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 NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
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...
16-06-2024
NASA rover discovers mysterious Mars boulder unlike any others
NASA rover discovers mysterious Mars boulder unlike any others
Story by Elisha Sauers
If looking at this Mars vista conjures up childhood memories of the song, "One of these things is not like the others," NASA scientists are right there with you.
Perseverance, a car-size lab on six wheels, traveled into the Red Planet's Neretva Vallis last week. Though this region may look like a barren desert, it was once an ancient river channel that fed into the Jezero crater billions of years ago.
As Perseverance traversed the inlet, the rover came upon a hill covered in boulders, with one in particular attracting the science team's attention: a light speckled rock amid a sea of dark lumps.
"Every once in a while, you'll just see some strange thing in the Martian landscape, and the team is like, 'Oh, let's go over there,'" Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist of NASA's Mars 2020 mission, told Mashable. "This was like the textbook definition of (chasing) the bright, shiny thing because it was so bright and white."
The boulder is so exceptional, scientists have said it's in a league of its own. Closer analysis with the rover's instruments shows it is likely an anorthosite, a rock type never seen before while exploring Mars, Stack Morgan said, though there have been signs such rocks should exist. Not even the Curiosity rover, which has observed more variety in Gale Crater, has seen one quite like this.
The Perseverance rover found an exceptional boulder on Mars, thought to be an anorthosite.
Though such anorthosite rocks are on the moon and in mountain ranges on Earth, they're generally considered rare in the solar system. True Martian examples have eluded researchers, including within our planet's inventory of Red Planet meteorites that traveled through space to get here.
Related video:
NASA prepares to examine samples from Mars (FOX News)
This discovery could bolster the idea that Mars' early crust was way more complex than once thought — and perhaps similar to Earth's original crust. Understanding the ancient Martian crust also could help unlock secrets about the evolution of Earth and how life emerged here.
"This was like the textbook definition of (chasing) the bright, shiny thing."
The rover team named the special boulder, about 18 inches wide and 14 inches tall, "Atoco Point" after a landmark in the Grand Canyon.
Perseverance has been exploring Jezero crater, an ancient dried delta on Mars, since 2021.
"Seeing a rock like Atoco Point is one of these hints that, yes, we do have anorthosites on Mars, and this might be a sampling of that lower crust material," Stack Morgan said. "If we see it later on in the context of other rocks, it can give us a sense for how the earliest crust of Mars kind of came to be."
Anorthosites are predominantly made of feldspar, a mineral linked to lava flows. Feldspars are more rich in silica than basalts and some of the last stuff to crystallize out of magma. On the other hand, basalts, dark volcanic rocks rich in iron and magnesium, are ubiquitous on Mars' surface.
Many of Perseverance's scientists think magma below the surface made the minerals in Atoko Point, and that a giant impact on Mars may have excavated the rock to the surface, a chunk later falling from the crater rim to its present site. Others think the boulder was made somewhere else far away and a gushing ancient river carried it there.
The NASA team hopes to discover many more rocks like Atoco Point in a couple of months when Perseverance reaches the crater rim.
Whether scientists will ever get their hands on this rock or one like it remains to be seen. Perseverance has been collecting samples from Jezero crater since 2021. The region, an ancient dried delta, is one where scientists think microscopic organisms might have existed long ago. But the plan to fly rocks and dust grains to Earth, a complex mission called Mars Sample Return, is in jeopardy. Its rising costs have led to layoffs and warnings of cancellation from Congress. The agency is now making a desperate plea for ideas to save the mission.
Perhaps surprisingly, the rover team chose to drive away from Atoco Point without even taking a sample, despite its significance. That's because the team hopes to discover many more like it in a couple of months when the rover reaches the crater rim. Finding examples from its original location could provide the scientists with a lot more context.
"We said, 'OK, let's keep this rock in mind,'" Stack Morgan said. "'Maybe we'll come back here if we don't find this elsewhere in the crater rim.'"
The company Astroscale is looking to address the major problem of space debris in Earth orbit.
The upper stage of the Japanese H-2A rocket as imaged by the ADRAS-J satellite in May 2024.
(Image credit: Astroscale)
This is how decades-old space junk drifting in Earth's orbit would look like seen from just 50 meters (164 feet) away.
You are looking at the spent upper stage of a discarded Japanese rocket that launched an Earth observation satellite back in 2009. The rocket body was imaged up close on May 23 by the ADRAS-J satellite, which was designed by private Japanese company Astroscale to approach and study a non-communicative, uncontrollable piece of orbital debris.
Images and data collected during these inspections record the condition of the dead satellite, including how structurally intact it is after drifting in the harsh space environment for years. The satellite does not transmit GPS signals to Earth, so by closely approaching, imaging and potentially removing it from orbit in the future, ADRAS-J proves technologies that on-orbit services can be used for things like satellite maintenance or capturing and deorbiting space debris objects, according to Astroscale.
ADRAS-J, which is short for Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan, launched into orbit atop Rocket Lab's Electron rocket on Feb. 18. By April the 330-pound (150-kilogram) probe had used its onboard cameras and successfully maneuvered within a few hundred meters of its target — the upper stage of the Japanese H-2A rocket that launched the GOSAT Earth-observation satellite back in 2009. This striking photo released late April memorialized the achievement.
In an update posted today (Friday, June 14), Astroscale wrote that ADRAS-J had completed a safe and controlled approach to the rocket, which spans 36 feet long by 13 feet wide (11 by 4 meters). The latest image is one of many ADRAS-J captured while holding a fixed position relative to the upper stage, the company said, adding that the mission will soon try snapping additional pictures of the target through various close approach operations.
Spaceflight historian Gunther Krebs previously noted that ADRAS-J is not the first mission to capture close-up images of space junk. In 2003, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's XSS-10 satellite had photographed the used upper stage of a Delta II rocket; those tasks were less complex than ADRAS-J's.
Following the successful safe and controlled approach of the dead rocket, in late April, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) chose Astroscale for the second phase of the mission, which will progress onto capturing and removing the rocket body using a robotic arm that is lighter version of the one on the International Space Station.
"This next phase holds significance in addressing the space debris issue and laying the foundation for a sustainable environment for future generations," Eddie Kato, the president of Astroscale Japan, said in a previous statement.
The 4 most convincing UFO sightings in Florida history
The 4 most convincing UFO sightings in Florida history
Photo courtesy of Albert Antony via Unsplash.
By Tyler Francischine
Florida regularly makes headline news because of the out-of-this-world behavior of its residents, but the Sunshine State is no stranger to newsworthy activity of the extraterrestrial variety either.
According to the National UFO Reporting Center Online Database, or NUFORC, as of April 2023, 8,350 UFO sightings have been reported in Florida since the center began collecting data in 1974 — a figure topped only by California’s more than 16,000 sightings.
As Peter Davenport, director of NUFORC — a non-profit, Washington state-based corporation – told USA Today, people most commonly report sightings of non-identified lights in the sky; objects shaped like circles, ovals, triangles, or diamonds; and orbs or fireballs. All of these common sights and more are regularly reported to NUFORC by Floridians who simply could not believe their eyes.
Ready to dive into some of the most hair-raising UFO sightings ever reported in Florida’s history? Read on.
1. A Gulf Breeze man encounters aliens
As the story goes, Florida’s most infamous string of UFO sightings — immortalized as The Gulf Breeze Sightings — began when Ed Walters, a building contractor based in this small, Panhandle town, took Polaroids from his front yard on November 11, 1987, that show an unidentified aircraft shooting a blue beam of light toward the camera.
According to Walters, the craft hovered about 200 feet above the ground before landing on a nearby road and dropping off five alien beings. Walters returned inside his home to find one of the beings staring into his window. The being communicated with Walters in both English and Spanish via telepathy before presenting him with a book filled with pictures of dogs. Then, a blue beam of light lifted Walters three feet off the ground, immobilizing him for a few moments.
Walters claimed he witnessed and photographed this alien activity several times during the fall and winter of 1987. One photo shows his wife trying to outrun the blue beam. Another incident occurred when Walters was driving sometime after midnight. Suddenly, he realized he could no longer see any streetlights or cars on the road in his rearview mirrors. He pulled over, stepped outside, and saw a bright light heading his way. When he got back in his car, the light soared toward the sky, and the next thing he knew, he was on the side of the road as morning traffic whizzed past him. Walters could not account for the 5-6 hours that had lapsed between his recollections. Overall, Walters and his family reported 19 sightings in total.
Walters wasn’t alone — after word spread of what he saw, several Gulf Breeze residents, including local politicians, began claiming they, too, spotted UFOs in their skies. Yet, many considered (and still consider) Walters’ photos to be a hoax.
When Walters moved from his home in 1990, the house’s new owners found a model of a flying saucer in the attic. Wrapped in drafting paper, the model was composed of foam plates, cardboard, and colored, plastic gel. Though Walters later said the model was planted to discredit his claims, Pensacola News Journal photographers utilized the model to stage a recreation of Walters’ photos. The results? Photographs nearly identical to what Walters had produced.
Still, many curious minds hold the Gulf Breeze Sightings of 1987 to be irrefutable evidence that humans are not alone in this universe.
2. A flying saucer hovers over Jacksonville park
It was a cool and crisp evening in October 1951 — perfect conditions for a gentle stroll through Jacksonville’s Brentwood Park, also known as Catherine Hester McNair Park. As reported to NUFORC, a pair of sisters were traveling south through the park toward downtown when one spotted an anomaly in the sky above them: a circular patch of blackness, obscuring the twinkle of the stars.
The sisters passed it off as a passing cloud, but upon second glance, they noticed the dark circle was moving slowly, silently, and inexplicably toward the direction they had just witnessed it a minute before. They craned their heads back to take in this giant form flying lower in the sky than a typical aircraft before taking a seat on a bench near their home to enjoy the evening’s full moon rise. Upon standing to return home, one of the sisters spotted something neither could make any sense of.
In the shadows of a cluster of magnolias, a domed saucer about the size of a Volkswagen bus sat a couple of feet above the ground, resting on a set of slender rods. As the sisters watched in amazement, the dull metallic craft’s left edge began to move. Like a hydraulic awning, the rim of the craft began to open in a skyward direction. The sisters grabbed tightly to each other and tiptoed backward into their home; therefore, no account exists documenting just who or what was manning this unidentified flying object.
3. An alien is spotted in Pembroke Pines
According to the NUFORC archives, on a breezy October evening one week before Halloween in 2014, an individual in their late fifties went for a neighborhood walk with their dog around Pembroke Pines, a suburb about 25 miles north of Miami. Upon reaching a curve in the street, the person noticed a form that stopped them dead in their tracks.
Standing still and peering across 10 feet of distance, this South Floridian resident beheld a bony, pale, and hairless figure. The eyewitness held tightly to their dog’s leash but noted their pet didn’t bark or show any signs of distress at encountering this stranger.
When the unidentified being noticed the attention it was receiving from this person and their furry companion, it looked over its right shoulder to glance at the human and dog in turn. Then, it took off running down the road, away from its audience. As it ran, the eyewitness noticed its knees were facing backward. Within moments, the unidentified being began fading, the edges of its appearance slowly vanishing until no trace remained.
In reporting this bone-chilling account to NUFORC, the eyewitness noted that they refrain from using substances like alcohol and marijuana, a sobering detail that makes this sighting all the more convincing.
4. A triangle aircraft makes an appearance in Gainesville
Two separate eyewitnesses have spoken to NUFORC concerning a mysterious, triangle-shaped aircraft they encountered as kids living in Gainesville in May of 1967.
As one account details, a group of five neighbors ranging in age from around 8 to 14 were standing in the street one warm and clear night, trying to catch a glimpse of a satellite that had launched from Cape Canaveral earlier that day. They didn’t see any NASA crafts that evening, but they did spot something they’d never forget: a spacecraft shaped like an equilateral triangle, with one softly glowing red light illuminating each corner. The children ran ahead of the craft, which was flying toward them at a slow pace, soundlessly, its form just clearing the tops of the oaks and pines that cover this north central Florida town. When the kids hollered for their parents to come outside, one dad took a look at the craft and immediately returned inside, never to speak of what he saw again.
This report is confirmed in another eyewitness account given to NUFORC — the craft that flew above the children’s heads was about the size of a city bus, yet no engine sounds could be heard. When the children alerted their parents to the strange sight, the craft rose higher in the sky as it continued its southerly journey, blending in with the night sky until it became invisible.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license
UFOs May Be Evidence Of "Cryptoterrestrials" Secretly Living Among Us
UFOs May Be Evidence Of "Cryptoterrestrials" Secretly Living Among Us
Scientists say there's a one-in-10 chance that these advanced creatures actually exist.
BENJAMIN TAUB
Freelance Writer
Could advanced Earthlings be hiding their UFOs under the sea?
Image credit: TSViPhoto/Shutterstock.com
Aliens passing as humans meet an advanced reptilian race living in a subterranean kingdom. Sounds like the script of a Mork and Mindy vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover episode, but it’s actually the contents of a fantastically speculative new paper about UFOs.
Penned by researchers from Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program and Montana Technological University, the wild study – as yet not peer-reviewed – delves into the slightly insane world of "cryptoterrestrials", which encompasses a bizarre cast of “intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the moon).” According to the authors, these clandestine Earth-dwellers may in fact be responsible for many of the unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) that are typically attributed to intergalactic visitors.
Jumping down the rabbit hole, the researchers present their first category of potential UFO pilot, which they call “human cryptoterrestrials”. These are described as “a technologically advanced ancient human civilization that was largely destroyed long ago (e.g., by flood), but continued to exist in remnant form.”
Possibly lurking in volcanoes or deep beneath the ocean, these few surviving ancient superhumans were apparently exposed by Albert Einstein’s former assistant Dr Shirley Wright, who claimed that she and her famous boss were invited to inspect the “biological entities” recovered from the supposed Roswell UFO crash in 1947. Speaking in 1993, Wright said the pilots were “just humans, but an advanced form,” and that their species “reside underground on our planet.”
Other subtypes of cryptoterrestrials may include highly-advanced non-human primates or reptiles that store their aircraft beneath mountains. For instance, the Popocatepetl volcano in central Mexico and California’s Mount Shasta are both UFO sighting hotspots, and have therefore been identified as possible residences for these secret yet highly intelligent beings.
Navy personnel reports of Unidentified Submersible Objects (USOs) traveling at incredible speeds, meanwhile, have fuelled speculation that some of these cryptoterrestrials may in fact reside in the ocean. In one such report from 1987, a New Zealand frigate was supposedly followed by a 243-meter-long (800 foot) USO that traveled at a top speed of around 4,800 kilometers per hour (2,980 miles per hour).
The authors also cite wild claims by the highly controversial Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb - who, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the study - that the Moon may in fact be a cryptoterrestrial base, and houses many of these strange creatures and their incredible spacecraft. Finally, the researchers say that the engineers behind most UFOs could be hiding in plain sight, and may just be aliens that have mastered the art of blending in as humans.
Admittedly, this all pretty fanciful stuff, and much of the rationale for these claims comes from sources even more dubious than Loeb – including podcaster Joe Rogan and believers in the sunken realm of Atlantis.
Recognizing the many flaws in their proposals, the authors explain that “although this idea is likely to be regarded sceptically by most scientists, such are the nature of some UAP that we argue this possibility should not be summarily dismissed.” They also admit that they themselves consider the existence of cryptoterrestrials to be “unlikely” – but not impossible.
Based on all the available evidence regarding UFOs, the researchers rate the possibility of cryptoterrestrials actually existing as 10 percent. Most observers will probably see that figure as pretty generous.
The study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Philosophy and Cosmology, is currently available as a preprint.
Did UFOs deactivate US missiles, collect vital information on nuclear arsenals and ICBMs? What did Pentagon mandarins say?
Did UFOs deactivate US missiles, collect vital information on nuclear arsenals and ICBMs? What did Pentagon mandarins say?
Synopsis
A Congress subcommittee summoned the Pentagon mandarins and grilled them in 2022 after it was reported that UFOs deactivated ICBMs at Malmstrom Air Drive Base in Montana. The Air Drive Base witnesses were shocked to not that those top-ranking officials pleaded ignorance.
An in-depth study conducted by a group of knowledge management experts, US Air Force officials, Pentagon mandarins and other technical experts have come to the shocking conclusion that aliens have not only visited the US, but they have also conducted a recce on nuclear facilities, they have been over the nuclear bomb production facilities, their delivery systems and silos. So, there is no more the question of whether aliens exist, now the question is whether they have collected vital pieces of information and may pose a threat to the US in particular and mankind in general.
UFO eyes US nuclear arsenal?
According to 'Daily Mail', US experts have found in their decade-long in-depth study of more than 500 UFO sightings that the interest of UFOs changed over the years from nuclear facilities to their delivery system, silos and other places of strategic and technical significance.
In-depth analysis of UFO sightings
Retired US Air Drive workers sergeant, Larry Hancock, knowledge analyst affiliated with Harvard’s UFO-hunting Galileo Undertaking, Ian Porritt, together with their analysis group have found to their utter surprise that the UFOs' interests have changed over the years. They compiled their data and published them as 'UAP Exercise Sample Examine 1945-1975 Navy and Public Actions,’ in March this year.
Did UFOs deactivate US ICBMs?
Several of those UFO sightings, together with incidents at Malmstrom Air Drive Base in Montana during which Air Drive witnesses say UFOs deactivated ICBMs, have grown to be central to calls in Congress for wider declassification of army UFO knowledge.
Congress subcommittee grill Pentagon mandarins
A Congress subcommittee summoned the Pentagon mandarins and grilled them in 2022 after it was reported that UFOs deactivated ICBMs at Malmstrom Air Drive Base in Montana. The Air Drive Base witnesses were shocked to not that those top-ranking officials pleaded ignorance. They also found that the Undersecretary of Protection for Intelligence and Safety Ronald Moultrie 'did not even know anything about the incident.
What did the US experts find in their decade-long in-depth study of UFO sightings in the US?
The US experts have found in their decade-long in-depth study of more than 500 UFO sightings that the interest of UFOs changed over the years from nuclear facilities to their delivery system, silos and other places of strategic and technical significance.
What did the Pentagon officials tell Congress subcommittee about the findings?
The top-ranking officials of the Pentagon pleaded ignorance. They also found that the Undersecretary of Protection for Intelligence and Safety Ronald Moultrie 'did not even know anything about the incident.
In this episode we discuss UAP Analysis and Science with Dr. Doug Buettner, Deputy Chief Scientist at the Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC). Dr. Buettner has recently joined the board of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies and has been analyzing cases, including the NYC case we recently reviewed on this show. We also cover recent UAP headlines and look at a couple Enigma UFO sighting reports.
Dr. Buettner’s recent paper: Enhancing Space Situational Awareness to Mitigate Risk: A Single-Case Study in the Misidentification of a Recently-Launched Starlink Satellite Train as a UAP in Commercial Aviation:
Exploring the First 2024 Crop Circle at Wilton Windmill
Exploring the First 2024 Crop Circle at Wilton Windmill
The Enigmatic Crop Circle at Wilton Windmill: A 2024 Marvel
The serene landscape of Wilton Windmill in Wiltshire has once again become the stage for an intriguing phenomenon – a crop circles reported on June 12th, 2024. This year’s formation, located just east of the historic windmill, has already captivated the imagination of enthusiasts and researchers alike. With a rich history of similar formations dating back to 2004, Wilton Windmill continues to be a focal point for these mysterious occurrences.
A History of Crop Circles at Wilton Windmill
Wilton Windmill is no stranger to crop circles. Over the past two decades, this peaceful and picturesque location has witnessed several intricate formations, including notable appearances in 2020, 2016, 2011, 2010, and 2004. Each of these formations has added to the site’s reputation as a hotspot for crop circle activity, drawing visitors and researchers from all over the world.
Discovering the 2024 Crop Circle
The discovery of the 2024 crop circle is shrouded in mystery. Located in a field of lush winter barley standing at approximately 120cm tall, the formation is not visible from surrounding areas. The farmer, known for his meticulous care of the land, has ensured easy access for visitors via a wooden gate and a mown grass strip alongside the field. However, the exact path into the formation is less obvious, encouraging respectful navigation to avoid trampling the crops.
A Detailed Look at the Formation
Spanning over 50 meters in width and 100 meters in length, the 2024 crop circle is significantly larger than it appears in aerial photographs. The design comprises a series of concentric circles and additional smaller circles connected by straight lines, forming a complex geometric pattern. Interestingly, the formation does not align with the existing tramlines, and its centers are off-tramline, adding to its mysterious allure.
Unique Features and Observations
One of the most striking features of this crop circle is the number of stalks bent at the first node, creating a semi-laid effect across the formation. This bending, approximately 150° at the nodes, suggests a pattern that is not a result of regrowth but possibly due to an unknown force. The texture of the laid crop, described as soft and partly messy, reveals interesting visual effects from above, hinting at a stippled or chequered pattern.
Challenges in Documentation and Research
Despite the intrigue, documenting the formation has been challenging. Current photographs lack detail and accuracy, making it difficult to capture the full essence of the crop circle. Additionally, the secrecy surrounding reporting sources in the English crop circle community hampers verifiable research. There is a clear need for high-quality overhead photographs and detailed field studies to better understand this phenomenon.
Theories and Hypotheses
As with all crop circles, the origins of the Wilton Windmill formation are the subject of much debate. Popular theories include:
Extraterrestrial Involvement: Some believe that the precise and intricate design could be the work of extraterrestrial beings.
Human Artistry: Others propose that these formations are created by skilled human artists using tools and careful planning.
Natural Phenomena: A less widely accepted theory suggests that natural processes could be responsible for such formations.
A Call for Respectful Exploration
For those planning to visit the Wilton Windmill crop circle, it is crucial to respect the farmer’s land and follow the suggested access routes to avoid damaging the crops. By doing so, we can ensure that this mysterious and beautiful formation remains intact for further study and appreciation.
The 2024 crop circle at Wilton Windmill is a fascinating addition to the site’s history of enigmatic formations. Its complex geometry, unique physical characteristics, and the mystery of its origins make it a subject of great interest and speculation. As researchers and enthusiasts continue to explore this phenomenon, each new formation adds a layer to our understanding of these mysterious creations.
Slecht nieuws voor mensen die een reisje naar Mars wel zien zitten: het gaat je behalve een hoop geld en inspanning waarschijnlijk ook je nieren kosten. Tot die conclusie komen onderzoekers na experimenten met onder meer muizen.
Die experimenten onthullen namelijk dat langdurige ruimtevluchten de structuur en functie van de nieren veranderen en zelfs tot permanente nierschade kunnen leiden. Dat is te lezen in het blad Nature Communications.
Gezondheidsrisico’s Dat (langdurige) ruimtemissies niet zonder gezondheidsrisico’s zijn, is al veel langer bekend. Zo heeft onderzoek onder astronauten die bijvoorbeeld in het internationale ruimtestation (ISS) hebben vertoefd, al uitgewezen dat zij onder meer te maken kunnen krijgen met een verlies aan botmassa, verminderd of wazig zicht en de ontwikkeling van nierstenen.
Kosmische straling Veel van deze problemen lijken hun oorsprong te vinden in blootstelling aan kosmische straling: hoogenergetische straling afkomstig uit de ruimte. Hier op aarde beschermt het aardmagnetisch veld ons tegen die straling. Maar het internationale ruimtestation – waar veel astronauten vandaag de dag naartoe gaan en dat zich in een lage baan om de aarde bevindt – wordt slechts deels door het aardmagnetisch veld beschermd. En daardoor worden astronauten in het ISS aan veel meer kosmische straling blootgesteld, met alle gevolgen van dien.
Het roept vanzelfsprekend de vraag op wat er gebeurt als we mensen straks dieper de ruimte in sturen, naar plaatsen ver voorbij de beschermende werking van het aardmagnetisch veld, zoals Mars. Het antwoord op die vraag moeten onderzoekers ons schuldig blijven. Er zijn tot op heden slechts 24 mensen geweest die geheel zonder de bescherming van het aardmagnetisch veld aan kosmische straling zijn blootgesteld. En dat zijn de mensen die naar de maan zijn gereisd. Hun ruimtemissies duurden echter maar kort; zes tot twaalf dagen. En dus weten we niet goed wat er met bijvoorbeeld de nieren en andere organen gebeurt als mensen veel langer – zoals tijdens een minimaal 1,5 jaar durende trip naar Mars – aan kosmische straling worden blootgesteld. “We weten dat astronauten tijdens relatief korte ruimtemissies te maken kregen met een toename aan gezondheidsproblemen,” vertelt onderzoeker Keith Siew. “Wat we niet weten, is waarom die problemen ontstaan. Ook weten we niet wat er gebeurt als astronauten langer in de ruimte zijn, zoals tijdens voorgestelde missies naar Mars.”
Nieuw onderzoek Om daar wat meer duidelijkheid over te krijgen, hebben wetenschappers nu een nieuw onderzoek opgezet, waarin ze specifiek keken welke impact langdurige, verre ruimtemissies op de nieren hebben. De onderzoekers bestudeerden hiertoe de gegevens van mensen en muizen die aan meer dan 40 ruimtemissies hadden deelgenomen – waarvan de meeste naar het ISS hadden gevoerd. Ook bestudeerden ze ratten en muizen die een gesimuleerde ruimtemissie hadden meegemaakt. In zeven van deze simulaties waren de knaagdieren blootgesteld aan doses kosmische straling die vergelijkbaar zijn met de dosis die mensen voor hun kiezen krijgen tijdens een 1,5 of 2,5 jaar durende missie naar Mars.
Nierbuisjes Het onderzoek onthult dat zowel de menselijke als dierlijk nieren door de omstandigheden in de ruimte veranderen. Zo zagen de onderzoekers bijvoorbeeld dat nierbuisjes die verantwoordelijk zijn voor het handhaven van de calcium- en zoutbalans (zie kader) na minder dan een maand in de ruimte al tekenen van krimp vertonen.
Nieren zijn heel belangrijk; ze helpen het lichaam om stoffen die het nodig heeft, vast te houden en afvalstoffen kwijt te raken. Hoe gaat dat precies in zijn werk? In de nieren wordt het bloed eerst gefilterd, waarbij bepaalde stoffen al uit het bloed worden gehaald. Het gefilterde bloed gaat vervolgens door naar de nierbuisjes. Die geven water, zout en alle andere stoffen die het lichaam nodig heeft weer af aan het bloed. Het restant – bestaande uit afvalstoffen, maar ook het teveel aan bijvoorbeeld vocht en zout – vormt urine. En die urine wordt vervolgens getransporteerd naar de blaas.
Dat de nierbuisjes van ruimtereizigers krimpen, komt volgens de onderzoekers voornamelijk door het gebrek aan zwaartekracht dat in de ruimte wordt ervaren en dus niet zozeer door blootstelling aan kosmische straling. Tegelijkertijd kunnen ze op dit moment niet uitsluiten dat de kosmische straling de door een gebrek aan zwaartekracht ingegeven veranderingen in de nieren verergert of versnelt. Vervolgonderzoek moet daar meer duidelijkheid over geven.
Nierstenen Het huidige onderzoek lijkt wel wat meer inzicht te geven in waarom astronauten soms nierstenen ontwikkelen. Eerder werd dat voornamelijk in verband gebracht met een verlies aan botmassa. Daardoor zou zich meer calcium ophopen in de urine, waardoor de kans op nierstenen toeneemt. Maar het nieuwe onderzoek suggereert nu dat door ruimtemissies ingegeven veranderingen in de nieren ook een belangrijke rol spelen in de totstandkoming van ‘buitenaardse’ nierstenen.
Permanente schade Maar nierstenen zijn misschien nog niet eens de grootste tegenvaller die toekomstige Marsastronauten te verwerken krijgen. Want experimenten met muizen onthullen tevens dat een 2,5 jaar durende blootstelling aan kosmische straling kan resulteren in permanente schade aan de nieren en ervoor kan zorgen dat de nieren zelfs niet langer functioneren.
Dialyse Nu lijkt 2,5 jaar in de ruimte misschien een beetje lang. Maar als je bedenkt dat de reis naar Mars in het gunstigste geval al 9 maanden duurt – en de terugreis dus ook – en je op Mars ook nog even rond wilt kijken en wat onderzoek wilt doen, ben je toch al gauw 2,5 jaar onderweg. En het lijkt erop dat je dan toch heel anders thuiskomt dan je vertrokken bent, zo waarschuwt Siew. “Als we geen manieren vinden om de nieren te beschermen, zou ik zeggen dat als een astronaut Mars haalt, deze op de terugweg waarschijnlijk aan de dialyse moet. We weten dat de nieren pas laat tekenen van stralingsschade vertonen. Dus tegen de tijd dat die schade tot uiting komt, kan het al te laat zijn om nierfalen te voorkomen en dat kan wel eens catastrofaal zijn voor de succeskansen van ruimtemissies.”
Het is weinig opbeurend en doet misschien zelfs bijna vermoeden dat Mars dan toch te hoog gegrepen is voor ons aardbewoners. Maar die conclusie willen de onderzoekers niet trekken. Sterker nog: ze hopen juist dat hun studie de kans op een succesvolle bemande Marsmissie kan vergroten. Want de kans op succes wordt nu eenmaal groter als we op voorhand alle hindernissen in kaart brengen en zoveel mogelijk uit de weg ruimen. “Onze studie laat zien dat als je een ruimtemissie plant, de nieren er echt toe doen,” vertelt onderzoeker Stephen Walsh. De uitdaging is nu om manieren te vinden om de nieren van Marsreizigers te beschermen. “Mogelijk kunnen we technologische of farmaceutische oplossingen vinden om langdurige ruimtereizen toch mogelijk te maken.” En als dat lukt, kunnen ook mensen die bij voorkeur of noodgedwongen op aarde blijven, daar baat bij hebben. “Medicijnen ontwikkeld voor astronauten kunnen ook nuttig zijn voor gebruik op aarde,” legt Walsh uit. “Bijvoorbeeld doordat ze de nieren van kankerpatiënten beter bestand maken tegen een hogere dosis bestraling.”
Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the Marginal Revolution blog
This object has landed and been identified.
Photographer: Sam Yeh/AFP
Three months ago, following last summer’s congressional hearings on UFOs, the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office issued a 63-page report evaluating almost 80 years of evidence. Its conclusion — not altogether surprising, given the name of the office — can be summarized as follows: Not much to see here. Please move on.1
The Senate Intelligence Committee isn’t buying it. The Intelligence Authorization Act , which it passed last week, among other things calls for review of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office . The bill would also limit research into what are now called UAPs (for unidentified anomalous phenomena) unless Congress is informed and add whistleblower protections for anyone who might wish to step forward and speak their minds.
Less plausible claims about UAPs have been achieving greater circulation in part because of the efforts ofDavid Grusch, whotestified before Congresslast year about hidden alien bodies, crashed vehicles and secret conspiracies. Those claims, which primary witnesses have not corroborated, defy belief, and the ensuing controversy has helped make concerns about UAPs appear silly.
Nonetheless, the truth remains that there are systematic sightings and sensor data of fast-moving entities that the government cannot explain. You don’t have to think they are space aliens to realize that they are threats to national security. At the very least, the mere fact that some experienced military pilots entertain the more speculative alien-linked hypotheses suggests that the military is not processing information effectively. Does it make anyone feel better when reports from pilots are dismissed as crazy?
UAPs will remain an issue as long as China and Russia (and possibly other nations) remain national security threats, because the US military will always want to identify possible entrants to its airspace. No report or bureaucratic process can make those concerns go away. And so there is a kind of paralyzed equilibrium, where a very strong force — the desire to know — has met an immoveable object — a lack of knowledge.
In this sense, the frustration of the Senate Intelligence Committee — as expressed by its unanimous 17-0 vote — is understandable. The Pentagon’s report presents many of the weaker UAP allegations and notes that there is no serious evidence to back them up. And it simply dismisses some of the stronger UAP puzzles, such as the Nimitz or Gimbal incidents.
It is not until Page 26 that the report concedes: “A small percentage of cases have potentially anomalous characteristics or concerning characteristics. AARO has kept Congress fully and currently informed of its findings. AARO’s research continues on these cases.” Those sentences should have been on the first page, and then the report should have presented the evidence about those cases. If this were an undergraduate term paper, I would have given it a D+.
The chatter among insiders, some of which surely reaches senators, is that some of the data is very hard to explain. Some people, such as John Brennan, former head of the CIA, have even speculated that the available evidence might imply contact with a non-human civilization. Agree or disagree, the admission is a marker of our ignorance.
The conspiracy, to the extent there is one, is not to suppress evidence of different life forms; it is to avoid admitting the embarrassing absence of any real answers. So at the very least, the Senate Intelligence Committee deserves credit for reopening the issue.
It can be hard to wrap your head around such huge questions. People are often more concerned with dismissing the possibility of alien life than with admitting the possibility of genuine uncertainty. And since even partial evidence of aliens might scare the public too much, there is an overriding incentive to keep matters under wraps.
When I think about all this, I try to keep two questions separate. First, is there a major puzzle to account for? And second, what is the best explanation for that puzzle? It helps to focus on the first question in isolation, since we can’t seem to keep our heads on straight when it comes to the second.
By admitting that there is a real puzzle to be solved, the Senate Intelligence Committee has moved decisively to answer the first question. Once we clarify exactly what the puzzle is, maybe we’ll be able to make some progress explaining it.
Professor Garry Nolan is one of the most reputable experts examining the enigma of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). He has been studying UAP materials for many months and has made numerous astonishing statements about UFOs. His contributions lend credibility to this particular mystery, which many mainstream scientists hesitate to discuss.
Dr. Nolan works at Stanford University as a professor of Immunology. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize, which is a big honor. He is known as one of the best immunologists in the world. He has many patents and has written a lot of research papers. He has also started two companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange because of his successful inventions.
In June 2022, Australian investigative journalist Ross Coulthart interviewed Dr. Nolan and learned from him shocking UAP information that the U.S. government had been investigating for the past few years. Dr. Nolan said that one thing he is sure about is that we do not know what UAPs are: “We do know that there is something here something that I think defies explanation but that something can be studied from a scientific Viewpoint.”
Although this interview was recorded in 2022, Dr. Nolan adheres to David Grusch’s statement that the U.S. government has been lying about UAPs for the last 60-70 years. He believes the reason behind this is that the U.S. government itself does not know what they are dealing with. “Absolutely, there is a cover-up,” says Dr. Nolan. “I mean, there has been both a cover-up and a disinformation campaign to make people appear as if they were crazy.”
Coutlhart questions the potential dangers of admitting one’s thoughts on these mysterious events, to which Dr. Nolan responds, “I think it’s dangerously necessary… ignoring the physics of what these things are capable of doing.” Coutlhart further asks, “Let’s talk about ‘It.’ What is it?”
Dr. Nolan replies, “You know, I wish I knew… Whatever it is appears to be so far advanced from us that it beggars understanding.” When pressed further by Coutlhart if he believes the phenomenon to be of human origin, Dr. Nolan decisively states, “I’m sure it’s not human..I think it’s whatever it is it’s been here a long time so and certainly it’s been here longer than we’ve been civilizedbso at the very least who really owns the planet who was here first uh I’m not sure it was.”
Dr. Nolan explained he studied the brains of pilots who claimed to have encountered the phenomena. After their UAP/ UFO encounters, they all got damaged or hurt such as buzz noises in their head, got sick, etc. Most of them have had similar kinds of bad things. He showed the MRIs of some people that revealed damage in the middle of the basal ganglia – an area responsible for motor control and other core brain functions, including intuition.
Dr. Nolan said the damage should have killed those people, yet they were alive. He obtained MRIs of some prior to their encounters and they had the damage, so they were most likely born with it. “These are all so-called high-functioning people. They’re pilots who are making split-second decisions, intelligence officers in the field, etc,” he said.
Alleged UFO material
Former Pentagon UFO official Lue Elizondo shared a truly eye-opening statement in his interview with James Iandoli of Engaging The Phenomenon on June 11, 2021. They discussed crash retrievals and materials related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). Elizondo acknowledged the sensitivity of the topic and the potential consequences of discussing it openly.
However, Elizondo expressed his belief that the US government does possess exotic materials but could not provide further details due to the lack of transparency from the government. He mentioned the three layers of analysis that can be conducted on a piece of material, namely physical, chemical, and atomic or nano-level research.
Coulthart asked the Stanford professor about this research on a peculiar material known as Bismuth magnesium. Dr. Nolan described it as a layered substance consisting primarily of bismuth, with traces of lead and magnesium. Despite his assessment of its isotope ratios showing nothing out of the ordinary, he expressed his intent to study a significantly larger sample in the future. This expanded sample size would allow him to conduct more comprehensive tests, potentially shedding light on its properties.
Terahertz Transmistter
Coulthart speculated on the material’s ability to levitate when exposed to a specific waveform. While Nolan acknowledged hearing about such claims, he had not personally witnessed or tested the phenomenon. When pressed by Coulthart about whether he had attempted any experiments, Nolan clarified that the required waveform for levitation would be “Terahertz Waves,” which he had not utilized.
Coulthart highlighted that the U.S. Army possessed the necessary terahertz transmitter for potential experiments with the Bismuth magnesium material. However, Dr. Nolan remained tight-lipped about the specifics, stating he could not discuss whether such research had been conducted.
Coulthart mentioned that Tom Delonge’s To the Stars Academy (TTSA) worked with the U.S. Army to study this material using the right equipment. Coulthart wondered why the U.S. government keeps such materials if stories about flying objects are just made up. Nolan thinks there is a lot of false information out there but believes there might be real materials that we should know about. He wants the government to tell us clearly if those special materials are real or not.
In 2019, Tom DeLonge claimed that his UFO research organization had acquired “potentially exotic materials featuring properties not from any known existing military or commercial application.” “The structure and composition of these materials are not from any known existing military or commercial application,” Steve Justice, TTSA’s COO and former head of Advanced Systems at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works said in a statement. (Source)
According to the press release, some of these materials were in the possession of investigative journalist and UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe, who, in 2004, gave a presentation at the Xcon Conference regarding these materials. In her lecture, a video of which has been on the Internet for years, she suggests that the material could become a “lifting body” with the right amount of electromagnetic static and certain RF frequency. These are undoubtedly the same materials mentioned by Tom DeLonge on his Joe Rogan interview where he stated, “if you hit it with enough terahertz, it’ll float.”
In this video, Dr. David Chester, a scientist from Quantum Gravity Research, makes several references to pulsed terahertz waves. Towards the end, he mentions that pulsed terahertz waves in a metamaterial can slow down the speed of light. He further explains that this is beneficial for anti-gravity engineering. According to him, due to the way everything couples together in the equations, a reduced speed of light requires less energy to achieve the desired anti gravitic effects.
This is some really interesting information on terahertz, thanks to Observing The Anomaly.
AAWSAP commissioned 37 scientific papers that are now public. Someone FOIA’d about UAP materials being studied and DIA responded with 5 of these papers. One paper was on spintronics and another on metamaterials. TTSA bought an alleged sample of Roswell crash material and gave it to the Army to study in 2019. According to Puthoff it appeared to be a metamaterial that acts as a waveguide at the terahertz frequency. The two papers on spintronics and metamaterials also touches on creating materials that operate at this frequency and specifically that such materials would be radiation resistant and ideal for long space travel.
Hal Puthoff also discusses the sample with UFO Joe. Notice the bolded statement below. (Source)
So the answer is, we don’t, yet, really know where it came from. And it’s true that ten years ago Linda Howe provided us with a sample. And we did a lot of tests. Got electron microscope pictures and irradiated it with various gigahertz frequencies, megahertz frequencies and so on. We couldn’t make anything out of it. So it kind of went on the shelf. And it was only after this paper on meta-materials was published, we said, “Oh my gosh. The claim here, that this could have some real utility as microscopic waveguides, would actually fit the structure, you know, that we see there.” Okay, well where do we go with that?
Well, the truth of the matter is, that piece is actually pretty mangled and what you’d really like to do is say, “Okay, well let’s have a nice, clean piece of this, and let’s irradiate with terahertz frequencies, first of all, to see if it really does act as a microscopic waveguide for terahertz frequencies. And then, if that works, we’ll iradiate it with other kinds of fields and see if there are any unexpected responses and so on.” So it is still, despite the fact it gets unbelievable publicity out there, it’s still an absolutely unknown. It does range all the way from…this was a fraud of junk material sent to us, to…no, this came off the wedge of an ET craft.
We don’t know the answer to that, and the only way we are going to get something of value is to determine its properties or maybe reproduce it under nice conditions and determine its properties. So, it is still a giant question mark out there. So even though it’s, you know, it’s like…a few percent of our effort at TTSA, it’s like 99% of our criticisms (laughs). That’s just what you get in this field. That’s the way it goes. Some of us have developed very hard skins. Another question?
Puthoff elaborates further in another interview: (Source)
Well, years later, decades later actually, finally our own science moves along. We move into an area called metamaterials, and it turns out exactly this combination of materials at exactly those dimensions turn out to be an excellent microscopic waveguide for very high frequency electromagnetic radiation terahertz frequencies. So, the wavelength is 60 microns, which is a pretty small size. But it turns out because of the metamaterial aspect of this material, those bismuth layers that act as waveguides can be one twentieth the size of the wavelength, and usually when you make a waveguide it’s gotta be about the size of the wavelength. So, in fact this turned out to be a material that would propagate sub-wavelength waveguide effects. Why somebody wants to do that we still don’t know the answer to that.
Dr. Nolan is said to have a good friendship with Jacques Vallée, Kit Green, Eric Davis, and Colm Kelleher. They all came to him to analyze the UAP materials after he had developed some wonderful instruments using mass spectrometry.
“Some of the objects are nondescript, and just lumps of metal. Mostly, there’s nothing unusual about them except that everywhere you look in the metal, the composition is different, which is odd. It’s what we call inhomogeneous. That’s a fancy way of saying ‘incompletely mixed.’ The common thing about all the materials that I’ve looked at so far, and there’s about a dozen, is that almost none of them are uniform. They’re all these hodgepodge mixtures. Each individual case will be composed of a similar set of elements, but they will be inhomogeneous,” he explained.
Dr. Nolan found out that some of the fragments from the so-called UFO crash in Brazil have extraordinarily altered isotope ratios of magnesium. He explained:
“It was interesting because another piece from the same event was analyzed in the same instrument at the same time. This is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument called a nanoSIMS – Secondary Ion Mass Spec. It had perfectly correct isotope ratios for what you would expect for magnesium found anywhere on Earth. Meanwhile, the other one was just way off. Like 30 percent off the ratios. The problem is there’s no good reason humans have for altering the isotope ratios of a simple metal like magnesium. There’s no different properties of the different isotopes, that anybody, at least in any of the literature that is public of the hundreds of thousands of papers published, that says this is why you would do that. Now you can do it. It’s a little expensive to do, but you’d have no reason for doing it.”
Dr. Vallée collected purported metal from the UFO cases dated back to 1947 and brought them to Stanford University for analysis. Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford microbiologist analyzed the 3-D atomic structure of the unknown metal with a state-of-the-art Multiparameter Ion Beam Imager (MIBI) capable of discerning the precise composition of matter at the level of its isotopes.
The result might be shocking for non-believers, as when he put the sample in the vacuum chamber of the machine, he found out that their composition was unlike any other known metal on Earth.
“If you’re talking about an advanced material from an advanced civilization you’re talking about something that I’ll just call it an ultra material right it’s something which has properties where somebody is putting it together again at the atomic scale so we’re building our world with 80 elements somebody else is building the world with 253 different isotopes,” Dr. Nolan said.
Could humans be altering the isotopes in these strange objects for unknown purposes? Dr. Nolan speculates that it is possible, but proving it requires getting down to the atomic level, possibly with a super quantum interference device (SQUID). However, neither his budget nor the budgets of the groups analyzing UFO/UAP encounters have that kind of funding yet.
An international team of planetary scientists has recently discovered patches of water frost atop the Tharsis volcanoes on Mars. These volcanoes are not only the tallest on Mars but in the entire solar system.
This is the first time frost has been observed near Mars’ equator, challenging existing views of the planet’s climate.
Remnants of an ancient climate cycle
“We thought it was improbable for frost to form around Mars’ equator, as the mix of sunshine and thin atmosphere keeps temperatures during the day relatively high at both the surface and mountaintop — unlike what we see on Earth, where you might expect to see frosty peaks,” said lead author Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University who led the work as a PhD student at the University of Bern.
“What we’re seeing may be a remnant of an ancient climate cycle on modern Mars, where you had precipitation and maybe even snowfall on these volcanoes in the past.”
The study revealed that this frost is present only for a few hours after sunrise before evaporating in the sunlight. It is incredibly thin, likely about one-hundredth of a millimeter thick, roughly the width of a human hair.
Water frost on Tharsis volcanoes
Despite its thinness, the frost covers a significant area. Researchers estimate that at least 150,000 tons of water cycles between the surface and atmosphere daily during the cold seasons, equivalent to about 60 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Water frost found on Mars’ volcano Olympus Mons. Credit: ESA/NASA
The Tharsis region, where the frost was found, contains numerous towering volcanoes, some of which are one to two times the height of Earth’s Mount Everest. Olympus Mons, for example, is as wide as France.
The frost is located in the calderas of these volcanoes, large hollows at their summits formed during past eruptions. The team suggests that air circulation above these mountains creates a unique microclimate allowing the frost to form.
Significance of frost on Mars
Modeling the formation of these frosts could help scientists uncover more of Mars’ secrets, including the distribution and movement of water and the planet’s complex atmospheric dynamics.
This is crucial for future exploration and the search for potential signs of life.
Perspective view of water frost on Mars’ Olympus Mons. Credit: ESA/NASA
The frost was detected using high-resolution color images from the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter.
The findings were validated with observations from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery spectrometer on the Trace Gas Orbiter.
Tracing the signatures of frost on Mars
The researchers analyzed over 30,000 images to initially find and then confirm the frost. Valantinas filtered the images based on their location, time of day, and season to isolate spectral signatures indicative of water frost and identify where it formed on Mars’ surface.
“This notion of a second genesis, of life beyond Earth, has always fascinated me,” said Valantinas, who began analyzing the images in 2018.
As he transitions to his role at Brown, Valantinas plans to continue exploring Martian mysteries, pivoting towards astrobiology.
Working with Brown planetary scientist Jack Mustard, he aims to characterize ancient hydrothermal environments that could have supported microbial life.
Samples from these environments might be returned to Earth by the NASA-led Mars Sample Return mission.
a, Global view of Mars with white box marking the location of Olympus Mons. b, HRSC wide-angle image of Olympus Mons acquired in the early morning (LST = 7:20, Ls = 346.7°, latitude = 18.2° N, longitude = −133.2° E). The black dashed line indicates the orbit of the TGO corresponding to the images in d and e. The white box highlights the close up in c. c, Zoomed-in view of the Olympus Mons caldera. The white and blue dashed rectangles show the footprints of the CaSSIS and NOMAD-LNO observations, respectively. d, High-resolution (4.5 m pixel–1) CaSSIS colour image of frost on the caldera floor and northern rim of Olympus Mons (LST = 7:11, Ls = 344.1°). Frost is absent on the well-lit steep slopes. The blue rectangle marks the footprint of the one NOMAD-LNO observation that falls within the frost-covered area. e, NOMAD-LNO channel observation of the Olympus Mons caldera. The ice index values (Methods) indicate the presence of frost over the caldera floor (>µ + 3σ). The coloured areas on the plot indicate the confidence intervals. HRSC image ID: hn889_0000 (b,c). CaSSIS colour image ID: MY36_022332_162_0_NPB (d). NOMAD-LNO observation ID: 20221125_082524 (e). Credit: b, ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; d, ESA/TGO/CaSSIS under a Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Signs of life on Mars
Signs of life on Mars have been a subject of intense scientific investigation. Researchers have been particularly interested in the presence of water, as it’s a crucial ingredient for life.
Liquid water
Mars rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance have found evidence of ancient riverbeds, lake beds, and mineral deposits that typically form in water, suggesting that Mars once had liquid water on its surface.
Organic molecules
Additionally, organic molecules, which are the building blocks of life, have been detected in Martian soil samples.
Methane
Methane detection has also piqued interest because on Earth, methane is predominantly produced by biological processes. However, methane can also be generated by geological processes, so its presence alone does not confirm life.
The seasonal fluctuations of methane observed by the Curiosity rover suggest that the gas may be produced and destroyed through unknown processes.
Future missions
Despite these promising signs, no definitive evidence of current or past life on Mars has been found yet. Future missions aim to bring back samples to Earth for detailed analysis, which may provide clearer answers.
For centuries, scientists have grappled with the fundamental forces that govern our universe, chief among them being gravity, and more recently, dark matter.
Gravity is the invisible force that attracts objects with mass towards each other, playing a crucial role in shaping the cosmos, from the formation of galaxies to the orbits of planets.
However, as our understanding of the universe has expanded, so too have the mysteries surrounding it.
Dark matter dilemma
One of the most perplexing of these mysteries is the concept of dark matter, a hypothetical form of matter that is believed to make up a significant portion of the universe's total mass.
Unlike ordinary matter, which we can see and interact with directly, dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it invisible to telescopes and other detecting instruments.
Dark matter's existence, first suggested by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort in 1932, is inferred solely from the gravitational effects it exerts on visible matter, such as the rotation curves of galaxies and the motion of galaxies within clusters. This leads scientists to question the very nature of gravity itself.
These observations suggest that there is far more matter present in the universe than can be accounted for by visible matter alone.
Related video: New Theory Posits Gravity Can Exist Without Mass (Amaze Lab)
Despite decades of research, the exact nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest mysteries in modern physics, with scientists exploring various theories, such as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and axions, to explain its properties and behavior.
Ever-present force of gravity
Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, alongside electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. It is the force that attracts objects with mass towards each other, and it plays a crucial role in shaping the universe at all scales.
At the Earth's surface, gravity pulls objects towards the center of the planet, giving them weight and keeping them grounded.
On a larger scale, gravity governs the orbits of planets around the sun, the motion of stars within galaxies, and the formation and evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters.
According to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity arises from the curvature of space-time caused by the presence of mass and energy. The more massive an object is, the greater its gravitational influence on other objects.
Despite its ubiquity and importance, gravity remains one of the least understood forces in physics, with ongoing research seeking to reconcile it with the principles of quantum mechanics and to explain phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy.
Seeing gravity and dark matter in a new light
Taking a fresh perspective, a recent study by Dr. Richard Lieu at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) hopes to solve the puzzle by adding a new twist to this age-old problem.
Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Lieu's paper demonstrates, for the first time, how gravity can exist without mass.
This radical and thought-provoking research provides an alternative theory that could potentially mitigate the need for dark matter.
"My own inspiration came from my pursuit for another solution to the gravitational field equations of general relativity," says Lieu, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at UAH.
"This initiative is in turn driven by my frustration with the status quo, namely the notion of dark matter's existence despite the lack of any direct evidence for a whole century."
Topological defects may hold the key
Lieu contends that the "excess" gravity necessary to bind a galaxy or cluster together could be due to concentric sets of shell-like topological defects in structures commonly found throughout the cosmos.
These defects were most likely created during the early universe when a cosmological phase transition occurred, a physical process where the overall state of matter changes together across the entire universe.
"It is unclear presently what precise form of phase transition in the universe could give rise to topological defects of this sort," Lieu says.
"Topological effects are very compact regions of space with a very high density of matter, usually in the form of linear structures known as cosmic strings, although 2D structures such as spherical shells are also possible."
Massless gravity effect resembles dark matter
The shells proposed in Lieu's paper consist of a thin inner layer of positive mass and a thin outer layer of negative mass.
While the total mass of both layers is exactly zero, a star lying on this shell experiences a large gravitational force pulling it towards the center of the shell.
As gravitational force fundamentally involves the warping of space-time itself, it enables all objects to interact with each other, whether they have mass or not.
Massless photons, for example, have been confirmed to experience gravitational effects from astronomical objects.
"Gravitational bending of light by a set of concentric singular shells comprising a galaxy or cluster is due to a ray of light being deflected slightly inwards -- that is, towards the center of the large-scale structure, or the set of shells -- as it passes through one shell," Lieu notes.
He explains that as light traverses through multiple shells, the cumulative effect results in a measurable deflection that closely resembles the gravitational influence typically attributed to the presence of a significant amount of dark matter, akin to the observed velocities of stellar orbits within galaxies.
Role of massless shells in galaxy formation
The deflection of light and stellar orbital velocities are the only means by which one gauges the strength of the gravitational field in a large-scale structure, be it a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies.
Lieu's paper contends that the shells it posits are massless, suggesting that there may be no need to perpetuate the seemingly endless search for dark matter.
Questions for future research will likely focus on how a galaxy or cluster is formed by the alignment of these shells, as well as how the evolution of the structures takes place.
"Of course, the availability of a second solution, even if it is highly suggestive, is not by itself sufficient to discredit the dark matter hypothesis -- it could be an interesting mathematical exercise at best," Lieu concludes.
Lieu emphasizes that his research does not aim to address the issue of structure formation in the universe, and acknowledges that there are still open questions regarding the initial state of the shells and how to definitively confirm or refute their existence through targeted observations.
Despite these limitations, Lieu asserts that his work represents the first demonstration of the possibility of gravity existing without mass.
Dark matter vs. Massless gravity: Let the games begin
In summary, Dr. Richard Lieu's fascinating research challenges the century-old notion of dark matter and offers a revolutionary perspective on the nature of gravity.
By demonstrating how gravity can exist without mass through the concept of massless shells, Lieu's work opens up new avenues for understanding the universe and its fundamental forces.
While further investigation is necessary to confirm or refute the existence of these massless shells, this study represents a significant leap forward in our comprehension of the cosmos.
As the scientific community continues to explore the implications of Lieu's findings, we may be on the cusp of a new era in astrophysics, one that reshapes our understanding of the mysterious force that binds galaxies and clusters together.
Ontcijferd manuscript blijkt oudste geschreven tekst over “tweede mirakel” uit Jezus’ kindertijd
Het manuscript op papyrus is bewaard in een bibliotheek van Hamburg in Duitsland en vertelt een mirakel dat Jezus in zijn kindertijd zou hebben uitgevoerd.
Ontcijferd manuscript blijkt oudste geschreven tekst over “tweede mirakel” uit Jezus’ kindertijd
Een manuscript op papyrus uit de 4de of 5de eeuw, bewaard in een bibliotheek in het Duitse Hamburg, werd altijd beschouwd als een banaal document. Maar wetenschappers hebben de tekst nu ontcijferd en concluderen dat het fragment “van buitengewoon belang voor onderzoek” is.
De tekst is meer dan 1.600 jaar oud, maar had volgens wetenschappers geen grote waarde. “Er werd gedacht dat het een stuk uit een alledaags document was, zoals een privébrief of een boodschappenlijstje, omdat het handschrift zo knullig lijkt”, aldus Lajos Berkes, een van de twee onderzoekers die het manuscript hebben ontcijferd. “Eerst viel ons het woord ‘Jezus’ op in de tekst. Door een vergelijking met talloze andere gedigitaliseerde papyri, konden we het vervolgens letter voor letter ontcijferen en beseften we al snel dat het geen alledaags document kon zijn.”
De tekst blijkt te gaan over de kindertijd van Jezus Christus. Het zou de oudste bekende kopie van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas zijn, een tekst die vermoedelijk dateert van halverwege de tweede eeuw en die Jezus’ jeugd vertelt, van zijn vijfde tot twaalfde levensjaar. Zoals het zogenaamde tweede mirakel van Jezus, of het verhaal van het tot leven wekken van vogels. Jezus zou als vijfjarig kind 12 mussen van klei hebben gekneed bij een beek en die, na een berisping van zijn vader Jozef, in levende vogels hebben veranderd door in zijn handen te klappen.
Niet in de Bijbel
Het is het begin van dat mirakel dat in dertien regels is neergeschreven in Griekse letters op het stuk papyrus, dat stamt uit de 4de of 5de eeuw van het laat-antieke Egypte, toen nog een christelijke samenleving. Het is een apocrief verhaal, dat door de Kerk niet als echt wordt erkend en ook niet in het Oude Testament van de Bijbel staat omdat sommige vroegchristelijke schrijvers twijfelden aan de juistheid ervan.
De oudst bekende Griekse versie van het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas was tot nu toe een codex uit de 11e eeuw. Maar de pas ontcijferde tekst van het papyrusfragment is 600 jaar ouder. Volgens Gabriel Nocchi Macedo van de universiteit van Luik - de andere expert die de tekst mee ontcijferde - bewijst hun werk dat “het Kindheidsevangelie van Thomas oorspronkelijk in het Grieks werd geschreven, zoals al aangenomen”. Macedo en Berkes geloven dat het manuscript werd geschreven als schrijfoefening op school of in een klooster en dat de tekst die zij onderzochten de oudste is.
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'I'm a former MoD UFO researcher - and I'm convinced there's alien life out there'
Nick Pope worked in the Ministry of Defence and has been outspoken about his belief in extraterrestrial life (
Image: (Image: Getty))
'I'm a former MoD UFO researcher - and I'm convinced there's alien life out there'
Nick Pope spent two decades working for the UK Ministry of Defence and was tasked with investigating potential defence, national security, and aviation safety implications of UFO
By William Morgan / Reporter - John Mac Ghlionn
A former UK Ministry of Defence employee who spent two decades investigating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is confident that alienlife exists. Nick Pope's role in the ministry was crucial, as he was tasked with examining the potential defence, national security, and aviation safety implications of UFO sightings.
After leaving government service, Pope became a well-known figure in the media, regularly appearing on television news programmes and documentaries. His expertise has not only educated audiences but also influenced popular culture, as seen by his work as a consultant and spokesperson for various UFO and extra-terrestrial-themed films.
Such is his influence that he's been dubbed "the real-life Fox Mulder," a clear reference to the X-Files, one of the most popular sci-fi shows of the 90s. Pope is convinced that there is life beyond Earth, telling Express US: "I'm a firm believer that there's life 'out there.'".
Pope remains "open-minded about extra-terrestrial visitation." He said: "Because the laws of physics and chemistry seem to be constant in the observable universe, so unless we thought there was something almost literally magic about Earth, there seems to be no good reasons why life shouldn't arise elsewhere."
'There seems to be no good reasons why life shouldn't arise elsewhere'
( Image: Getty Images)
"My view is that there's some intriguing evidence in some of the better quality UFO cases and testimony, but that we don't have definitive proof."
The spread of conspiracy theories and the close association between belief in extra-terrestrial life and a conspiratorial mindset often leads to scepticism.
Nick Pope, with his extensive experience in the field, provides unique insights. The idea that governments are hiding the truth about UFOs is fundamental to many conspiracy theories, and according to Pope, this suspicion isn't entirely without merit.
Historically, governments have indeed been secretive about their UFO investigations, which has only served to ignite speculation and distrust.
This distrust is further fuelled by the occasional release of information that is either incomplete or heavily redacted, resulting in more questions than answers. When the government releases documents with large sections obscured, it inevitably makes people wonder what is being concealed.
This opacity is fertile ground for the growth of conspiracy theories.
Humans have wondered if the government is covering up an alien conspiracy for decades
( Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Moreover, the psychological allure of these theories cannot be underestimated. Belief in a vast conspiracy can provide a sense of order and an explanation for the inexplicable.
In terms of UFOs, it offers a potential answer to whether we are alone in the universe and, if not, why the truth might be kept hidden from us.
The internet and social media have turned up the volume on these concerns, creating spaces where individuals with similar views can echo and bolster their beliefs. Online forums are hotbeds for the quick spread and debate of UFO sightings and theories, often bypassing critical examination, leading to echo chambers ripe for conspiracy theories.
This scepticism isn't solely aimed at governments but also at scientific bodies. When scientists dismiss UFO reports without in-depth probes, it reinforces the idea that there's a concerted effort to hide the truth.
People report seeing thousands of UFOs every year
( Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
Nick Pope weighs in: "part of what makes conspiracy theories appealing is likely psychological, and ties in with our search for meaning. In the UK, for example, many people struggled to accept that Princess Diana could be killed in such a trivial way as a car accident; they felt there had to be something more. Yet, the driver had been drinking, the car was traveling on a difficult road at high speed, and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt."
Discussing common misconceptions about conspiracy theories, Pope points out that "the idea that the government is a monolithic, all-powerful entity acting like a supervillain in a James Bond movie," is off the mark. "The government," he continues, "is really just a bunch of people - generally speaking, trying to do the best they can."
The most outrageous theory he's ever encountered?
Without a doubt, it's Project Blue Beam. This theory suggests that there's a secret plan to simulate the Second Coming or an alien invasion using a combination of Hollywood-style special effects, holographic projections, and psychological warfare techniques.
The conspiracy theory posits that the Deep State or the Illuminati would use the ensuing chaos to establish a New World Order. Pope is particularly intrigued by false flag alien invasion theories, especially since he's been accused of being part of such plots!
"The accusation," he notes with a hint of humour, "is that I'm still secretly working for the government and that my role is to help prepare for the operation by using my mainstream news media platform to ramp up the threat narrative about UFOs. It's not true, of course, but that's the thing about conspiracy theories - my denial just generates responses along the lines of 'well he would say that, wouldn't he?'".
Three witnesses, including a Department of Defense contractor, report seeing an indigo UFO (Picture: MUFON/Powell, Leech)
A Pentagonengineer claims he had an encounter with an electric blue ‘barbell’UFO.
Just over 10 years ago, on August 28, 2013, three witnesses reported that they spotted a UFO half the length of a football field, which glowed an eerie ‘indigo blue’.
The claim sparked a decade of research.
The US Department of Defense contractor said he and two other witnesses observed the phenomenon in a seven-minute encounter on an old logging road in southwestern Ontario, Canada.
According to Mail Online, at around 9.40pm, the three witnesses were returning from a black bear hunting expedition.
The Defense contractor, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘The very first thing that was intense was just how bright this thing was.
‘It was spectacular. Having been involved with optical systems in the past, we’re talking about a vehicle that looked like a stadium lighting scenario – it was brilliant.’
Mr Powell and Mr Leech’s report showed the perfect pulsation function from the UFO(Picture: MUFON/ Powell, Leech)
He claimed the object flew slowly above the tree line, and described ‘an indigo plasma that covered most of the craft’, which was bone-shaped or barbell-shaped and extended around 170-feet long, 60-feet wide and 20-feet tall.
‘The craft rotated slowly around its centre while emitting an electrical spark-like shower, always opposite of the direction of travel,’ the Defense contractor said, ‘but without a specific origin point.’
The contractor said he first attempted to film the UFO with two devices that he was carrying, a Motorola phone and a Sony HD camera, but the devices malfunctioned, acting like they were in a ‘boot sequence’.
To get a closer look, he observed the UFO through his rifle sight, and said the light being emitted looked more like a laser light.
When he tried to capture the UFO on his camera, only static would appear.
The case’s first investigators told Mail Online that the electronic data from the filmed footage showed ‘white noise’ pulses in the video that occur in one-second loops identical to the strobing light from the UFO itself.
The Pentagon has dealt with a lot of UFO claims (Picture: Hisham Ibrahim)
The case caught the attention of Robert Powell, a UFO investigator, and his co-investigator Phil Leech, a retired former police detective, who have spent a decade looking into what happened. They conducted the investigation for the civilian group, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Mr Powell told Mail Online that UFO cases with this shape are so rare only around ‘50 to 60 cases’ exist ‘throughout history'.
At first, they looked at the static footage through an oscilloscope – a device that tracks changes in electrical voltages, frequency, and other specs to troubleshoot electronics.
This ‘interference’ matched the rhythm of the UFO’s light show, and, according to them, this ‘perfect pulsation function’ was behaving like a very large version of a normal alternating current (A/C) motor.
By using their own experience at producing plasma at a smaller scale, the investigators said that ‘a minimum of 160MW (160 million watts)’ of power would be needed to surround the craft in plasma’, which he suspects is the UFO’s propulsion system.
However, Mr Powell is aware that without proof, the whole case is still anecdotal, and he told Mail Online he is still in contact with the witness, attempting to get the raw footage copy of the video.
According to findings in a recent study, UFO witnesses may not be prone to misperceptions or related cognitive factors but instead may possess specific personality traits that increase their likelihood of encountering such phenomena.
Clinical Psychologist Dr. Daniel Stubbings from Cardiff Metropolitan University and his team found there are numerous factors that contribute to an individual thinking they witnessed what the U.S. Department of Defense now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Their study, published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, examines the big five personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, along with schizotypy traits (behaviors that resemble schizophrenia), to help determine if UAP experiencers could be distinguished from those who had not reported seeing a UAP.
THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS: WHAT ARE THEY?
In the 1970s, two research teams—one led by Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae of the National Institutes of Health and the other by Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Oregon—found that most human character traits can be explained by five dimensions. Surveys of thousands of individuals uncovered these mostly distinct traits:
Neuroticism: Emotional stability; individuals with high scores are characterized by anxiety, inhibition, moodiness, and lower self-assurance.
Extroversion: Encompasses cheerfulness, initiative, and communicativeness.
Openness:Fond of innovation and displays of creativity.
Agreeableness: Dictates how they interact with others. Other traits include being friendly, empathetic, and warm.
Conscientiousness:Gauges a person’s level of organization. Individuals with high scores are motivated, disciplined, and trustworthy.
THE FINDINGS
Dr. Stubbings’ experiment involved 206 participants, including 103 who said they had witnessed or self-reported seeing a UAP. The team analyzed personality traits to see how participants naturally grouped together.
The study consisted of three groups. Group one had average traits, whereas the second group, designated the Neurotic/Schizotypy group, was high on neuroticism and schizotypy traits. The last controlled group, labelled O-ACE, was found to have high openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion but low neuroticism and schizotypy traits.
“These were the groups that ‘emerged’ out of the data analysis,” Dr. Stubbings told The Debrief. “The latent profile analysis demonstrated these three patterns of personality profiles. Prior research looked at correlation and regression (predictive patterns) but not a latent (underlying) profile.”
“This was a new finding,” Stubbings told The Debrief.
The study concluded that the third group, O-ACE, was more likely to see UAPs. Over the years, stigma and stereotypes have helped create narratives that people who see UAPs are more than likely emotionally reactive; in other words, they may display neurotic behavior and are prone to perceptual and cognitive abnormalities.
However, the recent data does not appear to support this narrative. Instead, Dr. Stubbings and his coauthors state in their paper that the “descriptive UAP accounts by the general public were similar to the descriptions provided by military witnesses.”
Stubbings, when asked why people with high conscientiousness see UFOs, said it is difficult to answer such a question based on the current data in-hand.
“Our data indicates that there is a small statistical relationship, but further research should explore why that relationship exists,” Stubings told The Debrief. “But my guess is that people who are high in conscientiousness might be more willing to admit to themselves that they have seen something and believe it is the right thing to do to admit it.”
However, Stubbings notes that conscientiousness alone is probably not everything in this equation, but instead, combinations of other variables—specifically low scores in Neuroticism and higher scores in Openness, also contribute.
“We need further research to explore the nuances of these personality factors in the emergence of both belief and experience.”
Dr. Stubbings also noted that “only 28 percent of participants reported their sightings anywhere, and 14 percent used a UFO reporting organization, which suggests that events are vastly underreported.” His paper also suggested that stigma and a lack of proper reporting avenues were the main obstacles impacting their willingness to report their sightings.
Dr. Stubbings initiated his research by referencing an older academic paper on UAPs published in the Applied Cognitive Psychology Journal in 2011, which found that certain personality factors were predictors of an individual’s belief in UFOs.
“This is relevant to the UFO topic more broadly because what people perceive and recall tends to be in line with their beliefs,” Stubbings told The Debrief. “If beliefs can be predicted by personality factors, then it supports the notion that it is a particular kind of person who is more prone to belief in UAPs, and in turn, they end up seeing and recalling what they believe to be true.”
“In other words, people see UAP not because they are there but because of the conviction of their beliefs, which are influenced by their personality dispositions.
“So the idea was born to change the dependent variable of ‘belief’ to ‘have you had a sighting.’ Those who believe in UFOs/UAP might not have the same characteristics [as] those that report to have seen what they believe to be a UAP.”
Fundamentally, Stubbings says that in addition to understanding the kinds of personality traits and psychological drivers that may contribute to a person’s likelihood of observing and reporting UAP, scientists need to be engaging in dialogue about the assessment, diagnosis, formulation, and treatment of mental health distress in individuals who claim to have observed UAP or even had direct contact with purported NHI.
“This topic is one of the most fascinating areas,” Stubbings told The Debrief, “and I believe other scientists from around the world need to help address this mystery.”
Stubbings and his colleagues Sophie Ali and Alexander Wong’s new paper, “Who Sees UFOs? The Relationship Between Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Sightings And Personality Factors,” appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.
NASA Returns Voyager 1 Spacecraft to Normal Science Operations
NASA Returns Voyager 1 Spacecraft to Normal Science Operations
Voyager 1is conducting science operations for the first time following a technical issue that arose in November 2023.
Voyager 1 launched from Florida’s NASA Kennedy Space Center on September 5, 1977, 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. This artist concept depicts one of NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on November 14, 2023, even though the mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally.
They partially resolved the issue in April, 2024 when they prompted Voyager 1 to begin returning engineering data, which includes information about the health and status of the spacecraft.
On May 19, they executed the second step of that repair process and beamed a command to the spacecraft to begin returning science data.
Two of the four science instruments returned to their normal operating modes immediately.
Two other instruments required some additional work, but now, all four are returning usable science data.
The four instruments study plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles.
This infographic highlights NASA’s Voyager mission’s major milestones, including visiting the four outer planets and exiting the heliosphere, or the protective bubble of magnetic fields and particles created by the Sun.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
The twin Voyager probes are NASA’s longest-operating mission and the only spacecraft ever to explore interstellar space.
Launched in 1977, both probes traveled to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 1 moving faster and reaching them first.
Together, they unveiled much about the Solar System’s two largest planets and their moons.
Voyager 1 is more than 24 billion km (15 billion miles) from Earth, and Voyager 2 is more than 20 billion km (12 billion miles) from the planet.
The probes will mark 47 years of operations later this year.
“Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft to directly sample interstellar space, which is the region outside the heliosphere — the protective bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind created by the Sun,” the NASA engineers said.
“While Voyager 1 is back to conducting science, additional minor work is needed to clean up the effects of the issue.”
“Among other tasks, we will resynchronize timekeeping software in the spacecraft’s three onboard computers so they can execute commands at the right time.”
“We will also perform maintenance on the digital tape recorder, which records some data for the plasma wave instrument that is sent to Earth twice per year.”
Unveiling the Mysteries of the Dark Side of the Moon: Alien Activity and NASA Cover-Up
Unveiling the Mysteries of the Dark Side of the Moon: Alien Activity and NASA Cover-Up
The far side of the moon, often shrouded in mystery, has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories and speculative claims, particularly surrounding alleged alien activity and NASA cover-ups. This article delves into these claims, examining the evidence presented by astronauts, whistleblowers, and declassified documents.
The Beginning of Lunar Exploration
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy set an ambitious goal for the United States: landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. This declaration intensified the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, each striving to claim lunar supremacy.
Early Lunar Missions and Mysterious Discoveries
By 1965, lunar probes from both superpowers had begun sending back the first images of the moon’s far side, revealing it to be a crater-filled, barren landscape. However, some claims suggest these initial observations might have missed crucial details. Astronaut Michael Collins, while orbiting the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, reported eerie sounds during periods of radio silence when he was out of contact with Earth. Similarly, the crew of Apollo 10 described hearing “whistling space music” while on the far side of the moon.
Unexplained Phenomena and Whistleblower Testimonies
Several Apollo missions recorded unexplained phenomena. For instance, transcripts from Apollo 11 allegedly include Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin discussing unidentified structures on the moon’s surface, although these transcripts are unofficial and likely fabricated. Despite this, numerous whistleblowers have come forward with startling claims.
Carl Wolf, a technician at NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Project in 1965, reported seeing photographs of structures on the moon’s far side, including mushroom-shaped buildings and towers. After revealing these findings, Wolf’s life ended mysteriously in an unsolved accident. Dr. Ken Johnston, another NASA contractor, claimed to have seen photos of alien cities and ancient machinery. Despite being dismissed by NASA, Johnston held onto one set of pictures, though their authenticity is debated.
Donna Hare, who had secret clearance at NASA, claimed that UFO images were routinely airbrushed out of photographs. Her allegations, while compelling, are supported only by her testimony. Similarly, Robert Dean, a former US Army Major, asserted that NASA had destroyed rolls of film depicting cigar-shaped UFOs and large structures on the moon.
Anomalous Structures and Theories
Photographic evidence from lunar missions has fueled speculation about artificial structures on the moon. For example, the Zan object in the Zan crater has been cited as a possible giant spacecraft. Overlapping and enhancing images of the crater reveal censored sections, leading some to theorize about hidden alien bases.
Other anomalies include giant footprints, pyramids, obelisks, and mile-high towers. The Chinese moon rover’s 2021 photo of a “mystery hut” further sparked curiosity. NASA often attributes these phenomena to pareidolia, the tendency to see familiar objects in random patterns, but such explanations do little to satisfy conspiracy theorists.
The Moon’s Strategic and Mysterious Nature
Before the Apollo missions, both the US and Soviet Union had military plans for the moon. Project Horizon, an American initiative, aimed to establish a lunar base. However, by 1972, both nations had ceased their lunar programs. Some speculate that an unspoken agreement between the superpowers might have been influenced by an external force, possibly extraterrestrial.
Renewed Lunar Interest and Future Prospects
Interest in the moon has surged in recent years. China’s Chang’e 6 mission collected samples from the far side of the moon, and NASA’s Artemis 3 mission aims to send astronauts to the lunar South Pole by 2026. Other countries and private companies are also planning lunar missions, indicating a renewed space race.
VIDEO:
The Dark Side of the Moon | Alien Activity and the NASA Cover-Up by The Why Files
The moon’s far side continues to intrigue and mystify. While hard evidence of alien activity remains elusive, the combination of unexplained phenomena, whistleblower testimonies, and ongoing interest in lunar exploration ensures that the mysteries of the moon will captivate our imaginations for years to come. Whether these mysteries will be unraveled or remain the stuff of speculation is a question that future missions may help to answer.
A radio telescope on its way to the Moon captured a “selfie” of our planet’s radio waves, updating a vintage 1990s science experiment by Carl Sagan.
The ROLSES instrument rode to the Moon aboard Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander in February 2024, which arrived in a crater near the lunar South Pole in February. Along the way, the team measured the spectrum of radio waves rippling out into space from Earth. It’s not possible yet to decipher all that radio traffic, but it provides an electronic fingerprint of a civilization busily chattering over the airwaves — and leaking that chatter out into space. University of Colorado physicist Jack Burns and his colleagues hope to compare Earth’s radio fingerprint to their observations of other worlds from a telescope they plan to build on the far side of the Moon.
One of the antennas on the ROLSES instrument deployed partway to the Moon, so Burns and his colleagues decided they might as well take some measurements of Earth — and it’s a good thing they did, because they only got about 20 minutes’ worth of data once ROLSES landed on the Moon.
INTUITIVE MACHINES AND JACK BURNS
EVERYTHING GETS A REBOOT THESE DAYS
Along the way to the Moon, ROLSES repeated a famous Carl Sagan experiment from 1993: It captured the spectrum of radio waves pouring from our planet out into space. What they measured was an electronic fingerprint of all the wavelengths of radio broadcasts that passing aliens could see if they, too, pointed a radio spectrometer at Earth. They hope the data will give them a more detailed idea of what to look for in radio data from planets around nearby stars.
In 1993, Carl Sagan used the Galileo spacecraft — then on its way to Jupiter — to measure Earth’s atmospheric composition and radio signature.
“The presence of narrow-band, pulsed, amplitude-modulated radio transmission seems uniquely attributable to intelligence,” wrote Sagan in his 1993 paper in the journal Nature. “These observations constitute a control experiment for the search for extraterrestrial life by modern interplanetary spacecraft.” In other words, Sagan hoped that an alien’s-eye view of Earth from Galileo could help astronomers interpret what they saw in observations of planets orbiting other stars. If we could see what the signs of life on Earth looked like from a distance, then we might recognize them if we ever saw them on a distant world.
Astronomical instruments have come a long way since 1993, both literally and figuratively. With the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers are finally able to measure how light filters through the atmospheres of planets like the TRAPPIST-1 worlds as they pass in front of their stars. And the radio spectrometer on ROLSES could measure Earth’s radio output in much more detail than the Galileo spacecraft’s instruments could.
“We can re-do the Sagan experiment from 1993 with a much improved radio spectrum,” says Burns in a presentation at the 244th American Astronomical Society conference on Monday.
In case you ever wondered what Earth’s radio signature looks like from space, this is it.
JACK BURNS ET AL.
MAKING THE MOST OF AN AWKWARD SITUATION
ROLSES was meant to spend about 8 days gathering data about how much radio energy from Earth, and the Sun, reaches the southern pole of the Moon. But Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Lander had a difficult landing in Malapert A crater, and it came to rest with one broken leg, leaning on a nearby slope at about a 30-degree angle. That left the lander’s high-gain antenna pointed at the lunar surface, instead of back toward Earth.
“We were supposed to have 8 days worth of data. We ended up with an hour and a half to 2 hours worth of data,” says Burns.
ROLSES spent only about 20 minutes doing radio astronomy from the surface of the Moon — still a major first and (Burns and others hope) a precursor to full-scale radio observatories on the far side of the Moon. Because the observation time was so short, the data is more noise than signal. The rest, about an hour and a half of much clearer data, was collected on the way to the Moon, when ROLSES wasn’t supposed to have been up and running at all, which underscores how much of spaceflight still relies on being able to improvise quickly.
This artist’s illustration shows LuSEE-Night, ROLSES’s future successor on the Moon.
FIREFLY AEROSPACE
WHAT’S NEXT?
Burns and his colleagues have ambitious plans for their hour and a half of data from ROLSES.
“As a control experiment, what we're looking forward to is comparing this Earth spectrum to ones of nearby exoplanets that we hope to observe with our FARSIDE array of radio telescopes,” says Burns. FARSIDE would be an array of 128 radio antennas arranged over about 6 square miles of the Moon and connected to a base station. It’s received some design funding from NASA so far.
The FARSIDE antennas will listen for faint signals from the Cosmic Dark Ages, but Burns also wants to use them to scan about 2,000 nearby star systems for signs of intelligent, radio-using life — and compare those signals with the ones Galileo and ROLSES measured coming from Earth.
Burns and his colleagues are also working with Texas-based Lunar Resources, INc. to design a 5-square-mile array of radio antennas sprawling across a lunar plain. Picture something like an old-fashioned television antenna; now picture roughly 100,000 of them, lined up end-to-end in a series of zig-zags. Combined, those antennas will act as one giant radio receiver.
Picture something like an old-fashioned television antenna; now picture roughly 100,000 of them, lined up end-to-end in a series of zig-zags.
The concept competing with Farview is basically a lunar version of the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory (RIP) called the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope, a semicircle of wire mesh about a third of a mile wide, lining the bottom of a 1.9-mile-wide crater on the Moon. Both projects have received some funding from NASA for development and design, but neither is fully funded for actually building or launch.
Before either of those ambitious projects actually break lunar ground, two more small radio telescopes will launch to the Moon in 2026. One is a second, upgraded version of ROLSES. The second is LuSEE-Night, which, if everything goes to schedule, will land on the far side of the Moon in January 2026 and deploy a pair of spring-loaded, 20-foot-long radio antennas. The little telescope will test whether the far side of the Moon is really as good a vantage point for radio astronomy as everyone hopes. It will also give us our first, albeit low-resolution, glimpse of the galaxy at the low radio frequencies we can't see from Earth.
The Inner and Outer Milky Way Aren’t the Same Thickness, and that’s Surprising
At first glance, the universe and night sky seem largely unchanging. The reality is very different, even now, a gas cloud is charging toward the Milky Way Galaxy and is expected to crash into us in 27 million years. A team of astronomers hoping to locate the exact position of the expected impact site have been unsuccessful but have accidentally measured the thickness of the Milky Way! Analysing radio data, they have been able to deduce the thickness of the inner and outer regions and discovered a dramatic difference between the two.
The team of astronomers from the US National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Observatory were attempting to study the Smith Cloud. This high velocity cloud of hydrogen gas is located in the constellation Aquila at a distance of somewhere between 36,000 and 45,000 light years. Previous studies from the Green Bank Observatory have shown the cloud contains at least 1 million times the mass of the Sun and measures 9,800 light years long by 3,300 light years wide.
A false-color image of the Smith Cloud made with data from the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). New analysis indicates that it is wrapped in a dark matter halo. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF
The plan was simple enough, to observe the spot where the cloud is currently interacting with the Milky Way. The observation is tricky enough though as the cloud is on the far side of the Milky Way and there is a lot of stuff in the way! The team, led by Toney Minter used the 20m Green Bank Telescope to search for dust and emissions from hydroxyl molecules (composed of a hydrogen and oxygen molecule.) What the team expected to see was a difference in composition in the region of the Milky Way interacted with the cloud which, should have very little dust and hydroxyl molecules. Clouds in the Milky Way tend to have both so a difference should be detectable.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Credit: Jay Young.
Minter was candidly open about the study joking ‘I knew there was a low probability that I’d find what I was looking for—and I didn’t,. But this is all part of the scientific process. You learn from what you DO and DON’T find.’
Disappointingly the team did not detect any differences in composition but what they did find was equally as interesting. The study revealed information about the Milky Way itself and the structure of its inner regions. Minter and his team had to look through the Milky Way’s inner regions for their study and what they were able to determine was the thickness of the layer of molecules in the inner Galaxy. The information enabled them to deduce the scale height of the clouds of molecular gas in the inner Milky Way. The results showed that the layer of molecules in the inner region measured 330 light years thick while those in the outer parts measured twice as much, around 660 light years.
The discovery still leaves questions unanswered. The observation certainly shows the difference in thickness between the inner and outer regions but it doesn’t give any clue as to what is driving the difference. Further observations are now required to follow up on this discovery to try and model the underlying process. Of course one other question remains unanswered and that is the nature and mechanics of the Smith Cloud and how it will impact our own Galaxy. Far from being disappointed though, Minter stated ‘That’s why astronomy is exciting, our knowledge is always evolving’
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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 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
