Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
12-03-2024
NASA Scientists Unveil Design for Europa Clipper’s ‘Golden Record’
NASA Scientists Unveil Design for Europa Clipper’s ‘Golden Record’
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraftwill carry a triangular metal plate with a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s moon Europa.
This side of a commemorative plate mounted on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft features U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
Made of the metal tantalum and about 18 by 28 cm (7 by 11 inches), Europa Clipper’s metal plate features graphic elements on both sides.
At its heart is an engraving of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa, along with a silicon microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
The microchip will be the centerpiece of an illustration of a bottle amid the Jovian system — a reference to NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign.
The outward-facing panel features art that highlights Earth’s connection to Europa.
Linguists collected recordings of the word ‘water’ spoken in 103 languages, from families of languages around the world.
The audio files were converted into waveforms (visual representations of sound waves) and etched into the plate.
The waveforms radiate out from a symbol representing the American Sign Language sign for ‘water.’
In the spirit of the Voyager spacecraft’s Golden Record, which carries sounds and images to convey the richness and diversity of life on Earth, the layered message on Europa Clipper aims to spark the imagination and offer a unifying vision.
“The content and design of Europa Clipper’s vault plate are swimming with meaning,” said Dr. Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters.
“The plate combines the best humanity has to offer across the Universe — science, technology, education, art, and math.”
“The message of connection through water, essential for all forms of life as we know it, perfectly illustrates Earth’s tie to this mysterious ocean world we are setting out to explore.”
In 2030, after a 2.6-billion-km (1.6-billion-mile) journey, Europa Clipper will begin orbiting Jupiter, making 49 close flybys of Europa.
To determine if there are conditions that could support life, the spacecraft’s powerful suite of science instruments will gather data about the moon’s subsurface ocean, icy crust, thin atmosphere, and space environment.
The electronics for those instruments are housed in a massive metal vault designed to protect them from Jupiter’s punishing radiation. The commemorative plate will seal an opening in the vault.
Because searching for habitable conditions is central to the mission, the Drake Equation is etched onto the plate as well — on the inward-facing side.
Astronomer Frank Drake developed the mathematical formulation in 1961 to estimate the possibility of finding advanced civilizations beyond Earth.
The equation has inspired and guided research in astrobiology and related fields ever since.
In addition, artwork on the inward-facing side of the plate will include a reference to the radio frequencies considered plausible for interstellar communication, symbolizing how humanity uses this radio band to listen for messages from the cosmos.
These particular frequencies match the radio waves emitted in space by the components of water and are known by astronomers as the ‘water hole.’ On the plate, they are depicted as radio emission lines.
Finally, the plate includes a portrait of one of the founders of planetary science, Ron Greeley, whose early efforts to develop a Europa mission two decades ago laid the foundation for Europa Clipper.
“We’ve packed a lot of thought and inspiration into this plate design, as we have into this mission itself,” said Europa Clipper project scientist Robert Pappalardo, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It’s been a decades-long journey, and we can’t wait to see what Europa Clipper shows us at this water world.”
The European Space Agency (ESA)’s next generation heavy lift rocket is just months away from its first flight, and its major components are now being assembled for launch at the Vehicle Assembly Building in Kourou, French Guiana.
The new rocket is Europe’s upgrade to the retired Ariane 5, which flew for the last time in 2023. With a large payload fairing and lift capacity, Ariane 6 will be able to carry seriously heavy satellites (or multiple smaller ones). The heavy lift capability of the Ariane 6 is achieved using Hydrolox engines on both the first and second stages, assisted by up to four solid rocket boosters, enabling it to bring up to 11,000kg to geostationary transfer orbit.
The Ariane 6’s upper stage features the capability to relight its engine multiple times, giving it plenty of flexibility in the types of missions it can carry out, and improving the precision of the orbits it can reach. That makes it useful for both interplanetary missions and for unique orbital requirements around Earth.
Part of the first Ariane 6 rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, Kourou, French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Arianegroup.
What it won’t be is reusable.
Ariane 6 is an expendable rocket, bringing critics to wonder if it can keep up with notable competitors pursuing reusability like SpaceX. But Ariane 6 has different capabilities and caters to different launch parameters than SpaceX, giving it a market share that the Falcon Heavy isn’t tuned for. Perhaps more importantly, independent access to space is a priority for Europe, making Ariane 6 a strategic imperative as much as a technological or competitive advancement. Still, Ariane 6 may not remain ESA’s workhorse rocket long-term – they are already investigating reusable alternatives that should come onto the scene in the 2030s.
The rocket stages themselves aren’t the only place where ESA can make eco-and-budget-friendly innovations, and some changes are happening now. The support and logistics infrastructure for the Ariane 6, for example, includes shipping the rocket stages aboard the Canopée, a wind-assisted hybrid cargo ship that can cut emissions by more than 20% – up to 30% depending on its speed – compared to a conventionally powered ship.
the Canopée, arriving in French Guiana in February, carrying the first Ariane 6 rocket for launch later this summer. 7Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Arianegroup/Optique Vidéo du CSG – S. Martin.
The Canopée delivered the first Ariane 6 to Kourou last month, arriving at port after a 10-day, 7,000km journey from mainland Europe in February.
The rocket now being prepared for flight within the vehicle assembly building will go vertical on the pad in the coming months.
Ariane 6’s first flight is set for no earlier than June 15. It will carry out a rideshare mission bringing multiple small spacecraft into orbit.
After that, the vehicle will have a steady launch cadence, with a series of flights scheduled for 2025 to carry upgraded satellites for Europe’s Galileo constellation (an independent GPS system). There are also plans to launch several deep space missions in the next few years, including ESA’s exoplanet hunting telescope PLATO, components of the Mars Sample Return infrastructure, and ESA’s Comet Interceptor mission.
Satellite Measurements Show That Global Carbon Emissions are Still Rising
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), human activities have significantly impacted the planet. As global greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide) have continued to increase, so too have global temperatures – with severe ecological consequences. Between 2011 and 2020, global surface temperatures rose by an estimated 1.07 °C (2.01 °F) above the average in 1850–1900. At this rate, temperatures could further increase by 1.5 to 2 °C (2.7 to 3.6 °F) in the coming decades, depending on whether we can achieve net zero by 2050.
Unfortunately, the data for the past year is not encouraging. According to the 2023 Global Carbon Budget (GCB), an annual assessment of Earth’s carbon cycle, emissions in 2023 continued to rise by 1.1 percent compared to the previous year. This placed the total fossil fuel emissions from anthropogenic sources at 36.8 billion metric tons (over 40 US tons) of carbon dioxide, with an additional 4.1 billion metric tons (4.5 US tons) added by deforestation, extreme wildfires, and other sources. This trend indicates we are moving away from our goals and that things will get worse before they get better!
Carbon budgets are essential for assessing humanity’s impact on the planet and implementing mitigation strategies. The budget quantifies how much carbon was added to the atmosphere from fossil fuel use, land-use change, and other factors relative to how much carbon was removed by the planet’s carbon cycle. This refers to how our planet and its ecosystems recycle carbon, which keeps carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere within certain parameters and ensures temperatures remain stable over time.
Carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere if half of global-warming emissions are not absorbed. Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC
For eons, this balance was maintained by photosynthetic plants, organisms, and Earth’s oceans, which absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere. Meanwhile, geological forces (i.e., mantle convection) sequestered it in the Earth’s crust as carbonate rocks. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuel consumption has sharply increased, which has become exponentially worse since the mid-20th century. In addition, the growth of global populations since the 19th century has also seen a commensurate increase in land clearance and ecological destruction.
In short, emissions increased rapidly while Earth’s natural sequestration mechanisms were simultaneously being disrupted. The Global Carbon Budget was established to analyze these trends and prepare reports that inform organizations and help guide climate policy development. This year’s report relied on several data sources, the most notable of which were inventories of emissions collected by governments and energy agencies. Satellite data was provided by NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) instrument to estimate the flux of carbon between the land and atmosphere.
CO2 concentrations have increased from 278 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 to 420 ppm in 2023. In addition to carbon emissions from transportation, power generation, and manufacturing, major contributors this year included the extreme wildfire season in Canada. The data also indicates that the average global surface temperature in 2023 was 1.2 °C (2.1 °F) warmer than the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), making it the hottest year on record. This is part of a trend where the past ten years (2014-2023) were either the hottest year on record or tied with another year during that same period.
Based on climate modeling and data from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), researchers at NASA also create visualizations that illustrate how carbon dioxide is produced and stored every year. The visualization below is based on the most recent full year of available information (2021) and includes data on vegetation, human population density, infrastructure, and wildfires to depict how carbon dioxide was added and removed from the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide emissions are color-coded based on source to show the two main contributors and removal systems.
These include fossil fuel emissions (yellow), burning biomass (red), land ecosystems (green), and the ocean (blue). The Earth’s crust and its oceans are both carbon sinks, meaning they remove more carbon from the atmosphere (and store it) than they emit. However, as the visualization shows, they can also be sources under certain circumstances, depending on the time and place. Surprisingly, the proportion of carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere (the airborne fraction) has remained remarkably stable over the past 60 years, even with the continued increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
However, scientists question whether and for how long that stability will continue. Ben Poulter, a co-author of the report and scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, summarized in a recent NASA press release:
“Emissions are heading [in] the wrong direction that we need to limit global warming. Amazingly, the ocean and land continue to absorb about half of the carbon we emit. Only about 44 percent of emissions stay in the atmosphere each year, slowing the rate of climate change, but causing ocean acidification and altering how land ecosystems function.”
In 2023, a study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) analyzed carbon storage in the ocean over two decades. Titled “Decadal Trends in the Oceanic Storage of Anthropogenic Carbon From 1994 to 2014,” this study indicated that this crucial carbon sink could be losing some of its storage capacity. The authors concluded that the ocean has likely slowed its absorption because it has already accumulated substantial amounts of CO2 and that changes in global ocean circulation (due to temperature increases) may be reducing the amount transferred from subsurface waters to the ocean floor.
The chart below, taken from the 2023 GCB report, illustrates how the absorption rates of carbon sinks have changed over time. The report also emphasizes how carbon dioxide emissions are declining slightly in some regions, including Europe and the United States, but are still rising globally. The countries with the largest increase in emissions in 2023 were India and China, reflecting the ongoing “economic miracle” these nations have undergone in recent decades. Based on these latest numbers, there is doubt that world governments will meet their climate goals, as spelled out in the Paris Agreement.
Visualization of annual carbon emissions vs. storage worldwide. Credit: NASA Goddard
Signed in December 2015, delegates from the 196 signatory countries committed to keeping average global temperature increases “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” while “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.” According to the GCB team, the current emissions level suggests that the planet’s current carbon budget for keeping temperatures within this range is running out. They also claim that, at present, “there is a 50 percent chance global warming will exceed 1.5°C consistently in about seven years.”
While it may not sound like a lot, this represents an average increase (both annually and globally), and the difference between these two scenarios is stark. As the IPCC explained in its A6 report, an increase of 1.5 °C would lead to more extreme weather (heavy rains and severe flooding), mass die-offs, and the extinction of many animal species. It would also mean that 8% of all farmland and 3 to 41% of fisheries worldwide would be lost due to increased famine and disruption to Earth’s oceans. These risks increase sharply with an average increase of 2 °C, with the projected extinction of up to 18% of all species on land.
Above all, it is important to note that this is not the worst-case scenario. According to the AR6 report, a temperature increase of 4 °C (7.2 °F) would result in irreversible damage to the planet and its species:
“[M]ass mortalities and extinctions are expected that will irreversibly alter globally important areas, including those that host exceptionally rich biodiversity such as tropical coral reefs and cold-water kelp forests and the world’s rainforests. Even at lower levels of warming of 2°C or less, polar fauna (including fish, penguins, seals, and polar bears), tropical coral reefs and mangroves will be under serious threat.”
Data collected by NASA and other federal agencies are now available through the recently launched U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center. This multi-agency effort consolidates information from observations and models to provide decision-makers with one location for data and analysis.
VIDEO – UFO Over Oklahoma City: Witness Describes Mysterious Smoky Circle
VIDEO – UFO Over Oklahoma City: Witness Describes Mysterious Smoky Circle
In a recent, captivating interview on “NewsNation Prime,” Steve Aragona shared his extraordinary experience of witnessing an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) in the skies over Oklahoma City. This event, occurring on the evening of March 4, has added to the growing collection of UAP sightings that continue to intrigue both the public and researchers alike.
The Encounter
Steve, a Navy veteran, was enjoying a casual evening outside with his children and neighbors when their attention was abruptly drawn to the sky by an unexpected sight. A bright, stationary object appeared overhead, its brilliance and stillness in stark contrast to familiar aerial objects like aircraft or celestial bodies such as shooting stars and comets.
The object’s behavior became even more intriguing when it began to move, emitting what Steve described as a “smoky type circle.” This phenomenon defied the witnesses’ expectations, as conventional understanding suggests that any natural object, such as a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere, would move away from such a formation, not towards it.
Expert Insights
The sighting prompted discussions with experts who acknowledged that this event strongly aligns with numerous other UAP encounters reported not just in the United States but globally. These encounters often share a common thread of exhibiting behaviors and characteristics that challenge our current understanding of physics and aeronautics.
Speculation and Skepticism
The mention of a SpaceX launch earlier that day added a layer of complexity to the sighting. SpaceX clarified that if the launch were related to the observed phenomenon, it would have been visible in a completely different direction, thereby ruling out a direct connection. This detail further deepens the mystery, as it suggests that the sighting cannot be easily dismissed as a misidentified human-made object.
Broader Implications
Steve’s experience and subsequent reflection on the possibility of extraterrestrial life highlight a significant shift in the public discourse surrounding UAPs. Once a topic relegated to the fringes of serious conversation, the increasing number of credible witnesses and official investigations into UAPs has brought it into mainstream consideration.
VIDEO:
‘Smoky type circle’: Man describes seeing UAP over Oklahoma City | NewsNation Prime
The sighting over Oklahoma City underscores the need for continued research and open dialogue about UAPs. As we gather more evidence and testimonies, we inch closer to understanding the true nature of these phenomena. Whether they are natural, extraterrestrial, or something else entirely, stories like Steve Aragona’s play a crucial role in unraveling the mysteries that lie beyond our current comprehension.
Afew weeks before he died, President William G. Harding toured Yellowstone National Park. He said bluntly, “Commercialism will never be tolerated here as long as I have the power to prevent it.” The U.S. National Park system exists, in part, to protect some of our country’s most pristine wilderness from being destroyed by ventures like construction, mining, and logging.
While we’ve been able to create National Parks here in the U.S., nobody has the legal right to do that on the Moon. So what happens to the once-pristine Moon when the space miners show up?
Along with private missions like the recent Intuitive Machines’ lander IM-1, several countries’ space agencies all have their eyes on the same real estate around the Moon’s south pole, where water ice may lie waiting in permanently shadowed craters. Until recently, debates about what should and shouldn’t happen on the Moon have been abstract. Only one country’s space agency had ever sent humans to the Moon, and they didn’t stay long. That’s on the brink of changing. The next decade may see the once-pristine lunar landscape dotted with bases and riddled with mines, all jostling for space (and bandwidth) with telescopes and other scientific exploration. But is the lunar environment worth preserving, for science or in its own right, and who gets to decide?
There’s no life on the Moon, but the scenery is breathtaking (astronaut Harrison Schmitt for scale).
NASA
WHO OWNS THE MOON?
A recent (failed) mission to land cremated human remains on the Moon raised a high-profile example of the kind of ethical issues space ethicists say we should be considering. Astrobotic’s Peregrine One lander was scheduled to deliver the cremated remains of Gene Roddenberry and several members of the original Star Trek cast, and others to the Moon.
The Navajo Nation formally protested the mission’s launch; in Navajo beliefs, the Moon is a sacred object, and placing human remains there would be a desecration. In the end, a fuel leak forced the mission to return to Earth, where it ended in a fiery plunge into the upper atmosphere, but it drew attention to a larger debate about who gets to decide — for everyone — how we as a species relate to the Moon now.
“Every culture on Earth has conceptions about the Moon,” Santa Clara University space ethicist Brian Green tells Inverse. “There are lots of groups on Earth who have thoughts on how the Moon should be treated. This is why we need to have a larger conversation.”
Part of the unfolding discussion centers on what, if anything, we should try to protect on the Moon. Several groups here on Earth, such as For All Moonkind, have spent years arguing that the first crewed lunar landing sites are an important part of human history and should be preserved, but at the moment there’s no law or treaty preventing someone from erasing the rover tracks or astronauts’ footprints.
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module casts a long shadow over the surface of the Moon — and the footprints of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin — in July 1968.
NASA
The Navajo aren't the only people who consider the Moon sacred. Cultures around the world have always tended to connect the Moon with the divine. For Hindus, the Moon represents the god Chandra, who is associated with plants and the night. Shinto believers see the Moon as the god Tsukuyomi, and for the Inuit, it's Alignak, a god whose domain includes weather, tides, and earthquakes. In ancient times, the Greeks worshiped the virginal huntress and nature goddess Artemis, while the Egyptians worshiped the god Khonsu, a healer and protector of nighttime travelers.
These deities' domains reveal a lot about how people have seen the moon over the millennia. It's been something pure, a bright light in the darkness, sometimes protective but other times belonging more to wild things than to people.
But the Moon is also a place; in the late 1500s, Galileo pointed his early telescopes at the Moon and discovered mountains, valleys, and craters. Today, we know the Moon as a dusty landscape marked by ancient volcanoes and billions of years of meteors. We've crashed spacecraft into its surface (both accidentally and on purpose), a few people have walked and even driven around small parts of it, and most of them left behind bags of waste and piles of dead-weight junk. But most of the Moon is still what astrophysicist and space ethicist Erika Nesvold calls a “space wilderness." She acknowledges that it's hard to think of wilderness in a place with no life, but argues that perhaps we should.
“We also have to ask questions about things like resource overuse,” says Nesvold. “If we mine out all the water on the moon in the next three generations, what are future generations going to do? Do we need to make sure we're preserving any of that?”
Increasingly, national governments and private companies are seeing the Moon not as a deity, a symbol, or a scientific puzzle: they're beginning to see it as a resource: a source of fuel and water on the way to Mars, a site for radio telescopes, or a source of geopolitical clout.
And that's sparking an urgent debate about whether some parts of the Moon remain pristine -- and if so, which parts. Whose faith and traditions, whose scientific curiosity, whose sense of aesthetics, or whose billion-dollar business plan should decide the fate of the Moon's ancient landscape?
China is the Unites States’ main competitor in the current “space race,” with India close behind.
FUTURE PUBLISHING/FUTURE PUBLISHING/GETTY IMAGES
IF YOU’RE NOT FIRST, YOU’RE LAST
Part of the challenge of “space ethics” is to figure out what to do about these issues, but the really difficult part will be figuring out who gets to have a say. Can anyone tell a private company where, or whether, they can mine the Moon, open a lunar landfill, or turn a crater into a cemetery? How can countries with wildly differing values agree on the value – commercial, scientific, or ideological – of the Moon?
“At the more international level, that’s what international law is for,” says Nesvold.
At the moment, only the absolute basics are covered, starting with the Outer Space Treaty, in which most of the world’s nations have agreed that no one can claim territory in space, the Moon is to be used only for peaceful purposes, and nuclear weapons aren’t allowed in space. The Registration Convention requires states to register the orbital paths of their spacecraft with the UN to help prevent collisions. And the Rescue Agreement requires states to help spacefarers in distress, regardless of where they’re from.
Another treaty, the Space Liability Convention, says that spacecraft are the responsibility of the country they’re launched from — whether they’re publicly or privately owned. That means it’s up to an individual country to decide whether a company can launch human remains, soda cans, tardigrades, or anything else to the Moon (under U.S. regulations, any payload can go as long as it’s safe to launch and not a threat to national security).
What’s not covered by those laws is whether it’s okay to carve a giant advertising logo into a lunar basin, inter human remains or leave branded trinkets on the Moon, mine iconic lunar landmarks, or send tourists to the Apollo 11 landing site to walk in Neil Armstrong’s footsteps. And those are all very real possibilities in the near future. Space law, and space ethics, are urgent works in progress.
This artist’s illustration shows what future construction projects on the Moon might look like.
NASA
Meanwhile, the power to make those decisions is a big reason countries like the U.S., China, India, and Russia are all scrambling to get a foothold on the lunar surface before their rivals. Being the first to set up shop on the Moon is a huge way for a nation to show off its power, wealth, and technological chops. But on a practical level, being first also means first pick of landing sites, first dibs on lunar resources, and the first chance to choose which pieces of the lunar environment to protect.
“Ultimately, the people who get to make the decisions are the ones who are there,” says Green. “So that's why you hope that the people who are making the decisions and who are there are going to be ethical and actually considerate of other people's opinions.”
But that space race mentality can have its own problems.
“The space race dynamic always makes ethics more complicated,” says Green.
For one thing, there’s the question of what ethical shortcuts a nation or company might be willing to take to get there first. That could mean exploiting workers, taking undue risks with astronauts, or damaging the environment here on Earth.
“People who are arguing for more space telescopes, or people who are arguing for space launch centers on the path towards settling space often have really noble-sounding rhetoric: The idea of rocket launches and building more human civilization in space, versus the concerns about potential pollutants in local wetlands – the sorts of things you hear about in places like Boca Chica,” Nesvold tells Inverse. “I think that's very similar to the sort of manifest destiny rhetoric that you would see during colonization.”
Humans will go to great lengths to plant their country’s flag.
NASA
America’s crewed space program was built on a major ethical shortcut: the work of Nazi officer Werner von Braun, who also designed the V2 rockets that killed around 9,000 British civilians during World War II (thousands more forced laborers died building them). Operation Paperclip, which brought von Braun and his team of engineers to the U.S., might have been unthinkable without the pressure to stay ahead of the USSR in space.
What space ethicists like Green and Nesvold want to avoid is a future where we plow blindly forward, with whoever gets there first imposing their will on a satellite that has, for all of human history until now, belonged to everyone – but at the same time, to no one. Nesvold warns that if we do that, we risk repeating the injustices of colonialism here on Earth.
IS ANTARCTICA A BLUEPRINT FOR SPACE?
Nations whose interests and values often clash will have to agree on how to manage a commons: "a broad set of resources, natural and cultural, that are shared by many people," as the International Association for the Study of the Commons puts it. We've already done that here on Earth, to some extent. The future of the Moon and Mars may owe a lot to the system of treaties that protect Antarctica and the set of laws that apply in international waters.
The international agreements that protect these adorable penguins could provide a framework for cooperation on the Moon.
ANADOLU/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
The 1959 Antarctic Treaty reserves the entire Antarctic continent for peaceful, scientific use. No commercial mining is allowed, and there are strict rules protecting plants, wildlife, and landscapes. Tourists, scientists, and even some military personnel are allowed to visit (or live there for months at a stretch), but only if the expedition or tour operator has a permit from one of the 56 countries that have signed the treaty.
Countries that issue permits have regulations about the type of activity and the number of people they'll allow; some of those rules are to protect the fragile polar environment, but others are for safety. For example, "the UK will also not normally authorize the use of helicopters for recreational purposes in areas with concentrations of wildlife, including the Antarctic Peninsula region." (As a side note, "for safety reasons the UK will not authorize snorkeling activities in the Antarctic." The more you know.)
Eight of the countries who signed the treaty claim sectors of territory in Antarctica, and some of them overlap. In theory, no one is allowed to claim new territory in Antarctica; the eight countries that claim sectors today had already made their claims before the Antarctic Treaty was written, and part of the treaty forbids anyone from making new claims. But both the U.S. and Russia argue that they've reserved the right to claim territory in Antarctica in the future.
On the other hand, several countries, including the U.S., have research stations in other countries' sectors without any major conflict.
If someone wants to violate the Antarctic Treaty, it's going to be hard to stop them without resorting to military force. That's even more true on the Moon. But so far, the Antarctic Treaty has worked fairly well.
"If we can look at what's worked and what hasn't in terms of preventing conflicts and protecting the environment, then we can apply those in space," says Nesvold.
The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer
The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer
The Pentagon says it’s not hiding aliens, but it stops notably short of saying what it is hiding. Here are the key questions that remain unanswered—some answers could be weirder than UFOs.
PHOTOGRAPH: TOM BRENNER/GETTY IMAGES
After a year of eyebrow-raising headlines about government whistleblowers alleging that the military was running secret programs focused on alien spaceships and a months-long study and dogged investigative work through the shadows of classified Pentagon programs, the United States Defense Department announced Friday that it found no evidence that the government is covering up contact with extraterrestrials.
The first sentence of the 63-page report on the government’s involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomenon—a report mandated and driven by Congress—seemingly left no wiggle room: The study “found no evidence that any USG [US government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology. All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification.”-
The report was issued by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the unit created and tasked in recent years with studying UAP sightings and untangling the truth of the government’s knowledge and understanding of generations of UFO reports. It follows media interviews and a blockbuster congressional hearing last summer where whistleblower David Grusch testified that the government was engaged in a decades-long cover-up of crashed alien spacecraft and in possession even of “non-human biologics,” e.g., alien bodies. Grusch and other witnesses and whistleblowers came forward to congressional committees and Pentagon investigators and hinted at astounding possibilities, including that the government was running secret UFO crash-retrieval programs, and defense contractors were running covert programs, hidden even from budget appropriators, to reverse-engineer captured alien technology.
There were many reasons to doubt the full expanse of the testimony by Grusch and others. Much of it was second-hand, and after spending two yearswriting a bookon the government, UFOs, and the search for extraterrestrial life, Isaid last summerthat many of the claims seemed more like an “intergalactic game of telephone,” where people with limited visibility into secret Pentagon and intelligence programs were misidentifying or misinterpreting more mundane program. But that’s not to say that the new AARO report is the end of the story nor that its conclusion should be the end of public interest in UFOs, UAPs, and the secret frontiers of government science.
In fact, while the report’s conclusion surprised almost no one except the most ardent of believers—people who might not be all that inclined to believe the Pentagon’s disavowal anyway—the report in its own way raises as many new questions as it answers, questions that could, with time, prove revolutionary to technology and science.
AARO investigators, for instance, dug through the claims of witnesses and whistleblowers and successfully traced back the underlying research projects, Special Access Programs (SAPs), and classified compartments. As the report says, “AARO investigated numerous named, and described, but unnamed programs alleged to involve UAP exploitation conveyed to AARO through official interviews,” and ultimately, “conclude[d] many of these programs represent authentic, current and former sensitive, national security programs, but none of these programs have been involved with capturing, recovering, or reverse-engineering off-world technology or material.”
But what, then, were those programs? Herein lies the most intriguing—and potentially ground-breaking—question that the Pentagon study leaves us wondering: What exactly are the secret compartmentalized programs that the whistleblowers and government witnessesmisidentifiedas being related to UAP technology? What, exactly, are the Pentagon, intelligence community, or defense contractors working on that, from a concentric circle or two away inside the shadowy world of SAPs, looks and sounds like reverse-engineering out-of-this-world technology or even studying so-called “non-human biologics”?
There are at least four clear possibilities.
Secret Tech From Foreign Nations
First, what exotic technological possibilities have been recovered from unknown terrestrial sources? For example, if the government is working on reverse-engineering technologies, those technologies are likely from advanced adversary nation-states like China, Russia, and Iran, and perhaps even quasi-allies like Israel that may be more limited in their technology-sharing with the US. What have other countries mastered that we haven’t?
A Question of ‘Peculiar Characteristics’
Second, what technologies has the US mastered that the public doesn’t know about? One of the common threads of UFO sightings across decades have been secret military aircraft and spacecraft in development or not yet publicly acknowledged. For example, the CIA estimated that the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s accounted for as much as half of reported UFO sightings. And the AARO report spends a half-dozen pages documenting how confusion over subsequent generations of secret US government aircraft appear to have also contributed to the great intergalactic game of telephone of UFO programs inside the government, including modern Predator, Reaper, and Global Hawk drones. AARO investigated one claim where a witness reported hearing a former US military service member had touched an extraterrestrial spacecraft, but when they tracked down the service member, he said that the conversation was likely a garbled version of the time he touched an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter at a secret facility.-
There are surely other secret craft still in testing and development now, including the B-21 stealth bomber, which had its first test flight in November and is now in testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, as well as others we don’t know about. The government can still surprise us with unknown craft—like the until-then-unknown modified stealthy helicopter left behind on the Pakistan raid to kill Osama bin Laden. And some of these still-classified efforts are likely causing UFO confusion too: AARO untangled one witness’s claim of spotting a UAP with “peculiar characteristics” at a specific time and place and were able to determine, “at the time the interviewee said he observed the event, the DOD was conducting tests of a platform protected by a SAP. The seemingly strange characteristics reported by the interviewee match closely with the platform’s characteristics, which was being tested at a military facility in the time frame the interviewee was there.” So what was that craft—and what were its “peculiar characteristics?”
Relatedly, the US military has a classified spaceship, the X-37B, that has regularly orbited around the Earth since its first mission in 2010—it just blasted off on its seventh and most recent mission in December—and its previous, sixth, mission lasted a record-breaking 908 days in orbit. The Pentagon has said remarkably little about what it does up there for years at a time. What secret space-related or aviation-related programs is the government running that outsiders confuse as alien spacecraft?
A Material Matter
The third likely area of tech development that might appear to outsiders to be UFO-related is more speculative basic research and development: What propulsion systems or material-science breakthroughs are defense contractors at work on right now that could transform our collective future? Again, AARO found such confusion taking place: After one witness reported hearing that “aliens” had observed one secret government test, AARO traced the allegation back to find “the conversation likely referenced a test and evaluation unit that had a nickname with ‘alien’ connotations at the specific installation mentioned. The nature of the test described by the interviewee closely matched the description of a specific materials test conveyed to AARO investigators.” So what materials were being tested there?
There are some puzzling materials-science breadcrumbs wrapped throughout the AARO report. It found one instance where “a private sector organization claimed to have in its possession material from an extraterrestrial craft recovered from a crash at an unknown location from the 1940s or 1950s. The organization claimed that the material had the potential to act as a THz frequency waveguide, and therefore, could exhibit ‘anti-gravity’ and ‘mass reduction’ properties under the appropriate conditions.” Ultimately, though, the new report concluded, “AARO and a leading science laboratory concluded that the material is a metallic alloy, terrestrial in nature, and possibly of USAF [US Air Force] origin, based on its materials characterization.”
A Knowledge Limit
Fourth and lastly is the category of the truly weird: Scientists at the forefront of physics point out that we should be humble about how little of the universe we truly understand; as Harvard astronomy chair Avi Loeb explains, effectively all that we’ve learned about relativity and quantum physics has unfolded in the span of a single human lifespan, and astounding new discoveries continue to amaze scientists. Just last summer, scientists announced they’d detected for the first time gravitational waves criss-crossing the universe that rippled through space-time, and astrophysicists continue to suspect that the universe is far weirder than we think. (Italian astrophysicist Carlo Rovelli last year posited the existence of “white holes” that would be related to black holes, which, he pointed out, were still a mystery just 25 years ago when he was starting his career.)
Answers here could be almost unfathomably weird—think parallel dimensions or the ability to travel at a fraction of the speed of light. And one of the most intriguing questions left by the UAP “game of telephone” is whether there are truly astounding advances in physics that government scientists, defense contractors, or research laboratories or centers could be feeling around that could also appear from the outside to be UFO-related.
Indeed, the AARO report references that at least some chunk of the “alien confusion” inside government may have grown out of a now well-known but then-secret effort in the late 2000s and early 2010s by Nevada entrepreneur Robert Bigelow’s aerospace company to study UAPs and paranormal activity by the Defense Intelligence Agency, through $22 million in funding secured by then-Senate majority leader Harry Reid. That effort, known as the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP), included digging—without official authorization—into paranormal activity at a ranch out west, among other activities. Not much came out of that effort—and the AARO report dismissively notes that AAWSAP’s “scientific papers were never thoroughly peer-reviewed.” But people in and around the world of “ufology” have long noted that one of those papers intriguingly studied “Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions.” Did the Pentagon know more about the outer boundaries of physics than it let on?
While other physicists who have reviewed that speculative 34-page AAWSAP report have said it had little real-world utility, it hints at how our modern understanding of the world around us may still be transformed by the unknown and future discoveries.
After reading thousands of pages of government studies, extraterrestrial research, and scientific papers related to the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, I’ve come to believe that in some ways aliens might be the least interesting answer to the questions around UAPs and UFOs. Similarly, the AARO report may one day be seen as closing the door on alien spacecraft while opening the door to something even more fantastical.
Former US intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress during the July 2023 UAP hearing, stating that we have numerous spacecraft of non-human origin. If this is the case, one might wonder if any contact has been established between humans and these extraterrestrial species. There have been persistent rumors suggesting that the US government may have signed treaties with these extraterrestrials and has been engaged in collaborative efforts with them over an extended period.
According to a rather extraordinary claim made by former US government consultant Timothy Good, it is alleged that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had three clandestine meetings with extraterrestrials. Good claimed Eisenhower met aliens at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954. In more recent times, former Israeli Space Head Haim Eshed stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars. Eshed went on to claim the existence of a “Galactic Federation” and implied that then-President Trump was on the brink of making significant revelations in this regard.
Video Evidence
During a podcast with former Fox News anchor Clayton Morris on his show Redacted, Joshua Reid, a former United States Navy serviceman with a background in missile weapons defense systems, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. He opened the conversation by referencing his personal experiences in the Navy, specifically during the years 2004 to 2006. Reid’s background made him intimately familiar with topics related to secret space projects, a subject that has piqued his interest for over two and a half decades.
It is worth noting that Joshua Reid’s extensive research in the field of UAPs and classified information has led him to the inner workings of certain government activities. His extensive four-year investigation revealed a disconcerting pattern. It appeared that military technology, particularly in special access programs, was unintentionally making its way to foreign adversaries, including China. This exchange of classified information seemed to involve universities and professors who were receiving grants to reverse engineer technologies from these programs.
The remarkable twist in this story was that Hillary Clinton’s emails were potentially facilitating the sale of this classified information to China and other foreign entities. China would fund universities, enticing professors to divulge information on special access programs. This enabled them to advance their technology rapidly, potentially reaching parity with the United States.
Former Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III, well-versed in these special access programs, played a crucial role in this unfolding drama. He represented David Grusch and became a central figure in the whistleblower saga. According to Reid, multiple whistleblowers were involved, with two possessing firsthand information and tangible evidence. The fear of repercussions led these individuals to testify in front of congressmen, notably, Indiana Congressman André Carson. However, it was not until these whistleblowers presented video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials that congressmen took their claims seriously.
The impact of these videos was profound. Congressmen were visibly shaken, with one trembling and another drinking water profusely. This sudden shift in demeanor signified that the evidence was both extraordinary and unsettling. The whistleblowers were introduced to Inspector General McCullough, who had an extensive background in the very special access programs at the center of the controversy.
“I’ve heard that we can confirm this later, but from what I’m hearing, André Carson is this Congressman that they testified in front of, along with a few others. The Congressman didn’t take these guys seriously, but what ended up happening is they pulled out the evidence, a DVD, and they showed these congressmen video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials. After these videos were shown to congressmen, they were noticeably shaken in fear. One of them was holding a piece of paper and could not stop shaking. Another was drinking water profusely, and this is when they began to take this very, very seriously and introduce these gentlemen to the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, McCullough. Hence, he enters the picture as someone who understands these SAP programs, has been read into these programs from back in the day, and is now representing these gentlemen.”
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He posed the question of where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He asked Reid where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.
Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.
One of the prominent UFO researchers who has been sharing insider knowledge on UAPs is investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. It is quite uncertain if Coulthart possesses this DVD evidence but he did reveal that there exists a huge UFO in the possession of the United States that cannot be moved, and he knows the location of the craft. Ross mentioned the existence of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth for a long time and the recovery of certain objects, but he could not disclose specific details due to concerns about revealing advanced technologies.
In a recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” host Andy engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Ross. The discussion centered around the secrecy surrounding UFO sightings and government knowledge. Ross, who has deep insights into the matter, shared his perspective on why certain details remain undisclosed.
Andy began by addressing a critical question that has been on the minds of many UFO enthusiasts: the location of the mysterious craft. He asked Ross whether he could reveal where the craft was being held.
Ross responded: “Let me tell you, I can’t tell you the country it’s in; it’s not America. But what I can tell you is that the place where it is kept is used for another purpose that is a laudatory purpose that’s as much in your interests in your country in the UK as it is in mine in Australia and as it is in America. The simple reasons are that there are other uses for the place where this object is stored, and we could end up with a storm Area 51-type scenario if you came out and announced it.”
Ross went on to explain the potential consequences of revealing such information, including international incidents and threats to the safety of personnel at the facilities. He also emphasized the importance of protecting sources, drawing on his experience as a journalist dealing with sensitive intelligence.
Interestingly, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the July 2023 Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company, which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology.
According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.
The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.
Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.
Sprague wrote, “Date 4 – May 19, 2022, Biden is now in Alaska and stopped off to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This video is the most incredible of all. Biden meets with three of the Ganzi. Biden puts a small device in his ear and a conversation occurs without sound. The video lasts for nine minutes and then four people enter the area. One of the people is John Podesta. The other three are unknown. The beings leave and the video ends. In September of 2022, Biden names Podesta as the Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. December 14, 2022, America has a breakthrough in fusion. To achieve this scientific feat – a laser is used. This laser has ‘unique’ properties.” (Source)
Sprague’s claims cannot be verified; however, it is certain that there exists an alien craft, and the United States has successfully accessed its interior. Dr. James Lacatski, a retired DIA intelligence officer who established the UFO program that operated from 2008 to 2010, has confirmed this. He stated that the craft possesses a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but lacks conventional features such as an engine, wings, intakes, exhaust, or fuel tanks.
A team of astronomers recently discovered that little red dots in the distant universe were actually baby quasars, the precursors to the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies like our Milky Way. Astrophysicist Jorryt Matthee, of Austria’s Institute of Science and Technology, and his colleagues published their workin The Astrophysical Journal.
The small orange-red objects with the six refraction spikes are small, early galaxies with actively-feeding supermassive black holes, about 13 billion light years away.
MATTHEE AT AL. 2024
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Matthee and his colleagues used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to peer deep into a tiny slice of the sky. In older images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the faint red dots in the cosmic distance (13 billion light years away) had looked like very ancient, but otherwise ordinary, galaxies. However, JWST’s instruments picked up something else: specific wavelengths of light associated with hot, fast-moving hydrogen.
“These spectra tell us that we are looking at a very small gas cloud that moves extremely rapidly and orbits something very massive, like a supermassive black hole,” says Matthee in a recent statement.
The supermassive black holes in these “little red dot” galaxies are small: about 10 to 100 million times more massive than our Sun, which is tiny for a supermassive black hole. And if Matthee is right, they’re still young.
“My intuition says these are fairly young systems of maximally a few hundred million years old that are rapidly evolving (at least, on "astronomical timescales" of millions of years),” Matthee tells Inverse. To be sure about that, he and his colleagues will need to measure the ages of the stars around the black holes. Meanwhile, these “little red dots” look like small, early versions of the type of supermassive black holes that Matthee calls “problematic quasars.” (A quasar is an actively-feeding supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy.)
SOMETIMES SPACE IS PROBLEMATIC
Matthee’s problematic quasars are problematic because they’re too big to exist where and when they exist: between 11 and 12 billion light years away, when the universe was just a couple of billion years old. If supermassive black holes formed the way astrophysicists have long assumed — starting with a giant star collapsing into a black hole, then growing larger as it pulls in more material — then black holes that are billions of times more massive than our Sun shouldn’t have existed 11 billion years ago. Black holes that started as 30 times our Sun’s mass shouldn’t have had time to grow so large in less than a couple of billion years.
“It’s like looking at a 5-year-old child that is 2 meters tall,” says Matthee. “Something doesn’t add up.”
So either black holes grow faster than the laws of physics suggest they do, or they started as something more massive than an ordinary collapsed star. One possibility is that the “seeds” of supermassive black holes were already thousands of times our Sun’s mass, spawned by enormous clouds of gas collapsing under their gravity.
Much of what JWST has revealed about the early universe seems to support the idea that supermassive black holes formed from more massive “seeds,” not ordinary collapsed stars, but there’s not enough evidence yet to settle the debate.
“In my view, we currently can not yet discriminate between these scenarios,” Matthee tells Inverse.
WHAT’S NEXT?
To do that, astrophysicists will need more data. Matthee and his team want to measure the conditions in which these early black holes formed: the mass of the stars in their host galaxies, the amount of heavy elements in the galaxy’s ingredients list, and whether there’s galactic wind. They’re also curious about whether these precociously-large supermassive black holes tend to form in galaxy clusters or less-populated cosmic neighborhoods.
Over the next couple of years, Matthee and his team have booked more time on JWST, which they’ll use to search for more “little red dots” even farther away — and farther back in time.
“We want to extend the population of ‘baby quasars’ that we know of,” says Matthee. “By finding new ones even earlier in time, we should witness them closer to their birth, meaning we can learn more about their formation conditions. The same may be learned by finding even lower mass supermassive black holes, with masses ~100,000-1,000,000 times the Sun, and characterizing the properties of the galaxies they formed in.”
KONA BLUE: Top-Secret Government Program To Investigate “Human Consciousness Anomalies” Doesn’t Exist, New Report Says
KONA BLUE: Top-Secret Government Program To Investigate “Human Consciousness Anomalies” Doesn’t Exist, New Report Says
The 63-page-long document is part of an investigation into U.S. government programs that have been a springboard for alleged paranormal-related activity.
No, the United States government does not have alien bodies hiding somewhere, nor has it ever tried to reverse-engineer flying saucers. Really.
That’s one of the main stances that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), an organization created in 2022 to resolve sightings of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), asserts in a report published Friday.
UAP is the modern moniker for UFO. Intelligence officials avoided reusing the popular term because it’s too closely associated, nowadays, with little green men.
UAP refers to sightings from pilots and members of the military, who haven’t been able to explain why they’ve seen objects that appear to reject the laws of motion and physics. Many have been proven to be weather balloons and tricks of perception. Several, however, remain unexplained. That has given credence to people who believe the U.S. government is hiding aliens.
The 63-page-long document is the first volume in a series of investigations into U.S. government programs through history that have been a springboard for alleged paranormal-related activity. “Analyzing and understanding the historical record on UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies,” AARO officials wrote in an announcement published on Friday.
“To date, AARO has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology,” the statement says.
KONA BLUE NEVER EXISTED
The report makes several assertions, including a debunking of KONA BLUE.
KONA BLUE, as the report explains, was allegedly a top-secret program to investigate “human consciousness anomalies,” retrieve and exploit “non-human biologics,” and reverse engineer any alien craft they found.
“It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected — this material was only assumed to exist by KONA BLUE advocates and its anticipated contract Performers,” the report authors emphasized.
As the authors do throughout the report, they take an instance of a program and explain where the pseudoscience claims may be emerging. In the case of KONA BLUE, the contract for a $22 million program, greenlit in 2008 to assess aerospace threats on the horizon — and which was never explicitly tasked with researching UFOs — was awarded to a private sector organization. But the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency canceled it in 2012, “due to lack of merit and the
utility of the deliverables,” though this didn’t stop non-government program advocates, who renamed the proposal as KONA BLUE, from seeking to investigate paranormal activity.
“KONA BLUE’s advocates were convinced that the USG [U.S. government] was hiding UAP technologies. They believed that creating this program under DHS would allow all of the technology and knowledge of these alleged programs to be moved under the KONA BLUE program,” according to the report.
This program was never rubber stamped, and as the report says, “was never approved or stood up, and no data or material was transferred to DHS [Department of Homeland Security].”
In the Friday announcement, AARO officials stipulate that they’ve approached their review of KONA BLUE and other topics “with the widest possible aperture,” that it is committed to reaching conclusions based on verifiable evidence, willing to “follow the evidence where it leads, wherever it leads.”
“To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress,” the report said.
Citing investigations that revealed most sightings to result from the “misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena,” the report acknowledged that “many UAP reports remain unsolved,” though adding that better data could lead to the resolution of some of the currently unresolved cases.
In advance of the report’s release, Tim Phillips, acting director of AARO on assignment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), provided a briefing to a limited number of reporters on Wednesday, where he discussed the new report and revealed details about a new system called “Gremlin” designed to acquire real-time data on UAP. The Debrief did not participate in Wednesday’s media briefing.
Following the release of the report, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said in an email to The Debrief that “AARO reviewed all official USG investigatory efforts since 1945, researched classified and unclassified archives, conducted dozens of interviews and site visits, and partnered with the Intelligence Community and DoD officials responsible for special access program oversight.”
“AARO created a secure process in partnership with the highest-level security officials within the DoD, IC, and other organizations to research and investigate these claims,” Gough said. “AARO was granted full, unrestricted access by all organizations.”
Major Jesse Marcel poses with mysterious wreckage associated with the purported crash of a flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. AARO’s recent historical report says the incident involved a once-secret U.S. covert operation called Project Mogul, as determined by the USAF in the 1990s (Public Domain).
Although there were notable exceptions, most media coverage of the new AARO report focused almost entirely on the lack of evidence linking UAP sightings to extraterrestrial technologies, as well as the absence of classified programs involved in the recovery of crashed vehicles of non-human origin.
Also commanding media attention had been revelations involving the existence of a proposed program pitched to the Department of Homeland Security in the 2010s under the codename “Kona Blue,” which involved a prospective reverse engineering program for any extraterrestrial technologies acquired by the U.S. government.
According to the AARO report, Kona Blue had been proposed by former members of a DIA program called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP), whose personnel are identified in the report as some of the main proponents behind ongoing assertions involving secret U.S. government UAP programs.
The report says that AARO investigators found no evidence that extraterrestrial craft or their occupants had ever been acquired by the U.S. military and that Kona Blue was ultimately rejected by DHS leadership due to a lack of merit.
Friday’s report was met with significant criticism online following its release, with many arguing that its findings were invalid, while others expressed skepticism over its assertions that no evidence of cover-ups involving crashed UAP retrieval programs had been found.
The report’s findings appear to run in stark contrast to whistleblower allegations that first received widespread public attention last June, involving an official complaint filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General by David Grusch, a former U.S. intelligence officer whose duties included participation in the U.S. government’s investigations into UAP in recent years.
In January, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Thomas Monheim spoke with members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a classified briefing on UAP, with some who attended claiming it left them with more questions than answers regarding ongoing claims of secret programs and exotic technologies.
Following the release of AARO’s report on Friday, amidst all the attention surrounding what AARO investigators did or did not find, and programs that were proposed but never came to fruition, few mainstream outlets discussed the numerous intriguing allusions to legitimate advanced capabilities the U.S. possesses that are peppered throughout the report—many of which, in likelihood, actually have contributed to UAP sightings over the years.
These seemingly went unnoticed, as well as several factual errors that appear throughout the new report that, for some, potentially undermine the level of rigor AARO appears to have applied in its investigations.
FACT-CHECKING AARO’S HISTORICAL REPORT
Among the many mistakes that appear in the new report, one of the most glaring appears in references to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his involvement in helping acquire funding for a controversial UAP investigative effort run out of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the early 2000s. The report refers to the Democrat Senator’s home state as being New Mexico, whereas Reid was a U.S. Senator from Nevada.
In another instance, a famous sighting reported by pilot Kenneth Arnold near Mount Rainer, Washington in the summer of 1947 is described as having taken place on “June 23,” one day earlier than Arnold’s sighting occurred.
The report similarly claims Arnold described the objects he observed as being “saucer-like aircraft”, although this now-famous characterization was only later applied by members of the media who, at the time, were referencing Arnold’s description of their movement resembling “saucers” skipping across water.
In yet another example, the AARO report repeatedly refers to a statistical analysis of sightings collected by the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute as “Project BEAR,” which had, in fact, only been a nickname given to the program by Blue Book’s original director, Edward J. Ruppelt. The project’s actual name—one that has now been known publicly for decades—was Project STORK.
“The name Project BEAR was an intentionally false name made by Edward Ruppelt,” wrote Robert Powell, an Executive Board Member with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, in a posting on X, “so as not to reveal the true name of the project.”
Powell also noted that the recent AARO report seemingly misstated the date of the Battelle project as having been issued in late 1954, whereas the date on the folder in the Air Force’s Project Blue Book files indicates a date of May 5, 1955.
Beyond mere problems with dates, AARO’s report makes further assertions that Battelle’s study, the results of which were published in a report titled Project Blue Book Special Report #14, “concluded that all cases that had enough data were resolved and readily explainable.” Quite the contrary, the study actually found that among the UFO sightings categorized within a reliability group of reports deemed “Excellent,” only 4.2% had “insufficient info,” whereas 33.3% of these cases remained “Unknown.”
In a posting on X, Marik von Rennenkampf, an analyst who worked with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, called the error “Blatantly, demonstrably false.”
INTRIGUING ACCOUNTS AND UNSOLVED CASES
Despite the number of factual errors that appear throughout the final AARO report, there are nonetheless a handful of intriguing references in it that appear to describe advanced U.S. technologies, although again, few of these have received significant attention in mainstream coverage.
In one example, which describes an individual’s account provided during an interview with AARO investigators, the report states that “AARO was able to correlate this account with an authentic USG program because the interviewee was able to provide a relatively precise time and location of the sighting which they observed exhibiting strange characteristics.”
Test flight during the 1970s of Lockheed’s then-secret Have Blue, the code name for its stealth fighter (Public Domain).
AARO concluded the technology mistaken for being an exotic UAP technology by the unnamed witness correlated with DoD tests “of a platform protected by a [Special Access Program]” occurring at roughly the same time. “The seemingly strange characteristics reported by the interviewee match closely with the platform’s characteristics,” the AARO report’s authors state, “which was being tested at a military facility in the time frame the interviewee was there.”
“This program is not related in any way to the exploitation of off-world technology,” the report’s authors emphasize, offering no further details on the technology that is believed to have been mistaken for a test involving an exotic craft.
The report’s authors later add that “All the programs assessed to be authentic were or—if still active—continue to be, appropriately reported to either or both the congressional defense and intelligence committees.”
In another instance, material believed to have been retrieved from a UAP was subjected to analysis by the U.S. Army, with subsequent analysis conducted by AARO and “a leading science laboratory,” concluding that “the material is a metallic alloy, terrestrial in nature, and possibly of USAF origin, based on its materials characterization.”
Although most of AARO’s reported findings dismissed any verifiable connections to exotic craft or genuine unexplained phenomena, linking them instead to known U.S. government programs, there are a handful of incidents AARO said it was still investigating, which included a series of widely discussed UAP events that occurred at U.S. strategic sites during the 1960s and 1970s.
“AARO is researching U.S. and adversarial activity related to these events,” the report states, “including any U.S. programs that tested defensive ballistic missile capabilities.”
The report also maintains AARO’s past positions regarding the likelihood that prosaic explanations exist for the majority of UAP sightings, although its authors nonetheless acknowledge that there are still some cases the Pentagon’s UAP investigative office has been unable to solve.
“A small percentage of cases have potentially anomalous characteristics or concerning characteristics,” the report’s authors write. “AARO has kept Congress fully and currently informed of its findings. AARO’s research continues on these cases.”
Historic image of an A-12 test flight at Area 51 in 1962
(Public Domain).
QUESTIONS OF ACCESS AND ONGOING PROBLEMS
Last April, during a Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing led by U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, then-Director of AARO, agreed when asked about AARO’s Title 50 accessibility by Senator Gillibrand that “having additional authorities for collection, tasking, counterintelligence… those are all things that would be helpful, yes.”
In the U.S., most activities conducted by the Intelligence Community, including covert action missions, foreign espionage, and other activities best suited for combating unconventional external threats, operate under what is known as Title 50 authority.
Although Dr. Kirkpatrick emphasized having “good relations” with other agencies during last April’s hearing, his statements gave the distinct impression that AARO had been operating solely under Title 10 authority for the duration of its mission at that time, which would seemingly place limitations on its ability to acquire information related to the Intelligence Community’s involvement with UAP investigations, including but not limited to exchanges of data and tasking collection assets.
Responding to questions from The Debrief, Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough clarified that AARO does have access to U.S. intelligence information that falls under Title 50 authority.
“There is no impediment to AARO receiving all UAP-related information, past or present, regardless of level or origin of classification,” Gough told The Debrief. “By law, AARO may receive all UAP-related information, at all levels of classification, regardless of whether the original classification authority for such information is within DoD or the Intelligence Community.”
Although AARO does appear to have access to all the intelligence on UAP that it required, contrary to what was conveyed during last April’s Senate hearing, the Pentagon nonetheless continues to face challenges in its collection and management of information about UAP.
Earlier this year, an unclassified summary of a DoD Inspector General report evaluating the Pentagon’s activities related to UAP was released, which argued that the DoD lacks any comprehensive, coordinated means by which it can currently address UAP. The report further argued that the DoD’s apparent lack of coordination on the UAP issue could pose a threat to U.S. military forces and, more broadly, to national security.
“We determined that the DoD has no overarching UAP policy,” a portion of the DoD Inspector General report read, “and, as a result, it lacks assurance that national security and flight safety threats to the United States from UAP have been identified and mitigated.”
In a statement on Friday following the new AARO historical report’s release, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said the second volume of AARO’s historical review will be forthcoming later this year.
“AARO will publish a second volume that will provide analysis of information acquired by AARO after Nov. 1, 2023, including information received via interviews with current and former U.S. government personnel who contacted AARO via the secure reporting mechanism on AARO’s website,” Ryder said.
“Analyzing and understanding the historical record on UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies, and the department thanks the contributing departments and agencies, as well as the interviewees who came forward with information,” Ryder added.
Massive explosion on Sun, enough energy to destroy a hundred planets 🪐 UFO Sighting News. 📰
Massive explosion on Sun, enough energy to destroy a hundred planets 🪐 UFO Sighting News. 📰
This explosion is so big that it could easily wipe out our planet and if we are in its line of fire then it will take a few days to get to Earth for us to know for sure, so lets hope if we are in the line of fire...that those egg heads at NASA will do their job for the first time in their life and tell the public whats about to hit. The fastest material from the sun could take 13-18 hours to hit Earth, the slower would take a few days.
UFO caught over Oklahoma City but Pentagon says UFOs and Aliens don't exist
UFO caught over Oklahoma City but Pentagon says UFOs and Aliens don't exist
A mysterious object and event was seen in the metro sky Monday night. NewsNation affiliate KFOR has been trying to track down where it came from. It is still a mystery. “What is that?” a voice can be heard on the video.
NewsNation special correspondent and investigative journalist Ross Coulthart joins "NewsNation Prime" with more about the Pentagon's highly anticipated UFO report that claims there is NO evidence of alien contact.
The report specifically addresses U.S. government investigations into sightings since 1945 and documents from secret government archives.
According to the Dailymail, the director of the Pentagon's UFO-hunting All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), told reporters that AARO has found no verifiable evidence that the US government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology, read more...
However, the report's limited distribution to a select audience prior to its public release has faced scrutiny from other journalists and UFO researchers for its perceived lack of transparency.
In summary, despite the yet another Pentagon/AARO report, it's evident that the UFO/Alien cover-up persists.
The Enigmatic UFO Encounter: A Pilot’s Brush with the Unknown and the Men in Black
The Enigmatic UFO Encounter: A Pilot’s Brush with the Unknown and the Men in Black
In the annals of UFO lore, few incidents are as compelling as the experience of a captain who claimed a close encounter with an unidentified flying object. This intriguing event took place on December 5th, 1948, marking a significant chapter in the study of aerial phenomena and the mysterious figures known as the Men in Black.
The Encounter Above the Clouds
The incident began on a routine flight from Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. What was expected to be an uneventful journey soon turned into an extraordinary tale of mystery and intrigue. The captain reported seeing a “large ball of fire” darting across the sky. Initially dismissed as a meteor, the object’s subsequent actions defied all logical explanations. It maneuvered with astonishing agility, moving upwards and causing the captain to question the nature of what he was witnessing. This sighting was not isolated; a commercial airline pilot reported a similar encounter, describing a bright object that abruptly changed direction and accelerated away.
The Investigation by Unidentified Intelligence Officers
Following these sightings, both pilots were approached by intelligence officers. These individuals, who did not disclose their affiliations, conducted interviews with the pilots, diving deep into the details of their encounters. The presence of these enigmatic figures, often referred to as the Men in Black due to their attire, adds a layer of mystery to the incident. Their interest in the case suggests a level of concern or knowledge about UFOs that goes beyond public understanding.
The Legacy of the Encounter
The Idaho sighting of 1948 is more than just a tale of a pilot and an unexplained phenomenon. It represents a critical moment in the ongoing dialogue between humanity and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The involvement of the Men in Black in the aftermath of the sighting raises questions about the extent of government awareness and secrecy surrounding UFO phenomena.
Conclusion: Unanswered Questions and the Search for Truth
Decades have passed since the captain’s fateful encounter, yet the incident remains a topic of fascination and speculation. It serves as a reminder of the unexplained mysteries that persist in our skies and the lengths to which certain entities will go to investigate and perhaps conceal these phenomena. As we continue to explore the cosmos, both through technological advancements and through the study of reported encounters, the story of the captain and the Men in Black stands as a testament to the enduring human desire to understand the unknown.
VIDEO:
Captain Who Had A UFO Encounter Is Questioned By ‘Men In Black’ | UFO Witness
This incident encapsulates the intrigue and complexity of UFO sightings, blending eyewitness accounts with the shadowy involvement of intelligence officers. It underscores the ongoing quest for clarity in a realm that remains shrouded in secrecy and speculation.
Pentagon Report Rules Out UFO Cover-Up, But the Debate Goes On The Pentagon
References to an F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, shown here on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, were apparently misconstrued as a discussion about an encounter with alien technology, according to a newly released Pentagon report.
Pentagon Report Rules Out UFO Cover-Up, But the Debate Goes On
The Pentagon office in charge of investigating UFO reports — now known officially as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — today provided its most detailed explanation for what it said were false or misconstrued claims of alien visitations over the decades.
The first volume of a historical record report released by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, in response to a congressional mandate did include a fresh disclosure: During the 2010s, U.S. government officials considered a proposed program code-named “Kona Blue” that would have looked into the possibility that extraterrestrial technology could be reverse-engineered. But the Department of Homeland Security rejected the idea because it lacked merit, the report said.
“It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected — this material was only assumed to exist by Kona Blue advocates and its anticipated contract performers,” according to the report. The same assumptions were made by outside investigators who delved into UAP reports as part of an earlier Pentagon-funded program, AARO said.
One of the investigators involved in that program — which was known as the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program or the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AAWSAP/AATIP) — made clear that he’d continue trying to keep the alien angle in the public eye.
“Today the Pentagon and its current UAP investigative program, AARO, issued a public report that is intentionally dishonest, inaccurate and dangerously misleading,” Lue Elizondo, who helped spark renewed interest in UFO reports in 2017, said in a posting to X / Twitter. “Myself and others who are aware of the truth are going to keep working to help Congress in their efforts to achieve disclosure.”
But Mick West, a retired software engineer who specializes in analyzing UFO/UAP reports, said the newly released report shows how a belief in alien phenomena can be self-reinforcing. “A belief in the supernatural … is what led to the current UFO flap that AARO is trying to pour cold water on,” West said on X / Twitter.
The ups and downs of UFOs
The 63-page report traces government-funded efforts to investigate sightings of unidentified flying objects going back to before the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, which was the subject of a “Case Closed” report on the 50th anniversary in 1997. Pages and pages are devoted to recounting projects that are well-known to the UFO community, including Project Blue Book and the Condon Report.
AARO acknowledged that there was “about a 40-year gap” in official efforts to investigate UAP sightings after Project Blue Book was terminated in 1969. The efforts resumed in earnest in 2009, primarily due to the interest of the late Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who was Senate majority leader at the time.
For several years, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency funded the AAWSAP/AATIP’s investigation into anomalous sightings. The review of aerial sightings by military personnel was conducted by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, which was created by Nevada billionaire Robert Bigelow.
When the funding for AAWSAP/AATIP ended in 2012, some of the people who were associated with the project — including Elizondo — continued their work in other roles. They also unsuccessfully tried to persuade the Department of Homeland Security to set up the Kona Blue program.
It took until 2020 for the Department of Defense to get back into the business of official UFO/UAP investigations. A series of initiatives focused on the possibility that some anomalous sightings might be due to novel technologies developed by Russia or China that might pose a threat to national security. Perhaps the best-known sightings of that type were last year’s reports about a Chinese spy balloon that crossed the U.S. and was eventually shot down by an Air Force fighter jet.
Highlights from the UFO files
In its previous reports, AARO has said it found no evidence of extraterrestrial explanations for UAP sightings. Instead, the office has traced all but a few of the sightings to more mundane causes such as balloons, drones, aerial clutter and natural phenomena. It said that some of the alien claims misconstrued sensitive national security programs — and that a small number of sightings remained unexplained, but did not merit being considered evidence of extraterrestrial activity.
“All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” the Pentagon’s press secretary, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, said today in a statement about today’s report. “AARO assesses that all of the named and described alleged hidden UAP reverse-engineering programs provided by interviewees either do not exist; are misidentified authentic national security programs that are not related to extraterrestrial technology exploitation; or resolve to a disestablished program.”
Today’s report addressed some oft-debated UAP cases:
One of the people interviewed by AARO claimed that a military officer explained in detail how he touched an extraterrestrial spacecraft. But the officer, now retired, recounted a story about touching an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter — and said that tale could have been misconstrued by the person who heard the story.
Another interviewee claimed that he witnessed what he believed to be the testing of extraterrestrial technology at a government facility. AARO said that “almost certainly was an observation of an authentic, non-UAP-related technology test that strongly correlated in time, location and description provided in the interviewee’s account.”
Yet another claim had to do with a metallic material that was reportedly tested by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. Some suggested that the material couldn’t be identified by scientists and might have had extraterrestrial origins. But the AARO said further tests found that the material was a “manufactured, terrestrial alloy and does not represent off-world technology or possess any exceptional qualities.” AARO said the sample is possibly of U.S. Air Force origin — and is primarily composed of magnesium, zinc and bismuth, plus trace elements including lead.
What’s next on the UAP frontier
AARO said that it’s continuing to investigate unresolved UAP cases. The historical review in today’s report takes the story only as far as last Oct. 31 — and information gathered since that time will be addressed in a second volume to come.
Today’s report notes that UAP investigations have been challenged by insufficient data and the limitations of sensor technologies. “In terms of military reporting the sensors on which UAP most frequently are captured are calibrated and optimized for combat,” AARO explained. “UAP are not routinely captured by exquisite, high-definition, multi-capability, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection platforms — a threshold which is often required to successfully resolve a case.”
To address that shortcoming, AARO is developing a new surveillance capability known as the Gremlin System, which should be able to track anomalous phenomena with hyperspectral imaging.
“We’re working with some of the government labs, such as the Department of Energy labs, and we have a great partner with Georgia Tech,” DefenseScoop quoted acting AARO Director Tim Phillips as saying. “And what we’re doing is developing a deployable, configurable sensor suite that we can put in Pelican cases.”
hillips said the portable kit is being tested in Texas and will enable long-term collection of hyperspectral data in the field.
There’s also a chance that Congress will schedule a sequel to last summer’s House subcommittee hearing on UAPs, during which witnesses claimed that the Pentagon knew more than it was telling lawmakers. Today’s AARO report said such claims were in large part “the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence.” But Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who was in on last year’s hearing, criticized the report in a posting to X / Twitter:
The Pentagon releases footage of unexplained UFOs spotted around the world - from a spherical object in the Middle East to a milk bottle-like item over the US
The Pentagon releases footage of unexplained UFOs spotted around the world - from a spherical object in the Middle East to a milk bottle-like item over the US
New Department of Defense website uploads UFO clips that it cannot explain
The Pentagon has long been secretive regarding what it knows about UFOs.
But that's all changing as the government department has added an incredible selection of videos to its dedicated UFO website.
The clips, some just a few seconds in length, show aerial phenomena that it cannot explain, in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
They include a spherical object over buildings in the Middle East, a milk bottle-like item over the US and the famous Tic Tac captured by the US Navy in 2004.
A Department of Defense document reveals characteristics of the typical UFO
This was one of the clips presented by AARO director Dr Sean Kirkpatrick to the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2023 – but the office thinks there is an innocent explanation.
'AARO assesses that the object likely is a commercial aircraft and that the trailing cavitation is a sensor artifact resultant of video compression ,' it says.
SPHERE #1
The next clip was taken by an MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle in the Middle East in July 2022.
The vehicle's camera is pointed down towards the ground, with buildings and people in view.
All of a sudden, an 'apparent silver, orb-like object' crosses the sensor’s field of view.
The MQ-9's camera detects the orb and tracks it as it flies in a north-easterly direction, seemingly quite close to the ground.
The office gives its verdict: 'While AARO assesses the object in the clip is not exhibiting anomalous behavior, the object remains unidentified.'
'This video is a representative example of many of the cases AARO receives where there is limited data surrounding the observation.'
UFO captured in the Middle East: Mote the 'orb-like object', spherical and a bit like a ball bearing, crossing the sensor’s field of view
SPHERE #2
This UFO, captured in an undisclosed location in 2021, shows a similar-looking sphere from the cockpit of a Navy fighter jet.
The jet is calmly flying through blue skies before the object suddenly bursts past the right of the cockpit.
The fleeting pass is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it event and leaves little time for interpretation of what it might be.
AARO says: 'This video, captured by the pilot in the cockpit of a Navy fighter jet, demonstrates the typical speed at which military aircraft may approach an unknown object.'
Sphere #2: This still is from the video of a US Naval aviator encounter with an unknown object (UAP) in a 'fleeting pass'
A bizarre face-shaped object changed colour while in the sky
TIC TAC
The original 'Tic Tac' is probably one of the most famous UFOs of them all.
Named due to its physical similarity to the oblong breath mint, it was captured in November 2004 by pilots aboard a US Navy fighter jet.
The pilots were conducting a routine training mission with the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the Southern California coast when they noticed it.
The smooth, white oblong object flew at high speed over the water, maneuvering and accelerating in ways which seemed to defy the laws of physics.
'It appeared to respond in a way that we didn't recognise', Navy Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich, one of those on board, told Reuters in 2021.
She added that it seemed to lack 'any visible flight control surfaces or means of propulsion'.
'We don't know what it was, but it could have been a natural phenomenon in human activity,' she said.
'But the point was that it was weird, and we couldn't recognise it.'
Other members of the public have since seen a Tic Tac-shaped UFOs in the sky, including people in the UK.
One of the most famous and unusual UFOs to date, spotted by the US Navy in 2004, was compared with the Tic Tac breath mint due to its white, oblong appearance (pictured)
MILK BOTTLE
This UFO, also captured by the US Navy, can only be described as looking like a 'milk bottle' or a bowling pin.
As the clip shows, Navy personnel have the object well under their sights as it moves serenely at an angle with the clouds underneath.
However, as it moves along, its shape appears to shift into a more of a saucer and its silhouette changes from white to black.
It's unclear when and where this clip was taken, although it's been on the internet since 2020 or potentially earlier before it was added to the AARO site.
MailOnline has contacted the AARO for more information.
This UFO, also captured by the US Navy, can only be described as looking like a 'milk bottle' or a bowling pin
However, as the mysterious object moves, its shape appears to shift into a more of a saucer
FAST SPECK
Little is known about the last clip, which shows a tiny speck of white travelling fast across choppy waters in an undisclosed location.
It was taken by crew aboard a US Navy F/A-18 jet who laugh and shout in amazement when the system's trackers focus in on it.
One crew member says: 'What the f*** is that?'
UFO stands for 'unidentified flying object' and so the term doesn't necessarily describe an object with an extraterrestrial origin.
This means there could be an innocent explanation for all the objects in these videos.
The world's UFO hotspots are revealed - as Pentagon admits hundreds of objects have been spotted 'all over the world'
The US government is notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.
But in a possible bid for transparency, the Department of Defense has released a new document disclosing the 'world's UFO hotspots'.
It includes a map disclosing where the most sightings of unidentified objects have been recorded, based on reports between 1996 and 2023.
The map discloses where the most sightings have been recorded based on reports between 1996 and 2023 - naming Japan and the coasts of the US as particular hotspots
Among them Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the east and west coasts of the US including California, as well as parts of the Middle East.
We are back! Open Minds UFO Radio is now Open Minds UAP News. It has been a wild ride the last few years for those interested in UFOs, or UAP? In this episode, we will talk about the difference. Despite the government finally coming out and admitting UAP demonstrates a potential threat that should be taken seriously, UFO researchers seem to be unhappy with anything the Pentagon or NASA does or says. Meanwhile, the UFO crowd feels all of the work that’s been done to get us to a place where the issue is taken seriously, is being dismissed, and that the mainstream community still has an overall dismissive attitude. We’ll talk about how we got to this place of stagnation, the players (The Pentagon, Congress, NASA, and the UFO Community) and their current positions, and how we’ll be moving things forward…together.
PLUS…COOL ENIGMA LABS UAP VIDEO Link to Enigma Labs UAP:
I'm sure I'm not alone here. Others must be seeing this in the news media across the globe. 95% of all UFO media articles are now about how the US gov says "UFO evidence," is actually wrong. That they are pushing an anti campaign of mental manipulation of the public in order to control their desire for the truth. This is something the US think tank must have come up with and yes, it always works to a high degree. Now that they are using social media, their efforts are now 1000X stronger with 10,000X more reach. This will intimidate actual eyewitnesses into not reporting what they saw and recorded.
Its basically the same as the 1950s repeating itself all over again, with claims that something seen is a weather balloon, Venus, Jupiter and oh...this is a new one...a truck in the middle of the ocean...never heard that one until today.
Just saying, don't allow the gov to manipulate you. Think for yourself.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
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.