio says. “It might take decades instead.”
Bhattacharya thinks that researchers should take a leaf from machine learning, the rapid proliferation of which was in part because of programmers developing open-source software that gives others access to the basic tools for writing algorithms. Equivalent tools for causal inference could have a similar effect. “There’s been a lot of exciting developments in recent years,” Bhattacharya says, including some open-source packages from tech giant Microsoft and from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his colleagues also developed an open-source causal module they call Ananke. But these software packages remain a work in progress.
Bhattacharya would also like to see the concept of causal inference introduced at earlier stages of computer education. Right now, he says, the topic is taught mainly at the graduate level, whereas machine learning is common in undergraduate training. “Causal reasoning is fundamental enough that I hope to see it introduced in some simplified form at the high-school level as well,” he says.
If these researchers are successful at building causality into computing, it could bring AI to a whole new level of sophistication. Robots could navigate their way through the world more easily. Self-driving cars could become more reliable. Programs for evaluating the activity of genes could lead to new understanding of biological mechanisms, which in turn could allow the development of new and better drugs. “That could transform medicine,” Bengio says.
Even something such as ChatGPT, the popular natural-language generator that produces text that reads as though it could have been written by a human, could benefit from incorporating causality. Right now, the algorithm betrays itself by producing clearly written prose that contradicts itself and goes against what we know to be true about the world. With causality, ChatGPT could build a coherent plan for what it was trying to say, and ensure that it was consistent with facts as we know them.
When he was asked whether that would put writers out of business, Bengio says that could take some time. “But how about you lose your job in ten years, but you’re saved from cancer and Alzheimer’s,” he says. “That’s a good deal.”
Universe-Breaking Galaxies, Source of Dark Energy, Mars Anniversary
Perseverance has been on Mars for two years. Are black holes the source of dark energy? Universe-breaking galaxies found. And an early warning system for asteroids.
Mars Anniversary
NASA’s Perseverance Rover is about to begin its third year exploring Mars. NASA released this cool two-year animation of images from the rover’s Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera to celebrate. During the timelapse, you can see various rocks that Perseverance stopped to study with its robotic arm and sensors. The rover initially landed in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18th, 2020, and has now travelled almost 15 km and taken 18 samples of rocks, regolith, and even the Martian atmosphere.
“The Universe Breakers”: Six Galaxies That are Too Big, Too Early
New images from JWST show six galaxies at a time when the Universe was only 3% of its current age, 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. They should be baby galaxies, but they contain 100 times more stellar mass than astronomers were expecting to see soon after the beginning of the Universe. If true, this calls the current thinking of galaxy formation into question or challenges most models of cosmology.
A 500-Meter-Long Asteroid Flew Past Earth and Astronomers Were Watching
An asteroid the size of the Empire State Building flew past Earth on Feb. 3rd, coming within 1.8 million km of our planet. For context, that’s about five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Astronomers turned the Goldstone Solar System Radar dish on the space rock, mapping its surface. The asteroid, called 2011 AG5, is one of the most elongated objects ever seen, with a length-to-width ratio of 10:3. It’ll have another close flyby in 2040 when it comes within three times the Earth-Moon distance.
A new paper was released suggesting that there might be a link between dark energy and the growth of supermassive black holes. Researchers speculate that, in fact, black holes can be the source of dark energy. If true (which we yet need to prove) this can be ground-breaking.
To shed more light on the research here’s an in-depth interview with Dr Chris Pearson from STFC RAL Space, who is a co-author of the paper.
New Spacecraft Can See Into the Permanently Shadowed Craters on the Moon
The permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s south pole are exciting because they contain vast reserves of water ice that future human explorers could use. But studying these craters is difficult because they’re in shadow and have no direct illumination falling inside them. NASA’s new ShadowCam instrument is at the Moon, flying with Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter. ShadowCam can see in such low light that it can reveal incredible details in these shadowed craters as if they were lit in sunlight.
ESA is considering their own mission to search for potentially dangerous asteroids. The spacecraft will be called NEOMIR and it will go to the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point. This way it will be able to see incoming space rocks that will otherwise be missed because of the Sun blinding the telescopes. NEOMIR will also operate in the infrared, which will make its task even easier.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
