If One of These Stars Explodes the Radioactive Atoms Could Decimate Life on Earth

Most of these cataclysms are remote, but when they occur closer to home, they can pose a threat to life on Earth.

by Chris Impey and The Conversation

 

NASA

The Sun will eventually die by growing large and then condensing into a type of star called a white dwarf. But stars more than eight times more massive than the Sun die violently in an explosion called a supernova.

Supernovae happen across the Milky Way only a few times a century, and these violent explosions are usually remote enough that people here on Earth don’t notice. For a dying star to have any effect on life on our planet, it would have to go supernova within 100 light years from Earth.

I’m an astronomer who studies cosmology and black holes.

In my writing about cosmic endings, I’ve described the threat posed by stellar cataclysms such as supernovae and related phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts. Most of these cataclysms are remote, but when they occur closer to home, they can pose a threat to life on Earth.

The death of a massive star

Very few stars are massive enough to die in a supernova. But when one does, it briefly rivals the brightness of billions of stars. At one supernova per 50 years, and with 100 billion galaxies in the universe, somewhere in the universe a supernova explodes every hundredth of a second.

The dying star emits high energy radiation as gamma rays. Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths much shorter than light waves, meaning they’re invisible to the human eye. The dying star also releases a torrent of high-energy particles in the form of cosmic rays: subatomic particles moving at close to the speed of light.

Supernovae in the Milky Way are rare, but a few have been close enough to Earth that historical records discuss them. In 185 A.D., a star appeared in a place where no star had previously been seen. It was probably a supernova.

Observers around the world saw a bright star suddenly appear in 1006 A.D. Astronomers later matched it to a supernova 7,200 light years away. Then, in 1054 A.D., Chinese astronomers recorded a star visible in the daytime sky that astronomers subsequently identified as a supernova 6,500 light years away.

Johannes Kepler observed the last supernova in the Milky Way in 1604, so in a statistical sense, the next one is overdue.

At 600 light years away, the red supergiant Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion is the nearest massive star getting close to the end of its life. When it goes supernova, it will shine as bright as the full Moon for those watching from Earth, without causing any damage to life on our planet.

Radiation damage

If a star goes supernova close enough to Earth, the gamma-ray radiation could damage some of the planetary protection that allows life to thrive on Earth. There’s a time delay due to the finite speed of light. If a supernova goes off 100 light years away, it takes 100 years for us to see it.

Astronomers have found evidence of a supernova 300 light-years away that exploded 2.5 million years ago. Radioactive atoms trapped in seafloor sediments are the telltale signs of this event. Radiation from gamma rays eroded the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from the Sun’s harmful radiation. This event would have cooled the climate, leading to the extinction of some ancient species.

Safety from a supernova comes with greater distance. Gamma rays and cosmic rays spread out in all directions once emitted from a supernova, so the fraction that reach the Earth decreases with greater distance. For example, imagine two identical supernovae, with one ten times closer to Earth than the other. Earth would receive radiation that’s about a hundred times stronger from the closer event.

A supernova within 30 light-years would be catastrophic, severely depleting the ozone layer, disrupting the marine food chain, and likely causing mass extinction. Some astronomers guess that nearby supernovae triggered a series of mass extinctions 360 to 375 million years ago. Luckily, these events happen within 30 light years, only every few hundred million years.

When neutron stars collide

But supernovae aren’t the only events that emit gamma rays. Neutron star collisions cause high-energy phenomena ranging from gamma rays to gravitational waves.

Left behind after a supernova explosion, neutron stars are city-size balls of matter with the density of an atomic nucleus, so 300 trillion times denser than the Sun. These collisions created many of the gold and precious metals on Earth. The intense pressure caused by two ultradense objects colliding forces neutrons into atomic nuclei, which creates heavier elements such as gold and platinum.

A neutron star collision generates an intense burst of gamma rays. These gamma rays are concentrated into a narrow jet of radiation that packs a big punch.

If the Earth were in the line of fire of a gamma-ray burst within 10,000 light years, or 10% of the diameter of the galaxy, the burst would severely damage the ozone layer. It would also damage the DNA inside organisms’ cells at a level that would kill many simple life forms like bacteria.

That sounds ominous, but neutron stars do not typically form in pairs, so there is only one collision in the Milky Way about every 10,000 years. They are 100 times rarer than supernova explosions. Across the entire universe, there is a neutron-star collision every few minutes.

Gamma-ray bursts may not hold an imminent threat to life on Earth, but over very long time scales, bursts will inevitably hit the Earth. The odds of a gamma-ray burst triggering a mass extinction are 50% in the past 500 million years and 90% in the 4 billion years since there has been life on Earth.

By that math, it’s quite likely that a gamma-ray burst caused one of the five mass extinctions in the past 500 million years. Astronomers had argued that a gamma-ray burst caused the first mass extinction 440 million years ago when 60% of all marine creatures disappeared.

A recent reminder

The most extreme astrophysical events have a long reach. Astronomers were reminded of this in October 2022 when a pulse of radiation swept through the solar system and overloaded all of the gamma-ray telescopes in space.

It was the brightest gamma-ray burst to occur since human civilization began. The radiation caused a sudden disturbance to the Earth’s ionosphere, even though the source was an explosion nearly 2 billion light years away. Life on Earth was unaffected, but the fact that it altered the ionosphere is sobering – a similar burst in the Milky Way would be a million times brighter.

• This article was originally published on The Conversation by Chris Impey at the University of Arizona. Read the original article here.

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09-09-2024 om 22:20 geschreven door peter  

If This Asteroid Hits Earth then we will all Die | NASA Warns About Asteroid coming in 2038

Hera will investigate further

Now, who's going to clean up this mess? Enter ESA's Hera spacecraft. Scheduled for launch this October, Hera will reach Dimorphos for a close-up "crash scene investigation," following the DART mission's impact.

"The DART impact offers a rare opportunity to investigate the delivery of ejecta to other celestial bodies, thanks to the fact that we know the impact location and that this impact was observed by the Italian LICIACube deployed from DART as well as by Earth-based observers," said ESA Hera mission scientist and co-author of this exciting development, Michael Kueppers.

Will DART debris reach Earth?

To understand how the debris from the Dimorphos impact might reach us, it's essential to assess its speed.

"Our results indicate the possibility of ejecta reaching the gravitational field of Mars in 13 years for launch velocities around 450 m/s, while faster ejecta launched at 770 m/s could reach its vicinity in just seven years," explained Eloy Peña-Asensio, lead author of the study.

"Particles moving above 1.5 km/s could reach the Earth-Moon system in a similar timescale."

However, whether the debris would indeed make it to Mars or Earth is subject to several factors. In essence, the location of the debris in the impact plume plays a deciding role.

A human-made meteor shower

"In the coming decades, meteor observation campaigns will be crucial in determining whether fragments of Dimorphos, resulting from the DART impact, will reach our planet. If this happens, we will witness the first human-made meteor shower," noted Peña-Asensio.

As for the consequential meteoroids, the largest ones would likely be about the size of a softball. These larger particles would burn up in Earth's atmosphere. However, they might manage to slip through the thinner Martian atmosphere.

However, it's the smaller particles that move at higher speeds which stand a chance to reach the Earth's atmosphere. But there's no need to panic. We have plenty of time and resources to track the debris and ensure our safety.

Significance of the DART mission

The significance of the DART impact is not solely about potential meteor showers or altered space debris routes. It's also about the human spirit of curiosity, exploration, and conquering new frontiers.

"Our accurate knowledge of the impact site and impactor properties in terms of size, mass, and velocity plus the observations of the ejecta are what allowed us to estimate the long-term fate of the material leaving the Didymos system," said Michael Kueppers.

Hera, named after the Greek goddess of marriage, is expected to begin its investigation of the asteroid pair in late 2026. According to ESA, the spacecraft will perform high-resolution mapping of Dimorphos, providing extremely valuable information for future asteroid deflection missions and science.

DART Impact

The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos was taken by the DRACO imager on NASA's DART mission at a distance of about 7 miles (12 kilometers) and 2 seconds before impact. 

NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

09-09-2024 om 21:51 geschreven door peter  

We all know that the Earth is getting hotter — but new research indicates that it may be warming even faster than scientists had predicted.

What's happening?

Scientists from NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research analyzed sediment from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications and reported by SciTechDaily. The researchers used a newly developed method to derive past atmospheric carbon dioxide content and compare CO₂ levels in a single location over the past 15 million years.

Their results indicated that doubling atmospheric CO₂ levels would increase the planet's average temperature by 13 to 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The temperature rise we found is much larger than the 2.3 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (4.1 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) that the U.N. climate panel, [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], has been estimating so far," said the study's first author, Caitlyn Witkowski.

Why are CO2 levels so important?

Scientists have already drawn a correlation between the amount of CO₂ we release into the atmosphere and the amount of planetary overheating we experience. This new research makes the correlation clearer than ever.

"This research gives us a glimpse of what the future could hold if we take too few measures to reduce CO₂ emissions and also implement few technological innovations to offset emissions," said another of the study's authors, Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté, a senior scientist at NIOZ and professor of organic geochemistry at Utrecht University.

"The clear warning from this research is: CO₂ concentration is likely to have a stronger impact on temperature than we are currently taking into account," Damsté added.

Global overheating is leading to, among other things, the melting of glaciers, which is causing ocean levels to rise and coastal communities to flood; various changes to the climate that are causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events; the spread of infectious diseases; crops becoming ungrowable in many previously hospitable climates; and heat-related deaths.

What's being done about rising global temperatures?

Several industries are responsible for releasing massive amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere — chief among them is the dirty energy industry, which releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide whenever its oil and methane gases are burned.

To prevent catastrophic planetary overheating, we must leave these energy sources of the past behind and switch instead to clean, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

• Scientists make concerning discovery after analyzing bottom of the ocean: 'A stronger impact ... than we are currently taking into account' first appeared on The Cool Down.

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09-09-2024 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

EXCLUSIVE - Police across US given new UFO handbook as they warn craft 'pose significant safety risks'

• READ MORE Cops install cameras where locals 'saw 10ft aliens' 

By Rob Waugh For Dailymail.Com

Police chiefs of America's largest cities have published the first guide about UAPs, which details chilling encounters and how officers can report such incidents.

The 11-page document warned that unidentified flying objects 'pose significant safety risks to law enforcement air support units,' urging teams to be vigilant when in helicopters.

The report also highlights stories from officers who claimed to confront UFOs, specifically one in 2023 where a law employee saw a 'triangle craft with green lights gliding through the sky' before a local resident said something 'ran' nearb

The police executives created the reference because 'it's in the interest of law enforcement to be aware of trends and reporting on UAP due to the unknown threat they may pose.'

A Las Vegas police officer appeared to capture a UFO on his bodycam

The organization, called the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), includes nearly 80 executives from major US cities who work together to advance public safety through a range of initiatives, including community outreach, research and policy development and now, UFO investigations. 

The guide, released in June, also includes details from America's investigations into UFO encounters, as well as the testimony of 'whistleblowers' such as former United States Air Force officer and intelligence official David Grusch.

One article shared the US Congress UAP hearing held in 2023, which saw Grusch testify about his knowledge about aircraft with 'nonhuman' origins.

The report provided other articles about the US government and its potential link to alien life. 

A section includes links to various UAP reporting websites, urging officers to report  any bizarre sightings. 

More interesting, the pages detail first-person stories from police officers who encountered unknown spacecraft while out in the field.  

An officer patrolling  Blairsville, Georgia in November 2023 claimed to have witnessed green lights in the sky. 

'I am a police officer and deputy sheriff. While on duty after dark, near the top of my windshield (frame of view) I witnessed movement in the sky (southbound direction of view),' the officer's report stated.

'Upon concentrating my focus, viewing through the low light, I was able to make out a triangle craft, with 3 dim green lights per side (just bright enough to assess size, shape, and movement).'

The officer said he lost sight of the craft quickly due to trees, and was unable to hear anything due to being inside his vehicle.

The report described UAPs as a potential danger to police pilots (Major Cities Chiefs Association)

The report cites the testimony of 'whistleblowers' such as former United States Air Force (USAF) officer and intelligence official David Grusch

'I am privy to what helicopters and airplanes look like in the sky, frequently working alongside medical flight crews in the area, and where nearby airports are, making me somewhat familiar with common areas of the sky in which low air travel is common. This was unlike anything I had ever witnessed,' he said.

Within an hour of the sighting, the officer responded to a call from a homeowner in the same direction the object was traveling, reporting 'something running outside of his home… which did not sound like an animal.'

Another encounter happened in Harper Woods, Michigan in 2020, which included two officers who witnessed three mysterious objects in the sky - before they 'blinked out' of existence.

The officer wrote: 'At approximately 6:00am, myself and a fellow officer were standing in a parking lot of a church talking before the end of our shift. 

'I was looking towards the southwest at the moon when I glanced towards the southeast. I saw 3 objects in the southeast sky and pointed towards them.

The guide details police encounters with UFOs

'The objects appeared to drift towards the east, maintaining the equal distance. As we watched the objects, they appeared to 'blink out' of our vision.'

Other reports in the guide recount civilian sightings of police helicopters allegedly pursuing UFOs.

In one encounter in Austin, Texas, a civilian wrote: 'When I walked out front door, saw Triangle Craft - with white lights illuminated on each corner - being closely followed by police helicopter - traveling south - near 620 freeway.

'Thought I was seeing things - but checked again - and was not. Hoping that others may corroborate.'

Another incident occurred in Winnipeg, Canada, where a civilian reported seeing a police helicopter being chased by unknown craft.

'While sitting in my hot tub in my back yard, I heard the familiar sound of the police chopper passing over the city. after it passed over our house, it made a few circles to the south of our location and after a few course adjustments, headed north at a higher rate of speed,' reads the statement.

'About 10 seconds later, 2 lights with the same relative brightness of the background stars traveled parallel and at a constant rate of speed.'

Nigel Watson, author of 'Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims' told DailyMail.com that the guide is 'very handy' for law enforcement officers.

'The short history of the study of UAPs and the links to organizations where sightings can be reported is very helpful,' he said.

'For me the references to the ex-government 'whistleblowers' David Grusch and Luis Elizondo is superfluous as they have only repeated rumors that have circulated for years without any substantial evidence.

'Although it notes numerous official studies, it does not mention the fact that the US Project Bluebook closed due to their finding such research is of no scientific value. Other projects have also found it very difficult to uncover any real evidence of non-terrestrial craft.

'The guide also lacks any references to skeptical websites and blogs that would give a more balanced view of the subject and counteract the wilder stories, like the alleged Roswell crash of 1947.

'Certainly there is now a case to be made that terrestrial UAPs do pose a threat to air safety and national security, but as with this guide, it gets mixed with the science fiction rumors of remarkable non-terrestrial vehicles that have little credibility.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk }

09-09-2024 om 18:25 geschreven door peter  

Minute by minute, what would happen if a world-destroying asteroid was detected coming to Earth - after 'greenish' space fireball crashed into our planet this week

• READ MORE: Moment asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere like a ball of fire

By Matthew Phelan and Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

NASA's radar gives off a ping, notifying scientists that a world-destroying asteroid has been detected and could hit Earth in 10 years.

World governments are quickly alerted about a potentially catastrophic event, allowing them to formulate a plan to inform the public.

One year before impact, space agencies from every country launch nuclear deflection missiles with hopes of pushing the giant asteroid away from our planet - but the mission fails.

FEMA orders mass evacuations in the impact zone months in advance and the public is told to expect the worst with hours left on the clock.

While NASA has said such a scenario is unlikely to happen in the near future, an asteroid hit Earth this week and was detected only eight hours before impact.

An asteroid hit Earth on Thursday that was detected on eight hours before impact. However, NASA would have about 10 years to save the world from a world-destroying space rock 

Most asteroids are not on track to hit Earth - but in the event that one is, here above is the sequence of events that would spring into action after the space rock is spotted

The small space rock that soared over the Philippines on Thursday was only three feet in diameter, which was not large enough to sound any alarms.

A report published by the White House in 2021 recommended that a reconnaissance mission would be necessary if an asteroid measuring at least 165 feet could hit Earth within 50 years is detected.

The document categorized a 3,300-foot-wide asteroid as a 'possible global catastrophe,' a three-mile-wide space rock as 'above the global catastrophe threshold,' and a six-mile-wide object as capable of causing a 'mass extinction.' 

However, NASA, FEMA, and the United Nations conducted an exercise in April to assess how prepared Earth would be if a world-destroying asteroid were detected, finding that we would need at least 14 years' notice. 

Detecting the world-destroying asteroid - 10 years out

Read More

• Chunks of asteroid from NASA's deflection test could smash into Earth in the next 10 years 

NASA's ground-based telescopes identify the giant asteroid, comparing it with other space rocks in a database to ensure it is newly discovered.

The space agency has several projects that scan the skies, including the Catalina Sky Survey which spotted Thursday's asteroid.

These early-warning systems also include NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), a spacecraft equipped with a wide-field, 20-inch infrared telescope that operates in two wavelength ranges.

Once the object is detected, astronomers look at the data for brightness and movement to double-check that it is not a known one.

Teams then report their findings to the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the single worldwide location for reporting asteroids, minor planets and comets.

The MPC and NASA team up to determine the asteroid's orbit to predict if the path poses a threat to Earth. 

The team discovers that the space rock is likely to come within five million miles of our planet and sends alerts to other agencies around the world, according to NASA.

Now that the world is aware of the impending threat, space agencies from every country join forces to deflect the asteroid about two years after detection. 

A report published by the White House in 2021 categorized asteroid sizes, deeming one at least 3,300 feet wide could be catastrophic

The scenario begins with NASA detecting a world-destroying asteroid 10 years before it hits Earth. The agency has telescopes around the globe, like Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona that detected Thursday's asteroid that hit our planet

Launching an asteroid deflection - two to five years before impact

NASA tested a strategy in 2022 called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) that plowed into an asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour, leaving a massive plume of dust and rocks, and successfully altering its trajectory.

That asteroid did not threaten our planet, but the space agency could use the strategy to deflect the world-destroying asteroid.

This February, however, NASA's planetary defense chief warned that a DART-like mission would not be able to get off the ground if the impact needed to occur in less than five years.

Leading up to the launch of humanity's Hail Mary, NASA and international partners are studying a range of options, including a spacecraft and nuclear weapons. 

The group decides to attack the asteroid with nuclear bombs about five years after detection and begins testing a prototype. 

Then, two years before impact, teams send explosives and a detonation device at some short standoff distance from the asteroid.

Kaliat Ramesh, a professor of mechanical engineering and material science at Johns Hopkins University, told VOX: 'We would estimate that it would take energy equivalent to about 200 gigatons of TNT to fully disrupt an asteroid with a 12-mile diameter.' 

One gigaton is equal to one billion tons of TNT, which means we would need 10 million Hiroshima-size bombs to destroy the massive asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

The only rockets capable of carrying such massive payloads of nuclear bombs would likely be NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship, but neither have been proven in this type of mission.

One year before impact, space agencies from every country launch nuclear deflection missiles with hopes of pushing the massive asteroid away from our planet

Billy Bob Thornton as Dan Truman, a a scientist at NASA, in Armageddon. Although a trope of sci-fi films, deflecting asteroids bound for Earth is a real concern 

The nuclear option would be faster, a concept familiar to fans of the 1998 film Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck. 

In the movie, NASA sends a group of deep-sea drillers to blow up an Earth-bound asteroid and save humanity with just 18 days of lead time. 

Evacuation Plan - months to hours before impact

In the months leading up to impact, global organizations like the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) would create detailed impact scenarios, estimating the destruction radius, atmospheric effects and potential global consequences.

Refined calculations forecasting the exact spot where an asteroid would impact Earth would, however, only become available as the asteroid comes into radar range, a process that new deep-space radar could accelerate. 

FEMA would order evacuations around the impact zone to save as many lives as possible

And hours before the asteroid makes impact, the world will be told to shelter-in-place and hope for the best

The information collected by global organizations is sent to FEMA and other emergency groups to alert people in the impact zone, allowing for mass evacuations months before the space rock smashes into Earth.

Teams would also begin formulating rescue plans and assembling relief teams that would be deployed almost immediately after impact to salvage as many lives as possible.

A NASA report published in 2023 estimated that everyone within 300 miles of the impact zone, about 150 million people, 'would need to either evacuate or find an appropriate shelter or build one.'

As the clock ticks down to hours, the public would be ordered to shelter in place while they receiving continuous updates and directions.  

After impact 

The asteroid impact would cause widespread devastation, triggering tsunamis that devastate coastal regions and massive shockwaves and earthquakes.

Electrical and communication systems around the globe fail almost instantly. 

The plan to save Earth would include a deflection strategy, evacuations and shelter-in place

The sun has been blocked by a massive dust plume released from impact, causing a significant drop in temperatures and a 'nuclear winter' that could last for decades.

Earth would be shrouded in darkness as massive fires rage that deplete oxygen levels. 

Billions of people are dead, but those who did survive are now suffering from starvation, freezing temperatures and the collapse of civilization’s infrastructure. 

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09-09-2024 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

By Dan Woodland

Boeing's Starliner has returned to Earth empty after leaving two astronauts who rode the spaceship up to the International Space Station stranded until next year.

The space capsule touched down at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico today at approximately 4am GMT, around six hours after departing the ISS on Friday. 

It was due to return to earth much earlier, having launched in June for what was meant to be a roughly weeklong test mission with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. 

But unexpected thruster malfunctions and helium leaks on its way up derailed those plans and NASA ultimately decided it was safer to bring the pair back on a spacecraft from rival Elon Musk's SpaceX. 

The next scheduled SpaceX flight is not until February next year, meaning Wilmore and Williams will be stranded in space for another six months. 

Boeing's Starliner lands at the landing site at White Sands Space Harbor in White Sands, New Mexico

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were initially planned to depart on the Starliner, but issues with the capsule's thrusters have delayed their return until at least February 2025

Ground teams reported hearing sonic booms as it streaked red hot across the night sky, having endured temperatures of 3,000F (1,650C) during atmospheric reentry.

A smooth, uneventful ride was seen as critical not only for salvaging some pride but also for Boeing's prospects of achieving certification in the future.

The century-old aerospace giant had carried out extensive ground testing aimed at replicating the technical issues the spaceship had experienced on its ascent and devised plans to prevent more problems.

With its reputation already battered by safety concerns affecting its passenger jets, Boeing made assurances in public and in private that it could be trusted to bring the astronauts home - an assessment not shared by NASA.

'Boeing believed in the model that they had created that tried to predict the thruster degradation for the rest of the flight,' Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters this week.

But 'the NASA team, due to the uncertainty in the modeling, could not get comfortable with that,' he added, characterizing the mood during meetings as 'tense.'

The gumdrop-shaped capsule touched down softly at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags

Shortly after undocking, Starliner executed a powerful 'breakout burn' to swiftly clear it from the station and prevent any risk of collision - a maneuver that would have been unnecessary if crew were aboard to take manual control if needed.

Following that, mission teams conducted thorough checks of its thrusters in preparation for the critical 'deorbit burn,' required to guide the capsule onto its reentry path around 40 minutes before landing.

While expectations were high that Starliner would stick the landing, as it had in two previous uncrewed tests, NASA will now carefully review all aspects of the mission's performance before deciding on the next steps.

NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts over a decade ago to develop spacecraft to taxi astronauts to and from the ISS, after the end of the Space Shuttle program left the US space agency reliant on Russian rockets.

Although initially considered the underdog, Elon Musk's SpaceX surged ahead of mighty Boeing, successfully flying dozens of astronauts since 2020.

The Starliner program, meanwhile, has faced numerous setbacks.

The space capsule touched down at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico today at approximately 4am GMT, around six hours after departing the ISS on Friday

Boeing and NASA teams working around NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed uncrewed at White Sands, New Mexico

A full timeline of Boeing's Starliner program, from the singing of their massive contact to the incident that left two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS 

In 2019, during its first uncrewed test flight, a software glitch prevented the capsule from rendezvousing with the ISS. A second software issue, which could have caused a catastrophic collision between its modules, was caught and fixed just in time.

In 2021, with the rocket poised on the launchpad for another attempt, blocked valves forced yet another postponement.

The capsule finally reached the ISS in May 2022 on a non-crewed flight, but further issues, including weak parachutes and flammable tape in the cabin that needed removal, delayed the crewed test.

For the current mission, astronauts Wilmore and Williams had been strapped into their seats and ready to fly twice before last-minute 'scrubs' due to technical glitches sent them back to their quarters.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

09-09-2024 om 17:52 geschreven door peter  

• READ MORE: NASA addresses origins of 'furry UFO' that flew over North Carolina

By Alex Hammer For Dailymail.Com

A man in small-town Montana has captured footage of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) and shared the shocking video that made his wife 'cry' on Reddit.

The video was recorded on Friday between 10:10 and 10:15 pm, and showed what appears to be a blinking craft streaking across the clear night sky.

Said to have been spinning and adorned with a series of rotating lights, the apparent object flew over tiny Choteau, home to a population of just over 1,700 people.

The videos, along with the original poster's in-depth account of the sighting, reveals how the man and his wife first mistook the unknown object for a meteor. 

It comes after Montana was singled out as a hotspot for UFO sightings, with visitors recording some of the most significant and well-documented footage. 

A man in small-town Montana has captured footage of an Unidentified Flying Object. Filmed Friday between 10:10 and 10:15 pm, the video seemingly shows a blinking craft streaking across the sky

Said to have been spinning and adorned with a series of rotating lights, the apparent aircraft flew over tiny Choteau

'On Friday night my wife and I were sitting on the deck out back looking at the stars - we do this every night,' wrote the unnamed poster, who goes by the user name PoneThePoon.

'Just after 10pm my wife said "is that a shooting star??", which I found odd, because if it was I wouldn't have time to look at it. 

'The tree near me was blocking the direction she was staring so I got up and looked, and my jaw dropped,' he continued. 

'I said 'Holy s**t. Holy s**t!!' and we both jumped off of the deck and got into the yard for a better view.'

Three separate clips show a light in the distance that appeared to be rotating in mid-air and the edge of what appeared to be a craft.

The town is sparsely populated, with a population of just over 1,700, and boasts an exceedingly clear sky

The sight, he said, left his spouse in tears after it lingered for a few minutes before flying away.

'The craft seemed huge, miles away,' he recalled - adding how it had several blinking and spinning lights, and a rotating orange-red light on the bottom. 

'You can only see the orange/red light in the video,' he explained, revealing, 'We observed it for 2-3 minutes as it continued flying away, and then it was just gone. 

'No noise, it was just gone.'

He also recalled how once the photos and video were secured on his wife's Galaxy Fold 4, he tried to do the same on his Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

However, he said, the phone 'died right in front of my eyes'.

The man who filmed the clips posted them to Reddit, and was soon met with awe

Rushing to retrieve his charger, he continued to use his wife's phone to take 'tons of various zoomed photos and videos,' he recalled.  

'What I have here is the best that came out of all that, this thing was really far away for a night time phone shot, so I'm pleased with what we did get.'

Speaking about the possibility that the craft was an Elon Musk-made satellite, he said: 'I don't believe this was Starlink.'

'I've watched a ton of Starlink videos since observing this, and our lights were rotating/blinking, not a static line of unchanging lights.

'After we got inside to see what we actually captured, my wife was shaking and crying from the experience,' he concluded.

'It was kind of scary, I couldn't fall asleep until 4am and it was my night to do the early feed for our twin boys.'

The Reddit post was soon met with awe by commenters.

Pictured: The Rocky Mountain range just outside of Choteau

'Really cool footage. Good explanation too,' wrote viewer impressed by the post.

'Kudos. Now don't let them disappear into the abyss. Good footage has a way of inexplicably going missing,' the person added.

'Download it, keep copies,' another chimed in, as the post received more than 3,200 upvotes in less than a day.

'This could have been the best UFO video ever if the sky was just a little bit lighter,' added a third top commenter. 'Frustrating, but definitely interesting.' 

After asking what others thought of the sighting, most appeared to be at least be open to the idea the craft being something that cannot be explained.

'Awesome!' one such commenter wrote on Monday, as the post was bombarded with a bevy of replies.

As of writing, the origins and nature of the aircraft in the sparsely populated remained unknown. No other reports of the sighting have surfaced

'You should download the app Phenom and post this there!' the person added. 'It cant be taken down by anyone online or banned... This is great footage.'

The origins and nature of the apparent craft remain unknown. No other reports of the sighting have surfaced.

Montana has emerged in recent years as a hotspot for UFO activity, potentially due to the state's sparse population and roaming, vacant plains.

In 1950, two spinning disks seemingly flew over Great Falls and were captured on a hand-held camera - yielding clips that continue to defy conventional explanation to this day 

In the '60s, apparent UFOs were seen over the Minuteman missile silos - then home to a vast arsenal of nuclear missiles in the midst of the Great Plains.  

In separate incidents that occurred while the alleged UFO hung overhead, a series of armed and ready nuclear missiles were suddenly deactivated - leaving missile launch officers at a loss. 

The US Air Force allegedly ordered these men never to tell anyone what happened, books like Joan Bird's Montana UFO's and Extraterrestrials have claimed.

The account examines such events and why they occur in the state, with many reports remaining unexplained in both government and private circles.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

09-09-2024 om 17:34 geschreven door peter  

Revealed: The 6 catastrophic asteroids on course to crash into Earth - as a 'surprise' space rock burns up over the Philippines

• Experts reveal the asteroids with the highests chances of destroying humanity
• One asteroid has a chance of hitting Earth by October 5 this year 
• READ MORE: Watch moment asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere like a ball of fire 

By Wiliam Hunter

Scientists around the world were caught off guard on Wednesday as a previously undetected asteroid collided with Earth's atmosphere. 

The one metre (3ft) wide asteroid was spotted just eight hours before it burned up over the Philippines in a spectacular fireball.

Luckily, the asteroid, named 2024 RW1, was too small to cause any damage. 

However, its sudden arrival is a stark reminder of the dangers lurking within our solar system.

From the so-called 'Valentine's Day asteroid' to the deadly space rocks almost a mile wide, experts warn that several asteroids are at risk of smashing into Earth. 

From the so-called 'Valentine's Day asteroid' to the deadly space rocks almost a mile wide, experts warn that several asteroids are at risk of smashing into Earth 

Scientists around the world were caught off guard on Wednesday as a previously undetected asteroid collided with Earth's atmosphere

Asteroids colliding with Earth is far from an uncommon event. 

In fact, NASA estimates that about 48.5 tonnes of meteoric material falls on Earth each day.

However, the vast majority of these objects simply burn up in the atmosphere to produce the flashing lights we recognise as shooting stars.

Objects large enough to punch through the atmosphere and actually collide with Earth are far rarer and don't often come within Earth's orbit.

Of course, just because asteroid collisions are unlikely, it does not mean they are impossible - and Earth already bears the scars of several such events.

Most famously, 66 million years ago a six-mile-wide (9.65km) asteroid crashed into the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico - wiping out the dinosaurs and leaving behind a 115-mile (185km) wide crater.

Even smaller rocks can have a devastating impact, as shown by the Chelyabinsk meteor, a 59 ft (18m) wide asteroid which exploded over Russia in 2013.

Despite being hundreds of times smaller than the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, the resulting shockwave injured 1,500 and damaged 7,300 buildings.

Due to these risks, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) operate programs aimed at identifying, categorising, and tracking so-called Near Earth Objects (NEOs).

Currently, ESA has 1,634 NEOs on its 'risk list' - meaning that there is a non-zero chance these objects will hit Earth.

However, at present no asteroid is ranked above one on the Torino Scale - a chart which ranges from 0 (won't hit Earth) to 10 (will hit Earth, and will be catastrophic). 

The Earth has been hit by devastating asteroids in the past such as the Chicxulub asteroid, which slammed into a shallow sea in what is now the Gulf of Mexico around 66 million years ago, creating an explosion that wiped out the dinosaurs

Experts say that another asteroid impact with Earth is a matter of when, not if (stock image) 

Read More

•  Moment asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere like a ball of fire 

1. Bennu

Discovered in September 1999, the asteroid Bennu is currently considered to pose one of the biggest risks to Earth.

At 1,574ft (0.49km) in diameter and weighing 67 million tonnes, Bennu is wider than the Empire State Building is tall and weighs 200 times as much.

Thanks to careful observation by NASA, scientists currently believe that Bennu has a one in 2,700 chance of hitting Earth on September 24, 2182.

If it were to collide with the planet, it would release energy equivalent to 1.4 billion tonnes of TNT.

Professor Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona previously said that an impact with Bennu would release 'three times more energy than all nuclear weapons detonated throughout history'.

While this might not be quite enough to create the type of planet-destroying force which wiped out the dinosaurs it could still lead to millions of deaths.

The asteroid Bennu (pictured) is considered to pose the biggest threat to Earth and could hit our planet within the next 200 years  

However, before you head to the bunkers, NASA's predictions of impact chance become more accurate the closer the asteroid comes to Earth.

So, with more than 150 years until its next close approach, it is likely that those odds may change quite significantly in the future.

Due to its size and risk to Earth, the asteroid has been the attention of intense scientific study.

In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS REx spacecraft managed to return a sample of the space rock to Earth.

This revealed that Bennu may contain the building blocks of life - including possible sources of water.

2. 2023 DW - The Valentine's Day asteroid

Forgetting the chocolates and flowers on Valentine's Day 2046 might be the least of your worries.

The asteroid 2023 DW is predicted to have a significant chance of colliding with Earth on February 14, 2046 - just in time to ruin your date plans.

At 166ft (50m) across, 2023 DW is about the same size as the asteroid that caused the devastating Chelyabinsk event back in 2013.

The Valentine's Day asteroid, 2023 DW, (pictured) has a slim possibility of hitting Earth on February 14, 2046

Given that the asteroid has been observed moving at 21.78 km/s relative to the sun, it could hit Earth with enough force to level an entire city.

When it was initially discovered, space agencies gave this collision worryingly strong odds of one in 607.

However, with more careful observation that risk has now been considerably lowered.

Last year Richard Moissl, head of the ESA's planetary defence office, further reduced the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth from one in 784 to one in 1,584.

Moissi previously told MailOnline: 'It will go down now with every observation until it reaches zero in a couple of days at the latest. No one needs to be worried about this guy.'

The 165-foot (50 m) space rock was given a one in 560 chance of impact but experts say it is now almost certain to miss the Earth 

3. 1950 DA

For NASA to consider something a 'potentially hazardous object', it needs to be 460 feet (140 meters) in size with an orbit that brings it as close as within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometres) of Earth's orbit around the Sun.

At 4,265ft (1.3km) in diameter and weighing 71 million tonnes, asteroid 1950 DA is over 90 times that size.

This makes 1950 DA the biggest asteroid that has a serious chance of colliding with our planet.

If it were to hit, the collision would release energy equivalent to detonating 75 billion tons of TNT - enough to trigger a global catastrophe like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Currently, the asteroid is believed to have a one in 34,500 chance of hitting Earth on March 16, 2880.

In 2032, it will come within 6,959,357 miles (112,000,000 km) of Earth - a relatively close pass allowing for further observations.

NASA and ESA have already begun testing methods for pushing dangerous asteroids off course including slamming high-speed satellites into their surfaces.

Over the eight generations until 1950 DA reached Earth, a small disturbance could easily send it a safe distance from Earth.

A NASA spokesperson previously told MailOnline: 'If it is eventually decided 1950 DA needs to be diverted, the hundreds of years of warning could allow a method as simple as dusting the surface of the asteroid with chalk or charcoal, or perhaps white glass beads, or sending a solar sail spacecraft that ends by collapsing its reflective sail around the asteroid.

'These things would change the asteroid reflectivity and allow sunlight to do the work of pushing the asteroid out of the way.'

The asteroid 1950 DA has the potential to wipe out life on Earth. Based on its predicted orbit (pictured) the asteroid has a 1 in 34,500 chance of hitting Earth on March 16, 2880

4. 2023 TL4

Another asteroid which also has humanity-destroying potential is 2023 TL4.

After being spotted last year, scientists immediately recognised this huge asteroid as one of the biggest threats to Earth.

The space rock measures 1,083ft (0.33km) in diameter and is believed to weigh 43 million tonnes - more than 4,500 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

On collision, this could create a blast 150 times more powerful than that of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.

Current estimates suggest that there is a one in 181,000 chance of this asteroid colliding with Earth on October 10, 2119.

Just like 1950 DA, this should give space agencies enough time to push the asteroid off its course, should it appear to be on its way to Earth. 

The space rock 2023 TL4 measures 1,083ft (0.33km) in diameter and is believed to weigh 43 million tonnes - more than 4,500 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Its orbit (pictured) will bring it dangerously close to Earth in 2119

5. 2007 FT3 

While the odds of 2007 FT3 hitting Earth are low, it has the unwelcome distinction of being the asteroid with the chance of hitting Earth soonest.

If we get incredibly unlucky, this 2,165ft (0.34km) asteroid could hit Earth as soon as October 5th this year.

However, current observations of 2007 FT3's path give this only a one in 11.5 million chance of occurring.

The asteroid has slightly better odds of colliding with Earth on March 3, 2030, with a one in 10 million chance.

Although that may seem low, the odds of winning the Lotto jackpot are one in 45 million and many people still buy tickets each week. 

Since the odds are higher than zero, the object is still on ESA's risk list and is considered a potentially hazardous object. 

The asteroid 2007 FT3 could hit Earth as soon as October this year, however the odds are only one in 11.5 million 

6. 1979 XB

The final object with a chance of causing serious damage to Earth is an asteroid called 1979 XB.

At 2,165ft (0.34km) in diameter and weighing 49 million tonnes, should 1979 XB hit Earth, it would easily be capable of destroying an entire city.

First spotted in 1979, scientists believe that this asteroid currently has a one in 1.8 million chance of hitting Earth.

What makes 1979 XB scary is that it has essentially been 'lost' since its discovery.

No one has observed 1979 XB in 40 years and so its orbit is poorly understood.

What predictions we do have are based on the initial observations taken immediately after its discovery.

Given that Earth was just hit by a previously undetected asteroid, this might leave many feeling understandably anxious.

The asteroid 1979 XB is scarier than most since it has been 'lost' for 40 years. The predictions we have of its orbit (pictured) are only based on observations taken shortly after its discovery which makes its true danger a mystery 

How much danger are we really in?

Despite how scary these figures may seem, most scientists agree that the Earth is safe for now.

Dr Greg Brown, senior public astronomy officer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told MailOnline: 'As of today, there are no known asteroids that are both large enough to be of concern and have a sizeable chance to impact the Earth.'

If any asteroids do hit Earth it is likely that they will fall over the ocean or over the remote regions which still make up the majority of the planet's surface.

This renders the risk of any serious devastation from a meteoric impact extremely low.

However, that does not mean that the Earth is completely safe.

While the risk of a collision remains extremely low, scientists warn that some sort of dangerous encounter is inevitable in the very long run. This is why space agencies are investing in planetary defence systems (artist's impression)

While big impacts are very rare, Dr Brown points out that 'asteroid impacts are a case of when, not if.'

That is why space agencies around the world are investing huge funds into planetary defence projects.

These include ESA's DART mission which managed to knock an asteroid off course with kamikaze satellite in 2022.

Dr Brown adds: 'It is important that we continue to improve our ability to track these objects and work on measures to protect ourselves if they occur.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

09-09-2024 om 17:23 geschreven door peter  

Boeing’s ruimtefiasco: astronauten achtergelaten in de ruimte door technische problemen

Key takeaways

De ambitieuze zoektocht van Boeing om een geloofwaardige speler te worden in de ruimtevaartindustrie kreeg een tegenslag toen de eerste astronautenmissie eindigde met twee achtergebleven astronauten in een baan om de aarde. De slecht functionerende capsule, Starliner, keerde leeg terug naar de aarde na een tumultueuze reis die werd geplaagd door defecte stuwraketten en lekken van het vitale gas helium.

Suni Williams en Butch Wilmore.

Beeld AFP

Technische problemen teisteren de missie

De missie begon veelbelovend, maar ontrafelde al snel onder het gewicht van de technische uitdagingen. Ondanks uitgebreide tests achtte Boeing de capsule veilig voor de terugreis, terwijl NASA een andere mening was toegedaan.

Uiteindelijk koos NASA voor een veiligere optie en boekte een vlucht met SpaceX, die hen pas in februari zal terugbrengen. Deze vertraging betekent dat de astronauten hun verblijf in de ruimte meer dan acht maanden zullen moeten verduren, meer dan twee keer de oorspronkelijke tijdspanne.

De terugreis wordt een beproeving

Het oorspronkelijke plan was dat de astronauten slechts een week na de lancering in de Starliner zouden terugkeren naar de aarde. Hun reis werd echter ontsierd door een cascade van problemen met de stuwraketten en heliumlekken. De ernst van deze problemen zette NASA ertoe aan om de risico’s te heroverwegen die gepaard gingen met het thuisbrengen van de astronauten in de onrustige capsule.

Astronauten gestrand in een baan om de aarde

Door de situatie zijn de twee astronauten gestrand in een baan om de aarde, in afwachting van een lift naar aarde. Hun lot hangt ervan af terwijl ingenieurs blijven worstelen met de mysteries van de slecht functionerende Starliner.

{https://www.msn.com/nl-be/ }

09-09-2024 om 16:34 geschreven door peter  

UFO Or Cross-Sign? Mysterious Object Spotted Flying Over California's Skies

The footage circulating on social media captures an unidentified object resembling a human figure in the air moving slowly.

Many believe that the object could be a hologram of Jesus.

(Photo Credits: Instagram)

Over the past few months, the USA has witnessed numerous UFO sightings, which has started debates about their origin, whether they’re extra-terrestrial or human-made objects. Recently, another intriguing video was shared online, which was reportedly filmed above Sequoia Park in California. The footage circulating on social media captures an unidentified object resembling a human figure in the air moving slowly and the video has caught attention of viewers worldwide. The person behind the camera speculates that it could be a person, while social media users believe that the object could be a hologram of Jesus, others feel it’s indeed a UFO, while few claim it’s the controversial Project Blue Beam.

For those not aware, Project Blue Beam is a controversial project which is used to manipulate for undisclosed purposes. Meanwhile, the individual recording the video claimed, “It has something on its side, it looks like a person with his arms sticking out. It looks like a person almost. It appears like a person but it’s an anomaly.” Sharing the video on Instagram, the page wrote, “Spotted in the skies over Sequoia Park, California.”

After the user posted the video on Instagram, it quickly went viral and garnered over 50,000 views. Social media users are sharing mixed reactions to the footage. While some made jokes about the mysterious object, others believe it may be part of a secret government project.

Reacting to the clip, a user wrote, “Are they trying to create hologram Jesus for the masses?”

Another shared, “Remember people fake alien invasion is on the list and has been for a long time.”

An individual suggested, “Large satellite balloon. Probably years old that’s all tangled by winds and it’s malfunctioning. That’s all folks.”

“Project blue beam,” a comment read.

Another wrote, “Probably someone’s helium balloon from a bachelorette party.”

One more joked, “It looks like a dancing astronaut.”

Interestingly, a similar video was recorded seven years ago in November 2016 and was posted on YouTube by a channel named Jay C Aerial Anomali. The creator, Jonathan Castro, shared the footage, stating, “I summoned and captured this one in front of my house back in August of this year. Decided to motion track and zoom this a little for a better close-up.” Surprisingly, Castro has shared numerous such videos on his channel and claimed that most of them were visible ‘interdimensional beings’ captured from his house. However, these claims have not yet been verified.

{ https://www.news18.com/ }

09-09-2024 om 01:34 geschreven door peter  

“The X-62A Team demonstrated that cutting-edge machine learning-based autonomy could be safely used to fly dynamic combat maneuvers,” Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said in a video released by DARPA marking the achievement. The team accomplished this while complying with American norms for safe and ethical use of autonomous technology.” 

The X-62A’s recent accomplishment represents a major breakthrough in DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution, or “ACE” program. The primary goal of ACE is to enhance trust in autonomous combat systems by focusing on the challenge of enabling an AI-controlled aircraft to engage in fast, within-visual-range aerial combat, commonly referred to as “dogfighting.”  

Since its inception in 2019, the ACE program has rapidly reached several key milestones, marking a significant departure from the usual lengthy timelines associated with developing advanced aerospace platforms. 

In 2020, DARPA’s ACE program hosted the “AlphaDogFight” trials, a three-day virtual competition where AI programs from various industry partners competed in simulated dogfight scenarios. Maryland-based software company Heron Systems emerged as the winner, outperforming seven other AI agents designed to control F-16s. These competing programs included entries from major defense firms such as Lockheed Martin and the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Heron Systems’ F-16 AI agent would then go on to dominate a series of dogfights against an experienced human Air Force F-16 pilot, “winning 5-0 through aggressive and precise maneuvers the human pilot couldn’t outmatch.” In 2021, Heron Systems was acquired by Shield AI, a San Diego-based technology company that specializes in the development of AI-powered defense systems. 

“We conducted multiple sorties [takeoffs and landings] with numerous test points performed on each sortie to test the algorithms under varying starting conditions, against various simulated adversaries, and with simulated weapons capabilities,” DARPA ACE program manager, Air Force Lt. Col. Ryan “Hal” Hefron, explained. “We didn’t run into any major issues but did encounter some differences compared to simulation-based results, which is to be expected when transitioning from virtual to live.”

In 2020, the Air Force tested an AI algorithm named “ARTUµ” to control the sensor and navigation systems of a U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane. However, the 2022 tests with the X-62A represented the first time a machine-learning program had ever been used to pilot a tactical fighter aircraft. 

Less than a year after these groundbreaking tests, the ACE program has achieved another significant milestone by showcasing the AI-controlled X-62A’s ability to successfully engage in real-world dynamic, offensive, defensive, and high-aspect air combat scenarios against crewed F-16s. 

According to DARPA, initial testing of the AI-controlled X-62A against human fighter pilots began in late 2023 and continued into 2024.  

“In September 2023 we accomplished another world first where we actually took the x62 and flew it against a live manned F-16,” Lieutenant Colonel Maryann Karlen, Deputy Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School explained. “We built up in safety using the Maneuvers first defensive, then offensive, and then high aspect nose to nose engagements where we got as close as 2,000 ft at 1200 miles-per-hour.” 

The recent announcement showcases the ACE program’s rapid progress from simulations to real-world applications and serves as a testament to machine learning’s potential to revolutionize air combat tactics and strategy.

The image of an autonomous, AI-controlled fighter jet engaging in dogfights with human-piloted aircraft is bound to capture widespread public attention. However, at the core of this breakthrough lies the significant advancement of machine learning technologies and their ability to handle a spectrum of highly complex tasks.

Machine learning stands apart from traditional, rule-based autonomous systems in its ability to learn and adapt from vast streams of data. Unlike pre-programmed systems that operate within strict parameters, AI algorithms like those developed in DARPA’s ACE program autonomously analyze data to make real-time decisions during flight. This capability mirrors how human pilots react instinctively to dynamic combat scenarios, continually learning and adjusting tactics based on experience.

A crucial aspect of integrating AI into practical aviation scenarios is establishing trust. DARPA says the ACE program has made significant strides in this area by ensuring the AI agents controlling the X-62A operate within aviation safety norms. These include aerial and ground collision avoidance protocols, adherence to combat rules, and ensuring the AI’s decision-making process aligns with human safety and ethical standards.

“While the X-62 unique safety features have been instrumental in allowing us to take elevated technical risk,” explained James Valpiani, Commandant of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School Colonel, “with these machine learning agents in this test campaign, there were no violations of the training rules which codify the airmen’s safety and ethical norms, demonstrating the potential that machine learning has for future aerospace applications.” 

Given the recent success in testing with the X-62A, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently revealed he was planning to personally fly on the autonomous-controlled aircraft at some point this year. 

“I’m going to get a ride in an autonomously flown F-16 later this year,” said Kendall at an April senate hearing on the Air Force’s 2025 budget. “There will be a pilot with me who will just be watching, as I will be, as the autonomous technology works. Hopefully, neither he nor I will be needed to fly the airplane.”

As Kendall mentioned, DARPA has highlighted that while the X-62A conducts fully autonomous flights, it still carries two human pilots. These pilots monitor aircraft systems and can switch between AI agents to evaluate performance. They are also prepared to take control of the aircraft at any moment to maintain safety during tests.

Ultimately, the rapid success of DARPA’s ACE program underscores the shift in how future air combat will be conducted. It potentially introduces a new era where AI can be trusted to handle complex decisions in high-stakes environments and reduce human pilots’ risks in combat scenarios.

The implications of this breakthrough in machine learning additionally extend beyond military applications to potential adaptations in other sectors, including civilian aerospace. By demonstrating AI’s capability to handle intricate tasks under extreme conditions, the ACE program could pave the way for future applications where AI can enhance safety, efficiency, and reliability in commercial and military systems.

In DARPA’s announcement, Bill Gray, the Chief Test Pilot at the USAF Test Pilot School, underscored the importance of these recent advances and their potential to herald more robust AI-enhanced systems in scenarios previously considered too hazardous for automation.

“It’s very easy to look at the X-62 Ace Program and see it as under autonomous control [and] it can dogfight. That misses the point,” Gray said. Dogfighting was the problem to solve so we could start testing autonomous artificial intelligent systems in the air. But every lesson we’re learning applies to every task you could give to an autonomous system.” 

• Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com 

VIDEOS

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/defense/ }

09-09-2024 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

Betty Andreasson’s Multiple UFO Experiences, Underwater Base & Humans In Glass Container

The abduction of Betty Andreasson Luca is considered to be one of the most documented cases in the history of Ufology. The woman from Massachusetts experienced multiple abductions, and her case is widely studied by UFO researchers. It became popular after the publication of the best-selling novel “The Andreasson Affair,” which came out in the late 1970s. She attended many radio shows and TV interviews where she discussed her encounter with grey aliens and even drew sketches of the incident.

Betty Andreasson was born on January 7, 1937, to Waino and Eva Aho. She went to school in Westminster and Gardner MA and had a great interest in art since childhood, which later became her passion. Betty married twice and with her first husband, she gave birth to seven children. She met her second husband Bob Luca in 1977.

According to the official reports, on the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty was at home with her seven children and parents. At around 6:30 p.m., she was busy in the kitchen when the lights in the house started blinking strangely. Soon after it, the kitchen’s window was hit by a reddish light beam, and the whole house went out of electricity. The children got terrified with the scene and Betty tried to calm them down. Her father looked out to find the source of the light and saw five strange-looking humanoid creatures walking right towards the house. Before he could understand the situation, the beings walked inside the house through the door which put the whole family in a state of shock.

Read also:

• Aliens From Andromeda Told US Army Personnel That Humans Are Composite Of 22 Different E.T. Races
• British RAF Officer Met Human-Looking Alien Named Mr. Janus In London In 1950s
• USAF Flight Nurse Interviewed Alien Named Airl, Said Earth Was Alien Prison Before 30,000 BCE
• Filiberto Cardenas UFO Encounter: Secret Underwater Hangar, Alien Entities & Future Predictions

One creature went to Betty’s father while the other four came to her, and one of them started talking with her telepathically. The one who was made telepathic contact with Betty was about 5 feet tall, while others were shorter than him. The description by the witnesses was similar to the modern illustration of grey aliens. They had only slits on their mouth, three fingers in one hand, and wore a blue-colored one-piece suit.

Betty was frightened but at the same time, she felt calm by the friendly nature of the beings. They did not harm any member of the family and even released her daughter from a state of unawareness. Then she was taken outside and boarded on their saucer-shaped craft with a small dome that was standing in the backyard. After that, the ship went up in the air and merged with the mothership where Betty went through medical tests and was under the effects of strange equipment. Later, she was taken to some strange place where she felt much pain which, according to her, was a “spiritual experience.”

Later that night, Betty returned home at 10:40 p.m. and found her family still in a frozen state, where one of the aliens was watching them in her absence. Then the family was put to bed by the beings and the aliens left. What’s more, she forgot about her abduction until undergoing hypnotherapy in later years.

Betty said in some of her interviews that the creatures were angelic in nature but not biblical. She is a religious person, had only some school education and did not understand much about UFOs. Only after this bizarre experience, she understood that whatever she had experienced that night was much like a UFO abduction

In 1975, Dr. Allen J Hynek posted an ad in the newspaper to learn more about the abduction experiences and asked help from common people. Betty answered his ad by sending a letter, but it was rejected due to its unusual details. It was only in 1977 when her case was deeply investigated by the experts including a solar physicist, an electronics engineer, an aerospace engineer, a telecommunications specialist, and a UFO investigator.

Her case was first investigated by Jules Vaillancourt, a Mutual UFO Network investigator in 1977. He said: “What I found most amazing about Betty was her ability to draw. The detail of the (space) craft and the beings she drew under hypnosis were such that it really made me believe there was something to this.”

He also added that the detective who had given a psychological stress evaluation to Betty and her daughter believed in her story. She even spoke the language of aliens under hypnosis. Her case investigation continued for 12 months where she and her daughter had gone through hypnosis sessions, lie detector tests, and a psychiatric interview. Both mother and daughter passed them with a genuine reaction. Author and UFO researcher Raymond E. Fowler wrote five books on her UFO experiences that include the famous “The Andreasson Affair” series.

During one of her hypnotic regression sessions, she remembered one of the early abductions that occurred to her in childhood. It took place in 1950 when she was taken from her home into a spacecraft as usual. But this time, the craft was flying toward an ocean or sea. She was terrified that the craft would crash into the water. But the ship submerged into the water and entered into a kind of tunnel. Betty could see everything underwater, as the place was filled with light. What she said next under hypnosis is so bizarre that even gave a chill to Fowler.

She saw people from all eras, different races, encased in the  glass container. Fowler called it “The Museum of Time.” Betty said that people in the container were in old-fashioned clothes, and there were uncountable cubicles with humans inside at that underwater base.

Fowler wrote that when he listened to her one of the regression session recordings, his mind blew up as he found it difficult to believe. “A cold chill coursed through my body when Betty was describing people and animals enclosed in glassy cubicles in an icy cavern.”

Betty traveled a lot across the country, attending numerous TV interviews and radio shows and lecturing about her UFO experiences. She and her husband Bob Luca had been unsettled for many years until 1995 when they moved to Virginia. They lived in VA for 5 years and then moved to Florida. Shed died on March 18, 2022.

VIDEOS

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

09-09-2024 om 01:02 geschreven door peter  

SETI chief says US has no evidence for alien technology. 'And we never have'

Related: 

• 'It's getting closer and closer for sure.' How SETI is expanding its search for alien intelligence (exclusive)

SETI is a key research contractor to NASA and the National Science Foundation, and collaborates with industry partners throughout Silicon Valley. Space.com caught up with Diamond for a close-encounter with his own thoughts and counterpoints to claims of alien visitation and to ask whether there's any signal in all the UFO noise.

Thought experiment 

Diamond said that, while we should not outright rule out the possibility that we might someday discover evidence of alien technology in our skies, "we should equally not jump to the conclusion that UFOs are alien technology in the absence of any compelling evidence to that effect. And there is no compelling evidence," he contends.

To help visualize why, Diamond urges people to try a thought experiment. 

The fastest spacecraft that humans have ever built and continues to head outward from Earth is NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. It was hurled outward back in January 2006, cruising by Pluto and is still adding mileage to its odometer.

"If you sent that spacecraft to our closest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri, it would take 80,000 years to get there," said Diamond. "Any civilization that has mastered the ability to traverse the incomprehensibly vast distances of interstellar space would have technology so far advanced from our own as to be beyond our comprehension."

It would be much like a smartphone to a Neanderthal, Diamond suggested. 

"If such beings exist, they would likely send hardware here first and not biology, and they certainly wouldn't crash-land in our deserts," he said, like the alleged and highly acclaimed 1947 nose-dive of a UFO and its accident-prone occupants near Roswell, New Mexico.

In short haul language, that's a long way to travel and run out of braking fluid.

Where's the mothership? 

"Long before they sent any craft into our sky they would have some understanding of what they were dealing with," Diamond observed, "as they would already know everything about our atmosphere, our airspace, our technology and more." 

It just wouldn't happen, Diamond emphasized.

"And if it did they wouldn't leave them behind. And by the way, if you have a small craft zipping around in our airspace, where is the mothership? And if they didn't want to be observed, they wouldn't be!"

Connective tissue 

All the same, in the public mind, is there some kind of connective tissue between SETI and UFOs?

"There is definitely connective tissue," Diamond responded. "Why do people have these beliefs? It is because they want to believe. Nobody really wants to think that this Earth is the only place in the vastness of space where life has emerged. Even that idea is also kind of absurd."

For example, Diamond points to the revelations cranked out by the NASA Kepler mission, lofted in March 2009. 

That hunter/data-gatherer spacecraft discovered more than 2,700 planets beyond our solar system. Compiling deep space data for nine years, the message from Kepler: there are billions of unseen planets, indeed, more planets than stars.

Statistical probability 

"Statistically speaking, every single star in the sky has one or more planets around it," Diamond pointed out. Furthermore, 50 percent or more of these are Earth-like (rocky surface and similar size) and in the habitable zone of their host star, he said.

"That implies the existence of tens of billions of potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy alone," Diamond said. "So indeed, the statistical probability that we are alone in the Universe is zero. Surely there is life beyond Earth!"  

But the presence, both in space and time, as well as proximity, of advanced alien civilizations is another matter completely, Diamond continued. "There are innumerable variables, all of which in the sciences of astrobiology, planetary science, astronomy and astrophysics, we are trying to figure out."

Accidental observations 

Diamond questions why any alien civilization would send biology when they could isntead send hardware. 

"The farthest things we have sent into space are hardware. And that's logical," said Diamond. "But if you did send beings and the most interesting thing you can do is draw circles in crops … come on!"

One other scoop of skepticism Diamond added is that every single UFO — now tied to the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) — are all "accidental observations."

"Therefore, they are highly unreliable. They don't have instrumentation, technology, or methodology to discern what they are looking at," said Diamond.

Lastly, the SETI Institute leader said if the government actually believed in ET buzzing our planet, where's the study money? 

"The lack of government funding to study UAP/UFO is evidence of either the government being quite certain that there's nothing to these accidental observations — or — the government preferring that we not use available technology to closely watch our skies because of our own human technologies that are being developed — in secret," said Diamond.

"I think that's the most compelling bit of evidence against the idea that we've got visitors in our skies," Diamond concluded.

• For more information on the SETI Institute and its programs, go to https://www.seti.org/ 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

08-09-2024 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

The “Shapiro time delay” near a positive mass reverses sign and turns into a “Shapiro time advance” near a negative mass. If the sender is moving sufficiently close to the speed of light, the Shapiro time advance would mean that a light signal can be reflected off a mirror and arrive back to the sender when the sender’s clock shows a time earlier than the original transmission time of the same signal.

Effectively, the Shapiro time advance is equivalent to communicating with a faster-than-light particle which violates causality. Within Einstein’s gravity, the technical term for a time machine of this type is a “closed timelike curve.”

Within the standard framework of Einstein’s gravity, a negative mass would allow children to prevent their parents from giving birth to them, a logical inconsistency. Time machines can also be created by traversable wormholes which, as Stephen Hawking recognized in a seminal paper about “chronology protection” from 1992, require negative energy as well.

“It has been suggested that an advanced civilization might have the technology to warp spacetime so that closed timelike curves would appear, allowing travel into the past,” the abstract of Hawking’s paper begins, and thereafter concludes by saying, “These results strongly support the chronology protection conjecture: The laws of physics do not allow the appearance of closed timelike curves.” Hawking’s conclusion was supported in a subsequent paper by Bernard Kay, Marek Radzikowski and Bob Wald, but the final verdict on its validity is awaiting a better understanding of quantum gravity.

If time machines are absent, what are the most extreme distortions of spacetime that our Universe is known to display?

In Einstein’s gravity, the Earth orbits the Sun because the Sun curves space. An analogy is offered by the surface of a trampoline which is curved by a bowling ball, causing a marble with the proper speed to move in a circle around the heavier ball. Removing the bowling ball would release the marble on a straight trajectory on the flat trampoline. Similarly, discarding the Sun would free Earth on a straight path toward interstellar space.

The spacetime curvature created by the Sun at our location is characterized by a length scale that is equal to the inverse of the square root of (GM/r^3c^2), where G is Newton’s constant, M is the mass of the Sun, r is the Earth-Sun separation, and c is the speed of light. Plugging in the relevant numbers yields a curvature length of 10,000 times the Earth-Sun separation. Another way to derive this number is by recognizing that the Earth’s speed around the Sun is 10,000 smaller than the speed of light, c.

Other astrophysical objects display a stronger spacetime curvature over a shorter length scale. The largest distortions of spacetime are expected near a black hole. Limiting our attention to the accessible region outside the event horizon, this curvature length scales in proportion to the black hole mass. The most massive black holes in the Universe have a mass of ten billion solar masses and a curvature scale of 1,000 times the Earth-Sun separation. The curvature length shrinks by billions of times for black holes or neutron stars formed from the collapse of massive stars.

What is the largest spacetime curvature that we observed so far in the Universe? It corresponds to a length scale of about 24 kilometers, the size of a large city on Earth, and is realized on the surface of neutron stars which carry about twice the mass of the Sun atnuclear density.

The same spacetime curvature characterizes an atomic nucleus because it has the same matter density as a neutron star. But a curvature length of 24 kilometers is 19 orders of magnitude larger than the size of an atomic nucleus and therefore has no significance when nuclei are smashed into each other in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

In conclusion, based on all we know from observations or theory within the standard model of physics, negative masses are forbidden for the same reason that time machines are not allowed. If aliens were able to create negative masses and use them for travel, then they would have also been able to travel back in time.

If time travel had been feasible, then future generations of quantum-gravity physicists could have been able to visit Earth and rewrite our history as they wish. For example, they could have killed Adolf Hitler and allowed six million Jews to thrive in Europe between 1939 and 1945. The fact that this never happened suggests that either time machines will never be constructed in our future or that their creators have no interest in saving human lives.

• Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomydepartment at Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science andTechnology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. His new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2023.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

08-09-2024 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

There is DVD of US Intelligence Members Communicating with Extraterrestrials, Former US Military Claims

Former US intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress during the July 2023 UAP hearing, stating that we have numerous spacecraft of non-human origin. If this is the case, one might wonder if any contact has been established between humans and these extraterrestrial species. There have been persistent rumors suggesting that the US government may have signed treaties with these extraterrestrials and has been engaged in collaborative efforts with them over an extended period.

According to a rather extraordinary claim made by former US government consultant Timothy Good, it is alleged that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had three clandestine meetings with extraterrestrials. Good claimed Eisenhower met aliens at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954. In more recent times, former Israeli Space Head Haim Eshed stated that aliens and the U.S. government had reached some type of deal to stay quiet about their experiments on Earth and secret facilities on Mars. Eshed went on to claim the existence of a “Galactic Federation” and implied that then-President Trump was on the brink of making significant revelations in this regard.

Video Evidence

During a podcast with former Fox News anchor Clayton Morris on his show Redacted, Joshua Reid, a former United States Navy serviceman with a background in missile weapons defense systems, brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. He opened the conversation by referencing his personal experiences in the Navy, specifically during the years 2004 to 2006. Reid’s background made him intimately familiar with topics related to secret space projects, a subject that has piqued his interest for over two and a half decades.

It is worth noting that Joshua Reid’s extensive research in the field of UAPs and classified information has led him to the inner workings of certain government activities. His extensive four-year investigation revealed a disconcerting pattern. It appeared that military technology, particularly in special access programs, was unintentionally making its way to foreign adversaries, including China. This exchange of classified information seemed to involve universities and professors who were receiving grants to reverse engineer technologies from these programs.

The remarkable twist in this story was that Hillary Clinton’s emails were potentially facilitating the sale of this classified information to China and other foreign entities. China would fund universities, enticing professors to divulge information on special access programs. This enabled them to advance their technology rapidly, potentially reaching parity with the United States.

Former Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III, well-versed in these special access programs, played a crucial role in this unfolding drama. He represented David Grusch and became a central figure in the whistleblower saga. According to Reid, multiple whistleblowers were involved, with two possessing firsthand information and tangible evidence. The fear of repercussions led these individuals to testify in front of congressmen, notably, Indiana Congressman André Carson. However, it was not until these whistleblowers presented  video evidence of intelligence community members  communicating with extraterrestrials that congressmen took their claims seriously.

The impact of these videos was profound. Congressmen were visibly shaken, with one trembling and another drinking water profusely. This sudden shift in demeanor signified that the evidence was both extraordinary and unsettling. The whistleblowers were introduced to Inspector General McCullough, who had an extensive background in the very special access programs at the center of the controversy.

“I’ve heard that we can confirm this later, but from what I’m hearing, André Carson is this Congressman that they testified in front of, along with a few others. The Congressman didn’t take these guys seriously, but what ended up happening is they pulled out the evidence, a DVD, and they showed these congressmen video evidence of intelligence community members communicating with extraterrestrials. After these videos were shown to congressmen, they were noticeably shaken in fear. One of them was holding a piece of paper and could not stop shaking. Another was drinking water profusely, and this is when they began to take this very, very seriously and introduce these gentlemen to the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, McCullough. Hence, he enters the picture as someone who understands these SAP programs, has been read into these programs from back in the day, and is now representing these gentlemen.”

Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He posed the question of where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.

Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.

Morris was eager to learn more about the DVDs and the physical evidence related to the astounding claims made by the whistleblowers. He asked Reid where this evidence was currently held and whether the public would ever have the opportunity to view it.

Joshua Reid responded by revealing that the evidence, in the form of DVDs and other materials, was regarded as an “insurance policy.” This meant that the evidence was securely in the hands of two prominent UFO researchers. Furthermore, Reid confirmed that these researchers had not only seen the evidence but also verified its authenticity, which was a significant factor contributing to the growing interest in this matter.

One of the prominent UFO researchers who has been sharing insider knowledge on UAPs is investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. It is quite uncertain if Coulthart possesses this DVD evidence but he did reveal that there exists a huge UFO in the possession of the United States that cannot be moved, and he knows the location of the craft. Ross mentioned the existence of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth for a long time and the recovery of certain objects, but he could not disclose specific details due to concerns about revealing advanced technologies.

Read also:

• Journalist Claims UFOs & Aliens Are Linked With Afterlife & NDEs, Which Exist In Another Dimension
• US Govt. Has UFO & They Can Go Inside It, Reveals Ex-DIA Intelligence Officer
• Journalist Reveals Bob Lazar’s Astonishing Claim: Extraterrestrials See Humans as ‘Containers of Souls’
• Journalist Reveals Clues to Location of Huge Buried Alien Spacecraft: It can be Stormed like Area 51

In a recent episode of “The UFO Podcast,” host Andy engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Ross. The discussion centered around the secrecy surrounding UFO sightings and government knowledge. Ross, who has deep insights into the matter, shared his perspective on why certain details remain undisclosed.

Andy began by addressing a critical question that has been on the minds of many UFO enthusiasts: the location of the mysterious craft. He asked Ross whether he could reveal where the craft was being held.

Ross responded: “Let me tell you, I can’t tell you the country it’s in; it’s not America. But what I can tell you is that the place where it is kept is used for another purpose that is a laudatory purpose that’s as much in your interests in your country in the UK as it is in mine in Australia and as it is in America. The simple reasons are that there are other uses for the place where this object is stored, and we could end up with a storm Area 51-type scenario if you came out and announced it.”

Ross went on to explain the potential consequences of revealing such information, including international incidents and threats to the safety of personnel at the facilities. He also emphasized the importance of protecting sources, drawing on his experience as a journalist dealing with sensitive intelligence.

Interestingly, Steve Sprague, a UFO researcher who studied the UAP phenomenon for 30 years, claimed that an aerospace executive would come forward and share the information during the July 2023 Congressional Hearing on UAPs. This unidentified insider is described as a C-level executive within the United States-based company, which, according to Sprague, is a top firm reverse-engineering alien technology.

According to the insider, aliens not only exist but have been present on Earth for at least five millennia, if not longer. Startlingly, the individual revealed the existence of at least two civilizations currently residing on our planet: humans and a group known as the “Ganzi,” originating from a distant part of our galaxy, roughly forty light years away. The Ganzi are characterized as technologically advanced beings who possess knowledge far surpassing humanity’s capabilities.

The insider also touched upon significant presidential briefings that have taken place, shedding light on the United States government’s awareness of these developments. On various occasions, President Biden was reportedly briefed on advanced technologies recovered from the Ganzi. The briefings included demonstrations of lasers capable of remarkable feats, such as extracting elements directly from ore and analyzing biological and geological data.

 Videos of these briefings purportedly exist, with one showing Biden interacting with three Ganzi beings through a small device placed in his ear. Notably, one of the individuals accompanying the beings was John Podesta, who later assumed the role of Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. The insider also linked breakthroughs in fusion energy and laser technology to the company’s efforts in reverse-engineering Ganzi technology.

Sprague wrote,

“Date 4 – May 19, 2022, Biden is now in Alaska and stopped off to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This  video is the most incredible of all. Biden meets with three of the Ganzi. Biden puts a small device in his ear and a conversation occurs without sound. The video lasts for nine minutes and then four people enter the area. One of the people is John Podesta. The other three are unknown. The beings leave and the video ends. In September of 2022, Biden names Podesta as the Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation. December 14, 2022, America has a breakthrough in fusion. To achieve this scientific feat – a laser is used. This laser has ‘unique’ properties.” (Source)

Sprague’s claims cannot be verified; however, it is certain that there exists an alien craft, and the United States has successfully accessed its interior. Dr. James Lacatski, a retired DIA intelligence officer who established the UFO program that operated from 2008 to 2010, has confirmed this. He stated that the craft possesses a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but lacks conventional features such as an engine, wings, intakes, exhaust, or fuel tanks.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

08-09-2024 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Actual Footage Of Bob Lazar With John Lear; Witnessed Testing Alien Craft At Area 51

Bob Lazar is a controversial figure in the UFOlogy community, who claims to have worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology at a site called S-4, located near  Area 51 in Nevada. Moreover, Gene Huff, Lazar’s former colleague, also claimed to have worked at S-4 and seen extraterrestrial spacecraft.

There is a  video of Bob Lazar hanging with Huff and Lear in the Nevada desert. It is claimed that Lazar reportedly took Gene Huff and five other people to the edge of Groom Mountain on two consecutive weeks, where they could observe strange, glowing objects lifting off the mountain. They managed to dodge security patrol to witness these events.

Bob Lazar is a controversial figure in the UFOlogy community, who claims to have worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology at a site called S-4, located near  Area 51 in Nevada. Moreover, Gene Huff, Lazar’s former colleague, also claimed to have worked at S-4 and seen extraterrestrial spacecraft.

There is a  video of Bob Lazar hanging with Huff and Lear in the Nevada desert. It is claimed that Lazar reportedly took Gene Huff and five other people to the edge of Groom Mountain on two consecutive weeks, where they could observe strange, glowing objects lifting off the mountain. They managed to dodge security patrol to witness these events.

“It came up above the same mountain, moved around it, and did a step move. It actually went up in the air like this and hovered then dropped way down then it just floated around and cruised around and then it started coming up to the mountain range,” Huff said.

A videotape was recorded during one of the trips to the groom mountains, where all the witnesses saw a bright light moving up in the sky. At some point, John Lear, who had worked for the CIA as a pilot, appeared in the video, speaking of his experience during the trip. He admitted visiting eight miles due east of Groom Lake, Nevada, at the government secret test site on March 22, 1989.

Lear said:

“March 22nd, 1989, we’re standing just about eight miles due east of Groom Lake, Nevada – the super-government secret test site – and just a few minutes ago, we saw one of the government’s extraterrestrial UFOs fly over there. We all watched it for about seven or eight minutes. Right here, I have my Celestron scope, it’s eight inches, and I had it focused in for about 15 seconds and saw it myself. In fact, it is what it is.

We are going to stay here for another couple of hours here to see if we can show you, folks, an actual extraterrestrial flying saucer being flown by the government. So if you just came by and we’ll be looking over that mountain, which is where they are. They also come over here, which is over at Bald Mountain.

There is some lights over there which you cannot see but there are a number of trucks. We do not know whether they are looking down here…We are standing on public land. It is completely legal where we are. And if you’d like to come here later in the show, we’ll tell you exactly how to get you…We have Bob Lazar and we have Joy Lazar, Bob’s wife and we have Gene Huff. This mission was organized tonight by Bob Lazar, who is a theoretical physicist who works at Groom Lake.”

Gene Huff testimony

Before going into Huff’s statement on the incident, we should know the relationship between Lazar and Huff. Huff has a background in real estate appraisal and has known Lazar for many years, both before and after his alleged involvement in a flying disc reverse engineering program at S-4. In “The Lazar Synopsis by Gene Huff,” he wrote that he was introduced to Bob Lazar in the mid-1980s after moving to Las Vegas in 1979.

Along with Lazar, Huff co-produced the  video “The Lazar Tape and Excerpts from the Government Bible” and wrote the screenplay for “S4, The Bob Lazar Story,” which has been considered by Hollywood studios but has not yet been made into a film. Huff has also been involved in other ventures with Lazar, such as co-owning Tri-Dot Productions and producing the “Desert Blast” summer event featuring fireworks, guns, and explosives.

Huff wrote: “The first Wednesday, March 22, 1989, we arrived right at dusk, turned our lights off, and went in about 5 miles on the  Groom Lake road. Soon we saw a bright light rise above the mountains which were between us and S4. The light begins jumping and dancing around, doing step moves in the sky, then would come to a dead stop and hover, etc.”

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He continued: “The light repeated this type of activity for a few minutes, which was thrilling, but it was so far away we could only see so much. This activity by the object was blatant, and it wasn’t our eyes playing tricks on us with starlight and planet light being distorted by the atmosphere or clouds or anything of that sort. Eventually, the light slowly sat back down behind the mountains.”

During their next visits on consecutive Wednesdays (March 29 and April 5, 1989), Huff said they observed a disc-shaped object in the sky that appeared to approach closer to them and had a bright glow, which they attributed to its method of propulsion and the way it distorted space and light. They were so startled by the object that they moved behind the open trunk of their car for protection.

On their April 5 visit, they were chased by security personnel and issued a warning for approaching a military installation. They also had a run-in with a local police officer, who took their IDs and radioed them into the security base station. Clearly, they had a strong interest in observing UFOs and were not pleased with the response they received from security and law enforcement.

Note: 

Bob Lazar was an employee of the military defense contractor, EG&G. Huff explained that on the following day, when Lazar reported to EG&G, he was stopped by a security man, Dennis Mariani, who told him they would not be flying out to Groom and instead drove him to Indian Springs Air Force Base.

At Indian Springs, Lazar was debriefed, reprimanded, and his security clearance was revoked for bringing his friends to watch the disc test. The security personnel also told Lazar that if they caught any of his friends again, they would arrest them for espionage. They also showed Lazar transcripts of his wife’s phone conversations with her boyfriend, indicating that they had also been monitoring her.

After losing his job and his wife, Lazar decided to go on television to expose what was happening in Area 51. However, he faced retaliation from the authorities, including a threat and a shooting of his car’s tire. Lazar decided to work with journalist George Knapp to expose the story.

Medium user SignalsIntelUFO has done great work by transcribing over 50 interviews of Bob Lazar with in-depth information. Bob claimed to have been hired as a physicist at Los Alamos in May 1982. For evidence about his employment, there is an article written by Terry England on June 30, 1982. “To Lazar, a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, the important thing is the jet engine. It’s something he’s been working on for years,” England wrote.

In July 2020, during Joe Rogan’s podcast with Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, Corbell said he asked Terry England about Bob Lazar’s occupation as a physicist at Los Alamos. Corbell said: “Look, here’s the point, you said Bob Lazar was a physicist at Los Alamos. So how did you base that? You’re writing a paper…” and he [England] goes “yeah,” — and it got picked up by AP news — he goes “if I [England] had misrepresented that he was a physicist at Los Alamos I would have been blackballed by everybody at Los Alamos. They take that very seriously. He was a physicist. I reported it. AP News picked it up, they repeated it. Not word one from anybody saying he wasn’t a physicist at Los Alamos.”

In July 2020, during Joe Rogan’s podcast with Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, Corbell said he asked Terry England about Bob Lazar’s occupation as a physicist at Los Alamos.  There are two former lab employees who worked directly with Bob. The first one is a physicist named John Jarmer, and the second one, according to SignalsIntelUFO, had an administrative role but remained to be unidentified. Jarmer worked at the lab for over two decades in the Polarized Proton section. Besides, Joe Vaninetti, who worked alongside Bob,is listed as an author on multiple original research papers with John Jarmer.

There are other documents and accounts stating that Lazar had worked at S-4, a government laboratory near  Groom lake. Richard Geldreich has done great research in connecting the dots to Bob Lazar’s mystery. Exactly as Lazar had described it in the 1980s, a craft of unknown origin can be seen spinning and flying belly-up in one of the US Navy’s declassified UFO  videos. “The craft that I worked on, that when it’s going to travel a long distance, that is how it operates. It puts its belly to the target and then brings all of the amplifiers to power, and you know it shoots off in that direction It doesn’t fly as it would in a science-fiction movie. It flies with the belly, the bottom, forward,” Lazar said. (Source)

Take a look at the so-called Gimbal UFO if the preceding description of a tilting spacecraft seems at all familiar to you. In 2017, the Pentagon made a video available online. In 2015, naval pilots flying off the coast of Florida came face to face with a fleet of unknown ships. Since then, they have had scores of further encounters of a similar nature.

“In the Gimbal video, there’s a mechanistic turn against the wind without deceleration, and so we have a craft without rotors, without heat signatures, without plums, without tail fins, and certainly no tail number, moving in a way that is counterintuitive to our aeronautics,” filmmaker Jeremy Corbell said. “When Bob saw it, he said it has to be a gravity-propelled craft. That it does mimic the propulsion system, Bob Lazar described.”

It is eerie. When Lazar initially began discussing the possibility of using Element 115 as a power source for antigravitational propulsion, the element was not even included on the periodic table. Now it is. It does not seem like much of a coincidence, does it?

“The study of UFOs did not end in 1969 with Project Blue Book. That was a lie, and it was an admitted lie by our own Pentagon,” Corbell said. “We are living in a world where it is understood that there are craft technologically advanced from an unknown origin that are performing maneuvers that far exceed human technology. It’s been going on a long time, and our government has been studying it.”

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

08-09-2024 om 22:35 geschreven door peter  

An extra-large glider UUV designed to carry out long-range and long-duration missions in undersea environments, DARPA’s Manta Ray is a formidable new system that inherently limits the need for human logistics on-site. The first images of the completed full-scale Manta Ray prototype were released by Northrop Grumman on April 8, 2024.

Designed with both an appearance and performance that mimic mantas, a species of devil ray well known for the massive size they often grow to reach, the next-generation UUV features a range of technologies that combine energy efficiency and increased payload capacity with optimum propulsion capabilities for undersea operations, offering freedom of operation for traditional sailing vessels and providing data that will advance undersea energy harvesting capabilities.

Manta Ray is designed to be dispatched in subsections to its deployment locations, where it is fully assembled on-site. In keeping with its intended assembly parameters, the Manta Ray prototype used in tests earlier this year was delivered by Northrop Grumman directly from its building site in Maryland to California, where it was quickly completed upon arrival.

The rapid delivery and assembly in advance of testing demonstrated Manta Ray’s ability to be deployed quickly while also conserving space at naval facilities.

Dr. Kyle Woerner, DARPA program manager for Manta Ray, said the full-scale tests allowed the DARPA team to gauge the new underwater vehicle’s capabilities while ensuring that the new UUV and its rapid assembly would allow for smooth operations from the moment each of its modular subsectional components is unboxed.

“The combination of cross-country modular transportation, in-field assembly, and subsequent deployment demonstrates a first-of-kind capability for an extra-large UUV,” Woerner said in a statement.

“Shipping the vehicle directly to its intended area of operation conserves energy that the vehicle would otherwise expend during transit,” Woerner said in a statement, adding that following its deployment, Manta Ray can utilize buoyancy-propelled gliding capabilities that allow it to conserve energy while moving through the water.

Additionally, Manta Ray possesses multiple bays capable of storing payloads of various sizes, which allows it to meet the demands of several different mission types.

Ultimately, Manta Ray’s goal is to aid in developing next-generation long-duration and extended-range UUVs suited for a variety of missions and capable of carrying payloads that will altogether provide unmatched capabilities for future U.S. Navy operations.

According to DARPA, full-scale tests involving the UUV’s energy harvesting system are currently underway with Manta Ray performer PacMar Technologies.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

VIDEOS

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

08-09-2024 om 22:06 geschreven door peter  

Police across US given new UFO handbook as they ‘pose significant safety risks’

Lucia Botfield

Police across America have published the first guide on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – the new name for UFOs -which details encounters between suspected encounters, and how these incidents should be reported.

The report, which is 11 pages long, warns officers of the ‘significant safety risks to law enforcement air support units’ the unidentified flying objects pose, and urge them to be vigilant when travelling in helicopters.

Officers’ stories of UFO confrontations are also included, with one in 2023 where a law employee saw a ‘trangle craft with green lights gliding through the sky’ before a local resident said something ‘ran’ nearby, the Mail Online reports.

The document has been created by police executive as ‘it’s in the interest of law enforcement to be aware of trends and reporting on UAP due to the unknown threat they may pose.’

The organisation, which goes by the name ‘Major Cities Chiefs Association’ or MCCA for short, includes 80 executives from major US cities that work together through community outreach, research and policy development, and more recently, UFO investigations.

Last month, Indian aerospace engineer S. Somanath said there are ‘definitely aliens out there in the universe.’

When asked if life exists in the cosmos, Somanath, who has led the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) since 2022 said: ‘Absolutely, without a doubt. My conscience tells me yes, although I have no proof. As the chairman of ISRO, I am telling you this.’

And Somanath isn’t the only one who believes we are not alone in the universe.

An officer in Blairsville, Georgia, claims to have seen ‘green lights’ in the sky when patrolling in November 2023.

‘I am a police officer and deputy sheriff. While on duty after dark, near the top of my windshield (frame of view) I witnessed movement in the sky (southbound direction of view),’ the officer said in their report.

‘Upon concentrating my focus, viewing through the low light, I was able to make out a triangle craft, with 3 dim green lights per side (just bright enough to assess size, shape, and movement).’

He then lost sight of the craft as it went behind the trees, and because he was inside his vehicle he couldn’t hear anything.

‘I am privy to what helicopters and airplanes look like in the sky, frequently working alongside medical flight crews in the area, and where nearby airports are, making me somewhat familiar with common areas of the sky in which low air travel is common. This was unlike anything I had ever witnessed,’ he continued.

The officer then responded to a call from a resident who had heard something running outside of his home… which did not sound like an animal,’ in the same direction the unidentified object was travelling in.

The new UAP guide will be ‘very handy’ for law enforcement officers, author of Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims’ Nigel Watson told the Mail Online.

‘The short history of the study of UAPs and the links to organizations where sightings can be reported is very helpful. For me the references to the ex-government ‘whistleblowers’ David Grusch and Luis Elizondo is superfluous as they have only repeated rumors that have circulated for years without any substantial evidence.

‘Although it notes numerous official studies, it does not mention the fact that the US Project Bluebook closed due to their finding such research is of no scientific value. Other projects have also found it very difficult to uncover any real evidence of non-terrestrial craft.

‘The guide also lacks any references to skeptical websites and blogs that would give a more balanced view of the subject and counteract the wilder stories, like the alleged Roswell crash of 1947.

‘Certainly there is now a case to be made that terrestrial UAPs do pose a threat to air safety and national security, but as with this guide, it gets mixed with the science fiction rumors of remarkable non-terrestrial vehicles that have little credibility.’

VIDEOS

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

08-09-2024 om 18:36 geschreven door peter  

Unidentified Flying Object spotted in Yorkshire Dales

By Andrew Robinson

Mystery objected spotted near Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales 

(Image: North Yorkshire Weather Updates/Facebook)

Observers were left puzzled after spotting a strange unidentified object floating above Whernside, one of Yorkshire's Three Peaks mountains.

The object was reportedly spotted on Saturday afternoon, with photographs taken by at least two people on the ground who were left scratching their heads about what it might be. The area in the Yorkshire Dales is often swarming with Three Peaks walkers heading up or off Whernside which stands at 736m (2,415ft).

The images were shared on the North Yorkshire Weather Updates page on Facebook, prompting a number of fanciful explanations, and a few plausible ones.

Read more:

• I tried Bettys Tea Rooms for the first time but made a faux pas with a chocolate eclair

Someone said it looked a bit like the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Other explanations included a puff of smoke from a steam train, an afterburn trail from a jet, and a weather balloon.

Several people suggested it was possibly a swarm of bees, flying ants or midges, or maybe even starlings. One man said it resembled a 'mosquito ball' as he'd seen similar sights before.

Quite a number of people posted gifs of various spaceships, aliens, Martians, extra terrestrials, or references to War of the Worlds. Some suggested it was a 'dirty lens' on the camera but two separate photos emerged which suggested this was unlikely.

One man wrote: "The tent from Leeds Festival a couple of weeks ago, still flying...."

• Did you get a video of the Whernside UFO? Email: andrew.robinson@reachplc.com

{ https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/ }

08-09-2024 om 18:18 geschreven door peter  

Story by Aman Dwivedi

"Unveiling the Secrets of Area 51: From Alien Lore to Military Mysteries"

© Provided by Zee News

Nestled in the arid desert of southern Nevada, Area 51 has long captivated the imaginations of conspiracy theorists, UFO enthusiasts, and the general public. Known for its shroud of secrecy, the base has become synonymous with alien lore and government cover-ups. But what exactly is Area 51? Is it truly a testing ground for extraterrestrial technology, or is it simply a highly classified military facility? This article explores the history, myths, and facts surrounding one of the most enigmatic sites in the United States.

1. The Mysterious Origins

Area 51 is located at Groom Lake, a dry lake bed in the Nevada desert, approximately 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The base's name originated from its designation on Atomic Energy Commission maps. Although the name "Area 51" has stuck with the public, the military rarely uses it. Established in 1955 as part of the Nevada Test and Training Range complex, the area was initially named "Paradise Ranch" by aerospace company Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin, to attract workers.

2. The Roswell Incident and UFO Lore

The lore of Area 51 is deeply intertwined with the 1947 Roswell incident, where a mysterious object crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. While the government claimed it was a weather balloon, many believe it was a UFO. This event fueled conspiracy theories that Area 51 was used to study alien technology recovered from crash sites, including the alleged Roswell UFO. The secrecy surrounding the base only added to these suspicions.

Related video: 

• 10 Real Photos From INSIDE Area 51 (See To Believe)

3. Secretive Operations and Security Measures

Area 51's primary function has always been as a testing ground for experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The base was originally used to test the U-2 spy plane, followed by other notable aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. The need for secrecy in these operations led to extensive security measures, including restricted airspace, armed guards, motion sensors, and surveillance cameras. Signs warning of "deadly force" against trespassers further deter curiosity seekers.

4. The U-2 Spy Plane and Cold War Context

In 2013, the US government finally acknowledged the existence of Area 51, largely in response to a declassified CIA document detailing the history of the U-2 spy plane. Developed during the Cold War, the U-2 was used for high-altitude reconnaissance missions. The secrecy surrounding its development and testing at Area 51 contributed to the base's mysterious reputation. The U-2's unusual appearance and high-altitude flights likely sparked many UFO sightings.

Experts Reveal What Really Happened (Full Episode) | Area 51: The CIA's Secret

5. Modern Technology and Surveillance

With the advent of satellite imagery and digital technology, Area 51 is no longer as invisible as it once was. Since 2018, the base can be viewed on Google Maps, although its operations remain highly classified. The increased visibility has not diminished public fascination, and the base continues to be a focal point for conspiracy theories and speculative fiction.

6. Pop Culture Impact

Area 51 has significantly impacted popular culture, appearing in movies, TV shows, and books. The 1996 blockbuster "Independence Day" featured Area 51 as a key location in humanity's battle against an alien invasion. The TV series "The X-Files" and "Doctor Who" have also included episodes centered around the base. These portrayals have cemented Area 51's status as a symbol of government secrecy and extraterrestrial intrigue.

7. The Robert Lazar Story

In 1989, Robert Lazar claimed he worked on alien technology at Area 51, further fueling the mythos. Lazar alleged that he had seen autopsy photos of aliens and that the government used the site to study recovered alien spacecraft. However, investigations revealed that Lazar had fabricated his background and employment history. Despite being discredited, his stories continue to influence public perception of Area 51.

8. The 2019 "Storm Area 51" Event

In 2019, a Facebook event titled "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us" went viral, attracting millions of RSVPs. The event, started as a joke, suggested that a large crowd could overwhelm security and uncover the base's secrets. Although only a few thousand people showed up, the event highlighted the enduring public fascination with Area 51 and the hope of uncovering hidden truths.

9. The Reality of Military Testing

While Area 51 is undoubtedly a site of intense secrecy, the notion that it houses alien technology is unlikely. The base's primary purpose remains the development and testing of advanced military aircraft and technology. The sightings of unidentified flying objects are more plausibly explained by the presence of cutting-edge experimental aircraft.

10. MYSTERY

Area 51 remains one of the most enigmatic places in the world, shrouded in secrecy and speculation. While the tales of alien technology and government cover-ups are compelling, the reality is likely more mundane. Area 51 is a testament to the lengths nations will go to protect their technological advancements and maintain an edge in global security. Whether or not extraterrestrial beings have ever set foot on its grounds, the legend of Area 51 continues to captivate and inspire imaginations worldwide.

Ancient Aliens: Inside Area 51's UFO Secrets

Unveiling The Mysteries of Area 51 | Area 51: UFOs Declassified | National Geographic

{ https://www.msn.com/ }

08-09-2024 om 17:19 geschreven door peter