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...
24-03-2024
Astronomers Find Two Ancient Substructures in Inner Milky Way
Astronomers Find Two Ancient Substructures in Inner Milky Way
Dubbed Shakti and Shiva, the newly-identified structures are between 12 and billion years old — so ancient they likely formed before even the oldest parts of the present-day Milky Way’s spiral arms and disk.
This image shows the location and distribution of Shakti (yellow) and Shiva (blue) stars throughout the Milky Way.
Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / K. Malhan.
“What’s truly amazing is that we can detect these ancient structures at all,” said Dr. Khyati Malhan, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
“The Milky Way has changed so significantly since these stars were born that we wouldn’t expect to recognize them so clearly as a group — but the unprecedented data we’re getting from ESA’s Gaia satellite made it possible.”
Using Gaia observations, Dr. Malhan and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Dr. Hans-Walter Rix were able to determine the orbits of individual stars in the Milky Way, along with their content and composition.
“When we visualised the orbits of all these stars, two new structures stood out from the rest among stars of a certain chemical composition. We named them Shakti and Shiva,” Khyati said.
Each stream contains the mass of about 10 million Suns, with stars of 12 to 13 billion years in age all moving in very similar orbits with similar compositions.
The way they’re distributed suggests that they may have formed as distinct fragments that merged with the Milky Way early in its life.
Both Shakti and Shiva streams lie towards the Milky Way’s heart.
Gaia explored this part of the Milky Way in 2022 using a kind of galactic archaeology. This showed the region to be filled with the oldest stars in the entire Galaxy, all born before the disk of the Milky Way had even properly formed.
“The stars there are so ancient that they lack many of the heavier metal elements created later in the Universe’s lifetime,” Dr. Rix said.
“The stars in our Galaxy’s heart are metal-poor, so we dubbed this region the Milky Way’s ‘poor old heart’.”
“Until now, we had only recognized these very early fragments that came together to form the Milky Way’s ancient heart.”
“With Shakti and Shiva, we now see the first pieces that seem comparably old but located further out.”
“These signify the first steps of our Galaxy’s growth towards its present size.”
While very similar, the two streams are not identical. Shakti stars orbit a little further from the Milky Way’s center and in more circular orbits than Shiva stars.
Fittingly, the streams are named after a divine couple from Hindu philosophy who unite to create the Universe.
Some 12 billion years ago, the Milky Way looked very different to the orderly spiral we see today.
We think that our Galaxy formed as multiple long, irregular filaments of gas and dust coalesced, all forming stars and wrapping together to spark the birth of our Galaxy as we know it.
It seems that Shaki and Shiva are two of these components — and future Gaia data releases may reveal more.
The authors also built a dynamical map of other known components that have played a role in our Galaxy’s formation and were discovered using Gaia data.
These include Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus, LMS1/Wukong, Arjuna/Sequoia/I’itoi, and Pontus.
These star groups all form part of the Milky Way’s complex family tree, something that Gaia has worked to build over the past decade.
“Revealing more about our Galaxy’s infancy is one of Gaia’s goals, and it’s certainly achieving it,” said Gaia project scientist Dr. Timo Prusti, an astronomer at ESA.
“We need to pinpoint the subtle yet crucial differences between stars in the Milky Way to understand how our Galaxy formed and evolved.”
“This requires incredibly precise data — and now, thanks to Gaia, we have that data.”
“As we discover surprise parts of our Galaxy like the Shiva and Shakti streams, we’re filling the gaps and painting a fuller picture of not only our current home, but our earliest cosmic history.”
The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Khyati Malhan & Hans-Walter Rix. 2024. Shiva and Shakti: Presumed Proto-Galactic Fragments in the Inner Milky Way. ApJ 964, 104; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad1885
Roswell was a coverup, and the official photos of the crash debris are not what Army officers found in the desert. A report from the U.S. Air Force and testimony from two officers present, reveal this to be the case. However, the coverup details do not prove what crashed in the desert in 1947 was an alien spacecraft. According to U.S. Air Force investigators, the coverup demonstrates what crashed in Roswell was a top-secret project from the cold war.
In early July 1947, a rancher claimed to have found debris on a ranch approximately 30 miles outside of Roswell, New Mexico. He reported it to the Chavez County Sheriff in the nearby town of Corona. The sheriff called the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), who sent intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel and counterintelligence corps officer (CIC) Captain Sheridan Cavitt to investigate.
On July 7, Marcel and Cavitt went to the debris site and examined the materials. What they reported seeing was strange enough for the base commander to order the creation of a press release claiming the RAAF had captured a “flying saucer.”
On July 8, the front page of the Roswell Daily Record read “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region.” The article claimed the RAAF reported they had “come into possession of a flying saucer.”
Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947. Click to enlarge.
(Credit: Roswell Daily Record)
The story was short-lived. The next day, the front-page headline of the Roswell Daily Record read: “Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer” with the subheadings: “Ramey Says Excitement Is Not Justified,” and “General Ramey Says Disk Is Weather Balloon.”
Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947. Click to enlarge.
(Credit: Roswell Daily Record)
On July 8, Marcel was ordered to bring some of the debris to the Fort Worth Army Air Base in Texas and meet with General Roger Ramey. On July 9, Ramey held a press conference where he said there was no “flying saucer” found, and that the RAAF had mistaken a standard weather balloon for something more mysterious.
Press photos were taken with Marcel, Ramey, Colonel Thomas DuBose (Ramey’s Chief of Staff), and the alleged crash debris.
General Roger Ramey (left) with Colonel Thomas Dubois looking at the weather balloon Ramey claimed was mistaken for a flying saucer in Roswell in 1947.
Jesse Marcel holding the weather balloon debris in Ramey’s office.
The public quickly forgot the entire affair. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the Roswell UFO crash story began to acquire attention. In the late 1970s, researcher Stanton Friedman heard about the case and was able to find Marcel. Marcel told Friedman that the weather balloon story was to coverup what was really found. He said the material was not a weather balloon.
“You couldn’t bend it. You couldn’t dent it. Even a sledgehammer would bounce off of it,” Marcel stated in an interview in the 1980s on the show In Search Of.
“I knew I had never seen anything like that before, and as of now, I do not know what it was,” Marcel continued, “It was not anything from this earth.”
Marcel said he had taken some of the material home to show his family. His son had kept some of it, but after the cover story was released, Marcel says he had to return all the material he had to the Army. Jesse Marcel Jr. confirmed the strange properties of the material.
Friedman was able to track down other witnesses, civilians and military, who backed Marcel’s story. Friedman began working the case with researcher and author Bill Moore. Moore then published their work in a book titled The Roswell Incident coauthored with Charles Berlitz.
In the 1980s and 1990s, several more books were published, and the Roswell incident grew in popularity. In 1989, an alleged witness came forward to claim alien bodies were also recovered.
The mythology of the Roswell UFO crash had received so much attention that in 1993, congressman Steven Schiff, called for an investigation into the incident. The investigation results were released in 1995 by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) as The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.
“Concerning the initial announcement, ‘RAAF Captures Flying Disc,’ research failed to locate any documented evidence as to why that statement was made,” wrote USAF investigators.
However, they also discovered it was not a weather balloon, as Ramey stated.
“It appears that there was some type of umbrella cover story to protect our work with MOGUL,” Professor Charles Moore told USAF investigators.
According to the report, while researching the Roswell incident, investigators ran across balloon testing conducted at the same time as the Roswell incident out of Alamogordo Air Field (now Holloman Air Force Base), over 100 miles west of Roswell. New York University (NYU) ran the project, and further investigation revealed the NYU testing was part of a Top Secret program called Project MOGUL.
The investigators were able to track down Moore, who was the NYU project engineer. When shown witness descriptions of the debris, Moore told investigators that he believed they had found one of their Project MOGUL test balloons. In particular, Moore’s team had not recovered a balloon they had launched on July 4, 1947.
Google map showing Roswell in upper right, and Alamogordo and Holloman Air Force Base in lower left.
“When we heard the [Flying Saucer] news back in New York, we joked that they probably found one of our balloons,” recalled Moore.
As for why Ramey had called it a weather balloon, the report states: “the Air Force did not find documented evidence that Gen. Ramey was directed to espouse a weather balloon in his press conference, he may have done so because he was either aware of Project MOGUL and was trying to deflect interest from it, or he really perceived the material to be a weather balloon based on the identification from his weather officer, Irving Newton.”
Components of a Mogul balloon train per Professor Moore.
As to why debris from a Top Secret project would be left out in a field to be discovered by a rancher, the report explains that the materials were not classified, only the use was. The project’s purpose was to float listening devices with balloons to detect nuclear tests by the Russians.
In 1991, DuBose, the third man in the photographs with the debris, sent UFO researchers an affidavit claiming he knew the material in the photos was not what was found in the desert.
“The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon,” wrote DuBose. “The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.”
DuBose claims the real debris was sent to a General McMullen in Washington D.C., who said he intended to forward the material to Air Material Command at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.
DuBose claimed, “The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.”
However, DuBose did not say he knew what the debris material consisted of or knew anything about the recovery of an alien spacecraft.
Although it appears Ramey was covering up the true nature of what the RAAF found in the desert, the description of the materials used for the Project MOGUL balloons was not high tech or out of the ordinary. The balloons were standard weather balloons. Other elements included balsa wood, foil, tape, and string.
Cavitt, the CIC officer who accompanied Marcel to the debris site, claimed what he saw looked like regular weather balloon debris.
The report described the tape on the balloons as “fabricated by toy or novelty companies using purplish-pink tape with flower and heart symbols on it.”
Symbols on I-beam as described by the Marcel. This poster is on display at the Roswell UFO Museum.
Symbols and shapes used on Mogul balloons from USAF Roswell report.
Marcel and his son described having a piece of the debris that looked like a small I-beam with strange symbols. However, they recall that although the beam was as light as balsa wood, it was made of metal. They did remember markings on the I-beam but said they were not hearts and flowers.
The USAF investigation led them to conclude: “The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event. All available materials, although they do not address Roswell per se, indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch was from one of the Project MOGUL balloon trains. Although that project was Top Secret at the time, there was also no specific indication found to indicate an official preplanned cover story was in place to explain an event such as that which ultimately happened.”
They claimed that Marcel and the RAAF base commander overacted when they claimed they had caught a “flying disc.”
As for alien bodies, they said that was not possible because the wreckage was from Project MOGUL balloons, which did not have passengers, and that even UFO researchers could not agree on the details related to the alleged alien bodies.
If the USAF seemed to solve the case in 1995, why is Roswell still a thing? Well, many do not believe Marcel would mistake a weather balloon for a crashed alien spacecraft. Further, they argue that the base commander would not have written a press release based on finding foil, balsa wood, and other materials that were not mysterious.
Proponents to the Roswell UFO crash also point to the numerous witnesses who claim to have been threatened by the military to keep their mouths shut, or who had allegedly helped clean up the debris field. Even Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who was from Roswell, has said he heard from credible locals that the Roswell UFO crash was real, and he did not believe the USAF conclusion.
Another problem is that although there are numerous alleged witnesses, the USAF investigators only talked to Cavitt. There are references to Marcel’s comments in publications, but USAF investigators did not contact him or other alleged witnesses.
Field where the “real” Roswell debris is said to have been found.
(Credit: OpenMinds.tv)
The Roswell incident continues to create heated debate among UFO researchers. Over 70 years later, the mythos of the Roswell UFO crash lives on, despite whatever happened in the lonely desert in 1947.
Northrup Grumman is Studying How to Build a Railway on the Moon
Roughly two years and six months from now, as part of NASA’sArtemis III mission, astronauts will set foot on the lunar surface for the first time in over fifty years. Beyond this mission, NASA will deploy the elements of the Lunar Gateway, the Artemis Base Camp, and other infrastructure that will allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” They will be joined by the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), and Roscosmos, the latter two collaborating to build theInternational Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
Anticipating this process of lunar development (and looking to facilitate it), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the 10-year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study in August last year. In recent news, the agency announced that it selected Northrop Grumman to develop a moon-based railroad network. This envisioned network could transport humans, supplies, and resources for space agencies and commercial ventures, facilitating exploration, scientific research, and the creation of a lunar economy.
According to DARPA, the seven-month LunA-10 study aims to establish “an analytical framework that defines new opportunities for rapid scientific and commercial activity on and around the Moon.” It also aims to foster the development of foundational technology to optimize lunar infrastructure, allowing space agencies to move away from individual efforts within isolated, self-sufficient systems and towards shareable, scalable, resource-driven systems that can operate together. In keeping with NASA’s long-term objectives, this work will complement the administration’s “Moon to Mars” objectives.
Artist rendition of construction of the Moon. Credit: NASA.
In layman’s terms, the plan is to develop the technologies that will allow space agencies and companies to access each others’ resources, facilities, and information to promote further growth opportunities. Several key sectors are identified in the solicitation that must be developed into services to sustain a long-term presence on the Moon based on an independent market analysis of the future lunar economy. They include construction, mining, transit, energy, agriculture, and research (e.g., medicine, robotics, and life sustainment) that will have applications for space exploration and life on Earth.
Other aspects include lunar and planetary science, communications, digital infrastructure, and Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology. Dr. Michael “Orbit” Nayak, a program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, extolled DARPA’s long history of working with NASA during last year’s announcement:
“For 65 years, DARPA has pioneered and de-risked technologies vital to civil space advancement — from the rocket technology in the Saturn V that took humans to the Moon for the first time, to the recent DARPA-NASA partnership to enable faster space travel to the Moon and beyond with a nuclear thermal rocket engine.
“LunA-10 continues this rich legacy by identifying and accelerating key technologies that may be used by government and the commercial space industry, and ultimately to catalyze economic vibrancy on the Moon. Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the Moon.”
As part of this 10-year plan, Northrop Grumman will be tasked with creating the infrastructure that will physically connect lunar facilities and allow for the movement of people and resources back and forth. Their responsibilities, as spelled out in their contract of opportunity, include defining the interfaces and resources required to build a lunar rail network; identifying cost, technological, and logistical risks; creating prototypes, demonstrations, and analyses of a concept design and architecture, and exploring robotics concepts for constructing and operating the system.
These robotics concepts must be able to operate on the lunar surface and carry out specific tasks, such as grading and foundation preparation, track placement and alignment, joining and finishing, inspection, maintenance, and repairs. Said Chris Adams, the vice president and general manager of strategic space systems at Northrop Grumman:
“This investment in key developmental research keeps our technology at the forefront of next-generation solutions. With our proven experience in the integration of complex systems and commercialized autonomous services, we will continue to create lasting change for a sustainable space ecosystem.”
Northrop Grumman and other selectees will receive an Other Transaction award of up to $1 million. They will present their work at the Spring meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) in April 2024 and provide a final report in June 2024.
In July 1955, a lumberjack, who preferred to remain anonymous, was working in the woods in the Gulf of Bothnia at Västra Norrland, Sweden, with his two brothers. Let’s take a deeper look into the Alien Encounter In Sweden.
The 1955 Alien Encounter In Sweden
At some point, all three heard a very loud and incomprehensible noise, which they described as a sound similar to that of a very large animal running wildly in the bushes.
Listening to this mysterious noise, the rustle and crackle of branches and bushes, they saw above them a cigar-shaped object that flew so low that it touched the tops of the trees. Fragments of branches and leaves rained down on the men like an avalanche.
At first they thought it was a small plane crashing, so when the object passed over them, they ran in the direction it fell. And the fact that he was definitely falling was obvious, the object was quickly losing height.
“I don’t know what we were expecting, maybe a deafening roar when the plane hit the ground, but it didn’t happen. disappeared.
The light was so bright that we could see through the trees. For a second, I could even see the seeds of the trees, and they were more than one meter in diameter, like on an x-ray. After a few seconds, a vacuum wave came, sucking everything towards the center of light. All three of us flew forward, branches and leaves flying past us.
It all probably only lasted a fraction of a second, but I still remember crashing into a tree, time stopped, and my whole life instantly replayed in my head. Even the usual sounds of the forest have ceased.”
When the three lumberjacks finally got to the Esta house where they thought the plane had crashed. They ended up in a clearing where for some reason neither aircraft nor other equipment was visible. There were damaged trees, a bunch of broken branches, but no remains of the plane.
But they found a living humanoid creature on the branches. It was a very short man, apparently about 110-120 cm in height, around whose body a strange white light “vibrated”, “like a halo”.
The creature seemed dead at first, and one of the brothers reached out to touch the lifeless body, he immediately pulled back his hand, as he received a strong electric shock. And then the little man opened his eyes and said in perfect Swedish: “Don’t touch me, it will only bring you problems.”
“After that, I immediately calmed down and carefully examined him. He was not a dwarf in the broad sense of the word. He was very proportionately built, with broad shoulders and normal features. His skin was yellowish, like an Asian. His eyes were deep-set and black , without proteins.
His face was covered in bruises with a couple of large gashes on his chin and forehead. No blood flowed, but the skin around the wounds felt wet. The top of his head was lightly covered with a fluff of almost white hair. The earlobes were integral with the neck and resembled shark fins. The lips were wrinkled, narrow and colorless.
When he smiled reassuringly, as he often did, he would reveal a row of small teeth in both the upper and lower jaws. I especially noted that his fangs were flat and as wide as our two front teeth.
His hands were small with five slender fingers without nails, and when he moved his hand, it seemed that the ring finger was fused with the little finger, because they moved in sync.
His clothes were like reddish metal and seemed to fit snugly to his body. The head and hands were free, but on the feet the clothes passed into a pair of closed boots in size 35-37. The soles of the boots were ribbed and vibrated, and for a moment I thought of the tracks on the tank. The stranger looked at me and nodded slightly. There was no doubt that he knew what I was thinking.
With these boots, he could roll back and forth on the surface without even moving his feet. Around his waist he wore a wide silvery metal belt with an unusually large buckle that glowed slightly with a light blue tint, which later turned dark blue when he was dead.
In the middle of the buckle was a yellow colored sign – UV – it looked like the letter V, which was included in the letter U.
A strange creature told the lumberjack that he was thrown out of his spaceship, he was badly injured and now dying. Then he took out of his pocket a rectangular object the size of a matchbox and with 12 small indentations. He then took out another object that looked like a pencil and poked some of the depressions in the first object before throwing the object into the bushes.
The alien then told the lumberjack not to touch him, and that the item was a homing beacon so that his companions would know where they should come to retrieve his body when he died.
Then a curious thing happened. The two brothers seemed disoriented and left the clearing, leaving the main eyewitness alone with the dying creature in the forest:
“The stranger lay for some time as if asleep. His hands were tightly clenched, and it was obvious that he was in great pain. Then my brothers suddenly became confused, looked at each other, and then, without saying a word, returned to the forest. Later Years later, looking back on this incident, I am convinced that the stranger somehow asked my brothers to leave without saying a word.
I sat talking and listening to him for two hours before he died. Shortly before his death, a stranger gave me a folded package from an invisible pocket and said: “When I die, the light will disappear from my body, and with the help of two other men you will put me in this bag and take me to the river where I will disappear. Then you must carefully bathe in water so as not to get sick.
Now he was breathing heavily and I saw that the end was near. The halo around his body became weaker and gradually disappeared. His light blue buckle gradually darkened. He looked at me and smiled. He said something in a language I had never heard before or since.
Suddenly he switched to Swedish, and I heard the last couple of sentences: “You came without any desire and you leave against your own desire. Our life is like evaporation.”
He said a few more words, but his voice was so weak that I couldn’t hear them. I am convinced that he prayed to some deity before he died. I was very touched.”
The brothers then returned, looking a little stunned and confused, as if they weren’t quite sure what had just happened to them or why they left. The men put the dead alien in a bag and carried him to the river, noticing that the bag smelled of sulfur and burned his hands. When they lowered the sack into the water, the body and the sack dissolved.
“When the bag hit the water, it started bubbling around it, and we realized that some kind of chemical process had begun. After 5 minutes, nothing was left of the bag and the body, and I thought that perhaps the stranger was hoping to fall into the river for a quick death, instead of lying there for a couple of hours, suffering. He would probably prefer to die alone, thinking about his home, which is many light-years away.”
A few days after this incident, the lumberjack again went to the area to find a rectangular object thrown by an alien, but found only one object that looked like a pencil. He kept it as a memory and as proof that he did not dream it all.
After that, he kept this story to himself for many years. It wasn’t until he spoke to a UFO researcher named John Fontaine , who wrote about it all in an article called “Humanoid Dies in Sweden”, that the story became public.
Fontaine personally spoke to the lumberjack and seemed to be the only person the man ever spoke to about it, but the problem was that the eyewitness, even to him, never fully revealed the details of his long conversation with the alien when they were alone:
“What they talked about during these two hours, I could not get the witness to tell. I begged and persuaded him, but he did not tell me anything, only a few of the following fragments.
He said that the alien came from a place close to the constellation we call the Eagle. Several races from outer space have visited Earth and some are so advanced that we would only see them when they materialized or dematerialized to visit a parallel universe orbiting Earth.
Some aliens kept people on earth under surveillance and did so for millennia, while others took earth samples for the purpose of later settlements, and still others had contact with humanity for centuries. That’s it,” Fontaine wrote.
What do you think about this Alien Encounter In Sweden? Tell us in the comments section below.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
A Mysterious Encounter in the Nordic Forests: The 1955 Northern Sweden Incident
A Mysterious Encounter in the Nordic Forests: The 1955 Northern Sweden Incident
In the tranquil expanse of Northern Sweden, amidst the dense forests and the serene Gulf of Bothnia, an extraordinary event unfolded in July 1955 that would remain etched in the annals of UFO encounters. This story, unearthed decades later, provides a compelling glimpse into the unknown, challenging our understanding of the cosmos and its inhabitants.
The Encounter Begins
The day started like any other for a forestry worker and his colleagues, who were tasked with timber delivery in the early hours of a warm July morning. Their objective was straightforward: complete the harvest before the sweltering heat became unbearable. However, their routine was abruptly interrupted by an unexpected sight—a cigar-shaped object maneuvering erratically through the sky, cutting a path through the treetops.
The Crash
The forestry workers watched in astonishment as the object descended towards the river, anticipating an explosive impact that never came. Instead, a brilliant light engulfed the area, illuminating the surroundings with an intensity that made daylight pale in comparison. This light, powerful enough to render the forest’s interior visible as if x-rayed, was followed by a forceful vacuum wave that drew everything towards the crash site.
Discovery of the Alien
Venturing towards the impact site, the workers expected devastation but found tranquility instead. The forest stood undisturbed, save for a few downed logs. The real discovery came at the forest’s edge, where they encountered a lifeless figure—an alien being, small in stature and clad in a uniform unlike any earthly material. Attempting to check for signs of life, one worker experienced a shock upon touch, prompting the being to awaken and communicate in perfect Swedish, warning against further contact.
A Dialogue with an Extraterrestrial
The being shared its origin, claiming to hail from near the constellation of the Eagle, and spoke of various intelligences from outer space visiting Earth. It revealed that while some extraterrestrial visitors come in peace to study or establish contacts, others might have different agendas. The conversation delved into the complexities of interstellar travel and the possibility of life beyond our understanding, painting a picture of a universe teeming with life and civilizations far advanced from our own.
The Final Moments
Before its death, the alien imparted instructions for its disposal in the river, ensuring its body would leave no trace through a mysterious chemical process. In its last breaths, the being shared words of wisdom and a perspective on life that transcended the boundaries of worlds, leaving a profound impact on the witnesses.
Legacy of the Encounter
The incident left behind more questions than answers, including a piece of metal—allegedly from the alien’s possession—as the only physical evidence of the encounter. The story, shared years later, stands as a testament to the possibility of life beyond Earth and the potential for encounters that challenge our understanding of the universe.
This incident in NorthernSwedenin 1955 remains a captivating chapter in the history of UFO encounters, inviting us to ponder the vastness of the cosmos and the mysteries that lie waiting to be uncovered. Whether viewed with skepticism or belief, the story encourages us to keep an open mind about the unknown and the myriad possibilities that the universe holds.
The Joe Rogan Experience: A Deep Dive into UFO Sightings
The Joe Rogan Experience: A Deep Dive into UFO Sightings
In the realm of the unexplained and the extraordinary, UFO sightings stand as a pinnacle of curiosity and debate. The notion of unidentified flying objects traversing our skies has captivated humanity for generations, spawning theories, research, and endless speculation. The discussions surrounding these enigmatic occurrences have taken many forms, from eyewitness accounts by credible observers to detailed examinations by government and private entities. As we delve into this intriguing subject, our aim is to explore the multifaceted nature of UFO sightings, shedding light on the technological, scientific, and speculative aspects that continue to fuel our fascination with the unknown.
At the heart of many discussions on UFOs are accounts from highly trained individuals, such as fighter pilots, whose credibility and expertise lend significant weight to their observations. These pilots, operating sophisticated military aircraft equipped with advanced tracking systems, have reported encounters with objects exhibiting capabilities far beyond our current technological understanding. One notable example involves a pilot sighting an object that dramatically changed altitude, from over 60,000 feet to just 50 feet above sea level in less than a second, defying known principles of aerodynamics and physics.
Such reports challenge our understanding of technology and propulsion, suggesting the existence of mechanisms and materials unknown to our current scientific paradigm. The debate often revolves around whether these sightings can be attributed to highly advanced drones, experimental aircraft, or even phenomena of extraterrestrial origin. Skeptics and proponents alike ponder the possibility of other nations possessing breakthrough technologies that could account for these observations.
The question of UFOs also intersects with government transparency and secrecy. There have been suggestions that top-secret programs exist, utilizing drones and technologies not yet disclosed to the public. This notion is supported by insiders and former defense department personnel, who claim the existence of spectacular yet classified photos and videos. The rationale for withholding such information often parallels the historical precedent of military projects like the stealth bomber, which remained under wraps until their strategic reveal became advantageous or necessary.
Furthermore, the discussion extends beyond terrestrial explanations to the cosmic scale, where the vastness of space and the statistical likelihood of extraterrestrial life come into play. The Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox provide frameworks for considering the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth, though evidence for visitation remains speculative and anecdotal. Yet, the continuous discovery of exoplanets within habitable zones adds a tantalizing possibility to the mix, suggesting that if we can imagine the technology for interstellar travel, others might already possess it.
In addressing the unknown, the scientific method remains our best tool. While a significant portion of UFO sightings can be explained through natural or man-made phenomena, a small yet persistent fraction defies easy categorization. These anomalies, while not conclusive proof of extraterrestrial visitation, invite further investigation and an open-minded approach to understanding the limits of our knowledge and technology.
As we stand on the brink of new discoveries, both in space exploration and technological advancement, the mystery of UFO sightings continues to provoke thought, debate, and exploration. Whether these phenomena are the result of human ingenuity, natural processes, or indeed, the evidence of other civilizations, the quest for answers remains a compelling testament to human curiosity and the unending quest to understand the universe and our place within it.
Starshot … Not? Get a Reality Check on the Search for Alien Civilizations
Fortunately, the real-world search for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations doesn’t have to deal with an alien armada like the one that’s on its way to Earth in “3 Body Problem,”the Netflix streaming series based on Chinese sci-fi author Cixin Liu’s award-winning novels. But the trajectory of the search can have almost as many twists and turns as a curvature-drive tripfrom the fictional San-Ti star system.
Today, the Breakthrough Initiatives is focusing on projects closer to home. In addition to the millions of dollars it’s spending to support the search for radio or optical signals from distant planetary systems, it’s working with partners on a miniaturized space telescope to identify planets around Alpha Centauri, a radio telescope that could someday be built on the far side of the moon, and a low-cost mission to look for traces of life within the clouds of Venus.
Breakthrough Starshot, however, is on hold. “This looks to be quite feasible. However, it seems to be something that is still pretty, pretty expensive, and probably wouldn’t be feasible until later in the century,” says Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. “So, we’ve put that on hold for a period of time to try to look at, are there near-term applications of this technology, which there may be.”
Worden provides a status report on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — and sorts out science fact from science fiction — on the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.
“3 Body Problem” takes its name from a longstanding challenge in orbital mechanics: It’s devilishly difficult to predict the gravitational interactions of three massive bodies in a system, except in some special cases. In the Netflix series, and in the books on which the series is based, a Chinese radio astronomer makes contact with an alien civilization that suffers repeated crises because its home world is in an unstable triple-star system.
Pete Worden is the executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives.
(Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives)
When the aliens learn of our existence, they set out on a 400-year mass migration to Earth — an onslaught that puts our own planet on edge. One of the key concepts in the book is the Dark Forest Theory. That’s the idea that civilizations shouldn’t broadcast their existence to the rest of the galaxy, for fear that other denizens of the “Dark Forest” will eventually come after them.
Worden admits that the Dark Forest Theory has had an effect on the Breakthrough Initiatives’ agenda.
“We initially had a program called Breakthrough Message. … Not that we were going to send anything, but we were going to think about it,” he recalls. “We got a lot of resistance to even thinking about sending messages. Interestingly enough, one of the key skeptics of this was Professor Stephen Hawking. He thought it was a bad idea for exactly the Dark Forest reason. Conversely, the chairman of our advisory committee — Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of the U.K. — has the opposite view. He doesn’t think that’s a big issue.”
Worden’s personal view is that we’ve been sending out signs of our presence — ranging from radio transmissions to telltale pollutants in the atmosphere — for so long that “it’s probably too late to hide in the forest and be quiet.”
The Breakthrough Initiatives is counting on civilizations in other planetary systems to speak up, one way or the other. Starting in 2015, Breakthrough Listen has provided support for programs looking for radio signals or optical flashes that might have been transmitted by aliens. One signal in particular, known as BLC1, got hearts beating faster in 2019 — but astronomers eventually traced its origin to earthly radio interference rather than Proxima Centauri.
Another initiative, known as Breakthrough Watch, is working with Australian astronomers on a space telescope that would monitor the motions of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, looking for ever-so-slight gravitational wobbles that could point to the presence of Earthlike planets a little more than 4 light-years from Earth. The telescope is called TOLIMAN, which is the Arabic name for Alpha Centauri as well as an acronym for “Telescope for Orbit Locus Interferometric Monitoring of our Astronomical Neighborhood.”
Worden says launch is currently scheduled for the first half of 2025. “We’re still negotiating on the launch vehicles, but it’s most likely to be a piggyback mission, possibly on a SpaceX mission.” he says.
Meanwhile, Worden is working with CSIRO, the Australian government’s science agency, on a different sort of telescope.
“We think we can put a radio telescope for on the order of $100 million on the far side of the moon that looks for transients across the broad spectrum, mostly at higher frequencies,” he says. “That’s a good place, because right now it’s blocked from interference from the Earth. Just virtually everything you see is going to be something interesting.”
The Breakthrough team is also interested in extraterrestrial life in our own solar system: Years ago, Yuri Milner looked into the prospects for sending a probe to Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn that may harbor hidden seas and perhaps even marine organisms. Today, Worden and his colleagues are collaborating with other interested parties — including Schmidt Sciences, researchers at MIT and engineers at Rocket Lab — to send a probe through Venus’ atmosphere to search for organic materials. Liftoff is set for as early as next January.
Getting to other stars
Even though Starshot is on hold, Worden is still thinking about interstellar travel, and he’s not the only one. Last weekend, SpaceX founder Elon Musk referred to the prospects of sending his company’s Starship super-rocket on trips beyond the moon and Mars.
“This Starship is designed to traverse our entire solar system and beyond to the cloud of objects surrounding us,” Musk said in a posting to X / Twitter, his social media platform. “A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems.”
Musk may not be thinking about using light sails, but NASA is. One of the proposals that won funding in the latest round of NASA Advance Innovative Concepts grants envisions developing swarms of sail-equipped, laser-propelled micro-probes that would take advantage of the same principle laid out by Breakthrough Starshot to get to the Alpha Centauri system.
An artist’s conception shows an early design for Breakthrough Starshot’s light sail. (Breakthrough Initiatives Illustration)
Worden thinks the best long-term approach to interstellar travel would be a combination of light sails to get the probes where they’re going, plus fusion power to slow them down once they get there. “I think that ultimately, something along that line is probably feasible in a century or so, maybe sooner,” he says.
A century may sound like a long time, but when you’re talking about sending probes to other stars, you have to adjust your time scales. After all, even the super-advanced aliens in “3 Body Problem” need 400 years to get to Earth. You can add interstellar travel to the other multi-generational challenges that are facing humanity, such as climate change. In fact, The New Yorker’s review of “3 Body Problem” notes that the approach of the aliens serves as “an unexpectedly potent metaphor for the looming perils of climate change.”
So, how long could it be before we connect with extraterrestrial civilizations? That’s the kind of question that can get alien-hunters in trouble. Two decades ago, the SETI Institute’s Seth Shostak speculated that we were likely to pick up signals from intelligent alien life by the year 2025 — a scenario that now seems extremely unlikely.
Worden prefers to think in terms of percentages.
“Within a decade, we’ll almost assuredly find life elsewhere,” he says. “We’ll probably find a life-bearing planet nearby. We’ll find life either on Mars, or Venus, or maybe the outer solar system moons. But an alien techno-civilization? I’d say, for any given decade, it’s probably a few percent. But if you don’t look, you don’t find it.”
It doesn’t bother him that he may not be around to answer one of life’s ultimate questions. “One of the cool things about science is that the journey is the fun part, and you never know what you’re going to find,” Worden says. “So, as a scientist, to me, you’re pursuing something that is unlikely, but really fundamental to our future. It’s the most fun thing I can imagine working on.”
If the aliens ever do arrive, let’s hope they find that oh-so-human trait endearing.
Europa Might Not Be Able to Support Life in its Oceans
Can Europa’s massive, interior ocean contain the building blocks of life, and even support life as we know it? This question is at the forefront of astrobiology discussions as scientists continue to debate the possibility for habitability on Jupiter’s icy moon. However, a recent study presented at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) might put a damper in hopes for finding life as a team of researchers investigate how Europa’s seafloor could be lacking in geologic activity, decreasing the likelihood of necessary minerals and nutrients from being recycled that could serve as a catalyst for life.
Here, Universe Today speaks with Henry Dawson, who is a PhD student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study, about his motivation behind the study, significant results, follow-up studies, and whether Dawson believes there’s life on Europa. So, what was the motivation behind this study?
Dawson tells Universe Today, “A large portion of the community has been looking at the habitability potential of the seafloor, and looking at processes that might occur at seafloor hydrothermal vents, or at water–rock interaction chemistry. However, it was never established that there would actually be any fresh rock exposed at the seafloor, or if the tectonic processes that drive hydrothermal vents would be present. The silicate interior of Europa is a similar size to that of Earth’s Moon, which is largely geologically dead on the surface.”
Artist’s cutaway illustration of Europa and its potential geologic activity.(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael Carroll)
For the study, Dawson and his colleagues examined the likelihood for geologic activity occurring on Europa’s seafloor through analyzing data on Europa’s geophysical characteristics and comparing them with known geologic parameters and processes, including the strength of potential fault lines and fractures within Europa’s rocky interior, how the strength of this rock changes with depth, and how the rock could react to ongoing stresses, commonly known as convection. Using this, they conducted a series of calculations to ascertain whether the seafloor crust could drive geologic activity. Therefore, what were the most significant results from this study?
“It looks a lot more difficult to expose fresh rock (which is required to drive the reactions that life would exploit) to the ocean,” Dawson tells Universe Today. “Tidal forces do not seem able to cause motion along faults, like it can on the surface, and so the seafloor is most likely still. All the rock that water is able to interact with through porosity was likely altered hundreds of millions to billions of years ago, and so the ocean and rock are in chemical equilibrium. This means that there is no present day, continuous input of nutrients into the ocean from the rocky core, and so any possible life would likely have to exploit nutrient input from the icy shell above the ocean.”
While this study focused on geologic stresses related to fractures and fault lines, Europa’s interior ocean is produced from another type of geologic stress known as tidal heating, which is induced from the constant stretching and compressing as Europa orbits the much more massive Jupiter. This same tidal process occurs between the Earth and its Moon, and we see this in action in the rising and falling of the Earth’s waters around the globe. For Europa, over the course of thousands to millions of years, the stretching and compressing leads to friction in Europa’s inner rocky core, which leads to becoming heated and melting the inner ice into the interior ocean that exists today. It is in this ocean that astrobiologists hypothesize that life could exist, possibly even life as we know it.
However, given these study’s unfortunate findings, Dawson and his colleagues give dire implications for the potential habitability on Europa, noting their calculations estimate that geologic activity on Europa’s seafloor is limited enough to indicate habitable conditions within Europa’s interior ocean could be limited, as well. However, the study was quick to note that other geologic processes could be examined to explain the present state of Europa’s seafloor geologic activity, including processes known as serpentinization and thermal expansion anisotropy.
“As rock is exposed to water and chemically alters, the new minerals that form may have a different molar volume than the unaltered minerals in the original rock,” Dawson tells Universe Today. “Serpentinization specifically is the process where peridotite, a typical mantle rock, is altered to serpentinite. This reaction has a net volume increase, which introduces new stresses. These stresses might lead to the fracturing of the rock, fresh rock faces exposed, and more alteration, leading to a self-propagating cycle. On the other hand, the new minerals might cement up pre-existing fractures, preventing further exposure, and creating a negative feedback loop. Thermal expansion anisotropy describes the process where different minerals have varying degrees of expansion upon heating. Thus, when a rock is heated or cooled, the mineral grains inside will push against each other, introducing porosity and interior stresses.”
Regarding the tidal forces responsible for producing Europa’s interior ocean, this icy moon and the Earth’s Moon are not the only planetary bodies in the solar system that could experience these unique forces. Others include Jupiter’s third Galilean Moon, Ganymede, Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, all of which are currently hypothesized to possess interior oceans from tidal heating. Like Europa, Ganymede exhibits a predominantly crater-free surface, which is indicative of frequent resurfacing, and Enceladus was observed on numerous occasions by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to have geysers on its south pole region that frequently shoots out water into space.
Additionally, Cassini flew through these geysers to obtain data on the ejecta’s composition, discovering organic molecules. For Titan, Cassini data revealed that an interior ocean exists beneath its surface, which is currently hypothesized to contain a combination of ammonia and salts. But regarding this most recent research, what follow-up studies are currently being conducted or planned?
Dawson tells Universe Today, “I’m currently using the same model to estimate whether tidal forces are able to cause fracturing on other icy moons in the outer solar system, such as Ganymede, Enceladus, Titan, and the mid-size Uranian moons. Based on my preliminary results that I presented at LPSC, it appears that tidal forces are insufficient on those moons as well. In addition, our collaborator Austin Green is looking at whether seafloor volcanism might occur, based on the forces that volcanic dikes can exert on the rock that they are propagating through. For Europa, the lithosphere is too deep and too strong for magma to reach the seafloor, and so any melt that forms in the mantle stalls out at depth.”
Despite being discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, the fascination for finding life within Europa’s ocean has only come within the last few decades, thanks largely to the NASA Voyager missions, with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flying through the Jupiter system in 1979 and imaged the Galilean Moons up close and in detail for the first time, hinting that Europa was currently geologically active. This is because Europa has almost no visible craters throughout its entire surface, indicating specific processes are responsible for reshaping the small moon and covering up evidence of past impacts. Europa, being the second Galilean Moon, shares these traits with the first and third Galilean Moons, Io and Ganymede, respectively, while the fourth Galilean Moon, Callisto has a surface that is almost entirely covered by craters.
The Galilean moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Thanks to further data obtained from proceeding missions, including NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, Hubble Space Telescope, and Juno, scientists are almost entirely convinced that an interior ocean lies beneath Europa’s icy crust, with some estimates putting the volume of liquid water at double of Earth’s oceans. Therefore, as we see on Earth, liquid water means life, which is why Europa’s interior ocean is a target for astrobiology research. But does Henry Dawson think there’s life on Europa?
Dawson tells Universe Today, “I think there’s still a lot more that I would like to understand before I make a yes or no statement on that. While I believe that Europa is one of the most likely candidates to host life, alongside Enceladus, the chance of life remains small, and this research reduces the probability even more.”
This study comes as NASA prepares to launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft this October with a planned arrival date of April 2030 and is designed to explore the habitability potential of Europa and its interior ocean. During its 3.5-year mission, Clipper will perform up to 44 close flybys of Europa ranging between 25 and 2,700 kilometers (16 to 1,678 miles) as the spacecraft will perform elongated orbits to keep from staying within Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field for too long. To assess Europa’s habitability potential, Clipper will carry a powerful suite of scientific instruments designed to analyze Europa’s chemistry, surface geology, and interior ocean characteristics.
Artist’s rendition of NASA’s Europa Clipper (published in January 2021). (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Additionally, the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission was launched in April 2023 with a planned orbital insertion at Jupiter in July 2031, followed by a departure from Jupiter and an orbital insertion around Ganymede in December 2034. Like Clipper, JUICE is designed to investigate the habitability potential of the icy moon, but will also examine Ganymede and Callisto, as well.
“Get excited for the Europa Clipper and JUICE missions! Dawson exclaims to Universe Today. “While it will still be 6 years before they reach Jupiter, once they arrive, we will be able to learn much more about what is going on at Europa. While they will not be able to directly measure the interior, observations of the ice shell, gravity field, and tidal forcing on Europa will help to constrain future models. As well, always be careful about the assumptions you make for other planetary bodies. While Europa may be covered with ice, it is truly a rocky world that happens to have a deep ocean, and the processes occurring at depth may not reflect what we see at Earth’s seafloor.”
Is Europa’s seafloor geologically active, and what new insights will Europa Clipper and JUICE make about this astonishing and intriguing icy moon in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
What Can Europa’s Surface Tell Us About the Thickness of Its Ice?
Jupiter's second Galilean moon, Europa. Its smooth surface has fewer craters than other moons, but they help us understand its icy shell. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Galileo spacecraft)
What Can Europa’s Surface Tell Us About the Thickness of Its Ice?
You can tell a lot about a planetary body just by looking at its surface, especially if it has craters. Take Europa, for example. It has a fairly young surface—somewhere between 50 and 100 million years old. That’s practically “new” when you compare it to the age of the Solar System. And, Europa’s icy crust is pretty darned smooth, with only a few craters to change the topography.
Planetary scientists already know that Europa’s icy surface is a thin shell over a large interior ocean of salty water. How thin? To find out, a team of researchers led by Brandon Johnson and Shigeru Wakita at Purdue University studied images of large craters on Europa. They used what they saw, coupled with a variety of physical characteristics, to create computer models of that shell. “Previous estimates showed a very thin ice layer over a thick ocean,” said Wakita. “But our research showed that there needs to be a thick layer—so thick that convection in the ice, which has previously been debated, is likely.”
The thickness of that shell may well influence whether or not life exists at Europa. Its existence is a topic of intense interest since Europa could provide a reasonably habitable ecosystem for life. It has water, warmth, and organic materials for life to eat. That makes the search for life at Europa quite important. So, what do craters have to do with all this?
More About Craters
Impact cratering performs a lot of gardening in the Solar System, according to Johnson. He is the first author on a recently published paper discussing these features on Europa. “Craters are found on almost every solid body we’ve ever seen. They are a major driver of change in planetary bodies,” he said.
Four featured craters among many on the Moon: the triplet of Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina and Maurolycus. Many more craters can be seen across the lunar surface. Credit: Virtual Moon Atlas / Christian LeGrande, Patrick Chevalley
Just looking at images of different worlds in the Solar System, we can see some pretty heavily cratered surfaces. The Moon is a good example, as is Mars. And, we see it at many of the smaller bodies, such as the moons of the gas and ice giants. The more craters we see, the older the surface. In some places, multiple overlapping craters indicate a very old surface. In other places, such as at Europa, the craters are fewer and farther between. Something has “paved over” the craters such that any we CAN see were made after the repaving event. In addition, the craters reveal information about the surface as well as the “subsurface” of Europa.
“When an impact crater forms, it is essentially probing the subsurface structure of a planetary body,” said Johnson. “By understanding the sizes and shapes of craters on Europa and reproducing their formation with numerical simulations, we’re able to infer information about how thick its ice shell is.”
What Europa’s Craters Tell Us
This tiny moon is an enigma wrapped in shimmering ice. Its frozen surface hides a rocky inner core covered with a salt-water ocean. Like Earth, it experiences surface plate tectonics, driven by the core region’s heating. Inside, that heating drives currents of warmer water up from the core. That water gets forced to the surface, where it freezes and creates a new layer overlying any other features. This resurfacing happens every 50 to 100 million years.
Incoming impactors carve out new craters in that “freshened-up” surface, which gives scientists some pretty easy-to-study craters. They aren’t terribly deep, however, which tells scientists a lot about the structure of the icy shell. Johnson, Wakita, and their team studied images from the Galileo spacecraft to analyze Europa’s craters. In particular, they focused on two multi-ringed basins imaged on this moon. They show two or more concentric rings around the point of the impact that created them. Such basins are fairly rare and usually indicate some kind of large, energetic impact. On Europa, their appearance and formation give clues to the thickness of the icy shell and their thermal structure, which is a way to understand how the shell conducts heat.
Multi-ringed Crater Basins Tell a Tale
In their study, the Purdue team simulated a multi-ring basin with varying thicknesses of ice. Those thicknesses influence the degree of tidal heating in the shell itself. They also help scientists understand how heat exchange occurs between the bottom of the shell and the underlying ocean. The team found that icy shells thinner than about 15 kilometers don’t show the kinds of multi-ringed basins that exist on Europa. However, a thicker one does. In particular, the best-fit simulation used a 20+ kilometer-thick shell. It consists of two layers: a 6-8 kilometer-thick conductive “lid” that covers up a layer of warm, convecting ice.
One of Galileo’s images of the Tyre multi-ringed basin on Europa. There are at least 5-7 rings around the impact crater center. Courtesy: NASA/JPL/ASU.
In addition to studying the craters, the team also looked at the types of impactors needed to create those multi-ringed basins on Europa. From the structures seen in the Galileo images, they concluded that the impactors would need to be around 1.5 kilometers in radius to create the multi-ringed basins. Smaller ones wouldn’t create the structures they saw, and bigger impactors would result in very different-looking craters and rings.
What About Other Worlds?
Europa isn’t the only world at Jupiter with an icy crust. Both Ganymede and Callisto also show cratering, with multi-ring basins. This tells us that these worlds also have to have thick enough icy crusts where such basins can form. Planetary scientists have suggested their crusts are at least 80 to 105 kilometers thick. In their paper, the Purdue teams suggest that since Europa’s crust is likely to be at least 20 kilometers thick (if not more) it’s also likely that Ganymede and Callisto have much thicker crusts than current predictions suggest.
Callisto has many more craters than Europa and a thicker icy crust. Image credit: NASA/JPL
Finally, although the paper doesn’t specifically address this, the fact that the scientists can deduce impactor size from the characteristics of the resulting craters does provide insight into the sizes of impactors available in Jovian “airspace”. To sustain these kinds of multi-ringed basins, you need a good population of sizable impactors to do the job. Also, for Europa to be so recently “refreshed” really does give a clue to the impact environment in the Jupiter system. While Ganymede and Callisto both have very old surfaces, the existence of “fresh” ice at various cratering sites tells us that they’re still being bombarded in recent times, although they’re not actively resurfacing themselves. These are all additional data points to consider when understanding the habitability of environments, particularly at Europa (and possibly at places such as Enceladus at Saturn).
“Understanding the thickness of the ice is vital to theorizing about possible life on Europa,” Johnson said. “How thick the ice shell is controls what kind of processes are happening within it, and that is really important for understanding the exchange of material between the surface and the ocean. That is what will help us understand how all kinds of processes happen on Europa—and help us understand the possibility of life.”
The icy realms at Earth’s poles harbor enigmas that challenge our understanding of history, geography, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Below the vast, frozen landscapes lie secrets, buried and preserved, whispering tales of the past and possibilities of the future. Here are five startling mysteries concealed beneath the polar ice, offering a glimpse into the unknown.
1. Operation Highjump: A Military Expedition with Unexpected Discoveries
In the late 1940s, Admiral Richard Byrd led Operation Highjump, the most extensive Antarctic expedition of its time. Officially, it aimed at exploring potential military bases and conducting geological surveys. Yet, rumors and alleged diary entries from Byrd suggest the discovery of something far more bewildering—an entrance to the Earth’s core and encounters with advanced beings concerned about humanity’s nuclear capabilities. These claims fuel speculations about hidden worlds beneath our feet and the nature of our planet.
2. Ancient Structures Under the Ice
Whistleblower accounts and satellite imagery have hinted at the presence of ancient, man-made structures embedded in the Antarctic ice. Descriptions of vast, octagonal buildings with hieroglyphs unlike any known human script suggest a civilization with advanced knowledge and technology, possibly of extraterrestrial origin. These structures, reportedly capable of maintaining temperate conditions internally despite the freezing external environment, challenge our historical timeline and understanding of Earth’s past inhabitant
3. The Lost Continent of Atlantis and Pre-Diluvian Civilizations
The myth of Atlantis, a technologically advanced civilization that perished in a great deluge, finds echoes in Antarctic mysteries. Some theorists propose that remnants of this lost continent, or perhaps another prehistoric civilization, lie frozen under the polar ice. This theory is bolstered by ancient texts and geological evidence, suggesting a catastrophic event that could have flash-frozen a once-thriving society, preserving its legacy beneath the ice.
4.UFOs and Extraterrestrial Bases
The Antarctic ice has been the focus of UFO sightings and speculation about alien bases hidden from human eyes. Accounts of unidentified flying objects emerging from beneath the ice and advanced craft leaving traces on the continent’s surface feed into theories of an ongoing extraterrestrial presence on Earth. These narratives are supported by the modern UFO era’s onset coinciding with significant human activities in the region, suggesting a keen interest from otherworldly observers in our planet’s nuclear advancements.
5. Satellite Anomalies and the Search for Alien Artifacts
The advent of satellite technology has allowed independent researchers to uncover anomalies in Antarctica’s geography that hint at possible alien artifacts or crash sites. One such finding is a trail, consistent with a high-speed object’s path, stretching from the North to the South Pole. Additionally, satellite images have revealed entrances and objects that defy natural explanation, suggesting either ancient human ingenuity or evidence of extraterrestrial visitation.
VIDEO
Ancient Aliens: 5 SHOCKING Mysteries Beneath Polar Ice
The polar ice caps, remote and inhospitable, guard secrets that blur the lines between history and myth, science and speculation. Whether tales of Admiral Byrd’s otherworldly encounters, whispers of ancient civilizations, or evidence of extraterrestrial activity, these mysteries compel us to look beyond our current understanding and imagine the unimaginable. As technology advances and our exploration capabilities expand, we may soon unveil the truths hidden beneath the ice, potentially rewriting the story of our planet and its place in the cosmos.
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.
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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...
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