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...
27-03-2024
AFRICAN ‘FAIRY CIRCLES’ THAT ONCE BAFFLED SCIENTISTS POINT TO MYSTERIOUS ‘SWARM INTELLIGENCE’ IN PLANTS
AFRICAN ‘FAIRY CIRCLES’ THAT ONCE BAFFLED SCIENTISTS POINT TO MYSTERIOUS ‘SWARM INTELLIGENCE’ IN PLANTS
For centuries, the grassy plains of the Namib Desert have been dotted with mysterious barren rings known as “fairy circles.” Local folklore warned that these strange patterns were the footprints of the gods, or a sign of a subterranean dragon poisoning the earth above.
However, modern science has a different explanation for these enigmatic bare patches; one that has sparked heated debate among researchers.
A new study published in the journal Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics presents compelling evidence against the long-standing “termite hypothesis” that has dominated discussions around fairy circle origins. This hypothesis, championed by biologist Norbert Jürgens, proposed that the circles form when subterranean termites consume the roots of newly sprouted grasses, creating distinctive circular patches in the dry grasslands on the edge of the Namib Desert.
Aerial image reveals the so-called “fairy circles” prevalent throughout the NamibRand Nature Reserve in April 2022. (Image: Stephan Getzin)
However, an international team led by researchers Stephan Getzin and Hezi Yizhaq offers a systematic rebuttal, drawing from extensive fieldwork and analysis across multiple regions of the Namib Desert over several years, which led to intriguing findings.
Jürgens and his team had previously cited various studies as proof that termites of the species Psammotermes allocerus were the culprits behind fairy circle formation. But Getzin’s team wasn’t convinced by the evidence.
“Our review shows that there is no single study to date that has demonstrated with systematic field evidence that the green germinating grasses within the fairy circles would be killed by root herbivory of sand termites,” states the new paper.
Getzin and Yizhaq excavated and measured around 500 grass individuals across southern, central and northern Namib sites from 2020-2022. Crucially, the roots of dead grasses inside fairy circles were undamaged and often longer than those of living grasses outside the circles.
“If termite herbivory were the cause, the roots of the dying grasses should be shorter… and show signs of biomass consumption,” the authors write in the paper. Oddly, the roots were as long, and some significantly longer, which tells the researchers that something else killed those plants, not termites.
So what is behind the fairy circles?
The researchers point to an alternative “self-organization” hypothesis where the grasses essentially create their own downfall through competition for scarce water resources. The plants, in simple terms, organize.
Using continuous soil moisture monitoring, the team found that the uppermost 10cm topsoil layer inside fairy circles dries out rapidly after rainfall, while deeper soil layers retain more moisture. The young grass seedlings, with roots only 10cm long, cannot reach this deeper water reservoir and quickly desiccate, while the thriving grass on the exterior of the fairy circle enjoys a feeding frenzy.
“With their well-developed root system, these clumps of grass soak up the water particularly well. After the rain, they have a huge competitive advantage over the freshly germinated grasses in the fairy circle. The new grass only loses a small amount of water via transpiration from its small leaves, resulting in insufficient ‘suction power’ to pull new water from deeper soil layers,” Dr. Stephan Getzin said in a statement.
To bolster their case, the researchers employed a multi-pronged approach combining extensive field data, soil analyses, and statistical testing across multiple sites and rainfall events from 2020-2024.
Soil moisture measurements at depths of 12cm and 20cm revealed the fairy circle topsoil was significantly drier than the surrounding matrix vegetation during the critical post-rainfall period when grasses germinate. Root excavations showed dying seedlings had undamaged but longer roots than healthy matrix grasses, indicating failed efforts to reach moisture rather than termite damage. In simple terms, those new baby grasses tried hard to reach the water in the soil, but they just couldn’t compete.
Small grass plant dead in the fairy circle 19 days after the rain. (Image: Stephan Getzin)
The larger and stronger grasses that live outside the fairy circles soak up the water faster, utilizing the fairy circle as a sort of “death zone.” According to the study, this is purposeful.
“This self-organization can be described as ‘swarm intelligence’. It is a systematic adaptation to a lack of resources in arid regions,” say Getzin and his colleague Dr Hezi Yizhaq.
The grasses along the edge of the fairy circles, with their larger size and competitive advantage, actively create and maintain these unvegetated gaps through their strong water uptake, sacrificing their newly germinated brethren to a dry death.
While termites likely consume dead grass matter after seedlings perish, the researchers argue the initial desiccation, not herbivory, sparks fairy circle formation in this arid ecosystem.
As the debate continues, this latest study highlights how rigorously testing hypotheses against multi-year field data can separate fanciful folklore from ecological reality. The fairy circles’ real origins, though less whimsical than the footprints of the gods, reveal a harsh survival strategy written in radial patterns across a desert.
For more, please visit Stephan Getzin’s research website on this phenomenon.
MJ Banias is a journalist who covers security and technology. You can find his work here. He co-hosts The Debrief Weekly Report. and you can email MJ at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.
A series of experiments studying the sensitivity of life-hunting instruments to be employed in NASA’s forthcoming Europa Clipper Mission have revealed promising new capabilities that significantly raise its chances of being the first to detect lifeforms beyond Earth.
With a launch window that opens in October of this year and a planned insertion into Jupiter’s orbit sometime around April 2030, the Europa Clipper is equipped with a suite of science instruments. Based on recent experiments, one particular instrument, SUrface Dust Analyzer, was determined to be so sensitive that it could likely detect signs of alien life in individual grains of ice ejected by Jupiter’s icy moon.
“For the first time, we have shown that even a tiny fraction of cellular material could be identified by a mass spectrometer onboard a spacecraft,” said lead author Fabian Klenner, a University of Washington (UW) postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences. “Our results give us more confidence that using upcoming instruments, we will be able to detect lifeforms similar to those on Earth, which we increasingly believe could be present on ocean-bearing moons.”
OCEANS BENEATH SURFACE OF ICY MOONS ARE IDEAL TARGETS FOR ALIEN LIFEFORMS
While the search for life outside Earth has many targets, including the soil of Mars or the clouds of Venus, astrobiologists are increasingly optimistic about finding signs of past and present alien lifeforms within the subsurface oceans of the solar system’s icy moons. Along with Europa, these targets include Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Those hopes received even more fuel when researchers recently found evidence of phosphate on the surface of Enceladus.
The researchers explain, “This planetary body now appears to contain energy, water, phosphate, other salts, and carbon-based organic material, making it increasingly likely to support lifeforms similar to those found on Earth.”
This image shows red streaks across the surface of Europa, the smallest of Jupiter’s four large moons. The upcoming Europa Clipper mission will send instruments to investigate this moon. Credit: NASA/JPL/Galileo
In the decade since NASA’s Cassini mission detected plumes of water and ice being ejected by Enceladus, mission planners and amateur enthusiasts alike have theorized about how such a life-hunting mission might actually take place. While some of the more exotic proposals include mini submarines or a snakelike probe that can crawl down into those subsurface oceans, the most popular involves flying a sample mission through those ejected plumes and scanning them for clues to alien lifeforms.
Now, an international team of researchers says instruments that might be included on upcoming missions should not only be able to detect signs of alien lifeforms, but they believe the conditions are ideal for such a finding as soon as the Europa Clipper.
LAB STUDY SHOWS INSTRUMENTS COULD SPOT SIGNS OF LIFE IN A SINGLE GRAIN OF ICE
To see if instruments slated to join future missions would be able to detect signs of life in the plumes ejected from Enceladus and Europa, the UW research team selected a type of bacteria called Sphingopyxis alaskensis for study. That’s because this particular bacterium lives in cold environments on Earth and can survive on very little nutrients, making it a likelier analog of extraterrestrial bacteria that may thrive beneath the surface of these icy moons. The researchers also say this bacterium is just the right size for future probes to spot within a single grain of ice.
“They are extremely small, so they are, in theory, capable of fitting into ice grains that are emitted from an ocean world like Enceladus or Europa,” Klenner said.
The drawing on the left depicts Enceladus and its ice-covered ocean, with cracks near the south pole that are believed to penetrate through the icy crust. The middle panel shows where authors believe life could thrive: at the top of the water, in a proposed thin layer (shown yellow) like on Earth’s oceans. The right panel shows that as gas bubbles rise and pop, bacterial cells could get lofted into space with droplets that then become the ice grains that were detected by Cassini. CREDIT: European Space Agency
After coming up with a lab experiment that would best simulate the conditions a future mission might experience these ejected ice grains, the team used a mass spectrometer to see if they could spot the life signs of their chosen bacterium in a single grain of ice. Significantly, they note that their instrument was less sensitive than the one planned for the Europa Clipper.
As hoped, their study was a success. An analysis of water injected into a vacuum showed that the right instruments could indeed detect alien lifeforms as they were ejected from Enceladus or Europa. In fact, the scientists behind the successful experiments say searching for life in this method “is more successful than averaging across a larger sample containing billions of individual grains.”
INSTRUMENT ON NASA’S EUROPA CLIPPER MISSION MAY BE FIRST TO DISCOVER ALIEN LIFEFORMS
In their published study, the UW researchers supplemented their experiments by looking at the conditions on Earth that cause bacteria to collect on the ocean’s surface and cause a layer of “ocean scum.” They soon realized that a similar set of conditions likely exists on the surface of these extraterrestrial oceans. As a result, any subsurface water ejected into space would likely capture pieces of alien lifeforms and encapsulate them within grains of space ice, where NASA’s instruments could detect them.
“We here describe a plausible scenario for how bacterial cells can, in theory, be incorporated into icy material that is formed from liquid water on Enceladus or Europa and then gets emitted into space,” Klenner said.
The left panel shows the kilometers-thick icy crust believed to encapsulate Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Filling the crack is salty water with a proposed thin layer (shown orange) at its surface. The right panel shows that as gas bubbles rise and pop, they combine with organic material and get lofted into the spray. CREDIT: Postberg et al. (2018)/Nature.
Although they are not directly involved with the planning of NASA’s missions, the team notes that NASA’s Europa Clipper, thanks to its unique instrumentation, could be perfectly equipped to find alien lifeforms living beyond Earth.
“With suitable instrumentation, such as the SUrface Dust Analyzer on NASA’s Europa Clipper space probe, it might be easier than we thought to find life, or traces of it, on icy moons:” said senior author Frank Postberg, a professor of planetary sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, “if life is present there, of course, and cares to be enclosed in ice grains originating from an environment such as a subsurface water reservoir.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Mars’ Gale Crater was Filled with Water for Much Longer Than Anyone Thought
Layers at the base of Mt. Sharp. These visible layers in Gale Crater show the chapters of the geological history of Mars in this image from NASA's Curiosity rover. New evidence from this area shows that water persisted on Mars for longer than thought. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Mars’ Gale Crater was Filled with Water for Much Longer Than Anyone Thought
Even with all we’ve learned about Mars in recent years, it doesn’t stack up against all we still don’t know and all we hope to find out. We know that Mars was once warm and wet, a conclusion that was less certain a couple of decades ago. Now, scientists are working on uncovering the details of Mars’s ancient water.
New research shows that the Gale Crater, the landing spot for NASA’s MSL Curiosity, held water for a longer time than scientists thought.
Life needs water, and it needs stability. So, if Gale Crater held water for a long time, it strengthens the idea that Mars could’ve supported life. We know that Gale Crater is an ancient paleolake, and this research suggests that the region could’ve been exposed to water for a longer duration than thought. But was it liquid water
The research centers on desert sandstone that Curiosity found.Multiple rovers and orbiters have given us ample evidence of that. Orbital images show clear examples of ancient deltas. We also have many images of sedimentary rock, with its tell-tale layere
We know that water played a role in shaping the Martian surface. d structure, laid down in the presence of water. But beyond the initial creation of Martian sandstone, the details of the rock can tell scientists about what happened long after it formed
The Eberswalde delta near Holden Crater on Mars is considered the ‘smoking gun’ for evidence of liquid water on Mars. By NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
This research focuses on Gale Crater and the landforms within it. Mount Sharp (aka Aeolis Mons) is the dominant feature in the crater and rises 5.5 km or about 18,000 feet. It’s made up of sedimentary layers that have been eroded over time. But it has substructures that show its detailed history.
One structure overlays Mount Sharp and post-dates Mount Sharp’s erosion. It’s characterized by the accumulation of aeolian strata under arid conditions. That means windborne deposits instead of waterborne deposits. So scientists can tell that there was a wet period during which fluviolacustrine sediments built Mt. Sharp. They can also tell that a dry period followed, during which wind-borne sediment created the overlying structure. That’s what you’d expect to find if the story ended here: Mars was wet, then it wasn’t.
“Surprisingly, we found that these wind-deposited layers were contorted into strange shapes, which suggests the sand had been deformed shortly after being laid down. These structures point to the presence of water just below the surface.”
Amelie Roberts, study co-author, Imperial College London’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering.
But scientists found something odd in the overlying windborne sandstone: deformed layers that could only have been formed in the presence of water. “The sandstone revealed that water was probably abundant more recently, and for longer, than previously thought – but by which process did the water leave these clues?” Banham said in a press release.
That’s more difficult to determine.
“This water might have been pressurized liquid, forced into and deforming the sediment; frozen, with the repeat freezing and thawing process causing the deformation; or briny, and subject to large temperature swings,” Banham said.
“What’s clear is that behind each of these potential ways to deform this sandstone, water is the common link.”
There’s a generally accepted understanding of Martian water among scientists. By the middle of Mars’ Hesperian Period, the planet lost its water. The Hesperian’s boundaries in time are uncertain, but it’s generally thought of as the transition from the heavy bombardment period to the dry Mars we know today. The Hesperian could’ve ended between 3.2 and 2.0 billion years ago. The Noachian preceded it, and the Amazonian followed it.
This research presents a new wrinkle. It suggests that Mars had abundant subsurface water toward the end of the Hesperian. The evidence is in MSL Curiosity’s images of different sedimentary rocks on Gale Crater’s Mt. Sharp.
“When sediments are moved by flowing water in rivers, or by the wind blowing, they leave characteristic structures which can act like fingerprints of the ancient processes that formed them,” said Banham.
MSL Curiosity slowly worked its way up Mt. Sharp, studying the rocks at different elevations as it ascended. As expected, it found younger rocks the higher it went. Eventually, it reached the Stimson formation. The Stimson formation is the remnant of an ancient windborne desert dune field.
An analysis of Curiosity’s images shows that Stimson formed after Mt. Sharp when Mars was thought to be dry. But Stimson isn’t entirely uniform. One of its features is named the Feòrachas structure, and it contains features that were clearly influenced by the presence of water.
“Usually, the wind deposits sediment in a very regular, predictable way,” said study co-author Amelie Roberts, a PhD candidate from Imperial College London’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering. “Surprisingly, we found that these wind-deposited layers were contorted into strange shapes, which suggests the sand had been deformed shortly after being laid down. These structures point to the presence of water just below the surface.”
This image from the study shows part of the Feorachas structure with undeformed features. Water played no role in shaping them. B shows wind-ripple laminations. The image also shows cross laminations, which are the result of additional sediments deposited by wind. Image Credit: Banham et al. 2024, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
In the Brackenberry outcrop feature, the sedimentary rocks show evidence of deformation by water. There are laminations in various states of deformity, becoming more pronounced in the feature geologists call the cusp core. In the cusp core, wind-ripple laminations bend toward the vertical and become incoherent.
This image from the research shows some features that are deformed by the presence of water. Vertical, incoherent sedimentary lines in the cusp core, oversteepened laminations, and vertically deformed laminations are all evidence of the presence of water. Image Credit: Banham et al. 2024, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The authors explain that there are three mechanisms that can explain the deformed features, and they all involve water. They’re also not mutually exclusive.
High-pressure water could’ve overcome the strength of the rock and deformed it. Large ice deposits on top of the structure could’ve caused deformation, as could freeze/thaw cycles of water inside the rock. The third explanation involves sediment rock weakly bound together by evaporites. Thermal expansion and contraction of the evaporites can deform the rock.
This image from the research shows more examples of fluidization structures. A shows a feature named Up Helly Aa, and B is a zoomed-in image showing up warping and vertical laminations. C shows the Lamington feature, and D is a zoomed-in image showing more deformed laminations. Image Credit: Banham et al. 2024, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“The layers of sediment in the crater reveal a shift from a wet environment to a drier one over time – reflecting Mars’ transition from humid and habitable environment to inhospitable desert world,” said co-author Roberts. “But these water-formed structures in the desert sandstone show that water persisted on Mars much later than previously thought.”
Mars is no exoplanet, but it’s inadvertently teaching us a lot about our quest to understand exoplanets and habitability.
“Determining whether Mars and other planets were once able to support life has been a major driving force for planetary research for more than half a century,” said Dr. Banham. “Our findings reveal new avenues for exploration – shedding light on Mars’ potential to support life and highlighting where we should continue hunting for new clues.”
“Our finding extends the timeline of water persisting in the region surrounding Gale crater, and so the whole region could have been habitable for longer than previously thought,” said Amelie.
Maybe one day in the far distant future, one of our rovers on a distant exoplanet will flip over a rock and watch something scuttle away. It’s easy to imagine.
But Mars is an instructive example. If it remained habitable for longer than we thought, it was likely only marginally inhabitable. We can’t say for sure, but complex life seems to be out of the question. This should prepare humanity for what we can expect to find in our quest for habitable exoplanets.
There are a bewildering number of variables that go into making Earth the living oasis that it is. We’re much more likely to stumble on other planets like Mars, which were once habitable and maybe even harboured simple life. If Earth’s long-lived habitability is the outlier, and Mars’ marginal, interrupted habitability is more likely, we can expect to find many planets like it that were once alive but are now long dead.
Senior law enforcement in India investigated and video-taped eerie UFO sightings over nuclear plants across the Asian nation last year, a local news report revealed.
One witness, a police sub-inspector and engineer by training, said he was '100-percent sure' the object he taped, with its high-speed 'zigzag movements,' could not be explained by human tech.
But, reports of these 2023 incidents in India were allegedly less hostile.
One witness, a police sub-inspector and engineer by training, Syed Abdul Kader said he was '100-percent sure' the object he taped, with its high-speed 'zigzag movements,' could not be explained by human tech. Above, a still from one of Kader's encounters with the UFO
Police sub-inspector Syed Abdul Kader (right), assigned to the technical wing of the Tirunelveli office an hour's drive north of the Kudankulam nuclear plant, told UFO expert Sabir Hussain (left) that he filmed two videos of the unusual airborne phenomena.
The roughly dozen or so incidents all involved apparent craft loitering oddly near the Kudankulam nuclear plant at the southern tip of the subcontinent and the Madras atomic power station near Kalpakkam along the country's east coast.
Police sub-inspector Syed Abdul Kader, assigned to the technical wing of the service's Tirunelveli office an hour's drive north of the Kudankulam nuclear plant, told UFO expert Sabir Hussain he filmed two videos of unusual airborne phenomena.
'The way it stood still, the way it made zigzag movements and the speed in which it disappeared,' Kader told reporters for the English-language Indian daily DT Next, 'all were different.'
Confirming his conversations with Hussain, Kader told DT Next that he had personally spotted UFOs near the southern coast town of Kudankulam since 2020.
'After meeting UFO tracker Sabir and discussing with him,' he told the paper, 'I am more than 100-percent sure what I saw were UFOs.'
The roughly dozen or so incidents all involved apparent craft loitering oddly near the Kudankulam nuclear plant (pictured above) at the southern tip of the subcontinent and the Madras atomic power station (not pictured) near Kalpakkam along the country's east coast
This February, American UFO researchers dropped the bombshell that an ex-Pentagon UFO investigator had privately briefed Congress on a stunning 1964 incident where a UFO blasted an Atlas missile carrying a dummy nuclear warhead out of the sky (graphic re-creation above)
Chuck Schumer criticizes Republicans for striking down UFO bill
Kader's 2023 sightings to the south, overlapped with weeks of sightings in July and August up the eastern coast along the Neelankarai-Mahabalipuram shoreline.
That region, near the bustling city of Chennai, is home to the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in Kalpakkam.
Kader's video-taped sightings, Hussain told DT Next, 'happened just 10 days after former DGP [Director General of Police] Prateep V. Philip took pictures of a UFO on [the] Muttukadu sea shore near Chennai.'
US Customs and Border Patrol, the agency responsible for keeping terrorists and weapons out of the country, uploaded 10 videos that appear to show craft moving in strange ways in our skies. The videos document a fighter jet pursued by an apparently baffling flying orb, as well as something that appears to be a propeller-powered hang-glider, and another apparent orb hovering near a parked 16-wheeler truck
Philip's rank of DGP is the highest position attainable in the Indian Police Service.
Despite an official Pentagon UFO report to Congress this year, which attempted to dispel whistleblower allegations of a secret and illegal UFO crash retrieval program, senior members of the US Senate continue to pursue subpoena power to investigate the issue.
The Pentagon's report, produced by the Department of Defense's UFO-hunting All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), was preceded by a largely hobbled effort by lawmakers to pass a sweeping UFO 'disclosure' amendment — designed to grant authority to an independent panel that would then be tasked with scouring deeply buried clandestine information for the truth about UFOs.
As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who sponsored the bill, told The New York Times: 'It is really an outrage the House [of Representatives] didn't work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board.
'It means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades.'
'We got ripped off. We got completely hosed. They stripped out every part,' said Congressman Tim Burchett, one of the House lawmakers most vocal on the issue of UFO disclosure.
While the watered-down version of the bill has meant that the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies can determine on their own what information about these mysterious sightings can be kept secret for now, Congress plans to seriously revisit the issue again later the year.
'It's just a matter of priorities right now,' Senator Mike Rounds, who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Schumer, told Capitol Hill reporter Matt Laslo this March. 'We have an interest in pursuing somethings like that.'
Guys, check this out. This report just came in not long ago to NUFORC and it's just amazing. A dark jellyfish shaped UFO is seen moving across the sky over South Africa...one of the rarest locations ever to get a report from...and this one is of great quality video, a steady eyewitness hand. The speed this UFO is moving looks to be about 25 miles per hour, much too fast to be wind and it is slightly rotating in a 360 degree turn once every 30 seconds. Awesome catch, fantastic and indisputable evidence that UFOs are flying low and want to be seen by humans.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Object flying across the sky with very unusual shape and color. Emitted no sound or light. Object moved across the sky at a reasonable fast pace. No light or sound came from it. Looked as if it had a blue to purple hue to it and was completely silent.
UFO cloaked as cloud over Pico Island, Portugal March 2024, UAP Sighting News.
UFO cloaked as cloud over Pico Island, Portugal March 2024, UAP Sighting News.
This disk shaped cloud is actually camouflage for a real UFO that sits within it. You see, often UFOs want to fly lower to gather data, but can't without revealing themselves, thus they use methods that make us shrug it off saying...oh its only a cloud, when in reality...its an alien vessel scanning us. Aliens like to believe they are smarter than us, well, I am here to say that they are flesh and bones and they do make mistakes and get caught every so often. But when an alien ship forms a cloud within their forcefield, the cloud cannot move off, but instead stays with the field tightly packed around the UFO.
Retired Japanese fighter pilot recounts a compelling encounter with a UFO
Retired Japanese fighter pilot recounts a compelling encounter with a UFO
In addition to American fighter jet pilots, others have recently shared accounts of encountering UFOs during their missions.
Mamoru Sato, a retired veteran Japanese fighter pilot and former Air Defense Force Base Commander with 34 years of dedicated service, recounts a compelling encounter involving an unidentified flying object (UFO) within the Japanese airspace.
During a routine training session at Matsushima Air Base, a pilot undergoing training in a craft witnessed an unusual occurrence. He described a cigar-shaped object hovering above him in the sky. Interestingly, the pilot seated in the front confirmed the presence of the UFO, while the instructor positioned in the back seat failed to observe it. However, the situation took a puzzling turn when the aircraft's fuselage experienced an unexpected malfunction. It wasn't a typical mechanical issue indicated by warning lights or similar alerts.
The pilot found control of the craft compromised, rendering steering virtually impossible. Strangely, as abruptly as the UFO had appeared, it vanished, coinciding with the cessation of the aircraft's malfunction and the restoration of flight control.
Upon attempting to land, the UFO reappeared, triggering a recurrence of the loss of control experienced previously. This time, even the instructor caught sight of the UFO, confirming the pilot's earlier sighting.....
Men in Black The Men in Black conspiracy theory suggests that mysterious individuals or groups monitor and suppress information related to UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters. They are believed to intimidate witnesses and researchers, ensuring the secrecy surrounding these phenomena.
According to this theory, these mysterious individuals dressed in black suits allegedly visit UFO witnesses, warning them to remain silent about what they saw, or they would erase their memories of the UFO encounter. The concept of Men in Black has also been popularized through movies and books.
Alien Manipulation of Human Genetics Conspiracy theories argue that extraterrestrial beings genetically engineered humans or altered human evolution for their own purposes. In fact, believers of this theory think that advanced beings from other worlds have even intervened in our evolutionary process.
However, it is important to note that the concept of alien manipulation of human genetics lacks substantial scientific evidence.
Government Knowledge and Secrecy Many conspiracy theorists argue that governments worldwide possess knowledge about extraterrestrial life and UFOs but keep it hidden from the public. They suggest that governments conduct secret investigations, such as the rumored Area 51 in the United States.
In the US, in December 2020, Congress passed the Intelligence Authorization Act, which required intelligence agencies to provide an unclassified report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) within 180 days. That report, released in June 2021, acknowledged UAP sightings by military personnel, but did not provide definitive explanations for the observed phenomena.
Reverse Engineering Alien Technology It is speculated that governments have acquired crashed UFOs and alien technology, allowing them to reverse engineer these technologies for military and technological advancements. This theory suggests that some advanced human technologies have extraterrestrial origins.
Reverse engineering is related to the process of dismantling and analyzing a technology to understand its components. The idea of reverse engineering alien technology suggests that humans have acquired extraterrestrial objects or devices and successfully deciphered their advanced technology.
Suppression of Advanced Energy Technologies It is speculated that governments or corporations suppress advanced energy technologies obtained from extraterrestrial sources. Their goal, according to believers of this theory, is to maintain their control over traditional energy industries.
These entities allegedly block the development and dissemination of revolutionary energy technologies. These innovations could potentially replace traditional fossil fuel-based energy systems in the future.
Collaboration with Extraterrestrial Beings This theory suggests that governments have established secret agreements or alliances with extraterrestrial beings. In these alliances, authorities would exchange technology and knowledge with aliens in undisclosed treaties.
However, there is no credible scientific evidence or documentation to support claims of collaboration with extraterrestrial beings.
Hybridization Programs Some conspiracy theories propose that extraterrestrial beings are engaged in hybridization programs. These kinds of programs consist of creating a hybrid species that combines human and alien DNA.
With that being said, it is virtually impossible to achieve that kind of hybridization. The study of genetics and reproductive biology indicates that successfulinterbreeding between species with major genetic differences is unlikely due to fundamental incompatibilities.
Secret Space Programs Some conspiracy theorists believe that governments operate secret space programs that explore extraterrestrial civilizations and engage in interstellar travel. These programs allegedly involve advanced spacecraft and interactions with alien species.
Space exploration and activities are typically carried out through publicly known programs. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in the United States, Roscosmos in Russia, ESA (European Space Agency) in Europe are examples of international space agencies.
Alien Infiltration of Governments This theory posits that extraterrestrial beings have infiltrated human governments at high levels. According to this theory, aliens have the power of manipulating global events and controlling world leaders for their own agenda.
Governments and institutions try to maintain security, protect national interests, and address potential threats. While governments do have top-secret operations, the claim of alien infiltration in those remains unsupported by meaningful evidence.
Staged Alien Invasions Some theorists propose that governments plan to stage fake alien invasions. The argument behind this theory is that authorities stage these invasions to create a global crisis and unite humanity under a single world government.
The notion of using a simulated alien invasion for political or social purposes has been mentioned in science fiction literature and films. However, there is no substantial evidence to support staged alien invasions in real life.
Alien Abductions and Experiments Some conspiracy theories propose that extraterrestrial beings visit Earth to abduct humans and conduct experiments on them. These theories often involve claims of missing time, strange markings, and repressed memories.
A popular theory about alien abductions is related to The Betty and Barney Hill case in 1961. Betty and Barney Hill were an American couple who claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings in rural New Hampshire.
Secret Underground Bases This theory suggests that governments have constructed hidden underground bases. In those bases, authorities conduct research, house recovered UFOs, and interact with extraterrestrial beings.
It’s worth mentioning that there are known underground facilities such as military bunkers or research laboratories. However, there is no major evidence regarding secret underground bases where research about UFOs is conducted.
UFO Disinformation Campaigns It is suggested that governments actively spread disinformation about UFOs and extraterrestrial life. The goal behind this, according to believers of this theory, is to confuse the public and discredit genuine sightings and encounters.
However, it is important to highlight the difference between deliberate disinformation campaigns and the complexities of investigating UFOs. Whether it is because of national security concerns, lack of definitive scientific conclusions, possibilities of hoaxes or public panic prevention, the government could inadvertedly cause disinformation or misinformation when trying to explain UFO investigations.
The Roswell Incident Cover-Up One of the most well-known conspiracy theories revolves around the alleged crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Some believe that the US government covered up the existence of the crash and the recovery of extraterrestrial beings.
The official explanation provided by the U.S. military at the time stated that the debris recovered from the incident was actually from a top-secret research project known as the Mogul balloon. This secret project was designed to monitor Soviet nuclear tests during those early years of the Cold War.
Global Alien Cover-Up This theory argues that governments worldwide collaborate to suppress information. It also argues that there’s a global alliance to delete evidence of extraterrestrial life to maintain social stability and prevent widespread panic.
Governments have increasingly shown transparency and released previously classified information related to UFO sightings and investigations. There hasn’t been any concrete evidence about a global deliberate cover-up of extraterrestrial investigations.
Suppression of UFO Sightings It is claimed that governments actively suppress and discredit UFO sightings to prevent public panic and maintain control over the narrative surrounding extraterrestrial life. Authorities argue that they do it over national security concerns or the protection of sensitive military technology.
With that being said, this does not necessarily imply a deliberate suppression of information about UFO sightings. Governments, in general, decide to protect themselves and prevent any unwanted information, even in relation to UFO sightings, from coming to light because it is a “state secret”.
Moon and Mars Conspiracies Some conspiracy theories involve claims of secret alien bases on the moon or Mars. The argument is that governments are aware of these bases but keep them hidden from the public.
Theories surrounding these alien bases in other planets often rely on interpretations of anomalies or unusual features observed in images captured by spacecraft. However, these interpretations often lack scientific evidence of those bases, and can be easily confused with natural geological processes, lighting effects or image artifacts.
This theory argues that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth in ancient times and influenced human civilization. It says that aliens played a role in the construction of ancient monuments and shaping human history.
The claims of ancient astronaut theorists are based on interpretations of ancient texts, artwork, and archaeological sites, which they believe have evidence of extraterrestrial influence. However, the detractors of this theory refer to these claims as “pseudoscience.”
Crop Circles as Alien Messages The crop circles phenomenon is often attributed to extraterrestrial beings leaving encoded messages or symbols in fields. These crop circles would indicate their presence and intentions.
One example of alien-made crop circles is the Chilbolton crop circle that appeared in 2001 in Hampshire, England. However, it was later revealed that the circle was human-made and it was a publicity stunt.
Alien Influence on Religious Beliefs Some conspiracy theories propose that religious texts and beliefs were influenced by extraterrestrial beings, shaping human spirituality and religious practices. It starts from the linking of ancient religious texts and beliefs to encounters with advanced beings from other worlds.
The argument is primarily based on interpretations of ancient texts, artwork, and cultural myths. However, there isn’t any legitimate evidence of alien influence on religious beliefs of any kind.
Mysterious Lights Over the Ocean: A Remarkable UFO Sighting on November 28, 2023
Mysterious Lights Over the Ocean: A Remarkable UFO Sighting on November 28, 2023
In the realm of unexplained phenomena, few topics capture the imagination as vividly as UFO sightings. These enigmatic occurrences prompt a whirlwind of speculation, intrigue, and a perennial quest for understanding. A recent event, reported on January 16, 2024, to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), stands as a poignant testament to the enduring allure of the unknown. This sighting, occurring on November 28, 2023, features an eyewitness account that is as compelling as it is mystifying.
A Spectacular Observation
The incident unfolded in an unexpected locale: the vast, open ocean. The witness, a passenger aboard a cruise ship, ventured back to their room to enjoy the serene ambiance of the sea from their balcony. What was meant to be a moment of tranquility quickly turned into an encounter with the inexplicable. The observer noticed a bright object performing erratic maneuvers in the sky, a sight so unusual and distant from any landmass that it defied immediate explanation. According to the witness, “the closest land was hundreds of miles away,” underscoring the isolation and the oddity of the sighting.
No Drones on Board
In pursuit of answers, the passenger approached the cruise ship’s crew, only to be met with information that deepened the mystery. The crew member confirmed that drones were not only prohibited on board but also not utilized by the ship itself. This detail is crucial, effectively eliminating a common rational explanation for such sightings. The suggestion that “maybe Mexico is doing something” adds a layer of geopolitical intrigue, albeit without concrete evidence to substantiate this theory.
A Video That Speaks Volumes
Accompanying the eyewitness report is a video, a visual testament to the encounter that lends credence to the observer’s account. While the video will undoubtedly be subjected to scrutiny by skeptics and enthusiasts alike, it serves as a pivotal piece of evidence in the ongoing dialogue about UFOs and their place in our collective consciousness.
The Enigma Continues
This sighting is a reminder of the vastness of our world and the mysteries that linger in its unexplored corners. UFO sightings, such as the one reported on November 28, 2023, challenge our understanding of the possible and propel us to look beyond the horizon, in search of answers that may forever remain just out of reach.
For enthusiasts and skeptics alike, this sighting adds another intriguing chapter to the annals of UFO encounters. As we gaze up at the night sky, we are reminded that sometimes, the most extraordinary mysteries are not found in the far reaches of space but right here, in the vast expanse of our own planet’s skies.
For those captivated by the unexplained and the extraordinary, this recent UFO sighting over the open ocean serves as a compelling invitation to explore the unknown. The video accompanying the eyewitness account provides a glimpse into an encounter that defies easy explanation, reminding us that the mysteries of the universe are not only vast but also closer than we might think.
It has been previously thought that Earth is composed of four different layers: inner core, core, mantle, and crust. But a recent scientific discovery might change the way we see Planet Earth. Scientists claimed to they have found one more layer inside the inner core that takes the form of a solid, metallic sphere situated at the core’s center. It is not molten but solid.
A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications reveals that scientists have detected a 400-mile-thick solid metallic layer located at the Earth’s innermost core. This layer responds differently than previously known layers to earthquake shockwaves
The research was conducted by a team of two seismologists from the Australian National University (ANU), who speculates that this “innermost inner core” found inside Earth might have originated from a significant global occurrence in the past. Two Harvard seismologists, Miaki Ishii and Adam Dziewonski, first proposed the idea of the innermost inner core in 2002 based on peculiarities in the speed of seismic waves passing through the inner core.
The inner core of the Earth appears to hold an innermost secret. Image via The New York Times
The research states scientists have discovered up to fivefold reverberating waves from earthquakes along the Earth’s diameter, using a growing number of global seismic stations. This has enabled them to probe the Earth’s center and infer a transversely isotropic inner-core model that contains an anisotropically distinctive innermost inner core and its transition to a weakly anisotropic outer shell.
These findings improve current knowledge of the Earth’s formation and evolution and suggest that the anisotropy could be a fossilized record of a significant global event from the past. This research has shed light on our planet’s evolution over billions of years, including the development of the Earth’s magnetic field, which transformed it from an uninhabitable terrain into a habitable abode.
Dr. Thanh-Son Phạm, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, stated that around two decades ago, a hypothesis was proposed about the presence of an internal metallic ball in the innermost core. According to Dr. Phạm, they are now presenting another line of evidence to support this hypothesis.
The ANU scientists describe this process as similar to a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth. “By developing a technique to boost the signals recorded by densely populated seismograph networks, we observed, for the first time, seismic waves that bounce back – and forth up to five times along the Earth’s diameter. Previous studies have documented only a single antipodal bounce,” Dr. Phạm said. (Source)
“This inner core is like a time capsule of Earth’s evolutionary history – it’s a fossilized record that serves as a gateway into the events of our planet’s past. Events that happened on Earth hundreds of millions to billions of years ago,” said in a statement one of the researchers, Hrvoje Tkalčić.
Scientists studied one of the earthquakes that originated in Alaska. Its seismic waves were observed to bounce off a location in the south Atlantic Ocean before returning to Alaska.
The researchers investigated the anisotropy of the iron-nickel alloy that forms the Earth’s inner core. Anisotropy refers to the way seismic waves speed up or slow down depending on their direction of travel through the Earth’s inner core, potentially caused by varying arrangements of iron atoms at high temperatures and pressures or preferred alignment of growing crystals.
The scientists discovered that the bouncing seismic waves probed the Earth’s center from different angles multiple times. By examining the travel times of seismic waves for various earthquakes, the researchers inferred that the crystallized structure within the innermost region of the inner core is likely different from the outer layer. This discrepancy could explain why seismic waves change speed depending on their entry angle as they penetrate the innermost part of the inner core.
According to the researchers, the formation of this metallic ball could have been triggered by a major global event, such as a large tectonic shift that occurred millions of years ago. Its significance lies in its potential role in supporting the thriving of life on Earth. As a crucial piece of the puzzle, it provides a captivating insight into our planet’s distant past.
Another Similar Discovery
Since the 1970s, the discovery of two giant structures inside the Earth has baffled scientists. They are located on opposite sides of our planet, and their size may be compared to continents. Each of these structures is almost 100 times bigger than Mount Everest and is located at the core of the Earth, at a depth of 2900 km. (Click here to read article)
Seismic studies show that the discovered formations have a different composition than the rest of the Earth’s mantle. These waves generated by earthquakes travel through the Earth’s interior, changing speed, bending, or scattering as they pass through different materials. Scientists use seismometers to detect these waves and create a picture of the rock below the surface.
A recent study used a machine-learning algorithm to analyze around 7,000 seismic wave records, revealing new information about three-dimensional structures near the core-mantle boundary in the sub-Pacific region of Earth.
The blobs, seen from the (a) North and (b) South Poles. The two-toned structures show the shapes of the blob based on the agreement of five different models (brown) and three different models (tan). Credit: Cottaar and Lekic, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggw324
Geophysicists have known about these structures anomalies (generally they call them blobs) since the 1970s but are not much closer to understanding them today.
“They’re among the largest things inside the Earth,” University of Maryland geologist Ved Lekic told Eos reporter Jenessa Duncombe, “and yet we literally don’t know what they are, where they came from, how long they’ve been around, or what they do.”
The blobs begin thousands of miles below Earth’s surface, where the planet’s rocky lower mantle meets the molten outer core. One blob lurks deep below the Pacific Ocean, the other beneath Africa and parts of the Atlantic. Both are massive, stabbing up about halfway through the mantle and measuring as long as continents. According to Duncombe, each blob stretches about 100 times higher than Mount Everest; if they sat on the planet’s surface, the International Space Station would have to navigate around them.
These discoveries suggest that Earth is hiding many secrets within which are yet to reveal. Could there be a hidden civilization inside these structures?
Comparing ancient texts and megalithic architecture reveals an anthropological connection between civilizations that were considered technologically inferior and geographically removed from one another. The Silurian Hypothesis by Schmidt & Frank and Ultraterrestrial Models by H. E. Puthoff have evolved out of a process of elimination that has taken decades to come to light due to the layered nature of the phenomena and the incommensurability problem.
UFO Fleet Cloaked As Clouds Moving Over Mount Shasta, March 2024, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Fleet Cloaked As Clouds Moving Over Mount Shasta, March 2024, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting:March 2024
Location of sighting: Mount Shasta, California, USA
Hmmm...this reminds me of something. Mount Shasta is a hotspot for UFO sightings. I remember a couple who saw a spacecraft hovering over the St. Germain Foundation property in 1991 while lounging in their hot tub on their back porch. Also, its said an alien base site below Mount Shasta, and St. Germain is one of its leaders...and is often seen wandering the mountain trails from time to time. I know there is an alien base below Shasta, however the real question is...how do we the public contact them?
Man claims to have been abducted by aliens who forced him to perform 'sexual experiments' UFO Sighting News.
Man claims to have been abducted by aliens who forced him to perform 'sexual experiments' UFO Sighting News.
As funny a it may seem...such things do occur and there are hundreds of reports of such treatment by aliens, both in Project Blue Book reports and Majestic 12 reports and more. It doesn't seem about sex at all, but instead more about inbreeding, mixing species to make two strong species one single more powerful species (talking powerful through genetics and DNA). Biology says that when two species mix, often the new DNA introduced to the offspring brings fresh and more unique traits and abilities. Whats wrong with wanting a better life for ones offspring?
Scott C. Waring
26-03-2024 om 00:36
geschreven door peter
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
What did Buzz Aldrin mean when he said, “you didn’t, no you didn’t, you watched animation.” About the nasa moon landing? UFO sighting news.
What did Buzz Aldrin mean when he said, “you didn’t, no you didn’t, you watched animation.” About the nasa moon landing? UFO sighting news.
News talked about an eyewitness who was using his telescope and recorded an unknown object shooting across the moon. I decided to look further into the recording and used the screenshot and added contrast and sharpening to see its true detail. The UFO is actually at the front right end of the glowing line. The UFO is also a disk with sharp not perfectly round but with about 8-10 different rectangle walls along the edge of the disk. The disk is also flying vertical to the moon. A disk flying vertical would be impossible, however many contact reports in Project Blue Book talk about the disks having their own gravity within, making such turns and angles of flight not felt by the pilots within. This UFO seen in the recording is 100% real, data doesn't lie.
The trojan asteroids of Mars. Credit: Armagh Observatory
POSTED BY EVAN GOUGH
An Asteroid Found Sharing the Orbit of Mars
Astronomers discovered another asteroid sharing Mars’ orbit. These types of asteroids are called trojans, and they orbit in two clumps, one ahead of and one behind the planet. But the origins of the Mars trojans are unclear.
Can this new discovery help explain where they came from?
There are now 14 known Mars Trojans and the name of the newest one is 2023 FW14. They’re in two groups, one 60 degrees ahead and one 60 degrees behind Mars. These are the Lagrange 4 and Lagrange 5 points.
Most of the Mars trojans are at the L5 point, and this newly discovered one is the second one found at the L4 point.
Scientists aren’t certain where the Mars trojans came from. Other trojans like the Jupiter trojans may have been captured by Jupiter in the Solar System’s early years. Or Jupiter may have captured them later when it migrated.
But Mars is a much less massive planet, and astronomers aren’t certain if Mars can capture trojans the same way Jupiter does. The Mars trojans could be as old as the Jupiter trojans, but some evidence suggests otherwise. The dozen or more trojans at the Mars L5 point seem to be a family from the same collision. The family is called Eureka, and their spectra indicate an olivine-rich composition.
Olivine is relatively rare in the main asteroid belt. That’s led some researchers to suggest that the L5 Mars trojans are debris from an ancient impact between Mars, where olivine is common, and a planetesimal.
The two L4 Mars trojans are different. They don’t have the same spectra as the L5 trojans, but the pair do show some similarities in their spectra, so a common origin for these two is a possibility.
In this paper, the researchers set out to determine 2023 FW14’s origins. They used the Gran Telescopio Canarias for their work. It’s a 10.4-meter telescope in Spain’s Canary Islands with an attached instrument called the OSIRIS camera spectrograph.
2023 FW14’s spectrum places it in the same class as an Xc-type asteroid. The X-type name contains several different types of asteroids with similar spectra but probably with different compositions. Xc-types are a sub-class of the X-types that are intermediate between C-type asteroids, the most common type of asteroid in the Solar System, and the uncommon K-type asteroids.
This graph from the research shows the spectrum of 2023 FW14 and several spectra of the other known L4 Mars Trojan (121514) 1999 UJ7. Orange shows 2023 FW14, with the red line representing the best asteroid taxonomical match, the Xc-type. Teal, blue, and green show different published spectra of 1999 UJ7. The gray area fills the entire domain between the mean B-type and D-type classes of asteroids.Image Credit: Marcos et al. 2024.
The researchers also used N-body simulations to try to understand the new asteroid’s resonance with Mars. Trojans follow what are known as tadpole orbits. Tadpole orbits are influenced by Earth’s gravity, which causes objects to librate or accelerate or decelerate alternately.
Tadpole orbits are complex. Asteroids on these orbits exchange large amounts of energy and angular momentum with a planet moving in a circular orbit. Tadpole loops are made of multiple overlapping epicyclic loops.
This video illustrates the tadpole orbit followed by an asteroid in Jupiter’s L4, not Mars’ L4, but the concept is the same.
2023 FW14 has a higher orbital eccentricity and lower inclination than Mars’ other L4 trojan. This means that it occupies an unstable region and orbits at the whim of several different resonances. That instability means that in a few million years, it’ll likely be ejected.
The researchers calculated its size as approximately 318 metres (+493/-199.) That makes it one of the smallest known trojans so far.
As for its origins, the authors say that there are two possibilities.
Its long-term behaviour, including its past, suggests that it was captured from the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) population of Mars-crossing asteroids. But it could be a fragment of another trojan, as well, one that is so far undiscovered, or one that is no longer a trojan.
Spectral data suggests something else. Both of the L4 asteroids appear to be more primitive than Mars’ L5 trojans. 2023 FW14’s spectrum also supports the idea that it’s a captured Mars-crossing NEA. However, that data isn’t as clear, according to the authors, and can’t be used to rule out the other hypothesis, which is that the asteroid formed in situ. “Although incomplete, the data support the interpretation of 2023 FW14 as an interloper captured from the Mars-crossing NEA population, but they cannot be used to reject the competing hypothesis that 2023 FW14 was produced in situ,” they write.
Whatever its origins are, the researchers calculate that 2023 FW14 has about 10 million years before it’s ejected from its trojan orbit. It’s a temporary trojan, and this discovery could prove that Mars trojans can be temporarily captured, something that so far has been unproven.
The Sound of an Interstellar Meteor Might Have Just Been a Rumbling Truck
A 2023 expedition to the Pacific Ocean, searching for debris from a suspected extraterrestrial object, may have been looking in the wrong place. A new look at the infrasound data used to locate the point of impact suggests that they may have been confused by the rumblings of a truck driving past.
On 14 January 2018, a space rock hit the Earth’s atmosphere off the coast of Papua New Guinea. It was detected by what are mysteriously described as “US Government Sensors”, and given the catalogue entry “CNEOS 2014-01-08”. Based on the brightness of the fireball and its apparent speed, the physical rock likely survived without burning up completely. The observation was logged in a database kept by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies. Bolides like this can be a spectacular sight, when spotted by human eyes, but they are not rare; several are detected each week.
Extrasolar objects
A few years later, Oumuamua was discovered. Oumuamua was traveling at a high speed, along a path that showed it was not orbiting the Sun. Instead, it had come from interstellar space and was merely passing through. This was very exciting because it was the first time anybody had observed an interstellar rocky object, and so it attracted a lot of attention.
Some observations showed that Oumuamua’s path wasn’t steady, but kept making tiny changes. Most scientists agreed that this was almost certainly because of pockets of ice melting and jetting away in the Sun’s heat. This is a common phenomenon, that we often see happening with comets. More detailed observations and simulations showed that it had a long and skinny shape, more like a splinter than a boulder, which is very unusual among the asteroids and comets that we’re used to. But Oumuamua only really hit the mainstream press when a well-known and prestigious astrophysicist decided, in a surprising leap of logic, that all these details proved that it could be an alien spacecraft!
The Oumuamua discovery led many scientists to start searching for other interstellar objects. CNEOS 2014-01-08, with its high reported speed, looked like a promising candidate. The physicist who had made such a big deal about Oumuamua being artificial took a closer look at the bolide reports and concluded that it must have been traveling fast enough to be another extrasolar object. This claim was controversial, not only because the government sensors appear to be classified and so cannot be verified, but because meteor speeds are notoriously difficult to measure. Observers have mistakenly reported extrasolar meteors as far back as 1951!
But if CNEOS 2014-01-08 truly was from outside the Solar System, and we could find pieces of it, that would be an incredible discovery: The first actual geological samples from a planetary system outside our own!
The expedition
This is why an expedition was launched in 2023 to try and find it. The research team used seismic and infrasound data from seismic research stations in the area to try and find the exact place where the meteoroid would have splashed into the sea. They identified two likely signals from Geoscience Australia’s Passive Seismic Network. The signals were recorded by Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (AU.MANU) and Coen, Queensland, Australia (AU.COEN), at around the same time that people saw the fireball. They triangulated a precise location based on those recordings, and sailed out to search the ocean floor.
The expedition was widely reported as a success, after they found “metallic spherules”. These spherules had an unusual composition, which the expedition leader said was proof of a possible extraterrestrial origin. Like the speed calculations, though, this interpretation was widely challenged. Specialists in other fields have weighed in to argue that there was nothing unusual about the debris, and that various natural and human processes could have created them (My personal favorite: 19th century pollution!). With so much doubt as to where the spherules came from in the first place, it’s probably not wise to say that they are of “extraterrestrial technological” origin.
The area near the seismic station in Manus Island, based on satellite images. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa and Benjamin Fernando/Johns Hopkins University, with imagery from CNES/Airbus via Google.
The truck
The most recent challenge to the results of this expedition come from a team led by Dr Benjamin Fernando of Johns Hopkins University. Their report focuses on the seismic and infrasound data used to locate the impact site.
They noticed a number of problems with the expedition’s analysis, starting with the fact that none of the detections happened within 30 seconds of the fireball. But beyond that, these stations are located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is very tectonically active. They detect a great many earthquakes and other natural seismic events every day, and some of these happened at the same time as the the meteorite impact. Separating the two signals is hard to do without distorting both of them. This adds a lot of error to any calculations based on those data.
Along with seismic data, these stations also have infrasound detectors, meant to detect and monitor nuclear weapons tests. But infrasound has a limited range, and is strongly affected by geography.
Fernando’s team concluded that only one station recorded an infrasound signal that could have come from CNEOS 2014-01-08, and that none of the seismic detections had anything to do with the bolide. Based on this, they believe that the expedition was looking in the wrong place, and that the debris they discovered had nothing at all to do with the 2014 bolide.
But their most damning claim is this: The strongest signal had an unusual pattern, lasting a long time and coming from a direction which changed halfway. They noticed that there is a road passing near the station, with a curve in it that matches the change in direction of the signal. They point out that the signals recorded by trucks driving that road are a far closer match than any natural event.
In other words, they believe that the expedition based its search location for an extraterrestrial meteoroid on the noise of somebody in a truck going for a drive.
In their defense
It’s tempting to laugh at the researchers on the expedition, especially since their leader was a respected astrophysicist who has recently developed a reputation for having crackpot ideas about aliens. But I think there is value in investigating these questions.
It’s easy to get tired of cranks and fools wasting our time with conspiracy theories and crazy stories about abductions. And we should always be skeptical of any claims about aliens, given what we know about the physics of interstellar travel and the absurd scale of the Universe.
But most astronomers agree that life has to exist elsewhere in the Universe, and many think that it could well be intelligent and technologically capable, like us. Nobody’s saying that they can’t possibly exist, only that it’s extremely unlikely that they are over here!
So we should be skeptical of these reports. It’s good to not waste too much time studying them, when there are other mysteries that are far more likely to be true. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the possibility altogether. It would be disastrous if, by some chance, it turned out to be real, and the scientific community had simply refused to acknowledge it! When new evidence comes in, we must revisit our assumptions and go back and check our previous conclusions. And it’s important that somebody do this even when we’re certain that they’ll get a negative result.
Parker Solar Probe Was Blasted by Coronal Mass Ejections 28 Times in 4 Years
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) was launched on August 12, 2018, with the goal of becoming the first spacecraft to touch the Sun while teaching us more about our host star than any spacecraft or solar instrument in human history. Now, a recent study submitted to The Astrophysical Journal discusses the incredible data that PSP collected on coronal mass ejections (CMEs) over a four-year period. This study holds the potential to help scientists and the public better understand the CMEs and how they contribute to space weather.
Here, Universe Today speaks with Dr. Tarik Mohammad Salman, who is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NASA and George Mason University and lead author of the study regarding the motivation behind the study, its most significant results, implications for future research, PSP contributions, and the importance of studying CMEs. So, what was the motivation behind this study?
“The PSP science data is a treasure trove as it samples the solar wind at uncharted radial distances from the Sun,” Dr. Salman tells Universe Today. “There have been numerous case studies of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) using PSP observations that provided new insights into the evolution of CMEs as the structures propagate farther from the Sun. We are in the sixth year of the PSP mission which provided us with a reasonable number of CME events to perform a statistical investigation. That was the motivation for this project to compile a catalog of CME events that PSP measured from 2018-2022 and also to investigate different perspectives of CME evolution in a statistical manner.”
For the study, PSP collected direct measurements of 32 interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) between October 2018 and August 2022 and distances from the Sun ranging between 0.23 and 0.83 astronomical units (AU), with 1 AU being the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or approximately 150 million kilometers (93 million miles). Of the 32 measurements, four were discarded due to gaps in the data, leaving 28 CMEs successfully measured by PSP. The study’s objectives were to identify various aspects of CMEs, specifically pertaining to how they change as they travel farther from the Sun, also known as radial distance. So, what were the most significant results from this study?
Dr. Salman tells Universe Today, “A few results that I would like to highlight are that we observed the internal CME magnetic structure to become more complex with radial distance. We found the CME magnetic field strength to decrease at a lower rate than previous studies. We also saw that the expansion of the CME is important in the formation of the compression region ahead of it and the internal magnetic field has an influence on the short-scale fluctuations we find within the compression region.”
While the study of CMEs falls under the scientific field of solar physics, which studies how our entire Sun functions, scientists also classify CMEs as part of space weather, which studies the activity on the Sun’s surface and how it affects the surrounding environment. Space weather can wreak havoc on electronics, specifically communication satellites and power stations on Earth, with one of the most notable space weather events occurring in September 1859 known as the Carrington Event, which was caused by a massive solar storm that wreaked havoc on worldwide electrical grids and created spectacular auroras across the globe, as well, with the latter traditionally only being visible in the northern and southern latitudes. Therefore, what implications can this study have on future research regarding our Sun, and specifically space weather?
“The compiled catalog of CME events itself will be a valuable resource for performing future extensive case studies,” Dr. Salman tells Universe Today. “Understanding the evolution of CMEs is of paramount importance for space weather operations. This statistical investigation of different aspects of CME evolution is a step towards that as it validates previous approximations but also raises new questions that need to be explored further with a more robust data set in the future.”
After having its first solar encounter in October 2018, PSP has continued to smash records regarding its distance from our Sun. This includes achieving its closest distance of 7.26 million kilometers (4.51 million miles) on September 27, 2023, which is slated to be surpassed after its last flyby of Venus in November 2024. Science objectives for PSP include determining the solar corona processes responsible for producing the solar wind, gaining insight into the solar plasma and magnetic field properties, and learning more about additional energy particles emitted by the Sun.
The reason why PSP can travel so close to our Sun is due to its state-of-the-art solar shield comprised of a 11.43-centimeter-thick (4.5-inch-thich) carbon-composite shield capable of withstanding scorching temperatures up to 1,377 degrees Celsius (2,500 degrees Fahrenheit). While PSP has already broken records regarding its distance to the Sun, PSP is slated to come within 6.16 million kilometers (3.83 million miles) during its mission, which is planned to last a total of seven years. But how has PSP contributed to our understanding of our Sun and space weather?
“PSP is so important for us to advance our current understanding of CME evolution and space weather,” Dr. Salman tells Universe Today. “The questions of interest for space weather are will a CME impact Earth and whether it will have a southward field component to interact with the northward magnetic field of Earth. Our modeling frameworks depend on an initial characterization of the CME closer to the Sun (within 20 solar radii) based on which the models project the CME parameters when it impacts Earth.”
Dr. Salman continues, “The initial characterization is made based on CME remote-sensing imaging. What PSP is doing is providing direct measurements of CMEs in the initial phases of propagation. Adding to this are the widespread radial observations of PSP to make our statistical approximations more robust. This is how PSP is contributing to develop a more accurate picture of the CME propagation and evolution from closer to the Sun to Earth.”
Animation showing NASA’s Parker Solar Probe studying the Sun. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CIL/Brian Monroe)
CMEs have been observed for thousands of years in the form of auroras when the solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field near the planet’s surface. They are produced from the Sun’s corona in the form of massive discharges when solar plasma interacts with the Sun’s massive magnetic field and their velocities can range from 250 kilometers per second (155 miles per second) to almost 3,000 kilometers per second (1,864 miles per second).
CMEs are monitored by the Space Weather Prediction Center with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration using a combination of ground- and space-based solar observatories. As noted, space weather is constantly monitored to determine how much damage can be caused to Earth surface power grids and satellite communications. But aside from monitoring space weather, why is it so important to study CMEs?
“CMEs are crucial for the existence of our Sun,” Dr. Salman tells Universe Today. “CMEs appear as a valve that releases the built-up magnetic field from the Sun without which the Sun will rip itself apart. But the investigation of CME science also has important societal relevance. CMEs drive the strongest solar storms that can wreak havoc through impacting power grids and telecommunication networks. CMEs can also damage orbiting satellites and technological infrastructure. CMEs are now counted among the major natural hazards as well. A more in-depth understanding of CMEs (from initiation to propagation to evolution along the Sun-Earth line) is thus required to improve the current status quo of space weather operations.”
What new discoveries will researchers make about coronal mass ejections in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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