The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
08-01-2025
Betty Andreasson’s Multiple UFO Experiences, Underwater Base & Humans In Glass Container
Betty Andreasson’s Multiple UFO Experiences, Underwater Base & Humans In Glass Container
The abduction of Betty Andreasson Luca is considered to be one of the most documented cases in the history of Ufology. The woman from Massachusetts experienced multiple abductions, and her case is widely studied by UFO researchers. It became popular after the publication of the best-selling novel “The Andreasson Affair,” which came out in the late 1970s. She attended many radio shows and TV interviews where she discussed her encounter with grey aliens and even drew sketches of the incident.
Robert Luca: The Andreasson-Luca Affair
Betty Andreasson was born on January 7, 1937, to Waino and Eva Aho. She went to school in Westminster and Gardner MA and had a great interest in art since childhood, which later became her passion. Betty married twice and with her first husband, she gave birth to seven children. She met her second husband Bob Luca in 1977.
Betty Andreasson Luca
According to the official reports, on the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty was at home with her seven children and parents. At around 6:30 p.m., she was busy in the kitchen when the lights in the house started blinking strangely. Soon after it, the kitchen’s window was hit by a reddish light beam, and the whole house went out of electricity. The children got terrified with the scene and Betty tried to calm them down. Her father looked out to find the source of the light and saw five strange-looking humanoid creatures walking right towards the house. Before he could understand the situation, the beings walked inside the house through the door which put the whole family in a state of shock.
Betty Andreasson during one of her hypnotic regression sessions
One creature went to Betty’s father while the other four came to her, and one of them started talking with her telepathically. The one who was made telepathic contact with Betty was about 5 feet tall, while others were shorter than him. The description by the witnesses was similar to the modern illustration of grey aliens. They had only slits on their mouth, three fingers in one hand, and wore a blue-colored one-piece suit.
Betty was frightened but at the same time, she felt calm by the friendly nature of the beings. They did not harm any member of the family and even released her daughter from a state of unawareness. Then she was taken outside and boarded on their saucer-shaped craft with a small dome that was standing in the backyard. After that, the ship went up in the air and merged with the mothership where Betty went through medical tests and was under the effects of strange equipment. Later, she was taken to some strange place where she felt much pain which, according to her, was a “spiritual experience.”
UFO sketch by Betty Andreasson
Later that night, Betty returned home at 10:40 p.m. and found her family still in a frozen state, where one of the aliens was watching them in her absence. Then the family was put to bed by the beings and the aliens left. What’s more, she forgot about her abduction until undergoing hypnotherapy in later years.
Betty said in some of her interviews that the creatures were angelic in nature but not biblical. She is a religious person, had only some school education and did not understand much about UFOs. Only after this bizarre experience, she understood that whatever she had experienced that
In 1975, Dr. Allen J Hynek posted an ad in the newspaper to learn more about the abduction experiences and asked help from common people. Betty answered his ad by sending a letter, but it was rejected due to its unusual details. It was only in 1977 when her case was deeply investigated by the experts including a solar physicist, an electronics engineer, an aerospace engineer, a telecommunications specialist, and a UFO investigator.
Her case was first investigated by Jules Vaillancourt, a Mutual UFO Network investigator in 1977. He said: “What I found most amazing about Betty was her ability to draw. The detail of the (space) craft and the beings she drew under hypnosis were such that it really made me believe there was something to this.”
He also added that the detective who had given a psychological stress evaluation to Betty and her daughter believed in her story. She even spoke the language of aliens under hypnosis. Her case investigation continued for 12 months where she and her daughter had gone through hypnosis sessions, lie detector tests, and a psychiatric interview. Both mother and daughter passed them with a genuine reaction. Author and UFO researcher Raymond E. Fowler wrote five books on her UFO experiences that include the famous “The Andreasson Affair” series.
During one of her hypnotic regression sessions, she remembered one of the early abductions that occurred to her in childhood. It took place in 1950 when she was taken from her home into a spacecraft as usual. But this time, the craft was flying toward an ocean or sea. She was terrified that the craft would crash into the water. But the ship submerged into the water and entered into a kind of tunnel. Betty could see everything underwater, as the place was filled with light. What she said next under hypnosis is so bizarre that even gave a chill to Fowler.
Betty Andreasson drew what Fowler called Museum of Time
She saw people from all eras, different races, encased in the glass container. Fowler called it “The Museum of Time.” Betty said that people in the container were in old-fashioned clothes, and there were uncountable cubicles with humans inside at that underwater base.
Fowler wrote that when he listened to her one of the regression session recordings, his mind blew up as he found it difficult to believe. “A cold chill coursed through my body when Betty was describing people and animals enclosed in glassy cubicles in an icy cavern.”
Betty Andreasson and her second husband Bob Luca
Betty traveled a lot across the country, attending numerous TV interviews and radio shows and lecturing about her UFO experiences. She and her husband Bob Luca had been unsettled for many years until 1995 when they moved to Virginia. They lived in VA for 5 years and then moved to Florida. Shed died on March 18, 2022.
Few details have emerged about an incident that prompted the emergency landing of an Atlas Air flight at Miami International Airport late Thursday evening, following the release of a preliminary assessment by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials.
According to information released by the FAA, the aircraft, Atlas Air Flight 95, experienced failure of its second engine shortly after departure during an evening flight on January 18, 2024.
The engine failure prompted an emergency landing, and the aircraft safely landed at Miami International at around 10:30 p.m. local time.
The aircraft, a Boeing 747, had been traveling to Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, Puerto Rico, at the time of the incident.
“Mayday, mayday, 1095 heavy. Uh, engine fire, request access back to the airport,” the pilot could be heard saying in FAA audio that surfaced following the incident.
“No, we’ll go ahead and land,” the pilot then says. “We have five souls onboard.”
According to an FAA preliminary report, “post flight inspection revealed a softball size hole above #2 engine,” although no additional details were released at that time. It remains unclear whether the hole resulted from an impact with an airborne object or if the damage was caused by other circumstances yet to be determined.
Ground-based observers were able to see the aircraft as flames billowed from its second engine, with videos surfacing online that captured the alarming scene as the blazing aircraft passed overhead.
(Credit: Instagram/OnlyInDade)
“Oh my God, it’s on fire,” a woman is heard saying in one video of the incident, which appeared on the Instagram community channel Only in Dade (onlyindade).
The woman can be heard calling to her mother, wondering aloud if the plane would be attempting to make an emergency landing.
The FAA identifies three categories of emergency landings, which include forced landings, where an aircraft must land immediately after its ability to fly has been impacted because of factors that include engine failure, as with the January 18 incident.
Additional categories include precautionary landings, which result from circumstances where further flight is inadvisable, and ditching, which occurs when a forced or precautionary landing must occur on water.
According to FAA guidelines, air traffic controllers are required to prioritize and give way to any aircraft that declares a need for an emergency landing.
As of Friday afternoon, the FAA had not revealed any additional details about what circumstances might have led to the hole discovered above the aircraft’s second engine on Thursday night.
The agency said in a statement that it plans to conduct further investigations into the possible cause of the damage that caused the aircraft’s emergency landing.
One of astronomy’s most perplexing mysteries has been resolved, according to scientists involved with new findings made possible by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
According to new findings, tiny faint objects have been located surrounding galaxies that, in the past, have displayed anomalous emissions of hydrogen, a discovery made possible by Webb’s powerful NIRCam instrument.
Astronomers have long wondered why light from hydrogen atoms can be detected, given that they should be blocked from view by gas formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang.
The new findings reveal mergers between galaxies as the likely source of these mysterious hydrogen emissions.
When astronomers view extremely distant galaxies, they appear as they would have looked long ago due to the time it takes the light they produce to travel across space. Hence, observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope are not only revealing the most distant regions of the universe in unprecedented detail, but also how they looked in much earlier times.
However, these galaxies are very faint, and hence powerful telescopes are required to make the observations, a task that Webb is well equipped to accomplish.
Very active star formation occurred within the universe’s earliest galaxies, giving rise to their other name: stellar nurseries. These regions of space produced a specific variety of light emitted from hydrogen known as Lyman-α emission.
Essentially, Lyman-α emission is produced by hydrogen atoms when an electron falls from a higher energy level to the lowest one it can be in, which can be likened to the electron’s home base. This light has a very specific color spectra that can only be discerned with the help of special instruments, which can be likened to being a “fingerprint” for this kind of activity.
NIRCam image of the Lyman-α emitting galaxy EGSY8p7
(Credit: NASA/ESA/Ceers survey)
Long ago, these stellar nurseries were enveloped in large amounts of neutral hydrogen gas, and the even the spaces between galaxies once contained far more gas than what is observed today. Light emissions produced by hydrogen are easily absorbed by this gas, causing astronomers to predict that the Lyman-α emission that populated these regions of the early Universe, despite their abundance, would effectively remain invisible to astronomers today.
Yet, mysteriously, some early hydrogen emissions have been successfully observed by astronomers, a phenomenon that has until recently remained unexplained. But how could hydrogen that should have been scattered throughout the universe by now, if not absorbed altogether, still be visible today?
University of Cambridge astronomer Callum Witten, who specializes in the study of galaxies and active galactic nuclei, calls this question “one of the most puzzling issues” astronomers have faced in trying to resolve this cosmic mystery.
“Many hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this ‘inexplicable’ emission,” Witten, the principal investigator on a new study that explores this phenomenon, said in a recent statement.
However, thanks to the power and precision of the James Webb Space Telescope, new insights appear to have shed light on this longstanding mystery.
With help from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Witten and his colleagues were able to observe much smaller and dimmer galaxies clustered around the brighter ones from which mysterious hydrogen emissions were previously noted. However, these lesser galaxies are not static, but instead appear to be dynamically interacting and combining.
“Where Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies,” said Sergio Martin-Alvarez, a team member from Stanford University involved with the study, who adds that Webb’s latest revelations have “had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies.”
NIRCam image depicting Lyman-α emitting galaxy EGSY8p7 in the CEERS survey field (Credit: NASA/ESA/CEERS survey).
Using state-of-the-art simulations, the team then explored the physics behind what they observed, learning that the fast accumulation of stellar mass that results from galaxy mergers had likely driven the strong hydrogen emissions being observed. Based on the new observations, this appeared to have occurred through channels that had been cleared of neutral gasses that had originally been prevalent.
The team believes that the merging of these smaller, previously unobserved galaxies is very likely to be the solution to the lasting riddle of inexplicable early hydrogen emissions, and now aims to follow up their recent observations by looking at galaxies in other stages of merging, which they believe will not only help them to better understand how hydrogen emission is ejected, but also to reveal new clues to the evolution of galaxies.
The team’s research was the subject of a new paper, “Deciphering Lyman-α emission deep into the epoch of reionization, that was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The UFO phenomenon is known for its widespread occurrence and its impact on witnesses from diverse backgrounds. UFO sightings have been reported by individuals in various high-profile positions, and it is their accounts that capture people’s attention. One such noteworthy incident happened with Terry Lovelace whose account grabbed the attention of Lue Elizondo.
Terry Lovelace, a retired assistant attorney general and lawyer, who served as a media and EMT in the United States Air Force from 1973 to 1979, claims that an extraterrestrial craft took him. Lovelace claims to be repeatedly abducted by aliens, fitted with a tracking device and experimented on.
In 1973, Lovelace joined the U.S. Air Force immediately after graduating from high school. He received training as a medic/EMT and was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which was previously called Sedalia Air Force Base. The base served as a B-2 bomber base and missile base and was home to the 351st Strategic Missile Wing, with many Minuteman II nuclear-armed ICBM silos scattered across the rural area.
Lovelace was assigned as a base medic and drove an ambulance during the graveyard shift from 11 PM to 8 AM along with his partner, who he referred to as “Toby.” One night in January 1975, while on their regular shift, they were outside the ambulance stargazing when Toby, an amateur astronomer, pointed out the constellations and planets. Typically, their shifts were uneventful, but that night turned out to be very significant, altering the course of their lives.
Lovelace (now 71) went camping with Toby at Devil’s Den state park in northern Arkansas. While conversing near a crackling fire, they had difficulty hearing each other due to the loud sounds of crickets and tree frogs. Suddenly, an eerie silence enveloped them. “That sounds kind of clichéd – out of a movie – but that is exactly what happened to us,” he said.
As they gazed toward the horizon, three bright UFOs emerged and advanced in their direction. As the lights drew closer, the two partners could see that they were emanating from a black triangular prism as wide as two city blocks.
Alien sketch by Terry Lovelace
Terry’s re-drawn sketch originally dated Sep 4, 1977, of the massive 5-story-tall craft he and his friend “Toby” encountered in the clearing at Devil’s Den State Park in June of that year. Credit: Terry Lovelace
Lovelace noticed a blue laser beam rapidly moving across them, possibly scanning their presence. Soon after it stopped, they lost consciousness. Upon awakening, he noticed Toby gazing outside the tent, and spotted a triangle-shaped object hovering above a group of approximately twelve children who were standing in a meadow below them. Lovelace questioned, “Why are these children out here at this time of night?”
“They aren’t little kids. Don’t you remember they took us and they hurt us?” Toby answered.
According to Lovelace, when Toby uttered those words, he experienced a sudden recall of memories of being inside a UFO. In later years, he resorted to hypnosis to recover his missing memories. Through one of these sessions, Lovelace recollected an incident where he had been taken aboard a spacecraft and subjected to medical experimentation by peculiar entities.
Those entities were humanoid forms, but their characteristics were distorted and almost non-human. They communicated with each other through telepathy and seemed to be performing a medical procedure on Lovelace. During his hypnosis sessions, Lovelace experienced flashes of memory where he was on an examination table and screaming, but no sound was coming out of his mouth. He could hear telepathic messages in his head, urging him to stop screaming because they did not intend to harm him and would take him back.
Lovelace said that they had a terrible experience that left their skin red and sore like a bad sunburn all over their body, even the soles of their feet. They had to go to the hospital at the base for two days because they were very dehydrated.
While they were there, they were questioned many times by some men who said they were from the “Office of Special Investigations.” They searched his home and car for a camera that Lovelace said he did not have, but they did not believe him. They also told him not to see his partner Toby again, who was sent to another base. The whole experience made Lovelace have nightmares and affected him mentally for a long time.
Terry Lovelace was profoundly disturbed by his encounter and left with numerous unanswered queries. Subsequently, he authored a book titled “Incident at Devils Den: A True Story,” with the intention of uncovering the facts about extraterrestrial abductions and inspiring others to share their experiences.
During a routine X-ray of his leg in 2012, a foreign object was discovered in his leg above the knee. The X-ray revealed an artificial object, about the size of a fingernail, with two wires attached, which the radiologist believed resembled an “RFID compute device.” The radiologist also noticed a collection of foreign objects in his’s calf muscle and was surprised that there was no corresponding scar in the skin. This discovery led Lovelace to recall a traumatic event from 1977 that they had never intended to disclose to anyone.
X-ray shows a chip-like object Credit: Terry Lovelace
The most astonishing aspect of this discovery was that there were no signs of incision or surgery on Lovelace’s leg, and the radiologist who detected the object claimed that an absent scar would mean Lovelace was born with this thing in his leg.
“September of 2017, I was a guest speaker at a UFO event in Houston. It was my first public appearance and opportunity to speak candidly on the topic of alien abduction. This was the time when I decided to write a book. It’s an important topic. We deserve to be informed and not mislead.
I fear we’ve been desensitized about the UFO phenomena by the media especially the motion picture industry. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in November 1977. my experience happened in June that same year. Now, YouTube provides a flood of valid information mixed with confabulation and deception. Know the truth. Alien’s really exist and some live and walk among us without so much as a second look. There are probably many species from different worlds or different dimensions here on Earth today.
Terry Lovelace with former AATIP manager Luis “Lue” Elizondo, late June, 2019. Credit: Terry Lovelace
Some aliens may actually be our ‘benign space brothers’ as some have claimed. Here to join hands and walk mankind into a new era of peace and higher consciousness. Maybe so, but not the ones we met. The beings we met were monsters. They kidnap people and subject them to terror and brutality in pursuit of their agenda. They are 100% purpose-driven and void of empathy for human or animal suffering. We are their lab rats. Once you’re tagged as their specimen you’re tagged for a lifetime. Like a wild animal on the Serengeti Plane.”
Five years ago, Terry Lovelace published a book that caused significant issues, leading to a year-long harassment incident over his home outside Dallas. Lovelace reports that following the book’s publicity, military aircraft, including two and four-seaters, as well as Airbus 350s with no registered “N” numbers, flew over his house. These aircraft, which were drab-olive in color, were spotted making flyovers at least twice a week, often every day. Lovelace captured many photos of the incidents, including one that appears to show a UFO in the same frame as one of the intruding aircraf
USAF veteran Terry Lovelace suspects a UFO photobombed this helicopter as he tried to document evidence of aerial harassment of his home in Texas. Credit: Terry Lovelace via Bill Cox
After publishing a book about his experience, Lovelace received a call from Tom DeLonge, founder of To The Stars Academy, along with General Neil McCasland and Lue Elizondo, who were interested in the X-rays of Lovelace’s leg, which had been injured during the encounter.
“I can attest to the fact that TTSA was interested in speaking with Terry regarding possible biological effects that he may have suffered,” states former AATIP manager Elizondo in an email. “Biological effects (are) a potential serious aspect of what we studied in AATIP and we now know that certain elements with the U.S. Government are equally concerned as we were. If Terry is suffering any medical consequences as a result of an alleged encounter with a UAP while serving in the military, then he deserves medical care.
“It is my experience that helicopters of unknown utility have been reported by certain individuals. It is not yet known if this is some sort of intentional harassment or simply a matter of being near a congested flight corridor. Obviously, flying a helicopter is expensive and logistically intense if this were some sort of campaign to intimidate individuals on a regular basis. We would need to do additional research to better determine the nature of these incidents,” he added, “before making any sort of proclamation.
“Terry is a good person who is also credible. I believe Terry and others are convinced their experiences are legitimate.”
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Newly declassified bombshell records of an infamous CIA mind control program, MKUltra, reveal how Americans were drugged and tortured more than 60 years ago.
The collection of more than 1,200 pages detail how the CIA used induced sleep, electroshocks and 'psychic driving' on drugged subjects who were psychologically tortured for weeks or months to reprogram their minds.
The subjects included criminals, mental patients and drug addicts, but also Army soldiers and average citizens who were given drugs without their knowledge.
A total of 144 projects were conducted from 1953 to 1964, aimed at developing procedures and drugs that could be used during interrogations, weakening individuals and forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
While it has long been said that subjects only included prisoners, mental patients and drug addicts, one report showed that some CIA and Army officials and 'subjects in normal life settings' were 'unwittingly' given LSD over the decade-long experiment.
In a newly unsealed document from 1956, researchers were developing 'an anti-interrogation drug' by testing 'materials capable of producing alterations in the human central nervous system which are reflected as alterations in human behavior.'
A memo about a classified meeting showed that the CIA contemplated the possibility of testing on foreign nationals,' but decided that 'unwitting testing on American citizens must be continued' instead.
The CIA was testing drugs and other techniques on American citizens during the 1950s and 60s to develops new interrogation processes such as mind control
Gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, a former organized crime boss, was used as a test subject in 1957 while an inmate at the Atlanta penitentiary. He explained he was one of eight convicts in a panic and paranoid state while in MKUltra
Gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, a former organized crime boss, was used as a test subject in 1957 while an inmate at the Atlanta penitentiary.
He explained he was one of eight convicts in a panic and paranoid state while in MKUltra.
'Total loss of appetite. Hallucinating. The room would change shape. Hours of paranoia and feeling violent,' Bulger penned.
'We experienced horrible periods of living nightmares and even blood coming out of the walls. Guys turning to skeletons in front of me. I saw a camera change into the head of a dog. I felt like I was going insane.'
The National Security Archive (NSA) said in a statement: 'The CIA conducted terrifying experiments using drugs, hypnosis, isolation, sensory deprivation, and other extreme techniques on human subjects, often US citizens, who frequently had no idea what was being done to them or that they were part of a CIA test.
'These records also shed light on an especially dark period in the history of the behavioral sciences in which some of the top physicians in the field conducted research and experiments usually associated with the Nazi doctors who were tried at Nuremberg.'
A total of 20 documents with more than 1,200 pages were declassified on December 23, published by the NSA and ProQuest.
'Despite the Agency's efforts to erase this hidden history, the documents that survived this purge and that have been gathered together here present a compelling and unsettling narrative of the CIA's decades-long effort to discover and test ways to erase and reprogram the human mind,' shared NSA.
Former US Deputy Director of the CIA Allen Dulles ordered the agency to develop mind-controlling drugs to be used against the Soviets during the Cold War.
The CIA was testing drugs and other techniques on American citizens during the 1950s and 60s to develops new interrogation processes such as mind control. Former US Deputy Director of the CIA Allen Dulles (pictured) ordered the agency to develop mind-controlling drugs
'We in the West, are somewhat handicapped in brain warfare,' he said.
A memorandum dated November 15, 1954 details how the CIA's Technical Services Section (TSS) requested funding for a project at Georgetown University Hospital that would provide cover for research under the agency's 'biological and chemical warfare program.'
Using a philanthropic organization as a 'cut-out,' the CIA partially funded 'a new research wing' of the hospital (the Gorman Annex) and used part of it to conduct 'Agency-sponsored research in these sensitive fields.'
MKULTRA, the memo states, provided research and development funding 'for highly sensitive projects in certain fields, including covert biological, chemical and radiological warfare' but did not specifically authorize funds to establish cover for these programs.
The program, which ran from 1953 to 1973, performed 144 projects aimed at developing procedures and drugs that could be used during interrogations,weakening individuals and forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture
In 1955, the secret program listed 17 'materials and methods' that the division was working on, including substances that 'promote illogical thinking, would help individuals to endure 'privation, torture and coercion during interrogation' and attempts at 'brain-washing.'
The list also featured substances that would 'produce physical disablement, including paralysis, and others that alter personality structure' or that 'produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down.'
A 'knockout pill' was also to be developed, which would be used in 'surreptitious druggings and to produce amnesia, among other things.'
Another declassified document dated June 7, 1956, discusses an MKUltra subproject to be led by Carl Pfeiffer of Emory University who was known to conduct experiments on prisoners.
Pfeiffer was approved to develop 'an anti-interrogation drug' and 'tests in human volunteers.'
The objectives included administering 'large doses of LSD-25 in normal human volunteers.'
In 1955, the secret program listed 17 'materials and methods' that the division was working on, including substances that 'promote illogical thinking, would help individuals to endure 'privation, torture and coercion during interrogation' and attempts at 'brain-washing'
The list also featured substances that would 'produce physical disablement, including paralysis, and others that alter personality structure' or that 'produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down'
The document does not specify the amount given, but taking large doses of the drug can induce terrifying hallucinations.
Another point was 'to evaluate the threshold dose levels in humans of a particular natural product to be supplied by [deleted].'
The supplier's name was redacted from the report, but pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly developed a process to streamline the manufacture of LSD in late 1954.
'[The] CIA had [LSD] in abundance thanks to Eli Lilly, which had developed the capacity to produce the drug in 'tonnage quantities' and had agreed to become the agency's supplier,' according to NSA.
The documents also show that the CIA established safehouses in 1956, which were run by narcotics agent George White 'for conducting experiments involving the covert administration of physiologically active materials to unwitting subjects.'
Sidney Gottlieb, a chemist and spymaster who headed the CIA in the 50s and 60s, admitted in the report that activities were 'highly unorthodox nature.'
Because of that 'it [was] 'impossible to require that they provide a receipt for these payments of that they indicate the precise manner in which the funds were spent,' he wrote.
One of the last documents of the program, published in 1963, revealed researchers involved with MKUltra used radiation, electro-shock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology, graphology, harassment [sic] substances, and paramilitary devices and materials' during the secret initiative.
It focused on drug experiments conducted at CIA safehouses, using suspect criminals as test subjects, but also 'unwitting subjects drawn from all walks of life.'
'It was noted earlier that the capabilities of MKUltra substances to produce disabling or discrediting effects or to increase the effectiveness of interrogation of hostile subjects cannot be established solely through testing on volunteer populations,' it reads.
As of 1960, however, the CIA was unable to develop a knockout pill, truth serum, aphrodisiac or recruitment pill.
Also during that time, the report noted that 25 of the 144 projects 'remained in existence at present' - 1960.
While most of the documents were destroyed in 1973, the US Church Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church opened an investigation into MKUltra in 1975.
'The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are as important as ends,' Frank's 1977 report stated.
'Crises make it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free. But each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong, our inner strength, the strength which makes us free, is lessened.'
That report found that there were at least six subprojects that involved testing on unwitting subjects and other projects researcher 'drugs, toxins and biologicals in human tissue.'
The then-director of the CIA, Adam Stansfield Turner spoke during the investigation, saying the MKUltra's activities were more than 12 years old following the investigation.
'They in no way represent the current activities or policies of the Central Intelligence Agency,' he added.
The investigation brought MKUltra to light, sparking public outcry and widespread criticism of the CIA's unethical practices.
That led to the establishment of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which provided ongoing oversight of intelligence agencies.
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Scientists in Oregon conducted a lab analysis of more than 1,800 individual marine creatures, including Pacific herring and a species of Pacific salmon.
In all, microplastics were found in 99 per cent of samples, in their gut or even in their tissue – but none more so than the pink shrimp.
Scientists warn that the foreign fragments travel 'from the ocean to our kitchen table' before being consumed by humans in restaurants and homes.
'It's very concerning that microfibers appear to move from the gut into other tissues such as muscle,' said Professor Susanne Brander, an ecotoxicologist at Oregon State University.
'This has wide implications for other organisms, potentially including humans too.'
Pink shrimp, which filter-feed right below the surface of the water, had the highest concentrations of particles in their edible tissues, the study found
The researchers found human-made particles in the edible tissue of six species - (clockwise from top left) Chinook salmon, lingcod, black rockfish, pink shrimp, Pacific herring and Pacific lamprey
For the study, six fish were caught by a fishing vessel in Oregon waters or bought from a supermarket or seafood vendor.
In all, the researchers sampled 182 individual fish of the six species – pink shrimp, pacific herring, pacific lamprey, black rockfish, lingcod and chinook salmon.
The six species are that are 'economically or culturally important' in Oregon but don't necessarily represent global eating habits.
Lab dissection and microscopic analysis revealed 1,806 suspected particles across the vast majority of individual samples – 180 of 182, or 98.9 per cent.
The fish contained a wide range of anthropogenic particles (APs), a broad category of materials produced or modified by humans.
Microplastics – plastic fragments less than 5 mm in diameter, invisible to the naked eye – come under the category of APs.
The study found 1,806 suspected particles across 180 of 182 individual samples – mostly fibres but also fragments and films.
According to the researchers, the smaller marine species tend to contain a higher quantity of particles in them, but the reason for this exactly is unclear.
Pink shrimp, which filter-feed right below the surface of the water, had the highest concentrations of anthropogenic particles (APs) in their edible tissues (R = retail, V = vessel). Chinook salmon had the lowest concentrations. AP concentrations were also fairly low in black rockfish and lingcod
Australian man reveals microplastics inside fish fingers
Pacific lamprey (pictured) are a culturally important food source for indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest
Black rockfish (pictured) are harvested in Oregon, California, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, and the Pacific
Food & drink shown to contain microplastics
Seafood
Meat (pork, beef and chicken)
Fruit and vegetables
Tofu
Veggie burgers
Sugar
Honey
Beer
Tea
Bottled water
... and much more
Shrimp and small fish, like herring, eat smaller food items like zooplankton, the small swimming animals towards the bottom of the marine food chain.
'Other studies have found high concentrations of plastics in the area in which zooplankton accumulate,' said said study author Professor Elise Granek at Portland State University.
'These anthropogenic particles may resemble zooplankton and thus be taken up by animals that feed on zooplankton.'
Despite the findings, the researchers are not advising people to stay away from seafood.
Microplastics are ubiquitous, having already been found in bottled water, beer, honey, beef, chicken, veggie burgers and tofu.
Therefore, omitting seafood from your diet is unlikely to stop your consumption of microplastics.
'If we are disposing of and utilizing products that release microplastics, those microplastics make their way into the environment, and are taken up by things we eat,' Professor Granek said.
'What we put out into the environment ends up back on our plates.'
The Chinook salmon (pictured) is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon. It is eaten by people as well as wildlife such as orcas and sea lions
Lingcod (pictured) is a relatively large species of ground fish with habitats in the Pacific Ocean, according to Wild Alaskan Company
There are around 200 different species of herring although it's just three that are usually caught for food - Atlantic, Pacific (pictured) and Araucanian
Microplastics - plastic particles less than 5 millimetres in diameter - can come from larger plastic products that have broken down, textile fibres, cigarette filters or even beauty products (file photo)
Other fish are also likely to contain microplastics too, but the study focused on six species that are commonly consumed in Oregon.
It's not the first time microplastics have been found in seafood, or even food in general for that matter.
A 2020 study discovered microplastics inside every single sample of seafood bought at a market – squid, prawns, oysters, crabs and sardines.
The following year, an Australian scientist demonstrated on TikTok how there's microplastics in store-bought fish fingers.
Studies have reported the presence of microplastics in several foods, including salt, seafood, sugar, beer, bottled water, honey and milk.
The human health risks of ingesting microplastics and other APs are understudied, but have been linked to cancer, DNA damage and cellular damage.
What are microplastics?
Microplastics are defined as tiny pieces of plastic that are less than 5mm in length - about the size of a sesame seed.
There's an even smaller type of microplastic – nanoplastic – which is the result of microplastics breaking down even further and are less than 100 nanometers (nm).
The most common causes for microplastics entering the environment are surface run-off after heavy rain or a flood, treated and untreated wastewater effluent, industrial effluent, sewer overflows and atmospheric deposition.
Primary and secondary microplastics
Primary microplastics are intentionally manufactured in the size of a microplastic size for either industrial abrasives used in sandblasting and microbeads used in cosmetics and skin care products.
Secondary microplastics are formed by the weathering of larger plastic items after being released into the environment.
A newfound clay head from the sixth millennium B.C. is the first of its kind ever found in Kuwait, but similar finds have been unearthed from ancient Mesopotamia.
The clay head unearthed at Bahra 1 in northern Kuwait dates back nearly 7,000 years.
(Image credit: Adam Oleksiak/CAŚ UW)
Alien-like clay sculpture dating back 7,000 years offers clues into cultural exchange between Stone Age civilizations.
Archaeologists in Kuwait have discovered a 7,000-year-old clay figurine that looks eerily similar to a modern-day depiction of an alien.
But while this figurine may look more supernatural than human, its style was common in ancient Mesopotamia, although it's the first of its kind ever to be found in Kuwait or the Arabian Gulf.
The small, finely crafted head, with slanted eyes, a flat nose and an elongated skull, was found during excavations this year at Bahra 1, a prehistoric site in northern Kuwait where a joint Kuwaiti-Polish team has been excavating since 2009. Bahra 1 was one of the Arabian Peninsula's oldest settlements, with occupation lasting from around 5500 to 4900 B.C.
During this time, Bahra 1 was settled by the Ubaid, a culture that originated in Mesopotamia and is known for its distinctive pottery, including its alien-like figurines. The Ubaid intertwined with Neolithic, or New Stone Age societies in the Arabian Gulf in the sixth millennium B.C. and turned the area into a sort of ancient melting pot, said Agnieszka Szymczak, an expedition leader at Bahra 1 in charge of the small finds at the site, like the newly discovered figurine.
The collision of these peoples and their cultures resulted in a "prehistoric crossroads of cultural exchange," Szymczak, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, told Live Science in an email. Part of this exchange included art, like the recently unearthed figurine.
"[The] discovery of the figurine was a total surprise for the whole team, as it was the first such find not just among the over 1.5k [1,500] small finds excavated from the Bahra 1 site but also from the Arabian Gulf region," Szymczak said. Moreover, it's made of Mesopotamian clay, not like the "Coarse Red Ware" ceramics local to the Arabian Gulf, meaning the Ubaids were actively importing their homegrown traditions into the region.
A "lizard-headed" female figurine nursing a child dating to the Ubaid period, circa 4000 B.C., from Ur, Iraq in the Iraq Museum. (Image credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) via Wikimedia; CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ubaid figurines are sometimes called "lizard-headed," "bird-like," or "ophidian" meaning "snake-like," according to University of Chicago publications. The newfound figurine is likely "imbued with symbolic meaning," Szymczak said, even though the figurine was discovered in a "mundane activity area," not in a special or symbolic place — like the graves they've been found in throughout Mesopotamia.
Aurelie Daems, a Near Eastern archaeologist at Ghent University in Belgium who has written book chapters on Ubaid ophidian figurines but was not involved in the current study, praised the find at Bahra 1 as having the "potential to clarify research questions related to ritual and social practices" of the Ubaid, as well as the relationships between the prehistoric Gulf region and Mesopotamia.
Various theories have attempted to explain the unusual facial features of these figurines. One idea suggests the sculptures show artificial cranial deformation, otherwise known as "head-shaping," a practice followed in Ubaid society, and evidenced in skeletal remains excavated in Mesopotamia. Achieved by wrapping bandages around an infant's malleable skull, head-shaping could have been utilized by the Ubaids as a symbol of identity, such as class, culture or belonging to a special group within their settlement. The Ubaid may have picked up this practice in what is now Iran in the eighth and seventh millennia B.C., and head-shaping hit its peak in Ubaid society during the fifth millennium B.C.
Ancient Egypt’s UFO Mysteries: Ross Coulthart’s Reality Check Investigation
Ancient Egypt’s UFO Mysteries: Ross Coulthart’s Reality Check Investigation
Ross Coulthart, an investigative journalist known for his work on mysterious phenomena, embarked on a fascinating journey through Egypt’s ancient ruins in NewsNation’s Reality Check series. Alongside his friend, lawyer, and researcher JP Hague, Coulthart explored the enduring enigmas of Egypt’s ancient landmarks, raising intriguing questions about advanced technologies, human consciousness, and potential links to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
Ancient Egypt: A Gateway to Advanced Knowledge?
Coulthart and Hague’s expedition took them to Egypt’s most iconic landmarks, including the Great Pyramid of Giza, where they examined evidence of precise engineering that seems beyond the capabilities of the ancient dynastic Egyptians. They marveled at the pyramid’s alignment with astronomical and mathematical constants, such as the speed of light and the precession of the equinoxes, suggesting an advanced understanding of geometry and the cosmos.
JP Hague highlighted the extraordinary level of precision in the pyramid’s construction. For instance, the perfectly level granite slabs beneath the Great Pyramid continue to defy conventional explanations. He theorized that whoever built these structures had access to knowledge and technology far superior to what was thought to exist during that era.
The Unfinished Obelisk: Evidence of Lost Technologies?
In Aswan, Coulthart and Hague visited the site of the unfinished Obelisk, an enormous block of red granite carved directly into bedrock. The tool marks on the granite resembled smooth, scooped shapes, leading Hague to speculate on the use of advanced sonic or acoustic tools capable of vibrating stone into dust. These theories challenge the mainstream view that such objects were fashioned using primitive stone tools.
The logistical challenge of moving and erecting such colossal objects further deepens the mystery. Hague suggested that ancient Egyptians might have employed levitation technologies, as hinted at in depictions on temple walls, such as those in the Temple of Edfu.
Depictions of Advanced Machines and Beings
The exploration also delved into ancient Egyptian art. Coulthart and Hague examined carvings at the Temple of Abydos, where some hieroglyphs resemble modern machinery, including what looks like a helicopter, submarine, and disc-like objects. While conventional Egyptologists attribute these images to overlapping carvings (a process called palimpsest), the resemblance to modern technology fuels speculation about clairvoyance or knowledge of advanced technologies in ancient times.
Moreover, at Edfu Temple, they encountered depictions of temples seemingly being levitated by tall, humanoid figures wielding rods. These images suggest energy-based technologies that might have played a role in constructing Egypt’s monumental structures.
UAPs and Ancient Egypt: A Connection?
JP Hague shared his personal experiences with UAPs and their possible links to human consciousness, proposing that these phenomena might transcend local time and space. He theorized that ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, might have had interactions with non-human intelligences (NHIs) that informed their technological and spiritual advancements.
Hague’s perspective aligns with the esoteric belief that ancient Egyptians encoded knowledge about the cosmos, human consciousness, and energy manipulation in their art and architecture. The Eye of Horus, for instance, bears a striking resemblance to the human pineal gland, often considered the seat of consciousness and intuition.
Why Does It Matter?
The mysteries of ancient Egypt are not just academic. Rediscovering lost technologies and spiritual integration could revolutionize modern society. According to Hague, the Egyptians achieved a remarkable unity between science, spirituality, and practical life, offering a model for harmonious coexistence with nature and the cosmos.
By revisiting these ancient enigmas, Coulthart and Hague argue, humanity might unlock a deeper understanding of consciousness, energy, and the universe. Their journey highlights the importance of keeping an open mind, bridging the gap between science and the mystical, and embracing the possibility of unknown dimensions of human knowledge.
VIDEO:
Coulthart in Egypt: Ancient UFO proof revealed? | Reality Check
Ross Coulthart’s exploration of Egypt in Reality Check shines a spotlight on the profound mysteries of ancient civilizations. From the precision of the Great Pyramid to the enigmatic depictions of advanced machines and levitation, these puzzles challenge conventional narratives. Whether through lost knowledge, alien intervention, or untapped human potential, ancient Egypt continues to inspire curiosity and wonder, offering tantalizing clues to humanity’s past and future.
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10 OF THE COOLEST HIGH-TECH FEATURES EVER UTILIZED BY FIGHTER JETS
10 OF THE COOLEST HIGH-TECH FEATURES EVER UTILIZED BY FIGHTER JETS
BY DANIEL FEININGER
Don Farrall/Getty Images
Humans have always looked skyward in envy of birds, bees, and anything else that can take flight. Soaring up above the Earth has long been a task that occupied human minds, from the ancient Greek tale of Icarus launching himself into the winds (and then falling back down) to Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century flying machine designs.
When the Wright brothers managed to lift off the ground over a century ago, they ignited an impassioned sprint toward increasingly substantive innovations and technologies in aerospace. Exponential growth in the realm of aerial flight would eventually transform every aspect of the human experience. From shipping goods and delivering mail to launching a truly global tourism industry, human flight connects the world in ways that people just a few generations ago may have never thought possible.
Flight also changed the landscape of warfare. Observational spy balloons and aerial signaling have been used throughout human history. They formed a core intelligence gathering function in the American Civil War, but would soon be replaced by later airplane propulsion breakthroughs. The first fighter jet to participate in aerial combat was the German Messerschmitt Me 262, which attacked a British reconnaissance plane over Munich in 1944. The aircraft wasn't as impactful as the Germans would have hoped, but the gauntlet was laid down -- jet engines were here to stay and tertiary systems quickly made them even more powerful weapons of war.
The first airplanes to take to the skies features straight wing geometry. The Wright brothers' fliers utilized fixed, rectangular wing designs that straddled the aircraft in a perpendicular fashion, connecting the wing on either side in the center. Wing design has changed a lot in the years since, however.
Many airplanes today feature a sweepback to their wings, from passenger airliners to fighter jets. They are consistently featured in fighters, however, because the design provides solid crossover between speed and maneuverability. A swept design is crucial for reducing aerodynamic drag, allowing an aircraft to travel faster and more efficiently when it crosses speed thresholds like the sound barrier. Its design was the result of decades of wind tunnel testing and at least partially inspired by the way birds and bats tuck back their wings while in flight to increase speed.
Most fighter jets today utilize wing geometry that sees them extend out (and back) at an angle rather than straight to achieve this improved efficiency. However, not all jets deliver this form factor. Some feature forward sweep in their wings, and others offer variable shape. The Mirage G was one of the first fighter jet to allow for adjustments while in flight, just like the creatures of the sky that we were emulating.
The process of in-air refueling has been around for a very long time -- almost as long as manned flight itself, actually. The first instance of in-air refueling took place in 1923, but it has come a long way in the century since its introduction. The first flights to test this method of prolonging time in the air were essentially test runs to explore how this process could work. They utilized a hose to transfer gasoline from one aircraft to another. In August of 1923, two pilots broke a variety of records with an endurance flight lasting 37 hours and 15 minutes, featuring 16 successful refueling operations mid-flight.
Today, the task of refueling while airborne is a commonplace feat of jet propulsion. Dedicated refueling vessels are a staple of the military's aerial fleet, with icons such as the S-3B Viking, originally designed to hunt Soviet submarines, serving for many years in this role. Whether taking off from land or sea-based carriers, extending the range of a fighter jet to expand its capacity to support ground forces or perhaps even engage in multiple dogfights over contested landscapes is a critical capability among modern fighter jets.
The ability to take off from a standstill remains one of the coolest technologies ever imbued in a non-helicopter craft. After all, the Harrier jet is an icon for one reason -- its ability to hover in place and perform Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) operations. Popularized perhaps most vividly in pop culture as a feature of the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "True Lies," the Harrier is a feat of tremendous engineering.
The wing design of a normal aircraft is carefully crafted to ensure a gliding effect of air traveling above and below its curvature, creating lift in the process. So an airplane that isn't cutting through the air should be one that plummets back down to Earth. This isn't so for the Harrier, however, as it features nozzled engines that can produce vertical lift themselves, rather than relying on air speed to generate it. The result is an aircraft that can perform the same feats of flight that are otherwise reserved for the mighty helicopter.
The aircraft catapult is another tool that has essentially been around since the dawn of human flight. The Wright brothers utilized launch equipment to get their aircraft off the ground and later flight capable vehicles would also rely on this assistance measure to support take off, too. However, the aircraft catapult gained new significance when the world went to war for a second time.
A naval variant of the British Spitfire fighter planes -- known as Seafires -- were outfitted with tailhooks to operate from sea-based positions and engage enemy planes over Malta, Italy, and North Africa. Launching aircraft from aquatic positions wasn't particularly difficult given the existing catapult technology, but landing on them has always proved a greater challenge. The use of tailhooks in coordination with catapult systems delivered much-needed consistency.
Today, this pair of systems has become the primary means of enabling ocean takeoffs that rely on a return to this mobile, sea-based landing strip. The tailhook and aircraft catapult allow fighter jets to operate from virtually anywhere in the world and reduce range requirements down to fractions of what they might be otherwise. This means that fighter jets can stay in the air longer in support of whatever mission they are tasked with because their takeoff and landing site is located within the theater of battle as well.
Understanding the battlefield has been critical for as long as humans have gone to war with one another. Intelligence gathering operations have become increasingly sophisticated through the years, and nowhere is this more apparent than in aerial combat.
Fighter jets engage their enemies in a unique snippet of our three dimensional plane. Height is a critical resource in ground combat, sure, but it gains new meaning when translated onto the skies. Fighter jets require an array of situational awareness tools that help them defend against incoming attacks -– which sometimes originate from beyond their sight horizon or a thousand feet above their heads -– and acquire targets, across land, sea, and air.
The F-4 Phantom II is an excellent example of technically adept flying machine technology. The Phantom, first built in 1958, allowed its pilots to identify and target enemy aircraft from beyond its pilot's line of sight. Radar and missile upgrades helped the aircraft's crew deliver lethal force from a distance that wasn't immediately defensible. The fighter jet was credited with downing over 100 MiG fighters during the Vietnam War, and later variants helped suppress Iraqi opposition during the Gulf War.
The modern F-35 Lightning II operates with some of the most advanced targeting systems ever conceived. It features a helmet mounted display that brings all the information a pilot needs right into their field of vision, no matter where they're looking. The Electro-Optical Targeting System delivers air-to-air threat detection over tremendous range and helps to home in on precise ground targeting needs. The fighter jet also engages in seamless data sharing with other friendlies in the sky, allowing for heightened team cohesion.
Any good fighter jet will need to be outfitted with an array of offensive weapons. From machine gun installations to nuclear-capable payloads, fighter jets have supported all manner of extreme weapons systems through the years.
One of the first fighter planes to lean full force into tremendous offensive load was the P-47 Thunderbolt. Although not a jet aircraft, this early workhorse exhibited immense capability when it came to downing enemy fighters over Europe and the Pacific. The P-47 carried eight .50 caliber machine guns and could also haul along 2,500 pounds of bombing munitions, packing a huge punch in both dogfighting and ground bombardment scenarios.
The trend of stacking as much firepower as possible into the armaments of a fighter jet has continued in the years since World War II concluded. The Thunderbolt's modern equivalent is the F-15EX Eagle II, sometimes called the Air Force's Missile Truck. It may just be the most heavily armed fighter to ever take to the skies. Taking its frame from the F-15, formerly a pure aerial fighter platform, the F-15EX Eagle II now offers 23 total weapon stations, a significant boost over its previous iteration's 17.
7. Speed And The Supercruise Capability
a Blue Angels jet breaks sound barrier right over the water
Fast means lethal, and aircraft have been chasing improvements in speed for as long as humans have been flying. There are numerous hurdles to navigate when seeking to create additional speed in the air, however. For one thing, fighter jets have become capable of moving at speeds that surpass standard human piloting capabilities. A phenomenon known as gravity-induced loss of consciousness takes place at a variety of different thresholds depending on who the operator is.
The average person may experience a blackout when moving at about 5Gs, while trained pilots (augmented with specialized equipment) can extend this range up to about 9Gs, given the right circumstances. Time at extreme speed and particularly the pace of acceleration also play a role in impairment and total blackout. Naturally, a pilot that loses consciousness is one threatened with the loss of their aircraft, and worse. Flight support systems like autopilot tools, onboard oxygen, and other technologies help pilots maintain control of the aircraft even when the physical toll becomes extreme.
The other barrier to intense speed is one that affects even everyday drivers on their local roadways -- fuel economy. Afterburners, in particular, are a tool that can increase speed tremendously, but they burn fuel at a much faster rate as well. Engaging afterburners also ramps up the heat production of a fighter jet, making it more susceptible to enemy detection. However, technology such as Supercruise in the F-22 Raptor allows a pilot to ramp up speed without relying on afterburners, eliminating this detection issue and improving fuel usage.
8. Onboard Countermeasures
three fighter jets releasing flares in a flight display
Countermeasures are perhaps some of the lowest technically demanding features of a fighter jet. Even so, the use of low-tech defensive tools like chaff and flares can create a resoundingly spectacular display. Perhaps one of the most arresting visuals in the prequel "Star Wars" movies is seen during a space battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the menacing Jango Fett set in an asteroid field over the brilliant orange of Geonosis. The encounter features prominent usage of countermeasures by Obi Wan as he struggles to defend against the bounty hunter's missile attack.
In real aerial combat, the same discharge of physical countermeasures to scramble missiles and frazzle radar tracking tools can be seen today. Modern countermeasures not only feature a physical shielding options, but also come in the form of infrared defensive weapons and electronic countermeasures that can scramble an aggressor's capability to target or attack a jet. These IR countermeasures target the heat of a missile in flight, and then blast it with an infrared beam to incapacitate its tracking function. This makes the tool reusable and far less reliant on timing, luck, and slick maneuvering.
Flying a fighter jet isn't like piloting a regular aircraft. These aircraft are controlled by immensely sensitive flight tools and have features that simply don't factor into the build of something like a passenger or cargo jet. Thrust vectoring, for instance, isn't required of a larger, transportation-focused jet engine, but make for a tremendously improved fighter jet.
Thrust vectoring allows for nuanced control of the engine exhaust direction, helping a pilot launch themselves into turns and other maneuvers with greater agility. This makes a fighter jet swifter in the turn and can help edge a battle in their favor. Thrust vectoring isn't a feature confined to the military realm, but it's far less common through sheer necessity in civilian aircraft.
Certain variants of the Russian MiG-29 feature thrust vectoring, making them just one of a few aircraft in the world that can perform a full Pugachev's Cobra maneuver, which requires a sudden shift in thrust direction to maintain flight. A Pugachev's Cobra involves violently pulling up on the nose of the aircraft to essentially stall it at a fully vertical orientation, with the angle of attack reaching an astounding 120 degrees. This rapidly halts the jet's forward speed before the pilot sinks the nose back down to its previous positioning.
The result is a capacity to let an enemy fighter completely pass the jet by, placing the MiG in prime attacking position behind its adversary. Thrust vectoring and other maneuverability features of the MiG-29 are responsible for the aircraft's ability to perform this astounding feat.
Stealth technologies are a core component in any fighter jet's ability to perform its duties. Part of the design specifics of a modern fighter involve hiding the vessel as much as possible. This includes shielding its aerial signature from radar systems on the ground, as well as making the aircraft harder to see in the air both visually and by the onboard identification systems of other planes.
Stealth inclusions come in a wide range of variations, but many are focused on unique skins for aircraft, as well as the angular shape of the vessel itself. Modern design language has sought to minimize flat surfaces and rounded edges. These features are easier to hit with sensor equipment, with the resulting ping bouncing more or less straight back to the receiver. Angular faces scatter the radar signal, making it harder to identify an aircraft in the first place, and equally difficult to actually find one that's been noticed.
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It's a story that almost any Christian would be instantly familiar with.
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on Earth.
Said to be made out of dust and to have lived in the Garden of Eden, the two figures are central to the belief that everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors.
While this might seem far-fetched, there is now a growing body of evidence which suggests that at least some parts of the story could be true.
Archaeologists have found surprising signs that Eden was not only a real place but could have been the birthplace of civilisation as we know it.
Likewise, biologists have shown that all humans alive today really do share a single common ancestor.
However, making the Bible fit with modern science requires throwing out a lot of the traditional story.
That could mean saying goodbye to the notion that God created Adam and Eve, or even questioning whether our biblical ancestors were Homo Sapiens.
While it might seem far-fetched, scientists now say there could be some elements of truth to the story of Adam and Eve. Pictured: Adam and Eve as painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1528
A real Garden of Eden
In the Bible, Adam and Eve live in a place called the Garden of Eden, a beautiful land of plenty and abundance.
Interestingly, the Bible also provides a relatively precise description of where this mystical garden is located.
In Genesis, the Bible states that a river flows through Eden and divides into four branches: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
Of these, the Tigris and the Euphrates are well known and still flow through modern-day Iraq.
However, the Gihon and the Pishon are far more obscure and their locations, if they still exist, are unknown.
This has led to a plethora of suggestions as to where the Garden of Eden might have really been, ranging from Iran and Mongolia to Jackson County Missouri.
However, the most promising theory is that the Garden of Eden is located in an area called Mesopotamia.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden which is described as being between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This would make the region of Mesopotamia a likely contender for its location
The Garden of Eden is referred to as being East of Israel where Jesus lived. This suggests that the Garden of Eden could have been located somewhere around modern-day Iraq
What evidence is there for Adam and Eve?
The Garden of Eden
* According to the Bible, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden.
* Archaeological evidence suggests this could have referred to the Fertile Crescent where agriculture first emerged.
Mitochondrial Eve
* All humans currently alive are descended from a single ancestor.
* But this earliest common relative would not have been the first human, nor the only human being alive.
Compatibility with science
* Scientists say there is nothing to prevent all humans from having been genealogically descended from a single couple.
* However, this couple would have been one of the many humans living on Earth at the time and would have evolved from earlier hominins.
Literally meaning 'between rivers' in Ancient Greek, this region sits between the Tigris and Euphrates and straddles what is now eastern Syria, northwestern Turkey, and most of Iraq.
Professor Eric Cline, a classical and biblical archaeologist from George Washington University, argues that this theory matches the scriptural and archaeological evidence.
Writing in his book 'From Eden to Exile', Professor Cline says: 'This makes some sense from a textual point of view, because not only does the biblical account say that the garden lay "in the east", meaning to the east of Israel, but it also mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in connection with the Garden of Eden.'
Dubbed the 'Fertile Crescent', the nutrient-rich sediments of the two rivers allowed for the first grains to be deliberately planted and harvested by humans.
This development led to the earliest transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural lifestyles and precipitated the birth of the first permanent human settlements.
Professor Cline adds: 'This area may have also become somewhat of an agricultural paradise for the local residents following the invention of irrigation during the fourth millennium BC.'
Further strengthening this case, there are some striking parallels between the biblical account of creation and the most ancient myths from the region.
Iraq sits in the fertile crescent, an area of land which was home to the first human civilisations including the Sumerians who built great palaces like the one at Girsu (pictured) at least 4,500 years ago
The ancient Sumerians also shared myths which bear a strong resemblance to the Christian creation myths. Archaeologists even discovered a seal (pictured) which appears to show a man and woman sitting by a tree in a garden. Some experts think the story of Eden could have been passed down from these first civilisations to the Israelites by the second century BC
Most notably the ancient Sumerians, considered to be the first human civilisation, recorded a myth called Enuma Elish, meaning 'When on High'.
This story records the creation of heaven and Earth from a primal, chaotic body of water in a very similar fashion to that described in Genesis.
According to some archaeologists, the best way to explain this similarity is that the Sumerian myth was handed down through the years all the way to the Israelites in the second century BC.
If that is true, then it is plausible that the biblical story of Adam and Eve captures an ancient story about the origin of civilisation which took place somewhere around modern-day Iran.
A genetic Adam and Eve
It might come as a surprise to learn that scientists really do believe that all living humans are descended from a single woman.
This common ancestor exists because, no matter how big your initial population is, the chances are that most female lineages will eventually come to an end.
Since most genetic lineages will come to an end over time, if you go back far enough there will be a single individual whose DNA is shared by every living person. Scientists call these individuals the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam based on the type of genetic information passed on by mothers and fathers (stock image)
Who is the Mitochondrial Eve?
Mitochondrial DNA is a type of genetic material passed from mothers to their children.
Given a stable population, most female lines will eventually die out.
Over time, that means there will only be one single female whose genetic material is still being passed on.
Every human currently alive can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to this Mitochondrial Eve.
Scientists believe that Mitochondrial Eve lived about 200,000 years ago.
However, this woman was not the first human on Earth and would have been just one of a large population living at the time.
While Mitochondrial Eve was not the first human, every other female lineage eventually died off and failed to pass on their mitochondrial DNA - a type of genetic material passed from mothers to their children.
Since DNA gathers mutationsat a steady rate, scientists can use this 'genetic clock' to figure out how long ago everyone had the same DNA.
In 1987, geneticists looked at the mitochondrial DNA of 147 people from around the world.
By comparing the differences in their DNA, the researchers could work out how many mutations must have occurred since their most recent common ancestor.
Dividing that number by the rate of mutation shows that Mitochondrial Eve probably lived in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
Likewise, a study conducted in 2013 with 1,200 men from Sardinia also showed that Y-chromosome Adam would have lived around 180,000–200,000 years ago.
Of course, no scientists actually believe that humans descended from a single pair of humans.
This Adam and Eve would have been just one of the many humans living on Earth at the time.
Our two most recent common ancestors likely lived hundreds if not thousands of years apart and almost certainly never met - let alone had children together.
Their unique status as humanity's common ancestors is merely a product of statistics rather than any divine intervention.
A genealogical story
However, some scientists believe that there is a way of making science fit with a biblical account of Adam and Eve.
Dr Joshua Swamidass, a biologist from Washington University, has argued that there is no reason to believe that humanity does not descend from a single couple.
As the case of the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam shows, there is no scientific barrier to humans having a common ancestor even if the population never reduced to a single couple.
In an article, published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Dr Swamidass writes: 'Many individuals are each individually ancestors of “all the living”.
Scientists argue that there is nothing about the theory of human evolution which prevents a pair of ancient humans from being the common ancestors of all living humans. However, Homo Sapiens are not the only human species and are known to have interbred with Neanderthals (pictured) which makes this theory more complicated
'All humans alive descend from each of these universal ancestors. The same can be said for all alive in AD 1, or all alive when recorded history begins.
'Two of them could be a particular couple, named Adam and Eve in scripture, from whom we all descend.'
It is important to note that Dr Swamidass is not offering a positive case for the existence of Adam and Eve.
Rather, he is merely showing that there is nothing in our understanding of evolutionary biology that prohibits the existence of an Adam and Eve couple.
Based on the idea that Adam and Eve should be the literal ancestors of every human who has ever lived, some scholars have looked even further into the past.
Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, argues that Adam and Eve must have been the first people to truly be human.
Using criteria including the capacity for abstract thought, depth of planning, technological innovation, and the use of symbols, he argues that the first true humans emerged much earlier than homo sapiens.
Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, claims that Adam must have been a member of the first human species if he is to be the common ancestor for all humans. He therefore concludes that Adam was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis (pictured) and lived between 750,000 and one million years ago
'Adam plausibly lived sometime between around 1 million years ago to 750,000 years ago, a conclusion consistent with the evidence of population genetics.'
Although there is nothing impossible about this claim, it doesn't put forward much positive evidence.
Even if Homo Heidelbergensis is the first human and humans could have descended from a single pair, there is still no reason to believe that this pair were the only humans on Earth.
Additionally, if Adam were a Homo Heidelbergensis then he wouldn't have lived in the proposed location for the Garden of Eden in Iraq.
Likewise, admitting that Adam and Eve weren't even Homo Sapiens is likely to rattle a few more conservative Christian thinkers.
Additionally, some scientists have criticised the idea that 'humanness' is a binary characteristic with a simple starting point.
However, it is still a striking fact that there is nothing in our current theories of human evolution that strictly prohibits the existence of an original Adam and Eve couple in at least some sense.
In the first century after Christ, Britain had its own gods: Pagan gods of the Earth, and Roman gods of the sky. But soon after, Christianity came to the British Isles.
While people tend to associate the arrival of Christianity in Britain with the mission of St Augustine, who was dispatched to England by the Pope to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings, in 597AD, Christianity arrived long before then in the 1st century AD.
It started when Roman artisans and traders who arrived in Britain began spreading the story of Jesus along with stories of their Pagan gods.
Marble head representing Emperor Constantine the Great, at the Capitoline Museums
At the time, Christianity was one cult among many, but unlike roman cults, Christianity required exclusive fidelity from its followers.
This led to Roman authorities persecuting Christian, who were then forced to meet and worship in secret.
But Roman Emperor Constantine saw appeal in a single religion with a single God, and he saw that Christianity could be used to unite his Empire.
From 313 AD onwards, Christian worship was permitted within the Roman Empire.
During the 4th Century, British Christianity became more visible but it had not yet become widespread. Pagan beliefs were still common and Christianity was a minority faith.
It looked as if Paganism might pervade over Christianity when, after the departure of the Romans, new invaders arrived: Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
Yet Christianity survived on the Western edges of Britain. Missionary activity continued in Wales and Ireland, and in Western Scotland Saint Columba helped to bring a distinctly Irish brand of Christianity to mainland Britain.
It can also be argued that it was St Augustine's famous mission in 597 AD from the Pope in Rome to King Aethelbert of Kent that definitively set up the future of Christianity in Britain, creating an alliance between Christianity and royals.
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Shaped like a flying saucer, it looks more like a UFO than your next Uber.
But this sci-fi style vehicle is in fact the latest in line of electric aircraft set to take to the skies over the next decade.
The fully autonomous ‘Invo Moon’ offers up to three passengers a 360-degree panorama above and below as it travels at speeds of up to 250mph.
Crucially, it has been designed to be near silent, using a flight system hidden inside its shell rather than relying on noisy exposed propellers like many of its competitors.
The £280,000 aircraft - which is the same size and weight of a small family car - will be able to move in any direction, similar to a handheld drone.
Inventor Leo Kayali, a former Tesla engineer, told the Daily Mail the design was inspired by the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci over five centuries ago.
The aim is to have it certified by the US aviation authority by 2027 and to launch in ‘all major cities including London’ by the end of the decade.
He said future owners could even have it running as an Uber while they weren’t using it and ‘make money while sitting at home’.
UFO-like electric flying vehicle that could be your next Uber, based on Da Vinci drawings from the 1480s
The fully autonomous ‘Invo Moon’ offers up to three passengers a 360-degree panorama above and below as it travels at speeds of up to 250mph
The government last year announced it expected flying taxis to be ‘routinely’ whizzing around British skies by 2028 - and potentially operating without a pilot by 2030.
Ministers set out ambitious plans to overhaul current regulations and infrastructure, with the technology expected to boost the UK by £45bn by the end of the decade.
The Invo Moon - which is 16ft in diameter and weighs 2,500lb and - can be pre-ordered for £2,000 and will ultimately cost around £280,000 on delivery.
However Mr Kayali believes the vehicles - which he said should be cheap to build when mass produced - could be sold for under £50,000 in the future.
While most electric flying vehicles rely on exposed propellors, the Invo Moon keeps everything within the aluminium frame.
The vehicle uses a complex new aerodynamic design in which a dozen motors, all containing spinning spheres, are positioned in a circle around the side of the vehicle.
Using these motors in groups of four at a time, it can move in any direction 360 degrees, meaning it has no front or back. To land, it extends three retractable legs.
Mr Kayali said this means there is very little vibration, so the machine will emit no more than 45 decibels as it travels - about as noisy as the patter of light rain.
The £280,000 aircraft - which is the same size and weight of a small family car - will be able to move in any direction. Pictured: Cover of the 1956 Sci-Fi movie, Earth vs the Flying Saucers
Inventor Leo Kayali, a former Tesla engineer, told the Daily Mail the design was inspired by the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci over five centuries ago
Most other eVTOLs run at about 85 decibels, equivalent to the sound of a blender, and also create a lot of unnecessary excess wind, he said.
Inside the cabin, there are three rotating and fully reclinable heated seats which offer views out the top and the bottom through the plexiglass windows.
The “luxury” vehicle will also feature mood lighting, an ice machine, and smart TVs.
It has a range up to 300 miles, and takes no more than 30 minutes to charge from 20 per cent to 80 per cent, Mr Kayali claims.
While the design might seem futuristic, it is in fact based on concepts first invented by Da Vinci in the 1480s.
The exterior is inspired by the Italian artist’s ‘Armoured Car’ drawings, while the internal flying mechanism is a new interpretation of his ‘aerial screw’ design, considered a precursor of the helicopter.
The driving itself is autonomous and has been designed to follow a three-lane system similar to a motorway - but rising vertically.
The speed limit increases as each level goes up - from 100mph to 250mph - and it can only land once it is back in the slowest lane.
UFO? No, it’s an unidentified flying Uber
Max speed: 250mph
Range: 300 miles
Charging time 20-30 mins from 20% to 80%
Passengers: 3
Length: 16ft
Weight: 2,500lb
Noise: 45 decibels (equivalent to the light patter of rain)
In the dark depths of the solar system, astronomers have discovered a truly baffling object.
Named 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide (200km) asteroid-comet hybrid is a type of body known as a Centaur, named after the mythical creature that is half-horse and half-man.
Centaurs are solar system bodies found between Jupiter and Neptune that move and behave like asteroids but produce glowing tails of gas and dust like comets.
Now, astronomers from the University of Central Florida have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to show that Chiron is 'like nothing' they've seen before.
By analysing near-infrared images, the researchers have carefully reconstructed the chemical makeup of this interplanetary chimaera.
They found that Chiron's surface contains a cocktail of chemicals from a time predating the formation of the solar system including CO2, methane, and frozen water.
Co-author Dr Charles Schambeau says: 'These results are like nothing we've seen before.
'These detections enhance our understanding of Chiron's interior composition and how that material produces the unique behaviours as we observe Chiron.'
Scientists have uncovered the baffling secrets of the comet-asteroid hybrid Chiron, a 'Centaur' body which is now travelling through the region of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Pictured: An artist's impression of Chiron
When Chiron was discovered in 1977, it was the first of a new group of solar system bodies which astronomers dubbed Centaurs.
Hidden in the frozen expanses of the Trans-Neptunian region, meaning outside the orbit of Neptune, their immense distance from the sun makes Centaurs frozen time capsules of information about the solar system's formation.
Dr Schambeau says: 'It's an oddball when compared to the majority of other Centaurs.
'It has periods where it behaves like a comet, it has rings of material around it, and potentially a debris field of small dust or rocky material orbiting around it.'
Yet what most interested astronomers is the tail of dust and gas that Chiron produces as it is warmed by the sun.
Most objects from the depths of space are either too cold or don't have the ice needed to create a tail.
Centaurs are a type of body which are typically found between Jupiter and Neptune and behave like comets but produce tails of gas and dust like comets. Chiron (pictured) is a particularly strange Centaur because it has a ring of dust like Saturn. Pictured: Artists' impression of Chiron and its rings
2060 Chiron: Key Facts
Name:2060 Chiron
Discovered: 1977
Size: 125 miles (200km)
Type of space rock: Centaurµ
- 2060 Chiron was the first of the 'Centaur' bodies to be discovered. It displays some of the properties of an asteroid but produces a tail or ice and dust like a comet.
- Scientists believe that Chiron has a system of rings orbiting its central core like those around Saturn.
- Studies have now shown that it contains Carbon Dioxide, methane, and water which formed before the Solar System.
That means that the coma is disturbed by interactions with the radiation from the sun and is so thick that astronomers can't see through it to the comet beneath.
Lead researcher Dr Noemi Pinilla-Alonso says: 'What is unique about Chiron is that we can observe both the surface, where most of the ices can be found, and the coma, where we see gases that are originating from the surface or just below it.
'Discovering which gases are part of the coma and their different relationships with the ices on the surface helps us learn the physical and chemical properties, such as the thickness and the porosity of the ice layer, its composition, and how irradiation is affecting it.'
Using the JWST, the researchers looked at the near-infrared radiation coming from the coma surrounding Chiron.
This spectrum revealed that Chiron contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane which were part of the cloud of materials which existed before the solar system formed.
Other chemicals like propane and ethane were likely formed later as the chemicals oxidised, the same chemical process that turns iron into rust.
By analysing the light coming from Chiron (illustrated), the scientists were able to work out that it contained water ice, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetylene, carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, and propane. Some of these compounds were formed from the cloud of materials which predated the solar system
Dr Pinilla-Alonso says: 'Based on our new JWST data, I'm not so sure we have a standard centaur.
'Every active centaur that we are observing with JWST shows some peculiarity. But they cannot be all outliers. There must be something that explains why they appear to all behave differently or something that is common between them all that we cannot yet see.'
In the future, the researchers plan to follow up with Chiron using the FWS to learn more about the layers of ice and rock that make up this strange body.
Those observations could help researchers learn what it is that all centaurs have in common and just why Chiron appears to behave so strangely.
"I think that we will never know what is truly going on until we make a space where we can publicly and transparently engage in and encourage hard data collection from sensor systems and careful scientific analysis of that data."
(Image credit: Getty Images/Carlos Fernandez)
It seems fair to say that this year has arguably been a page-turner in defining and refining interest in Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), a new term — rightly or wrongly — for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), those unknown events or craft seen in our skies.
There have been back-to-back open Congressional hearings and several classified gatherings in hush-hush, closed-door sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) settings. "Whistleblowers" toot tales of retrieved objects and super-secret reverse engineering efforts to look under the hood of recovered vessels. Even claims of non-human "biologics" being pulled out of the wreckage of crashed craft.
No single explanation addresses the majority of UAP reports, points out the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the U.S. Government lead for diving in and deciphering the nature of now joined at the hip and lip lingo, UAP/UFOs. So what should happen in 2025 to move the UAP/UFO story forward? Are we at a dead-end? Conversely, is the coming year one of "full disclosure?"
Perhaps humanity is going to be on the receiving end of a shocking revelation that we are accompanied minors in a grown-up universe of intelligent civilizations?
Whatever the case, adult supervision seems advisable. On that pursuit, Space.com asked several leading UFO/UAP experts to look ahead into 2025.
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Promising promises
A number of civilian institutions are making promising progress said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, based in Chicago, Illinois.
What Rodeghier personally hopes to see in 2025 is continued progress with these groups, and others, new people entering the field with expertise and energy, and more development of the academic/professional UFO community.
"All of that will move the story forward, though at a sedate pace," Rodeghier said. To truly make a significant difference — barring some amazing case, or "disclosure" with a capital D, or a detection by SETI researchers of an alien signal — he would like to see:
NASA take an active role and decide to fund proposals directly on the UAP subject
Congress mandate funding via, for example, the National Science Foundation, to support research on UAP
AARO to be more open, within understandable constraints of classification, to releasing their case investigations, and especially, of course, the case investigations for sightings which they cannot resolve.
"I'm not that hopeful, even given good intentions, that more Congressional hearings will be much help, without new whistleblowers with firsthand testimony," continued Rodeghier. "Otherwise, I want Congress to make certain that AARO has the resources required and to conduct thorough oversight of AARO's work," he said.
Hearings, legislation
Next year will see more congressional hearings, possibly additional legislation, and holding the DoD's AARO office publicly accountable, observes Jeff Gould who runs the UAP News Center, an informative website that finds and links to UFO daily news.
"Congress has clearly been deeply interested in the issue in the past three years. I anticipate that they will continue to pursue the UAP topic," said Gould. He expects more former government officials coming forward to speak on the topic.
Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Officer Representative of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force at the U.S. Department of Defense, and Retired Navy Commander David Fravor are sworn-in during a House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency” on Capitol Hill on July 26, 2023 in Washington, DC.(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Wild card ahead?
Gould said the scientific community will advance in two ways.
"There will be increased willingness by the larger scientific community to broach the topic," and anticipates more papers of greater depth going forward. This year, he said, academic papers included a civilian astronomer's guide to UAP research, the commissioning of an all-sky infrared camera array for detection of airborne objects, as well as detecting extraterrestrial life with astophotonics.
Additionally, there are research organizations focused on UAP that will continue to deliver relevant research, Gould said, including Harvard's Galileo Project, Stanford University's Sol Foundation that's a think tank undertaking cutting-edge inquiry into all aspects of UAP, as well as The SETI Institute.
"The wild card is the Trump administration," Gould said. "They seem to have a bias towards declassification. Will they declassify UAP related documents? We'll see," he concluded.
Conspiratorial-driven mythos
In 2025, science needs to get serious about studying UAP, "or we will be stuck at a dead end of the conspiratorial-driven mythos," said Alejandro Rojas, a consultant for Enigma Labs that labels itself as the "#1 destination for UFO sighting alerts."
The newly found credibility of the topic, said Rojas, "has highlighted a blind spot the Pentagon had toward detecting low-tech small craft flying within secured airspace on land and sea."
While concerning, that's a very terrestrial and human problem, Rojas added.
Government conspiracies
"Regarding the anomalous side of the issue, public interest is centered on unsubstantiated claims of government conspiracies regarding aliens and Roswell [New Mexico]. To some, UFO disclosure only means 'tell me what I already know, aliens are here and the government interacts with them.' Opportunists, many of them longtime proponents of alien conspiracies, tell the public what they want to hear sans evidence," said Rojas.
The outcome is that this creates a lot of distrust and foments a hostile attitude towards scientists and those trying to research the topic methodically, Rojas said.
"I think that we will never know what is truly going on until we make a space where we can publicly and transparently engage in and encourage hard data collection from sensor systems and careful scientific analysis of that data," Rojas advised.
Roswell, New Mexico is the site of one of the most longstanding UFO crash conspiracy theories in American history. (Image credit: David Zaitz/Getty Images)
Increased transparency and openness
Delving into the topic for 18 years, Robert Powell, executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) explains that he's confident about one fact. "The UFO/UAP subject is not hindered by our calendar and will continue to move forward well past the year 2025," he said.
In the coming year, Powell spelled out SCU's agenda, promoting three areas:
Federal and private investments in unclassified UAP science research by academia and the scientific community.Increased collaboration between scientists, researchers, and government agencies could foster a more rigorous and multidisciplinary approach to the study of UAP. This is an approach that we have never taken since the phenomenon began in 1942.
Development of advanced UAP detection and sensor technologies.Significant sums of money are needed for the development and the deployment of networked sensor arrays.
Increased transparency and openness in the study of UAP. We must move away from a military-based study of the phenomenon to a science-based study. The former is controlled by secrecy while the latter depends on openness and collaboration.
"It matters not whether one believes that UAP are controlled by an advanced intelligence," Powell said. "The more exoplanets we discover, the more we know that someday the time will come when we will make first contact with another intelligence."
Powell said there's need to start now to establish clear definitions of near-Earth technosignatures, communication protocols, and the responsible and ethical sharing of knowledge gained from such contact.
"Furthermore, we must consider who should represent humanity in such a momentous event," Powell observed. "Should it be a nation-state's military organization or an entity that speaks for all of humanity? This is a critical question with far-reaching implications for the future of our species," he said.
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Drones/Alien tech: How 2025 will transform the public awareness about extraterrestrial matters
Drones/Alien tech: How 2025 will transform the public awareness about extraterrestrial matters
Despite the MSM at the moment keeps a low profile in informing the public about the unidentified drones, the 'drone mystery' is still going on with hundreds of drones spotted across the US, especially the eastern United States.
Check out the size of this high-tech drone, estimated to be around 25-30 feet in length, possibly even larger. It was recently filmed flying low over New Jersey.
(Watch the video of the craft at the bottom of the article.)
The mystery surrounding unidentified drones continues to capture attention, particularly across the eastern United States. While mainstream media (MSM) maintains a low profile in reporting on these occurrences, sightings persist, with hundreds of drones reported in various regions.
Officials have repeatedly assured the public that these drones pose no threat to national security. However, skepticism remains high, as the government has yet to provide a comprehensive explanation, leaving many feeling left in the dark.
Dr. Steven Greer recently made a prediction during an interview with Newsmax's Rob Finnerty. He claimed that the drone crisis is likely to escalate "within the next 30 days." According to Greer, the notion of a supposed "alien invasion" is a deliberate distraction designed to obscure the true nature of extraterrestrial encounters, which he asserts have been ongoing for decades. This statement has sparked further speculation among those following developments in the UFO community.
Adding to the anticipation, investigative journalist Ross Coulthart has forecasted that 2025 will mark a turning point in public awareness about extraterrestrial matters. Describing the current period as “the calm before the storm,” Coulthart envisions transformative revelations in the coming year.
Michael Salla, Ph.D., another figure in the disclosure movement, has reported information from a retired U.S. Army serviceman, identified as JP. According to JP, factions within the U.S. military, referred to as "White Hats," along with an international coalition known as the “Earth Alliance,” are preparing to disclose advanced alien technology to the public. This advanced technology, allegedly hidden for decades by shadowy "deep state" organizations and defense contractors, includes three medium-sized cigar-shaped spacecraft and numerous unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) stored in an underground facility in Tampa, Florida. These alleged alien-tech craft are said to possess advanced stealth capabilities, allowing them to blend seamlessly with their surroundings.
As part of a broader disclosure strategy, the unveiling of these craft is intended to prepare the public for even larger extraterrestrial revelations in the months ahead.
It seems as two opposing forces are at play:
The Deep State: Allegedly leveraging drones and orbs sightings as part of a staged operation to manipulate public perception to fabricate the illusion of an alien invasion in an attempt to hide the real truth about extraterrestrial encounters and maintain the secrecy around covert programs and maintain control over advanced technologies acquired over the past 70 years.
The Earth Alliance: Seeking to reveal genuine alien technology obtained from real UFO crashes, confirming the existence of extraterrestrial life and promoting transparency.
Whether these predictions will materialize remains to be seen, but they have undeniably heightened public interest in what lies ahead.
Unveiling the Alien Agenda: Why UFOs Are Truly Here
Unveiling the Alien Agenda: Why UFOs Are Truly Here
The concept of UFOs and extraterrestrial beings has long intrigued humanity, sparking debates, conspiracy theories, and extensive research. While many view aliens as benevolent beings with advanced technologies, an alternative perspective raises unsettling questions: Why are they here? What are their motives? This article delves into the potentially terrifying agendas behind extraterrestrial encounters, exploring the evidence and theories that suggest humanity may be part of a larger, hidden plan.
Earth: A Unique Target
Earth is a rare gem in the universe. It boasts abundant liquid water, a diverse ecosystem, and unique minerals, making it an irresistible target for any advanced species seeking resources. Unlike other celestial bodies where water exists as ice, Earth’s readily available liquid water and rich biodiversity make it a one-stop shop for exploration, colonization, or exploitation. This planetary abundance could explain why extraterrestrial interest in Earth persists.
Humanity’s Role: Slave Race or Resource?
Ancient texts and modern theories suggest that humans may have been created or altered by an advanced extraterrestrial race. The Sumerian accounts of the Anunnaki, for example, describe these beings as gods who genetically engineered humans to serve them. According to this narrative, humans were designed to mine resources like gold for their creators. This theory implies that humanity’s sudden leap in intelligence, often referred to as the “missing link,” could be the result of genetic manipulation by an alien species.
More unsettling is the idea that humans might still be a resource for extraterrestrial agendas. Alien abduction accounts frequently involve invasive medical procedures, often focused on reproductive systems. These activities suggest that aliens may be harvesting genetic material to create hybrids or for other purposes unknown to us.
Missing Persons: A Sinister Explanation?
Each year, hundreds of thousands of people go missing worldwide. While many cases are explained as voluntary disappearances or criminal activities, a fraction remains unaccounted for. Could some of these individuals be victims of extraterrestrial abduction? Given the vast number of reports and the similarities in abduction narratives, it is plausible that these missing persons are part of an alien agenda involving genetic or biological experiments.
Advanced Technology and UFO Sightings
Modern UFO sightings reveal technology far beyond human capabilities. These craft can maneuver in ways that defy the laws of physics as we understand them—instant stops, right-angle turns at high speeds, and seamless transitions between air and water. If these sightings represent actual extraterrestrial craft, they indicate a level of technological advancement that humanity cannot yet comprehend.
The surge in UFO sightings coincides with humanity’s development of nuclear technology. Some theorists suggest that nuclear detonations in the 1940s drew increased extraterrestrial attention, as these explosions could disrupt the fabric of space-time. This connection raises the question: Are UFOs here to monitor or even intervene in humanity’s use of destructive technologies?
Benevolence or Malevolence?
The motivations of extraterrestrial visitors remain unclear. Some theories posit that aliens are here to help humanity evolve, offering spiritual guidance and technological insights. Others suggest a darker agenda: resource extraction, colonization, or even the use of humans as commodities—whether as slaves, genetic material, or food.
The Real Reason UFOs Are Here... And It’s Terrifying | Revealing Alien Agendas
Religious and cultural beliefs often frame aliens as saviors or destroyers, reflecting humanity’s hope and fear of the unknown. Ancient art and modern spiritual movements depict aliens as advanced beings—either benevolent space brothers or malevolent overlords. These contrasting interpretations mirror the duality in theories about their intentions.
The Influence of Governments
The role of governments in the UFO phenomenon is another contentious issue. Some believe that secret agreements between extraterrestrial beings and world leaders exist, involving the exchange of technology for the right to abduct humans. The alleged 1954 meeting between President Eisenhower and extraterrestrials is often cited as evidence of such a pact. Whether true or not, the secrecy surrounding UFOs and the suppression of related information fuels speculation that governments may be complicit in alien agendas.
A Planetary Experiment?
Another perspective suggests that Earth is a biological experiment, with humans as test subjects. Aliens may be observing humanity to assess our development, documenting our successes and failures. The frequent depiction of apocalyptic scenarios in abduction accounts—nuclear wars, environmental disasters—could be warnings intended to steer humanity away from self-destruction. Alternatively, these warnings might signal preparations for a post-apocalyptic world, where alien-human hybrids or genetically modified humans could inherit the planet.
Conclusion: A Mystery Unresolved
The true reasons behind extraterrestrial interest in Earth remain speculative. Are aliens here to help or harm us? Are we an experiment, a resource, or merely a passing curiosity? Until open contact occurs or governments disclose what they know, humanity can only theorize about the alien agenda.
What is clear is that the phenomenon of UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters has profound implications for humanity. Whether these visitors are saviors, oppressors, or observers, their presence challenges our understanding of existence and our place in the universe. For now, the alien agenda remains one of the greatest mysteries of our time, leaving us to ponder whether their plans align with our survival—or our doom.
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NASA joined the UFO investigation in 2022, the year which is said to be the “Year of UFOs,” as the UFO hearings have established a significantly new path to look into the “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP).
This article explained what caused Edgar Mitchell to believe in ET after returning from Moon. Former NASA astronaut said that he had experienced an epiphany that changed his thoughts about the origin of life on Earth and accused the government of hiding the truth. In 2004, he claimed the U.S. government was covering up the truth, including the study of alien bodies, commenting: “A few insiders know the truth… and are studying the bodies that have been discovered.”
In this image, Armstrong trains in the lunar module simulator at Kennedy Space Center on June 19, 1969. Image Credit: NASA
UFO cover-up by Timothy Good
In 1987, British UFO researcher Timothy Good wrote a book entitled “Above Top Secret: The Worldwide U.F.O. Cover-Up,” in which he stated that Neil Armstrong saw “other” spacecraft. It has been the most bizarre claim ever made. Is there any truth in Mr. Good’s book?
Timothy Good was once called “Britain’s leading UFO researcher” by British weekly newspaper Observer. After presenting his book, he was involved in the initial publication of the purported Majestic 12 documents. Later, according to skeptic Phil Klass, Good questioned the authenticity of at least some of the documents. In 2007, the CIA cited Above Top Secret as one of the sources contributing to “the idea that CIA has secretly concealed its research into UFOs”. Besides, in May 2019, Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 credited Good’s book with “opening his eyes” into UFOs, leading to DeLonge’s development of To The Stars.
Fortunately, the myth of 70 years that UFOs do not exist has ended. Mr. Good clarified in his book “Above Top Secret” that UFOs do exist and that the governments of the world have been hiding evidence of this fact. His study is worth examining the facsimile copies of confidential and secret documents from the U.S., Canada, and Europe, as well as the controversial MJ-12 documents.
Did Neil Armstrong find aliens on the moon?
According to Mr. Good, a former female MI6 agent told him that Neil Armstrong suggested to her that there were “other” spacecraft on the Moon when Apollo 11 landed in 1969. In his book “Above Top Secret,” Good wrote that there are certain people (whose identities are still questionable) who claimed that Armstrong did in fact encounter UFOs on the Moon.
Otto Binder, Maurice Chatelain, and Dr. Vladimir Azhazha are some names Mr. Good mentioned in his book who had worked for NASA during Apollo 11. According to Mr. Good, they all have claimed that some radio hams received the message from NASA in which Armstrong said that he had seen other spacecraft.
Binder’s statement in Mr. Good’s book: “These “Babies” are huge, Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn’t believe it! I’m telling you there are other spacecraft out there, Lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They’re on the Moon watching us!”
Unfortunately, there is no information about Binder in NASA archives, but there is a great article [click here] that discusses what it took to overhear the Apollo mission directly, including a contemporary article about it.
“Baysinger’s wife and daughter watched the Apollo 11 landing on TV while Baysinger and Rutherford listened via Baysinger’s equipment. The signal on the home-built equipment came through approximately 5-10 seconds earlier than the signal on TV. Baysinger figures NASA or the TV network [I assume it was probably CBS] put in a delay in case they needed to edit out anything embarrassing.
The signal the lunar eavesdropping equipment picked up was noisy, but Baysinger says you could hear what was going on. Baysinger made tapes of the transmissions, which he still has. In September 2009 he transferred salvageable sections of the tapes to MP3 format for this project. You can hear them for yourself via the links below.
I asked Baysinger whether he found anything that NASA edited out – comments about things going wrong, the astronauts being loose with their language, or exclamations about meeting aliens! He said no – absolutely everything was transmitted to the public on TV. In fact, he said, “that was kind of disappointing”. Part of the idea of this project was to hear the unedited “real story”, and it turned out there was nothing edited out. Indeed, Rutherford’s story makes no mention of hearing anything unusual
In July of 1969 a Louisvillian by the name of Larry Baysinger accomplished an amazing feat. He independently detected signals from the Apollo 11 astronauts on the lunar surface. Fortunately, his accomplishments were recorded and promptly published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, by another Louisvillian by the name of Glenn Rutherford, in an article entitled “Lunar Eavesdropping: Louisvillians hear moon walk talk on homemade equipment”. The story appeared in the July 23, 1969 issue of the paper, on the front page of section B. Source
Is there any Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems who also confirmed that Apollo 11’s radio transmissions were interrupted on several occasions in order to hide the news from the public?
Unfortunately, again Chatelain’s identification cannot be confirmed. Interestingly, instead of “NASA Communications Systems,” Apollo did have the position of “Chief of Communications and Frequency Management,” held by Paul A. Price. However, there are counter-claims that Maurice Chatelain worked for a NASA sub-contractor and had been fired before Apollo 11 happened.
Did Dr. Vladimir Azhazha, a physicist and Professor of Mathematics at Moscow University also confirm that the message was sent to NASA but was censored? Again, there is no public information about this person. It is difficult to say if he ever existed or his identity is confidential.
t is worth noting that the original higher-quality video from Apollo 11’s time on the moon has been lost. What’s available now was produced by pointing an NTSC-based camera at a monitor displaying the original SSTV signal. However, the lack of original video is hardly the “most mission tapes” that was originally claimed, and the original audio from the moon landing is still available.
Apart from Armstrong, the second man on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin might add some light to the alleged Apollo 11 UFO encounter on Moon. Documentary filmmaker James Fox stated on a podcast that he had met with Fay Ann Aldrin, a sister of the second man on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin. According to Ann, Buzz Aldrin said that “something followed them to the Moon.”
Fox claimed that Aldrin was ready to tell his story, before pulling out of an interview at the last moment out of fear of being labeled a “UFO nut”. Although he did not tell his story to James Fox, Aldrin spoke publicly to the Science Channel, asserting that objects were following Apollo 11, to which NASA responded by issuing a statement, claiming Aldrin was taken out of context and that objects seen by the crew were “panels from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage.”
Aldrin has previously asserted that there is a monolith on Mars’ moon, Phobos. He said: “We should visit the moon of Mars, there’s a monolith there, a very unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object that revolves around Mars once every seven hours. When people find out about that they are going to say, “Who put that there? Who put that there?” Well, the universe put it there, or if you choose, God put it there.”
Buzz’s participation in the Phobos’ monolith mystery encouraged UFO hunters and other researchers to search for the sign of alien life on Mars. NASA has been exploring the universe for decades and plausibly encountered UAP on many occasions, otherwise, they would never switch off live video when strange objects enter the screen.
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only object in the Solar system other than Earth with liquids on its surface. Discovered through telescopic observations by Christiaan Huygens in 1655, Titan has rivers, lakes, and seas of methane and ethane liquids, which follow an evaporation and precipitation cycle similar to the water cycle on Earth.
How often does it rain on Titan? Clouds are known to exist in Titan’s lower atmosphere. However, rainfall is challenging to observe from a large distance. Theoretical modeling suggests rainfall that evaporates before reaching the ground. There is also indirect evidence for rain based on the observed surface darkening after the passage of a large storm front, followed by a lightening of the surface several weeks later
Are there fish swimming in Titan’s rivers and seas? If they exist and I had the opportunity to catch some, I would have avoided the temptation to eat them because of related health risks from methane and ethane, both flammable gases. However, the mere existence of fish or any other living organism on Titan, would constitute life-as-we-do-not-know-it based on chemistry in liquids other than water.
This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s exotic moon, Titan. Taking advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity, Dragonfly will explore dozens of locations across the icy world, sampling and measuring the compositions of Titan’s organic surface materials to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry.
Credits: NASA/JHU-APL
Finding life on Titan would have major implications not only for the prevalence of life in the present-day Universe but also in the early Universe. The surface temperature of Titan is 94 degrees Kelvin, about a third of room temperature on Earth relative to absolute zero. This happened to be the temperature of the cosmic microwave background about a hundred million after the Big Bang when the first generation of stars formed.
An object like Titan forming out of matter enriched by heavy elements from the first supernovae, would have acquired this surface temperature irrespective of its distance from a star. As I wrote in a recent paper, the bath of cosmic radiation would have kept the Titan-like object warm for tens of millions of years, sufficiently long for primitive forms of life to possibly emerge on it when the Universe was just a percent of its current age.
NASA’s mission Dragonfly is planned for launch in July 2028 , with arrival to Titan in 2034. It will carry a robotic rotorcraft that will fly in Titan’s atmosphere with the goal of studying prebiotic chemistry. This quadcopter drone lander will possess a mass of about 450 kilograms, packaged inside a heat shield 3.7 meters in diameter. It will collect regolith samples on multiple locations by vertically taking off and landing. The craft can fly at a speed of about 10 meters per second, and reach altitudes of about 4 kilometers.
Dragonfly will carry meteorological sensors to measure atmospheric temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed, a seismometer to detect potential “Titan-quakes,” and a collection of cameras that will image each landing site, take microscopic images at the millimeter scale of grains of sand, and capture aerial photos as the rotorcraft flies between locations.
Titan’s atmospheric pressure is 1.5 larger than Earth’s and its surface gravity is 14% of Earth’s. As a result, the required flight power per payload mass is about 40 times lower than needed for flights around Earth.
About 17% of Titan’s surface is covered by dune fields, mostly at latitudes between plus or minus 30 degrees. Dragonflywill provide important information about the dune properties but only over a small region of Titan’s surface. It will not deliver a high-quality global map of Titan.
The detailed compositions of Titan’s lakes and seas are important for studying the prospects for it to host life, since prebiotically relevant organic structures can form in these liquid reservoirs and also condense from the atmosphere. If Dragonfly detects exposed water ices on Titan’s surface, that finding could be indicative of recent endogenic or exogenic activity, since much of the surface might be covered by organics that accumulate from Titan’s atmosphere.
I realize that my wish to go fishing on Titan may not be granted in the short time that I have left to live. But I am content with relying on Dragonfly to provide me some clues on what forms of life may exist within Titan’s lakes, rivers and seas.
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial:The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
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Forgotten Giants: Were There Really Giants in Ancient Times?
One of the most enduring myths of humankind is that pertaining to giants. In almost every major civilization and culture in the world, there are tales of ancient giants, enormous and powerful, credited with the construction of many great sites. But for the most part, the myths about giants remain only that - myths. For generations, scholars and historians tried to bring these myths to reality, to find some evidence that giants really existed. Their efforts are shrouded in enigma. There are stories of giant skeletons being excavated, and many oral legends that point to their existence. But they all somehow, “mysteriously” disappear, or are placed “under the rug”. So what is the truth? Did the giants really live in ancient history?
Across millennia, the notion of these colossal beings of immense power and stature had fascinated societies. Many people from all corners of the globe had folklore and myths centered on these beings, and even religious texts mentioned them to a great extent. So much so that scholarly inquiry was needed: were these legends simple allegories, or were they based on actual facts from some ancient time in history? To answer this question, scholars had to navigate through heaps of ancient texts, through myths and cultural lore, and plenty of archeological finds that all point out towards the existence of giants.
Perhaps the best place to start the quest was by examining ancient texts and religious accounts. Many of them specifically mention giants as being an actual part of our shared history. One of the best known such mentions come from the Hebrew Bible, which mentions beings known as the Nephilim. A passage from the Bible’s “Book of Genesis”, mentions them as follows:
“There were giants (Nephilim) in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
-Genesis, 6:4
This verse, combined with other references such as those in the Book of Enoch - an apocryphal Jewish text - suggests that beings of considerable size and power once walked the earth. This book takes things even further, describing them as the offspring of certain angels who descended to earth and mated with human women. The resulting offspring were beings of giant stature and great strength, whose mere existence led to corruption and violence across the world. This state ultimately prompted the biblical divine flood - a way to cleanse the earth and start anew.
This would sound like a mere legend, if it didn’t closely align with a myth from an altogether different civilization. This civilization was Mesopotamia, which left to posterity the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, one of the world’s oldest surviving literary works. Gilgamesh himself is described as a giant of extraordinary power, possibly hinting at a long-lost connection to a race of oversized beings. Similarly, the Mahabharata and other Hindu scriptures mention beings of gigantic proportions, known as , who played significant roles in cosmic battles. These giants were said to have superhuman strength and were often depicted as guardians of powerful secrets or treasures.
Statue of Ravana from the 18th century AD, British Museum
However, it is very important to note that the theme of giants is not confined to a single culture; it is a global motif. For example, in the famed Greek mythology, there existed Titans. These were primordial giants who ruled the Earth before the arrival of the “normal” gods of the Olympus. Due to their sheer size and great strength, they were difficult enemies to overthrow. Nevertheless, the gods eventually defeated them, ending their existence in a climactic battle known as Titanomachy. A very similar story exists in Old Norse mythology, which speaks of the Jötnar, a race of giants who dwelled in Jotunheim. Much like the Titans, they too were embroiled in a bitter conflict with the human Gods of the Asgard. But not all of them were evil, the myths say, and many formed alliances and even married with the Gods.
Scene from Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold , illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1910). The giants Fasolt and Fafner abduct Freia after Wotan fails to pay them for building Valhalla.
Amongst the Celtic peoples there are stories of the Fomorians, an ancient race of giants which were the infamous enemies of Ireland’s very first settlers. In the extensive Irish myths, these giants were eventually defeated by the Tuatha de Danann, a more advanced race of beings - the Gods of the pre-Christian Irish. The existence of megalithic structures such as Newgrange and Stonehenge has fueled speculation about whether such giant beings could have had a hand in their construction.
And far from the lands of the Norse or the Celts, amongst the Native American Indians, there also existed tales of giants. The PaiuteNative American tribe has an extensive oral history that speaks of the Si-Te-Cah. These were a race of red-haired giants that inhabited an area that is today the state of Nevada. Settling in the area, the very first natives warred with these giants, who were cannibals. The giants eventually met their bitter end in this war. Their numbers constantly dwindled, and they finally disappeared when the Paiute trapped the last of them in a cave and set it ablaze, suffocating them. This tale gained further intrigue with the discovery of Lovelock Cave in the early 20th century, where gigantic skeletal remains were purportedly found, leading some to believe that the legend was actually based in truth. However, the remains mysteriously “disappeared” under the care of the Smithsonian Museum.
The Giant Hidden History
Archaeological findings often become a point of heated debate when giants are discussed. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, there were numerous reports of giant skeletal remains unearthed in various parts of the world. For instance, in the United States, newspapers such as the New York Times published articles claiming that giant skeletons were found during digs in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, and the Appalachian region. Some reports mentioned skeletons ranging from 7 to 12 feet tall (2.1 to 3.6 m tall), complete with robust bone structures that appeared to support a human form of that magnitude. In fact, there were hundreds of such finds in America, many documented with photographs. However, virtually all of them were discredited, and many allegedly destroyed by the Smithsonian Museum, where many ended up. Why? No one really knows.
The Smithsonian, in fact, has been at the center of what were termed “conspiracy theories” that claim it actively suppressed findings related to giants to align with prevailing views of human history. However, the institution has repeatedly denied these claims, maintaining that no verified remains of giant humanoids have ever been recovered. And thus, ultimately, skepticism prevailed in academic circles. Modern archeologists usually attribute these claims to simple mistakes: misidentified animal bones and ancient fossils, hoaxes, and simple exaggerations.
One of the more important archeological finds often brought into discussion about giants was found in the ancient city of Baalbek, situated in modern-day Lebanon. Discovered were some of the largest stone blocks that were ever used in construction, with the heaviest (known as the “Stone of the Pregnant Woman”) weighing well over 1,000 tons. Modern historians attribute these megaliths to the craftsmanship and advanced abilities of the Roman Empire, but there are those that argue that they are the evidence of an ancient race of giants. In fact, they state that only giants could carve, move, and arrange such stones - ultimately creating many megalithic structures across Europe.
Stone of the Pregnant Woman pictured with Ralph Ellis standing on it, at Baalbek, Lebanon
There are those scholars who argue that the ancient stories of giant beings were simply metaphors and exaggerations, and not actual descriptions of them. They state that ancient peoples, not familiar with very old megalithic structures, or having lost certain technologies, simply ascribed them to mythical giants. And in ancient myths, these same giants were used to symbolize chaos, primal forces, or the boundary between order and disorder. As such, their defeat at the hands of human gods or heroes usually represents the triumph of civilization over nature or barbarism, and the very old ways of existence.
Anthropologists also have a say in this, claiming that ancient stories of giants could be connected to large fossils. When ancient peoples would uncover, for example, bones of mammoths or prehistoric creatures, they would liken them to bones of humans - only much larger. Not realizing otherwise, they would envision a race of giant men. This hypothesis is supported by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who mentioned in his “Histories” that the Egyptians pointed to large bones as proof of a race of giants.
Additionally, psychological interpretations consider the stories of giants as expressions of human fears and desires. The idea of a larger-than-life being embodies power, intimidation, and the unknown. These attributes may have been incorporated into oral traditions as cautionary tales or as explanations for natural phenomena that were difficult for ancient people to comprehend. A good example is the mythology of the Aztecs. They mention Quinametzin, the Giants that dwelt in the world before them. According to the Aztecs, it was giants who created their foremost city, Teotihuacan (transl. “The Place Where Men Become Gods”). But since the giants did not venerate the gods, they were all ultimately defeated.
Secrets, myths, and inexplicable things - these are all that surround the notion of giants in ancient history. Whether or not giants really roamed the Earth is a question that remains unanswered to this very day. Ancient texts, cultural stories, and speculative archaeology suggest a rich tradition that spans continents and centuries. Yet, conclusive physical evidence is lacking, leaving room for both skepticism and belief. And on top of it all, there are those that seemingly put all their efforts to repeatedly shove this story under the rug, and to portray all those who believe in it as conspiracy theorists.
But nevertheless, the tales of the giants - be they metaphorical or literal - remain the foremost symbols of the mysteries that surround most ancient human history. And they also highlight the power of the stories that are passed down through generations. Whether these tales are born from an overactive imagination, allegorical storytelling, or faint recollections of a forgotten chapter in human history, they continue to captivate and provoke thought either way. In the end, however, they are urging us to always explore the dark unknown. Because in that darkness could hide the answers for which humanity is not yet ready.
Top image: A huge great statue of the greek god titan atlas holding planet earth in his hands. dark sky in the background.
Decoding Ancient Prophecies: Did They Predict Our Modern World?
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been intrigued by the future. It was something mysterious, something enigmatic, something that promised a lot of wonders and great achievements. And it is due to this that the first prophets appeared, people who claimed they could glimpse into this uncertain future and predict events. Throughout the ages, these prophets penned down many unique prophecies, many of them cryptic and mysterious. But today, these prophecies prompt many questions, most importantly - could these foretellings offer insights into our own world and the events that did and will transpire?
From the enigmatic visions of Nostradamus, all the way to the apocalyptic predictions of the ancient Maya, cultures and civilizations across the ages left some truly unique prophecies that could be actually interpreted as warnings for our own time.
The Maya, for example, left one of the most famous predictions, which took the world by storm in recent years. This Central American civilization flourished from around 2000 BC to 1500 AD and was well known for its sophistication in many aspects. They had a significant understanding of mathematics, complex architecture, timekeeping, and astronomy. Their famous Maya Long Count Calendar was closely intertwined with their concept of time cycles. However, this calendar was set to reset at the completion of a 5,125-year cycle, which turned out to be on December 21st, 2012. Many panicked, believing that this was the date that foretold the world’s end.
A date inscription in the Maya Long Count on the east side of Stela C from Quirigua showing the date for the last Creation, usually correlated as 21 or 23 December 2012
Leading up to 2012, the world weighed its options and opinions. Speculation arose that the Mayan calendar actually ends when the world ends - meaning that it predicted the apocalypse. The world was consumed by this idea. Theories flourished, as did books, movies, documentaries, and podcasts. Many tried to decode the secrets of this calendar, trying to deduce what kind of a natural disaster, or cosmic realignment would occur that would end our world. But many scholars stepped up to offer a dose of rational thinking. They stated that the Maya actually did not prophesy the apocalypse, but rather an end of a cycle, and a beginning of a new one, a new era of our world. Translating and decoding their calendar, scholars realized that the end of the calendar was meant to be celebrated and not feared.
And as the world entered 2013 quite normally, people realized that the idea of the apocalypse was pretty much wrong all along. But in many ways, it only renewed interest in the Mayan civilization, and their fascination with the celestial bodies and the cosmic cycles. And even so, we cannot rule out the possibility that we entered a new era as their calendar ended. After all, we are living in a truly modern age, where innovations are in great abundance, and the world changes before our own eyes.
Nostradamus and His Prophetic Writings
Born in 1503, Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, was a French apothecary, and an all-round learned man. However, he also claimed to be a seer, able to glimpse into the future. To that end, he penned down a collection of 942 quatrains, all of them allegedly predicting future events. This collection was published by him in 1555 and named aptly - Les Prophéties (Prophecies). The prophecies included were known for their enigma and vague language, and down the centuries they were often interpreted to predict major global events. But was Nostradamus ever correct on any of them?
For example, some researchers of Nostradamus and his work claimed that he predicted major events in our own time, such as the rise of global pandemics, climate changes, and even the September 11 attacks in New York. He wrote:
"In the year of the new century and nine months,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
The sky will burn at forty-five degrees.
Fire approaches the great new city."
Believers in his work argued that this was a direct description of these devastating attacks. The “King of Terror” and “sky burning” were seen as descriptions of the devastation of the World Trade Center in 2001. But with this work arose a lot of skeptics too. They considered that these lines were open to interpretation and could apply to many similar events in history. In fact, it is the deliberate vague tone of Nostradamus’ writings that allowed every generation to shape them according to their own desires, fitting major contemporary events and concerns.
Besides these possible prophecies of disasters, many claim that Nostradamus also “warned” about environmental catastrophes in his work. There are many unique references in his writings, related to famine, floods, and fire. These were connected to economic disasters, rising sea levels, forest fires, and global climate change. These themes do exist in his work, but we cannot say with certainty that they were meant to predict these events in our own time. After all, they could be simply concerns for humanity as a whole, which could have been applied to many historical eras following Nostradamus.
The Holy Visions of the Future
Certain alleged prophecies appeared in religious texts as well, and many of their adherents believed they reflect on their contemporary time. Most notable such text is the Christian Bible. Here, in the Book of Revelation, which is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, a series of visions are described. The book is dated to 1st century AD, and describes in detail many cataclysmic events, which culminate in the appearance of the Antichrist and the eventual triumph of good over evil. The explicit symbolism in this text has led to many interpretations, some of which claim that these are prophecies related to the current global disasters.
Those who try to interpret the Book of Revelations often focus on the themes of war, disease, natural disasters, and rampant death. Of course, these can be easily connected to many events from our own time, including earthquakes, hunger, pandemics, and war. What is more, another biblical theme, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - who represent famine, war, conquest, and death - can be mirrored to the ongoing issues of our age. Famine, for example, has been greatly worsened by the ongoing climate changes, while war is a persistent problem in humanity.
The Lamb opening the book/scroll with seven seals. The first four seals summon the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
However, the Book of Revelation also mentions the “mark of the beast”. Many theorists rose up to interpret it as a prophecy of a system of control over commerce. Modern digital currencies, surveillance, and even barcodes have been connected to this theory. For the most part, however, these theories are nothing more than speculation. They are there to simply show how biblical prophecy continues to serve as a mirror for all the modern ailments we witness. And even biblical scholars argue that the Book of Revelation is simply a theological work, and heavily laden with symbolism. According to them, it is meant to instill hope in Christians and is not a prophecy of the future.
World According to the Oracles
Did you know that even the Ancient Romans believed in prophecies and prophets? In their time, however, these were known as oracles and were held in high regard. Of these, the most important were the Sibylline Oracles, featured in a collection of prophetic books which were regularly consulted by the Roman leaders. Considered amongst the Empire’s most important resources for guidance in times of crisis and war, they were compiled over many centuries. Of course, as such they blended numerous cultural influences, including Greek, Roman, Christian, and Jewish beliefs and legends. Due to this, the oracles often addressed the importance of morality and divine wrath, but also the themes of disasters and political changes.
“Beginning with the earliest race of men,
Even to the latest, I will prophesy
Of all things past, and present, and to come
In the world through the wickedness of men,
And first, God bids me utter how the world
Came into being.”
The Sibylline Oracles
Like most other ancient prophecies, these oracles also talk about great cataclysmic events of the future, such as plagues, floods, and fires, all similar to the ecological issues we experience today. However, there is another element here - the oracles speak of catastrophic consequences of decadence, greed, and corruption, all of which we suffer from today. However, the oracles also tell of a “golden age”, a time that follows the period of great suffering around the world. Most scholars liken this to the beliefs of Christians, and the motif itself appears in many cultures across the world. So, in general, the Oracles don’t truly predict the future but raise concerns over matters that can resonate with people in every age of history.
The Native Future-Seers
There were those cultures, however, that had no connection to the mainstream religions, and no complex writing systems to speak of. And still, they bore their own prophets and visions of the future, many of which remain intriguing to this day. Of note are the Hopi Native Americans, who have a series of unique prophecies. One of their sites in Arizona boasts the so-called Prophecy Rock, a series of petroglyphs that are seen as a vision of the future. The images warn of the effects of societal degradation, greed, and the destruction of nature. According to the Hopi natives, several “worlds” before our own were destroyed due to these circumstances, and the prophecy speaks of repetition.
Prophecy Rock is a petroglyph site on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona, near the Four Corners region.
Is it due to this vision of the future that the Hopi natives live in such a harmonious unison with the nature around them? Devoid of the destructive elements of the modern world, they live their lives according to the prophecy, aiming to staunch the flow of the world’s destructive tides.
Perhaps now is the time for us to heed the messages of the American Natives, and to once more interpret their ancient prophecies carved in stone. And it is certainly time to consider if our decadent ways are leading us into a bright or dark future.
A Vision of the Future World
A lot of people across the world are skeptical about prophecies, believing them to be nothing more than ancient musings that are interpreted in various ways. This might be so, but there are nevertheless many believers who consider the symbolic messages of these prophecies to be more significant than their literal meaning. For them, in this world of rapid change and many existential challenges, ancient prophecies provide guidance and a sense of purpose, and the possibility to change the flow of future, on a small scale at least.
And as we navigate the complex 21st century landscape, filled with rapid technological advancements, social degradation, corruption, and war, we once more look back to these ancient prophecies to find a glimpse of our own future days. But at the end of the day, perhaps the prophecies are not needed after all. Perhaps, we can reach a logical conclusion about the direction in which we move.
Top image: Mystic Crystal Ball in a Candlelit Room.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
