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...
22-03-2024
Forget Betelgeuse! This Star Is Actually About to Explode
Forget Betelgeuse! This Star Is Actually About to Explode
We might witness a star explode soon — and it’s not Betelgeuse.
A mismatched pair of stars 3,000 light years away may be gearing up for an explosion in the next few months. T Coronae Borealis (T CrB to its friends) is normally too dim to see with the unaided eye, but roughly every 80 years, it flares brightly enough to appear as a “new” star, or nova, in Earth’s northern sky. Its last event was in 1946, and astronomers say it’s likely to go off again this year.
This illustration shows the red giant in T CrB with a disk of discarded gas around it. The white dwarf (the bright spot in the disk at the beginning of the animation) eventually gobbles up so much material that its surface explodes in a runaway thermonuclear reaction.
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE — BOOM
T CrB is actually a pair of stars, trapped in each other’s orbit — and in an extremely messy relationship that sometimes literally explodes.
One is an aging red giant, which has burned up all its hydrogen fuel and is now fusing helium atoms together at its core. Helium fusion produces a tremendous amount of heat and radiation pressure, so the aging star’s outer layers have swelled outward to many times its original size (this is the same fate that will eventually befall our Sun in about 5 billion years). The other half of the dynamic duo is a white dwarf: the burned-out remains of a star’s core (this is what our Sun will look like sometime after its red giant phase).
About every 80 years, the red giant shrugs off its outermost layers of gas, and the white dwarf’s gravity grabs them. White dwarfs are nowhere near as dense as neutron stars, but they're still pretty dense, being the remnants of stellar cores — and it doesn't take much to ignite one again, at least temporarily. When even more mass gets piled on the surface, it adds just enough heat and pressure for the white dwarf to start fusing hydrogen and helium in its inner layers.
That sudden burst of fusion triggers a chain reaction that eventually engulfs the outer layers of the star in what's called a runaway thermonuclear reaction. The envelope of gas around the white dwarf, heated by the runaway nuclear fusion, explodes outward at roughly 3,700 miles per second. In other words, KABOOM.
And 3,000 light years away, people on Earth will be able to see what looks like a new star in the night sky.
WHAT ABOUT BETELGEUSE?
It won’t take T CrB’s white dwarf very long to burn up all its hydrogen fuel and settle back down: It’ll only be visible in the sky for a few days, and the runaway thermonuclear reaction itself will last just a fraction of that time. When Betelgeuse eventually explodes, however, the glow of its death throes will hang in the sky for several months. What’s the difference?
The kind of explosion that lights up T CrB once every 40 years is called a nova, and it happens when a white dwarf gets briefly reignited in a runaway nuclear reaction. Imagine throwing lighter fluid and a match onto a pile of burned-up charcoal. It will catch fire and burn for a moment, but it won’t last.
When Betelgeuse dies, however, it will go out in a blaze of glory called a supernova. A supernova happens when an extremely massive star runs out of fuel for its nuclear reactions; the outer layers collapse, and the pressure of the collapse triggers an enormous explosion. Think of it as blowing up the grill: It’s going to be bigger and brighter than what happened when you lit up the charcoal, and you’re only going to be able to do it once.
Novae like T CrB, though, are the explosive cosmic gifts that just keep on exploding.
EXCLUSIVE - Oil rigger spots UFOs 'hovering for 10 minutes' above the deck before 'zooming off in an instant' on the Mexican coast where locals believe is a submerged alien base
EXCLUSIVE - Oil rigger spots UFOs 'hovering for 10 minutes' above the deck before 'zooming off in an instant' on the Mexican coast where locals believe is a submerged alien base
The images claimed to capture to UFOs hovering over an oil rig near Mexico
Locals believe a submerged alien base sits a few miles off the coast of Tampico
A pair of UFOs were spotted soaring over an oil rig off the coast of Mexico where locals have claimed is home to a secret underwater alien base.
A crew member of the vessel near Tampico snapped two images - one showing a saucer-shaped craft with glowing lights circling the base and the other with a triangular design and three lights on the bottom.
The witness said the UAPs 'hovered for what seemed like 10 minutes and then 'just zoomed off in an instant,' a source told DailyMail.om.
A pair of UFOs were spotted soaring over an oil rig off the coast of Mexico where locals have claimed is home to a secret underwater alien base. A crew member of the vessel near Tampico snapped two images
One image shows a saucer-shaped craft with glowing lights circling the base
The images were captured on October 2023, but have just now been released online.
DailyMail.com spoke with oil rigger 'Pat' who obtained the pictures and information of the sighting from a fellow colleague on another rig who was stationed in Tampico months before he arrived.
'My contact said the UAPs showed up as they were putting the oil rigs legs to the seabed,' said Pat.
The rig, known as a 'jack-up,' is a barge fitted with three long support legs that can be raised or lowered.
One of the images shows the saucer-shaped craft hanging in the night sky and towering above the oil rig.
A close look at the object shows at least 10 round lights circling the bottom - the only portion that is truly visible in the photo.
While the oil rigger said the other UFO was triangular, the only clue about its designed is how the three lights at its base are positioned.
While the oil rigger said the other UFO was triangular, the only clue about its designed is how the three lights at its base are positioned
No other parts of the craft can be seen as well.
An X user, covertress , told DailyMail.com that a member of the intelligence community told her that the triangular craft was the 'Aurora' craft rumored to have been developed by the US government in the mid-1980s.
A disc-shaped, completely silent UFO was caught on camera by Ukrainian troops in the war-torn country, in footage shared exclusively with DailyMail.com.
The SR 91 Aurora, an ultra top-secret aircraft that has been in development since 1989, was believed to be the successor to the Mach 3.35 Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird craft that was retired in 1998.
By comparison, extreme reports claim that Aurora could reach Mach 11.8.
However, there is no evidence the military plane was ever built or flown - suggesting the image captured above the oil rig could not be the top-secret warplane.
When Pat arrived in Tampico, he discovered the locals' belief about an underwater alien base called Amupac, claiming the otherworldly beings are their protectors.
'My rig only came here recently,' he said. 'It was after I discovered the local belief being so strong as regards aliens protecting them that I discussed with a guy who works as a liaison between our two rigs.
'Then he told me about the encounters. He then sent me the images.'
The submerged base is said to sit a few miles off Miramar Beach and nearby communities believe their extraterrestrial visitors have sat below the surface, protecting them from natural disasters.
And a hurricane has not hit the region over the course of that time.
The legend began in 1967 when local news outlet the local El Sol de Tampico newspaper ran a story with the headline Platillos Voladores Sobre Tampico, or 'Flying Saucers Over Tampico.'
The article stated that 'thousands of inhabitants' saw objects in the sky, quoting the local airport's control tower officer who reportedly counted 'nine unidentified objects.'
China launches relay satellite to allow communication with far side of the moon and further nation’s lunar ambitions
China launches relay satellite to allow communication with far side of the moon and further nation’s lunar ambitions
Story by Ling Xin
Queqiao-2 solar wings and relay communication antennas were deployed, making launch successful, says China National Space Administration
Smaller satellites Tiandu-1 and 2 were also launched and will orbit the moon to test and verify navigation and communications technologies
China has launched a new communications relay satellite to support its moon ambitions in the decade to come.
Queqiao-2, or Magpie Bridge-2, lifted off atop a Long March 8 rocket from Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre on southern China's Hainan island at 8.31am on Wednesday, according to the China National Space Administration.
After flying for 24 minutes, the rocket sent the relay satellite directly into the planned Earth-moon transfer orbit with a perigee height of 200km (124 miles) and an apogee height of 420,000km.
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The solar wings and relay communication antennas of the relay satellite were deployed normally in succession, "marking a complete success of the launch mission," the administration said.
The satellite would support future moon missions by China "and other countries", it said.
Queqiao-2 is planned to reach an elliptical orbit around the moon and unfold its 4.2 metre-wide (13.8 feet) parabolic antenna to make communications possible between Earth and the lunar far side, which never faces Earth.
It can relay signals up to eight hours straight for the first sample return from the far side of the moon later this year, two more complicated missions to establish a prototype base at the lunar south pole by 2028 and, potentially, more spacecraft from China and its international partners.
Related video:
How China explores the far side of the moon (Dailymotion)
Sharing the ride on the 50 metre-tall (164 foot) Long March rocket were a pair of experimental technology satellites - Tiandu-1 and 2 - which are headed to a separate orbit where they will fly in formation and test lunar navigation and communications technologies.
The moon is tidally locked to Earth. As a result, we always see the same side of the moon from Earth. In 2018, China launched the Queqiao relay satellite to support its Chang'e 4 mission, which made the first soft landing on the moon's far - or "invisible" - side.
The combination of the relay satellite Queqiao-2 and the Long March 8 Y3 carrier rocket is vertically transferred to the launching area at the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on March 17, 2024.
The 325kg (716lbs) Queqiao, which has a designed lifespan of five years, is still operating near Earth-Moon Lagrangian-2 point - a gravitationally balanced spot about 70,000km beyond the moon.
Queqiao-2 is much heavier with a mass of 1,200kg. Its orbit is also different: it is highly elliptical with the closest point at 300km and the farthest 8,600km above the moon's surface.
It will take Queqiao-2 around 12 hours to make one circle around the moon and during this time communications between Earth and the lunar far side could be provided for about eight hours.
This orbit is also known as a frozen orbit because it is very stable and requires the spacecraft to carry very little, if any, propellant for orbit maintenance over a very long time.
Queqiao-2's antenna surface was made of extremely thin molybdenum wires coated with gold, said the research team from Donghua University in Shanghai that developed the antenna.
"The wires used to weave the antenna were thinner than human hair. And gold is a very good reflector," team leader Chen Nanliang told state broadcaster CCTV back in February.
"Our 'golden umbrella' is lightweight and flexible enough to be first tucked in the rocket cabin, and then unfold in orbit. It's also strong enough to withstand the harsh conditions during launch and in flights," Chen said.
Besides signal relay, Queqiao-2 is also equipped with three scientific payloads, including an ultraviolet camera and a long-distance radio astronomy experiment. Its designed lifespan is at least eight years.
Compared with Queqiao-2, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 satellites are much smaller. The 61kg Tiandu-1 carries a Ka dual-band communication payload, a laser retroreflector and a space router among other devices. The 15kg Tiandu-2 carries a communication payload and navigation devices.
Together, the two will orbit the moon to test and verify navigation and communications technologies, and inform the design of China's Queqiao lunar navigation and communication constellation, Xinhua reported last month.
The Queqiao constellation would greatly aid moon landing and lunar surface operations, said state news agency Xinhua. China plans to land astronauts on the moon no later than 2030, and build a moon base with international partners in about a decade.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Communication between spacecraft relies upon line of site technology, if anything is in the way, communication isn’t possible. Exploration of the far side of the Moon is a great example where future explorers would be unable to communicate directly with Earth. The only way around this is to use relay satellites and the Chinese Space Agency is on the case. The first Queqiao-1 was able to co-ordinate communications with Chang’e-4 landers and now they are sending Queqiao-2 to support the Change’e-6 mission.
If you have ever gazed upon the Moon you might have noticed that it always has the same hemisphere facing the Earth. This phenomenon is known as captured or synchronous rotation. It may look like the Moon isn’t rotating but in reality the time it takes to spin once on its axis is the same as the time it takes to complete one orbit around the Earth, keeping one hemisphere constantly facing us. Explorers on the near side of the Moon have no trouble communicating with transmissions taking just over one second to reach home. Explore the far side of the Moon and you have a problem.
The Chang’e 5 test vehicle captured this beautiful view of Earth over the far side of the Moon on October 28, 2014. Credit: Chinese national space agency (CNSA) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
To overcome the problem China have launched a 1.2 ton communication satellite known as Queqiao-2. It’s name originates from the mythological bridge made from magpies. In the Chinese tale, the magpies formed a bridge across the Milky Way to allow the lovers Vega and Altair to be together for one night once a year. Two miniature satellites were also launched Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 from the island of Hainan.
On arrival it will orbit the Moon and provide a relay for the Chang’e-6 lander which is slated to launch in May. It will join satellites from United States, India and Japan to support the exploration of the far side of the Moon. Chang’e-6 will collected samples from an ancient basin. Not only will it serve the communications for Change-6, it will transfer communications for Chang’e-7 and ‘8. Both craft are to be launched in the years ahead 2026 and 2028 respectively.
The orbit of Queqiao-2 will take it almost over the south pole in an elliptical orbit. It will reach an altitude of 8,600 km so that communication can be achieved for a little over eight hours. At its closest, it will sweep over the lunar surface at an altitude of 300 km.
The ultimate goal of the Chinese Space Agency is to create a network of satellites, not too dissimilar (but not quite on the same scale) to the growing Space X constellation which is building a global internet presence. The purpose of Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 is to test the concept of such a constellation.
China’s longer term aspirations include a research station at the lunar south pole and for this to be viable, communication relays are essential to establish communication, navigation and remote sensing.
The Mars Science Helicopter Could be an Airborne Geologist on Mars
After over 70 successful flights, a broken rotor ended the remarkable and groundbreaking Ingenuity helicopter mission on Mars. Now, NASA is considering how a larger, more capable helicopter could be an airborne geologist on the Red Planet. For the past several years scientists and engineers have been working on the concept, proposing a six-rotor hexacopter that would be about the size of the Perseverance rover.
Called the Mars Science Helicopter (MSH), it would not only serve as an aerial scout for a future rover, but more importantly, it could also carry up to 5 kg (11 lbs) of science instruments aloft in the thin Martian atmosphere and land in terrain that a rover can’t reach.
A new paper presented at the March 2024 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference outlines the geology work that such a helicopter could accomplish.
The paper, “Unraveling the Origin and Petrology of the Martian Crust with a Helicopter,” notes there are several outstanding questions about the makeup and history of Mars’ surface, especially with recent discoveries of unexpected dichotomies in the composition of basaltic rocks. In observations from the Mars rovers and orbital spacecraft, some regions appear to have been influenced by water while some have not.
“Up to last decade, we thought that magmatic rocks were only basaltic on Mars,” said Valerie Payré from the University of Iowa, the paper’s lead author. “But with recent rover and orbital measurements, we observed that there is a wide diversity of magmatic rocks similar to what we see on Earth.”
Payré explained via email that there are rocks on Mars with elevated silica concentrations called felsic rocks – feldspar and silicate — that are rich in elements and were not expected to be found on the Martian surface.
“We measured these with the Curiosity rover and have some hints of where there might be others using orbital measurements,” Payré said. “However, close-up images (millimetric scale) and composition analyses are lacking from the orbital dataset to know if these felsic rocks are widespread on Mars or just at a few locations. This is yet highly important to understand what the crust of Mars is made of and if it is similar to Earth’s crust, which has implications regarding the formation of the planet and even past climate.”
First X-ray view of Martian soil – feldspar, pyroxenes, olivine revealed (Curiosity rover at “Rocknest”, October 17, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames
Payré and her team feel that a helicopter would be perfect to explore places where a rover could never traverse, such as terrains that are too high in altitude, since landing there would require too much fuel.
The instruments they propose include a miniaturized visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectrometer for small scale mineralogical mapping and a small Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) with a micro-imager, an instrument similar to the ChemCam laser instrument on both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. In their paper, the team writes that a helicopter with these instruments could travel kilometers to detect promising felsic terrains, and measure their composition at a micron scale.
“We could fly over these possible felsic terrains and look at their minerals using a visible/near infrared spectrometer, land on locations of interest, take close-up images, and measure the compositions of these rocks with the LIBS,” Payré said. “We could finally know what Mars’ crust is, and better constrain how it formed.”
A graphic show the parts of the Ingenuity helicopter. Credit: NASA
There could also be an onboard a magnetometer, which measures magnetic field anomalies, to better understand how Mars’ magnetic field operated, which is still uncertain. Mars does not presently have a global magnetic field, but had one early in its lifetime.
“Such payload would finally enable us to better understand the past climate on Mars by measuring the composition and minerals of sedimentary rocks of various age,” Payré told Universe Today.
A conceptual design paper published in 2020 proposed a Mars hexacopter with a mass of about 31 kg (70 lbs) and a total diameter of just over four meters (13 feet). Each set of rotors would have blades about 0.64 meters (2 ft) long. The helicopter would be powered by a rechargeable solar cell. This would not only power the rotors, but the desired scientific instruments.
A model of NASA’s Mars Science Helicopter concept. Credit: NASA.
This helicopter could move as fast as 30 meters a second (60 mph) but also could hover over a spot for as long as five minutes. Engineers from Ames Research Center, the Jet Propulsion Lab and the University of Maryland wrote that MSH could fly with a range of up to 10 km (6.2 miles) per flight. With this speed and range, MSH could potentially cover as much ground in a few days as rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity have traversed in years.
“The fact that a helicopter can fly would facilitate the mission to visit to places that would be inaccessible for a rover, and we could access locations that we never imagined before,” Payré said.
Payré and team proposed several landing sites including Gale Crater Gale crater where evolved felsic rocks were found by the Curiosity Rover; the massive canyon of Valles Marineris, where orbital observations have revealed a deep crust with feldspar-bearing rocks; and Hellas basin, 2,300 km impact crater known to have layers of feldspar.
Annotated view of Valles Marineris from the High-Resolution Stereoscopic Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express spacecraft. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Michael)
Project Serpo: Unraveling the Enigma of an Alleged Extraterrestrial Exchange Program
Project Serpo: Unraveling the Enigma of an Alleged Extraterrestrial Exchange Program
In the annals of UFO lore, the story of Project Serpo stands out as a captivating narrative that combines elements of interstellar travel, government conspiracy, and the timeless quest for understanding what might exist beyond our earthly confines. Project Serpo allegedly details a top-secret exchange program between the United States government and an extraterrestrial civilization from a planet in the Zeta Reticuli star system. This tale, wrapped in layers of mystery and speculation, offers a glimpse into the complex relationship between humanity’s quest for knowledge and the shadows where truth and fiction blur.
Origins of the Story
The origins of Project Serpo trace back to anonymous postings on a public internet forum in the early 2000s. These posts were attributed to a supposed retired government official who revealed detailed accounts of an interstellar exchange program initiated in the aftermath of the famous Roswell UFO incident in 1947. According to the narrative, the program saw a select group of American astronauts traveling to Serpo, an alien planet, on a mission that aimed to foster intergalactic understanding and cooperation.
The Mission’s Journey
The journey to Serpo was described as taking several months, utilizing alien technology that allowed for faster-than-light travel. The narrative elaborates on the astronauts’ life on Serpo, where they spent years learning about the planet’s ecosystem, societal structures, and the technology of its inhabitants, known as the Ebens. This period of extraterrestrial cohabitation was said to offer profound insights into the possibilities of life beyond Earth and the potential for interstellar diplomacy.
Skepticism and Controversy
Despite the enthralling details, the story of Project Serpo has been met with skepticism and controversy. Critics argue the lack of verifiable evidence and the story’s reliance on anonymous sources cast doubt on its authenticity. Furthermore, connections to known disinformation campaigns have led some to dismiss the narrative as a sophisticated hoax or a piece of modern folklore rather than a factual account of extraterrestrial contact.
The Role of Disinformation
The tale of Project Serpo also touches upon the theme of disinformation within the UFO community. The narrative has been linked to Richard Doty, a former Air Force Office of Special Investigations officer known for his involvement in spreading UFO-related disinformation. This connection raises questions about the motives behind the dissemination of the Serpo story and the impact of such narratives on public perception and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Cultural Impact
Despite questions about its veracity, the story of Project Serpo has had a notable impact on UFO culture and the science fiction genre. It has inspired discussions, debates, and artistic works exploring the themes of interstellar travel, alien life, and government secrecy. The narrative serves as a reflection of humanity’s enduring fascination with the unknown and the lengths to which imagination and belief can lead us in the quest for understanding our place in the universe.
Project Serpo remains a compelling chapter in the larger story of humanity’s engagement with the UFO phenomenon. It exemplifies the intersection of myth, science, and the desire to believe in the extraordinary. Whether fact or fiction, the story of Project Serpo encourages us to look beyond our terrestrial boundaries and ponder the possibilities of what might lie beyond the stars.
A group of UFO researchers with backgrounds in science have come together to analyze an alleged UFO video they have confirmed comes from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The object in the video was captured by a thermal imaging camera on a DHS aircraft, and according to the researchers, it exhibits characteristics that cannot be explained by any known aircraft or natural phenomenon.
The video is overlaid with the sort of telemetry one would expect from a military or law enforcement thermal image video. It shows an object apparently moving very quickly over land and then into the ocean. It seems to be tumbling or changing shape. It moves over buildings, through trees, and eventually over the ocean. Then things get weird. The object appears to go in and out of the ocean without slowing down, and at the end of the video is either joined by another object or breaks in two.
All of the primary witnesses have requested anonymity. However, several communications from alleged DHS employees indicate that the video caused quite a stir on the base.
A still from the video in which the unknown objects appears to be flying through trees.
Research on the video began when an acquaintance to the pilot of the aircraft that captured the video contacted Daina Chaviano, a famous Cuban-born fantasy and science fiction author. She is also a volunteer with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in Florida, where in her spare time she investigates UFO reports. She took the UFO case to her colleague, Morgan Beall, who runs the Florida MUFON chapter.
Chaviano and Beall were so impressed by what they saw they assembled a small group of skeptical researchers with backgrounds in various fields of science and technology. The pilot’s acquaintance requested strict control of the information provided and that knowledge of the investigation be limited to a very few people, so until now, the researchers have not shared any information regarding their investigation.
Today, the group released a 161-page report detailing their findings.
The object was filmed over Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
(Credit: Google Maps)
They are vague when it comes to the identity of Chaviano’s informant. They say this person and others who provided information wanted to remain anonymous “to ensure no issues arise with the source’s employers.”
However, the group says: “The source of this video evidence was vetted and identified.”
They say they are absolutely certain that the information comes from sources on board the DHS aircraft and the video is genuine. Their investigation also confirmed what they were told.
Their sources told them that the UFO incident began at about 9:20 pm on the evening of April 25, 2013 at the Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. It involved the crew of a DHC-8 Turboprop aircraft from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of DHS.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bombardier DHC-8Q200.
(Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
The DHC-8 took off on a routine flight and soon after takeoff they noticed “a pinkish to reddish light over the ocean that was in their vicinity and approaching toward the south.”
The crew was concerned the tower had not told them about the incoming traffic, so they called it in. The tower told them they also had a visual on the object, but they were unsure of its identity.
Once the object got close to land, its lights turned off, but at this time the DHC-8 was able to begin tracking and filming the object with their onboard thermal imaging system. The DHC-8 did not approach the object, but circled the area and filmed it.
The DHC-8 did not pick up the object on radar. However, their radar was looking downward to track ships on the ocean, not objects in the sky.
According to the source, a flight was delayed by the presence of the object. The research group was able to confirm from airport records that a FedEx flight scheduled to leave at 9:10 pm was delayed until 9:26 pm.
Image of the flight log from the UFO reporting showing the a delayed flight at the time of the UFO event.
(Credit: SCU)
The researchers also confirmed the flight time and path of the DHC-8 via radar data they obtained from a Freedom of Information Act Request to the U.S. Air Force 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) group. The radar data confirmed that the DHC-8 took off at approximately 9:16 pm and circled the airport twice before leaving the area about 10 minutes later.
Flight path of the DHC-8 according to the radar data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request.
(Credit: SCU)
The researchers note that there was an unknown object or objects tracked on radar a few minutes prior to the DHC-8’s take off, but it is not known for certain that this was the same object that was later caught on video. The unidentified radar strikes were just off the shore to the north and northwest of the airport and lasted about 16 minutes from 8:58 pm to 9:14 pm.
When reading the times, the radar data is presented in a different time zone than the local times. The researchers explained this on their website: “Aviation times reflect Zulu time which corresponds to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The video displays the Zulu time April 26th at 1:22 AM at the top left of the initial frames. Converting this Zulu time to Puerto Rico’s local time gives April 25th at 9:22 PM. Puerto Rico uses Atlantic Standard Time and does not use daylight savings time.”
Radar data showing the flight path of the DHC-8 and the unknown radar hits between 8:58 pm and 9:14 pm.
(Credit: SCU)
The research group also thoroughly analyzed the video to determine the nature of the object in the film. They consulted thermal imaging experts to determine the capabilities of the system used for the filming, and broke the film down frame by frame to determine the object’s approximate size, speed, temperature and flight path.
The video (seen at the top of the story) is just under 4 minutes long, but the unknown object was tracked for about 2 1/2 of those minutes. Although it was difficult for the group to calculate the exact location of the object on the first half of its flight, they are confident of its position in the second half.
They have determined that the object came in from the ocean, from the north or northwest of the airport’s airstrip, and then flew over the airstrip, then turned back to the north and headed back out into the ocean.
Estimated flight path of the unknown object. The thinner lines estimate possible paths of the object in the first part of its flight. The thicker line shows the path the researchers believe is most likely. The researchers are more confident of the location of the object during the second half of its flight. This data corresponds with what the SCU researchers found.
(Credit: SCU)
During this time the DHC-8 was circling the airport. As can be seen in the map created by the researchers, the aircraft was moving along the shore, turning to the south, and eventually lost site of the object over the ocean as they continued south.
The flight path of the DHC-8 during the filming of the unknown object posted on Reddit by an anonymous user. This path was calculated using the data in the video. It is marked “heli,” because the Reddit user believed the aircraft to be a helicopter and was unaware it was a DHC-8.
The report states: “The object was between three to five feet in length and its speed varied between approximately 40 mph to 120 mph. Its median speed was roughly 80 mph.”
The report goes on to note that an interesting characteristic at the end of the flight was when it apparently submerged into the ocean, traveled for over half a mile, and then flew back out.
According to the report: “Its speed through the water reached a high of 95 mph and average 82.8 mph.”
The unknown object returning to the ocean.
One suggestion has been that the object was merely a balloon. However, the researchers reject this idea for several reasons. They say the wind speeds at the time were 8 to 13 mph at ground level and 12 to 18 mph at 400 to 3200 feet. This means the object was moving too fast to be carried by wind currents. It also changed directions from heading south back to the north, and it went underwater with minimal loss of speed.
Another possibility is that the object was actually a bird. The object appears dark on the screen, and for this type of thermal imaging that would mean it was warmer than the ambient air. This is how a bird would appear. However, the researchers note that the object was moving much too fast to be a bird. They note that peregrine falcons, which do occasionally visit Puerto Rico, have an average horizontal speed of 40 to 56 mph, and a maximum of 65 to 69 mph.
The researchers also examined the possibility that the object was a drone. Their research did discover that the Navy is working on a drone that can fly through the air and dive into the ocean and become a submarine. It is called a “Flimmer.”
They found that current Flimmer drones have not been tested underwater and have an airspeed of 68 mph. They also noted that the fastest known underwater battery powered torpedo travels at 50 mph.
The researchers do acknowledge that it could be possible that the Navy is secretly testing a Flimmer drone that is much more advanced. However, they question why the military would so recklessly test it over a civilian area and airport runways.
In conclusion they state: “There is no explanation for an object capable of traveling under water at over 90 mph with minimal impact as it enters the water, through the air at 120 mph at low altitude through a residential area without navigational lights, and finally to be capable of splitting into two separate objects. No bird, no balloon, no aircraft, and no known drones have that capability.”
A still image from the video just after the object apparently split into two separate objects.
They do not profess to know what the object was, and they welcome “reasonable” suggestions.
However, as to be expected, there are those who have suggested that “they know” the object is extraterrestrial in nature, and at least one of those suggestions has come from an anonymous source who has intimate knowledge of this event.
An anonymous letter was sent to one of the researchers that is very similar to one that was sent to John Greenewald, owner of the website TheBlackVault.com. The only thing Greenewald knew about the video was related to a low resolution copy that was leaked to a Puerto Rican UFO researcher. Many assumed the video was taken from a helicopter.
The letter references the exact type of thermal system and aircraft that was used to capture the video. The message was accompanied by a high resolution version of the thermal video, which was then posted on YouTube by Greenewald. The anonymous letter states: “Alien technology is no doubt under the ocean near Puerto Rico!”
Is alien technology being demonstrated in this video? This careful report, which the researchers say took over 1000 man hours to complete, indicates that whatever took place, it is certainly unusual. The entire report is 161 pages long, and thoroughly explains their work, and how they came to the conclusions they did.
The report on the Puerto Rico incident can be found at ExploreSCU.org. Click the image to go to the site.
Even if the report had come to a mundane conclusion, the effort put into the investigation is remarkable. However, the fact that they could not determine what the object was, and have determined that it displayed characteristics that cannot be explained, makes the report remarkable.
Robert Powell, a retired engineer who worked in the semiconductor industry, who helped author the research paper, says although they have finally released their report, “work on this video will continue.”
Powell, Beall, Chaviano, and the rest of the researchers working on the report posted a high resolution version of the video, their report, and an animation of the radar data they obtained on a website called the Scientific Coalition for Ufology.
Powell says they have reached out to other scientific organizations that have shown an interest in the UFO phenomenon, including 3AF Sigma2, a group that is part of the French National Aeronautical and Astronautical Association. The French scientists have agreed to review their work and provide input.
Powell says, “We hope that this report will generate ideas and thoughts from other scientists that may provide more insight into the characteristics of the object seen in the video.”
To download the report, view the video, and find out more about the investigation, visit: ExploreSCU.org.
Don Schmitt has been one of the primary investigators of the alleged crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. He and his colleagues have tracked down hundreds of witnesses who claim to have information about what happened. When putting together the Roswell UFO crash issue of Open Minds Magazine in 2011, we asked Don to write us an article on the best evidence that an actual pilot of the alleged spacecraft survived. The following is the article he provided us for the magazine.
Ever since the Roswell crash of a flying saucer with “little men” inside, one specific rumor has persisted: that one of those “little men” actually managed to survive the ordeal. For most of the years since the 1947 Roswell crash and the subsequent weather balloon explanation, stories about mysterious bodies associated with the crash remained, but the very notion that Earth was indeed the host to a living extraterrestrial visitor was beyond the pale of belief. But, the question remained: Did an extraterrestrial survive that ill-fated night?
Eye-Witnesses’ Accounts of the Surviving Alien
Dan Dwyer
In 1947, Frankie Dwyer Rowe, a twelve-year-old girl, witnessed her father being threatened and warned by the military authorities for what he saw at the Roswell crash site. Her father, now deceased, was a crew chief for the Roswell Fire Department at the time of the incident. When the call came into the fire station that there had been an airship crash north of town, Dan Dwyer and Lee Reeves were dispatched with the station’s “tanker” (a pickup truck with a large cylindrical water tank in the back) to the crash site. The Chavez County sheriff and a couple of his deputies were also following up the rear in fast pursuit. Arriving just before the military would secure the scene, Dwyer and Reeves witnessed something totally unexpected. It wasn’t an airplane at all, but an egg-shaped vessel of some sort that they did not recognize.
And the bodies! Dwyer could see three diminutive humanoid beings lying in the lee of the craft. With his focus riveted on the craft and the bodies on the ground, Dwyer noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. There, walking in front of him, seemingly from out of nowhere, was something right out of a science fiction novel. According to the fireman, it was about the size of a ten-year-old child, with grayish skin, no hair, and a large head and eyes. Within moments the roar of approaching vehicles could be heard as the military finally took charge of the entire affair. The two firemen were escorted away from the immediate area and warned of the consequences if they should ever speak of the incident. To further demonstrate the seriousness of what was witnessed, Dwyer and his family were paid a visit by military police that very evening at their home. Dwyer and his wife were physically threatened and were told that authorities would kill their children should they utter a word about what was witnessed earlier that day.
Roswell fireman Dan Dwyer (left) and his crew in the mid-1950s.
Credit: Don Schmitt
George Wilcox
The Roswell incident left an impact on all those involved, especially then-Roswell sheriff, George Wilcox. Just before Wilcox’s widow Inez passed away, she related a story to her granddaughter Barbara, who since passed on the story: “The event shocked [George]. He never wanted to be sheriff again after that. My grandmother said, ‘Don’t tell anybody. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jailhouse and told George and I that if we ever told anything about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our entire family would be killed!”’ Barbara adds, “They called my grandfather, and someone came and told him about the crash. He went out there to the site; there was a big burned area, and he saw debris. There were four space beings. Their heads were large. They wore suits like silk. One of the ‘little men’ was alive.” Inez Wilcox reiterated to Barbara that her and George took the threats very seriously and kept the information from the family.
Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette
Sergeant Homer Rowlette in 1947. Gave a death bed confession of being part of the clean-up crew.
Credit: U.S. Army/Don Schmitt
Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette, Jr., was a member of the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron at the RAAF in 1947. He was a career military man and retired as an NCO after twenty-six years of dedicated service to his country. Before passing away in March 1988, he finally conveyed to his son, Larry the following startling information about his involvement with the “crash of the flying saucer.” Rowlette was part of a cleanup detail sent to the crash site north of Roswell. Larry was told that his father had seen everything. He handled the “memory material,” which according to Homer, was “thin foil that kept its shape.” If that wasn’t enough, he described the actual ship, which was “somewhat circular.” He also caught his son completely by surprise when he announced, “I saw three little people. They had large heads and at least one was alive!”
Master Sergeant Harry Telesco
Corroboration of Rowlette’s story has come from another member of the same squadron also stationed at Roswell at that time. Master Sergeant Harry Telesco had already passed away, when I located and contacted his family in 2007. According to his daughter, her late father had spoken many years ago of being at the crash site north of town and seeing the strange wreckage and little bodies there. He also testified that he had seen one that was still alive.
Richard Loveridge
In 1947, Richard Loveridge worked as a mechanical engineer for the Boeing Aircraft Company and was part of their crash-investigation team. When information came in about the crash of an aircraft outside of Roswell, Loveridge drove to the area believing it was one of their planes. It would not be until the last year of his life in 1993 that he would finally confess to his family about the true nature of the alleged “plane” crash. The Boeing crash investigator admitted that he “saw everything.” He saw the wreckage, which was not from a conventional aircraft, as well as three small, deceased “entities” and one that was still alive. Loveridge described them as “child-size” and “grayish” in color. He refused to elaborate any further to his family: “Don’t ask me any more about this. They can hurt you.”
Ervin Boyd
Ervin Boyd worked as a B-29 mechanic at the Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF) in 1947; he worked specifically in Hangar P3, which would later be known as Building 84. On the particular day in question, Boyd was taking a cigarette break on what he called a “hot summer day,” and the doors of the hangar were open on both ends of the building. As soon as he stepped outside the hangar doors, he observed a number of men and vehicles swarming towards the building. Startled by the situation, he quickly noticed that some of the men were carrying what he first thought was the body of a child. “Why didn’t they take it to the hospital?” he asked himself. As they passed by him, he was shocked to see that it was something else.
“It was child-size, four feet, maybe a little more, and a head that was larger than one on a normal body. The eyes were walnut-shaped and also larger than normal. From my angle, it didn’t look like it had much of a nose. The arms were a bit longer too, and the skin was ashy, gray and kind of scaly. I believe it was still alive.”
Suddenly, a number of officers grabbed Boyd and rushed him away from the area and started to get physically rough with him. One of them sternly stated, “Mr. Boyd, you didn’t see anything.” But, the civilian persisted. Finally, he was warned that if he ever said one more word, not only would he lose his job, but the lives of his wife and children would be at stake. It would not be until he suffered a stroke twenty-four years later that he would finally break his silence with his family.
Army Roswell clean up crews from the Roswell movie.
Credit: Paul Davies
Joseph Montoya
That same afternoon, Monday, July 7, 1947, New Mexico’s newly elected thirty-two-year-old lieutenant governor, Joseph Montoya, was in Roswell. It is not entirely clear how the politician came to be on the base at the RAAF on the exact day as some of the bodies, including the possible survivor from the crash. One possible scenario is that he was there on Independence Day weekend for the dedication of a new plane, and after the ceremony he was escorted over to the B-29 hangar just as the first military vehicles were bearing down with their “out-of-this-world” cargo.
Montoya would confide to close associates that he had seen “four little men.” He described how small they were, along with the stunning fact that “one was alive!” Montoya painted the beings as, “short, only coming up to my chest. [They were] skinny with big eyes shaped like tear-drops. [The] mouth was real small, like a knife-cut across a piece of wood, and they had large heads.”
Next, he described the scene inside the hangar. Each of the little men, including the one that was alive, was stretched out on a table brought over from the mess hall and set up for that purpose. “I knew that one was alive because I could hear it moaning.” Montoya said that it was moving, with its knee bent and rocking back and forth
After a frantic exit from the hangar, Montoya was picked up and driven from the base by associates. Montoya would always warn that “It’s too dangerous to talk about.” Even years later, he would continue to caution that “the government will get you.”
“Eli” Benjamin
Private first class Eli Benjamin in 1947. He escorted the bodies from hanger P-3 to the RAAF base hospital.
Credit: U.S. Army/Don Schmitt
Another man who himself admitsto having seen bodies was Elias “Eli” Benjamin (a pseudonym).His wife told me much about the incident, but it would be several years before Eli would tell me himself. As a retired career U.S. Air Force man, Benjamin feared for his pension—and still does—if he ever talked about Roswell. Benjamin and his wife had come to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell in 2002 to see the exhibits. Against her husband’s wishes, Mrs. Benjamin stopped into the museum director’s office to tell someone about her husband. After hearing Mrs. Benjamin’s story, especially the part about bodies and the hospital, Julie Shuster, the museum director, felt that a private interview with Mr. Benjamin was warranted. It was soon apparent, however, that there was a major problem: Mr. Benjamin was nowhere to be found. He had left the building, when he observed his wife and the director looking around for him—he was a reluctant witness, to put it mildly.
Since that day, I have managed to track down the former member of the 390th Air Service Squadron and meet with him half a dozen times to try to gain his confidence. In the process, I learned that Benjamin’s main fear, similar to so many others who were and are reluctant Roswell witnesses, was his belief that he, as a retired air force veteran, might lose his pension if he said anything about those long-ago events. I assured Benjamin that I knew of no instances whatsoever of someone losing his pension for talking about Roswell. Besides, the secretary of the air force issued a proclamation in 1994 that absolved anyone with knowledge about the Roswell incident who believed that they were still subject to security or secrecy oaths regarding the matter. The other thing I noticed was that Benjamin was still deeply moved, if not troubled, by what he witnessed back in 1947, and he broke down in tears on several occasions when talking to me about it. His wife also revealed that her husband still has trouble sleeping comfortably and continued to wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, shaking. In 2005, the eighty-year-old Eli Benjamin agreed to tell his story.
In July 1947, Eli Benjamin was a private first class with the 390th Air Service Squadron at the Roswell Army Air Field. Possessing a top secret clearance, Private First Class Benjamin was authorized to provide security support for the most highly classified operations of the 509th Bomb Group—the first atomic-bomb wing in the world. In addition to his primary job of guarding the B-29 Bombers, one of his secondary duties was that of a recovery specialist, which involved the grim activities associated with the aftermath of plane crashes.
On the morning of Monday, July 7, 1947, Benjamin walked back to his barracks after a night of guard duty on the flight line followed by breakfast at mess hall. “Something’s going on” he thought to himself, as he stood at attention and saluted the playing of the national anthem and morning flag-raising ritual at the base headquarters on the south end of the esplanade. He knew that the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard, normally held his weekly staff meetings on Tuesday mornings, but on this day, Benjamin thought there were too many staff cars and other vehicles parked in the headquarters parking lot for a regular staff meeting. When Benjamin finally arrived back at his barracks, “Word was given to my squadron to be on the alert for special duty,” he said. Such was life in the 509th and the Strategic Air Command and sleep after his long shift would have to remain a secondary consideration. The word finally found Benjamin: “Benjamin! Get your gun and report to hangar P-3 for guard duty.”
Upon arriving at the B-29 hangar to report to the officer in charge, Benjamin walked into a commotion at the main entrance of the building. A number of military police were trying to restrain the very officer from whom Benjamin was supposed to get his duty instructions. The lieutenant colonel was clearly experiencing an emotional reaction to the situation at hand, which seemed to be the transfer of a number of gurneys over to the base hospital. Another officer quickly pointed to Benjamin and ordered him to complete the assignment.
While in the process, something under one of the sheets covering each litter appeared to be moving. Then, as each of the stretchers was loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance truck, a sheet fell away revealing the grayish face and swollen, hairless head that clearly was not human.
Surviving Roswell alien from the Roswell movie.
Credit: Paul Davies
The military police orders were to deliver the cargo to the base hospital emergency room (Building 317) and remain there until relieved. Once at the medical facility, a half-dozen hospital personnel and men in suits took control of one specific gurney. All eyes were on the covered arrival as they removed the sheet from a being with an over-sized head, which had large, slanted eyes, two holes in place of a nose, and a slit for a mouth. For a number of moments all surrounding the patient just stood staring with mouths agape. It was alive. As the last of the gurneys was wheeled in, Benjamin and the other military police were immediately dismissed, sent back to their squadrons, and sworn to secrecy. They were told the incident never happened.
Sixty-three years after the event, the fog of time prevents Eli Benjamin from recalling the names or faces of the other men assigned to “escort duty” that day. They may well have been from other squadrons on the base or even from other bases brought in from outside (known as augmentation troops) to prevent the comparing of notes later on.
For her part, Mrs. Benjamin confirms her husband’s account of his involvement in the Roswell events of July 1947. She further states that he confided the story to her with the promise that she would never tell anyone else. Eli’s memories of that night—seeing the swollen face and slanted eyes of the “species”—remain with, and haunt, him to this day.
Roy Musser
Roy Musser happened to be at the base that afternoon. He was a civilian contractor painting part of the hospital. Working in the rear, where the loading dock area was located, he claimed to have seen the arrival of the small bodies and the “creature.” Apparently uninjured, he observed it walking and said it looked like a “very slender child.”
The military warned Musser that he was never to mention what he had seen to anyone or he and his family would be in jeopardy. Musser kept quiet for a number of years before relating the experience to fireman Dan Dwyer.
Miriam “Andrea” Bush
All military hospital administrators had their own secretary. In the case of Lieutenant Colonel Harold M. Warne, his was a twenty-seven-year-old civilian woman named Miriam “Andrea” Bush. Miriam was a graduate of New Mexico State College at Las Cruces, where she had majored in business administration. She also had a top security job at the base hospital. But none of her prior experiences prepared her for what she was about to see.
As she was performing routine duties at the hospital, Dr. Warne took her by the arm and quietly mentioned that she should accompany him to the examination room. Upon entering, she was immediately surprised to observe a number of bodies on gurneys in the middle of the room. At first she thought they were children based on their size. Their skin was grayish to brown in tone, and white linens covered most of each body. But the heads were too large to be children and had large staring eyes. All at once, one of them moved. Miriam would never forget what she had seen that day in Roswell.
Miriam Bush and her sister-in-law Pat Bush in the 1980s. Miriam claims to have seen the alien bodies at the RAAF base hospital.
Credit: Don Schmitt
What Became of the Surviving Alien?
To date there remains no eyewitness testimony as to what ultimately became of the survivor and how it was transported from Roswell. There is reliable information, however, that the being did spend some time at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and was still there up to nine months later in 1948.
Wright Field, 1947, where the survivor from Roswell was reportedly taken for study.
Credit: U.S. Army/Don Schmitt
While on his deathbed in 1997, Lieutenant Colonel Marion Magruder, a highly decorated World War II flying ace, swore to his five sons that, while with the War College, he was assigned to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in April 1948 and allowed to briefly see the “live alien” at that time. He and the others in his company were instructed that the being was recovered from the crash in Roswell just the year before. His description was similar to all the other eye-witnesses. He emphasized that there was no question that it “came from another planet.”
As one of the personnel at the RAAF once remarked, “They sure weren’t from Texas.” And in the same vein, they weren’t from Japan, Germany, or anywhere else on Earth. That is one issue all of the witnesses remain unanimous on.
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Clouds of Venus Could Be Hospitable for Some Forms of Life, New Research Suggests
Clouds of Venus Could Be Hospitable for Some Forms of Life, New Research Suggests
Planetary scientists have long speculated about the potential habitability of Venus, not at its hot surface, but in the cloud layers located at 48-60 km altitudes, where temperatures match those found on Earth’s surface. However, the prevailing belief has been that the Venusian clouds cannot support life due to the cloud chemical composition of concentrated sulfuric acid — a highly aggressive solvent. In a new study, chemists studied 20 biogenic amino acids at the range of Venus’ cloud sulfuric acid concentrations and temperatures. The researchers found 19 of the biogenic amino acids they tested are either unreactive or chemically modified in the side chain only, after 4 weeks. Their major finding is that the amino acid backbone remains intact in concentrated sulfuric acid.
This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.
“What is absolutely surprising is that concentrated sulfuric acid is not a solvent that is universally hostile to organic chemistry,” said Dr. Janusz Petkowski, a researcher at MIT.
“We are finding that building blocks of life on Earth are stable in sulfuric acid, and this is very intriguing for the idea of the possibility of life on Venus,” added MIT Professor Sara Seager.
“It doesn’t mean that life there will be the same as here. In fact, we know it can’t be. But this work advances the notion that Venus’ clouds could support complex chemicals needed for life.”
The search for life in Venus’ clouds has gained momentum in recent years, spurred in part by a controversial detection of phosphine — a molecule that is considered to be one signature of life — in the planet’s atmosphere.
While that detection remains under debate, the news has reinvigorated an old question: Could Earth’s sister planet actually host life?
In search of an answer, scientists are planning several missions to Venus, including the first largely privately funded mission to the planet, backed by California-based launch company Rocket Lab.
That mission, on which Professor Seager is the science principal investigator, aims to send a spacecraft through the planet’s clouds to analyze their chemistry for signs of organic molecules.
Ahead of the mission’s January 2025 launch, Professor Seager and her colleagues have been testing various molecules in concentrated sulfuric acid to see what fragments of life on Earth might also be stable in Venus’ clouds, which are estimated to be orders of magnitude more acidic than the most acidic places on Earth.
“People have this perception that concentrated sulfuric acid is an extremely aggressive solvent that will chop everything to pieces. But we are finding this is not necessarily true,” Dr. Petkowski said.
In fact, the authors have previously shown that complex organic molecules such as some fatty acids and nucleic acids remain surprisingly stable in sulfuric acid.
They are careful to emphasize, as they do in their current paper, that complex organic chemistry is of course not life, but there is no life without it.
In other words, if certain molecules can persist in sulfuric acid, then perhaps the highly acidic clouds of Venus are habitable, if not necessarily inhabited.
In the new study, the researchers turned their focus on 20 biogenic amino acids — those amino acids that are essential to all life on Earth.
They dissolved each type of amino acid in vials of sulfuric acid mixed with water, at concentrations of 81 and 98%, which represent the range that exists in Venus’ clouds.
They then used the nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer to analyze the structure of amino acids in sulfuric acid.
After analyzing each vial several times over four weeks, they found that the basic molecular structure, or ‘backbone’ in 19 of the 20 amino acids remained stable and unchanged, even in highly acidic conditions.
“Just showing that this backbone is stable in sulfuric acid doesn’t mean there is life on Venus,” said Dr. Maxwell Seager, a researcher at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
“But if we had shown that this backbone was compromised, then there would be no chance of life as we know it.”
The study was published this week in the journal Astrobiology.
Maxwell D. Seager et al. Stability of 20 Biogenic Amino Acids in Concentrated Sulfuric Acid: Implications for the Habitability of Venus’ Clouds. Astrobiology, published online March 18, 2024; doi: 10.1089/ast.2023.0082
Hi-speed camera caught UFO flying over Spirit Mountain near Las Vegas
Hi-speed camera caught UFO flying over Spirit Mountain near Las Vegas
Paranormal researcher and author Joshua P. Warren has employed cutting-edge technology to unveil a series of mysterious aerial phenomena over Spring Valley in Las Vegas and Spirit Mountain, situated south of the city. Using a high-speed camera capable of capturing 1000 frames per second, Warren has captured startling footage of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in broad daylight.
High-speed photography offers a unique glimpse into the behavior of fast-moving entities, such as bullets, by slowing down their motion to a visible pace imperceptible to the naked eye.
On April 20, 2023, at approximately 1:30 pm, Warren recorded his initial encounter. The footage reveals a swift, spherical object streaking across the sky, followed by the sudden ejection of a secondary object and an abrupt 90-degree turn, all within a fraction of a second. Concurrently, a third, cylindrical entity traverses the airspace, adding to the enigma.
Returning to the field on March 12, 2024, Warren stationed his high-speed camera at Spirit Mountain, located about 80 miles south of Las Vegas. Multiple instances were captured depicting a luminous, pulsating entity darting through the atmosphere above the mountain.
Highlighting the significance of the captured footage, Warren dismisses conventional explanations such as insects, dust, optical illusions, or conventional aircraft, attributing the observed maneuvers to genuine UAPs.
Citizen Scientists working on NASA's Active Asteroids Project have discovered 15 active asteroids and one Centaur. But it required 8,000 people poring over 430,000 images to find them. Image Credit: Henry Hsieh
Nature often defies our simple explanations. Take comets and asteroids, for example. Comets are icy and have tails; asteroids are rocky and don’t have tails. But it might not be quite so simple, according to new research.
That nice, clean definition took a hit in 1996 when a pair of astronomers discovered that what was thought to be a main-belt comet was actually an asteroid. The object is named 7968 Elst–Pizarro after the two scientists. It displayed a comet-like dust tail at perihelion.
These images from the La Silla Observatory show the active asteroid 7968 Elst–Pizarro. Its tail is clearly visible. Image Credit: By ESO – https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9637a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26500568
7968 Elst-Pizarro was classified as a main-belt comet (MBC) because it orbits within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It’s still called an MBC sometimes. However, its icy component that sublimates into a vapour trail likely comes from a small surface crater with volatiles in it rather than from a homogenous ice component. That’s why it’s called an active asteroid.
Active asteroids are unusual and rare objects. To understand them and their place in the Solar System’s history, scientists want to find more of them. That led to the creation of NASA’s Active Asteroids Project.
Now, the Active Asteroids Project has announced the discovery of 15 new active asteroids. These findings are in a new paper published in The Astronomical Journal. It’s titled “The Active Asteroids Citizen Science Program: Overview and First Results,” and the lead author is Colin Chandler from the Dept. of Astronomy & the DiRAC Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle. Among the co-authors are nine volunteer citizen scientists.
“For an amateur astronomer like me, it’s a dream come true,” said volunteer Virgilio Gonano from Udine, Italy. “Congratulations to all the staff and the friends that also check the images!”
“Active objects are rare in large part because they are difficult to identify, so we ask volunteers to assist us in searching for active bodies in our collection of millions of images of known minor planets,” the authors of the paper write. Active asteroids aren’t the only objects they’re trying to find. There are several other types.
Centaurs are small Solar System bodies that orbit between Neptune and Jupiter. Centaurs have crossed the orbits of one or more giant planets, making their orbits unstable. They have traits in common with both comets and asteroids, and about 30 of them have dust-like comas. These are the active ones.
The Active Asteroid Project is also trying to identify active quasi-Hilda asteroids (QHAs). QHAs are beyond the asteroid belt but within Jupiter’s orbit. Astronomers have discovered about 3000 of them, and about 15 of them have tails of gas and dust.
Active asteroids have asteroid-like orbits but have tails or comae like comets do.Image Credit: Mark Garlick/SPL
The Project also hopes to identify Jupiter family comets (JFCs.) JFCs are comets with very short orbital periods of less than 20 years. They’re contained within Jupiter’s orbit but may be captured Kuiper Belt Objects. They likely originated from collisions between objects in the Kuiper Belt and then were captured by Jupiter.
All of these objects have something to tell us about how the Solar System formed. Beyond that, they can help unravel the mystery of Earth’s water. There’s another, more forward-thinking reason for wanting to find these active objects. Their water can be split into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for respiration in future missions, though that’s so far in the future it’s esoteric.
This image shows one of the active asteroids found by citizen scientists involved with the Active Asteroid project. It’s named 2015 VA108, and the green arrow highlights the asteroid and its tail. Image Credit: Colin Orion Chandler (University of Washington)
The commitment of the citizens taking part is admirable. Since the effort launched on August 31st, 2021, about 8300 volunteers have taken part. Collectively, they’ve examined about 430,000 images.
“I have been a member of the Active Asteroids team since its first batch of data,” said volunteer Tiffany Shaw-Diaz from Dayton, Ohio. “And to say that this project has become a significant part of my life is an understatement. I look forward to classifying subjects each day, as long as time or health permits, and I am beyond honoured to work with such esteemed scientists on a regular basis.”
The images in the project all come from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam.) DECam is a high-performance camera with a wide field of view that’s mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
The images are filtered by query across multiple databases and image archives before they’re placed in front of the eyes of the citizen scientists. This includes the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the JPL Small-Body Database, the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre, and the National Optical and Infrared Laboratory (NOIRLab) AstroArchive. They also consider the observing telescope’s field-of-view, the objects’ coordinates and semi-major access, and multiple other factors.
The Project then uses scripts to download the desired data from astronomical archives. Then, they generate uniform DECam thumbnail images of each object. This results in millions of images of potential active asteroids or similar objects. There’s no possible way there are enough professional astronomers to handle this much work. So, the images are grouped up into “subject sets” and sent to the citizen scientists who put the effort in and make the project feasible.
Before the volunteers work with any real images, they’re trained on a set of images of objects that display some activity, like a tail or a coma. Then, the participants give them a score from zero (unidentifiable/missing;) to 9 (definitely active, overwhelming activity indicators.) “All training images in Active Asteroids are derived from those images to which we applied a score of ?5; our minimum threshold, for which we consider the activity to be highly likely,” the authors explain.
In each image, a green reticle identifies the object of interest. The citizen scientists are asked a fairly straightforward question: do they see activity (i.e., a tail or coma) coming from the central object?
This is one of the DECam thumbnail images in the project. It shows the active asteroid (62412) 2000 SY178. In the project’s analysis system, this object received a score of 0.35, below the threshold of 0.473 needed to classify it as an active object. Image Credit: Chandler et al. 2024/Active Asteroid Project.
Over time, most citizen scientists became more productive. But not always.
This figure from the study shows the number of images classified through time by 10 randomly selected participants, numbered from 0 to 9. Most got better over time, though number 7 seemed to buck that trend. Image Credit: Chandler et al. 2024/Active Asteroid Project.
Each subject set requires a certain amount of preparation by the professional astronomers. That has to be balanced by the work and time it takes a citizen scientist to go through it. After some experimenting, the project settled on sets of about 22,000 images, which took a citizen participant about four to eight weeks to go through.
The project takes place on the Zooniverse platform, home to many other citizen science projects. One of the benefits of that platform is that the citizen participants and the professional astronomers can talk with one another on the “Talk” discussion boards on Zooniverse. “Surprisingly, we have made discoveries that first come to light on the Talk pages, well before the subject set was fully retired,” the authors of the paper write.
This is just the first data release from the project. Finding 15 active asteroids and one Centaur is just the beginning. In fact, the project has produced more than 20 discoveries, resulting in multiple publications. And they’re not done.
They intend to continue working and improving their methods. The Project is also looking ahead to the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will produce an enormous number of images for evaluation.
If you’re interested in participating, visit the project website.
“The Active Asteroids project is ongoing and can be accessed through the project website,” the authors write. “Participation is easy and intuitive and can take as little as a few minutes to contribute.”
One Impact on Mars Produced More than Two Billion Secondary Craters
There are plenty of craters on Mars, especially when compared to Earth. That is primarily thanks to the lack of weathering forces and strong plate tectonics that disrupt the formations of such impacts on our home planet. However, not all impact craters on Mars are directly caused by asteroid impacts. Many of them are caused by the ejecta from an asteroid impact falling back to the planet. One recent study showed how impactful this can be – it concludes that a single large impact crater on Mars created over two billion other smaller craters up to almost 2000 km away.
The study, released at the 55th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, focuses on a crater called Corinto. It’s located in Elysium Planitia, only about 17 degrees north of the Red Planet’s equator. It’s a relatively young crater by Martian standards, with the scientists’ best estimate of its age being around 2.34 million years ago. It’s pretty massive for being that young, though, as the average time between impacts of its size is around 3 million years. As such, the scientists think it might be the most recent crater of its size on Mars.
That’s not why it’s interesting, though. It has an extensive “ray system”. That means that a significant amount of ejecta was cast out from the impact site and landed elsewhere on the planet, creating “rays” from the central impact point that can be seen on a map of the planet’s surface even today.
A video from JHU APL shows the details of how we understand how impact craters are made. Credit – JHU APl YouTube Channel
Corinto crater is about 14 km in diameter and 1 km deep. Its interior bowl is pock-marked with other, smaller craters that happened its impact. Indications suggest it was full of water ice when it was hit, as there appeared to be some degassing of the superheated ice after the impact. Calculations point to a relatively steep impact angle of about 30-45 degrees from straight on – and the impactor appeared to be coming from the north.
As a result, much of the ejecta impact field lies to the south, especially the southwest, of the crater. While some secondary ejecta craters are sitting to the north of the main one, it appears clear that the impactor’s angle was significant enough to push most ejecta to the south.
Tracking the path of this ejecta a few million years later isn’t easy. Scientists used data collected by HiRISE and the Context Camera (CTX) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and analyzed characteristics of smaller craters surrounding the main Corinto crater. In particular, they looked for craters that looked like they would be caused by ejecta rather than by an interplanetary impactor.
Graphical Depiction of the Facies of Maritan craters around Corinto. Credit – Golombek et al.
They grouped the different types of ejecta craters they found into five different “facies,” primarily focused on how far away they were from the main crater. Each facies has its distinct characteristics. For example, Facies 0, the one closest to the main crater, are semi-circular, don’t appear to have any ejecta, or have very distinct rims. On the other hand, Facies 3 craters are long and narrow rather than semi-circular (hinting that something rolled through to create them) and have shown up as very bright in the MRO images.
Two main findings from the paper will probably turn the most heads. The scientists found that there are close to 2 billion secondary impact craters larger than 10 meters caused by the ejecta from Corinto. And those secondary craters appear up to 1850 km away. That would make it, by far, the most impactful (pun intended) of the recent Martian craters in terms of the sheer number and distance of its ejecta.
The paper didn’t go into what that might mean for our larger understanding of these processes on the red planet, nor what future work might be completed – the version reviewed for this article was only two pages. But, as with most things in science, a new record for something – in this case, distance and amount of secondary impact craters, attracts additional research, so we’ll have to see what if any, future discoveries can be made regarding this interesting Martian crater.
Earth’s Long-Term Habitability Relies on Chemical Cycles. How Can We Better Understand Them?
Biogeochemical cycles move matter around Earth between the atmosphere, the oceans, the lithosphere, and living things. Image Credit: By Alexander Davronov - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106124364
Earth’s Long-Term Habitability Relies on Chemical Cycles. How Can We Better Understand Them?
We, and all other complex life, require stability to evolve. Planetary conditions needed to be benign and long-lived for creatures like us and our multicellular brethren to appear and to persist. On Earth, chemical cycling provides much of the needed stability.
Chemical cycling between the land, atmosphere, lifeforms, and oceans is enormously complex and difficult to study. Typically, researchers try to isolate one cycle and study it. However, new research is examining Earth’s chemical cycling more holistically to try to understand how the planet has stayed in the ‘sweet spot’ for so long.
Earth has supported complex life for hundreds of millions of years, possibly for more than a billion years. This is extremely rare, as far as we can tell. The vast majority of the exoplanets we’ve discovered are not in their stars’ habitable zones. They have very little chance of hosting any life, let alone complex life.
It’s possible that some planets experience a period of stability for much shorter periods of time than Earth. This may describe Mars. It was warm and wet and could’ve hosted simple life, but the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became uninhabitable. Now it’s cold, dry, and dead.
Earth robustly cycles the chemical elements through different systems and has done so for billions of years. Now, about 4.5 billion years after its formation, life is abundant on our precious planet. Biogeochemical cycles like the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the methane cycle have allowed the planet to sustain its habitability.
“Overall, this work provides a systematic conceptual framework for understanding balance and imbalance in global biogeochemical cycles.”
From “Balance and imbalance in biogeochemical cycles reflect the operation of closed, exchange, and open sets.”
Earth’s carbon cycle plays a dominant role in the climate. As carbon accumulates in the atmosphere, the planet warms. As carbon is sequestered into the mantle, the planet cools. Even though it’s been stable for a long time, research shows that small imbalances can upset the system.
What Kemeny and his co-researchers wanted to do was get back to the basics. They wanted to identify a framework for all the reactions, both large and small, that comprise Earth’s chemical cycles. What’s different in their work is that they didn’t specify how they all worked together, if they worked together, or how much they affected one another.
“Our approach provides a new way to identify the fundamental building blocks of stability in the chemical components of Earth’s climate—the underlying ways in which the climate can be stabilized over geological time due to the movement of elements across the ocean, atmosphere, and rock reservoirs,” said Kemeny.
Earth’s long-lasting habitability created the conditions for complex life like us to appear. That habitability is dependent on the complex interplay of chemistry between the ocean, atmosphere and land. This image, captured from the International Space Station 400km above Earth’s surface, shows our planet’s thin atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA
The researchers describe their effort as ‘agnostic’ and explain that it creates “… a systematic and simplified conceptual framework for understanding the function and evolution of global biogeochemical cycles.” They call it agnostic because it doesn’t specify the relationship between environmental conditions and the strength of biogeochemical processes. “By remaining agnostic to the relationships between environmental conditions and the intensity of biogeochemical processes, we sought to recognize and systematize patterns that underly the stability of major element cycles,” Kemeny explains on his website.
“This is an elegant, simplified way to think about an enormous problem, which organizes a lot of previous research on elemental cycles into packages of chemical reactions that can be balanced and understood,” said University of Chicago Assistant Professor Clara Blättler, senior author of the paper.
The complexity of Earth’s cycles makes them difficult to study. They work on long geological timescales, which puts us at a disadvantage. The planet’s carbon cycle illustrates this.
The movement of carbon plays an important role in regulating the planet’s climate. When carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the atmosphere traps more heat, which warms up the oceans. However, carbon also creates a weak acid called carbonic acid that breaks rocks down faster. The carbon eventually finds its way to the ocean floor and becomes sequestered in rock. Carbon can also spend some time as part of living things before being sequestered into rock or fossil fuels. This sequestration of carbon eventually cools the planet but takes millions of years. Carbon is eventually returned to the atmosphere by volcanoes and by the burning of fossil fuels.
The Carbon cycle plays a dominant role in moderating Earth’s climate, but other chemical cycles influence it. Image Credit: U.S. DOE, Biological and Environmental Research Information System.
Trying to understand the carbon cycle is made more difficult by its interaction with other cycles. The Earth’s cycles also aren’t static. They change over time, adding to the complexity. There are also missing pieces from the large puzzle of Earth’s cycles. Researchers are forced to make assumptions to fill in the blanks.
Kemeny devotes much of his time to understanding Earth’s cycles, and he and his colleagues hope that their approach can yield better results. “Models of global element cycles seek to understand how biogeochemical processes and environmental conditions interact to sustain planetary habitability,” Kemeny writes on his website. “However, outcomes from such models often reflect specific interpretations of geochemical archives.”
The researchers think their approach may help overcome the obstacles to understanding Earth’s cycles. They employed a mathematical analysis to develop a framework identifying all of the major and minor cycles that contribute to Earth’s long-term habitability by balancing the carbon cycle.
The result was a new, more holistic way to look at Earth. The climate can be represented by a large set of interconnected chemical equations. These equations must balance over certain time periods to keep the carbon cycle stable and the Earth habitable.
The Sulphur Cycle is just one of Earth’s important cycles. It moves sulphur between rocks, water, and living things. Kemeny and his colleagues are trying to understand all of Earth’s cycles holistically rather than in isolation. Image Credit: By Bantle – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20411832
Kemeny highlights one episode in Earth’s climate history to illustrate the point. The Cenozoic era began about 65.5 million years ago and is the era we live in now. The Cenozoic is a long-term cooling trend in Earth’s history, and the period that preceded it was a greenhouse climate. Kemeny and his colleagues say that their holistic approach can open a window into how the climate changed.
“For example, say that you are considering a hypothesis for why the climate changed in the past – such as the major cooling of the last 65 million years,” Kemeny said. “You can take this framework and use it to say: well, if X process increased or decreased, then it should have also caused Y to happen, or would have needed to be balanced by Z, and that you have to account for those outcomes—so with that prediction we can look for evidence for the joint operation of the whole geochemical system.”
Astrobiology and planetary habitability are key topics in space science. With the help of the JWST and other upcoming observatories and telescopes, scientists are getting a look at the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. But it’s a difficult process, made more difficult by our less-than-complete understanding of our own planet’s habitability. Understanding our own planet can help us better understand exoplanets.
But there’s a certain type of joy in understanding Earth for its own sake, and this new holistic approach should grow our understanding.
“We hope it’s a beautiful way to help understand all the chemistries that are involved in making Earth a safe place for life to evolve,” Blättler said.
“Overall, this work provides a systematic conceptual framework for understanding balance and imbalance in global biogeochemical cycles,” the authors conclude.
This New Map of 1.3 Million Quasars Is A Powerful Tool
This figure from the research shows the sky distribution of the new Quaia quasar catalogue in Galactic coordinates and is displayed using a Mollweide projection. The grey region across the center is the Milky Way, a blind spot in the Quaia catalogue. Image Credit: K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024
This New Map of 1.3 Million Quasars Is A Powerful Tool
Quasars are the brightest objects in the Universe. The most powerful ones are thousands of times more luminous than entire galaxies. They’re the visible part of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of a galaxy. The intense light comes from gas drawn toward the black hole, emitting light across several wavelengths as it heats up.
But quasars are more than just bright ancient objects. They have something important to show us about the dark matter.
Large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers. Even those only casually familiar with space know that black holes can suck everything in, even light. But as black holes draw nearby gas towards themselves, the gas doesn’t all go into the hole, past the event horizon and into oblivion. Instead, much of the gas forms a rotating accretion disk around the black hole.
SMBHs aren’t always actively drawing material to them, an act known as ‘feeding.’ But when an SMBH is actively feeding, it’s called an active galactic nucleus (AGN.) When the material in the disk rotates, it heats up. As it heats, it emits different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. It can also emit jets.
When astronomers first began to detect this light, they only knew they were seeing objects that emitted radio waves. The name quasar means quasi-stellar radio source. But as time went on astronomers learned more, and the term active galactic nucleus was adopted. The term quasar is still used, but they’re now a sub-class of AGN that are the most luminous AGN.
Quasars inhabit galaxies that are surrounded by enormous haloes of dark matter. Astronomers think there’s a link between the dark matter haloes (DMH) and the quasars. The DMH may direct more matter toward the center of the galaxy, feeding the SMBH and igniting a quasar, and even aiding the formation of more massive galaxies.
Artist rendering of the dark matter halo surrounding our galaxy. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
A team of researchers has created a new catalogue of quasars that will be a powerful tool for probing quasars, DMHs, and SMBHs. Their results are in a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal titled “Quaia, the Gaia-unWISE Quasar Catalog: An All-sky Spectroscopic Quasar Sample.” The lead author is Kate Storey-Fisher, a postdoctoral researcher at the Donostia International Physics Center in Spain.
“This quasar catalogue is different from all previous catalogues in that it gives us a three-dimensional map of the largest-ever volume of the universe,” said map co-creator David Hogg, a senior research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City and a professor of physics and data science at New York University. “It isn’t the catalogue with the most quasars, and it isn’t the catalogue with the best-quality measurements of quasars, but it is the catalogue with the largest total volume of the universe mapped.”
This infographic helps explain Quaia, the new catalogue of 1.3 million quasars.
Image Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation; K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024
The fact that the new catalogue captures the largest total volume of the Universe mapped and all the quasars in that space is key to understanding its purpose. It’s not meant as a survey that captures the largest number of quasars. The catalogue is meant to be a tool astrophysicists can use to understand the relationships between quasars, dark matter, black holes, and galaxies.
They call their catalogue Quaia because the data comes from the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. Gaia’s mission is to map about one billion objects in the Milky Way, mostly stars. And it’s going about its mission with extreme accuracy. But among the multitudes of stars Gaia has mapped is a large number of quasars well beyond the Milky Way. That generated the name “Quaia.”
“We were able to make measurements of how matter clusters together in the early universe that are as precise as some of those from major international survey projects — which is quite remarkable given that we got our data as a ‘bonus’ from the Milky Way–focused Gaia project,” Storey-Fisher says.
Dark matter tends to clump in haloes around galaxies, and studying the distribution of quasars can help explain the distribution of dark matter. In the large scale of the Universe, dark matter is organized as a web, and the catalogue of quasars helps map that web.
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), a strong piece of evidence for the Big Bang, is also part of this. As the light from the CMB travels toward us through space, the dark matter web’s massive gravitational power bends the light. Scientists can compare the CMB light we receive with the map of quasars and compare the two. The comparisons will them about the relationship between dark matter and quasars and how matter clumps together in the Universe.
Since quasars trace the cosmic web, their distribution gives information about the web that other sources can’t. For example, it can trace the distribution of matter at higher redshifts than galaxies can. And since it’s space-based, it avoids some of the data contamination that other quasar surveys suffer from, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS.)
This is not the first quasar map/catalogue to be created. There are several others, including one from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
This figure shows five different quasar maps created by scientists using different data and methodologies. The creators of Quaia say that its redshifts are more accurate than the others, along with other properties.Image Credit: K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024
As the animation below shows, Quaia is more complete than the SDSS’s DR16Q, the SDSS’s quasar catalogue that accompanied its data release 16.
Though the Gaia mission itself doesn’t generate many of its own headlines, it’s at the foundation of modern space science. Its data is behind lots of published research.
“This quasar catalogue is a great example of how productive astronomical projects are,” says Hogg. “Gaia was designed to measure stars in our own galaxy, but it also found millions of quasars at the same time, which give us a map of the entire universe.”
Now, the new Quaia catalogue is playing a similar role. The data it contains is already being used by other researchers.
“It has been very exciting to see this catalogue spurring so much new science,” Storey-Fisher says. “Researchers around the world are using the quasar map to measure everything from the initial density fluctuations that seeded the cosmic web to the distribution of cosmic voids to the motion of our solar system through the universe.”
Unlocking the Unknown: How Ret. Admiral Gallaudet and Insiders Aim to Reveal UAP Secrets
Unlocking the Unknown: How Ret. Admiral Gallaudet and Insiders Aim to Reveal UAP Secrets
In the intriguing world of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), credible voices play a pivotal role in shaping public understanding and policy direction. Among these voices, Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet stands out, not only for his distinguished service but for his candid remarks on the ongoing efforts to disclose information on UAPs. Gallaudet’s insights offer a rare glimpse into the complex, often shadowy process of how military and government sectors manage such enigmatic occurrences.
Gallaudet’s conviction stems from personal connections with individuals deeply embedded in “legacy programs” – government initiatives tasked with the retrieval and analysis of UAPs. These programs, which have long operated under wraps, are responsible for investigating crash sites and analyzing data related to UAPs. Gallaudet’s assertion underscores a significant point: the existence of a dedicated, albeit discreet, effort within the government to understand and potentially harness the technologies behind these phenomena.
The retired Rear Admiral’s comments were highlighted in an interview with Kristian Harloff on “The Big Thing” show, where he shed light on the collective endeavor of former intelligence officers, Department of Defense personnel, and government insiders. This coalition, according to Gallaudet, is not a loose assembly of interested parties but a coordinated group working “behind the scenes” to facilitate a controlled disclosure of UAP information.
This strategy of “controlled disclosure” aligns with legislative movements, notably the Schumer-Rounds Amendment (UAP Disclosure Act), which seeks to formalize the process of releasing information about UAPs to the public. The amendment aims to balance the public’s right to know with national security considerations, ensuring that disclosures do not compromise sensitive operations or technologies.
Gallaudet’s revelations are significant for several reasons. First, they confirm the existence of government programs focused on UAPs, lending credence to long-standing rumors and speculations. Second, his comments reveal an active push within the establishment for transparency, indicating a shift towards acknowledging the public’s interest and concerns regarding UAPs. Finally, Gallaudet’s insights hint at the complexity of managing UAP-related information, reflecting the challenges faced by those at the helm of these efforts.
FULL INTERVIEW:
Ret. Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet talks UFO’s, USO’s, Sol Foundation, China threat etc..
As discussions about UAPs move from the fringes to the mainstream, the contributions of individuals like Ret. Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet are invaluable. They not only provide a bridge between the public and the obscure world of government UAP programs but also underscore the importance of handling such profound matters with care, responsibility, and an eye towards the future.
The narrative surrounding UAPs is far from complete, and as efforts for disclosure progress, the insights of insiders like Gallaudet will continue to guide public understanding and policy development. The journey towards transparency is complex, fraught with challenges, but undeniably necessary for advancing our collective knowledge and preparedness for whatever truths lie behind the UAP phenomenon.
The most common and yet interesting question that many people ask is: Are we alone in this universe? The answer has taken a great turn from “Maybe yes” to “Maybe no” in the past few years. There is a long list of credible personalities who never denied the presence of non-human intelligent life among us. Moreover, a few of them are certain that aliens are on Earth. American billionaire Robert Bigelow said something shocking about aliens in November 2017.
According to Robert Bigelow, famous in the aerospace industry for the manufacture of inflatable modules such as those tested out at the International Space Station, there are extraterrestrial beings living among humans. He said that he is “absolutely convinced” aliens live among humans on Earth. During the interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, reporter Lara Logan asked Bigelow if he believes in aliens. He replied: “I’m absolutely convinced. That’s all there is to it.” He further said: “There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence.”
He continued: “I spent millions and millions and millions – I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.” “You don’t have to go anywhere” to find aliens and they are here right in front of people. Bigelow had his own close encounters but declined to go into detail.
When award-winning journalist George Knapp asked his comment on this interview, he said: “There are different ways to go at this. So one is from a hardware standpoint. The other one is from the presence standpoint, ET presence. And, you know, a lot of people say, well, whether they’re, you know, that they can be among the population, whether they’re hybrids, or there’s some other kind of, really look alike, you know, kind of thing. But so, so you can look at it in different kinds of ways. And, and so, I know of a really good high quality researcher who has fantastic academic credentials and background. And he would be predisposed to the latter, saying that, yeah, it could be among us, you know, but he’s probably on the more extreme, he’s definitely on the more extreme. Others would say, well, we’re safe in saying that there’s hardware, you know, so that’s among us, and hardware kind of context.” (Source)
Skinwalker Ranch, a property located in northeastern Utah has been the subject of alleged paranormal activity, including UFO sightings and other strange occurrences. The ranch gained notoriety in the 1990s when it was purchased by Mr. Bigelow, who funded a number of studies of the phenomena reported at the ranch.
However, the specifics of what has been reported at the ranch and the credibility of those reports have been the subject of much debate and skepticism. Some people believe that the ranch is a hotspot for extraterrestrial activity, while others believe that the reports of strange occurrences at the ranch are the result of hoaxes or misidentifications of natural phenomena.
Bryant “Dragon” Arnold (Chief Security Officer on Skinwalker Ranch), Casey Smith, Erik Bard and Kaleb Bench, from left, check the radiation in a sinkhole pit on Skinwalker Ranch, in a moment from History’s series “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” Image via The Salt Lake Tribune
Following his interview with Mr. Bigelow, Knapp then asked if the entities at Skinwalker Ranch would be investigated through the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (which he founded in 2020 after his wife passed away). Besides, he wondered that if they are among us, can they also be considered alien? Bigelow said: “Well, if you if you follow the literature and pay attention to a lot of other kinds of sources, they absolutely are.”
Further, Mr. Bigelow shared his personal experiences and losses that prompted his interest in life after death, as well as UFOs. He talked about possible links between consciousness research and UFOs. He also talked about the risks of trying to establish communications with the unknown.
“That’s been mainly what I’ve been doing except for the skinwalker ranch thing for 20 years as the space world has been huge in my life to pursue the legitimate parochial kind of you know using fire engines rockets to get you there. We didn’t expect anything like this to happen and so there this is different. This is the holy grail and is different than the second holy grail. If the second one is ‘Beings’ (E.T.), then the first one: Is there any part of your consciousness that survives your bodily death? That’s a big deal. That’s a huge story. That’s gigantic.”
“Be a little careful about what you wish for. So on the face of it, communication sounds great and that by the way has been tried forever ever since the oracle of Delphi. I mean you can go back thousands of years and that’s been attempted. So It’s not now you know the last 100 years through electronics and using some kind of electrical apparatus to try to have some kind of communications. And you know communication can be at all different kinds of levels. There might be communication that just causes you an awareness.”
Then Knapp asked him what triggered his curiosity about UFOs, possibly it was after Bob Lazar’s story came out. Mr. Bigelow replied that he was already into UFO research. He was looking at UFO stories worldwide to understand what they actually were.
In 1992, he started the Bigelow Foundation with Bob Lazar, who worked on reverse-engineering recovered extraterrestrial craft at Area-51. Mr. Bigelow also backed Dr. John E. Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard who wrote two popular books about his work with people who told him they had been abducted by aliens, and Budd Hopkins, an artist who became an abduction investigator and also wrote popular books.
Mr. Bigelow’s investigative team, headed by Colm Kelleher, the institute’s scientific administrator and biochemist, documented their own paranormal events, according to a 2005 book “Hunt for the Skinwalker,” by Dr. Kelleher and Mr. Knapp.
Mr. Bigelow said he saw “interdimensional” forces at play through portals at certain paranormal hot spots like Skinwalker. But he also said he had frequently visited the ranch without experiencing the kind of chilling events others reported, as if some intelligence were selecting the people to act upon. “I slept like a log every single night,” he said. And no human was physically harmed, but he said he and other visitors often carried strange things home, like a sulfurous stink in a certain part of his house. His wife felt the presence of a faceless creature pressing down on her side of bed. (Source)
Bigelow amassed his fortune through the hotel chain Budget Suites of America and used this money to fund his UFO study. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said that UFOs are “under our noses” and wondered why news organizations had not extensively covered UFO sightings.
In 2008, Mr. Bigelow secretly created BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies) to study the UFO mystery and related phenomena. The public did not know that he had signed a contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency to do an investigation under the AAWSAP program.
His political influence has been strong when it comes to UFO study. He once convinced his friend and then-Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid to allocate $22 million to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which investigated UFO reports from 2007 to 2012. The majority of the funds were sent to Bigelow’s company to investigate, and the allocation was not made public until a 2017 New York Times investigation. The Pentagon stated that the program was terminated in 2012, although Reid later stated that he had no remorse about the expenditure.
Later, he and his team hired dozens of investigators, scientists, and support staff to work on putting together a huge database of original investigations and UFO files from other countries. The now-famous 2004 Tic Tac encounter off the coast of Southern California was one of the cases that BAASS looked into.
"The results of my research suggest that the chance of life having existed on Mars is smaller than previously thought."
Main image: Illustration of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter investigating Mars. Inset: a satellite image of Martian gullies with carbon dioxide ice visible at their edges.
(Image credit: Robert Lea/ NASA/ HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Experiment), a camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (photo no.: ESP_039114_1115))
Mars may be dry and barren today, but multiple lines of evidence show that water flowed across the Red Planet billions of years ago.
Now, new research has suggested that this water may have existed at the surface of Mars for less time than previously thought. That's because gullies observed on Mars by spacecraft like NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which had previously been thought to have been carved out by the flow of water, could have instead been created by explosively evaporating carbon dioxide ice.
Because liquid water is considered a vital ingredient needed for the emergence and sustenance of living organisms, the results may be bad news for the hunt for ancient microscopic life on Mars.
"This influences our ideas about water on Mars in general, and therefore our search for life on the planet," team leader and Utrecht University planetary researcher Lonneke Roelofs said in a statement. "The results of my research suggest that the chance of life having existed on Mars is smaller than previously thought."
Less time with water means lower odds of life on Mars
Roelofs explained that the atmosphere of Mars is composed of 95% carbon dioxide. During the winter on Mars, temperatures fall to below minus 184 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 120 degrees Celsius), cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.
As it freezes, carbon dioxide gas can change directly to carbon dioxide ice, skipping an intermediate liquid phase altogether. A similar process is seen on Earth when water vapor forms ice crystals that blanket the ground.
When warmer temperatures arrive with the Martian spring, the carbon dioxide ice can go back to a gaseous form, straight from solid to gas again, skipping a liquid phase, a process called "sublimation" that is particularly violent on the Red Planet.
"The process is extremely explosive due to Mars’ low air pressure," Roelofs said. "The created gas pressure pushes sediment grains apart, causing the material to flow, similar to debris flowing in mountainous areas on Earth. These flows can reshape the Martian landscape — even in the absence of water."
Mars gullies with carbon-dioxide ice on their edges, as seen by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Image credit: HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Experiment), a camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (photo no.: ESP_039114_1115))
Scientists had previously suggested that geological structures on Mars could have been heavily influenced by the sublimation of carbon dioxide ice, but those theories were based on satellite data or computer modeling.
Roelofs and colleagues, however, simulated Mars conditions in the lab using their "Mars Chamber" and then directly observed the sublimation of carbon dioxide ice under these conditions.
"Using this specialized lab equipment, we could directly study this process with our own eyes," he said. "We even observed that debris flows driven by carbon dioxide ice under Martian conditions flow just as efficiently as the debris flows driven by water on Earth."
So flowing water may not have been involved in the creation of some Martian gullies and channels.
"My research now shows that, in addition to debris flows powered by water, the sublimation of frozen carbon dioxide can also serve as a driving force behind the formation of these Martian gully landscapes," Roelofs said. "That pushes the presence of water on Mars further into the past, making the chance of life on Mars smaller."
From sightings by U.S. submarines to mysterious humanoids in the depths of Russian lakes, there is an even more mysterious cousin to the UFO - the USO, or Unidentified Submerged Object.
There are multiple reports of USOs from around the world, often from respected military and academic professionals - with some claiming that underwater ‘fast movers’ are a common part of life on board submarines.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Nigel Watson, author of Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims, said: ‘We live on an ocean planet, so it is not surprising that UFOs are seen over or in the vicinity of the great expanses of water that surround us.
'Concentrations of USO sightings indicate bases in the North Sea, and off the coasts of California and Puerto Rico.
'USOs are as intriguing as UAPs but they are even more difficult to substantiate - and often get mixed with dreams about Atlantis and aliens living in the hollow Earth.
'Personally, to me, they are a myth, like mermaids or the Loch Ness Monster.'
Pilot sights ‘dark mass’ in the water
Retired Navy commander David Fravor
Retired U.S. Navy Commander David Fravor, who famously spotted the ‘Tic-Tac’ UFO in 2004, described how a fellow pilot had revealed to him an encounter with a USO.
The pilot said he had seen a ‘dark mass’, which he described as ‘big’ and ‘kinda circular’, and was not a submarine.
Fravor told the Joe Rogan podcast that the helicopter had dropped a swimmer in the water to pick up munitions.
He said: 'The first time they were out and they were going to pick up a munition, he’s sitting in the front—in the CH-53 you can see down by your feet—and as he’s looking down, they’re 50 feet above the water, he sees this kind of dark mass coming up from the depths.”
'He’s looking at this thing going, "What the hell is that?" And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the munition out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.'
The pilot who was retrieving spent practice munitions out of the sea in a U.S. Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter said that a practice torpedo he was sent to recover was ‘sucked down’ into the sea by another object.
The torpedo never resurfaced.
The encounter occurred in the sea near Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, on Puerto Rico, Fravor said.
The UFOs of Guantanamo Bay
Did Marines see USOs in the late Sixties?
In the late Sixties, ‘heavy UFO traffic’ was seen at the Guantanamo Bay base.
An ex-Marine said: ‘'All of us Marines were amazed at the amount of UFO activity over and around this base,' the witness said.
'Virtually every night UFOs were flying overhead with altitudes of less than 300 feet.’
'Most of these UFOs were approximately 50 to 100 feet across, but to the naked eye came off as a dull, hazy hull with a small red light trailing behind it,'
The marine - who wished to remain anonymous in an interview with the paranormal sighting website MUFON - said that he was unsure of the exact dates
The Marine claims he was instructed not to discuss the sightings, and said he saw one UFO which looked like a 'big beautiful cloud with a blue and white pulsating light'.
Underwater craft buzzes U.S.S. Hampton submarine
The Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Hampton
A craft moving through the water faster than the speed of sound ‘whizzed by’ the submarine U.S.S. Hampton, a professor has claimed.
Professor Bob McGwier of Virginia Tech and the Institute for Defence Analyses, said the craft’s onboard sonar detected a USO moving through the water faster than the speed of sound.
McGwier was on the submarine doing classified work, and says that the crew opted not to investigate so as to focus on their mission, but did not tell him that he could not talk about the strange encounter.
In an interview with the YouTube Channel UAP Encounters, he said: 'We were underway, and, all of a sudden, I heard a sound. It is really strange and clear that something is whizzing by us.
'When I left there with the knowledge in my head, not having been told to be quiet, not having been told it was classified... It is mine to tell whoever I want. They blew it,'
The encounter with the fast-attack submarine lasted just a few seconds, McGwier says.
Alien-hunters spotted what many described as an ‘alien base’ 2,000 feet beneath the waves off Malibu in 2014.
When Google Earth revealed what appeared to be a ‘structure’ beneath the waves, conspiracy fans went wild.
UFO author Preston Dennett said: 'I have collected probably 50 or 100 reports of people who have seen UFOs going in and out of the water there.
‘My problem is that the Google images are coming out different, depending on what viewpoint you're looking at this thing from. Some show a tunnel. Some don't.
"I'm very intrigued by the possibility. 'm convinced there's something down there."
Geologists however have dismissed the idea that the structure is an alien base, describing the structure as ‘perfectly ordinary’.
The USOs of Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal has seen multiple bizarre sightings over the years
Lake Baikal in Siberia has been the site of multiple sightings of USOs and UFOs, beginning in the Soviet era.
Russian former Navy officer turned UFO researcher Vladimir Azhazha said, "Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more - with lakes. So, UFOs tend to stick to the water,.”
Azhazha has claimed that humanoid beings in strange shiny suits were seen in the water by military divers in 1982.
In more recent years, photographers have captured strange lights and mysterious craft over the lake.
The chairman of the Union of Photographers of Buryatia, Sergey Konechnykh, said in 2009, When I saw it, it was flying low. Until it disappeared over the horizon, I kept looking at it. I call it a fireball, and what it really was - I cannot know.'
EXCLUSIVE / Veteran paratrooper reveals British special forces recovered a downed 'non-human' craft in northern England in late 1980s - supporting recent US whistleblowers' claims of a secret UFO crash retrieval program
EXCLUSIVE - Veteran paratrooper reveals British special forces recovered a downed 'non-human' craft in northern England in late 1980s - supporting recent US whistleblowers' claims of a secret UFO crash retrieval program
British paratrooper veteran Franc Milburn claims a former member of the British special forces came clean to him about the top secret operation in the late 1980s
'He just said it was obvious it was non-human, and it was obvious that there were occupants who had fled the scene on foot,' he told DailyMail.com
Milburn said he decided to come forward with the story to support recent US whistleblowers' claims of a secret UFO crash retrieval program
British special forces recovered a downed 'non-human' craft in northern England in the late 1980s, a former UK paratrooper and military intelligence officer claims.
Franc Milburn, a veteran of the British Army's elite Parachute Regiment, tells DailyMail.com he has spoken with a member of the MI6-run unit that conducted the alleged operation.
Milburn said he also spoke to UK Royal Air Force crew who chased and fired on a pair of 'disc-shaped' UFOs that traveled at hypersonic speeds outstripping their fighter jets.
Milburn refused to reveal the identity of his former elite comrade, citing security and his desire to remain anonymous. DailyMail.com will refer to him using the alias 'John.'
But in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Milburn divulged eye-popping details of the story told to him by his ex-Special Forces friend after both had left the Army – saying that he wanted to support recent US whistleblowers' claims of a secret UFO crash retrieval program.
British veteran paratrooper Franc Milburn (pictured left in Iraq in 1997) claims a former member of the British special forces came clean to him about a top secret operation involving a downed 'non-human' craft in the late 1980s
A now declassified 2000 UK Defence Intelligence Staff report obtained by DailyMail.com states that the existence of 'Unexplained Aerial Phenomena' (UAP) is 'indisputable' and included a scatter plot (pictured) of UAP reports across the UK between 1987 to 1991
Milburn said that in the 1980s John worked for a reported secret unit now known as the 'E Squadron', which specialized in covert, clandestine, and paramilitary operations.
E Squadron, previously called 'The Increment', recruited the most experienced and reliable operators from the UK's Special Forces units: the Special Air Service (SAS), Special Boat Service (SBS) and Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR).
The US equivalent to E Squadron is the CIA's Special Operations Group and Joint Special Operations Command, staffed from 'Tier-1' units including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6.
Milburn said John served in the 1982 Falklands War and on numerous high-risk missions around the world, but one of the most disturbing was in his home country in the late 1980s.
'He told me they were deployed in a troop-sized unit, maybe 20-30 Special Forces operators,' Milburn said.
'They'd been told by the RAF [Royal Air Force] that a craft which wasn't Russian, British, or American had been downed.
'He said they were tasked to secure and retrieve the craft in the north of England. They were flown in by helicopter. They established a cordon, a perimeter, and they approached the craft.
'He didn't describe the craft, he just said it was obvious it was non-human, and it was obvious that there were occupants who had fled the scene on foot – or whatever you call it.
'He said then it became a task of tracking down these beings to try to bring them into custody.
'Part of the unit was left protecting the craft. They would have left maybe six to eight blokes to cordon the craft, and the others would have been on foot, quad bikes, or 4x4s trying to track down these entities that escaped from it, with helicopters supporting.
'He said after that it was totally passed over. He said, "scientists and technicians came in and it was completely out of our hands. We were flown away by helicopter, and we knew nothing more after that."'
The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) told DailyMail.com they are 'not aware of any salvage operations with materials of unexplained origin,' however,
After leaving the British armed forces in 1997, Milburn worked alongside US Special Forces and the State Department as a contractor in Iraq
Milburn (pictured) divulged eye-popping details of the story told to him by his ex-Special Forces friend - who he did not wish to identify citing security reasons - after both had left the Army
Milburn said John declined to give him further details, and did not provide any proof for his wild tale. But the ex-paratrooper said he trusted the word of his elite ex-comrade, after vetting him with other SAS veterans.
'I believe him 100%. I worked with the bloke in Civvy Street [post-military work]. This is a true-blue paratrooper. I spoke to former SAS and paratrooper mates of his.
'We're talking about a guy who fought bravely in the Falklands in some of the most brutal engagements,' he added. 'This is not the kind of guy who f***s around or talks s**t.'
Milburn worked in British military intelligence until the late 1990s, then as a contractor in Iraq alongside US Army Special Forces and the US State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
He is now an analyst for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an Israeli university think tank with close ties to Israeli military intelligence, where he has written public research papers on the US government's approach to UFOs.
He said he has been close friends with John for years, and that the Special Forces veteran shared the extraordinary tale with him several years ago to get it off his chest.
'John became like a brother to me. He told me one night because he was sick of keeping this big story bottled up, but knew he couldn't tell anyone who wasn't ex-Special Forces,' Milburn said.
Milburn told DailyMail.com that he is choosing to come forward now to support other whistleblowers who have testified to Congress about alleged UFO crash retrieval programs, and is concerned that the 'excessive secrecy' around the topic is preventing scientific progress.
'The various UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena] programs need to be organized under one roof so that advances can be made before the Russians and Chinese get there,' he said.
However, Milburn's former commanders are staunchly opposed to any suggestion of recovered non-human craft.
The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) told DailyMail.com they are 'not aware of any salvage operations with materials of unexplained origin.'
Milburn told DailyMail.com that he is choosing to come forward now to support other whistleblowers who have testified to Congress about alleged UFO crash retrieval programs, and is concerned that the 'excessive secrecy' around the topic
This file video grab image obtained April 28, 2020 courtesy of the US Department of Defense shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots that has circulated for years showing interactions with 'unidentified anomalous phenomena'
And in 2021, then-defense minister Baroness Annabel Goldie told Parliament that the MoD 'holds no reports on unidentified aerial phenomena' but 'constantly monitors UK airspace to identify and respond to any credible threat to its integrity.
'In over 50 years no such reporting had indicated the existence of any military threat to the United Kingdom,' the Baroness said during a June 30, 2021 session in the UK's House of Lords.
'Credited with the ability to hover, land, take-off, accelerate to exceptional velocities and vanish, they can reportedly alter their direction of flight suddenly and clearly can exhibit aerodynamic characteristics well beyond those of any known aircraft or missile – either manned or unmanned,' the report said.
'Attempts by other nations to intercept the unexplained objects, which can clearly change position faster than an aircraft, have reportedly already caused fatalities,' the report warned, adding that 'no attempt should be made to out-maneuver a UAP during interception.'
The December 2000 report, titled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region, was originally classified secret but released to the UK National Archives in 2006.
It denied any 'incursions' by UFOs into UK airspace and said that 'no artefacts of unknown or unexplained origin have been reported or handed to the UK authorities.'
'There is no evidence of the penetration of the UKADR by unauthorized air platforms… there are no reports of RAF aircraft intercepting UAPs,' it said.
But Milburn says he knows different.
He told DailyMail.com his credulity towards John was bolstered by his experience debriefing other veterans with shocking UFO encounters.
The former paratrooper said British military pilots told him about 'kinetic' encounters with UFOs, while he was working as an intelligence officer in the 1990s.
He said two pilots and two navigators of two Tornado jets told him they were ordered to intercept 'disc-shaped objects' – but when told to shoot them down, they were outmaneuvered.
Milburn also pointed to two former US Air Force pilots, Major Milton Torres (pictured) and Major George Filer III, stationed in the UK, who claimed to have taken part in intercepts with UFOs in British airspace in 1957 and 1962
In an archived video shared on YouTube, Major George Filer III said he flew to intercept a UFO 'hovering' at 1,000 ft over the British countryside in 1962
'They closed to within 20 nautical miles (nm). They were ordered to shoot them down. I wasn't told why, that was above my level,' Milburn said.
'They had radar homing missiles. The missiles left the aircraft having achieved lock on but then failed to impact the craft.
'They closed to within 10nm and released more missiles which were infrared homing. Those failed to impact the craft.
'They then flew to within one nm and closer. They were trying to shoot down these craft with the aircraft's 27mm cannon, and they failed to shoot them down.
'They said that they fired at the objects and the rounds hit, but had no effect on the craft whatsoever.'
Milburn said that although the pilots saw the craft with their own eyes, their radar had struggled to pick up the 'discs' when they were beyond visual range.
'They said to me that they were initially vectored onto the craft by the air intercept controller, because they couldn't see it on their own radar,' he said.
'Later they had the craft on their own radar, but then the ground controller lost it on his radar, which is obviously much more powerful.'
Then, according to the military aviators, the flying saucers 'disappeared.'
'The craft just basically just skipped off at hypersonic velocity far beyond what the jets had. They just disappeared,' Milburn said.
'I asked them, "what do you think those crafts were?" And they said, "well, it's nothing we have, it's nothing the Russians have, and nothing that the Yanks have."
'All four of them served in the first Gulf War. Before that they'd done years enforcing the no-fly zone over Iraq. They'd logged hundreds of hours of missions and intercepts. So these guys were no strangers to intercepting aircraft.´
David Grusch - a former high-ranking intelligence official – is one of three military whistleblowers who testified under oath about UFOs last year. Grusch claims he has evidence of secret programs involving technology far surpassing the US's capabilities
In July Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer co-sponsored a bill to allow disclosure of 'recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence'
Milburn's claims follow allegations from three sources revealed by DailyMail.com in November, that the CIA has been conducting UFO crash retrieval operations, coordinated by a secretive directorate called the Office of Global Access, since 2003.
The three sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, have all been briefed by individuals involved in those alleged UFO retrieval missions.
Though the shocking claims sound like they come from a science fiction novel, they are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting the US government could indeed be hiding advanced vehicles that were not made by humans.
Former top intelligence officer David Grusch told Congress as much in an explosive public hearing in July.
The same month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sponsored an extraordinary bill to allow disclosure of 'recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence'.
Other witnesses of the alleged UFO crash retrieval program have briefed lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee over the past two years.
Speaking to the UK's BBC Radio 4 in August Grusch alleged that a cover-up of UFO programs extends to Five Eyes nations, of which the UK is a member.
'It does cross into other countries and other allies, including the Five Eyes alliance,' he said.
The Pentagon's UFO investigation unit, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, released a report this month saying it found no evidence for a clandestine crash retrieval program.
'AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology,' the report's executive summary said.
'Although many UAP reports remain unsolved or unidentified, AARO assesses that if more and better quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.'
The Pentagon has once again released several new UFO videos as the U.S. government continues its attempt at transparency when it comes to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
The new UFO footage, released by the Pentagon’s UFO investigative arm, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), includes a mix of videos which the office believes they can explain along with some that they say they can’t.
“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,” U.S. Department of Defense wrote in a statement.
“Also, AARO has found no evidence that any U.S. 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.
“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.”
Okay, so what it going on in these latest UFO videos, like the clip taken by US Navy crew who were on board F/A-18 jets? Or the UFO caught on camera in the Middle East that the Pentagon admits was exhibiting “anomalous behavior?” Or how about the GIMBAL video? Or the GOFAST video?
There are multiple instances, just in the videos that were recently released alone in which the AARO admits that they have not been able to identify the crafts in the videos. So how do they know that these UFOs aren’t extraterrestrial?
Last year, three Army veterans claimed that while stationed at a American military base in the Middle East in 2014 they saw eight bright objects in the sky over Sinai, hovering and flying at speeds they had never seen before.
After the sighting, one of the men says a senior officer told him to “keep your mouth shut” about the whole thing. How about an explanation for that?
The AARO “Vision” mentions “adherence to the highest scientific and intelligence tradecraft standards; and with the greatest transparency and shared awareness.”
This is the “greatest transparency and shared awareness?”
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.