Mysterious 'donut' structure is discovered hidden inside Earth's core - and it could unlock the secrets of our planet's protective magnetic field

• Researchers discovered a donut-shaped region at the ceiling of the outer core 
• This lighter region helps stir the liquid metal which generates the magnetic field  

By Wiliam Hunter

Scientists have uncovered a vast donut-shaped structure buried thousands of miles beneath our feet.

Researchers from the Australian National University used seismic waves generated by earthquakes to peer into the Earth's mysterious molten core.

By tracing the path of these waves through the planet, the researchers found a region a few hundred kilometres thick where they travelled two per cent slower than normal

This donut-like structure runs parallel to the equator in a ring around the edge of the liquid outer core, and could be responsible for driving our planet's protective magnetic field.

Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, lead author of the study, says: 'The magnetic field is a fundamental ingredient that we need for life to be sustained on the surface of our planet.'

Scientists have discovered a previously undetected donut-shaped region buried within the Earth which could be responsible for helping generate Earth's magnetic field (stock image)

Researchers found a region hundreds of kilometres thick and thousands of kilometres deep which wraps around the equator in a torus shape (labelled 'low velocity donut')

The Earth is made up of four major layers: the surface crust, the semi-molten mantle, a liquid metal outer core, and a solid metal inner core.

When the movement of tectonic plates in the crust creates earthquakes, these produce vibrations that spread out through all the other layers of the Earth.

Using the worldwide network of seismographic stations, researchers can see how the waves spread and make predictions about the conditions below the surface.

Scientists usually only look at the big, powerful wavefronts which travel around the world in the first hour or so after an earthquake.

However, Professor Tkalčić and his co-author Dr Xiaolong Ma were able to detect this structure by studying the faint traces left behind by waves many hours after the initial tremor.

This method revealed that seismic waves travelling near the poles were moving faster than those near the equator.

The donut was detected by using measurements of seismic waves triggered by earthquakes around the world (pictured top) by analysing this data the researchers found a speed difference between the waves travelling by the poles (bottom left) and those travelling by the equator (bottom right) 

By comparing their results to different models of the Earth's interior, Professor Tkalčić and Dr Ma found that this was best explained by the presence of a vast underground 'torus', or donut-shaped, region.

They predict that this region is only found at low latitudes and runs parallel to the equator near the ceiling of the outer core where the liquid section meets the mantle.

'We don't know the exact thickness of the doughnut, but we inferred that it reaches a few hundred kilometres beneath the core-mantle boundary,' Professor Tkalčić says.

Thanks to this region's critical role, their discovery may also have profound implications for the study of life on Earth and other planets.

Earth's outer core has a radius of around 2,160 miles (3,480km) - making it slightly larger than Mars.

The best explanation for this data was the presence of an area of low-density material (pictured in red) sitting near the surface of the Earth's liquid outer core 

The Earth's inner and outer cores are responsible for generating the planet's magnetic field, without which no life on Earth would be possible 

Mainly made of hot nickel and iron, convection currents coupled with the Earth's rotation force the liquid metal in this layer into long vertical vortices running in a north-south direction, like giant waterspouts.

It is the swirling currents of these liquid metals which act like the dynamo, powering the Earth's magnetic field.

Since this donut region has 'floated' to the top of the liquid outer core, it suggests that it could be rich in lighter elements like silicon, sulphur, oxygen, hydrogen or carbon.

Professor Tkalčić says: 'Our findings are interesting because this low velocity within the liquid core implies that we have a high concentration of light chemical elements in these regions that would cause the seismic waves to slow down.

The researchers believe that the donut -shaped region might be partially responsible for stirring the liquid metal in the outer core into the waterspout-like vortexes which generate the planet's magnetic field 

The Earth's magnetic field (pictured) deflects the charged particles carried by solar wind which can destroy the DNA of living creatures 

'These light elements, alongside temperature differences, help stir liquid in the outer core.'

Without that stirring motion to drive the planet's interior dynamo, the Earth's magnetic field might not have formed.

Without the magnetic field, the planet's surface would be exposed to a constant bombardment of charged particles from the sun which can destroy the DNA of living creatures.

This donut-shaped region, therefore, might be a critical piece of the puzzle which explains why life has developed on Earth and what we might look for in habitable planets elsewhere.

Dr Tkalčić concludes: 'Our results could promote more research about the magnetic field on both Earth and other planets.'

VIDEOS

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04-11-2024 om 23:14 geschreven door peter  

The Gulf Stream is on the verge of COLLAPSING, leading climate change scientists warn - plunging the UK into a new ice age

• READ MORE: What will happen to the UK if the Gulf Stream collapses in 2025? 

By WILIAM HUNTER

The network of ocean currents which keep the Earth's climate stable could be about to collapse, scientists have warned.

In an open letter, 44 of the world's leading climate scientists say that key Atlantic Ocean currents - including the Gulf Stream - are on the brink of failure.

The scientists caution that the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could lead to 'devastating and irreversible impacts' which will affect 'the entire world for centuries to come'.

The 2004 movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' (pictured) predicted that the world would enter a new ice age after climate change triggers the collapse of the Gulf Stream. This may have been science fiction 20 years ago, but leading scientists have now warned that the film's terrifying plot could be coming true 

As warm water travels northwards from the tropics, it hits the sea ice around Greenland and the Nordic countries, cooling and becoming much saltier.

As the water cools it becomes denser, sinking rapidly towards the bottom of the ocean where it flows back southwards before once again warming and rising to the surface.

This process of 'deep water formation' is the engine for a vast global conveyor belt which pumps heat and water all around the Atlantic Ocean. 

However, studies suggest that AMOC's deep water engine has started to slow and is now showing worrying signs of breaking down altogether.

As global temperatures rise, melting ice pours fresh water back into oceans, diluting the denser salty water and preventing it from sinking.

If this process were to break down entirely, it would have catastrophic knock-on effects including the weakening of the Gulf Stream and the disruption of global weather patterns.

Encouragingly, the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states: 'There is medium confidence that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will not collapse abruptly before 2100.'

However, the authors of the open letter argue that this risk has been massively underestimated.

44 leading climate scientists have written an open letter to Nordic policymakers calling for action on the risk of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) ocean currents collapsing. These currents (pictured) are a vital engine for moving warm water around the planet 

In their letter, the scientists write: 'The passing of this tipping point is a serious possibility already in the next few decades.'

Research from the University of Copenhagen published earlier this year found that a collapse could occur any time from 2025 onwards.

By looking at ocean temperature data over the last 150 years, the researchers argued that such a scenario is '95 per cent certain' by the end of this century if current greenhouse gas emissions persist.

The open letter also argues that the severity of the risk warrants more concern even if there were only 'medium confidence' in a potential collapse.

'The purpose of this letter is to draw attention to the fact that only “medium confidence” in the AMOC not collapsing is not reassuring, and clearly leaves open the possibility of an AMOC collapse during this century,' say the authors.

'Even with a medium likelihood of occurrence, given that the outcome would be catastrophic and impacting the entire world for centuries to come, we believe more needs to be done to minimize this risk.'

Should the AMOC collapse, the effects would be widespread, devastating, and extremely long-lasting.

Scientists believe that the last time AMOC completely collapsed was during the end of the last Ice Age around 12,000 years ago, when temperatures in western Europe plummeted by up to 10°C (18°F).

If AMOC were to collapse, the scientists predict that the Northwestern Atlantic region,  including the UK, could be frozen inside a growing 'cold bubble' which may drop temperatures by as much as 2.4°C (4.32°F)

The collapse would lead to major cooling and 'unprecedented extreme weather', especially in Nordic countries.

This would enlarge and deepen the 'cold blob' of anomalously cold waters which has already developed over the eastern North Atlantic due to the slowdown of heat-carrying currents.

This would be particularly bad news for the UK which is kept warm by currents of warm water carried by AMOC northwards from the Gulf of Mexico.

Previous studies have suggested that this could lead to winter temperatures in Britain becoming 10°C to 15°C (18°F to 27°F) lower on average.

While the expert say more research is needed, they note that this could 'potentially threaten the viability of agriculture in northwestern Europe'.

Around the world, the collapse of the AMOC currents would also have devastating consequences.

The tropical rainfall belt and monsoon regions could shift southwards, precipitating enormous disruptions to agriculture and water supplies in the region.

Such a shift could cause widespread drought and famine, and could lead to massive increases in the number of climate refugees and escalating geopolitical tensions.

Without the AMOC ocean currents (pictured) the Nordic regions would experience rapid cooling and extreme weather while the Atlantic coast of the US would be hit by 'major' sea-level rises

In the US, the scientists say that a collapse of AMOC would create a 'major additional sea-level rise', potentially threatening vulnerable low-lying areas on the Atlantic coast such as New York and Miami.

Additionally, the authors argue that the resulting changes to weather patterns would cause an 'upheaval of marine ecosystems and fisheries'.

In the face of these threats, the authors of the open letter are calling on the leaders of Nordic countries to seriously consider the risk of an AMOC collapse and put pressure on their global partners to stick to the aims of the Paris Agreement.

However, not every scientist is in agreement that AMOC will collapse within this century.

Since AMOC was first measured in 2004, scientists have expressed concerns that the current system could be weakening.

Yet a number of leading experts argue that these conclusions are far from being definitively established.

The main issue is that researchers have had to make some basic assumptions about how AMOC works in order to predict how it might change over time. 

This climate system is massively complex and some have expressed concern that we don't have all the evidence needed to make precise predictions.

A collapse of the AMOC would cause a shift in the tropical rainfall belt - an area of rainfall that is positioned around the tropics. This could lead to widespread drought and famine as agriculture and water distribution are disrupted 

Read More

• The Gulf Stream could COLLAPSE as early as 2025 - plunging Europe into a deep freeze, scientists warn 

When the original AMOC 'tipping point' paper was published in 2023, these concerns led a number of leading scientists to express scepticism that a total collapse was really coming.

Dr Ben Booth, senior climate scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said at the time: 'Whilst there is definitely a role for papers like this, the conclusions are far from settled science.'

Dr Booth added: 'A lot of caution needs to be taken in interpreting the findings as a definitive inference of the future overturning change.'

The Gulf Stream Explained

Likewise, Dr John Robson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of Reading, said: 'There are large uncertainties involved in predicting if and when an abrupt weakening of AMOC could occur.'

However, Dr Robson still maintained that the 'warning lights are flashing on' for the AMOC system and that further research and monitoring are crucial.  

What will happen if the AMOC global ocean current collapses?

UK 

Studies suggest that the collapse of AMOC would lead to plummeting temperatures in the UK.

Britain is currently kept toasty by the Gulf Stream which carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to the seas around the UK.

If this were to fail, Britain could be plunged into extreme cold with winter temperatures falling by up to 15°C (27°F).

Average summer temperatures would be 3°C to 5°C (5.4°F to 9°F) lower than they are now, while winters could be 10°C to 15°C (18°F to 27°F) colder.

The brunt of this change would be felt by northern areas such as Scotland which will become much colder than the South.

Europe

The effects of an AMOC collapse would be particularly strong in Northwestern Europe and the Nordic regions.

Scientists warn that the 'cold blob', an anomalous region of cold, could expand and deepen over the region.

The area would be gripped by freezing temperatures so cold that sea ice could creep South from the Arctic.

Extreme weather will become more common, with violent storms and intense rainfall becoming more frequent.

The effects could be so strong that scientists warn it could threaten the viability of agriculture in Northern Europe.

US 

The US will avoid most of the freezing consequences of AMOC collapse but will not escape unscathed.

Scientists predict that the failure of the ocean currents would lead to major additional sea-level rises on the Atlantic coastline.

Research has suggested major cities such as New York, New Orleans, and Miami could be threatened by flooding.

Estimates already suggest that up to 448,000 people could be displaced.

Additionally, changing weather patterns could lead to 'upheaval' for coastal ecosystems and fisheries.

Worldwide

If AMOC collapses the tropical rainfall belt, an area of high rainfall positioned around the tropics will shift southwards.

This shift could lead to widespread enormous disruptions to agriculture and water supplies in the region.

That change could trigger widespread famine and drought in some regions with devastating floods in others.

In turn, experts suggest that this will lead to a massive increase in the number of climate refugees fleeing their home countries and escalating geopolitical tensions in the region.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

04-11-2024 om 22:51 geschreven door peter  

In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 to explore the outer planets and far beyond. Since then, Voyager 1 has traveled over 14 billion miles, capturing extraordinary images of our solar system. This slideshow highlights 13 of the most breathtaking images Voyager 1 sent back to Earth, along with some from its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on their incredible journeys toward interstellar space.

1. Earth and the Moon – A Distant View

Taken on September 18, 1977, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to capture both Earth and its Moon in a single frame. At a distance of 7.25 million miles from Earth, this iconic image shows the Moon floating beyond our home planet, emphasizing the vastness of space.¹

• Read More: The Mystery of The Indian Ocean’s ‘Gravity Hole’

2. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

In early 1979, Voyager 1 provided a close-up of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth. This swirling mass of clouds, first observed centuries ago, gave scientists new insight into Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, thanks to the detailed images captured by Voyager.

3. Active Volcanism on Io

During its flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io, Voyager 1 discovered something unprecedented—active volcanoes. This was the first observation of volcanic activity on another celestial body besides Earth. Voyager detected plumes erupting miles into space, revealing Io’s fiery surface.

4. Saturn’s Breathtaking Rings

Voyager 1 reached Saturn in 1980, capturing stunning images of its intricate ring system. Saturn’s rings, composed of countless ice and rock particles, revealed a beauty never before seen. Voyager even discovered a new, faint G-ring and enigmatic spokes in the B-ring.²

5. Titan’s Hazy Atmosphere

As Voyager 1 flew past Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, it detected a thick atmosphere primarily composed of nitrogen. Titan’s opaque haze left its surface hidden, fueling speculation about the moon’s geological secrets. This image offered a glimpse into one of the most mysterious moons in our solar system.

6. The Pale Blue Dot

Perhaps the most famous image Voyager 1 ever captured is the “Pale Blue Dot,” taken on February 14, 1990, from 3.7 billion miles away. In this image, Earth appears as a tiny speck, less than a pixel in size, suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan’s reflections on this image remind us of our small place in the vast universe.

• Read More: NASA Discovered a Potentially Habitable Planet – An Alternative To Mars?

7. Close-up of Europa

Voyager 1 also flew by Jupiter’s moon Europa, capturing images of its icy surface. The close-up showed evidence of potential subsurface oceans, raising the possibility of life beneath its frozen crust. These images set the stage for future missions to study Europa more closely.

8. Voyager 1’s Family Portrait of the Solar System

In 1990, Voyager 1 captured a family portrait of the solar system from beyond Pluto. This composite image includes six planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, and Venus. It’s a striking reminder of our solar system’s expanse and the spacecraft’s journey far from home.

9. Saturn’s Moons – Tethys, Dione, and Rhea

Voyager 1 captured images of Saturn’s moons Tethys, Dione, and Rhea in 1980, showcasing their cratered surfaces and icy landscapes. These moons, though small, are integral parts of Saturn’s complex system of rings and satellites.

10. The F Ring of Saturn

One of the discoveries made by Voyager 1 was the narrow, braided F ring of Saturn. This stunning image shows the intricacies of the ring’s structure, including its twists and clumps, revealing a dynamic system shaped by gravitational interactions with Saturn’s moons.

11. Entering Interstellar Space

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, crossing the heliopause—the boundary between the solar wind and interstellar medium. The spacecraft’s data showed a steep drop in solar particles and a rise in cosmic rays, confirming this historic milestone.

12. A Golden Message to the Cosmos

Voyager 1 carries the Golden Record, a 12-inch disc containing sounds and images from Earth. This record, curated by Carl Sagan and his team, serves as a message to any intelligent life that might find it, showcasing humanity’s diversity and curiosity.

13. Beyond the Solar System

Voyager 1’s journey continues today, traveling at 38,000 miles per hour into interstellar space. Though its power is diminishing, the data it sends back from beyond the solar system gives us unprecedented insight into the universe beyond the Sun’s influence.

Conclusion

Voyager 1’s images, from the close-up of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot to the distant Pale Blue Dot, have changed our understanding of the cosmos. As it continues its journey through interstellar space, this remarkable spacecraft reminds us of humanity’s quest for discovery beyond the stars.

• Read More: If a ‘Planet Killer’ Astroid is Going to Hit Earth, This is How NASA Will Warn The World

Sources

1. “Astonishing Images: What Voyager 1 Really Saw in its 47-Year-Journey to Interstellar Space..” Secrets of Universe. Rishabh Nakra.
2. “Voyager: 15 incredible images of our solar system captured by the twin probes (gallery).” Space. Daisy Dobrijevic and Mike Wall. September 22, 2022.

VIDEOS

What Did Voyager 1 See During its Journey Out Of The Solar System? 1977-2019 (4k UHD)

Voyager Images from the Odysseys (NASA Space Photos)

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04-11-2024 om 18:44 geschreven door peter  

From the Countryside to the Terraced Estates: Lesser-Known UFO and Alien Encounters of the United Kingdom

Marcus Lowth

Just about every country on the planet has UFO encounters on record. The United Kingdom, perhaps particularly due to its size, has more than its fair share. While some of these, such as the Rendlesham Forest incident, are well-known inside and outside of the UFO community, many others are far lesser known.

Perhaps the best place to start is with one of the most mind-blowing encounters on record, which unfolded in the winter of 1987 on the Ilkley Moor near Ilkley in the Yorkshire countryside. The case was detailed in the book Without Consent by Philip Mantle and Carl Nagaitis, and while the witness was happy to share his account with investigators, he did so under the condition that he remained anonymous, which only adds a further hint of credibility to it. The witness was given the name Philip Spencer, and all that is known about him is that he is a former police officer.

At around 7 am one icy cold December morning, Philip left his home on his way to his father-in-law’s home in East Morton. The two of them shared an interest in photography and were planning on spending the morning on the Yorkshire Moors. It was while he was walking up a steep hill that he began to notice a strange humming sound coming from above him. At first, he assumed it was coming from a low-flying aircraft. However, when he noticed something strange moving to the side of him in his peripheral vision, he began to question just what the noise might be. He turned to look at the movement he had noticed and was shocked to see a “small figure” heading up the embankment of the quarry. He immediately stopped and called out to the figure. At the same time, he raised his camera to his eye and snapped a picture of the bizarre being before it turned away and headed off once more.

At this point, Philip began to pursue the figure. The closer he got, he could tell that it was “waving him off”, as if warning him from coming any closer. He eventually reached the top of the embankment. By the time he had done so, however, the figure had seemingly vanished into thin air. Then, he noticed a “huge silver disc-shaped object” hovering directly above him. The next thing he knew, the object shot off into the distance at great speed.

Philip decided to return home, clearly shaken up by the surreal events. However, when he arrived back in Ilkley only minutes later, he realized it was after 10 am. He had somehow lost almost three hours. As soon as this realization hit him, he recalled the photograph he had taken. He made his way to the bus stop, catching a bus to the nearby town of Keighley, where he could have the film developed in an hour. When he received the photographs, he was stunned by what he was looking at. Although a little grainy, he could clearly see the figure he witnessed earlier that morning.

Incidentally, you can view the picture in question by simply searching Google (or whatever your chosen search engine is) with something along the lines of Ilkley Moor Alien Photograph.

In the days that followed, Philip began to experience intense dreams. Combined with the bizarre events themselves, he decided to report his encounter to a UFO organization, although he had no knowledge of UFOs, and so, at least initially, didn’t know who to contact. After researching, he decided to write to investigator and researcher, Jenny Randles. Randles would pass his details (or the PO Box number he used in order to protect his identity) to the Manchester UFO Research Association. Ultimately, however, the group showed little interest in the case. Following this, Philip contacted another UFO researcher – Arthur Tomlinson. And he made immediate plans to meet with him.

Tomlinson and his fellow researcher, Steve Balon, first had Philip take them on the exact route he took on the morning of the sighting. When they were at the sight where the photograph had been taken, Tomlinson noticed how a compass that Philip had with him had reversed its polarity (it now pointed south instead of north). Following this initial meeting, Philip handed the photograph, including the negative, to Tomlinson so that it could analyzed (it has been suggested that the picture is authentic without any signs of tampering).

With all of this in mind, Tomlinson approached the Manchester UFO Research Association chairman, Peter Hough, asking him to come with them on a second visit to Ilkley they had planned. He agreed, and Philip went over the details of the encounter once more. It was noted by Tomlinson that Philip gave virtually the same account with no variations, another sign of the credible nature of the incident.

Once more, Philip took the investigators to the location where he had seen the strange figure and taken the photograph. While they were, investigators noted another fine detail. The sky in the photograph Philip had taken was light. He claimed he had taken the picture at some time between 7:30 am and 7:45 am. However, at this time, the sky would have been a lot darker. When Philip underwent hypnotic regression a short time later, this anomaly would be explained.

Following this second meeting, and before Philip had undergone hypnotic regression, two strange men arrived at Philip’s home claiming to be from the Ministry of Defense, a Mr. Jefferson and a Mr. Davies. They wasted little time in expressing their interest in the photograph Philip had taken on the moors that cold December morning. He told them little of the experience and informed them that he was no longer in possession of the picture. He wasted little time informing Tomlinson of the visit. He didn’t, however, see the two men again.

A short time after this, Philip underwent hypnotic regression. And the details that emerged from the session are remarkable, to say the least, just one of which was that he had taken the picture much later in the morning than he had thought he had.

He recalled that it was a particularly cold morning, and he was walking up the hill on the way to his father-in-law’s house. He recalled seeing the strange figure on the embankment. However, this time, under regression, the figure was not moving away from him but heading towards him. He also recalled for the first time that he couldn’t move, as if he were temporarily paralyzed and frozen to the spot. Furthermore, everything had turned “fuzzy!” Then, things turned even stranger.

He suddenly found himself “floating along in the air” and when he looked down, he could see the strange figure – that he described as having a green tinge to its skin – walking below, slightly ahead of him. Several moments later, he saw the “big silver saucer thing” up ahead. At this point, he appears to have lost consciousness as all he could recall next was that “everything went black”.

His next memory was of being in a “funny sort of room” that was lit up in such a way that he couldn’t see the source of the glow – as if the light was coming out of the walls. He recalled having surges of fear running through him. At the same time, a voice appeared inside his head, urging him not to be afraid. Interestingly, the sense of fear was replaced by a sense of calm. He was placed by unseen entities on some kind of strange table before a tube-like device made its way over his body from his feet to his head. Philip recalled that he believed this was some kind of scanning device. When the device had performed this duty and disappeared, Philip noticed the green figure standing in a doorway a short distance away. And what’s more, it was urging him to join it.

He stated that he didn’t want to follow the figure but found himself heading towards it. He went through the doorway and found himself in a “round room” looking at a “strange ball with things around it”. Then, the voice appeared in his head once more, urging him to continue walking through the room and into a corridor on the other side of it. He did so, following the corridor into another room. Inside, there were two of the green-skinned creatures, as well as a picture on the wall that appeared to move (which was likely some kind of screen). Interestingly, he couldn’t recall what the pictures were, but he could remember the voice asking him, “Do you understand?”, to which he responded that he did. Then, things turned black once more.

His next memory was of standing on the moor looking at the strange figure on the embankment. This time, it was heading away from him as he had initially recalled. He recalled calling out to it, to which it “waived him off”. It was at this point that he took the picture, which he had, it was determined, taken sometime between 8 am and 10 am.

Following the session, it was concluded that Philip Spencer was a very credible witness who recalled the encounter “as something that had actually happened!” The incident also contained many details that can be found in other similar encounters – such things as the no-source lighting, blacking out when entering and exiting the craft, and, of course, the missing time.

There are also other intriguing details. For example, when Philip was asked, under hypnosis, about the visual screens he had seen – which very well could have been some kind of film – he responded that he was “not supposed to tell anybody” about that as it was “not for them to know!” Whether this was his own determination or due to some kind of mental programming, he refused to tell any details. Ultimately, the case remains of interest to researchers and investigators today, almost four decades later.

Another particularly interesting UFO and alien encounter from the United Kingdom was investigated by veteran UFO researcher, Tony Dodd, who relayed the account in his 1999 book Alien Investigator: The Case Files of Britain’s Leading UFO Detective. The incident occurred in a typical English town in Derbyshire in the summer of 1995. On this particular evening, Mike and Debbie had invited their friends and neighbors, Steve and Annie, to their house for a barbecue. It would be an evening that would change all four of their lives.

The barbecue had been a last-minute arrangement, and it was 10 pm before the coals were finally lit. Around 40 minutes later, a mix of chicken legs, sausages, and burgers was cooking on the griddle. The four friends were sitting in the garden, each enjoying a glass of cold cider. Then, things suddenly changed.

Out of nowhere, a huge object appeared over the garden around 20 feet from the ground. This craft was a round disc shape with a black, metallic exterior and bright white lights moving in an anti-clockwise direction. The lights were so bright that they lit up the entire garden. As the group looked on, a door suddenly opened on the object’s side. At the same time, a bizarre feeling swept through the four friends, with each later stating the surroundings took on a strange “dream-like” feel. According to Steve, they felt “as if we had entered a vacuum. All sound seemed to have stopped, and everything went into slow motion!”

The next thing they realized, the craft was moving away from them. While it did so, slowly at first, it soon picked up pace before it disappeared into the distance. Within seconds of the craft moving away, all four of the witnesses began to feel intense stomach pains, as well as feelings of intense nausea. It was at this point that Steve looked over to the barbecue. Not only were the coals now beginning to cool, but all of the food had been completely burnt. When he looked at his watch, he was shocked to see it was almost midnight. They had, it seemed, lost almost an hour and a half.

Despite the bizarre nature of the events, Mike decided to make a report to the police. They promptly attended the property and took statements from each of the witnesses. As part of their standard investigation, they asked if anything was missing. It was soon discovered that two of the cider glasses the group used were nowhere to be seen. Ultimately, the police recommended that they contact Tony Dodd (who was a former police detective). They did so, and a short time later, they were undergoing separate hypnotic regression sessions in order to try and discover what happened in the 80 minutes that were unaccounted for.

To begin with, they would each volunteer the same basic account. They all recalled, for example, seeing the strange glowing object shortly after lighting the barbecue. They claimed it was a considerable distance away, to begin with, but soon came closer. In fact, in no time at all, it was directly over the house. They described the object as being round with some kind of dome on the top, while the lights on the underside were so bright they were almost “blinding”. It was at this stage that each of the accounts became more personal to each witness.

Debbie, for example, offered that after the object appeared overhead, she recalled Annie standing, looking up and pointing at it. She also recalled seeing “rotating lights” of red, green, and white, and that they were so bright they hurt her eyes. As she was describing these events she became very visibly upset – so much so that she had to be calmed down before the session could continue.

When she continued, she stated that she was no longer “on my own! I am not in the garden anymore!” She claimed she could see “shadows” and “different colored lights”, as well as “eyes looking at me, they’re big and black, not like ours!”

The next thing she realized, she was lying on “something hard with my back raised!” She could also sense movement behind her – some kind of figures that she could only describe as shadow-like. She also offered other details, such as noticing how the roof of the room came “down to the walls without a joining!” Once more she became visibly distressed, and at this point, it was decided to bring the session to a close.

When Annie gave her account she showed the same distress, and even fear. She described a column of light coming from the underside of the object and stretching down to the ground. Shortly after, she saw a “small figure” who was dressed in a black cloak with a hood standing in the garden. She further stated that it had a “strange, pale face with a pointed chin and very large black eyes!”

Then, two more of these strange beings appeared. Before she knew it, she was surrounded and they had hold of her arms. They were, she recalled, “dragging me towards the light!” She further claimed that she could hear these beings making “strange, animal-like grunting noises!”

The next thing she knew, she was inside the craft. To begin with she displayed intense anxiety and fear. However, when she spoke of finding herself inside the strange room, she suddenly became calm, leading Dodd to speculate whether this was some kind of calming drug that the aliens had administered. She went on to describe being inside a room with “loads of people around the sides of the room. (They are) little people. They are all wearing cloaks with hoods!”

She went on to describe similar procedures as Debbie had, before offering further details of the room, describing it as “funny, round, and divided into squares”. She also described the light as being a “peachy” color that appeared to come out of the walls and that caused her vision to become blurred.

She then noticed one of the figures had some kind of device in its hand. She described this as being a “silver, small square thing on a rod”. At the same time, she could also see another figure using some kind of medical-type instrument on her toes. These procedures continued, as she recalled something being injected into her neck, as well as something being inserted into her belly button.

Then, without warning, one of the figures pressed its face directly up against hers. She stated under hypnosis that this face was “really pale, with long, black, slanting eyes”. Before she could take in any further details, she could sense something “pressing down on her belly button” causing her severe discomfort.

The next thing she could recall was of standing in the garden and watching the object disappear into the distance.

Mike underwent hypnotic regression but quickly became so visibly terrified that it was decided to bring the session to an immediate stop. Ultimately, it was determined it would be unsafe for his mental health to attempt regression again, although his reaction alone tells us something terrifying and out of the ordinary occurred that summer evening. Annie’s husband, Steve, though, offered further interesting details about the incident.

Interestingly, even before the bizarre object appeared over the garden, Steve offered, while under hypnosis, that there was a “strange” feeling to the night. When the object did appear, the first thing he could recall was his wife’s petrified screams at the side of him. He had a quick memory of the flashing lights before suddenly finding himself inside the object.

He offered he was inside a “bright room, with lots of small people!” Similar to his wife’s description, he stated that these figures wore cloaks with hoods, adding that it appeared these cloaks were made from material that was “like black tin foil but not tin foil!”

The next thing Steve remembered he was standing inside a “transparent tube, without seams”. Standing around the tube were several of the small beings, each staring at him. After several moments, he was removed from the tube and taken to another room. He stated that this room was “very big” and that he could “see all sorts in here”, including “loads of little people, moving around”. He continued that they had “balls of white stuff in their hands” and that he had no idea what it was. Furthermore, he could see a board on one of the walls that had the planets of the solar system on it.

At this point, Steve’s memory became a little hazy and disjointed. He stated that he wasn’t certain if he was standing or not, but he realized that he was temporarily paralyzed. Furthermore, he had vague memories that he was taken to a separate craft at some point during the encounter, before being back in the strange room with the figures performing various experiments on him.

His next memory was of being “back in the tube”. He could hear screaming which he first believed to be his own. Then, he realized it was Annie. He was confused as to where he was before he focused on the craft overhead and realized he was back in the garden beneath it. It was motionless, but the lights were spinning, increasing quickly. As this was happening, he recalled feeling like he was struggling for breath, as well as not being able to take his focus from the object despite the fact he desperately wanted to. Then, the craft began to rise into the air and disappeared into the distance.

Although the four witnesses were glad to have filled in some of the blanks of that summer’s evening in 1995, none of them wished to investigate the case further, and all declined further hypnosis sessions.

Just before 2020, after researching this case, I received an email from a member of Dodd’s investigative team. He insisted that not only was the case a very credible one, but that some of the witnesses went on to develop strange abilities, including telepathy. This is an intriguing detail as there are many people who claim to have developed such bizarre abilities following close encounter incidents.

There is no doubt that the case is one of the most thought-provoking alien abduction encounters on record. And one, should any of the witnesses ever have a change of heart regarding further investigation of the case, that could have further secrets to reveal. Perhaps the fact that all of the witnesses have chosen to remain anonymous with no effort to make money from “telling their story” lends the case even more credibility.

There are also several details from the case that resonate very nicely with others from around the UFO community. We have already mentioned the details of the witnesses seemingly developing strange abilities in the years following the encounter, but even the descriptions of the craft and the rooms inside is interesting. Such details as the walls being “seamless” or “without joints”, for example. We might also recall that the witnesses claimed to have suffered from nausea and intense stomach cramps immediately following the encounter, something else that can be found in many other similar incidents. That something strange happened to the four friends that evening in Derbyshire in the summer of 1995 is surely beyond doubt.

One of Dodd’s most fascinating cases involved a woman known only as “Sharon from Yorkshire”. In the early 1990s, Sharon was listening to an interview with Dodd on the radio. He was speaking about alien abduction cases, specifically, some of the signs that a person might look for as an indicator that they may have also been abducted by aliens. The more Sharon listened, the more she realized that she was experiencing several such signs. And what’s more, these apparent clues had been showing themselves to Sharon for years.

She often awoke, for example, to find her nightdress not only removed but completely disappeared, as if it had simply vanished. Furthermore, she would often wake up to find blood on her pillows from apparent nosebleeds during the night. Even stranger, she would sometimes wake up with mud and dirt on her feet, on the bedroom floor, and even in her bed, as well as even waking up in random rooms in her house with no memory whatsoever of how she got there.

There were also other clues described by Dodd that she had experienced. She would often notice strange smells in the air that she couldn’t explain, as well as finding markings on her body with no memory of how she had received them. There were also many times that electrical equipment would malfunction when she was near them, and strangest of all; clocks would often tick backward if she was in the room.

She would eventually make contact with Dodd, who would detail the hypnosis sessions he conducted with her in his previously mentioned book Alien Investigator. He first took Sharon back to an incident that had happened (then) recently, to around 5 am one morning when she had just gotten out of bed and was getting ready for work. She detailed that, although she didn’t understand why, she had an urge to look out of her bedroom window. To her shock, she could recall seeing three “greeny-brown” craft that she recalled being the “length of a working man’s club!” She further recalled the craft had extremely precise and straight edges and a curved top, with no windows visible on the object’s dark exterior.

The next thing she knew, she was seemingly inside one of these large craft, inside a “large, white room” with ramps leading out of it. She further described tall, tanned beings onboard the craft with her. What’s more, these strange entities spoke to her “into her head”. We should note once more that this detail of telepathic communication is one that can be found in many encounters of alien abduction and close encounters with extraterrestrials.

The next thing she could recall was standing on one of the ramps that led into another white room, only now, there were other people all around her. She stated they were led into the room, which she described as looking like an assembly hall. Moments later, one of the tall, tanned beings appeared in front of them. She recalled that this being began speaking to them, not out loud, but directly into their heads. She said the being spoke about the pollution of the planet and how humanity must change its ways.

At this point, this alien entity told the group to turn and look towards a large window in one of the walls. Sharon recalled being able to see Earth outside. After being left to look at the breathtaking sight for several moments, they were told to move to another room. According to Dodd’s regression tapes, Sharon described what happened next, stating that they were walking “up the ramp, down the long corridor” when she had a sudden urge to touch the walls, claiming she could sense a power coming from them. She described the walls as being “dark and light” with a sand-like texture that appeared like metal but wasn’t.

Then, she was in the next room, one that was dark with a “light at the front” and a bizarre floor below them. At this point, Sharon began to feel a surge of fear running through her, although she couldn’t understand why. She recalled becoming confused – so much so, she wasn’t sure if she was standing up or sitting down. She also recalled a “cold bright light” being shined directly into her face at random intervals. At the same time, she began to feel numb, as well as having a sense that she had somehow been restrained. She noticed that there were now other beings in the room, different from the tall, tanned ones.

She could only see their heads, which she stated were big with big eyes. She then noticed that one of these creatures was reaching out towards her and touching her fingers. She recalled this entity had four fingers that were “not like ours”. She then noticed some kind of round device heading towards her from above, stating that it was “going in my stomach!” She recalled sensing some kind of injection in her abdomen, although she also recalled that she couldn’t feel any pain. Then, before she knew it, the procedure was over.

She now found herself sitting up on some kind of table, although she had no idea how she had arrived there. In front of her was one of the tall, tanned beings who guided her to a strange triangular doorway. After standing in this doorway for several moments, the entity informed her that it was “time to go home!” The next thing she knew, she was back in her bedroom.

Dodd also regressed Sharon back to several other apparent abductions during different stages of her life. One of these was when she was only eight years old. She recalled being asleep in bed when she woke up suddenly. She stated to Dodd, under hypnosis, that “the man is here again” and that she “had to go. I don’t want to go. I’m tired!” This strange man then led Sharon outside where she could see a “spaceship” hovering overhead. The man led her onboard. The next thing she knew, the craft was “going on its side” and she was floating.

She soon found herself in a large room that was full of other children. The large, tall, tanned entities were in the room also. Perhaps bizarrely, she offered to Dodd that these taller entities were “teachers” and that they “had to listen” to them as they “teach you!”

Another intriguing abduction encounter occurred when Sharon was around 14 years old. She told Dodd that she was at her aunt’s house “in the back garden, having a fag!” Then, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she sensed that she was rising from the ground. She recalled that she was “going straight up into the ship”, adding that this ship was “different from the others”. She went on to describe “paneling on the wall” where she could see “funny writing shapes, something like Egyptian writing!” This detail is certainly interesting when we consider what she recalled next.

She found herself standing in her room with all of her clothes removed. The familiar tall beings were standing around her. On this occasion, though, she was the only person there. She suddenly noticed an uncomfortable “pins-and-needles” sensation spreading through her body. As this was happening, one of the entities told her – once more, directly into her head – that this feeling was from the energy they were transferring to her. She recalled that this feeling was spreading all over her body.

Then, she recalled perhaps the most fascinating detail of all. She was told that the pyramids of Earth were of great importance, and most intriguing, that “they (the aliens) put the pyramids here!”

Surprisingly or not, Sharon had no memory of what she had said once she was brought out of these hypnosis sessions. In fact, when she viewed video footage of them, she was completely surprised at what she was saying. She did, though, claim to Dodd that she felt more “at peace” with the bizarre events that had seemingly plagued her life.

Without a doubt, one of the most intriguing alien encounters from the United Kingdom occurred one sunny day in 1940 in Gateshead, England. According to an article in the June 24th, 2011, edition of The Northern Echo newspaper, one day in the spring of 1940, Robert Hall and a friend were playing in the streets of the terraced housing estate where they lived when they suddenly noticed a group of soldiers marching down the street. As Robert watched the soldiers, his eye caught a strange object that was “whizzing” across the sky. He realized he was the only one to see it, so he remained quiet. However, when he and his friend were returning home to get something to eat a short time later, their afternoon took a drastic turn.

As they approached one of the corners of the backstreets – with tall, red-bricked terraced housing overlooking them on each side - Robert noticed how a “shimmy” appeared in the air, very similar to how it appears in very hot conditions. The next thing they realized, they were inside some kind of atmospheric distortion, and of more concern, there in front of them was a strange “egg-shaped thing” that was “surrounded by bright light”. They both looked at each other, both unsure of what to do. A moment later, they noticed around 20 “strange-looking creatures” near the bizarre object.

Robert later described these entities as humanoid, each between two to four feet tall. However, he also offered that these humanoids were decidedly different from each other. One, for example, looked similar to what we would imagine a Bigfoot to look like, while another had long hair, a thin body, and wore what appeared to be a long coat that covered what seemed to be batwings. Some of these figures even looked almost human, with pale skin and long blond hair, a description very similar to the alleged Nordic aliens of the 1950s.

As Robert watched this bizarre scene, he became aware of several other children who had been playing in the alley, and who were also clearly aware of this strange display before them. Robert recalled how they appeared clearly “petrified and in shock”, with some of them trying to “get over the railway” but were unable to do so because of the barbed wire that ran around it. He even heard several of them screaming. Then, one of the creatures turned their attention to Robert and his friend.

These strange beings then spoke in “perfect English”, asking the boys if they could “examine” them. Robert protested, recalling that he said the country was “at war with Germany” and that they shouldn’t go with them. Despite this, the creatures brought both Robert and his friend onboard the egg-shaped object. According to Robert, these apparent aliens then proceeded to take a sample of blood from the back of his neck. Even more harrowing, he was told that he had to remain utterly still during this procedure or he would be “killed instantly”. When taken, a strange jelly-like substance was placed on the spot of the blood of the extraction. Although they carried out several other procedures following this, Robert couldn’t recall what they were. Then, the next thing he knew, the aliens were telling Robert and his friend that they were free to go. Needless to say, they ran as fast as they could all the way back home.

As soon he arrived back at his house, he blurted out to his parents what had happened. However, they both dismissed his claims, offering that someone had likely played a prank on him. This was echoed by several soldiers who were standing on the street near to the house, and who heard Robert’s curious tale. Despite this, several of the soldiers went to investigate the location Robert claimed the incident had unfolded. And when they arrived, they could clearly see the egg-shaped object rising into the air. One of them even fired his pistol in the object’s direction, but didn’t appear to hit it. A moment later, it had disappeared.

Robert recalled years later that he struggled to understand just where all of the humanoid entities had disappeared to, stating that the object was around 12 to 14 feet and, as such, surely could not have fit all of them inside.

Things turned even stranger, and perhaps rather more ominous, the following day when two men in black suits arrived at Robert’s home. Ultimately, they told Robert that he mustn’t speak about what he had seen; otherwise, he would “disappear!” To begin with, Robert put the incident out of his mind. Several days later, however, he would find himself at the center of another bizarre and surreal experience.

Once more, he was playing in the backstreets in between the rows of terraced houses when another strange creature appeared out of nowhere and reached for him. When Robert described this creature – large head, thin body, long arms, and huge, black eyes – it was clear he was describing a grey alien. As it happened, Robert’s uncle was nearby when this bizarre scene unfolded, and he immediately ran over to his nephew. He happened to be carrying a coal shovel at the time and so used this to attack the creature, hitting it on the head. It immediately fell to the ground seemingly dead from the assault. Robert’s uncle then placed the body into a large sack and told Robert to find a policeman and report what had happened.

Robert happened upon Sergeant Brookes, who quickly followed the young boy to the scene in the back alley. Once he had inspected the body for himself, Brookes promptly informed the army. A small military unit arrived a short time later. They inspected the body before removing it, disappearing without explanation.

Robert, incidentally, would go on to face a lifetime of ridicule for his claims, although he never once altered his version of events.

UFO researcher, Richard D. Hall, would investigate the case retrospectively. And he quickly determined that Robert Hall’s claims were very credible. He discovered, for example, that several of the local businesses and shops that Robert claimed had been near the location of the encounter were all accurate and correct. He also discovered that a Sergeant Brookes did indeed work in that location during 1940.

There were also further intriguing details that Hall picked up on after speaking with Robert years later. Robert recalled, for example, that one of the figures held some kind of device that could immediately “subdue or immobilize” a person, a detail that shows up in multiple other UFO and alien encounters. As well as the blood sample (another detail often in alien abduction encounters) Robert recalled that a strange triangular mark remained on his face for several years after the initial encounter. Many people, even before the realization that they have been abducted by aliens, attest to finding similar markings on their bodies. Interestingly, if a little disturbing, Richard Hall suggested that rather than attempting to take a blood sample, these apparent aliens could very well have been “trying to put something in” – essentially, some kind of alien implant.

Eventually, Robert agreed to meet Richard so they speak more of the encounter. However, he quickly changed his mind, stating that he feared further ridicule by continuing to speak of the encounter. Richard then contacted several other UFO researchers who Robert had spoken with in previous years, one of whom was former police officer, Gary Heseltine.

Heseltine informed Richard Hall that Robert had contacted him “out of the blue” at some point in 2003. And to begin with, as Heseltine recalled it, he was convinced that he “had a nutter on the line”. He did, though, listen to Robert’s tale, and as he spoke, Heseltine noticed that he was not only precise and coherent, but that he would respond to each of Heseltine’s questions with “a lot of information”, right down to street and business names.

Heseltine would end up speaking with Robert for close to two hours. And by the end of the conversation, he was convinced that Robert was “showing signs of genuine recall”. In fact, Heseltine believed Robert’s account so much that he agreed to meet with him. Much like his telephone conversation with him, the more questions Heseltine asked, the more details Robert came back with. Furthermore, Heseltine also spoke with Robert’s sister, Rhoda, who would seemingly corroborate her brother’s story. Heseltine recalled that “without prompting”, Rhoda recalled the events in full, claiming that there were “scientists at the door for days afterward” as well as a reporter who waited outside the house for a considerable amount of time in an attempt to speak with her brother.

Ultimately, Heseltine, like other researchers, concluded that something very strange indeed took place in Gateshead during the spring of 1940, and while it was a “very weird story” there was something compelling about Robert Hall’s account.

Enthralled by what Heseltine had told him about Robert Hall, Richard Hall made another effort to speak with him so as to investigate the case further. He sent Robert two tickets for a talk on UFOs that he was a part of in Gateshead. Once more, Robert initially agreed to the meeting. However, once more, the day before the talk, he canceled stating he had since changed his mind.

Not to be deterred, several weeks later, Richard made one more effort to speak with Robert face to face. And this time, he was rewarded. One new detail that Richard picked up was Robert’s claim that during the second incident, when his uncle had seemingly killed the grey alien in the back alley when the military arrived later, he and his family, as well as other families on the street, were all ordered out of their houses, not being allowed to return until each of the properties had been searched. According to what Robert heard at the time, there was a concern on the military’s part that more of these strange creatures could be hiding in the houses. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, no further entities were discovered. Robert also confirmed that several “professors and scientists” would show up randomly at the family home, as well as investigators who had traveled from as far as London. His father, Robert offered, quickly became tired of the attention, and as such, the family, including Robert, ceased speaking of the curious events. Incidentally, years later, when a video of Robert’s experience appeared online, his nephew left a comment on the platform that his uncle (Robert) “always tells me this story”, and that he had no doubt that it was completely true.

With this last account in mind, it is also worth exploring another apparent alien encounter that unfolded 14 years earlier in 1926 in Bolton. The account is relayed in UFO: The Complete Sightings Catalogue by Peter Brookesmith, with the main witness once more being a young boy, Henry Thomas, who encountered three bizarre beings while playing hide-and-seek with his friends in similar backstreets to those where Robert Hall lived.

According to Henry, it was his turn to seek, and as he was creeping along the alleyway looking for any signs of his friends, he suddenly noticed one of the back gates of the houses standing open. Certain one of his friends had chosen to hide in the back garden it led to, Henry walked towards it. He moved through the open gap so as not to push the gate open further and alert his friend to his presence. However, by the time he had stepped through the gateway, he was met by a sight he was not at all prepared for.

Directly across from him, standing in front of the property's back window were three strange humanoid entities, each wearing a futuristic silver garment. Years later, Henry would state that this clothing reminded him of the appearance of the Michelin Man. Each of these beings also had a “transparent dome-like helmet” on their head that was connected to some kind of backpack with tubes.

As Henry stood there, shocked and fascinated, the three figures suddenly turned around to face him. At this point, he could see clearly inside their helmets, noticing immediately how pale their skin was. He also noted that their heads appeared to be in the shape of a light bulb, and each had a small nose with dark, black eyes. Of more concern, he could hear a bizarre gurgling sound coming from one of them. When they began in his direction, he spun around and ran out of the garden, not stopping until he arrived home.

He later stated that although he was terrorized at the time, after reflecting on the bizarre encounter, he concluded that the figures were likely not aggressive and that it was sheer panic due to the surreal nature of the situation that had caused him to run. Of course, whether these alien entities were the same that Robert Hall encounters a decade and a half later remains open to debate.  

We should remember that these are only a small snippet of the plethora of UFO and alien encounters that have unfolded in the United Kingdom. Indeed, it just might be the case that a follow-up article, perhaps titled More Lesser-Known UFO and Alien Encounters from the United Kingdom, could appear on this platform very soon so we might explore more of them. For now, though, we should perhaps contemplate just why there are so many UFO sightings in this part of the world. Is it a case that more residents in the UK are happy to report sightings, and so there are more on record? Or could it be that there is an increased UFO presence in the UK, perhaps due to the numbers of seas and oceans that surround it, which an increasing number of UFO researchers are suggesting are being used by these seemingly otherworldly crafts to traverse our planet? Whatever the truth, regular sightings and encounters continue to be reported in the United Kingdom today. If you live there or are visiting there, you just might end up witnessing one of them.

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04-11-2024 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre and Sensational UFO and Alien Conspiracies of the Old Soviet Union

Marcus Lowth

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the subsequent end of the Cold War, a barrage of UFO accounts previously unknown in the West entered into the public domain. Indeed, while some limited accounts had made their way to the West during the Cold War, as the nineties unfolded, it became clear that UFO and alien encounters had been as rife in the Soviet Union as they were in the rest of the world. Indeed, the Soviet regime appeared to have just as much interest in UFOs as the United States, although the Soviets were even more guarded about what they knew. The Soviet authorities, for example, regularly told their own citizens that UFO sightings were actually secret weapon tests of the “evil West and United States!”

Indeed, as we will explore later, while many of the UFO encounters to come out of the Soviet Union are genuine (in that they are unexplained real events) there is reason to believe that some of them have been intentionally planted into the public arena – essentially to see how far false information would travel around the American and Western media platforms.

It is also worth noting how the Soviet authorities were seemingly quick to downplay and discredit believers in extraterrestrial life, sometimes brutally so. In the years before the Russian Revolution, for example, there appeared to be quite the appetite for such contemplations among the Russian population, which showed itself in the widespread interest in Cosmism. Under the iron grip of Lenin, though, and even more so under Stalin, such thoughts suddenly became (quite literally) unthinkable. Many believers and philosophers of Cosmism were carted off to the gulags, often on charges of spying for the West. Indeed, we might question just how many such people were rounded up during Stalin’s political purges of the 1930s, for example. We can also only question just how many sightings during this time went completely unreported, as well as how many of those were documented in the records of researchers sent to the labor camps in the Siberian regions.

Just one such person was Henrik Ludvig, who was imprisoned on charges (that were almost certainly false) of spying for the Vatican. He remained incarcerated for decades, but his work survived and eventually entered the wider public domain. Ludvig had visited the Vatican decades earlier as part of his architecture studies. However, while there, and for reasons admittedly unknown, he was seemingly given access to the ultra-secret Vatican archives. And, according to his writings, what he learned in these archives is interesting, to say the least. He stated – decades before famed ancient astronaut theorist, Erich Von Daniken, incidentally – that extraterrestrials had visited the Earth many thousands of years ago, and had a direct influence on several ancient civilizations, including the ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, and the Mayans.

He also made several other remarkable claims. He offered, for example, that the many pyramids around the planet were the result of this alien intervention, and these structures were “energy machines”. In the decades that followed Ludvig's first proposing this, many other engineers and researchers have arrived at similar conclusions, perhaps the best example being Christopher Dun and his studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza. What’s more, he also suggested that nuclear power and even nuclear weapons were in use during ancient times, with one ancient civilization being completely destroyed following a nuclear strike. His theories are certainly thought-provoking.

Perhaps a good place to start with actual UFO encounters, however, would be with several alleged crashes of UFOs behind the Iron Curtain. Going back to the 1960s, for example, there are several such events. The first seemingly detailed account of a downed UFO in Soviet territory occurred in 1962, when not one but two otherworldly vehicles are said to have crashed in the former communist state. According to local reports, the first of these occurred in the town of Semipalatinsh, with the ruins quickly retrieved by authorities and transferred to a military facility in nearby Zhitkur. A second craft was said to have come down in the largely uninhabited, upper northern regions of Russia. Once more, according to local reports, the wreckage was retrieved by Soviet troops and transported to an alleged secret underground facility somewhere in Moscow.

According to a declassified KGB document, the following year, in 1963, another object crashed in Soviet territory. The report states that hundreds of witnesses attested to seeing a “silver disc” crash into the waters of Lake Balkash before Soviet troops secured the site only hours later. The report then details that the wreckage was taken to a military bunker in Slepnogorsk with a view to reverse engineering it. It is interesting to note that, as well as the KGB document, many former high-ranking Soviet officers spoke openly about this particular incident in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is perhaps an alleged UFO crash in the Topolovka Forest in the summer of 1966, though, that is one of the most interesting. On the evening in question, geologist, Oleg Ivanovich, was leading a team of scientists on a field trip in the region. After freeing one of their horses, which had become stuck in a swampy mud area, the team decided to bed down for the night and continue on in the morning. Several hours later, however, the team was dragged from sleep by the sound of a huge explosion somewhere nearby. As they came to their senses, they realized there were intense flames coming from the nearby woodland, and thick, black smoke was rising into the air. Realizing they were in danger of being consumed by the encroaching fire, the team took refuge in the river until the flames died down by first light.

Although there were still small pockets of fires by morning, it was safe enough for the team to investigate. The first thing they discovered was that their radios no longer worked, nor would their compasses, the needles of which simply spun round and round. They then decided to head into the forest in the direction the explosion had come from. It wasn’t long before they found themselves confronted with a crippled object on the ground that looked like “two washbasins set face to face” with thick, black smoke still coming from it. Through the smoke, they could make out several flashing lights and what looked like an open doorway. Most unsettling of all, though, each could see what looked to be a “tentacle” protruding from the doorway. Although they claimed to have taken several pictures of the wreckage, they also claimed that none of them developed, which could have been due to the film being corrupted due to an increase in radiation.

A short time after their discovery they heard the sound of military helicopters overhead – and what’s more, they appeared to be heading in their direction. The team decided to make their way out of the area, suspecting that the helicopters were looking for the downed craft. When Ivanovich returned to the location the following day, the object was indeed gone, and given the state of disrepair they had discovered it in, the only logical explanation was that the military had recovered the remains. This was backed up by the signs of recent activity on the muddy ground around where the craft had been.

Another leaked KGB document – one that was seemingly smuggled out of the country – details another apparent encounter with a downed UFO that occurred in the state of Sverdlovsky in early 1969 (possibly March of that year). What makes this account truly stand out, however, is apparent photographs and even video footage of the incident. A report of the encounter featured on TNT’s The Secret UFO Files of the KGB television show, and according to their information, an anonymous buyer paid $10,000 for this apparent proof of an otherworldly craft.

Further, according to these leaked files, as well as the downed craft being retrieved by the Soviet authorities, the remains of at least one dead alien occupant were also recovered, with both being transferred to the ultra-secret location, Kasputin Yar. Even more remarkable, video footage of an alleged autopsy of the recovered alien – which, incidentally consists only of a torso and an arm - also exists, although, as we might imagine, many researchers treat this footage with a large pinch of salt. That said, certain details make the encounter and the documentation that comes with it not as easy to dismiss. Part of the footage, for example, features a 1950 ZIS-151 truck carrying the recovered vehicle. This model was decades out of operation by the time the footage surfaced in the 1990s. Essentially, if the footage was hoaxed during this time, it would have been highly difficult, if not impossible, for someone to obtain a fully working authentic model.

At this point, it is worth going back two decades to the years following the end of the Second World War, and claims of a Soviet military pilot – Arkady Ivanovich Apraksin - who had several apparent aerial entanglements with these otherworldly vehicles, not least as it shows that the Soviet authorities were more than aware of these curious craft approximately around the same time as other authorities around the world. We should note, though, that there is considerable debate as to whether Apraksin ever existed, with some researchers suggesting he has intentionally been erased from history by Soviet authorities due to his encounters.

The case comes to us from the files of Timothy Good, whose research into the case I document in the book From Deep Within The Archives Of UFO Insight: Histories Most Bizarre, Outlandish, and Controversial UFO and Alien Encounters. Good received the information on the pilot through Soviet scientist and UFO researcher, Dr. Felix Zigel, who himself was alerted to the case following the research of Voronezh University lecturer, Yuri Fomin.

According to this research, Arkady Ivanovich Apraksin was one of the most decorated pilots in the Soviet Air Force. He was also one of the most naturally gifted, receiving the Red Star award, the Red Banner award, and the Patriotic War First Class award during the Second World War, as well as multiple other recognitions from such operations during the defense of Stalingrad or the capturing of Berlin. It is no understatement to say he was a hero of the Soviet world.

Following the war, Aparksin was involved with test flights of secret and developmental aircraft, and it was during one of these test flights that he had his first encounter with a craft seemingly from another world. On June 16th, 1948, in mid-flight, he witnessed what he described as a “cucumber-shaped” object that was on a direct collision course with his plane. He also described “cones of light” coming from the object and sweeping the air around it. The object was also visible to radar controllers at the Soviet military facility Kapustin Yar. In fact, following the appearance of the object to the control tower at the facility, orders were sent out for the anomalous object to land, a command it ignored. It was following this that Apraksin was given orders to pursue the mystery craft, and if it ignored a second command to land, he was to engage it.

He immediately headed in the object’s direction. However, when he was a little over five miles away from the bizarre craft, one of the cones of light emanating from it fell on his plane. As soon as it did so, it disabled all of the plane’s equipment, forcing him to guide his plane to an emergency landing. As he did so, the object disappeared into the distance. Following the encounter, Apraksin underwent intense questioning in Moscow from high-ranking officials. What’s more, an official statement was prepared on his behalf.

Following this, Apraksin was given orders to take 45 days leave, which he duly did. However, ten days before this leave was due to end, he received orders to report back to duty. He was soon back in the air on test flights, and around a year later during just such a flight at an altitude of approximately 50,000 feet, on May 16th, 1949,  he encountered the same, or similar, cucumber-shaped object once more. Once more, he found his plane encompassed in one of the strange cones of light. This time, however, as well as his equipment malfunctioning, he also lost air pressure. While he did manage to emergency land the plane, the task was much more difficult, and he ended up on the banks of the Volga River, around 50 miles away from his base.

He seemingly blacked out shortly after landing, as the next memory he had was waking up in a military hospital. He was immediately required to make a full statement of the encounter before being ordered to undergo several months of “evaluation”, which was even said to include shock therapy. Eventually, in January 1950, he was declared Group One Disabled by the military medical board, which, essentially, deactivated him from military service. The following year, he applied to be reinstated – a request that was declined.

When the previously mentioned Timothy Good researched the case, he could find no mention of Apraksin in any Soviet book, nor in any book on Soviet history or Soviet aviation. He even contacted the Soviet Central House of Aviation and Space in Moscow requesting information on Arkady Ivanovich Apraksin. They replied, interestingly or not, that they had “no information on the test flight activities of A.I. Apraksin. He is no hero of the Soviet Union!”

Good relied on trusted sources, and he determined that Apraksin had indeed existed, although he had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared in the early 1950s, with no known knowledge of his whereabouts. Eventually, Good managed to track down Yuri Fomin, who offered to Good that he had interviewed the pilot by pure chance when they shared a train carriage sometime in September 1951. Following this initial meeting, Fomin attempted to track down the former pilot for almost two decades but was ultimately unsuccessful. He stated to Good that Apraksin was likely a victim of the “Soviet system” that would simply not allow descent of any kind.

Was Apraksin forced from any kind of public life because of his encounters with UFOs? Was he threatening to speak of his encounters? Might it be possible that rather than being suppressed, he met an even worse fate like many others undoubtedly did in the Soviet Union during the Cold War years? Or might this public disappearance have been orchestrated to allow him to continue working on advanced aircraft in complete secrecy – perhaps even early spacecraft of Soviet design as the space race with the United States intensified? Or could it be possible that he never existed at all, and his exploits with UFOs have been completely fabricated for reasons unknown? If the Soviet authorities intended to muddy the waters surrounding the claims of the ace military pilot and his close encounters with UFOs, then we might argue they have, in this case, succeeded.  

There are also plenty of cases of alien interaction and abduction taking place behind the Iron Curtain. According to an account detailed in the book Greatest UFO Case Files: Scintillating Encounters with ETs and Mysterious Aliens, for example, at some time in May 1978, just such an alien abduction occurred on the shores of Lake Pyrogovskoye. According to the report, the witness – Anatoly – was walking along the shores of the lake when he was suddenly approached by two strange humanoid figures, each wearing suits that appeared to be made from cellophane. They grabbed him – one at each side – and proceeded to take him to a nearby craft on the water’s edge. However, once onboard, rather than conduct any type of harrowing experiments or procedures, these apparent aliens conducted a lecture of sorts about, despite the “noble aims” of communism, that it “caused poverty” among the population.

Then, even more bizarre, the figures instructed him to drink a clear liquid that they offered would cause him to forget the incident. This perhaps leads us to wonder why, if we assume the account to be undoubtedly true for a moment, they would go to the trouble of passing on such information if they were simply going to have him forget the details. We know that he didn’t forget the incident, but the detail of abductees being told to drink a “clear liquid” in order to forget about their respective encounters is a detail that can be found in several other alien abduction encounters on record. Furthermore, when Anatoly did report the incident, he was subjected to psychological examinations and even a lie-detector test, which he passed with no suggestion of any untruths on his part.   

The following year, in September 1979, according to Volume 8, 2002 edition of the RIAP Bulletin, in an article by Valery Kukushkin, another encounter with an apparent otherworldly entity unfolded. At a little after midnight on the night in question, the unnamed witness suddenly awoke in their bed with a distinct feeling that they were in “terrible, mortal danger!” Despite this feeling of danger, the witness remained calm, opening their eyes slowly to adjust them to the darkness and not alert whoever might be there to the fact that he was awake. He scanned the room as best he could, not seeing any sign that anyone was there. Then, he realized that whoever – or whatever – was in the room with him, it was behind him.

Slowly, he began to turn around. However, a moment later, he came to a sudden stop when he caught sight of where his portable television should have been. In its place was a “stone monolith of greenish-gray color”, and in the middle of this monolith was a “semicircular cap consisting of a transparent substance”. As he focused more on this bizarre display, he could see a “dense and viscous” red light behind the monolith. He now remained completely still, beyond perplexed at the events that were unfolding around him. Then, these already strange events turned even stranger.

Suddenly, he sensed some kind of movement coming from between his bed and a chest of drawers nearby. The next thing he knew, something had leaped up onto the bed. This figure ran across his feet and then came to a stop on his torso in a kneeling position. In this stance, the figure was approximately 30 cm tall, but the witness guessed that when standing, the figure would likely be around 60 cm in height. After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he stared at the creature and realized it was quite literally a “miniature human” being.

Still in a mild state of shock, the witness lay still as the figure leaned forward and placed its hands on the witness’s arms. As soon as contact was made, the witness felt a sudden surge of nausea run through him. At the same time, the witness looked directly at the figure. As soon as he made eye contact, a sudden feeling of calm washed over him. Now, in a more relaxed state, he could see the details of this small creature much more clearly. He noticed, for example, that its head was a lot larger than the rest of its body, as was its eyes, which were slightly elongated. The figure’s skin was also particularly pale, almost white, and it was dressed in some kind of one-piece tight-fitting suit that covered it from its feet to its neck. Then things turned even more surreal.

The creature leaned forward once more and appeared to begin to speak, although the witness recalled the sounds were “low and expressionless” and sounded more like Morse Code. Needless to say, he didn’t understand what the creature, if anything, was trying to say to him. It appeared this was not lost on the small figure, who leaned even closer and then seemed to repeat what it had just said. Once more, though, the witness couldn’t understand anything.

Almost instinctively, the witness started to sit up in the bed. However, before he could fully raise himself onto his elbows, the strange creature scarpered off past his feet and then disappeared into the darkness of the room. It was at this point that the witness noticed the stone monolith-like structure had disappeared, and his portable television was back where it normally was. Although the witness didn’t see the figure again, they did experience several bizarre paranormal happenings in the weeks that followed, making him question if the encounter with the strange being had somehow opened up a certain part of his mind to the supernatural world.

Arguably the most fascinating humanoid encounter to come out of the old Soviet Union took place beneath the ancient waters of Lake Baikal, one of the oldest and deepest lakes on the planet. Close to the border of Mongolia in southeastern Siberia, Lake Baikal is a picture of serenity on the surface, but the icy waters plunge to a depth of around 5000 feet in places. It is also a location that has a long history of strange goings-on, including sightings of strange objects hovering over the water of the ancient lake. There was, though, no stranger encounter than an incident involving a military diving unit in the summer of 1982.

According to leaked documents, courtesy of a former Soviet navy officer, Vladimir Azhazha, several Soviet divers witnessed these objects over the water during routine military training exercises taking place at Lake Baikal. However, it was during a dive of around 150 feet beneath the surface of the water that several of the units experienced the most dramatic encounter of the exercises. As the unit was carrying out its training mission, several 10-foot humanoid entities appeared around it. Each of these humanoids wore a skin-tight one-piece suit and a spherical helmet, although there was no sign of any kind of breathing apparatus. The divers remained where they were and simply watched the group for several minutes. Then, the humanoid figures disappeared into the depths of the water.

They would immediately report the encounter, and a short time later, a second diving unit made up of seven divers was sent back to the lake to explore the depths of the water once more. This time, however, rather than just observe them, the unit was under orders to capture one of them. They descended into the icy waters, and after several minutes, several of these humanoid entities appeared once more. Furthermore, they were heading straight towards the unit, although it was reported they were doing so out of curiosity as opposed to out of aggression. Despite this, as soon as the humanoids were within reach, the diving unit unleashed a large net in an attempt to trap one of them.

It is uncertain exactly what happened next and in what order, but shortly after deploying the net, it appeared that the humanoids unleashed some kind of sonar weapon that sent the divers shooting to the surface and then 50 feet into the air. Four of the men suffered horrendous injuries due to being sent to the surface so quickly and required prolonged treatment in a decompression chamber. Three of them eventually died. According to some researchers into the case, several fishermen witnessed the incident, stating that the divers suddenly burst out of the surface of the water and were sent high into the air.

Whatever the truth of the account, there are plenty of interesting details to examine in the aftermath of the incident. For example, only several weeks earlier, in May 1982, a MIG fighter jet went missing somewhere in the woodlands of Voronezh, resulting in a military search unit combing the area. As they entered a clearing in the forests, they saw a humanoid figure, approximately 10 feet in height, wearing a tight-fitting, one-piece silver suit. It doesn’t take the sharpest mind to note that this description is almost identical to the apparent humanoid figures witnessed beneath the waters of Lake Baikal. Incidentally, the figure immediately turned and ran from the scene as soon as it noticed the search unit. A moment later, a flash of bright light and a loud boom caused the unit to look upwards, just in time to see a glowing object rising high into the sky before disappearing.

Also of interest is an article that appeared in 1992 in the paranormal magazine Anomaliya, in which a former veteran of the Soviet military, Mark Shteynburg claimed that he had heard of the Lake Baikal encounter directly from Major-General Demyanko while he was part of similar training exercises at the Issyk Kul Lake. According to Shteynburg, Demyanko briefed the unit on how they should be alert to tall humanoid figures in the water. He termed these humanoids “swimmers” and stated that there had been several encounters with them in various lakes in Soviet territory, including at Lake Baikal. The briefing ended with orders that if any of the unit were confronted with such beings, they were not to approach them but report them only.

It is also worth noting some of the other strange encounters documented at Lake Baikal over the years. Some reports, for example, state that a Soviet military jet crashed into the lake at some point in the late 1950s while in pursuit of a strange, silver craft. Further, according to the reports, the air traffic controllers who heard the pilot’s final distress calls before the craft entered the water were later forced to sign official secrecy papers that bound them not to talk of the incident. Perhaps it is not too surprising, then, that there is no official record of the crash.

Even stranger, in April 2009, as the International Space Station was photographing the ancient waters of the lake while orbiting overhead, two circular breaks were clearly visible in the ice. Examination of these anomalies – both of which were perfectly circular and approximately three miles in diameter - showed that it was likely that something circular had broken through the ice sheet from beneath. Could these breaks in the ice have been made by a craft occupied by the ten-foot humanoid entities? With this last question in mind, it is also interesting to note an incident in 2016 when multiple local residents reported seeing huge flashes of green lights above Lake Baikal. 

Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking potential extraterrestrial encounters unfolded in Earth’s orbit onboard the Soviet space station, Salyut 7 in July 1984 – another account that, while minimally reported on at the time, really came to light in full following the end of the Cold War with the release of once-classified documents. Six individuals on board the space station, on two separate occasions, reported seeing bizarre “angel-like” manifestations outside the craft. Even stranger, these floating entities even had wings and even seemed to exude feelings of peace and tranquility.

The first of these bizarre sightings unfolded on July 12th, 1984, when a strange bright orange cloud suddenly enveloped the space station out of nowhere. This strange orange glow to their surroundings made the crew think, at first, that there had been some kind of explosion onboard the space station. Having realized this wasn’t the case, however, the three cosmonauts - Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov and Oleg Atkov - rushed to the portholes, the light becoming almost blinding as they peered outside. Each was more than shocked to see what they described as “angels” floating around the ship. They would further describe these entities as having a wingspan similar to the size of a 747 jet, with each being approximately 80 feet tall. Even more remarkable, one of the cosmonauts later stated that one of these entities smiled at them as if acknowledging their presence on the space station. These beings remained outside the craft for around ten minutes before suddenly disappearing. Just short of two weeks later, though, they appeared once more.

On July 17th, following the successful docking of the Soyuz T-12 with the Salyut 7, three more cosmonauts boarded the space station - Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Svetlana Savitskaya, and Igor Volk. Despite the events of July 12th, Savitskaya was there to achieve one thing only: to become the first woman to conduct a spacewalk before her American counterpart, Kathryn Sullivan, who NASA was hoping would achieve this, and which is a good indicator as to the propaganda one-upmanship backdrop these strange events played out against. Savitskaya achieved this feat on July 25th – as she was doing so, however, further bizarre goings-on were unfolding.

The strange angel-like entities returned, with all six of the cosmonauts witnessing them. The details were much the same as the first incident, with the strange beings floating around the ship gracefully, and acknowledging and smiling at the crew members. Once more, the cosmonauts reported the incident to mission control, noting that the entities remained for several minutes before disappearing as they had done previously.

Interestingly or not, the two incidents were officially put down to some kind of mass hallucination. We have to ask how likely it might be that such a group hallucination would occur on two separate occasions involving six different individuals. Even the most skeptical of people would have to admit that was unlikely at best. Furthermore, when all six of the cosmonauts went through a barrage of physical and mental tests upon arriving back to Earth, there was nothing to back up the hallucination theory. It is also interesting to note that in more recent years, apparent whistleblowers from NASA have offered that these angel-like beings are often photographed by the Hubble telescope, although they are obviously not released to the public.   

While there is nothing to suggest that the Soviet authorities were embellishing the incidents, or even that they were outright lies altogether, there is perhaps good reason to suspect that in our next encounter.

Without a doubt, one of the most intriguing claims of UFOs and alien civilizations to come out of the Soviet Union, particularly during the Cold War period, are the claims of the so-called Bosich Space Wreckage. According to a report in the summer of 1979 in the British tabloid newspaper, Reveille, a Russian scientist had discovered the crippled remains of an alien spacecraft orbiting the Earth.

The claims came from astrophysicist, Professor Sergei Bosich, who claimed he had located and identified ten separate pieces of wreckage, with two of these pieces measuring more than 100 feet. Using computer analysis, Bosich and his team managed to trace all ten pieces of wreckage back to an origin and date. According to their workings out, each piece had entered into orbit from the same spot on December 18th, 1955 – essentially, on this date, the alien spacecraft had exploded, the debris entering into orbit around our planet. Even more fascinating, by studying the dimensions of each piece of wreckage, Bosich estimated that the object – when in one piece – likely measured 200 feet in length and was 100 feet wide. More remarkable still, Bosich put forward that the wreckage could contain the remains of alien crew members, not to mention advanced alien technology.

The article went on to detail Bosich’s plans to put into action a rescue mission of sorts and have the debris brought back down to Earth so it could be studied and possibly be reassembled. It was put forward that if one such spacecraft could reach Earth’s orbit then another one could, and if these extraterrestrial visitors proved hostile, it could be in humanity’s interest to know as much about them and their technology as possible.

Following this information entering into the public arena, both the American and British authorities showed tentative and cautious interest in the claims. In fact, this interest was such that the director of NASA’s Space Shuttle Office of Space Technology, Dr. Myran Malkin, offered that they would consider a joint salvage operation with their Soviet counterparts if the Soviet authorities requested their assistance.

Similar sentiments were made by Dr. Desmond King-Hele, a space researcher at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough in the United Kingdom, stating that they would be interested in joining a potential retrieval mission if the Soviet authorities made more information available to them. He added the caveat, however, that it was most likely that the “wreckage” was nothing more than general space debris, adding that there were (at the time) around 4000 known pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth. Furthermore, should Bosich share his research with him, he was confident he could identify most if not all the pieces he had identified with known space debris.

The Soviet authorities, though, remained tight-lipped on the claims, at least officially. They did, however, dismiss King-Hele’s assertions that the objects Bosich had identified were nothing more than space debris, and they used the date of the alleged explosion – December 18th, 1955 – as proof that such debris didn’t exist at the time. The date of the apparent explosion was almost two years before the first manmade object in space, the Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1. They further dismissed claims that the objects could be nothing more than pieces of a meteor, offering that meteors don’t simply explode for no reason. Ultimately, by dismissing such explanations, they were indirectly putting forward that Bosich and his team were correct in their assessment that the objects were debris from some kind of spacecraft not of Earthly origin.

Were the Soviet authorities looking to retrieve the potential wreckage themselves and so locking the powers of the West out of such a momentous discovery? Or might the whole thing, as we mentioned in our opening, have been part of a huge disinformation campaign, both to see how far such stories would travel in the West, as well as attempting to draw them into searching for something that never existed, and so causing embarrassment on the international stage, not to mention wasting funds and resources at the same time.

Or could there be another possibility? Could it be possible that a top-secret international recovery mission did go ahead, with the debris being brought to an equally top-secret location and then studied without the public being aware?

Whether it was the intention of the Soviet regime to draw in the space agencies of the West to embark on what would be nothing more than a wild goose chase in space or not is open to debate. As is whether some kind of top-secret retrieval mission did go ahead behind closed cosmic doors. There are, though, independent claims and suggestions of other researchers that are worth noting. In an article in the May 14th, 1954 edition of the San Francisco Examiner, for example, it was claimed that two researchers, Dr. Lincoln La Paz and Clyde Tombaugh, had discovered two satellites orbiting the Earth at a distance of 400 and 600 miles respectively. Of further interest, a similar article of orbiting objects appeared in the St. Louis Dispatch as far back as the late 1940s.

As there were no known manmade objects in orbit during this time, we might ask if these objects were two of the unknown objects that became two of the pieces of wreckage noted by Bosich. Could it be, for example, that there were two alien spacecraft in near-Earth orbit in the late 1940s and early fifties, one of which exploded resulting in the ten pieces of sizeable debris in December 1955?

It is also worth highlighting an article that appeared in 1969 in Icarus magazine by American astronomer, John Bagby. In it, he relayed that he had discovered ten “moonlets” orbiting the Earth. Of further interest, Bagby’s research suggested that all ten of these objects had come from a single, larger object. Even more spine-tingling, Bagby had managed to trace the timeline back to the date of the separation of the objects into the ten moonlets – December 18th, 1955, the same date arrived at by Bosich a decade later. Make of that what you will.

Interestingly or not, around a decade later, with the fall of the Soviet Union looking increasingly likely, another UFO case entered the public arena with some suggesting that this was another case of disinformation looking to test the new transparency agreement between the East and West (the Glasnost policy). According to a report from the Russian news agency TASS on October 9th, 1989, on September 27th of the same year, a huge, shiny “banana-shaped object” appeared in the skies over Voronezh before descending and landing in the middle of a public park as hundreds, perhaps thousands of people looked on.

Following the landing, several humanoid robotic figures, each wearing shiny, silver suits and bronze-colored boots, emerged from the craft and approached a small group of people standing nearby (although it is not clear if any further interaction between the onlookers and the apparent alien entities took place). After several moments, the occupants reentered the craft, which then rose into the air and disappeared into the distance. The landing site was examined by scientists, who detected a strange substance on the ground where the craft had been, as well as “two pieces of unidentified rocks” that “cannot be found on Earth!”

The Associated Press soon picked up the report, and, following further inquiries with the Russian news provider, further articles appeared in such newspapers as the New York Times, and even TIME magazine. In fact, when TIME ran an article on the encounter in its October 23rd, 1989 issue, they highlighted other similar encounters that had been reported on in the Soviet Union.

In the Socialist Industry newspaper, for example, an article offered that several weeks previously, in the region of Perm, a milkmaid encountered a strange creature that looked like a man but was “taller than average with shorter legs!” An article in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper several weeks after the apparent landing at Voronezh, reports of an “Abominable Snowman” coincided with the registering of “energies” at Perm which Soviet researchers determined was a “landing field for flying saucers!” That same article also detailed an encounter between journalist, Pavel Mukhortov and an extraterrestrial from the “Red Star of the Constellation of Libra”. According to the telepathic communication that took place, this extraterrestrial stated that taking the journalist to their home planet (as he had asked) presented a danger for them due to “thought bacteria!”

American journalist, Howard G. Chua-Eoan, was more than aware of the stories coming out of the Soviet Union during this time, and he offered that the reason for the sudden open reporting on such bizarre encounters was almost certainly to test the Glasnost policy in order to see how far such stories would go, and to see how seriously the Western media, and Western public, would take them. It is certainly an interesting suggestion.

It is perhaps worth very quickly highlighting some of the words from former President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, whose two terms in the 1980s led up to the eventual break-up of the Soviet Union. In 1988, for example, he stated during a speech with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that he would “occasionally think how quickly our differences, worldwide, would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world!” While most people put this remark down to elaborate speech-writing, others offered it was a moment of unintended candidness from Reagan. Could it really be that behind such policies as Glasnost and apparent disinformation, behind closed doors, particularly towards the end of the Cold War, East and West were working together in the light of an “outside alien threat”?  

Whatever the truth regarding which accounts were nothing more than purposely planted disinformation and which were genuine encounters, the fact that UFO and alien encounters were happening regularly in the Soviet Union during the years of the Cold War would seem almost certain. These are just some of the many accounts available for examination. Indeed, entire volumes could be written about UFOs in the Soviet Union during the Cold War years, and we will almost certainly return to this location and era to explore more of them in a future article. For now, though, we should perhaps contemplate just how many UFO and alien encounters took place in Soviet territory during the Cold War years, and what implications these might have had on the world stage, albeit the world stage that exists in the shadows.

VIDEOS

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

04-11-2024 om 17:55 geschreven door peter  

SEPTEMBER 2024 Sightings Report

COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD UNITED STATES 324 FRANCE 34 CANADA 28 UNITED KINGDOM 15 BRAZIL 4 SOUTH AFRICA 3 MEXICO 3 BELGIUM 2 SPAIN 2 GREECE 2 TURKEY 2 AUSTRALIA 2 IRELAND 2 SYRIA 1 SLOVENIA 1 POLAND 1 GERMANY 1 SWITZERLAND 1 AUSTRIA 1 RUSSIAN FEDERATION 1 NORWAY 1 CYPRUS 1 PUERTO RICO 1 NEPAL 1 FINLAND 1 INDONESIA 1 MAURITIUS 1 PORTUGAL 1 INDIA 1 HUNGARY 1 SWEDEN 1 ISRAEL 1   TOTAL: 442 SHAPE Circle 69 Unknown 51 Sphere 50 Other 34 Oval 32 Triangle 28 Star-like 27 Disc 25 Cylinder 16 Square/Rectangular 11 Cigar 11 Fireball 9 Diamond 8 Tic Tac 7 Saturn-like 5 Boomerang 5 Bullet/Missile 4 Egg 3 Flash 3 Chevron 2 Cone 2 Teardrop 2 Blimp 2 N/A 2 STATES OF THE USA California 32 Texas 30 Florida 19 Colorado 18 Ohio 15 Washington 15 New York 12 Pennsylvania 12 Illinois 12 Indiana 9 Georgia 9 Michigan 9 Connecticut 8 Arizona 8 Oklahoma 7 Minnesota 6 Kentucky 6 Nevada 6 Maryland 6 Oregon 6 Wisconsin 5 Tennessee 5 South Carolina 5 Iowa 4 Kansas 4 Missouri 4 Alabama 4 Utah 4 Louisiana 4 Arkansas 4 West Virginia 4 Mississippi 3 North Carolina 3 Virginia 3 Idaho 3 Massachusetts 3 New Mexico 3 Alaska 2 Vermont 2 New Hampshire 2 New Jersey 2 South Dakota 1 Delaware 1 North Dakota 1 Montana 1 Hawaii 1 DISTANCE < 100 ft 41 101-500 ft 40 501 ft - 1 Mile 74 Over 1 Mile 91 Unknown 79 NO VALUE 21 ERT Most impressively there were 13 Landings, Hovering, or Takeoffs reported and 2 Entities observed.

{ WWW.MUFON.COM }

04-11-2024 om 17:27 geschreven door peter  

According to current estimates, humans dump well over 10 million metric tons (11 million U.S. tons) of plastic waste into our oceans annually. Since plastic production continues to increase worldwide, these numbers are projected to increase dramatically. What ends up on our beaches can severely impact wildlife and marine habitats, just like the impact it has in open waters. If these plastics are not removed, they will inevitably fragment into micro and nano plastics, another major environmental hazard. Said Dr. Guffogg in a recent RMIT University press release:

“Plastics can be mistaken for food; larger animals become entangled, and smaller ones, like hermit crabs, become trapped inside items such as plastic containers. Remote island beaches have some of the highest recorded densities of plastics in the world, and we’re also seeing increasing volumes of plastics and derelict fishing gear on the remote shorelines of northern Australia.

“While the impacts of these ocean plastics on the environment, fishing and, tourism are well documented, methods for measuring the exact scale of the issue or targeting clean-up operations, sometimes most needed in remote locations, have been held back by technological limitations.”

Satellite technology is already used to track plastic garbage floating around the world’s oceans. This includes relatively small drifts containing thousands of plastic bottles, bags, and fishing nets, but also gigantic floating trash islands like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As of 2018, this garbage patch measured about 1.6 million km² (620,000 mi²) and consisted of 45,000–129,000 metric tons (50,000–142,000 U.S. tons). However, the technology used to locate plastic waste in the ocean is largely ineffective at spotting plastic on beaches.

Much of the problem is that plastic can be mistaken for patches of sand when viewed from space. The Beached Plastic Debris Index (BPDI) developed by Dr. Guffogg and her colleagues circumvents this by employing a spectral index – a mathematical formula that analyzes patterns of reflected light. The BPDI is specially designed to map plastic debris in coastal areas using high-definition data from the WorldView-3 satellite, a commercial Earth observation satellite (owned by Maxar Technologies) that has been in operation since 2014.

Thanks to their efforts, scientists now have an effective way to monitor plastic on beaches, which could assist in clean-up operations. As part of the remote sensing team at RMIT, Dr. Guffogg and her colleagues have developed similar tools for monitoring forests and mapping bushfires from space. To validate the BPDI, the team field-tested it by placing 14 plastic targets on a beach in southern Gippsland, about 200 km (125 mi) southeast of Melbourne. Each target was made of a different type of plastic and measured two square meters (21.5 square feet) – smaller than the satellite’s pixel size of about three square meters.

The resulting images were compared to three other indices, two designed for detecting plastics on land and one for detecting plastics in aquatic settings. The BPDI outperformed all three as the others struggled to differentiate between plastics and sand or misclassified shadows and water as plastic. As study author Dr. Mariela Soto-Berelov explained, this makes the BPDI far more useful for environments where water and plastic-contaminated pixels are likely to coexist.  

“This is incredibly exciting, as up to now we have not had a tool for detecting plastics in coastal environments from space. The beauty of satellite imagery is that it can capture large and remote areas at regular intervals. Detection is a key step needed for understanding where plastic debris is accumulating and planning clean-up operations, which aligns with several Sustainable Development Goals, such as Protecting Seas and Oceans.”  

The next step is to test the BPDI tool in real-life scenarios, which will consist of the team partnering with various organizations dedicated to monitoring and addressing the plastic waste problem.

VIDEOS

Further Reading: 

• RMIT, 
• Marine Pollution Bulletin

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-11-2024 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

• The program allegedly collects information on UAP encounters
• The whistleblower detailed encounters collected by the program
• Lawmakers have been pushing for more transparency on UAPs

What is the Pentagon’s alleged ‘Immaculate Constellation’ program?© Provided by News Nation

(NewsNation) — Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger told NewsNation a whistleblower has revealed the existence of an alleged Pentagon UFO program called “Immaculate Constellation.”

Shellenberger told NewsNation’s Ross Coulthart about the whistleblower report, which comes on the heels of similar allegations from former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch and former Pentagon employee Lue Elizondo.

Here’s what we know about the program so far.

What is ‘Immaculate Constellation’?

According to the whistleblower, the Pentagon program collects and quarantines information on UFO (also commonly known today as “UAPs,” or “unidentified anomalous phenomena”) sightings and encounters.

The program allegedly includes information from different types of intelligence, including high-quality image intelligence and measure and signature intelligence.

Who is the whistleblower?

Shellenberger did not reveal the whistleblower’s precise role or whether they were employed as a Defense Department employee or as a contractor.

He did tell NewsNation that he met with the whistleblower and verified their credentials and also independently confirmed the existence of the program with unrelated sources.

How was the program discovered?

According to Shellenberger, the whistleblower discovered the program by accident after stumbling upon a database containing UFO information.

What kind of UAP incidents were described in the report?

In one encounter reportedly detailed by the whistleblower, a group of orbs surrounded an F-22 and forced it out of its designated patrol area.

In another incident, the crew on an aircraft carrier reported seeing an orange-red sphere descend from a high altitude and described feeling uneasy and as if they had snapped out of a trance following the encounter.

Has the Pentagon responded to the allegations?

Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough denied records of the alleged program in a statement to NewsNation Tuesday evening.

“The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION,’” she wrote.

Has the Pentagon acknowledged any UAP programs?

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is a publicly-known Pentagon program that collects and investigates reports of UAPs.

In a report, AARO denied any evidence that UAPs are alien in nature. The report did acknowledge the existence of the Kona Blue program, which was intended to reverse-engineer any recovered UAP technology.

The report said the program never went into effect because no such technology was ever recovered.

What’s next for UAP disclosure?

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has already pushed for more disclosures around UAPs.

While nothing specific has been announced in relation to this report, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has announced plans for a UAP hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee following the election, and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., announced plans for a UAP hearing in the House set for Nov. 13.

{ https://www.newsnationnow.com/ }

03-11-2024 om 23:30 geschreven door peter  

De enorme storm blijkt minder stabiel te zijn dan het op het eerste gezicht lijkt.

Al minstens 150 jaar houden astronomen Jupiters legendarische Grote Rode Vlek, een anticycloon groot genoeg om de aarde op te slokken, nauwlettend in de gaten. Toch blijven er steeds nieuwe verrassingen opduiken. Onlangs hebben onderzoekers de storm met behulp van ruimtetelescoop Hubble van dichtbij bestudeerd. En daaruit blijkt dat de Grote Rode Vlek zich een beetje vreemd gedraagt.

Meer over Jupiters Grote Rode Vlek
Planeet Jupiter staat bekend om zijn kleurrijke banden en reusachtige, wervelende stormen. De bekendste storm is – misschien zelfs de bekendste in het hele zonnestelsel – de Grote Rode Vlek; een gigantische anticycloon die al heel wat jaren op de gasreus woedt. De Grote Rode Vlek is een immense atmosferische wervelwind, zo is hij bijna net zo groot als de aarde in diameter. Aan zijn buitenranden razen de winden met snelheden tot 450 kilometer per uur. De rode kleur ontstaat door chemische reacties in de atmosfeer, wat een opvallend contrast vormt met de bleke wolken van de gasreus. De Grote Rode Vlek heeft generaties van wetenschappers gefascineerd. Dat heeft onder andere met zijn omvang te maken, maar ook met het feit dat de storm zelfs zichtbaar is met kleine telescopen.

Nieuwe waarnemingen
De nieuwe waarnemingen van Hubble zijn verzameld in een periode van 90 dagen van december 2023 tot maart 2024. En de nieuwe gegevens tonen aan dat de beroemde rode vlek ‘wiebelt als een kom gelatine’, zo schrijft NASA. Dankzij de samengevoegde Hubble-afbeeldingen waren de astronomen in staat om een time-lapse te maken van het merkwaardige kronkelige gedrag van de storm. Die beelden kun je hieronder aanschouwen.

De nieuwe time-lapse video. De video is gemaakt op basis van waarnemingen van de Hubble-ruimtetelescoop op het moment dat Jupiter zich tussen de 629 miljoen en 824 miljoen kilometer van de zon bevond. Afbeelding: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC); Video: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Onderzoekers hadden geen idee dat de storm zo gek doet. “Hoewel we wisten dat de beweging in lengtegraad een beetje verschilt, hadden we niet verwacht dat de grootte zou fluctueren”, zegt onderzoeker Amy Simon. “Voor zover wij weten, is dit nog nooit eerder opgemerkt. Dit is echt de eerste keer dat we een goede beeldfrequentie van de Grote Rode Vlek hebben. Dankzij de hoge resolutie van Hubble kunnen we concluderen dat de storm zich ‘in- en uitknijpt’ terwijl hij sneller en langzamer beweegt. Dit was zeer onverwacht. Op dit moment is er ook nog geen verklaring voor.”

Onderzoek naar de Grote Rode Vlek
Hubble observeert elk jaar Jupiter en de andere planeten van het buitenste zonnestelsel via het Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy-programma (OPAL). Deze specifieke waarnemingen zijn echter afkomstig uit een programma dat zich uitsluitend richt op de Grote Rode Vlek. Door de mechanismen achter de grootste stormen in het zonnestelsel te begrijpen, kunnen we de theorie van orkanen op aarde in een breder kosmisch kader plaatsen, wat kan bijdragen aan een beter begrip van de meteorologie op planeten rond andere sterren.

Veranderingen
De onderzoekers gebruikten Hubble om in te zoomen op de Grote Rode Vlek om zo een gedetailleerd beeld te krijgen van zijn grootte, vorm en eventuele subtiele kleurveranderingen. “Wanneer we goed kijken, merken we dat er elke dag veel verandert”, vertelt Simon. Dit omvat waarnemingen in ultraviolet licht die laten zien dat de duidelijke kern van de storm het helderst is wanneer de storm zijn grootste omvang in zijn oscillatiecyclus bereikt. Dit wijst op minder absorptie van nevel in de bovenste atmosfeer.

Gevangen
Het lijkt erop dat de Grote Rode Vlek in zeker zin gevangen zit. “Wanneer de Grote Rode Vlek versnelt en vertraagt, duwt hij tegen de krachtige straalstromen die naar het noorden en zuiden strekken”, legt mede-auteur Mike Wong uit. “Dit is vergelijkbaar met een dubbele boterham, waarbij de sneetjes naar buiten worden geduwd als er te veel vulling in het midden zit.” Het tegenovergestelde gebeurt op Neptunus, waar stormen vrij kunnen bewegen in breedtegraad zonder sterke straalstromen die hen op hun plaats houden. Daarentegen is Jupiters Grote Rode Vlek tijdens de telescopische waarnemingen op een zuidelijke breedtegraad gebleven, gevangen tussen de straalstromen.

Het team is van plan de Grote Rode Vlek te blijven volgen. Ze verwachten dat de storm verder zal krimpen voordat hij een stabiele, minder uitgerekte vorm aanneemt. Maar voor het zover is, hopen de onderzoekers dat andere beelden van Hubble de onderliggende oorzaak van het ontdekte vreemde gedrag van de Grote Rode Vlek zullen onthullen.

Bronmateriaal

• "NASA’s Hubble Watches Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball" - NASA
  
• Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: via Canva Pro

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

03-11-2024 om 22:51 geschreven door peter  

A city with temple pyramids not far from the road and a site with a Maya complex built alongside a sinkhole lend to evidence that the Maya civilization was even more sprawling than known.

{ https://www.nytimes.com/ }

03-11-2024 om 22:36 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.yahoo.com/tech/ }

03-11-2024 om 22:20 geschreven door peter  

Father-daughter duo decipher message coming from Mars

Mars.

(photo credit: Alones. Via Shutterstock)

A father-daughter team from the United States, Ken and Keli Chaffin, have deciphered a simulated "extraterrestrial" message transmitted from Mars in May 2023 via a radio signal sent by the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). The message, which was intercepted by three observatories on Earth, was part of an artistic project called "A Sign in Space," which aimed to engage citizen scientists in decoding an alien message.

The Chaffins realized that the message contained a diagram representing the structure of five amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of life. According to specialists from the European Space Agency, the Chaffins ran simulations for "days on end" before hitting upon the solution. They "followed their intuition and conducted hours-long simulations every day," ultimately organizing the bits into coherent structures using computer simulations and reversible cellular automata.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter beamed the simulated signal towards Earth in May 2023, which was received 16 minutes later. A worldwide community of over 5,000 citizen scientists quickly got to work on the raw data, managing to extract the signal within ten days. In the first phase, this group of amateur scientists successfully extracted the encrypted message from the raw radio signal, showcasing the potential of global collaboration in the event of real extraterrestrial contact.

The project "A Sign in Space" was initiated by multimedia artist Daniela de Paulis, who collaborated with the European Space Agency, the SETI Institute, the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, and INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. The image contained in the message was designed by de Paulis and a team of astronomers and computer scientists, with support from these institutions. The project was conceived as an experiment to test which methods might be useful for decoding transmissions from extraterrestrial civilizations.

Amino acids are the building blocks of life, and their inclusion in the message raises numerous questions: What do the five biological components represent? Are the implications of amino acids indicative of an attempt to communicate about life itself?

The project encourages the global community to delve deeper into the meaning of this abstract message from Mars. Many questions arise: Are the aliens friendly or hostile? What is the significance of the cellular formations and life forms identified in the message?

According to the European Space Agency, the results of the project "A Sign in Space" showed that if humanity ever receives a signal from real extraterrestrials, citizen scientists could play a crucial role in its deciphering. The involvement of over 5,000 amateur scientists in the initial extraction phase and the subsequent success of the Chaffins in decoding the message demonstrate the power of collaborative efforts and diverse approaches in tackling complex problems.

While the Chaffins' work has provided significant insights into the content of the message, the search for its meaning begins. The true meaning of the message remains a matter of debate, and the project continues to engage the global community in interpreting the implications of this simulated extraterrestrial communication. As the exploration of the message's significance unfolds, the collaboration between scientists, artists, and citizen scientists highlights the interdisciplinary nature of such endeavors.

Earlier, a British scientist announced the discovery of signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. This, alongside the findings from "A Sign in Space," suggests a growing interest and progress in the search for intelligent life beyond Earth.

Now that "A Sign in Space" has been decoded, the global community is invited to discuss the meaning of this abstract message from Mars, while its interpretation remains open. The project aims to explore the reaction of the global community to a hypothetical alien message and to test whether citizen scientists can collaborate effectively in such a monumental task.

Father-Daughter Citizen Science Team Crack ‘Alien Signal’ From Mars

Sources:

• IFLScience,
• Gazzeta.Ru,
• Scienze Notizie

his article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq

{ https://www.jpost.com/ }

03-11-2024 om 21:41 geschreven door peter  

UAP Disclosure 2024: Will Congress Finally Reveal the Truth?

As we approach 2024, discussions about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) are heating up once again, with new Congressional hearings anticipated. The prospect of transparency around UAPs, still often called UFOs, has intrigued the public for decades. Yet, a central question remains: is there a clear, genuine plan for disclosure, or is history set to repeat with vague answers and deferred transparency?

The History of UAP Secrecy and Congressional Roadblocks

The secrecy around UAPs has been a constant feature of government behavior for over half a century. In the 1960s, efforts to hold governmental inquiries into unidentified objects in the skies fell flat, with a significant lack of cooperation from those in power. Similarly, in the early 1990s, Congressman Steven Schiff, representing New Mexico—a state with close ties to UAP lore due to the Roswell incident—pursued the truth behind Roswell. He encountered substantial resistance and alleged illegal destruction of records from the late 1940s, raising suspicions that a secretive agenda was in place to keep UAP information out of the public eye.

Despite many attempts over the years, UAP disclosure has continually run into walls of bureaucratic evasion and claims of national security concerns. Recent history has shown some progress, such as David Grusch’s testimony in 2023, where the former intelligence officer testified before Congress, claiming that the U.S. government possessed both alien technology and “non-human biologics.” His statements drew public attention, but concrete governmental acknowledgment remains elusive.

With fresh hearings set for 2024, many are asking whether anything substantial will be revealed. But the path to transparency remains riddled with challenges.

Congress’s Renewed Interest: A Different Landscape?

Unlike in previous decades, there is now a broader Congressional interest in UAPs. Where Congressman Schiff once stood alone, there are now multiple lawmakers pushing for answers. Many members appear genuinely curious, if not outright concerned, about the implications of UAPs for national security and public trust. However, it remains unclear whether this interest will translate into real action or whether any disclosed information will have lasting significance.

The upcoming hearings present a promising but uncertain landscape. Although some Congressional representatives have shown genuine interest, the broader institutional inertia and entrenched secrecy may mean that, once again, answers will be few and limited. Furthermore, it’s not yet clear which witnesses will testify or what topics the hearings will cover. Some speculate that Admiral Tim Goudet could be a key figure, though his exact role has not been confirmed. Without clarity on the agenda and witnesses, it’s difficult to predict how impactful these hearings might be.

Immaculate Constellation: A Key to Disclosure?

Among the more intriguing claims associated with UAP secrecy is the existence of an alleged program named “Immaculate Constellation.” This program is said to contain a massive repository of information about UAPs, including photos, videos, and documentation gathered over many years. If this database exists, it could represent the most comprehensive collection of UAP evidence in government possession. However, as with many aspects of UAP investigations, there is little verified information available.

The idea of a centralized database filled with UAP evidence is not entirely new; in the 1970s, a similar program was rumored, sparking speculation that Immaculate Constellation could be a continuation or evolution of that initiative. The existence and contents of such a database, if confirmed, could fundamentally shift public understanding of the UAP phenomenon. Whether Congress will pursue or even acknowledge the Immaculate Constellation database remains uncertain, but its potential inclusion in upcoming hearings could be a turning point for disclosure advocates.

Timing and Political Context: Will Elections Cloud the Issue?

The timing of the 2024 UAP hearings, shortly after the U.S. presidential election, adds another layer of complexity. The political climate following the election will likely be highly charged, with accusations, investigations, and possibly contested results affecting the national mood. In this tense environment, Congress may struggle to maintain focus on objective investigation and transparent disclosure about UAPs. Furthermore, the outcome of the election could result in members of Congress transitioning out of office, raising questions about the continuity and stability of UAP investigations.

Given these factors, it’s unclear whether the upcoming hearings will result in significant developments or whether they will be overshadowed by political distractions. The timing of these hearings could mean that even if new information is shared, it might not receive the attention it warrants from either the public or the media.

The Potential for Disclosure: Reasons for Cautious Optimism

Despite these challenges, there is reason for cautious optimism. David Grusch’s testimony in 2023 opened the door to new discussions, and many lawmakers are now publicly voicing a commitment to transparency regarding UAPs. While the official stance remains one of denial, there is growing pressure on government bodies to provide more than just token responses. However, public expectations should remain measured. The government’s longstanding culture of secrecy, reinforced by concerns over national security and public stability, suggests that full transparency remains unlikely in the near future.

VIDEO:

• Richard Dolan Intelligent Disclosure – UAP Disclosure 2024 and Congressional Hearings

• https://youtu.be/b45vQX9rWWA

The 2024 UAP hearings are shaping up to be an important moment in the long journey toward disclosure. Yet, questions persist about whether there is a genuine plan for transparency or whether the hearings will simply be a repeat of past disappointments. With growing public interest, increased Congressional attention, and the tantalizing possibility of a vast UAP information database, there is a real chance for meaningful insights.

However, the entrenched secrecy surrounding UAPs and the politically charged post-election climate mean that expectations should be tempered. While the upcoming hearings may not reveal the full truth about UAPs, they represent an opportunity to push for accountability and perhaps set the stage for future disclosures.

Only time will tell if the UAP Disclosure 2024 will mark a turning point or simply another chapter in the ongoing mystery.

03-11-2024 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

EXCLUSIVE - Pentagon chief reveals high-res photo of a UFO 'mothership': 'A huge mini city floating in the sky'

• READ MORE: UFOs may be from 'stealth civilization' on Earth, Harvard study says

By Matthew Phelan Senior Science Reporter For Dailymail.Com

An ex-Pentagon official, who gained fame for blowing the lid off a $22-million, secretive government UFO program, has revealed an image of an alleged UFO 'mothership.'

Luis Elizondo, a career US Army counterintelligence specialist, previously ran the military's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

Monday night in Philadelphia at a private UFO event, Elizondo dropped what he described as a craft 'looking like the mothership from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind,"' referring to the 1977 Steven Spielberg film. 

'Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By the way, the US Embassy,' as Elizondo told attendees at the paid event, gesturing to the photo: 'That.'

He went on to describe it as a 'huge mini city floating in the sky.' 

But the UFO, which resembles a gleaming disc-shaped craft, has already drawn withering critiques from skeptics, believers and even military UFO witnesses alike, who claim to have traced the photo to, not to the US Embassy, but a Facebook page.

One suggested to DailyMail.com that Elizondo has been lax in his vetting of such images in a bid to add sensational new material to his 'paid speaking engagements.'

Ex-Pentagon official Luis Elizondo (right), who gained fame for blowing the lid off a $22-million, secretive government UFO program, has revealed an image of a UFO 'mothership'

'Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By the way, the US Embassy,' as Elizondo told attendees at the paid event, gesturing to the photo (above): 'That'

Veteran US Air Force Staff Sergeant, Jeremy McGowan, who witnessed a dramatic UFO encounter himself in the Middle East decades ago, told DailyMail.com that Elizondo's dubious 'mothership' UFO fits a pattern with the man's past claims. 

'This unfortunate situation with Lue follows my experiences with him nearly exactly,' McGowan said. 'I witnessed him exaggerate or outright fabricate information that simply wasn't true.'

Elizondo unveiled the 2022 Romanian UFO photo at an October 28, 2024 event held at The City Winery, a wine bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for $50-$30 per ticket.

'There's a whole lot more here folks,' Elizondo told the audience in a leaked clip. 'I just want to give you kind of a small taste of what's going on "behind the scenes."'

'We're having pilots, military pilots and civilian pilots in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East, report what unimaginably seems impossible,' as Elizondo began to explain his 'real photo' of a UFO.

'They described it literally 'the mothership,'' Elizondo said.

But despite credible federal reports of 'mothership' UFOs over domestic US military sites — investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), an FBI task force, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and 16 local sheriff's offices — internet sleuths quickly managed to poke holes in Elizondo's 2022 Romanian UFO.

John Greenewald Jr, a longtime government transparency advocate who runs The Black Vault, quickly tracked the photo back to a September 13, 2023 post in a Facebook group titled 'Mysterious Ancient Discoveries.'

John Greenewald Jr, a longtime government transparency advocate who runs The Black Vault , quickly tracked the photo back to a September 13, 2023 post in a Facebook group titled ' Mysterious Ancient Discoveries' (above)

The higher resolution image of this apparent 'mothership,' which looks at first glance to be piercing clouds with its beatific shafts of light, appears more likely to have originated as the reflection of an indoor chandelier lamp reflected in window glass

'I reverse imaged searched it,' Greenewald posted on X. 'It got more than 182,000 likes and more than 23,700 comments.'

The higher resolution image of this apparent 'mothership,' which looks at first glance to be piercing clouds with its beatific shafts of light, appears more likely to have originated as the reflection of an indoor chandelier lamp reflected in window glass. 

The placement of Romania's coal-fired Arad Power Station indicates the image was not taken from the US Embassy, but a building near the Mureș River a few miles away.

America's Embassy in Romania is roughly 400 miles to the southeast of Arad, in the capital city of Bucharest.

While dedicated UFO skeptics were eager to pounce on Elizondo's inaccurate claims, UFO enthusiasts also expressed frustration over the episode. 

'Lue is 100 percent using us as pawns to line his pockets,' one contributor to the Reddit forum r/UFOs lamented. 'His most recent book was no.1 seller in the nation.'

'It's muddying the waters and detracting from the important convo,' another opined.

By midday Wednesday, Elizondo was publicly attributing the error to 'a friend in Government' who provided him with the photo 'a couple of years ago.'

Retired USAF Staff Sergeant McGowan, however, told DailyMail.com that Elizondo's error was far from a one-off mistake. 

'I've been on the receiving end where Lue has pulled out his cell phone and shown me what he described as highly classified video,' McGowan told DailyMail.com.

The placement of Romania's coal-fired Arad Power Station (above) indicates the image was not taken from the US Embassy, but a building near the Mureș River a few miles away. America's Embassy in Romania is roughly 400 miles to the southeast of Arad, in Bucharest

'For him to think I would believe he would simply carry classified info on an unsecure civilian cell phone is just insulting,' he added. 'And it wasn't just me, multiple podcast hosts were shown video Lue attributed to things they were not.'

For the past two years, McGowan has been notably public about this instance in which Elizondo showed him what he claimed was, in McGowan's words, 'a highly secret video smuggled out of Russia' taken by a Soviet Union probe near Mars.

The video, as McGowan recollected to DailyMail.com, looked to be a decades-old public UFO video from the Soviet's Phobos 2 probe, released by retired Soviet Air Force Colonel Marina Popovich in 1991.

Elizondo had shown the video to McGowan, in hushed tones, in January 2021.  

While Popovich, who wrote a book about her own UFO encounters as a test pilot, long maintained the Phobos 2 video depicted a legitimate alien craft, the odd video had nevertheless been public for about three decades, in other words.

'There is a striking similarity between that public video and what Lue showed me on his phone,' McGowan recollected. 

'Only saw it for a few seconds,' he said, 'so the granular details didn't get absorbed.'

McGowan, whose duties in the Air Force included service in Desert Storm attached to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and drug enforcement missions in Colombia, has been public for years on his own UFO encounter. 

In the mid-90s, while serving as a member of the JSOC J2 Security Team for 'Ellipse Foxtrot,' Jeremy McGowan (above) says he was a witness to unusual aerial lights appearing to survey a highly classified cargo container he had been tasked with guarding in the desert

For the past two years, McGowan has been notably public about an instance in which Elizondo showed him what he claimed was, in McGowan's words, 'a highly secret video smuggled out of Russia' taken by a Soviet probe near Mars. The video however had been public since 1991

In the mid-90s, while serving as a member of the JSOC J2 Security Team for 'Ellipse Foxtrot,' McGowan says he was a witness to unusual aerial lights appearing to survey a highly classified cargo container he had been tasked with guarding in the desert.  

He spoke to the History Channel about this UFO sighting in the Mid East for the 2020 docu-series 'Unidentified,' which had been hosted by Luis Elizondo.

As McGowan recollected about his appearance on the show in a Medium blog post, he had agreed to this on-camera interview in the hopes of getting back in touch with other witnesses to the event, but felt 'used' by the experience.  

'I was supposed to be introduced to investigators and researchers who could help me identify the person with me on that dune and saw what I saw!' he wrote in 2022. 

'I left with no answers [...] I sent a few emails to production that were ignored, and I was never extended the courtesy promised to me.'

By midday Wednesday, Elizondo was publicly attributing the error to 'a friend in Government' who provided him with the photo 'a couple of years ago' (above)

Elizondo unveiled the 2022 Romanian UFO photo at an October 28, 2004 event held at The City Winery, a wine bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , for $50-$30 per ticket

Federal government concern about 'mothership' UFOs harboring swarms of 'drones,' have spilled out into public view following the release of internal reports via the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in recent years. 

Weeks of reports of mystery 'drones' swept eastern Colorado and nearby areas of Nebraska, Wyoming and Kansas over the winter holidays of 2019 into the new year.

The sightings worried citizens and local law enforcement alike, but odd craft and thier 'motherships' troubled the US military especially for their proximity to some of America's sensitive, nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

'They all seem clustered in an area that has quite a few Minuteman sites,' a redacted official confessed in one email released via FOIA by F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

F.E. Warren security staff spoke to local sheriff's deputies who ' reported seeing a 'mothership' six feet in diameter flanked by 10 smaller drones (some fixed wing, some not).'

'When deputies follow the drones, they clock them at speeds of 60-70 mph,' the redacted base official stated.

UPDATE | October 31, 2023: via a publicist with his book publisher, HarperCollins, Elizondo delivered a response to this story via email at 10:15am Eastern. 

The lengthy response, which had previously been posted to social media, can be read in full on Elizondo's profile at X.com.

'Getting public engagement is precisely one of my motivations in sharing these types of photos,' Elizondo's message reads, in part. 

'The fact that we now have individuals in social media with the expertise and willingness to conduct the much needed analysis is extremely encouraging to me and is welcome news in my opinion.' 

'I am grateful for the public's help in resolving this case,' the former Pentagon official added. '[This] reinforces the notion that we must all remain vigilant and always question the data (including myself), even when that data may be coming from the Government.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

03-11-2024 om 00:35 geschreven door peter  

Where Americans are safest during an alien invasion revealed in new poll

• READ MORE: US military's new 'alien tech' crash retrieval program revealed

By Ellyn Lapointe For Dailymail.Com

A survey has revealed the US states that would be the safest places to hide if aliens invaded Earth.

The analysis couldn't come at a better time as public concern over the threat of an alien invasion has skyrocketed. 

'Gone are the days when it was regarded as part fringe, part-science fiction, and part conspiracy theory,' said former UK Ministry of Defense UFO investigator Nick Pope.

'UFOs are now being treated as a defense and national security issue, discussed in the United States Congress, and attracting attention from the Head of NASA.'

Nearly two thirds of Americans now believe that aliens exist, and roughly one third consider UFO sightings to be proof - a significant increase from 20 percent in 1996. 

And internet searches for 'what would happen if aliens came to Earth' have increased a 2,850 percent in recent months. 

Safety officials are prepping for an extra-terrestrial emergency too. In June, the first ever police handbook on UFOs was released, offering guidance to law enforcement on how to respond to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.

If you're wondering where you should flee in the event that aliens attack, this survey should point you in the right direction.

A survey has revealed the US states that would be the safest places to hide if aliens invaded 

Rant Casino pulled data on the number of UFO sightings and the average duration of 'UFO visits' from the National UFO Reporting Centre Database and aggregated it per US state.

The number of sightings could suggest that aliens have been circling and planning the invasion, and thus the number and duration of sightings in each state may be linked to the odds of an invasion starting there.

Therefore, states with the lowest number of UFO sightings were ranked safest. 

Additionally, one of the first things people should due to survive an alien attack is to hide. 

Because of this, Rant Casino decided that states with lower population densities may be safer during an invasion, as they would provide more space for people to take cover, evacuate or organize a counter attack.

This means that rural states or those with large uninhabited regions were given an edge over more densely populated states.

Each state received a score on the zero to 10 alien survival index scale. 

Virginia came out on top as the safest US state to flee to during an alien invasion, scoring 8.03 out of 10.

The state most likely to survive an alien invasion was Virginia, and the least likely state was Nevada

This state has the highest per capita military presence in the nation, which means it would be well-equipped to defend itself against extra-terrestrial invaders.

Additionally, this state's landscape boasts some strong natural defenses, including 29 caves and 63 percent forest cover that could make it easier to hide from the skyward threat.

Alabama came in second place, scoring 7.9 out of 10. 

This state is home to 35 caves and the highest forest coverage among the top safest states. It also has a strong per capita law-enforcement presence, which positions it well for coordinated defense efforts.

What's more, Alabama's relatively low UFO sighting rate of 2.76 per 10,000 people suggests that extra-terrestrials aren't eyeing this state for a potential invasion. 

The rest of the top 10 safest states, ranked in order of most safe to least safe, were Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alaska and Georgia.

As for the states least likely to survive an alien invasion, it will come as no surprise that Nevada was ranked number one with a score of 5.31 out of 10.

This state, which is home to the infamous Area 51, has a high UFO sighting rate of of 5.41 per 10,000 residents.

Nevada is also mostly desert. The lack of natural cover and water sources would make it a challenging place to hide out if aliens invaded.

Idaho was ranked the second most vulnerable state in part due to its remarkably high number of UFO sightings: 6.95 per 10,000 people.

Plus, this state has the lowest per-capita healthcare workforce in the nation at just lowest per capita healthcare workforce, which would make it difficult to treat people injured during a violent alien attack.

The rest of the top 10 most vulnerable states, ranked in order of most vulnerable to least vulnerable, were Arizona, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wyoming.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

02-11-2024 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

America's nuclear missile bases have been alien targets since the 1960s, military insider claims

• READ MORE:  Where Americans are safest during an alien invasion revealed

By Stacy Liberatore and Matthew Phelan For Dailymail.Com

Fears of an alien invasion in the US took hold in the 1960s and 70s after reports of UFOs hovering over military bases flooded the nation.

Now, decades later, a UFO expert has claimed that the extraterrestrial spaceships did visit 'every major nuclear missile base' and continue to do so to this day.

Robert Hastings, who has interviewed many Army personnel about the bizarre sightings, said: 'The ones that are currently operational, have been visited repeatedly year after year according to the sources that I have interviewed.'

Hastings recently made waves when he revealed more than 120 former service members had come forward about their encounters with flying objects near nuclear weapon storage and testing grounds.

'A public, grassroots effort must be made in the interim to understand – as best as possible, using the data gathered thus far – the nature and intentions of those who pilot the UFOs,' Hastings penned in his recent book recounting the interviews.

'Or perhaps they have a use for our planet, let's say for scientific purposes, and know that global nuclear warfare will disrupt their data-gathering and/or experiments.'

In his book, UFOs and Nukes, he revealed that investigators are prevented from properly probing the cases because of dubious layers of classification.

One thing is for sure, however, it is 'obvious' that if there are extraterrestrial visitors, they are 'greatly interested in our nuclear weapons.'

A UFO expert claimed that UFOs have long visited nuclear bases and continue to do so. For at least 17 nights in December 2023, swarms of small 'drones' were seen penetrating the highly restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. 

Hastings' comments echo a study released in June that analyzed over 500 of the best-supported UFO cases from the heights of the Cold War, which concluded that 'this intelligence understands atomics, and they understand atomic weaponry.'

UFO reports over America's nuclear arsenal appeared to shift from sites where the bombs were made to missile silos and US air bases as the Cold War arms race grew.

The study was conducted by a retired US Air Force staff sergeant, data analyst affiliated with Harvard's UFO-hunting Galileo Project Ian Porrit and a research team.

The group focused on official military and police reports of UFOs from 1945 to 1975, avoiding poorly supported accounts and ambiguous newspaper stories, to focus on cases with multiple witnesses and signal evidence, like radar.

Their study, which only covered US cases, also used reports of UFOs spotted above non-nuclear army bases and nearby civilian centers to act as control groups to test against their findings of any UFO trends at America's sensitive nuclear installations.

The team found that data from 1948 through 1975, showed support to the idea that extraterrestrials, or some other intelligence, has methodically surveilled America's rise to a nuclear power.

'This intelligence understands the developmental cycle. They have some contextual knowledge of what they're looking at and what they're looking for,' Hancock told DailyMail.com, given these shifts in reported UFO sightings over time.

From 1948 to 1952, as America's production of atomic weapons first ramped up, waves of UFO sightings began cropping up over Washington state's Hanford nuclear production complex, as well as Los Alamos and other sites for the Manhattan Project.

Hastings' recent claims come just weeks after new government records surfaced other UFO waves near military sites, including Joint Base Langley-Eustis (pictured)

'What we know now is that inside the Air Force for the first seven to 10 years they sincerely believed it was the Russians,' Hancock told DailyMail.com.

'And when they couldn't prove that,' he said, 'it became very political.'

From 1952 onward, their study found cases of UFOs probing near active nuclear weapons took precedence, with a wave of sightings around America's new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) starting in the 1960s.

'When you get to those ICBM bases, from about 1965 to 1975, these things are occurring at night,' Hancock pointed out.

'And they are they are much more intrusive. They're very low altitude, they penetrate the security perimeters of the base,' he added.

Hastings' recent claims come just weeks after new government records surfaced other UFO waves near military sites, including 17 nights in December 2023 when swarms of UFOs were tracked over Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

These brazen penetrations over Langley — home to at least half the Air Force's F-22 Raptor stealth fighters — led to two weeks of emergency White House meetings.

To date, Langley's mystery UFOs have eluded identification by the Pentagon, police and even NASA's high-altitude research plane, the WB-57F, called in to investigate.

General Glen VanHerck, the commander with North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD), who led the mission to take down the infamous Chinese spy balloon in February 2023, described that Langley wave as unlike any other known case.

'If there are unknown objects within North America,' General VanHerck told the Wall Street Journal, 'go out and identify them.'

Senior ex-Pentagon security official Chris Mellon told DailyMail.com last week that the UFOs were 'swarms of smaller craft' released by 'motherships.'

He explained that was 'part of a much larger pattern affecting numerous national security installations.'

'Two of the notable aspects,' he said, 'are the fact our drone signal-jamming devices have proven ineffective and these craft are making no effort to remain concealed.'

Mellon told DailyMail.com: 'I make no claims regarding their origin, perhaps many are Chinese drones.'

'[But] in some instances,' Mellon took pains to emphasize, 'it is clear they want to be seen as though taunting us.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

02-11-2024 om 23:32 geschreven door peter  

@ingenuahumanidad via Telegram

Pentagon Whistleblower Admits Photo of UFO Mothership Was Fake

"Looks like we can put this one bed."

He Admit It

A Pentagon UFO whistleblower has admitted something that often feels unprecedented for anyone involved in the government: that he was wrong.

In a post on X-formerly-Twitter, ex-intelligence official Luis "Lue" Elizondo owned up to sharing a photo purporting to show a UFO that he later learned was fake.

"A photo that was provided to me by a friend in Government a couple of years ago was presented by me two days ago at our engagement in Philadelphia," the former head of the Defense Department's secret UFO tracking program wrote, referencing a private event in the city of brotherly love that took place earlier in the week.

In a clip posted by UFO journalist Steven Greenstreet, Elizondo was seen presenting in Philadelphia on a so-called "mothership" purported to have been seen over Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in 2022.

"Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022?" he told attendees per a video taken from inside the event and posted to X. "By the way, [the photo was taken from] the US Embassy."

Teamwork

Shortly after the presentation, however, digital sleuths discovered that the photo had not been taken from the vantage point of the Bucharest embassy at all.

A power plant in the background of the image suggested it had instead been taken hundreds of miles away in the town of Arad. With a simple reverse image search, Elizondo's fellow UFO hunter John Greenewald, Jr. traced it to its source: a Facebook group called "Mysterious Ancient Discoveries."

What's more, Greenewald suggested, per findings from another debunked viral UFO photo, that the "mothership" in the whistleblower's photo may well have been a chandelier.

Instead of being angry at the revelation that his mothership was more mundane than met the eye, Elizondo lauded the teamwork it took to debunk his claim.

"Looks like we can put this one bed," he wrote. "Excellent work to whoever solved this one and a big thank you! Crowdsourcing works."

"Now let’s see," Elizondo continued, "if together we can figure out the rest."

We've gotta hand it to him: for someone who's made some outrageous claims, including his recent insistence that there was a secret government program meant to "trap" alien tech," Elizondo's humility is welcome.

More on UFOs: 

• Pentagon Officials Stumped by Mysterious Drones Haunting Military Base for Weeks

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

02-11-2024 om 22:00 geschreven door peter  

A synthetic aperture radar image of Haastte-baad Tessera, cut by a set of unique concentric rings that record a newly recognized type of impact crater on Venus, previously only identified on the icy moons of Jupiter.

Credit: NASA.

Posted by Mark Thompson

New View of Venus Reveals Previously Hidden Impact Craters

Think of the Moon and most people will imagine a barren world pockmarked with craters. The same is likely true of Mars albeit more red in colour than grey! The Earth too has had its fair share of craters, some of them large but most of the evidence has been eroded by centuries of weathering. Surprisingly perhaps, Venus, the second planet from the Sun does not have the same weathering processes as we have on Earth yet there are signs of impact craters, but no large impact basins! A team of astronomers now think they have secured a new view on the hottest planet in the Solar System and revealed the missing impact sites. 

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and, whilst it’s often called Earth’s sister planet, the reality is really they differ in many ways. The term comes from similarities in size and composition yet the conditions on Venus are far more hostile. Surface temperatures far exceed the boiling point of water, the dense atmosphere exerts a pressure on the surface equivalent to being 3,000 feet under water and there is sulphuric acid rain in the atmosphere! Most definitely not a nice place to head to for your next vacation. 

If you were to stand on the surface of Venus you would see beautifully formed craters. Looking down on the planet from orbit you would see none due to the thick, dense atmosphere. Yet if you could gaze through the obscuring clouds you would see a distinct lack of larger impact basins of the sort we are familiar with on the Moon. Now, a team of researchers mostly from the Planetary Science Institute believe they solve the mystery of the missing craters. 

They have mapped a region of Venus known as Haastte-baad Tessera using radar technology and the results were rather surprising. The region is thought to be one of the oldest surfaces on Venus and is classed as tessera terrain. This type of feature is complex and is characterised by rough, intersecting ridges to create a tile like pattern thought to be the result of a thin but strong layer of material forming over a weak layer which can flow and convect energy just like boiling water. Images from the area in question reveal a set of concentric rings over 1,400 km across at their widest. The team propose that the feature is the result of two back-to-back impact events. “Think of pea soup with a scum forming on top,” said Vicki Hansen,  Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist. 

Obviously there is no pea soup on Venus but instead, the thin crust layer formed upon a layer of molten lava. Venus of today has a thick outer shell called a lithosphere which is about 112 km thick but when Venus was younger, its thought it was just 9km thick! If an impactor struck the hot young Venus then it’s very likely it would have fractured the lithosphere allowing molten lava to seep through and eventually solidify to create the tesserae we see today. 

Confusing things slightly however is that features like this have been seen on top of flat, raised plateaus where the lithosphere is likely much thicker. The researchers have an answer for this though, “When you have vast amounts of partial melt in the mantle that rushes to the surface, what gets left behind is something called residuum. Solid residuum is much stronger than the adjacent mantle, which did not experience partial melting.” said Hansen. “What may be surprising is that the solid residuum is also lower density than all the mantle around it. So, it’s stronger, but it’s also buoyant. You basically have an air mattress sitting in the mantle beneath your lava pond, and it’s just going to rise up and raise that tessera terrain.”

• The features found by the time seem to show that two impact events happened one after the other with the first creating the build up of lava and the second creating the ring structure seen today. 

Source : 

• Impact craters were hiding in plain sight, say researchers with a new view of Venus

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

02-11-2024 om 16:41 geschreven door peter  

It was 1969 that humans first set foot on the Moon. Back then, the Apollo mission was the focus of the attempts to land on the Moon but now, over 50 years on, it looks like we are set to head back. The Artemis project is the program that hopes to take us back to the Moon again and it’s going from strength to strength. The plan is to get humans back on the Moon by 2025 as part of Artemis III. As a prelude to this, NASA is now turning its attention to the possible landing sites. 

The Artemis Project is NASA’s program aimed at returning humans to the Moon and establishing a permanent base there. Ultimately with a view to paving the way for missions to Mars. With the first launch in 2017, Artemis intends to land “the first woman and the next man” on the lunar surface by 2025.  The program began with Artemis I and an uncrewed mission which orbited the Moon. Arte is II will take astronauts on an orbit of the Moon and finally Artemis III will land humans back on the Moon by 2025. At the heart of the program is the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. 

As the plans ramp up for the first crewed landing, NASA are now analysing possible landing sites and have identified nine potential spots. They are all near the South Pole of the Moon and will provide Artemis III with landing sites near to potentially useful resources. Further investigations will be required to further assess them for their suitability. 

The team working upon the analysis is the Cross Agency Site Selection Analysis team and they will work with other science and industry partners. The teams will explore each possible site for science value and suitability for the mission including the availability of water ice. The final list so far, and in no particular order, are;

• Peak near Cabeus B
• Haworth
• Malapert Massif
• Mons Mouton Plateau
• Mons Mouton
• Nobile Rim 1
• Nobile Rim 2
• de Gerlache Rim 2
• Slater Plain

The South Polar region was chosen as a region was chosen chiefly because it has water locked up deep in the shadowed craters. The Apollo missions never visited that region of the Moon either so it is a great opportunity for humans to explore this aged region of the lunar surface. To settle on these 9 areas, the team assessed various regions of the south polar region using potential launch window suitability, terrain suitability, communication capability and even lighting levels. The geology team also looked at the landing sites to assess their scientific value 

NASA will finally settle on the appropriate landing site based upon the decision for the launch date. Once that has been confirmed it will determine the transfer trajectories to the Moon, the orbital paths and the surface environment. 

Source : 

• NASA Provides Update on Artemis III Moon Landing Regions

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

02-11-2024 om 16:29 geschreven door peter  

Anomaly Detected on Voyager 1: What Is Happening in Deep Interstellar Space?

In the vast expanse of interstellar space, Voyager 1 continues its extraordinary journey, defying expectations and pushing the boundaries of human exploration. Launched on September 5, 1977, this intrepid spacecraft has ventured far beyond its initial mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn, now traveling more than 15 billion miles from Earth. As it navigates the uncharted depths of space, Voyager 1 has begun to exhibit anomalous behavior, puzzling NASA scientists and challenging our understanding of the cosmos.

Unprecedented longevity and challenges in deep space

Voyager 1's remarkable endurance has surpassed all initial projections, with the spacecraft continuing to communicate with Earth nearly five decades after its launch. This longevity, however, comes with its own set of challenges. The extreme conditions of interstellar space, coupled with the limitations of 1970s technology, have led to ongoing equipment degradation.

Space radiation has likely accelerated the wear and tear on Voyager 1's components, presenting NASA engineers with unique problems to solve. One of the most critical issues has been the degradation of the spacecraft's thrusters, which are essential for maintaining its orientation and communication with Earth.

The mission team has had to adapt to these challenges, employing innovative solutions to keep Voyager 1 operational. Their efforts have included :

• Developing new software to compensate for hardware limitations
• Repurposing existing systems for unintended functions
• Xarefully managing power consumption to extend the mission's lifespan

Thruster clogging dilemma and ingenious solutions

Perhaps the most perplexing issue faced by Voyager 1 has been the clogging of its thrusters. These vital components are crucial for keeping the spacecraft's High Gain Antenna pointed towards Earth, ensuring continued communication. The problem stems from silicon dioxide buildup, a result of the aging fuel tank's rubber diaphragm deterioration.

NASA engineers have had to think creatively to address this critical issue. With the first set of thrusters decommissioned in 2002 and the second set showing signs of wear by 2018, the team faced a daunting challenge. The discovery that the openings in the trajectory correction thrusters—the third and final set—had narrowed to a mere 0.0015 inches (half the width of a human hair) further complicated matters.

NASA Engineers Revive Voyager 1 to Maintain Communication with Earth, demonstrating their ingenuity in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Their approach involved :

• Carefully analyzing the remaining thruster capabilities
• Developing new firing sequences to maximize efficiency
• Implementing software updates to optimize thruster performance

Voyager 1's scientific legacy and ongoing discoveries

Despite these technical challenges, Voyager 1 continues to make groundbreaking discoveries and contribute to our understanding of the universe. The spacecraft's crossing of the heliopause—the outer boundary of the heliosphere—marked a historic milestone in space exploration. This achievement has provided invaluable data about the structure and role of the heliosphere in shielding our solar system from cosmic rays.

The information gathered by Voyager 1 has profound implications for future interplanetary missions and our understanding of the cosmos. Some key contributions include :

As Voyager 1 continues its journey, it complements the findings of its twin, Voyager 2, which is now over 12 billion miles from Earth. Together, these probes offer humanity an unprecedented view of the outermost reaches of our solar neighborhood and beyond.

Future implications and the legacy of Voyager 1

The mission team is acutely aware that Voyager 1's remaining set of thrusters may not last indefinitely. Every operational day becomes a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance as the spacecraft pushes further into the unknown. The eventual failure of these thrusters will mark the end of active communication with Voyager 1, but its legacy will endure.

The data collected by Voyager 1 will continue to inform scientific research and exploration for years to come. Its incredible journey has proven that humanity can push the boundaries of exploration to unprecedented extremes, from the icy regions of the outer planets to the edge of interstellar space.

Future missions inspired by the Voyagers will benefit immensely from the lessons learned during this pioneering expedition. As we plan for human expeditions to the outer planets and beyond, the experiences gained from these spacecraft will be invaluable. Interestingly, a hidden population of objects discovered beyond the Kuiper Belt in the outer Solar System further emphasizes the importance of continued exploration and the potential for new discoveries in our cosmic backyard.

Voyager 1's anomalous behavior in interstellar space serves as a reminder of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in space exploration. As we continue to push the boundaries of our knowledge, the spirit of innovation and determination embodied by the Voyager mission will guide us towards new frontiers and uncharted territories in the vast expanse of the universe.

{ https://www.msn.com/en-us/channel/topic/Science/  }

02-11-2024 om 00:31 geschreven door peter