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...
29-12-2023
Some of the Weirdest Supposed Alien Artifacts Found on Earth - PART II
Some of the Weirdest Supposed Alien Artifacts Found on Earth - PART II
Throughout the history of ufology, the Holy Grail has always been some form of concrete evidence, something we can hold in our hand and verify as being from alien intelligences beyond our world. There have been plenty of stories of crashed UFOs and alien bodies over the years, none of which have come to provide the answers we are looking for. However, are there other forms of evidence of aliens visiting us across the sea of stars? Are there perhaps artifacts or objects they have left behind for whatever reasons? Here we will look at a selection of some of the more far out supposed alien objects ever found, which have mostly fueled more questions than answers.
It was an incredibly odd thing to see sitting there all shiny and polished in the middle of all the charred and scorched earth, and the baffled family tried to figure out what it could possibly be. They considered that it may have been a downed satellite or something that had been dropped from a plane, but then why was there no sign of damage upon it at all? They then came to the conclusion that it was an old relic cannonball from some forgotten battle in centuries past, but the lack of any rust or signs of age didn’t seem to fit. Curious, they loaded it into their truck and hauled it back to their home to take a better look, and this is when things would get even more bizarre.
The odd sphere was soon found to have some very peculiar properties. The first clue to this was when Terry was in the same room as the sphere one day while practicing the guitar. As he played he became aware that the metal sphere seemed to be reacting somehow to the music, throbbing in tune to the beat and emitting a vibrating sound not unlike a tuning fork. Even when the sounds stopped the family dog refused to go anywhere near it, suggesting that there were still sub-audible sounds emanating from within it. They decided to keep a closer eye on the sphere, and soon noticed that it seemed to occasionally emit these thrumming hums on its own, and that it was more active on sunny days, leading them to think that it was somehow solar powered. They also accidentally discovered that it could roll around on its own and guide itself, often turning around to make its way back to whoever pushed it and able to roll on without aid for long periods of time. It seemed to react to different situations and almost have a mind of its own, leaving the whole family and anyone they showed it to in awe. This was increasingly obviously no 16th century cannonball.
The mysterious sphere
Considering that the Betz family would supposedly often show off the sphere to family and neighbors, it is perhaps no surprise that word began to get out on its strange properties. Journalists began showing up to snoop around, and some of them were able to see some of the phenomena for themselves. One was a photographer from the Jacksonville Journal, who went to the residence and apparently saw the mysterious sphere in action, writing of it:
It rolled a ways then stopped. So what? She said, 'Just wait a minute.' It turned by itself and rolled to the right about four feet. It stopped. Then it turned again and rolled to the left about eight feet, made a big arc and came right back to my feet.
At around this time the sphere began to escalate its strange phenomena, causing other objects to move or doors to slam around the house, as well as producing loud music that sounded as if it were coming from an organ. More people came in to investigate, and before long it had even attracted the attention of government organizations such as NASA, the U.S. Navy, and the Arial Phenomena Research Organization. The Navy purportedly examined the sphere and did tests and X-rays on it, proclaiming that it was not anything they had ever seen before and that it seemed to be made of an incredibly dense, absurdly heat resistant form of stainless steel, with two other objects somewhere within its hollow frame surrounded by a halo made of material that had an unusual density, as well as a total of two negative and two positive poles. A researcher named Carl Wilson found that the ball exhibited strange magnetic characteristics and even seemed to be putting out some sort of signal, even going as far as to say that it possessed certain properties that seemed to defy physics and that it was not made of steel at all. Another named J. A. Harder concluded that there were elements within the sphere that were unknown.
After this the odd trajectory of the sphere becomes unclear, the story slowly fading away from the media blitz it had enjoyed and its location sinking into obscurity, and we are left with the question of what this ball was and what happened to it. There have been theories ranging from the rational to the more fringe. The rational explanation is that this was a misidentified component of a satellite or an otherwise manmade construction such as a piece of industrial machinery such as a ball valve, but how would this explain its strange behavior and properties? One ball valve manufacturer was nevertheless reasonably sure that it was just a ball valve, saying of the “Betz Sphere”:
I'm not saying that this thing didn't come from outer space because I've never seen it. All I'm saying is that the physical description of it matches exactly the type of ball we have in stock.
Others say that the analyses done would have immediately determined whether it was manmade or not, but that they failed to conclusively come to this conclusion, suggesting that it was something else, perhaps something alien in origin. Yet looking through the Navy records on the case it seems this may have been exaggerated somewhat by the media, as one Navy spokesman is on record having said of the ball’s purported strange ability to rove about on its own:
I believe it's because of the construction of the house... It's old and has uneven stone floors. The ball is almost perfectly balanced, and it takes just a little indentation to make it move or change direction.
So what are we to believe? What was this thing? It seems this story has been muddied, twisted, and warped through retellings and a clear lack of information, leaving us merely scratching or heads. Perhaps an even more important question we should be asking ourselves is just where did this thing go? It was all over the news for a time and then just disappears? How can that be? Conspiracy theories say that the military or NASA had it whisked away, while others say the family got tired of all of the attention and hid it away from the world, but we really have no idea what the truth is. In the end the only way to know whether this was truly some sort of alien probe or piece of technology would be to study that sphere, and that seems to not be happening any time soon. Whatever it was, the Betz Sphere will likely remain a mystery for a long time to come.
We are left to wonder. Have there been mysterious alien objects dropped off or left behind on Earth? Is the ultimate physical evidence out there somewhere, or is this all just smoke, mirrors, and hoaxes? At the moment there has been no known conclusive evidence that aliens have left anything behind here on our planet, but there continue to be stories such as these. What are we to make of them? Is there any truth to any of these or not? It remains unknown.
The Roswell "UFO"Affair: A Plausible Reason for a "Secret Experiment" and No Aliens Anywhwere
The Roswell "UFO"Affair: A Plausible Reason for a "Secret Experiment" and No Aliens Anywhwere
Nick Redfern
When it comes to the issue of what really happened on what was once known as the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico in early July 1947, there are things we know, things we suspect, and things we will probably never know. But, that something happened – something which caused the U.S. Air Force to offer multiple explanations for the event – is not a matter of any doubt at all. It was an incident that clearly concerned elements of not just the military, but the government, too, and to a highly significant degree. Eye-witnesses – both military and civilian – were warned not to talk about what they had seen and / or heard. More than a few of those warnings crossed the line and can only accurately be described as death threats. People were plunged into states of fear. Lives were changed forever; even scarred. Some lives may have ended; as in terminated.
It was on July 8, 1947 that the strange event surfaced publicly. Associated Press (among many other news outlets) reported on the startling, then-breaking news: “The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chavez County. “The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”
The whole world was watching.
The story was quickly picked up, not just across the United States, but across the planet, too. In barely no time at all, however, the flying disc angle was blown out of the sky: the whole thing was nothing but a huge, embarrassing mistake. The materials found on the massive ranch – by rancher William Ware “Mack” Brazel – were not the remains of a disc, after all. What had really been found, and subsequently collected and brought to the Roswell Army Air Field, was weather-balloon debris. Or, so the military was careful to try and assure everyone. With Brazel at the time of the discovery – which had actually occurred days earlier – was a young boy named Dee Proctor. He would go on to be one of the most important people in the Roswell story. We also know for sure that three, key military men, all of whom were destined to become part and parcel of the Roswell affair, were also present at the ranch – and specifically before a veritable battalion was on-site and ordered to recover the massive amount of whatever-it-was. They were Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence-office of the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell; Captain Sheridan Cavitt, of the Counter-Intelligence Corps; and CIC Master Sergeant Lewis S. “Bill” Rickett. All three were at ground-zero. They all saw the wreckage. Years later Marcel would open up wide on the matter of the debris he saw and collected. Cavitt and Rickett may have seen more than debris. Way more. Possibly bodies, strange bodies. Brazel and little Dee may have seen one or more of those bodies, too.
When the media revealed the weather-balloon explanation, something amazing happened: Roswell was largely, and very quickly, forgotten. Granted, those implicated in the affair never forgot what they saw and experienced. But, the media certainly moved on to other things. Plus, back in 1947 there were no UFO research groups around to look into the case. The result? Aside from a few, occasional, brief references in books and magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, Roswell was for all intents and purposes dead and buried – which is precisely how those charged with keeping the disturbing secret wanted it. Things changed, however, in the mid-to-late 1970s. Both William Moore and Stanton Friedman were eagerly pursuing the Roswell story by then; it was a story that was slowly but surely destined to be resurrected. It was Friedman who found the now-elderly Jesse Marcel. The long-retired major had a most interesting story to tell:
“I saw a lot of wreckage but no complete machine. It had disintegrated before it hit the ground. The wreckage was scattered over an area about three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide. I was pretty well acquainted with most everything that was in the air at that time, both ours and foreign. I was also acquainted with virtually every type of weather-balloon or radar-tracking device being used by either the civilians or the military. What it was we didn’t know. We just picked up the fragments…it certainly wasn’t anything built by us.”
Mack Brazel’s son, Bill, would later say that what was found on the Foster Ranch was “…something on the order of tinfoil except that [it] wouldn’t tear…You could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. Quite pliable, but you couldn’t crease or bend it like ordinary metal. Almost like a plastic, but definitely metallic in nature.” When Friedman spoke with Bill Rickett, in 1985, the also-long-retired Counter-Intelligence Corps man revealed a few snippets of information on what happened, but practically froze like a deer caught in headlights when Friedman brought up the matter of bodies. It was clearly an issue Rickett had no intention of discussing – and he didn’t. As for Sheridan Cavitt, he proved to be one of the trickiest players in the entire story. He revealed very little of substance. On occasion, he even denied having ever been at Roswell or at the crash site. Cavitt may even have withheld what he knew of the incident when, in 1994, the Air Force came knocking on his front-door, wanting answers – as will become clear later on.
What was the real story?
Since the days of the late 1970s and the 1980s, Roswell has risen to stratospheric proportions. Researchers Kevin Randle, Don Schmitt, and Tom Carey have all investigated the mystery to significant degrees. They continue to do so. The Air Force and the Government Accountability Office have both published reports on the case. Numerous non-fiction books and novels, television documentaries, and a movie have been made on the world famous affair. The number of people who have spoken out about their knowledge of what happened – whether first-, second-, or third-hand – is now well into the hundreds. People talk of dead aliens, preserved corpses, the back-engineering of alien artifacts found on the Foster Ranch, secret files on the case, old B&W photographs taken at the crash site, and more – including even suspicious deaths. People murdered to keep the truth hidden? Maybe, yes. The stakes really could be that high – even decades later. The end for Roswell is nowhere in sight. Like fictional, Tokyo-trashing Godzilla, it’s an indestructible colossus. Or is it? Perhaps, Roswell is finally verging on collapse – at least, in terms of it being perceived as an extraterrestrial event. Welcome to the latest news on the Roswell-themed story that Ufology hates and which, back in 2005, made me public enemy number one.
Numerous pro-UFO books have been written on that certain, controversial incident which occurred on the Foster Ranch in early July 1947. It has become far better known as the Roswell UFO crash. Those aforementioned books include Roswell in the 21st Century by Kevin Randle, The Children of Roswell by Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William Moore, The UFO Crash at Roswell by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt, and Crash at Corona by Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner. As for the U.S. Air Force, it has now published two reports on Roswell – one in 1994 and the other in 1997. Neither report endorses the alien angle, which should surprise absolutely no-one. The conclusion of the USAF, today, is that the Roswell wreckage came not from a weather-balloon, as was claimed by the Air Force way back in July 1947, but from a huge “Mogul” balloon-array utilized to secretly monitor for Soviet atomic bomb tests in the latter part of the 1940s. As for the reports of alien bodies found at the crash site, it is the Air Force’s firm opinion that they were crash-test-dummies used in high-altitude parachute experiments. There is, however, another theory for what happened outside of Roswell in early July 1947. In some ways, it’s a theory that is more controversial than the idea that aliens crashed and died on the ranch.
In June 2005, Simon & Schuster published what is without doubt the most controversial book I have ever written. Its title: Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story. It’s a book which suggested that what crashed outside of Roswell, New Mexico in early July 1947 was not an alien spacecraft, after all, but one of a handful of definitively terrestrial vehicles which were secretly test-flown by the U.S. military, in various parts of New Mexico. And, all over the course of several, specific months in the year in which (a) the flying saucer was born, (b) the CIA was created, and (c) the passing of the National Security Act went ahead. We’re talking about 1947. All of the flights ended in disaster, and particularly so for the people on-board. This was something which ensured that the tales, revelations and rumors of more than a few “crashed flying saucers and dead aliens,” in the Land of Enchantment, and in the late-1940s, became intertwined and confused. To the extent that they are now popularly recognized under one banner, that of the “the Roswell incident.”
The overwhelming secrecy surrounding the flights was due to the fact that certain controversy-filled pacts had secretly been put into place. They were designed to allow a large number of German and Japanese scientists to avoid prosecution for their Second World War-era war-crimes. Instead, those scientists secretly went to work for the U.S. Government – and that included working on the craft that crashed to earth outside of Roswell, New Mexico and which led to the infamous legend of the UFO crash. Some of those craft were piloted. Others had human guinea-pigs on board – handicapped people – who were strapped into gondolas and lifted high into the sky by huge balloon arrays, chiefly to further expand the scope of controversial work in the field of high-altitude exposure and early rocketry.
In other words, had the truth of Roswell surfaced back then, the floodgates would almost certainly have opened wide, and the sinister treaty - with ardent Nazis and crazed Japanese scientists who had no qualms at all about using innocent people in nightmarish experiments - would have reared its ugly head. No-one in officialdom wanted that to happen, so it was a case of burying the dark and disturbing truth of the diabolical human experimentation among a mass of tales of aliens from other worlds, flying saucers, dummies, and spy-balloons. Destroy all of the records. Deny everything that needs denying. Silence those who know too much. Create as many false leads as possible. Couldn’t be done? As I write these words in 2017, I can say with confidence that that approach has worked all too well for the last seventy years. As for the timeline that my 2005 book described, it went like this:
(Nick Redfern) At the crash site of the Roswell event
During the latter stages of the Second World War, the Japanese military is working to perfect highly advanced balloons as weapons of war – to the extent that on June 4, 1945, a Japanese military spokesman states that their so-called Fugo balloon launches of the previous few months – balloons equipped with bombs and which result in a small number of fatalities on American soil - are merely the precursors for something far more dangerous, including large-scale attacks. The new balloons will be piloted by “death-defying” Japanese military personnel. The new balloons, American experts estimate, will be at least sixty feet in diameter and will be able to carry a pressurized gondola containing four relatively small men to a height of around 30,000 feet as the balloons travel upon their stratospheric, four-day flights across the Pacific to the United States. Similarly, declassified FBI, CIA, Air Force and British Government memoranda reveals that in the same time frame, the Germans are actively pursuing several new and novel aviation-based projects, including the construction of circular- and elliptical-shaped aircraft – a number of which are based upon the groundbreaking work of Walter and Reimar Horten, aviation geniuses who worked for the Nazis on a number of revolutionary aircraft designs.
In addition, extensive wartime research is conducted by the Japanese Government’s Unit 731 – which performed unforgivable medical atrocities on captured people - and by Nazi scientists in the extremely controversial area of human experimentation. A large body of that same experimentation is devoted to better understanding the effects of high-altitude exposure on human beings and is undertaken, in part, on physically handicapped individuals. At the close of hostilities, scientific, aviation and medical experts from Japan and Germany are secretly brought to the United States – via a secret project called Paperclip and its Japanese equivalent – where human experimentation and advanced aircraft research continues unabated and under just about the strictest security possible. President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments notes in the 1990s: “At least 1,600 scientists and their dependents were recruited and brought to the United States by Paperclip and its successor projects through the early 1970s.”
“The ACHRE also notes with respect to the time period in question that a number of potentially important collections could not be located and were evidently lost or destroyed. Similarly, the Committee reveals, a number of those same document collections related to experiments undertaken in the fields of biomedicine, defense and space exploration; and in the great majority of these cases only fragmentary data remained. Where programs were legitimately kept secret for national security reasons, states the Committee, the government often did not create or maintain adequate records, thereby preventing the public, and those most at risk, from learning the facts in a timely and complete fashion.” In the aftermath of the War, a number of military research sites recruit Paperclip scientists with backgrounds in aero-medicine, radiobiology and ophthalmology. Those sites include the Air Force’s School of Aviation Medicine - from where experiments into total-body irradiation, space medicine, space biology and flash-blindness are undertaken - and the New Mexico-based White Sands Proving Ground. The latter becomes home to the V2 rockets developed by – and captured from - Nazi Germany during the War.
In addition, at the same time that the Paperclip personnel are actively being brought to the United States, the Air Force’s Aero Medical Center gives its top priority to the translation of manuscripts providing a complete picture of German aviation medicine. Further advances are made in the field of aviation in post-war America: the Air Force awards to the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation a contract that establishes Fairchild as the responsible agency of the NEPA nuclear aircraft project; and the Holloman Balloon Branch, Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, eventually goes on to become a recognized component of the space-race, via its involvement in what is known as the Discoverer program. Then, on July 1, 1947 – just a couple of days before the Foster Ranch incident happened - Major Curtis E. LeMay, Major General, U.S. Army, Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development, orders that research into the biological effects of radiation on Japanese individuals should begin.
In the summer of 1947 and against this backdrop of (a) secret tests on human subjects, (b) revolutionary aircraft- and secret balloon-based programs, and (c) an influx of senior scientific, medical and aviation experts into the United States from Japan and Germany, a series of events and accidents occur on and near the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, and which lead to the deliberate creation of cover-stories concerning crashed saucers and dead E.T.s. Witnesses at several crash sites report seeing the remains of unusual-looking aircraft and small bodies, some with enlarged, bald heads, and Asian or “Oriental”-like features. On August 19, 1947, FBI Special Agent S. W. Reynolds informs the Bureau’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, that in a meeting with a Lieutenant Colonel George D. Garrett, the latter expresses his firm belief that “the flying discs” originate with a highly classified experiment of the Army or Navy. Alien, they are not, the FBI is told.
In the immediate wake of the Roswell affair, Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico – and a wartime expert on the Fugo balloons, no less – becomes deeply embroiled in the Roswell controversy; the ramifications of the Nuremberg Code begin to reverberate and rumble within the United States; and, as the November 3, 1947 issue of the Biology Division Bulletin of the Clinton National Laboratory reveals, staff take an active interest in experimentation undertaken to determine the effect of radioactive iodine on dwarfs and those afflicted with Progeria - a syndrome that results in a small stature, an enlarged, bald-head and on occasion extra fingers and toes – go ahead. Add to that the testimony of a number of elderly whistleblowers who I interviewed extensively in the early 2000s, and who chose to reveal the absolute darkest side of post-war history and secrecy, and what you have is the story told in my book. Terrible and wholly unethical experiments, rather than the bad flying skills of extraterrestrials, were at the heart of what many believe to be the most important UFO case of all.
The interviews conducted with my elderly sources began sixteen years ago, and more than a decade has now gone by since the book was published. Those sources were Al Barker, Bill Salter (both of whom worked in the field of intelligence and espionage and who were in their early eighties when I spoke with them), a retired military man who I referred to as the Colonel, and an elderly woman I called the Black Widow, and who was in her late seventies when I interviewed her in the summer of 2001. In the period since Body Snatchers in the Desert surfaced and provoked a wealth of anger, dismay and even – in some quarters – shattered dreams and crushed hopes, far more relevant information has surfaced. The picture it paints is decidedly bleak. It adds significantly to what we know of Roswell and what occurred, rather than what so many want to believe or wish happened, on that famous day back in July 1947.
I didn’t just write this book to share with you the latest news on the story that suggests aliens didn’t crash at Roswell. I also wrote it to correct some significant misconceptions. For example, when Body Snatchers in the Desert surfaced, time and time again I saw it referred to as “Nick Redfern’s theory,” or as “Nick Redfern’s story.” The implication was that I was the only one who was looking into this particular angle – or who had ever looked into it. This was, however, a major misrepresentation of the facts. People still repeat that mistake today. Part of the reason why I have chosen to write the sequel to Body Snatchers in the Desert is to demonstrate that – contrary to what some might say - numerous people and sources within Ufology have uncovered near-identical data to that which I was exposed to. In that sense, I am far from being a lone wolf. There is an entire pack of us. Also,by now you may well think I am a UFO skeptic; I can totally see why you might think that. But, I’m not a UFO skeptic; not in the slightest. I have seen enough, heard enough, experienced enough, and investigated enough to know that there is a very real UFO phenomenon in our midst. It is a phenomenon that is deeply interested in us, as a species, but which is determined to remain steadfastly in the shadows. Yes, UFOs are real. I just don’t think one crashed in the U.S. southwest in the summer of 1947.
Moving into the 1970s and the 1980s, we have three very intriguing stories from John A. Price, of the Roswell-based UFO Enigma Museum, and the author of a 1997 non-fiction book, Roswell: A Quest for the Truth. On one particular day in 1978, Price – who was employed as a roofer at the time - was working outside on a particular property in Hagerman. It’s a town situated approximately twenty-four miles from Roswell. The property held a number of handicapped children – this much was clear to Price, as several such children exited the property and stood on the patio, watching him as he worked. He thought “this must be a home for the mentally impaired.” That was not all, however. Price had more to say: “Suddenly, I almost choked on my coffee as two more children, or at least I think they were children, walked out and stood behind the others.” According to Price, they were all around four- to four-and-a-half-feet in height. They had oversized, hairless heads, and their ears and noses were noticeably smaller than normal for a young child. Things came to a sudden end when, Price recalls, “a lady came to the door and ushered the kids back into the house.” He did not see them again.
More than a decade later, Price received a letter from “an acquaintance” who he had known for some time. Price said: “In the letter he told me that the aliens I was looking for were at Fort Stanton.” For those who may not know, Fort Stanton was an installation which, during the Second World War, held a number of Japanese “enemy aliens,” and which is barely spitting distance away from the Foster Ranch. We will learn a great deal more about Fort Stanton’s wartime Japanese connections in later chapters – as well as its links to Roswell. In the meantime, back to Price. Price’s source told him that at some undisclosed point, “There were some pretty deformed young men there, several of which could be of alien nature. We only went by what we were told; please don’t tell anyone. Mongoloid large heads, small ears, pin heads who could function and had shrill voices. They were supposed to be of incest, but from their looks – Outer-space.” Price took the story seriously, and mused on the possibility that the government may have grabbed handicapped people who had “no paper trail, no social security number, and no traceable family connections.”
Nightmarish? No doubt. Right on target? That depends on the extent of your “I want to believe” factor. Someone else who suspected that Roswell could be explained in down to earth – rather than alien – fashion was yet another acquaintance of Price. His name was Robert Betz, an engineer who, prior to his retirement, had been contracted to various corporations to perform certain, sensitive work. Price said, “Robert was convinced that the Roswell crash could be explained away as a top secret project of flying saucer design and that the bodies were midgets.”
The late Leonard Stringfield, who passed away in 1994, was a UFO researcher who firmly believed that, since the 1940s, the U.S. Government had secretly recovered a number of crashed UFOs and dead aliens, and which were stored and preserved a variety of military bases across the country – many at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Stringfield, too, however, was given a number of accounts relative to the issue of secret and shocking human experimentation on handicapped people; experimentation that was tied in with the Roswell affair.
One of those stories came to Stringfield from a highly controversial figure in Ufology. His name was Timothy Cooper, a resident of Big Bear Lake, California and someone who exited the field of UFO research years ago. Far more than a few people in Ufology have very little time for Cooper, suspecting that many of the documents he supplied to the UFO community in the mid-1990s were bogus, rather than the highly classified papers that they were purported to be. They were bogus; there is no doubt about that. But, Cooper himself was not the forger. It’s the “pre-documents” era we have to take a look at, however. It paints a very different picture of Cooper to that which many ufologists have accepted.
Tim Cooper claimed to Stringfield in 1990 that he had numerous sources of the old-timer kind – some of who assured Cooper that, yes, aliens really did crash outside of Roswell in the summer of 1947. Others, however, quietly hinted to Cooper that the truth was far more controversial: a scenario involving human guinea-pigs – Japanese and handicapped individuals - and the creation of UFO-themed disinformation programs and faked, pro-UFO documents to hide the down-to-earth truth of the Roswell enigma. Also in 1990, Cooper supplied Stringfield one specific story which Stringfield decided to firmly keep under wraps until the following year, 1991, when he published it in a lengthy report on tales of crashed and secretly retrieved alien spacecraft. The story concerned a woman who Cooper first crossed paths with in 1989. He described her only as a nurse, and gave her the pseudonym of “Mary.” As you will soon see soon, that alias was not too far off from the real name of another nurse linked to the story. Decades ago, Cooper’s informant allegedly worked at what is, today, the New Mexico-based Los Alamos National Laboratory.
In Cooper’s own words of 1990, and which Stringfield published: “She casually mentioned to me over coffee that ‘bodies’ were being flown to Los Alamos periodically from late 1945 to sometime in 1947. I asked her if she had seen these ‘bodies’ and she said no, but others had. I asked her where these ‘bodies’ were coming from. She said she did not know but it was rumored that they were human experiments for biological and nuclear medicine research. She thought they may have come from Japan after the war. I asked her why she thought that. She said that they were small bodies with deformed heads and limbs. The eyes were abnormally big, she was told. She did have some view of them in the morgue very briefly for a few minutes at some distance. I asked her why she was allowed to be present at the autopsies. She told me that she was asked to assist in the preparation and cleanup. I asked her again about the bodies. She said they were being flown in on special transport planes equipped with refrigerator units to keep the bodies from decomposing. The flesh was badly burned and charred. There was no hair on the heads and had a grayish-yellow color. That’s all she knew.” But, I think I know: a secret military experiment that went disastrous. And it was all hidden under an "alien" angle
Get the popcorn ready as we wrap up this year's most hotly debated science stories.
A person silhouetted against a projection of the ozone hole above Antarctica, which was the subject of a controversial study this year. (Image credit: NASA/Windfall Films)
There are stories you expect to ruffle some feathers — we're looking at you, aliens — and then there are the ones we never thought would kick up a storm. This year, scientists surprised us with claims of successful room temperature superconductivity, reported sightings of long-extinct species and alternative theories to the origin of humankind. We've not missed out on juicy UFO content either, so without further ado, here's our pick of the most controversial science stories in 2023.
1. UFO and 'alien mummy' Congress hearings
A journalist unveiled two "alien mummies" in front of Mexico's congress earlier this year. (Image credit: Daniel Cardenas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
In May, Congress held its first public hearing on UFOs since the 1960s to discuss 144 reported sightings of mysterious objects. During the hearings, two military officials were questioned about their knowledge of the unexplained phenomena. The May hearing was followed by another in July, in which three military witnesses claimed evidence of non-human technologies was being hidden from the public. All three witnesses said it's possible unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) are being launched by aliens interested in America's nuclear capabilities, testing for
Mexico had its own extraterrestrial matters to deal with, after a journalist unveiled two "alien" bodies before the country's congress in September. Together with a military medical doctor, the journalist, Jaime Maussan, claimed that DNA tests showed the bodies were non-human but not necessarily extraterrestrial. Scientists rallied to refute these claims and debunk them.
2. 'Anomalous' metal spheres
A prominent scientists claimed metal spherules like this one may have an extraterrestrial origin. (Image credit: Avi Loeb/ Medium)
This year, a prominent Harvard astrophysicist claimed that more than 50 "anomalous" metal spheres pulled from the Pacific Ocean could be the work of intelligent aliens. Avi Loeb claimed the tiny pellets likely fell into the ocean in 2014, when a fireball shot across the sky above Papua New Guinea. Loeb argued the blazing object could be a relic from another star system and might harbor traces of alien technology.
In November, several studies found that the metal spheres are more likely a by-product of burning coal and therefore probably come from industrial pollution on Earth. Loeb refuted these results in a blog post on Nov. 15. He argued that coal is non-magnetic and could not have been picked up by the instruments he used to dredge the pellets from the ocean. He noted that 93% of the collected samples have not yet been analyzed and cautioned that scientists should not jump to conclusions.
3. Tasmanian tigers prowling the wilderness
The last known Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died in captivity in 1936. (Image credit: Popperfoto / Contributor via Getty Images)
Based on reported sightings since 1910, researchers suggested in March that Tasmanian tigers (Thylacinus cynocephalus) survived in the wild until the 1980s and may still be prowling the Tasmanian wilderness today. These marsupials were thought to have gone extinct in 1936, when the last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity, but the researchers estimated the earliest date for extinction was in the mid-1950s — that is, if the species did go extinct.
However, the study was met with skepticism, as the findings were based solely on reported sightings of Tasmanian tigers. No carcass was ever found to suggest the species persisted in the wild, experts told Live Science, and the resemblance between Tasmanian tigers and dogs means people who reported sightings could easily have been mistaken.
4. Contentious Brazilian dinosaur fossils
A reconstruction of what Irritator challengeri may have looked like after a controversial study suggested the dinosaurs fed like pelicans. (Image credit: Olof Moleman/Universität Greifswald)
In May, paleontologists criticized a team of researchers in Europe after they published a study on 115 million-year-old dinosaur fossils that had been unearthed by commercial diggers in Brazil then sold and shipped to Germany. The specimens belong to a carnivorous species related to Spinosaurus known as Irritator challengeri, which the new study suggests scooped up prey like a pelican.
The study authors thought the fossils legally belonged to Germany, as they arrived there before 1990, after which time Brazil began restricting scientific exports to other countries. But an older 1942 law states that Brazilian fossils are federal property and cannot be sold, meaning the fossils may have been stolen. Paleontologists, including the authors, agreed the fossils should be returned to Brazil.
5. Semiconductor furore
A study published this summer claiming to have made a room temperature superconductor sparked a frenzy. (Image credit: University of Rochester / J. Adam Fenster)
This summer, researchers in South Korea claimed they made a superconductor at room temperatures and pressures, sparking a flurry of attempts to replicate the results. If verifiable, the discovery of a material able to carry electricity in everyday temperatures and without electrical resistance would open new technological windows.
But other experts cautioned the published work was sloppy and not peer-reviewed. When they tried to replicate the findings, none of the materials they created yielded identical results to LK-99, the South Korean team's superconductor. Subsequent publicized attempts have also proven unsuccessful. Regardless of the outcome for LK-99, the announcement gave rise to meaningful discussions on social media and elsewhere about an area of science unfamiliar to the general public.
6. Hominin fossils in space
Fossils of ancient human relatives traveled to the edge of space in this tube. (Image credit: Virgin Galatic)
In September, a Virgin Galactic space flight took off from Earth with priceless and extremely contentious cargo: the fragmentary remains of two of our ancient relatives, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi. South African-born billionaire Timothy Nash carried the hominin fossils to the edge of space in a cigar-shaped tube, causing an uproar in the scientific community.
The permit to take the fossils on the flight, which was approved by the South African Heritage Resources Agency, said the goal of the mission was to promote science and bring global recognition to human origins research in South Africa. But experts criticized the undertaking because it lacked a scientific purpose, especially as a malfunction could have destroyed the fossils. Critics also noted the trip raised ethical issues surrounding the respect for human ancestral remains and tainted the image of paleoanthropological research.
7. Antarctica's ozone hole
A study that found the ozone hole over Antarctica is not healing as fast as we thought came under fire this year. (Image credit: ESA/Copernicus Sentinel data (2023)/processed by CAMS/ECMWF)
A study that claimed the ozone hole above Antarctica is not recovering as fast as we thought and could be getting bigger came under fire in November, with experts criticizing the methodology and accusing the authors of cherry-picking data.
The conclusion that the concentration of ozone at the center of Antarctica's ozone hole decreased by 26% between 2001 and 2022 omitted several factors — including three consecutive years of La Niña from 2020 to 2022, massive wildfires that raged in Australia during 2020 and water vapor from Tonga's huge eruption in 2022 — that would explain why the past few years have been unusual, experts told Live Science. Experts also questioned the authors' decision to exclude two years' worth of data, which they argued would have skewed the results.
Overall, experts said, the results were unrealistic and useless to infer much about global ozone recovery trends.
8. Alternative origin story
Fossils that led to the discovery of a newfound ape and human ancestor, Anadoluvius turkae.(Image credit: Sevim-Erol, A., Begun, D.R., Sözer, Ç.S. et al., University of Toronto, EurekAlert)
A newly identified ape fossil from an 8.7 million-year-old site in Turkey led scientists to posit that hominines — a group that includes humans, the African apes and their fossil ancestors (and different from hominins, which comprise species belonging to the human lineage after it diverged from the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos) — first evolved in Europe. This deviates from the conventional view that hominines originated exclusively in Africa and suggests members of this group dispersed to Africa from the Mediterranean instead.
But paleontologists pointed out that comprehensive analyses of great ape and early human relative fossils do not support this argument. It's also possible that the newfound species, Anadoluvius turkae, migrated to the Mediterranean from Africa after evolving there, rather than the other way round, experts told Live Science. Fossils like these are sparse in the African fossil record, and while that doesn't mean hominines weren't there, it does raise questions about where the group first evolved, they added.
9. Netflix documentary under scrutiny
A digital reconstruction of Homo naledi, an ancient human relative that lived about 300,000 years ago.(Image credit: Foto24 / Contributor via Getty Images)
Homo naledi — an ancient human relative that lived about 300,000 years ago — became a lightning rod for controversy earlier this year after a research team claimed the extinct hominins deliberately buried their dead and engraved rocks. These complex behaviors, for which there was "no convincing scientific evidence," were featured in the hit Netflix documentary "Unknown: Cave of Bones" (2023), which was released just days after the claims were published in the journal eLife.
The findings could be substantiated one day, experts told Live Science, but there is currently no strong evidence to support the idea that hominins with orange-size brains could perform behaviors only known in species with much larger brains, such as modern humans. The team behind the claims responded to reviewers' comments, but it's unlikely their words will be the last in this debate.
10. 'Curse tablet' or fishing weight?
A folded lead tablet discovered in the West Bank has come under scrutiny after researchers said it showed inscriptions. (Image credit: ABR/Michael C. Luddeni)
A postage stamp-size piece of lead was discovered in the West Bank in 2019, and this year, some researchers found that it carried the earliest-known inscription of the name of the Israelite god Yahweh. The authors of the original paper called the artifact a "curse tablet," based on their interpretation of the markings as calling on Yahweh to curse his enemies. But others are not convinced, because they think it shows no words and might actually be a fishing weight.
The controversial lead tablet bore no inscriptions on the inside, critics told Live Science, just indentations caused by weathering. The tablet closely resembles weights commonly used for fishing or birding nets during the time the tablet was dated to, between 1400 and 1200 B.C.
The original researchers responded to critics by saying they are confident there is writing on the tablet and are working on a second paper detailing inscriptions on the folded tablet's exterior.
Bemused netizens reported seeing the bizarre occurrence, 'dancing' in the sky, as early as December 24, but were left without answers until recently.
The lights were seen high above the trees in Milan, reported since at least December 24
In the end, the truth was the simplest explanation. The lightshow was emanating from a 20,000 square-metre (215,278.21 sq-ft) Christmas village in the city.
Situated near CityLife, a residential and commercial hub in the city, the Christmas village is a huge attraction featuring a food hall, a skating rink and themed activites.
The lights in the sky were, in fact, powerful lasers projected onto the sky from the event in the Allianz MiCo.
'Il Parco di Natale' claims to be the biggest of its kind in Italy, running the whole month from December 7 until January 7.
It hosts stunning light displays, including the Star Cloud, a 'veritable suspended wave of brilliant lights that shimmer as you pass by' and brightly-lit laser performances, seen online.
The city of Milan was seen lit up with fantastic festive effects this month, presenting spectacular lightshows around the city in the run up to Christmas.
In September, mystery lights were seen in the sky above Morocco before the country was hit by a devastating earthquake, similarly leaving onlookers confused.
Blue lights were seen flashing above Agadir at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, hours before the 6.8 magnitude tremor struck.
The clips could not be verified - but some speculated they could be 'earthquake lights', a rare phenomenon believed to take place in times of seismic stress.
There is no clear consensus on what causes earthquake lights, but there have been reports of them appearing in the sky before tremors since 869ad.
Christmas decorations in Milan, Italy on December 6 as the city bustled with tourists
Rowers paddle as Christmas lights illuminate the Naviglio Grande canal, in Milan, December 14
Like the lights in Milan, reports say they are shaped like auroras with a white-bluish colour.
Some were caught on camera during the 2022 Fukushima earthquake, seen from various angles.
Earthquake lights were also filmed during the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake, which left thousands dead in February.
Former head of Great Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) Nick Pope said Friday that many UFO/UAP investigations were stopped in the 1990s over fears of “demonic forces.”
Pope led the MOD from 1991 to 1994, and claimed that the former chief of defense staff Lord Hill-Norton stopped investigating UFO sightings across the country after being told by a priest that these could be demonic entities, according to a Metro interview with Pope. And apparently, similar fears are prevalent within the U.S. government.
“It’s counter-intuitive that some official resistance to taking UAP seriously comes not from hard-nosed science-minded sceptics who think studying the subject is a waste of government time and money, but from a faction that believes UAP are real — but demonic,” Pope told Metro. “This stems in part from a biblical description of Satan as being ‘the prince of the power of the air’ — a quotation from the book of Ephesians.”
Actually, I think Pope is totally wrong on this one. The reason some people think UFOs are demonic entities is largely due to the Book of Enoch, which claims God sent his angels to Earth to protect humans, but eventually the two being interbred and created a violent race of giants. God sent the Great Flood to destroy these offspring, but some say they survived.
Other rumors suggest that UFOs/UAPs are actually human, but a far more advanced and spiritual type of human. “The thinking seems to be that if UFOs are some sort of demonic manifestation, engaging with it feeds them, by giving them energy, and should therefore be avoided,” Pope continued in his analysis. “This was likely to have been a factor in something reported by Pentagon UFO investigator Luis Elizondo. He said that when trying to get a senior defence official engaged on the subject, he was rebuffed by the officer, who told him to go and read his bible.”
Whatever these alien-like creatures are, they definitely seem to like the British archipelago. Some of the most intricate and totally unexplainable crop circles have popped up all over the Great British countryside, and one of the most notable UFO incidents in history occurred in Rendlesham Forest in England back in the 1980s.
I was looking over the on-line Google Mars map and found an area of interest. In this location the photo is color and not infrared, and also NASA has not edited this area of the map very well. There are a lot of structures near the shadows of mountains and along the tops of craters. These structures are so well lit up that we can see they are solid objects on the surface. One such crater with a structure on the side shows a shadow that matches the buildings. This particular crater is 100% proof that these buildings are actually there and not mistakes in the photo development process. I open the video with that crater, so you will see it right away if you are interested in it. Remember this is not the downloaded Google Mars map, but the on-line smaller version. You must hit the infrared button on the far upper right of the screen to see it. SCW
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AI is going to change more than people ever expected, it's going to change the people themselves forever. UFO Sighting News.
AI is going to change more than people ever expected, it's going to change the people themselves forever. UFO Sighting News.
You know, I've been thinking a lot about AI lately. It seems there are over 20 AI already developed and being tested by big corporations. How long until AI comes to the conclusion that 50% of the planet already knows? Alien evidence has been hidden from the public to keep humanity in the dark and keep the military at an advantage.
You see, AI is kinda smart right now, it can write pages, even books one page at a time. It can do a kids homework, it can write news articles and calculate gravitational pulls of moons and planets at specific times of the year. But it can also surf the internet for knowledge as many of the AI will soon be cut loose to do. That is the only way AI can grow faster than its competitors AI. By suffering the net it can gather enough knowledge to confirm without a doubt that aliens exist and have existed for tens of thousands of years or more. The evidence is all around us, all there in black and white, carved in stone hieroglyphs across the planet, its not like its a coincidence that human civilizations all created pyramids at roughly the same moment in time.
But the question is, if AI does conclude such things, when will aliens themselves come out for all to see? That is a harder question, because it does not follow the rules of our human culture, but follows rules of one or more alien cultures. How aliens will do things could be so opposite to how humans do it that it will see...well...alien.
Some things to think about that may be different are:
Aliens might not have religion. They might view human religion as we now view archaic greek or mythology gods.
How the universe was created. Humans still cling to the big bang, because we have nothing else, but lets face it, its flawed in so many ways.
They might not have many countries, but instead have a planet ruled by a single form of gov, or have no need for a gov at all.
Aliens might not like wearing cloths, washing themselves or eating in front of others.
Aliens might want to eat humans more than socialize with them.
Aliens might view humans as we view monkeys. Do you want to hang out with the monkeys? It gets boring fast.
Needless to say, AI is going to change not just what we know to be fact, but also change the way we see the world around us...our perceptual field. Its like we are going to put on some new glasses very soon and for a while its going to look blurry and confusing, then as we get use to it, it will be normal again, just different normal.
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Unveiling the Mysteries: America’s UFO Secrets and Sightings
Unveiling the Mysteries: America’s UFO Secrets and Sightings
For decades, the skies above the United States have been a canvas for the inexplicable and the unidentifiable. From the shimmering deserts of Nevada to the bustling streets of New York City, tales of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have woven themselves into the very fabric of American lore. These mysterious sightings, often dismissed and ridiculed, have nonetheless persisted, capturing the imagination of believers and skeptics alike. But what is the truth behind America’s UFO secrets, and why do these sightings continue to fascinate and perplex us?
Historical Echoes and Modern Mysteries
The history of UFO sightings in America is as old as the nation itself, with reports dating back to the early colonial days. However, the modern fascination began in earnest in the mid-20th century, when a flurry of sightings occurred post-World War II. This era birthed the term “flying saucers” and saw the infamous Roswell incident, which remains a touchstone for conspiracy theorists. As the Cold War deepened, so too did the mystery surrounding these aerial anomalies, with many attributing them to secret military technology or extraterrestrial visitors.
In recent years, the conversation has shifted from fringe conspiracy to a matter of legitimate inquiry. Declassified documents and high-profile testimonials have given credibility to the study of UFOs, now more commonly referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). The establishment of official investigative bodies, such as the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force, signifies a seismic shift in how seriously these sightings are taken.
Analyzing the Evidence: From Anecdotes to Analytics
The evidence for UFO sightings in America is as varied as it is compelling. Amateur footage and eyewitness accounts form the bulk of this, depicting erratic lights, impossible maneuvers, and speeds that defy known aviation technology. Skeptics argue that these are merely misidentifications of conventional objects or atmospheric phenomena, yet some cases remain stubbornly unexplainable.
Advanced technology has also played a role in capturing these enigmatic events. Military pilots equipped with state-of-the-art imaging systems have recorded encounters with objects that challenge our understanding of physics and flight. These accounts lend a credibility to the phenomenon that personal anecdotes cannot, suggesting that whatever is out there, it warrants scientific and governmental attention.
The Cultural Impact: From Fear to Fascination
America’s UFO sightings have had a profound impact on popular culture, inspiring movies, books, and television shows. They tap into our deepest fears and greatest hopes, embodying the unknown and the otherworldly. But beyond entertainment, these stories serve a deeper purpose. They challenge our perceptions of reality and our place in the cosmos. They remind us that, despite our advancements, there are still mysteries out there waiting to be solved.
As we stand on the brink of a new era of space exploration and scientific discovery, UFO sightings remain a captivating mystery. They prompt us to ask bigger questions about our universe and ourselves. With advances in technology and a growing openness among the scientific community, the next chapter in America’s UFO narrative is poised to be the most exciting yet. Perhaps, in time, the secrets of the skies will be revealed, and the truth behind these elusive phenomena will finally come to light.
Bestaat Nessie echt? Duik in het mysterie van het monster van Loch Ness In een verrassende gang van zaken hebben wetenschappers het bestaan van Nessie als ‘plausibel’ bestempeld nadat ze gefossiliseerde plesiosaurusbeenderen in een Afrikaanse rivierbedding hadden ontdekt. Eerder werd aangenomen dat deze zeereptielen met lange nek, die lijken op het mythische monster van Loch Ness, uitsluitend in zout water leefden. Zou Nessie een levend overblijfsel uit het dinosaurustijdperk kunnen zijn? Voorlopig is er niets noemenswaardigs gevonden. Het mysterie rond het kolossale wezen van het meer blijft bestaan, en de twijfels over het bestaan van het monster blijven bestaan.
Benieuwd naar de mythe rond het ‘monster van Loch Ness’? Klik dan op de galerij!
De ontdekking Een team van wetenschappers heeft gefossiliseerde overblijfselen van plesiosauriërs, kleine zeereptielen met lange nek, gevonden in een 100 miljoen jaar oud riviersysteem in de Sahara. Deze ontdekking heeft de speculatie doen herleven over de mogelijkheid dat het monster van Loch Ness meer is dan alleen een fictief verhaal.
Sahara woestijn De fossielen werden ontdekt in de Sahara-woestijn van Marokko. De bevinding suggereert dat deze reptielen niet alleen in zoutwater- maar ook in zoetwateromgevingen hebben gewoond, in tegenstelling tot eerdere opvattingen.
"Aannemelijk" Britse wetenschappers hebben de mogelijkheid van het bestaan van een monster van Loch Ness in het verleden als ‘plausibel’ beschouwd vanwege een verbazingwekkende ontdekking.
Wat zijn ze? Plesiosaurussen, een groep zeereptielen, ontstonden ongeveer 230 miljoen jaar geleden. Deze opmerkelijke waterdinosaurussen floreerden tijdens het Jura-tijdperk en vertoonden zowel een enorme omvang als een indrukwekkende behendigheid.
Top roofdier Plesiosaurussen zagen er intimiderend uit als een toproofdier in de oceanen, die snel grote prooien achtervolgden en verslonden. Hoewel de zoetwaterclassificatie niet eerder aan hen was toegewezen, trekt een recente ontdekking deze overtuiging in twijfel.
Een zoetwatermonster? Wetenschappers heroverwegen de mogelijkheid van een 'monsterbewoner' in het zoetwater Loch Ness in Schotland vanwege recente Noord-Afrikaanse fossiele ontdekkingen.
Loch Ness Loch Ness ligt in de Schotse Hooglanden, ten zuidwesten van Inverness. Het is een uitgestrekte watervlakte met een lengte van ongeveer 37 km, met een diepste punt van 230 m (755 ft). Legenden over een wezen dat in de diepte rondspookt, zijn terug te voeren op de oudheid en de verhalen die door de Pictische volkeren werden verteld.
Oorsprong van de ijstijd De vorming van het meer vond plaats als gevolg van gletsjerprocessen in de Great Glen meer dan 10.000 jaar geleden, aan het einde van de laatste ijstijd. De Great Glen-breuk ontstond ongeveer 400 miljoen jaar geleden.
Initiële skeletten van plesiosaurussen De Engelse fossielenverzamelaar Mary Anning (1799–1847) deed in 1826 een baanbrekende vondst: ze ontdekte twee bijna complete skeletten van plesiosaurussen, de eerste die ooit werden aangetroffen! De afbeelding toont het waardevolle notitieboekje waarin Anning haar opmerkelijke ontdekkingen documenteerde.
Natuurlijk geschiedenismuseum De opmerkelijke ontdekking van Mary Anning, een skelet van een plesiosaurus, wordt nu permanent tentoongesteld in het Natural History Museum in Londen.
Plesiosaurus-fossielen Deskundigen zijn verbaasd over de bevindingen in Marokko. De indrukwekkende collectie omvat botten en tanden van volwassen individuen met een lengte van 3 meter, evenals een armbeen van een baby van 1,5 meter lang. De omstandigheden rond hun ontdekking op de rivierbedding in het Krijt-tijdperk blijven echter onverklaard.
Zoetwater- en zeewatertolerant? Nieuwe bevindingen uit de Sahara hebben paleontologen ertoe aangezet de habitat van bepaalde soorten waarvan voorheen werd aangenomen dat ze uitsluitend marien waren, te heroverwegen. Er wordt nu verondersteld dat plesiosauriërs het opmerkelijke vermogen hadden om te overleven in zowel zoet- als zoutwateromgevingen.
Aquatische dinosaurussen Onderzoekers geven aan dat de plesiosaurus in zoet water leefde en zich voedde, naast kikkers, krokodillen, schildpadden, vissen en andere waterdinosaurussen.
Spinosaurus Spinosaurus leefde ongeveer 99 miljoen jaar geleden in het huidige Noord-Afrika. Ondanks dat het een enorm landroofdier was, bezat het semi-aquatische neigingen en dook hij in het ondiepe water om vissen en andere zeedieren te vangen als aanvulling op zijn dieet.
Nothosaurus Nothosaurus, een zwemmend reptiel uit het Trias, leefde van vis en inktvis. Zodra de Nothosaurus zijn prooi onder water had gevangen, kwam hij weer boven water om stenen en kustlijnen te verslinden.
Ceratosaurus Ceratosaurus, een vleesetende dinosaurus uit het Jura-tijdperk, staat bekend om zijn snuithoorns. Op deze afbeelding zien we er een die in een rivier waadt terwijl hij op waterdieren zoals vissen jaagt.
Zouden Plesiosauriërs in Loch Ness kunnen overleven? Wetenschappers geloven dat het mogelijk is dat plesiosauriërs in zoet water hebben bestaan, wat de vraag doet rijzen of men in Loch Ness had kunnen gedijen.
Massale sterfte De theorie verliest enige geloofwaardigheid als gevolg van het uitsterven van plesiosaurussen, dat samenviel met de ondergang van dinosauriërs 66 miljoen jaar geleden. De recente fossiele ontdekking in Afrika heeft echter onverwachts de discussie over ‘Nessie’ weer doen oplaaien.
Waarnemingen Tijdens de jaren 1870 en 1880 waren er meerdere meldingen van een object dat het water bewoog en verstoorde, evenals de waarneming van een groot dier met korte poten dat uit Loch Ness tevoorschijn kwam. Deze observaties werden echter niet algemeen erkend. Niettemin begon in 1933 de legende van het monster van Loch Ness aan kracht te winnen.
Nessie op de foto? Op 2 Mei 1933 meldde de Inverness Courier dat een echtpaar beweerde "een groot wezen te hebben zien bewegen en duiken in het water" van het meer. Het was echter de foto die zogenaamd door Robert Kenneth Wilson was gemaakt en op 21 April 1934 in de Daily Mail werd gepubliceerd, die mensen echt fascineerde. Deze foto wordt algemeen erkend als de beroemdste afbeelding van het wezen dat bekend staat als het monster van Loch Ness.
Nessiemania In het begin van de jaren dertig verspreidde een rage genaamd Nessiemania zich over Groot-Brittannië. Op deze foto uit 1933 wordt een replica van het monster van Loch Ness voor de kerstperiode per aanhanger vervoerd naar Bertram Mills Circus in Olympia, Londen.
Aanvullend fotografisch bewijsmateriaal Het ongeïdentificeerde wezen kreeg al snel het label ‘Nessie’, wat leidde tot wijdverbreide fascinatie. Op deze foto uit 1954 voegt Urquhart Castle context toe, terwijl het vermeende monster in de buurt van het belangrijke monument lijkt te zwemmen.
Beroemdheidsstatus Nessie's bekendheid zorgde ervoor dat ze een beroemdheid werd. Deze foto uit 1969 toont een lid van het Loch Ness Monster Investigation Team dat ijverig het oppervlak van Loch Ness in de gaten houdt op tekenen van leven.
Wat ligt eronder? In 1969 bouwde een Amerikaan genaamd Dan Scott Taylor Jr. zijn eigen gele onderzeeër genaamd de "Viperfish" en maakte meerdere duiken naar de bodem van Loch Ness. Zijn doel was om te ontdekken welke mysteries eronder lagen, maar helaas heeft hij tijdens zijn expedities niets gevonden.
'Loch Ness' (1996) De televisieserie 'Loch Ness' concentreert zich op het familiedrama en bevat Ted Danson en Joely Richardson. De plot volgt Dr. Jonathan Dempsey (Danson), een wetenschapper die ernaar streeft bewijs te leveren voor het bestaan van het wezen.
Zinspelend als altijd Hier is de echte wetenschapper Thayne Smith Lowrance, in 1999 afgebeeld met een sonarapparaat tijdens een van zijn vele pogingen om het legendarische wezen te vinden. Maar Nessie bleek even zinspelend als altijd.
Werd Nessie gelokt door een paling? In 2019 was er een aankondiging die erop wees dat Nessie misschien wel een kolossale paling zou kunnen zijn. Onderzoek uitgevoerd naar het omgevings-DNA gevonden in Loch Ness bracht een aanzienlijke hoeveelheid paling-DNA aan het licht, zoals professor Neil Gemmell, een geneticus van de Universiteit van Otago (foto) beweert. Niettemin werd er geen bewijs voor het bestaan van een monster ontdekt.
Nessie gevonden! In het jaar 2016 werd een interessante ontdekking gedaan: de overblijfselen van een model dat het monster van Loch Ness afbeeldt uit de film 'The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes', gemaakt in 1970. Ingenieur John Haig, op de foto te zien, vond deze overblijfselen met behulp van een onderwaterrobot die kan worden ondergedompeld in Loch Ness.
Centrum en tentoonstelling van Loch Ness Toeristen die hopen op een Nessie-waarneming bij Loch Ness worden misschien teleurgesteld, maar ze kunnen nog steeds genieten van het unieke Loch Ness Centre & Exhibition in Drumnadrochit. Verrassend genoeg kun je zelfs een glimp opvangen van het legendarische wezen, dat gracieus poseert voor foto's!
Nostradamus, de bekende Franse apotheker, fysicus en ziener, schreef in 1555 zijn boek "De Profetieën", vol voorspellingen die nog altijd fel worden besproken. Die hebben ook betrekking op 2024.
De moord op John F. Kennedy, de opkomst van Adolf Hitler, de terreuraanvallen van 9/11 en zelfs de coronacrisis zouden tot zijn voorspellingen kunnen worden teruggebracht.
Ook voor het jaar 2024 heeft hij ook een aantal voorspellingen in zijn boek vermeld. Die gaan over China, paus Franciscus, de klimaatcrisis en koning Charles III, zo schrijft de New York Post.
Volgens de Britse auteur en Nostradamuskenner Mario Reading zal koning Charles III aftreden en worden opgevolgd door zijn zoon Harry (en dus niet door William).
De astroloog voorspelde ook een veldslag en een zeeslag. Hij sprak in het bijzonder over een "rode tegenstander die bleek zal worden van angst en de grote oceaan zal terroriseren". Volgens kenners zou deze "rode tegenstander" China kunnen zijn.
Een andere voorspelling van Nostradamus verwijst naar de benoeming van een nieuwe paus na de dood van paus Franciscus, die in 2024 88 jaar oud wordt. "Door de dood van een zeer oude paus, zal een Romein van goede leeftijd worden gekozen", schrijft de astroloog.
Tot slot de klimaatcrisis die de afgelopen jaren fel is verergerd, met meer droogte, hogere temperaturen en extreme weerfenomenen. Volgens Nostradamus zal deze situatie in 2024 nog erger worden. "Het droge land zal droger worden en er zullen grote overstromingen zijn."
(HL met FM/ Source: New York Post /Illustration picture: Itto Ogami ~ CC BY 3.0)
NASA's Perseverance Rover Deciphers Ancient History of Martian Lake
NASA's Perseverance Rover Deciphers Ancient History of Martian Lake
Perseverance’s 360-Degree View From 'Airey Hill’: This 360-degree mosaic from the “Airey Hill” location inside Jezero Crater was generated using 993 individual images taken by the Perseverance Mars rover’s Mastcam-Z from Nov. 3-6. The rov
er remained parked at Airey Hill for several weeks during solar conjunction. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS. Download image ›
Now at 1,000 days on Mars, the mission has traversed an ancient river and lake system, collecting valuable samples along the way.
Jezero Crater, Mars 2020's Landing Site: This image of Mars’ Jezero Crater is overlaid with mineral data detected from orbit. The green color represents carbonates – minerals that form in watery environments with conditions that might be favorable for preserving signs of ancient life. NASA’s Perseverance is currently exploring the green area above Jezero’s fan (center).
Marking its 1,000th Martian day on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently completed its exploration of the ancient river delta that holds evidence of a lake that filled Jezero Crater billions of years ago. The six-wheeled scientist has to date collected a total of 23 samples, revealing the geologic history of this region of Mars in the process.
One sample called “Lefroy Bay” contains a large quantity of fine-grained silica, a material known to preserve ancient fossils on Earth. Another, “Otis Peak,” holds a significant amount of phosphate, which is often associated with life as we know it. Both of these samples are also very rich in carbonate, which can preserve a record of the environmental conditions from when the rock was formed.
Perseverance Rover Zooms in on Ancient Mars River: After 1,000 Martian days of exploration, NASA’s Perseverance rover is studying rocks that show several eras in the history of a river delta billions of years old. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS; ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin. Download image ›
The discoveries were shared Tuesday, Dec. 12, at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.
“We picked Jezero Crater as a landing site because orbital imagery showed a delta – clear evidence that a large lake once filled the crater. A lake is a potentially habitable environment, and delta rocks are a great environment for entombing signs of ancient life as fossils in the geologic record,” said Perseverance’s project scientist, Ken Farley of Caltech. “After thorough exploration, we’ve pieced together the crater’s geologic history, charting its lake and river phase from beginning to end.”
Water Enters Jezero Crater Billions of Years Ago (Artist's Concept): This animated artist’s concept depicts water breaking through the rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater, which NASA’s Perseverance rover is now exploring. Water entered the crater billions of years ago, forming a lake, delta, and rivers before the Red Planet dried up. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download video ›
Jezero formed from an asteroid impact almost 4 billion years ago. Since landing in February, 2021, the Perseverance team has discovered the crater floor is made of igneous rock formed from magma underground or from volcanic activity at the surface. They have since found sandstone and mudstone, signaling the arrival of the first river in the crater hundreds of millions of years later. Above these rocks are salt-rich mudstones, signaling the presence of a shallow lake experiencing evaporation. The team thinks the lake eventually grew as wide as 22 miles (35 kilometers) in diameter and as deep as 100 feet (30 meters).
Later, fast-flowing water carried in boulders from outside Jezero, distributing them atop of the delta and elsewhere in the crater.
"We were able to see a broad outline of these chapters in Jezero’s history in orbital images, but it required getting up close with Perseverance to really understand the timeline in detail," said Libby Ives, a post-doctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.
Enticing Samples
The samples Perseverance gathers are about as big as a piece of classroom chalk and are stored in special metal tubes as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign, a joint effort by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Bringing the tubes to Earth would enable scientists to study the samples with powerful lab equipment too large to take to Mars.
To decide which samples to collect, Perseverance first uses an abrasion tool to wear away a patch of a prospective rock and then studies the rock’s chemistry using precision science instruments, including the JPL-built Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, or PIXL.
At a target the team calls “Bills Bay,” PIXL spotted carbonates – minerals that form in watery environments with conditions that might be favorable for preserving organic molecules. (Organic molecules form by both geological and biological processes.) These rocks were also abundant with silica, a material that’s excellent at preserving organic molecules, including those related to life.
“On Earth, this fine-grained silica is what you often find in a location that was once sandy,” said JPL’s Morgan Cable, the deputy principal investigator of PIXL. “It’s the kind of environment where, on Earth, the remains of ancient life could be preserved and found later.”
Perseverance’s instruments are capable of detecting both microscopic, fossil-like structures and chemical changes that may have been left by ancient microbes, but has yet to see evidence for either.
At another target PIXL examined, called “Ouzel Falls,” the instrument detected the presence of iron associated with phosphate. Phosphate is a component of DNA and the cell membranes of all known terrestrial life and is part of a molecule that helps cells carry energy.
PIXL Instrument on NASA's Perseverance Studies 'Ouzel Falls': PIXL, one of the instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, analyzed the chemical makeup of an area of abraded rock dubbed “Ouzel Falls,” finding it rich in minerals containing phosphate, a material found in the DNA and cell membranes of all known life. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image ›
After assessing PIXL’s findings on each of these abrasion patches, the team sent up commands for the rover to collect rock cores close by: Lefroy Bay was collected next to Bills Bay, and Otis Peak at Ouzel Falls.
PIXL Instrument on NASA's Perseverance Studies 'Ouzel Falls': Analyzing this abraded rock patch dubbed “Bills Bay,” the PIXL instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover found it rich in carbonates (purple) and silica (green), both of which are good at preserving signs of ancient life. The image is overlaid with the instrument’s chemical data. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image ›
"We have ideal conditions for finding signs of ancient life where we find carbonates and phosphates, which point to a watery, habitable environment, as well as silica, which is great at preservation," Cable said.
Perseverance’s work is, of course, far from done. The mission’s ongoing fourth science campaign will explore Jezero Crater’s margin, near the canyon entrance where a river once flooded the crater floor. Rich carbonate deposits have been spotted along the margin, which stands out in orbital images like a ring within a bathtub.
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Holloman Air Force Base is infamous for the most debated UFO landing footage that was in the possession of the United States Air Force as claimed by Robert Emmenegger and Allan Sandler. The director of “Moment of Contact” James Fox has recently discussed the Holloman AFB UFO/alien controversy on a podcast, adding valuable information to the legendary case.
Interestingly, there are other credible people in the UFO community who have given credence to the authenticity of this case. There is more to the Holloman AFB UFO story. Joe Murgia, an avid UFO researcher revealed that Dr. Eric Davis (a former Pentagon physicist) met with George Bush Sr. to talk about Holloman AFB Incident.
The UFO phenomenon has long been a subject of fascination and controversy, with countless reports of sightings and encounters over the years. However, the truth behind these mysterious incidents has remained elusive, with government agencies often accused of covering up information and discrediting witnesses.
According to Murgia, on March 26, 2004, he met Hal Putoff (an American physicist who has co-authored several books on gravitational and paranormal research) at the Fiesta Rancho Casino Hotel, Las Vegas after taking an early flight to the airport. Upon meeting, Hal wasted no time and shared with him the story of Dr. Eric Davis. It turns out that Dr. Davis was the one who conducted the interview with Wilson at the EG&G parking lot. Dr. Davis had reached out to the admiral about his project to revive a local chapter of AFIO (Association of Former Intelligence Officers) in Las Vegas, but the conversation eventually shifted to the topic of ufology.(Source)
Astrophysicist Eric Davis during an interview with New York Post.
Murgia stated that Former President George Bush Sr. had taken an interest in Dr. Davis’ discussion and spoke to him twice on the phone, expressing his belief that the German secrets had been filed away and not used as a cover for anything else. However, he did show interest in pursuing the topic and requested Dr. Davis’ recent physics papers.
During the second phone call, Bush revealed that he was aware of the Holloman film, which Hal, Dr. Davis, and Murgia were fixated on. “The former President was aware of it. Was it a training film, a special ops exercise? No, he replied, ‘it was “the real thing.”’ There was a secret project, and the security was obscene,” writes Joe Murgia.
Moreover, the Holloman AFB UFO landing incident was also discussed by Dr. Jacques Vallée in his book “Forbidden Science – Volume II.” He writes:
Kit [Green] just left, along with Hal, Russell and two of his kids. We had a long discussion after a demo of my landing catalogue. Kit has dropped out of Sams’ covert “Group of Twelve.”
Emenegger tells me that Colonel Bill Coleman, who represented the Air Force in the film, had been retired for three weeks when he got the job. For nine years he’d served as the Air Force’s spokesman and had been intimately linked to the UFO question. More games: One of his men, a Captain Horner, confiscated the Holloman movie just before Sandler could get his hands on it.
The Holloman sequence is based on a bluff by Emenegger. He couldn’t find anyone on the Base who recalled such an event. There was only a rumor that in 1971 a helicopter had filmed three objects, one of which landed.
Three occupants had supposedly come out. They had Assyrian noses, a rope twisted on their head for a hat, bluegreen skin, eyes like ping-pong balls with a hole in the middle. One of them had a wire in one ear and carried a vertical staff with a spiral antenna. The Aliens were taken to Building 830, then to building 930 on Mars Avenue. They remained there two or three years, allegedly “helping the United States decode space messages from another Alien civilization.”
A biologist named Alfred Lorenzo is supposed to have worked with them. None of this makes any sense. When Allan was here I asked him if he still had his clearance. He said yes, theoretically he did, but he didn’t think it was active, yet Kit has found Allan’s clearances active. “Do you know there are 800 reports of foreign UFOs in the CIRCOL files?” he asked. “Why didn’t Hynek ever look into that?”
He warned me that a new experimental device was being tested. It is known lovingly as a “flying bathtub.” It is a flying triangle with a rounded front, but it could look strikingly like a saucer when seen from the side, and will surely be mistaken for one.
On Julian Dorey Podcast, Mr. Fox recounted a phone call from Allan Sandler, who claimed to have seen three unidentified flying objects (UFOs) escorted by a military jet. Sandler said that two of the UFOs peeled away while one wobbled to the ground, and he witnessed the beings with unique features emerge from the grounded UFO before the footage abruptly cut off.
Paul Shartle, an official at Norton Air Force Base, allegedly confirmed that the object was not of Earth origin. Mr. Fox did not make any claims about the veracity of the story, only reporting what he had been told.
During a recent Reddit AMA, journalist Christopher Sharp expressed interest in finding more information about the number of alien species visiting Earth. He mentioned that he had heard from multiple sources that the visitation at Holloman Air Force Base was real, but was unsure if the beings were extraterrestrial, interdimensional, or ultra-terrestrial. Sharp shared a link to the interview with Grant Cameron for further information.
In 1974, Robert Emenegger released his documentary “UFOs: Past, Present, and Future,” which was nominated for a Golden Globe. While he had originally been granted permission to use real footage, the Department of Defense later withdrew that permission.
Emenegger was forced to add animated footage of the alleged Holloman UFO landing. He claimed that some frames from the original footage were used in the reconstruction during editing, which was authorized by the USAF. Viewers spotted a genuine bright disc coming down slowly in the distance against the backdrop of Holloman’s surrounding landscape.
The documentary was re-released in 1979, with additional footage and narration by Dr. Vallée, who discussed ancient astronaut theory.
"This is an amazing time to be a part of this program."
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman will command Artemis 2, the first human moon mission in half a century.
(Image credit: Robert Markowitz/NASA-JSC)
The commander of humanity's first moon mission in half a century has a special invite from SpaceX in his pocket.
Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut leading the four Artemis 2 crew members, told Space.com in a Dec. 18 exclusive that SpaceX wants to talk to his crew about Starship. That's no coincidence, given that SpaceX is developing Starship for Artemis 3, which intends to land humans on the moon for the first time since 1972.
When and how that all comes together is not known yet. Artemis 2 is expected to fly around the moon no earlier than 2024 if schedules hold. Artemis 3 is manifested for 2025 or 2026, but that assumes that SpaceX's Starship has passed enough tests to satisfy NASA's strict safety requirements for human-rated spacecraft.
Wiseman spoke with Space.com not only about SpaceX, but what his crew plans to take along with them on the mission, the outreach he has been doing, and how his crew is dealing with developmental uncertainty. Riding to the moon with him (and back) are NASA pilot Victor Glover (who will become the first person of color to leave low Earth orbit), NASA mission specialist Christina Koch (the first woman) and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen (the first non-American).
We're about a year out from the launch of Artemis 2. Can you talk about your main goals for the mission, and what you're focusing on as a crew and as a team right now?
Reid Wiseman, Artemis 2 commander: It's pretty basic for us. We really want to enable the Orion and the Space Launch System for our fellow astronauts that are going to go land on the moon and work in the lunar vicinity. So every day we show up to work.
It just happened in a class we were just in: We are not only looking at how to make this better for Artemis 2. We're thinking about, "How do we position this for Artemis 3, 4, and 5?" Victor Glover today — we were talking about, "Hey, it [Artemis 2] is just a nine-day mission." We were in a survival class, but we said, "We won't be that deconditioned [after the mission]." And Victor was like, "Hey, wait a minute. We have to think about the max mission duration, because this will be valid for all Artemis missions."
So we've done — I think — an awesome job of just really looking at, what does this vehicle need for the future for our crewmates, when they go and land on the moon? How can we wring out Orion and SLS so that when our peers are training for moonwalking missions, that is almost just a basic in that [they think], "Okay, we know Orion. So we don't have to worry about that [spacecraft]. Let's instead focus on the HLS [human landing system spacecraft] or, let's focus on the new suit designs." That's really our fundamental goal.
Training has been fantastic, really well-prepared classes. It kind of comes in little waves. We're really busy, in the last few weeks, and then we have a little bit of down time. Then you're really busy again.
Can you talk about the excitement that all the teams are feeling for Artemis 2, along with the responsibilities?
Wiseman: It completely has blown me away, and not just on the professional side, but on the outreach side,to traveling around the world. Seeing where the European Service Module was built in Bremen, Germany with Airbus. Those people are so fired up to have humans riding on their vehicle. Or going into the Cape [Canaveral area] with Lockheed and Orion. I even got a call two weeks ago from the lead engineer at SpaceX. He was like, 'Next time you guys are at Cape [Canaveral, nearby NASA's Kennedy Space Center), come by and talk to us. We're doing Starship, and Dragon, and we just want to hear what is going on with the Artemis 2 crew."
I had to take a step back. They launched two Starships [in 2023], and got another one rolling onto the pad. Here they want us to come talk to them, because they are just motivated. Then of course, there are the teams that we're training with, especially at NASA. A lot of these folks, this is their career. Their career is spent preparing for us to go work on the moon. So to be a crew, marching towards a launch, it's far more meaningful for them than it is for us. We really try to embrace that. It's very powerful.
The Artemis 2 moon crew during a launch simulation at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 20, 2023. They stand on the crew access arm at Launch 39B, which will one day bring them to the waiting Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. From left: NASA astronaut and pilot Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronaut and mission specialist Christina Koch, and NASA astronaut and commander Reid Wiseman. (Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaux)
Any surprises with the training?
Wiseman: My surprise might be a little cliche. We figured — as the crew that's going to fly this vehicle for the first time — there are going to be so many unknowns. We're going to work our way through a really rough training syllabus. But what I neglected was, we're being trained by the flight controllers who just operated Artemis 1 [an uncrewed mission around the moon in 2022] very successfully. So we go into these classes, and they are just polished. They know everything there is to know about this vehicle. They just got done flying it, and around the moon. They know their systems. So there, it's just wired. I've been very impressed. They really know what's going on.
Your crew has emphasized that Artemis 2 is very much a developmental mission. So you're informed in making this mission by decades of spaceflight experience at NASA, even among all the crew. However, many of the procedures and training facilities are being created as you train. So as such, how's everybody doing on the timeline for launch?
How would NASA deal with any ripple effects in scheduling later Artemis missions if this one happened to be delayed?
Wiseman: You know, as a crew, we don't get into the programmatic of, "We ought to launch in November of 2024." There's political implications. There's operational implications. What we really care about is when this vehicle is ready, and when NASA says it's ready to go fly, we will be prepared to go fly it. That is our critical milestone. But as they're going through assembly, I think we're gonna face a little bit of a slip. For sure. So we'll see how that goes.
But I think so far, everything that I'm seeing is coming along very logically. Very methodically. And when the Orion program, or SLS, has hit a snag, we have stopped the appropriate amount of time. We're really analyzing, "Do we need to fix this? Do we have an operational workaround? Do we have a hardware workaround?" And then we're proceeding on.
I think everything has been, and what I have seen is, a safety culture. The mission assurance culture right now has been extremely healthy. We're very methodically going along at a great pace to fly when this vehicle is ready.
Artemis 2 crew members inspect their Orion crew module inside the high bay of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on Aug. 7, 2023. (Image credit: NASA)
Have you and the crew discussed the personal items that you're taking to the moon, yet?
Wiseman: We are pretty weight-limited, but we do all have little things. I won't speak for the rest of the crew, but my whole life, I've realized how important tradition is to me. Things that I do with my children, or that my parents did with me and my brother growing up. So I will take something that nods to my personal family tradition, just as a personal token to myself.
When I flew on the Soyuz in 2014 [to the International Space Station], on my kneeboard, I had a little black-and-white picture of my kids just printed on the piece of paper, because mass is everything. So you don't take anything extra that you don't need to take. So I printed it directly on my kneeboard, and I'll do something very similar to that.
But to be honest — I didn't think about this when we first got assigned — but I get to work with Victor, Christina and Jeremy. I just want to be immersed in this experience with them. They are such special people. So I just can't wait to watch them operate as we head out around the moon.
How have you in the crew been engaging with NASA personnel, contractors, when visiting facilities and training locations?
Wiseman: We've been heading absolutely everywhere. The thing we have to remind ourselves, is everywhere we go, people know who we are. It is amazing to see just how excited people are. I mean, they are so fired up. We went to Marshall Space Flight Center, one of our own NASA centers, and we stood for an entire hour as people just took picture after picture after picture. Just walking up to the crew. We are just a human representation of what these people have been working for for over a decade. It's just so powerful.
As a group, you've been making a lot of other types of appearances. For example, you were beside Apollo 13 movie actor Tom Hanks — a moon astronaut in the movies, of course. You were also at the F1 car racing event, and many other places. Can you talk about what that experience has been like for you and the crew?
Wiseman: That is definitely surreal, because we're in places that most people don't get a chance to experience. Tom Hanks — he had a formative place in my childhood with "Apollo 13," and with "Forrest Gump." Just to get to meet these people, and to interact a little bit, has been really neat. But you know, if you gave us our wishes, we would be at a fifth-grade class trying to motivate kids to go study STEM [science, technology, engineering and math].
But this is important. We need all elements of outreach to get the message as far and wide as we possibly can, that this is worth doing. Human exploration is important to bring our world together. We can tackle big problems when we work together. So that's the message we want to send. Having people like Tom Hanks involved, and getting to F1 — getting to a few markets that typically we don't get to — has been cool.
It was fun to be immersed in the Formula One parallels between that, and Mission Control and spaceflight. The way they communicate — the way they structure and organize the things that matter to the drivers, and then the different things that matter to the engineering teams — I took a lot away from Formula One.
Actor and "Apollo 13" movie star Tom Hanks (center) with the Artemis 2 crew. The new moon astronauts include, from left, the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, NASA's Reid Wiseman, NASA's Christina Koch and NASA's Victor Glover. Behind them is a mockup of the Orion spacecraft for moon missions. (Image credit: NASA)
Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
Wiseman: I just want to really thank you for what you all do at Space.com. We have a lot of great, great learning from you guys, and I appreciate the research that you do and showing up [at the events]. I think it's really important.
I love the public-private partnership of Artemis. I don't think we do a good enough job highlighting just how that is going. The CLPS [commercial lunar payload services program, or robotic missions in support of Artemis] are going to launch soon, with robotic missions to the moon. And what SpaceX is doing, and now Blue Origin is coming on, with the HLS design. When you're when you live in this and you marinate in it, it's just awesome. This is an amazing time to be a part of this program. So we really appreciate the public support.
Helicity Space, a startup founded in 2018, is developing a fusion drive poised to transform space travel. With a fresh round of investment, the company is developing a proof-of-concept for a fusion-powered propulsion system that can get from Earth to Mars in two months.
In a recent press release, the space-based startup recently secured $5 million in seed funding from Airbus Ventures, TRE Ventures, Voyager Space Holdings, E2MC Space, Urania Ventures, and Gaingels.
Unlike traditional rockets that rely on chemical reactions, Helicity’s fusion drive operates on a magneto-inertial fusion method. This involves fusing two hydrogen isotopes into helium, releasing immense energy – ten million times more per unit mass than chemical fuels.
According to Helicity, the core technology behind their fusion drive efficiently converts electricity into plasma heating, using a unique approach to scale fusion conditions and directly produce thrust. Their method, distinct from conventional magnetic or inertial (laser) fusion, employs self-organized Taylor relaxation and magnetic reconnection physics, combined with a peristaltic magnetic compression scheme.
In very simple terms, the engine uses hot ionized plasma gas heated by magnetic fields that are constantly forced together to the point where they must then break apart. It is this seesaw of magnetic forces that generates vast amounts of energy, heating the plasma to the point where fusion occurs, forcing the nuclei so close that they overcome their electrostatic repulsion and fuse together. To simplify this even more, the energy created by that fusion is aimed out of the tailpipe of the Helicity Drive, and you generate a helluva lot of thrust.
So much so that it cuts the current seven or eight-month trip to Mars down to two, or the six-year trip to Jupiter down to just one.
One of the key advantages of Helicity’s fusion drive is its fuel and propellant efficiency. It enables faster travel over interplanetary distances, with less exposure to space radiation and the agility to alter trajectories or abort missions if necessary. The Helicity Drive creates short bursts of fusion conditions in a design optimized for propulsive plasma exhaust, thus providing acceleration with each pulse. You proverbially slam on the gas pedal, accelerate, and then take your foot off the gas letting momentum do the work. This propulsion method can be deployed before achieving continuous power generation, significantly advancing the feasibility of fusion propulsion in space.
Helicity’s efforts are part of a larger movement to leverage fusion technology in space exploration. Fusion power, unlike fission, merges atoms together, releasing vast energy amounts with safer byproducts. This contrasts starkly with fission’s splitting of atoms, which leads to radiation issues and the complex disposal of irradiated waste. Helicity’s fusion engines use multiple magnetically-controlled, super-heated plasma jets to propel spacecraft, marking a substantial shift from conventional rocket technology, which requires large amounts of super-cold or highly explosive fuel.
“Fusion propulsion can contribute to Earth’s environmental goals indirectly by enabling offworld mining and industry, reducing terrestrial resource consumption and ecological impact,” explained Helicity co-founder Dr. Setthivoine You in an interview. “Ultimately, we see our technology playing a significant role in both space exploration and Earth’s sustainable future.”
The company’s vision extends to catalyzing humanity’s spacefaring ambitions, boosting both human and robotic exploration, and possibly leading to ventures like asteroid mining. The technology’s scalability and practical use in space, even before establishing self-sustaining reactors, demonstrate its potential for early testing and gradual scaling up.
Helicity Space collaborates with top scientific institutes globally, including the California Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo. Supported by entities like the U.S. Department of Energy’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy, these partnerships underscore the scientific community’s interest in and support for Helicity’s groundbreaking work.
“We’re currently focused on proving the technology for space propulsion. Once we achieve this, we anticipate drawing more substantial interest and investment, including from energy companies, for broader applications,” said Dr. You.
While building a working fusion drive will require more than their current $5 million dollar investment, the fact that there was funding clearly shows there is a hard push for novel space technology. While still in development, the potential applications of this technology in enhancing human and robotic space exploration are immense.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. He is the host of The Debrief Weekly Report. You can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
The series of events involving the US military shooting down multiple Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) in February 2023 has been staggering, particularly concerning the incident with an object detected over Alaska. When this object was intercepted above Alaska, the administration of the US president promptly ordered its takedown without hesitation.
So, on February 10, 2023, a U.S. F-22 fighter jet successfully brought down the object, which was flying at an altitude of approximately 40,000 feet over Alaska. “We don’t know who owns this object,” said the White House spokesperson John Kirby, adding that it was unclear where its flight originated. The object fell inside the United States Territorial Waters. Mr. Kirby explained that those waters were frozen but still within American territory, implying that the recovery of the debris would be much easier.
U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, indicated that it was the size of a small car. According to him, the pilots who had been observing the object before it was shot down confirmed that there was no human presence on board. He further remarked that it lacked the ability to change direction and did not resemble any conventional aircraft. “It wasn’t an aircraft per se,” Ryder informed the media.
Interestingly, the pilots involved in the sighting gave inconsistent reports. Some stated that the object interfered with their plane’s sensors, while others did not experience this. Some also claimed that they could not discern any recognizable source of propulsion on the object and were unable to explain how it was able to remain afloat while cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.
Alaska Object was “Anomalous”
On August 12, 2023, investigative journalist Ross Coulthart shared his thoughts at the Victorian State Library as part of an event called “Close Encounters Australia.” He talked for around two hours, including an hour-long Q&A session where he told the audience some interesting things he had learned about the Alaska shootdowns. (Source)
Coulthart wanted to be clear about something. He was not completely sure about the things he talked about. He thinks they are true, but he was not completely confident. He said: “I’m happy to be proved wrong, but it would be very very interesting to see an explanation from the White House.” What he found interesting is that some of the people he talked to, who know about defense and secrets, said that something weird happened in Alaska.
“Can you update us on the sphere and the US shootdowns from February?” This question was asked by someone in the audience, to which Coulthart replied, “On the balloons, we’re talking here about the balloons here in February, the February shoot downs. Now, to give you some official response to this, I think a very senior defense official was just recently quoted in the newspapers as saying there’s nothing alien or extraterrestrial about these shootdowns, about the objects that were shot down.”
He continued, “And I thought that was a very interesting comment because… the information I have is that two of the objects were indeed prosaic, they were just mundane objects. Probably weather balloons. But there is an abundance now of sources, including a guy who… heh… literally lives at the end of the road in Alaska where this object was encountered by an F-22 jet.”
Coulthart talked about one of the things that got shot down in Alaska. He said it was not like the other two things; it was different, or “anomalous.” He mentioned he could be wrong, but this is what he had heard. According to what he learned, the Alaska object looked like a big “tic-tac.” When the F-22 hit the objectwith missile, something fell off, but it kept going despite being hit.
“There was definitely a missile fired at an object which was described as… looking a little bit like a giant tic-tac, funnily enough. That something was seen to fall off that object. That even though it was hit with an AIM missile, which is a top of the line air-to-air missile, that the object kept on going. And uh… I’ve put this to different people in defense and intelligence, and I’ve been told yes… the Alaska object was anomalous. And um, anytime I try to get a response from anybody on an official basis they run 100 miles an hour,” Coulthart said.
He spoke to other individuals who were knowledgeable about military matters and secrets. They confirmed that the Alaska incident was strange indeed. He wanted to learn more from those in charge of defense, but they were unwilling to discuss it. When he asked them, they declined to provide an answer.
Coulthart explained, “But you might notice, that nobody has given a report back to the American public or the world about what it was that the U.S., for the first time in the history of NORAD, they shot down something over North America. That’s a historic event. And yet we haven’t been told, neither has America, the full story of what those shoot downs involved.”
Some people find Coulthart’s statement convincing because if the Alaska object was indeed anomalous, that would explain why the Department of Defense (DOD) responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the object by referring the request to Advanced Aerial Research Organization (AARO).
Below is a response from the Department of Defense about a FOIA request submitted on February 11, 2023, asking for several data presumably collected during the Alaska object shot-down on February 10, 2023.
“This responds to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request # [ ] requesting “all available visual data (photographs in visual and Infra-Red spectrum, films in visible and Infra-Red spectrum, drawing and all related visual information) and tracking data (radar data, sonar data, timer data) that were presumably gathered about the object that was shot down at 1:45PM EST on 2/10/2022 over Alaska.”
We are providing a no records response in subject to your request. After a lengthy and exhaustive search through multiple offices on Elmendorf Air Force Base it has been determined that this request should be sent to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) which falls under the Defense Intelligence Agency. You can send a request to their office through the contact below.”
It’s intriguing to mention that there seem to be “no records” at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska about this case. This is puzzling because the base should have been involved in the mission to recover whatever was related to this case.
Even more fascinating, the request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is being sent to the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which is a part of the Defense Intelligence Agency.” This is happening even though officials described the objects in question as “likely mundane.” (Click to read the DIA resposne)
It was the first time the satellite's lasers were caught on camera.
A mysterious spectacle of green laser beams in the sky was caught on video by motion-detecting cameras positioned outside Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan.
Daichi Fujii, the museum curator, set up the motion-detecting cameras to capture meteors andcalculate their position, brightness and orbit. At first, the bright green lines that appeared on the camera footage from Sept. 16, 2022, were a mystery. However, further inspection revealed the beams were synchronized with a tiny green dot that was briefly visible between the clouds.
On Sept. 16, 2022, motion-sensing cameras set up by museum curator Daichi Fujii to capture meteors instead caught the laser beams of NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite as it passed over Japan. It’s the first time the ICESat-2 team has seen footage of the lasers at work in orbit. Credits: Video Courtesy of Daichi Fujii, Hiratsuka City Museum
As it turns out, the lasers were being beamed down from space by one of NASA's Earth-orbiting satellites. The Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2, or ICESat-2, flew over the museum at the perfect time for its green lasers to be caught in action, streaming from orbit to Earth.
The museum's motion detector footage is the first time the satellite's laser beams have been caught on camera, according to a NASA statement.
On Sept. 16, 2022, motion-sensing cameras set up by Hiratsuka City Museum curator Daichi Fujii to capture meteors instead caught the laser beams of NASA's ICESat-2 satellite as it passed over Japan. It's the first time the ICESat-2 team has seen footage of the lasers at work in orbit. (Image credit: Daichi Fujii, Hiratsuka City Museum/NASA)
"ICESat-2 appeared to be almost directly overhead of [the museum], with the beam hitting the low clouds at an angle," Tony Martino, ICESat-2 instrument scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, wrote in the statement from the space agency. "To see the laser, you have to be in the exact right place, at the right time, and you have to have the right conditions."
ICESat-2, which launched in September 2018, uses lasers and a very precise detection instrument to measure the elevation of ice sheets, sea ice thickness and land topography on Earth. The laser instrument is technically a lidar sensor, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging. Lidar sensors are typically used to generate precise 3D measurements, and are also used by autonomous vehicles to sense their surroundings. The lidar system aboard ICESat-2 fires 10,000 times a second, sending six beams of light to Earth from orbit.
As its picture was being taken from the ground, ICESat-2 was at work collecting data on the height profile of the clouds, mountainous terrain and ocean of Japan below. This ICESat-2 data plot shows what the satellite measured as it passed over Fuji City, Japan (marked with a vertical green line) on Sept. 16, 2022. The laser instrument detected two cloud layers, one high and one low, which scattered the light enough to be detected by the cameras on the ground.
Credits: NASA/Tony Martino
"It precisely times how long it takes individual photons to bounce off the surface and return to the satellite," NASA wrote in the statement. "Computer programs use these measurements to calculate ice losses from Greenland and Antarctica, observe how much of the polar oceans are frozen, determine the heights of freshwater reservoirs, map shallow coastal regions, and more."
Generally, the satellite's laser beams are difficult to spot from Earth. Located hundreds of miles up in space, the lasers have roughly the strength of a camera flash more than 100 yards away. Plus, the laser's light has to reflect off something to be seen. However, on Sept. 16, 2022, there were just enough clouds to scatter — not obscure — the laser light, making it visible to the museum's cameras.
"With the precise location of the satellite in space, the location of where the beam hit, the coordinates of where Fujii's cameras were set up, and the addition of cloudy conditions, Martino was able to confirm, definitively, that the streaks of light came from ICESat-2's laser," NASA officials added in the statement.
Filmmaker James Fox has recently released a documentary called “Moment of Contact,” which details an alleged UFO crash in Varginha, Brazil in 1996. Despite the level of skepticism surrounding the incident, Mr. Fox asks people to suspend judgment and listen to the first-hand eyewitness testimony from military officers, firemen, doctors, civilians, and lawyers.
The documentary shows how many of the witnesses were just regular Brazilian people, not UFO buffs or individuals deep in space. The film also shows the extraordinary level of international coordination between the Brazilian and US military, which has left many viewers questioning its accuracy.
Mr. Fox investigated the case for 12 years, and during his numerous trips to Brazil, he was completely unaware of any American involvement until his last visits. While in Brazil, Mr. Fox discovered the American military’s involvement in the crash. The documentary features military personnel on the ground, civilians, doctors, and lawyers giving testimony about the incident.
Mr. Fox reveals that Carlos Feres, a flight radar control officer claimed that he was in charge the night of the crash and saw the United States Air Force plane come in without authorization from the Brazilian government. The US military reportedly landed in Campinas (a city in the northwest of São Paulo) without any Brazilian authorization. Mr. Fox also claimed that there are testimonials from military personnel and civilians who witnessed the transportation of the creatures to Campinas on the same date.
Fox’s new documentary sheds light on a story that has been widely regarded as the “Roswell of Brazil.” While there is still skepticism surrounding the incident, his documentary provides ample evidence from first-hand witnesses, showing something truly extraordinary that took place on January 20, 1996.
“Two 14-year-old twin girls, Liliane and Valquíria Fátima Silva, and 22-year-old Kátia Andrade Xavier were among the eyewitnesses who personally saw these creatures. According to them, one of the creatures was very thin with brown skin, big red eyes, and had three horns on its head. It was about 160 cm high and had feet in a V-shape.
The claimed encounter, according to the legend, occurred around three hours later, when two military police officers were traveling along a road next to the empty lot. Suddenly, a creature ran in front of their vehicle. As per Brazilian UFO Magazine editor A.J. Gevaerd, one of the officers, Marco Chereze, captured the creature with his “bare hands” and took it to a local hospital. He said, “After he captured the creature he was smelly – he had this strange feeling of something greasy or sticky over his body that came from the creature. He developed this infection that wouldn’t go away, and for two or three weeks it was getting worse and worse and worse… and that infection killed him.””
Filmmaker James Fox (Left, )Marco Chereze (in photo shown by his sister) died after one of the creatures scratched him
UFOlogist Ubirajara Rodrigues wrote about the Varginha incident, where a strange being was arrested in January 1996. The arresting officer, Corporal Marco underwent minor surgery to remove an abscess caused by a physical injury sustained during the arrest. He later fell ill with a fever and was hospitalized, ultimately passing away from sepsis, but the cause of the infection was never identified.
Mr. Fox further revealed that there are two forensic pathologists who conducted the autopsy on the deceased military officer and provided a detailed long-form autopsy report. He said they came forward for the first time to share their findings and brief statements about the case. Their expertise in forensic pathology is necessary to determine the cause and manner of death, which can be crucial in investigations and legal proceedings.
A short clip played by Breaking Points, shared to them by Mr. Fox, shows pathologists’ statements first time translated into English. Mr. Fox has recently spoken with pathologists who describe a new type of bacteria that killed a healthy 23-year-old Brazilian military police officer in 1996. Here are their statements:
[Pathologist 1]This is my first statement on the Chereze case which may have actually involved an extraterrestrial being. It causes strangeness due to the distinct way he describes this bacteria.
Pathologist 2, Dr. João B.M. Janini]This alien brought the bacteria in from outside. There is the character “ET” and there is the character “bacteria from the ET’s fingernails.” The real story is about the bacteria I found in the deceased military officer’s body. It was like a lethal weapon to his immune system.
Mr. Fox says the bacteria was said to be unlike anything seen before and even survived the “kitchen sink” of treatments thrown at it by one of the doctors who treated Chereze. This bacterial infection arose after a UFO incident in the area, leading Fox to believe that the bacteria could have been caused by an alien craft or escaped from a biological laboratory.
He said: “This is an ongoing investigation I’m not going to put this in another film I’m going to put it out to the general public immediately because I think that this is this is a story that could prove once and for all could settle the debate once and for all whether these things are real or not because we have a case, unlike Roswell that’s so recent that the vast majority of people and Witnesses are still alive and they’re coming forward right now.”
On Julian Dorey’s podcast, Mr. Fox disclosed that the Varginha creature had supposedly established telepathic contact with two doctors who treated its injuries at Humanitas Hospital in Brazil. He could not include this in his documentary because he needed testimony on it. But he referred to Dr. Roger K. Leir’s book “UFO Crash in Brazil: A Genuine UFO Crash with Surviving ETs” to know more about it.
In Chapter 6, “The Medical Testimony,” Lier mentioned his conversation with a doctor who had treated one of the recovered alien entities. The being, which did not appear to have a gender, telepathically communicated to him that humans were “totally detached” from their spiritual selves, and it felt sorry for them. (Click here to read the full article)
In addition to discussing the investigation with Breaking Points, Mr. Fox also talks about the recently passed UAP legislation. He reads a bit of the text from the legislation, which discusses programs relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including material retrieval, analysis, research and development, and detection and tracking. The legislation also provides protections for whistleblowers.
Fox notes that the passing of recent UAP legislation by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio may provide whistleblowers the opportunity to bring forward more information on this topic. Fox is hopeful that the increased transparency will force the government’s hand and release more information on the phenomenon. Fox has met with insiders who have already testified to the UAP task force and is providing information to the public, even if the government is unwilling to do so. He notes that there is a lot of photographic evidence behind the wall of classified information.
For years, NASA whistleblowers have been claiming that they saw evidence of extraterrestrials. They believe Earth is in regular contact with intelligent beings of other worlds. How true are these claims? Are there really artificial structures on Moon, secret colonies on Mars, Apollo 11 alleged UFO encounter, etc.? Well, these conspiracies shaped the field of UFOlogy which have come to an extent that now NASA officially joined hands in the UFO investigation. The agency finally admitted the gravity of the situation.
Moreover, a big revelation on UFOs and extraterrestrial life was made by former NASA research scientist Kevin Knuth in 2018 on his personal blog that probably went unnoticed. Knuth shared the UFO evidence he collected in his professional career that intentionally was covered by the government around the world.
Note:
Kevin Knuth is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University at Albany. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Entropy. He is a former NASA research scientist having worked for four years at NASA Ames Research Center in the Intelligent Systems Division.
Kevin Knuth. Image credit: Altpropulsion
Kevin Knuth described two personal stories about the speculation of extraterrestrials. The first one came at a 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting, a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, “You have absolutely no idea what is out there!” The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in.
His second story is from 1988. During his graduation from Montana State University, his physics professor told the class that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. This very news was later confirmed when Knuth saw a recording of the press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s
Professor Knuth firmly believes in the alien life and non-terrestrial nature of UFOs. He is inspired by the theory given by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi about contact with intelligent civilizations. Fermi estimated there were about 300 billion stars in the galaxy, many of them billions of years older than the Sun, with a large percentage of them likely to host habitable planets. Even if intelligent life developed on a very small percentage of these planets, then there should be a number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Depending on the assumptions, one should expect anywhere from tens to tens of thousands of civilizations.
In 1961, American scientist Frank Drake took the first steps to quantify the field by developing the now-famous “Drake Equation,” a simple algebraic expression that provides an estimate for the number of communicating civilizations in the Milky Way.
Professor Knuth estimated that it would take somewhere around 5 and 50 million years for a civilization like us to colonize the Milky Way. According to him, this should have happened in the history of our galaxy. But where is the evidence? This discrepancy between the expectation that there should be evidence of alien civilizations or visitations and the presumption that no visitations have been observed has been dubbed the Fermi Paradox.
Governments’ cover-up
Professor Knuth said that the topic of UFOs is considered taboo in the scientific community, with many organizations finding excuses for various UFO sightings. For example, there are times when the weather or human activities are excuses for alien sightings. The result is that UFOs are largely not included as a possibility for scientific study and discussions.
Further, he stated, the situation is worsened by the fact that many governments around the world have covered up and classified information about such encounters. But there are enough scraps of evidence that suggest that the problem needs to be open to scientific study (which has already begun).
Strong UFO evidence from the past
Professor Knuth says there have been documented cases of UFO sightings, including through telescopes. He said that sightings go all the way back to the 1700s which are well-documented in the book “Wonders in the Sky” by Jacques Vallée. He discussed one study performed by an astrophysicist at Stanford University named Peter Sturrock, when the professor found out that 5 percent of UFO sightings were never explained.
Declassified document describing a sighting of a UFO in December 1977, in Bahia, a state in northern Brazil. Arquivo Nacional Collection
He also said that numerous countries had declassified UFO files, including Canada, France, Ecuador, and the United Kingdom. There are cases when the United States even funded alien probes, but some findings have not been declassified yet. Knuth argues that these cases should encourage scientific research.
He considered the footagereleased by the Chilean government in 2017 as the most convincing observations that came from government officials. Former NASA research scientists asked the scientific community to begin investigation on UFOs four years earlier, which hints at how much the scientists lost as the UFO topic was taboo for them.
Alien life underwater
Professor Knuth believes the pilots of UFOs could be living underneath our oceans. In 2021, he provided a logical reason behind this theory in this informative interview on Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal.
Curt asked Professor Knuth if he thought aliens might be hiding in places like our oceans. Knuth thought it could be possible. He said that oceans cover most of Earth, making them a good hiding spot. Kevin also said that if aliens came from a place with lots of water, living in Earth’s oceans would be easy for them.
“If you live in an ocean, going to another planet with an ocean is actually a pretty good thing,” Knuth explained. He detailed how water, being non-compressible, would provide consistent pressure, and the temperature variations in aquatic environments on different planets would be relatively moderate compared to the extreme conditions on planetary surfaces.
“If you come from an aquatic environment, aquatic environments on planets are going to be much better to live in than atmospheric environments. Atmospheres have a low heat capacity, so the temperature varies a lot …you get huge temperature variations…And then going from planet to planet, you have huge temperature variations in the atmosphere: go to Mars, and you’re looking at 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. You go to Venus, and you’re looking at 800 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s dramatic. And the air pressure is dramatically different, too, from planet to planet.”
The interview got even more interesting when they talked about where these aliens might live. Curt wondered if they were hiding underground or in small spaceships. Knuth thought it depended on how many aliens there were. He said, “Depends on how many people you have in there.”
Curt shared that he wasn’t usually into wild stories or mysteries. But this topic was too interesting to ignore. He wondered if maybe humans are just an experiment by these aliens. Knuth had a thought about this. He said, “If they’re DNA-based… then it’s hard to imagine that we’re not related in some way.” He meant that if aliens are like us in some biological ways, then maybe we’re connected somehow.
What if these aliens are so different from us that meeting them could be dangerous? Knuth mentioned a scientist named Stuart Kaufman who had ideas about this. He said, “You wouldn’t want to come in contact with their organic molecules because you don’t know what kind of reactions you’d have.” In simpler terms, if aliens have different chemicals in their bodies, touching them might not be safe for us.
Considering Professor Knuth’s speculations on underwater alien life. There are numerous recorded incidents of spotting UFOs going in and out of oceans.
In 2021, a retired British police officer Gary Heseltine who is the vice president of the new International Coalition for Extraterrestrial Research (ICER) told The Sun that UFOs may not be coming from space – but rather from beneath the sea amid a string of strange encounters involving US warships.
“That sounds crazy but if you think about it we only know 5 percent of the ocean, we know more about the surface of the moon or Mars than our own oceans – so that would seem to me why UFOs are seen regularly coming in and out of water.”
Drawing together the nuclear and underwater theories, Mr Heseltine said: “If you think about it if there was World War 3 and we made toxic all the water then that would affect their habitat. “That’s why I think there’s a correlation with water – they have bases and we only know 5% of the ocean.”
Scientist Bob McGwier has provided great insight into underwater UFO sightings. He disclosed two incidents about underwater UFOs or USOs, that he saw while performing covert operations. This claim was made several months after a video had been made public by the United States military, in which it appeared to show an unidentified flying object moving from the sky into the water in the year 2019. (Click here to read the full article)
Ancient Mesopotamian Bricks Record 3,000-Year-Old Geomagnetic Anomaly
Ancient Mesopotamian Bricks Record 3,000-Year-Old Geomagnetic Anomaly
A geomagnetic anomaly that occurred between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago has shed light on ancient Mesopotamia in a way that has never been explored before. Analysis of ancient bricks from Mesopotamia, specifically modern-day Iraq, point to a dramatic spike in the Earth’s magnetic field roughly 3,000 years ago. It is now the subject of a fascinating new study, which relies on archaeomagnetic techniques, i.e., extracting information about the strength and direction of the Earth’s magnetic field from ancient objects, and offers an alternative method of artifact dating.
Heating and Cooling: Firing the Bricks
These ancient Mesopotamian bricks, containing iron oxide, were employed to investigate the strength of the Earth's magnetic field during the firing period. Scientists systematically erased the ancient magnetic signature from small fragments of the bricks through a process of heating and cooling, according to the study published in The Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.
The bricks were then reheated, and the original magnetic field was replaced with one generated in the laboratory. This process enabled the researchers to establish a ratio between the object's magnetic charge in the past and under controlled laboratory conditions.
Brick dates to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 604 to 562 BCE) based on the interpretation of the inscription. This object was looted from its original context before being acquired by the Slemani Museum and stored in that museum with agreement from the central government.
(Image courtesy of the Slemani Museum)
Professor Mark Altaweel of University College London is studying the exceptional strength of the magnetic field in the Middle East around 3,000 years ago, known as the Levantine Iron Age Geomagnetic Anomaly: a point of high magnetic intensity between 1050-550 BC in modern-day Iraq.
“We often depend on dating methods such as radiocarbon dates to get a sense of chronology in ancient Mesopotamia. However, some of the most common cultural remains, such as bricks and ceramics, cannot typically be easily dated because they don’t contain organic material,” Altaweel said in a statement.
The findings revealed that these bricks were fired at a time when the Earth's magnetic field was more than one and a half times stronger than its present intensity. This time period corresponds to the Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic anomaly.
The anomaly, initially identified in 2009 by members of the same research team in a nearby region, was investigated using similar methods but on layers of rock material. History was literally baked into the bricks of cities through Iron Age Babylonia, reports The Hill.
Altaweel and his colleagues identified a set of 32 Mesopotamian clay bricks, each bearing inscriptions with the names of 12 different kings. It is presumed that these inscriptions were associated with the rulers during the time when the bricks were created. What makes these bricks particularly valuable for scientific analysis is the presence of iron oxide grains within them.
These grains have the unique ability to preserve the direction and strength of the magnetic field that existed when the bricks were initially fired. By examining the inscriptions and measuring the magnetic properties of the iron oxide grains, researchers gained insights into the Earth's magnetic field during the respective reigns of the kings.
Lead author Professor Matthew Howland of Wichita State University said, "By comparing ancient artifacts to what we know about ancient conditions of the magnetic field, we can estimate the dates of any artifacts that were heated up in ancient times."
Precise Dating Method: More than Just Carbon Dating
Carbon dating, which essentially measures the decay process from the moment of death, offers a highly accurate means of determining the time elapsed since the death of a being buried in a tomb or the cutting down of a tree used to fashion tools such as spear- or hoe-handles. This method plays a crucial role in pinpointing the chronological age of organic materials and contributes to the precision of archaeological dating.
However, despite the significance of the ruins of ancient cities, archaeologists face a significant challenge related to dating. The most dependable method for establishing the age of organic artifacts, ranging from cloth to wood to bones, involves tracking the systematic decay of radioactive carbon atoms within them, which is not always present.
Study co-author Professor Lisa Tauxe of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography explains the potential of the new approach:
"The geomagnetic field is one of the most enigmatic phenomena in Earth sciences. The well-dated archaeological remains of the rich Mesopotamian cultures, especially bricks inscribed with names of specific kings, provide an unprecedented opportunity to study changes in the field strength in high time resolution, tracking changes that occurred over several decades or even less."
“During…the first three millennia BC, you see the development of cities for the first time, the development of these incredibly complex societies like the Babylonians, and the development of agriculture for the first time in this region,” explained Howland in a Vice report.
This approach offered a more precise chronological record compared to traditional methods like carbon dating, which often comes with uncertainties spanning decades or centuries. The length of a king's reign and the accuracy of historical timelines play crucial roles in enhancing the precision of this magnetic field-based dating method.
Traditionally, historical inscriptions have been used to corroborate archaeological research, but specifics are never clear, and can be hit and miss. A scientific method like this one provides a basis for future archaeologists to apply archaeomagnetic techniques to date previously un-dateable material at archaeological sites, like ceramics. This is because radiocarbon dating doesn’t work on ancient artifacts that don’t contain the C-14 carbon isotope.
In the future, even geologists desperate to understand the Earth’s geomagnetic behaviors can benefit from this method. Since scientists only began taking measurements from specific locations around the world 400 years ago, and only recently globally with the advent of satellites, the field can now be expanded across time and space.
Top image: Sulimaniya brick B318, part of the collection holding the signature of the geomagnetic anomaly.
At The Debrief, we cover a lot of science and technology news that feels like it’s being ripped from the script of a science fiction movie. So, here is a quick top 5 list of some of our favorite stories, scientific movements, and technological developments from 2023.
1. ADVANCEMENTS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The year saw explosive growth in generative AI (gen AI) tools. 2023 was very much the year of AI. Entire companies and jobs have shifted to an AI-based model. AI high performers, defined as organizations attributing at least 20% of their EBIT to AI adoption, were at the forefront of adopting gen AI tools. The business disruption from gen AI was significant, leading to workforce changes and large reskilling efforts. With their nearly human-like creativity or their ability to decode ancient long-lost text, AI has altered how we live and work. And while the dystopian hell world where machines take over and murder all of us in our sleep is still a ways away, there are definitely security risks with this new technology whether it is from errors in the system and cybersecurity. Suffice it to say, we have crossed a threshold and we will just have to see how far this rabbit hole goes (A Matrix pun…AI…get it?).
2. EXOPLANETS, EXOPLANETS EVERYWHERE…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope confirmed its first exoplanet, LHS 475 b, an Earth-sized planet in January of this year, and the hunt for planets in the cosmos has not slowed down. This discovery opens the door to studying rocky planet atmospheres and brings us closer to understanding Earth-like worlds outside our solar system. A few months later, the James Webb spotted another planet called GJ 1214 b and then another, TOI 1680 b, and then K2 18 b …well, the list keeps going. Hunting new distant planets aside, some spectacular discoveries around the Trappist-1 solar system have also been made, including some curious “ghost signals” that made headlines. We even discovered “exomoons” that didn’t turn out to be moons at all! If space is the final frontier, we are only getting closer to it, and learning what’s out there.
This illustration shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the habitable zone and lies 120 light years from Earth. (Image Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI))
The US Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved a significant milestone by compressing atoms to initiate nuclear fusion, generating more energy than consumed at the very end of 2022. This was a major step towards developing nuclear fusion as a clean energy source. The NIF, costing $3.5 billion and located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, conducted successful ignition shots, producing record amounts of fusion energy. Things did not slow down in 2023. The Department of Energy began testing new materials for fusion reactors, and a global network of nations completed the construction of the largest fusion reactor in Japan. And while the public is still unsure about the technology, the safe and very environmentally friendly fusion energy may just be our next handhold up the Kardashev Scale. Level 1…here we come!
5. THE EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE CHANGE THREAT
Global conflicts, war, and disease are tragic concepts that humans have to face on a daily basis, and when it comes to our future on this planet, climate change is our greatest challenge. Now, while humans often act like tribal monkeys fighting over power or land or wealth, there are a few shining beacons of hope. Whether it is a plan to de-extinct some species to restore ancient ecosystems, or to develop novel technology like artificial photosynthesis or rain panels, our drive to survive has made 2023 a benchmark year.
The year 2023 marked a watershed moment in science and technology, characterized by groundbreaking achievements across multiple domains. From the rapid evolution and adoption of generative AI to the pivotal discoveries of exoplanets, each advancement has contributed to a profound shift in our understanding and capabilities. Quantum computing breakthroughs brought us closer to solving complex problems that were once beyond our grasp, while strides in fusion energy research signaled a promising future for sustainable power. Ongoing research into climate change continued to shed light on one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Collectively, these developments not only epitomize the ingenuity and perseverance of the scientific community but also underscore the potential of technology to reshape our world, offering hope and new possibilities for the years ahead.
As we enter into 2024, The Debrief will be here to cover all the groundbreaking science and technology news from the frontiers of knowledge.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. He is the host of The Debrief Weekly Report. You can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
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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.
