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.
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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...
12-01-2025
Nieuw onderzoek onthult hoe Neptunus en Uranus er écht uitzien (en dat zorgt voor een grote verrassing)
Nieuw onderzoek onthult hoe Neptunus en Uranus er écht uitzien (en dat zorgt voor een grote verrassing)
Neptunus is blauw en Uranus is lichtgroen. Tenminste dat dachten we altijd. Maar nieuw onderzoek wijst uit dat de twee ijsreuzen eigenlijk bijna dezelfde kleur hebben: ze zijn allebei een beetje bleekgroen.
Neptunus wordt meestal afgebeeld als diep azuurblauw, terwijl Uranus een soort heel lichtgroene kleur heeft op plaatjes. Oxford-onderzoekers tonen nu echter aan dat beide planeten min of meer dezelfde groenblauwe kleur hebben. Dit is niet helemaal nieuw. Astronomen weten al heel lang dat de meeste afbeeldingen van de twee planeten niet hun echte kleuren tonen. Het misverstand is ontstaan door de nabewerking van de foto’s, die NASA’s Voyager 2 maakte in de jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw. Vooral Neptunus werd te blauw afgebeeld. Ook werd er te veel contrast toegevoegd aan de foto’s om de wolken, ringen en winden duidelijker zichtbaar te maken.
“De bekende Voyager 2-beelden van Uranus zijn gepubliceerd in een kleur die dichtbij de echte kleur komt, maar die van Neptunus zijn bewerkt en versterkt en daardoor kunstmatig te blauw gemaakt”, legt professor Patrick Irwin van Oxford uit. “Hoewel deze kunstmatige kleur bij de meeste planeetwetenschappers destijds bekend was en de beelden werden gepubliceerd met een onderschrift waarin dat werd uitgelegd, is dat kleurverschil in de loop der tijd vergeten.”
Boven: zoals we dachten dat Uranus en Neptunus er uitzien. Onder: zoals ze er volgens Oxford-wetenschappers echt uitzien. Afbeelding: Patrick Irwin
Dus hebben de onderzoekers geprobeerd de werkelijke kleur te reconstrueren met behulp van data van de Hubble en de Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) van ESO’s Very Large Telesecope. Bij beide instrumenten is iedere pixel een continu spectrum van kleuren. Daarmee konden de werkelijke kleuren van Uranus en Neptunus worden bepaald. Uiteindelijk bleken ze vrijwel dezelfde kleur te hebben, al blijft Neptunus iets blauwer.
Nog een mysterie opgelost Maar de studie lost nóg een interessante kwestie op, namelijk waarom de kleuren van Uranus een beetje veranderen tijdens zijn 84 jaar durende rondje rond de zon. Metingen tonen aan dat Uranus een tikje groener lijkt tijdens de zomer- en winterzonnewende, als een van de polen van de planeet richting de zon wijst. Tijdens de equinox – als de zon recht boven de evenaar staat – heeft hij een iets blauwere tint.
Een bekende verklaring daarvoor is dat Uranus op een heel ongebruikelijke manier om zijn as draait. Tijdens zijn baan rond de zon ligt de planeet bijna op zijn kant, wat betekent dat tijdens de zonnewendes de noord- of de zuidpool bijna rechtstreeks richting de zon en de Aarde wijst. Het maakt dat elke verandering van de reflectie van het poolgebied direct grote invloed heeft op de algehele helderheid van Uranus, bezien vanaf onze planeet.
See Uranus' seasonal changes in color! 168-year animated time-lapse
Methaanijsdeeltjes Wat echter nog niet goed duidelijk was, is hoe of waarom deze reflectie verandert. Daarom hebben de onderzoekers een model ontwikkeld dat de spectra van de poolgebieden van Uranus vergelijkt met de regio rond de evenaar. En daaruit bleek iets bijzonders: de poolregio’s reflecteren groene en rode golflengtes meer dan blauwe, deels omdat methaan dat rood absorbeert, maar half zoveel voorkomt bij de polen als bij de evenaar.
Dit was echter niet genoeg om de kleurverandering volledig te verklaren, dus voegden de onderzoekers een steeds dikker worden ijslaag toe aan de polen, die eerder is waargenomen in de zomer, als de polen door de zon verlicht worden wanneer de planeet van de equinox naar de zonnewende beweegt. De laag bestaat vermoedelijk uit methaanijsdeeltjes.
In de simulaties bleken de ijsdeeltjes de reflectie van groene en rode golflengtes te vergroten bij de polen. Dat verklaart waarom Uranus groener is tijdens de zonnewende. “Het komt doordat er in de poolregio’s een afname is van methaan, maar ook door een toegenomen dikte van heldere methaanijsdeeltjes”, aldus Irwin.
Tijd voor een nieuwe missie Het is bijzonder dat een mysterie dat al zo lang bestaat, nu is opgelost. “De misvatting over de kleur van Neptunus en de ongebruikelijke kleurveranderingen van Uranus hebben ons decennialang voor raadselen gesteld, maar door deze grote studie zijn beide vraagstukken opgelost”, vertelt onderzoeker Heidi Hammel, van de Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), die beide planeten al tientallen jaren onderzoekt.
De ijsreuzen Uranus en Neptunus blijven een aanlokkelijke bestemming voor toekomstige missies, die kunnen voortbouwen op de Voyager-reizen uit de jaren tachtig. Van de bizarre seizoenen tot de grote hoeveelheid ringen en manen, er valt nog genoeg te ontdekken. Maar makkelijk is dat niet. Zelfs ruimtesondes die heel lang meegaan, kunnen maar een glimp waarnemen van een jaar op Uranus.
Bermeja: The Island That Vanished off the Coast of Mexico. Was it Destroyed in an Oil War?
In the Gulf of Mexico, a mysterious island known as Bermeja once appeared on maps for centuries, sparking the curiosity of explorers, cartographers, and later, governments. Portrayed as a small, reddish landmass off the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, Bermeja was believed to hold significant geopolitical importance. However, despite its prominent place in maritime charts, modern searches have failed to locate any trace of the island, leading to one of the most intriguing cartographic mysteries of the modern era. The story of Bermeja raises questions about its existence and what might have caused it to vanish.
Before its seemingly sudden disappearance, Bermeja could be found on maps dating back to the 16th century. Believed to have been a small, reddish-colored island, its name derives from the Spanish word "bermejo,” which literally means reddish. For centuries, it was consistently portrayed as being in the Gulf of Mexico, around 100 km (62,137 mi) off the Yucatan Peninsula’s northern coast at 22° 33' N latitude and 91° 22' W longitude.
Bermeja appears to have first been recorded by Spanish explorers during the early days of New World exploration. Its name was first put to paper by the renowned 16th-century cartographer Alonso de Santa Cruz in his 1539 work, El Yucatán e Islas Adyacentes. It quickly became a fixture in maritime navigation charts and appeared in important cartographic works. In 1540, Alonso de Chaves recorded its precise location in Espejo de Navegantes, the location given until its bizarre disappearance.
Bermeja's depiction on these maps lent it an air of authenticity, as it was considered an important reference point in the largely uncharted waters of the Gulf. As the centuries passed, Bermeja maintained its place on maps, becoming a key geographic marker in discussions surrounding maritime boundaries and territorial claims.
It's supposed location placed it within an area of the Gulf of Mexico that was believed to be rich in oil reserves, adding to its significance. However, despite its long-standing presence in historical cartography, modern efforts to locate Bermeja have been fruitless, leaving the mystery of its existence unresolved.
Bermeja’s True Value
Bermeja’s existence was taken for granted until the late 20th century when efforts to locate the island failed repeatedly. The story of its disappearance began in 1997, when the Mexican government launched an official expedition to survey its waters and confirm Bermeja’s existence to reinforce its maritime borders.
Despite using advanced technology and thorough search methods, the survey found no trace of Bermeja. The search continued, and in 2009 an even more extensive survey was carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. This one also came up empty-handed, which was a problem for the Mexican government.
No one cared about Bermeja itself. If it existed, it was little more than a big red rock in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing on it. What Mexico cared about was the oil that had been found in 1971 in the Hoyos de Doña field. This discovery had led to the founding of Mexico's national oil company, PEMEX, and made it a major player in the global oil game.
Of course, Mexico's neighbor, the USA, is also a huge fan of oil. Ever since the discovery of oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, the two countries have been arguing over who holds the rights to the liquid black gold within. If Bermeja existed, it could have extended Mexico's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Mexico, helping its argument significantly.
Mexico needed Bermeja to exist. The USA needed it to not exist. This meant that the failure to locate Bermeja quickly sparked a fair amount of controversy and speculation. Soon, theories emerged suggesting that perhaps certain foreign powers might have played a hand in Bermeja’s seeming disappearance. After all, islands don’t just disappear into thin air, do they?
The answer to that question is yes; islands do indeed disappear. They’re called ‘Phantom Islands’, and modern historians and cartographers have recorded a surprising amount of them. If Bermeja is or was a phantom island, there are several mundane explanations for what could have happened to it.
The most likely theory is that Bermeja simply never existed. The boring truth is that its presence on early maps can simply be put down to a cartographic error. In the age of exploration, maps were often based on limited and sometimes inaccurate information.
Misinterpretations of navigational data or the desire to fill in uncharted areas might have led to the creation of Bermeja. The island could have been a figment of the cartographers' imagination or a misidentified landmass that was inaccurately recorded and then perpetuated through subsequent maps.
The second most likely option is that Mother Nature had her wicked way with Bermeja. While there’s no evidence to support this theory (at least not yet), rising sea levels or erosion could have destroyed the island. Michael Antochiw Kolpa, a French Mexican cartographer, claimed British maps of the region have listed Bermeja as being 60 fathoms (360 ft; 110 m) below the surface since 1844.
Finally, we come to the least likely theory. Some conspiracy theorists strongly believe that the United States had the CIA destroy the island. Supposedly, this was done to limit Mexico’s territorial claims to the Gulf of Mexico’s most oil-rich areas. This theory raises more questions than it answers.
The CIA has pulled off some pretty audacious missions over the years, many of them shady. But disappearing an entire island without anyone noticing seems like a stretch. Conventional explosives would draw too much attention, while anything else would require sci-fiction-level mining equipment.
Conclusion
So, what happened to Bermeja? Mexico’s own surveys give us the answer. Not only is there no evidence Bermeja exists, but scans of the sea floor show there’s no evidence an island ever existed there. If it had disappeared due to rising sea levels, Bermeja would be simply hiding beneath the surface. If erosion had somehow destroyed an entire island in around 400 years, there would still be some traces.
Likewise, the idea that the United States could make an entire island disappear and leave no trace behind is basically impossible. It would be easier to declare war on Mexico and simply take the oil.
Ultimately, Bermeja appears to be a product of cartographic error, a reminder of the challenges faced by early explorers and mapmakers in charting the unknown, and that sometimes the simplest answer is also the best.
Top image: Old map showing the Mexican phantom island Bermeja.
The Bermeja Island in the Gulf of Mexico is recorded on hundreds of maps from the past 400 years. But when Mexico tried to locate it during a dispute with the United States over a contested oilfield, it found out that the island is no longer there.
On this Thoughty2 video, Arran tells the fascinating tale of Bermeja, an allegedly 80 square kilometers island indicated on many maps, starting in the 16th and 17th centuries. The problem is, it doesn't appear to actually exist. Many theories abound about what could have happened to it or why it would be on so many old maps if it never existed.
Mysterious Structures Discovered Hidden Under The Surface of Mars
In this new gravity map of Mars, the red circles show prominent volcanoes and the black circles show impact craters with a diameter larger than a few 100 km. A gravity high signal is located in the volcanic Tharsis Region (the red area in the center right of the image), which is surrounded by a ring of negative gravity anomaly (shown in blue).
Credit: Root et al.
Mysterious Structures Discovered Hidden Under The Surface of Mars
By Evan Gough, Universe Today
This map from the study highlights the dense gravitational structures in the northern hemisphere. The regions marked with black lines are high-mass anomalies that do not show any correlation with geology and topography. These hidden subsurface structures are covered by sediments from an old ocean, and their origin is still a mystery.
Credit: Root et al.
A team of scientists presented a new gravity map of Mars at the Europlanet Science Congress 2024. The map shows the presence of dense, large-scale structures under Mars' long-gone ocean and that mantle processes are affecting Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.
The new map and analysis include data from multiple missions, including NASA's InSIGHT (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission. They also use data from tiny deviations in satellites as they orbit Mars.
The paper "The global gravity field of Mars reveals an active interior" will be published in an upcoming edition of JGR: Planets. The lead author is Bart Root of the Delft University of Technology. Some of the results go against an important concept in geology.
Geologists work with a concept called flexural isostasy. It describes how a planet's outer rigid layer responds to large-scale loading and unloading. The layer is called the lithosphere and consists of the crust and the uppermost part of the mantle.
This colorized image of the surface of Mars was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The line of three volcanoes is the Tharsis Montes, with Olympus Mons to the northwest. Valles Marineris is to the east. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University)
When something heavy loads the lithosphere, it responds by sinking. On Earth, Greenland is a good example of this, where the massive ice sheet puts downward pressure on it. As its ice sheets melt due to global warming, Greenland will rise.
This downward bending often causes an uplift in surrounding areas, though the effect is slight. The more massive the load is, the more pronounced the downward bending, although it also depends on the lithosphere's strength and elasticity. Flexural isostasy is a critical idea for understanding glacial rebound, mountain formation, and sedimentary basin formation.
The authors of the new paper say scientists need to rethink how flexural isostasy works on Mars. This is because of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System, and the entire volcanic region called Tharsis Rise, or Tharsis Montes. Tharsis Montes is a vast volcanic region that holds three other enormous shield volcanoes: Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons.
Flexural isostasy states that this massive region should force the planet's surface downward. But the reverse is true. Tharsis Montes is much more elevated than the rest of Mars' surface. NASA's InSIGHT lander also told scientists a lot about Mars' gravity, and together, it's forcing researchers to reconsider how this all works on Mars.
"This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the big volcano and its surroundings," the authors write. "The gravity signal of its surface fits well with a model that considers the planet as a thin shell."
The research shows that active processes in the Martian mantle are boosting Tharsis Montes upward. "There seems to be a big mass (something light) deep in Mars' layer, possibly rising from the mantle," the authors write. "It shows that Mars might still have active movements happening inside it, making new volcanic things on the surface."
The researchers found an underground mass around 1750 kilometres across and at a depth of 1100 kilometres. They suspect that it's a mantle plume rising under Tharsis Montes and strong enough to counteract the downward pressure from all the mass.
"This suggests that a plume head is currently flowing upward towards the lithosphere to generate active volcanism in the geological future," the authors write in their paper.
There's debate about how volcanically active Mars is. Although there are no active volcanic features on the planet, research shows that the Tharsis region has resurfaced in the near geological past within the last few tens of millions of years.
If there is a mantle plume under Tharsis Montes, could it eventually reach the surface? That's purely speculative, and more research is needed to confirm these findings.
The researchers also found other gravitational anomalies. They found mysterious, dense structures under Mars' northern polar plains. They're buried under a thick, smooth sediment layer that was likely deposited on an ancient seabed.
The anomalies are approximately 300–400 kg/m3 denser than their surroundings. Earth's Moon has gravitational anomalies that are associated with giant impact basins. Scientists think that the impactors that created the basins were denser than the Moon, and their mass has become part of the Moon.
These maps show the gravitational anomalies at the surface of the Moon. Some of the gravity anomalies are clearly associated with large impact basins. On Mars, the anomalies have no corresponding surface features.
Impact basins on Mars also show gravity anomalies. However, the anomalies in Mars' northern hemisphere show no traces of them on the surface.
This image from the research shows the gravitational structures in Mars’ northern polar region on a topographical map. There’s no correlation between the deep structures and the surface.
Image Credit: Root et al.
"These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts. There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap—one of which resembles the shape of a dog," said Dr. Root.
"There seems to be no trace of them at the surface. However, through gravity data, we have a tantalizing glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars."
The only way to understand these mysterious structures and Mars' gravity in general is with more data. Root and his colleagues are proponents of a mission that could gather the needed data.
It's called the Martian Quantum Gravity (MaQuls) mission. MaQuls would be based on the same technology used in the GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) and GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) missions, which mapped the Moon's and Earth's gravity, respectively. MaQuls would feature two satellites trailing each other and connected by an optical link.
A grainy yet illustrative image of how the MaQuls mission would work. MaQuls would investigate the gravitational field of Mars and study static and dynamic processes on and under the surface. MaQuls would measure Mars’s gravitational field with the highest precision yet.
Image Credit: Worner et al. 2023.
"Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars. This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs," said Dr. Lisa Wörner of DLR, who presented on the MaQuIs mission at EPSC2024 this week.
Curious, Unsettling, and Mind-Bending Encounters with Mysterious Humanoid Entities
Stories of strange and unnerving humanoid creatures stretch back to the beginning of human civilization, with many of these forming the basis for many myths, legends, and even fairy tales. As the UFO age has unfolded following the start of the Modern UFO Era in the mid-1940s, many accounts of encounters with perplexing humanoid entities are also on record, suggesting that whatever these entities are, they are very real and possibly otherworldly. There are so many of these humanoid encounters on record from around the world that several volumes would be required to even come close to documenting them all.
Undoubtedly, one of the strangest humanoid encounters on record is also one of the most recent, unfolding in 2019 and featuring a paramedic responding to wildfires in the Amazon who found himself face-to-face with a ten-foot-tall humanoid. The account was placed into the wider public arena through researcher and author Albert Rosales, who has documented many humanoid encounters.
According to the account, one evening in September 2019, 30-year-old Paul Parada was working as a volunteer paramedic in the Bolivian region of the Amazon, providing medical assistance to the authorities – and specifically, the emergency services – who were tasked with tackling wildfires spreading through much of the Amazon region at the time. On this particular night, at around 11 pm, Parada had stepped outside of his medical tent to smoke a cigarette when he noticed a strange figure seemingly heading in his direction.
One of the first things Parada noticed as the figure got closer was how tall he was. As he got closer still, he could also see that his skin was pale white and that he was dressed in a shiny one-piece suit that had several silver stripes on it. Furthermore, this strange figure sported long, blond, shiny hair stretching to at least his upper back. By this time, this tall man was only several feet from where Parada was standing. It was at this point that Parada saw the figure was pressing a towel or small blanket to his upper torso as if he was wounded. Parada called out to him, asking if he needed assistance. The figure responded in perfect Spanish that he did. Perplexed by the whole situation, Parada turned and headed into the medical tent, with the figure following close behind.
Once inside the tent, Parada turned to face the figure before asking what the problem was. This time, without speaking, the figure removed the towel, and Parada could see a gaping wound. As soon as he saw the injury, he immediately began treating it. As he did so, he marveled at the fact that despite the amount of blood pouring from the wound, none of it appeared to settle on the figure’s clothes, almost as if they were made from some kind of waterproof material.
Eventually, he asked the figure how he had come to be injured. The figure answered him, although much to Parada’s shock, he did so telepathically, speaking directly into his mind, telling the paramedic that a puma had attacked him while he was in the forest. The figure appeared to notice a look of shock on the young medic’s face as he told him, once more using telepathy, that he had nothing to fear and that no harm would come to him. Feeling slightly comforted, Parada continued treating the wound. Then, an already strange night took an even stranger turn.
Following the treatment of the wound, the figure thanked Parada for his help and stood up to leave. Before he left, though, he asked Parada to accompany him outside. As they went to leave, the figure spoke once more, telling the young paramedic that he “shouldn’t be shocked at what he was about to see!” As he followed the tall figure out of the tent, Parada became aware of a large, metallic, disc-shaped object that hovered several feet away and only a few feet from the ground. As he looked below the craft, he could see two more humanoid figures. They looked almost identical to the figure he had just treated; only these had green skin instead of white.
What was strangest of all, however, was the way these other figures moved around, almost mechanically or robotically. This is an interesting detail, with many reports of alien encounters featuring details of robot-like creatures. Stranger still, when Parada looked too long at these other figures, he began to sense feelings of fear and dread rising up inside him. After several moments, the two figures began in the direction of the humanoid Parada had just treated. At the same time, the taller, pale-skinned figure began heading towards them. Then, he stopped and turned to Parada once more. This time, though, he addressed him by his name, something that shocked him as Parada hadn’t at any point told this figure his name. When the humanoid turned to leave again, Parada took himself back inside the medical tent, his mind racing with the events that had just unfolded. As such, he didn’t see the figures enter the craft, nor did he see the craft leave.
Aside from confiding in his brother (who was also in the region to volunteer his medical skills), Parada would keep the incident largely to himself, at least initially. However, over the next several months, he couldn’t cast the encounter from his mind, even suffering from several intense dreams and bouts of insomnia. Eventually, Parada agreed to speak about the encounter, and it came to light that he had kept a piece of medical dressing that he had used to treat the humanoid’s wound – a dressing that had the figure’s blood on it. At the time of writing, though, no DNA tests have been carried out on this material, at least none that is known to the general public.
Just who the figure might have been and for what reason they were in the region remains a complete mystery. The description of this tall humanoid entity is almost identical to descriptions of apparent aliens that were reported in abundance in the 1950s and are often referred to as the Nordics. These tall white humanoids of yesteryear were typically friendly and non-aggressive and often looked to impart knowledge and guidance to the people who encountered them. Furthermore, these encounters were not abductions but meetings where the respective witness remained of their own free will rather than being held or forced.
It is interesting to note that some researchers have questioned if these tall white humanoids could be connected to the legends of angels in Biblical writings. If that is true, then we might find that these apparent supernatural beings (angels) are, in fact, flesh-and-blood entities, albeit from elsewhere. We know, for example, that the figure in Parada’s account was bleeding, and so was not some kind of supernatural apparition.
Ultimately, the encounter remains a mystery, as does who the humanoid might have been. It is, though, far from the only encounter on record with bizarre and mysterious humanoid figures.
A decade previously, in England, an altogether different encounter with strange humanoid beings took place. According to the account, which first appeared on the paranormal blog Tales From Out There and soon spread to multiple other media platforms, on the afternoon of July 6th, 2009, somewhere in Wiltshire, an off-duty police sergeant was driving along the country roads when something caught his eye in one of the nearby fields at the roadside. When he turned to look in that direction, he could see several “strange-looking men” walking around in one of the cornfields. His first thought was that the figures were most likely teenagers enjoying a few beers out of the way. However, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he had a “strange feeling” about them and so decided to pull his car to the side of the road and investigate further.
He got out of the car and began across the field, all the while the “strange feeling” getting stronger and stronger. As he got closer, he could see there were three separate individuals, each of whom was at least six feet tall, most likely taller. They were each dressed in what appeared to be white overalls and moved about as if they were examining the ground as if they were looking for something. Seeing this, he now dismissed that the figures were teenagers and contemplated that they were a forensics team. Now, thinking a significant crime had been committed, he increased his pace, eager to offer assistance. As he got closer still, however, he began to hear a crackling sound like “static electricity” all around him. He stopped and listened for a moment, realizing that the sound appeared to be moving around him, and with each crackle, one of the crops where the sound came from moved in sympathy.
Realizing something strange was unfolding around him, the sergeant called out to the three men; however, none of them acknowledged or responded to him. He continued, and after taking several more steps, the three figures suddenly became aware of his presence. A moment later, all three of the figures turned and ran “faster than any man” the witness had ever seen. Within a second or two, they had disappeared. The static-like crackling sounds continued, however, and they continued to move around him. For the first time, the “strange feeling” turned to outright fear and he had a sudden urge to flee the field and head back to his car. He did just that, and several moments later, he was sitting in his car at the roadside. A moment after that, he started the engine and drove home, by which time he was experiencing an intense headache and intense feelings of nausea.
Interestingly, the witness did report the incident to his superior officer later that evening. However, the officer concerned refused to investigate the incident. Furthermore, as it had happened while the witness was off-duty, there was no official report on record. He was encouraged to forget about the encounter. However, because of its truly surreal nature, he found himself contemplating it more and more. When he discovered that a crop circle had recently appeared in the field where he had seen the three strange figures, he contacted a local expert and researcher, Andrew Russell.
Russell explored the incident and quickly came to the conclusion that the police sergeant had witnessed a group of extraterrestrials often referred to as Tall White Aliens. Russell also indicated that he was uncertain if these alien beings were responsible for the crop circle or whether they were looking to inspect it. We might recall that the police officer heard a crackling static electricity sound around him during the encounter. This could be suggestive of the crop circle forming around him while he was there.
Just what the anonymous police sergeant witnessed that afternoon in a lonely field in Wiltshire remains unknown. One thing of interest to note is that the witness claimed it appeared as though the three humanoids were searching for something on the ground, perhaps as if they were on some kind of fact-finding mission. As we shall see, this is something that comes up repeatedly in encounters with strange humanoid entities.
Several years earlier, at a little after 4 am in the early hours of August 11th, 2003, just outside of Szczecinek in Poland, another encounter involving humanoid entities unfolded. According to the files of Brian Vike, who obtained the report from Polish UFO investigator, Tomek Wierszalowicz, on the morning in question, Lech Chacinski was making his way to work in his truck along the quiet country roads. As he was approaching a bridge, however, a strange figure suddenly appeared in the middle of the road a short distance ahead of him. Chacinski focused on the strange figure, realizing that it had its hand held up in front of it as if in greeting. Furthermore, two more almost identical figures stood behind the first one.
Cacinski pulled his truck to the side of the road and brought it to a stop. He could now see that each of the figures wore a shiny suit similar to that of an astronaut. Of more concern, Cacinski couldn’t escape a feeling that there was something “disturbingly extraordinary” about these three figures, even though they appeared human in almost every way (they were the same height, had two arms, two legs, etc.). He would further describe the attire of the creatures as shiny but with the appearance of “dull, silvery, elastic foil” that had a “puffed-out” look to them. Furthermore, each of the figures wore a helmet with a black visor that covered where the face should have been. Chacinski also noticed that on the torso, there were “seven lights in each row” that flashed different colors, while on their back, each of the figures carried some kind of backpack (quite possibly some kind of breathing apparatus).
Before Chacinksi realized what was happening, one of the figures was outside of his truck's cabin, peering in through the side window. From this close-up, he could see through the black visor somewhat and could easily make out “two round black eyes” looking directly at him. He was so unnerved by the pair of eyes that Chacinski went to restart his truck so he could drive away from the scene as quickly as possible. However, before he could do so, a “beam of light” emerged from the creature’s helmet and struck Chacinski. Then, he blacked out.
He came to several moments later, only now, he felt a sense of calm take over him. Even stranger, he could hear a voice – what he presumed was the creature’s voice – inside his head. It was telling him that he should not be afraid before asking Chacinski if he could hear them. Bizarrely, and without realizing how, Chacinksi replied that he could, but not with his voice but telepathically. The figure then began asking Chacinski questions about his vehicle, asking from “what material” it was made and what fuel it used. He answered these questions as best he could and recalled something akin to a sense of “great surprise” on the part of the creature as to his answers.
Following this, the creature then began speaking to Chacinski about the “catastrophic” consequences awaiting the planet if humanity continued on its current course, although he couldn’t recall any specific details of the conversation. He did, though, remember asking the humanoid figure one question, asking where they came from. To this, the creature replied that the “Eighth Galaxy” was their home.
Although he wasn’t sure how long this telepathic exchange lasted, following it, the three humanoids ascended into the air and floated away from the road to a large disc-shaped object that hovered nearby. Chacinski later stated that he wasn’t certain if the metallic craft had just arrived or had been waiting close by throughout the encounter. He did recall, however, that it was approximately 150 feet wide and around 1000 feet from his location. Moreover, he could see what appeared to be several rows of windows running along the side of the upper part of the object, while on the top, in the center, there was an “opaque chamber!”
As he looked on, the three figures had positioned themselves directly beneath the craft. Then, without warning, a “very bright blue-white light” emerged from the underside and “took the three beings up” into the object. Within a moment, the figures and the light were gone, and all that remained beneath the futuristic vehicle was a “colored smoke” that seemed to wrap itself around the craft. Chacinski looked on as the object rose into the air to an altitude of around 100 to 150 feet before moving slowly along the ground, the colored smoke following it. It then came to a very brief stop before suddenly shooting into the early morning sky with a bizarre sound that was a cross between a buzzing and a hissing.
To his amazement, when he looked to the field where the object had been only moments earlier, he could see clear indentations in the crops that marked a perfect outline of the otherworldly craft. He managed to capture several photographs of the marks in the field, and several others were captured later during subsequent investigations following his report. Ultimately, many UFO investigators explored the case over the years, with almost all coming away feeling that Chacinski was a reliable, credible, and trustworthy witness.
Without a doubt, one of the most thought-provoking encounters with humanoid entities unfolded on the evening of January 27th, 1978, along the banks of the River Weaver in Cheshire, England. According to an article detailing the account in Volume 26, Number 3 1980 edition of Flying Saucer Review by Jenny Randles and Paul Whetnall, at around 6 pm on the night in question, four young men were poaching pheasant near the river in an area referred to locally as the Devil’s Garden, a location, coincidentally or not, that has many legends attached to it. Due to their questionable activities, the four men would insist on anonymity when speaking of their experience.
As they looked for their prize in the woodland and vegetation around the river bank, one of the men noticed a “strange object” that appeared to be skimming along the surface of the water. To begin with, largely due to a recent news story of a Soviet satellite crashing to the ground in Canada, the men believed they were seeing another satellite of one of the Cold War superpowers coming back to Earth. However, after observing this aerial anomaly for several moments, it was clear to all of them that the object was not falling but was under some kind of intelligent control, now moving only 20 feet above the ground.
It passed directly over the top of the four men, a “light humming sound” appearing to come from it as it did so. As the object passed over them, a strange “rushing wind” followed behind it, a wind that the witnesses claimed made them feel decidedly unwell. At this distance, the four men could see that the object was spherical and had a silver exterior. They watched in shock as this strange craft descended to the ground, landing only a short distance away from where they were standing. They later estimated that the object was around 15 feet across and recalled seeing multiple flashing lights around the side. They also recalled seeing several window-like areas, from which a “very strange glow” could be seen coming from the inside of the craft. Stranger still, the men recalled that they could only look at this light for a short amount of time before their eyes began to hurt (later conclusions by UFO investigators were that this was some kind of ultraviolet light).
Of immediate concern to the four men, they quickly noticed that when they looked at the now-landed object, it appeared “fuzzy” to them. This fuzziness alerted them to the potential for increased radiation around the craft, which caused them to begin backing away from it. However, before they could turn their backs, they noticed a strange figure suddenly emerge from the object. They could see that the figure was clearly humanoid and was wearing some kind of silver one-piece suit and a round helmet on its head, on top of which was violet light. The witnesses remained where they were, as still as possible, and watched as the humanoid appeared to be surveying its surroundings, the light on its helmet illuminating the area it was looking at. Eventually, this violet shade stopped on a herd of cows in a nearby field. After several moments, the humanoid figure turned and returned inside the craft.
The four men remained still, and a moment later, the figure emerged once more. However, this time, it was followed by a second humanoid figure dressed in the same silver-colored suit and wearing the same round helmet with a violet light on top. Between them, they were carrying what appeared to be a large, silver metal cage, although the ease with which the two figures carried it suggested that it was extremely light.
They were heading in the direction of the field where the cows were grazing. Once there, the two figures approached one of the cows that was slightly away from the rest of the herd. It was clear to the witnesses that this particular cow appeared to be unnaturally frozen to the spot as if it had been paralyzed standing up. They looked on as the two figures proceeded to place the cage around the cow before beginning to move several metallic plates into place. The witnesses were unsure if the humanoids were merely measuring or weighing the cow or if they were planning to take it back to their craft.
At this point, though, each of them decided they had seen enough and turned and ran away from the scene, eventually reaching a bridge where they crossed to the other side of the river. From there, they turned around in the direction they had just come from but were unable to see the humanoids or the spherical craft. Strangely, however, one of the witnesses later told investigators that they recalled some kind of “pulling sensation” as he was running from the scene, almost as if there was an “invisible force” intentionally dragging him back. Even stranger, he also claimed that he felt this pull on his testicles, which he stated remained “sore” for several days afterward.
The incident remains unexplained today, almost half a century later. Was this some kind of cattle mutilation case? There are no reports of dead cattle being found in the days following the sighting. If not that, then was this some kind of intelligence-gathering mission? Was the cow taken and then returned to the field later? Or was whatever activity they were undertaking carried out right there in the field? All such questions remain unanswered. There were, though, several other similar sightings in the United Kingdom around the same time.
On the evening of January 2nd, for example, just under four weeks before the River Weaver encounter, a resident of Rainford in the Merseyside region of northwestern England reported seeing a humanoid figure wearing a silver suit. Just over two weeks later, on January 18th, in the same region, several schoolchildren claimed to have seen a “small UFO” land on the roof of their school. Even more amazing, after several moments, three “astronauts” exited the craft and walked around on top of the school building. The children offered that the three humanoids were wearing golden-colored shiny suits (we might question whether these suits were, in fact, silver that might have been reflecting the sun).
Whether there is a connection to the River Weaver encounter remains uncertain. However, we should ask how likely it would be that three different sets of witnesses should report seeing almost identical humanoid figures wearing identical clothing in the same (relatively speaking) geographic location within a month of each other. When we add to that that the United Kingdom experienced a discreet wave of UFO sightings and even several claims of alien abduction during this time, the River Weaver sighting takes on even more interest to UFO researchers and investigators.
Just short of a year later, in the early hours of November 25th, 1978, in the La Pizana estate of Spain near the town of Gerena, another bizarre humanoid encounter unfolded – one that shared many of the details with the River Weaver sighting. Interestingly or not, the following encounter also took place near water, this time near the Guadiamar River. On the night in question, at around 3:30 am, Manuel Gordillo and four friends were near the river in the eucalyptus trees on a late-night hunting trip. After they had been out for several hours, one of the group decided to return to the car and call it a night. The rest of the group decided to stay out. It would be a night none of them would ever forget.
Using their powerful flashlights, the remaining hunters scanned the area, looking for potential prey. As they were doing so, they noticed what looked to be strange red lights a short distance away. They appeared similar to the rear brake lights of a car, although none could understand how a car could have been driven into the woodland. The closer they got, the more they realized the red glow was not coming from a car’s rear brake lights. Realizing they were dealing with something out of the ordinary, the four men turned out their flashlights and began to approach much more cautiously. They watched the strange glow for several moments before deciding to cross to the other side of the river and resume their hunt. During this, though, Gordillo somehow became separated from the rest of the group.
To begin with, realizing he was alone, he moved the beam of his flashlight around him in an attempt to locate his friends. He couldn’t, though, see them anywhere. He then turned the flashlight off and whistled loudly, attempting to alert them. This worked, and almost immediately, he could see their flashlights heading in his direction. By the time they had found him, Gordillo could see that something strange had happened to them. Before he could contemplate things any further, one of his friends turned to him and asked, “Didn’t you see that again?” To this, Gordillo answered that he hadn’t seen anything unusual since they viewed the red lights on the other side of the river. His friends informed him that they had seen the bizarre lights again when he had become separated from them. After taking several moments to discuss what they should do, Gordillo, along with one of the hunters, Francisco Lopez Rivero, chose to head in the direction of the lights and investigate further while the rest of the group covered them from a distance.
They had only taken several steps when the lights were in view once more. From this distance, the lights appeared to be “shaking!” The closer they got to them, however, the more details became clear to them. They could see that there wasn’t just one light but several of them, all in a row, and they were on the side of a large object. Gordillo recalled that the object was hovering close to the ground and was a distinct round shape. From this distance – approximately 100 feet – he could see that the lights were not all red but different colors. Rivero would offer a different description, stating that the object was similar to a “large, earthen jar, upside down (and) with a red light on top!” He also recalled that the lights were different colors, stating they were a mixture of green, orange, yellow, and red, as well as that the object appeared to rest on several silver legs.
Even stranger, though, what really got their attention was the strange humanoid person who was walking in front of them. As it moved, Gordillo temporarily lost sight of it, unable to tell if the figure had returned inside the craft or had walked around it. Then, the figure was back in view once more. At this point, Gordillo could only see the bottom half of the figure, but it appeared it was very tall, and he could see it was wearing some kind of boots. The two men could also hear a bizarre “mmm” sound that appeared to come from the humanoid, almost as if it was humming. Rivero, who was several feet behind Gordillo, recalled briefly seeing that the figure was wearing a shiny, silver helmet with a visor similar to a typical motorbike helmet. Furthermore, much like Gordillo, Rivero also sensed the figure was tall, standing between six and a half and seven feet.
The next thing they realized, the figure was heading in their direction. By the time it was close enough for them to hear the sound of its footsteps, the two men turned around and ran back to the rest of the group. Once there, all four of them scrambled back to the other side of the river and back to their car.
While that was the end of the initial encounter, several weeks later, on January 14th, 1979, Rivero returned to the location with UFO investigators. It took several hours, but they eventually found the location where they had witnessed the strange figure and equally strange object. They could see that there was a clear circular indention in the vegetation that had created a clearing of sorts. All agreed that the clearing appeared far from natural and seemed to have been made by the object that had landed there. Perhaps of more interest to investigators, they also discovered what appeared to be several strange footprints. What was particularly interesting about these footprints, although investigators were unable to determine exactly when the footprints had been made, they were able to determine that whoever – or whatever – had made them had likely stood around seven feet tall – exactly as Gordillo and Rivero had estimated.
Ultimately, while the La Pizana encounter remains unexplained, it contains several intriguing and resonating details – ones that also show up in many other humanoid cases. In fact, around the same time, Spain experienced several very similar humanoid encounters. One of these occurred in Sevilla, also in November 1978. According to the files of Moises Garrido Vazquez, Antonia Aranda awoke suddenly in the middle of the night to find a seven-foot-tall humanoid standing over her bed. The figure was dressed entirely in black, with a black helmet and a visor covering its face. Before she could take in any more detail, she felt a blast of cold, icy air hit her in the face before she blacked out. When she came to, she saw a round, glowing metal sphere hovering directly over the top of her and she knew instinctively that the cold blast of air had come from this curious hovering device.
The next thing she knew, the figure dressed in black approached her once more. He claimed to her that he was “regenerating” her. She then blacked out once more. When she awoke next time, the figure and strange spherical device were nowhere to be seen. In the years that followed, Antonia claimed to have had several further encounters with this strange figure. Also interesting, following these encounters, she noticed how she had strange effects on electrical devices, even causing many of them to cease working altogether.
It is also worth mentioning that at the same time in East Sussex in the United Kingdom (which was experiencing its own wave of UFO and humanoid encounters) a local resident claimed to have seen a bizarre humanoid figure who was dressed entirely in black, including a black helmet that covered its face, from her window. At the same time, she noticed that her pet dog was seemingly petrified and cowered in the corner of the room.
Another encounter that unfolded in November 1978, this time somewhere in Italy, is of further interest. On the night in question, somewhere around midnight, “Antonio F” was watching television at his home when his pet dog suddenly began barking close to the window. Antonio got up from his chair and walked over to the window and looked outside, contemplating that there might be an intruder in the yard. At first, he could see nothing unusual. Then, out of the cold, drizzly night, a bright orange glow appeared approximately 100 feet from his property. In a similar response as the hunters in La Pizana, Antonio contemplated whether the glow belonged to a passing car that was experiencing trouble or had even crashed. However, a moment later, he dismissed this possibility, deciding that he was instead looking at something altogether more unusual.
Despite the late hour, he called out to his family. However, by the time they had dragged themselves from their beds, the lights had disappeared. They all returned inside, certain the strangeness had ended. However, a short time later, the dog began barking once more, alerting Antonio that whatever he had seen had returned. A moment later, he ventured outside once more to investigate. He began in the direction where he had seen the lights a short time earlier. Before he could reach the location, though, he heard a sudden rustling sound from the nearby vegetation.
Instinctively, he turned on the flashlight he was carrying and pointed the beam in the direction the sound had come from. He was more than shocked when the light settled on two humanoid figures. Each figure wore a dark, tight-fitting one-piece suit, and each was at least six feet tall. The two figures appeared to stare at Antonio for several moments before retreating into the shadows. When Antonio went to the location he had seen the figures the following day, he discovered a round patch of burnt vegetation on the ground. He contemplated if the glowing object had made this burnt patch and whether that had been the craft the two humanoids had arrived in. Once more, we might ask if these two humanoids are the same as those witnessed by the hunters in La Pizana.
According to an article in the April 6th, 1976 edition of Flying Saucer Review titled Forced Feeding by J.M. Bigorne, on a lonely road in France at around 5:30 am on February 28th, 1974, an anonymous 59-year-old man was riding his moped along Highway 38 when he suddenly found himself at the center of a bizarre encounter with mysterious humanoids.
As he was coming over a bridge that stretched over the River Thon, he suddenly experienced a bizarre episode of missing time. He realized that he was no longer moving and was simply sitting on his moped at the roadside. He couldn’t recall slowing down his moped or coming to a stop. It was as if he was moving one moment and then stopped dead the next. He was so confused that it took him a moment to notice the two humanoid figures – who he referred to as cosmonauts due to the round helmets on their heads – who were standing right next to him. He could have sworn he was alone only moments earlier. It was as if these figures were not there one moment and next to him the next, as if they had just appeared out of thin air.
As well as the helmet, with a visor that covered their face, they each wore a dark, one-piece, tight-fitting suit. He also noticed that each of the figures wore a pair of long “five-fingered gloves” that went right the way up their arms, which the witness likened to gloves used for the “artificial insemination of cattle!”
It was at this point that he became aware of a huge, circular object that he described as a “dark circular mass” with no lights that was sitting on the ground in a nearby field. He estimated the object was around the size of two cars and appeared to be completely silent. As he was taking in the details of the craft, his foot still resting on the ground as he sat on his moped, the two humanoids began to investigate the handlebars. They occasionally looked at him, which caused a surge of fear to run through him. Then, things turned even more surreal.
The two humanoids began gesturing to the witness in a manner that they were encouraging him to eat something. When the witness simply remained still and looked at them, the two figures turned to each other and appeared to be somehow communicating. Then, one of them reached behind them and produced a small square that the witness claimed looked like a “piece of chocolate!” Once more, the figure gestured to the witness that he should eat it. More out of fear than anything else, the witness took the square and ate it. He later stated that although it was tasteless, it had a similar texture to chocolate, although slightly softer. As he ate it, the two humanoids simply watched him as if they were ensuring he swallowed it. When he had done so, they backed away slightly and gestured at him once more, motioning that he was now free to go.
He started his moped immediately and left the scene as fast as he could. He later told UFO investigators that he had no actual memory of setting off. One moment, he was watching the figures gesturing that he could go; the next, he was speeding down the road as he had been before he came over the bridge. Of course, whether this was due to the surrealness of the situation or whether these strange beings used some kind of technology to cloud his memory remains open to debate. Investigators, though, would soon manage to piece together a fuller picture of the anonymous witness’s encounter.
Although he didn’t notice any effects after eating the chocolate-like substance, because the witness didn’t see a doctor in the hours following the incident, no medical tests could be carried out in an attempt to see what the substance was. Furthermore, it remained a mystery as to why the humanoids were insistent that he ate it in the first place. It is perhaps worth mentioning many alien abduction encounters where the abductee is asked – or sometimes forced – to drink a clear or tasteless liquid so that their memory of their respective encounters is erased. Although this was food and not a drink, could it be that the effect of the chocolate-like substance achieved the same end? Could the humanoids have been so insistent that he ate the square substance in the hope that he would not recall the bizarre events? Perhaps much more happened that strange night that is locked away in the witness’s memory.
As time went on, the witness became less and less inclined to speak about the bizarre encounter, not least due to the ridicule he received from work colleagues and some of his friends. However, some of the witness’s neighbors took it upon themselves to visit the location where he claimed the events had unfolded. And when they did, they made some remarkable discoveries. In the precise location where the witness claimed he had seen the craft in the field, they found several depressions in the ground as if something very heavy had recently rested there. Furthermore, the surrounding vegetation had been squashed in a perfect circle – the same shape the witness claimed the craft was. UFO investigators later spoke with the neighbors in question and found them all to be of sound mind and, ultimately, credible witnesses.
Just who the strange humanoids were and why they seemingly stopped the witness and forced him to eat the chocolate-like substance remains a complete mystery.
Perhaps adding further credibility to the admittedly bizarre encounter is that there are several other very similar reports from France near the same time as the Highway 38 incident. Only two weeks previously, for example, according to an article in the No. 14, 2nd Quarter 1975 edition of Ouranos, at around 1:30 pm on February 14th, 1974, in Petite-Ile, another anonymous gentleman was walking along a quiet country road when he suddenly felt a strange force “pulling at him” as well as a “tingling sensation” that permeated his entire body.
At this point, the witness looked around to see if they could identify the source of this strange force. His focus quickly fell upon a white, disc-shaped object that had a domed upper section. He watched in amazement as it hovered a short distance from the ground, only several feet from him. Then, without warning, an urgent beam of light came from the craft and settled straight on him. Through the light, he could see three “small beings” that he estimated were no more than three feet in height. These strange figures were moving back and forth, seeming to go back inside the craft through some kind of doorway in the side and then back out again.
He later described these creatures as wearing a metallic one-piece suit, each identical to the other. He remained where he was and watched the bizarre scene play out in front of him. Then, after several minutes, the three figures reentered the craft, which began to ascend rapidly until it disappeared. For several days after the encounter, the witness experienced severe headaches, as well as temporary vision impairment likely from the beam of light.
According to an article in Volume 22, 1976 edition of Flying Saucer Review, at around 9 pm on August 26th, 1974, in Feignes, a little over six months after the Highway 38 incident, a resident was waiting anxiously outside their home for the return of his daughter, who was late returning from a festival in the town. As he was pacing outside, he noticed a curious object in the night sky, one that he later described as being a “perfectly round black hole” that was around 700 feet from where he stood. He watched it for several moments, certain that the object was descending in a controlled and purposeful manner.
At this point, the man ran inside the house to inform his wife of the aerial anomaly. They both rushed back outside, the craft still overhead but now much closer, less than 100 feet from the ground. From this proximity, the pair could see a corona of light around the object split from the middle, giving the impression of two letter “Ds” as they moved. Eventually, they split completely apart from each other, with one of them heading into the distance while the other remained hovering overhead.
The pair continued to watch the object and were more than shocked to see two humanoid figures dressed almost identical to an astronaut moving around on the other side of what appeared to be a large window in the side of the object. The astronaut-type suits appeared to be made from some kind of metallic-type material and were grey-white in color. Strangely, the figures moved in a bizarre manner, almost “like puppets” that were two-dimensional. In total, the husband and wife watched the object and humanoids inside it for around 40 minutes before his concern for his daughter became too great, and the main witness drove into the town to look for her. By the time he returned, his daughter now with him, the bizarre object had disappeared. Like many of the other encounters we have explored, the sighting remains unexplained.
We might note that several of the encounters we have examined here have featured humanoids wearing some kind of one-piece suit, often silver, at least partially, in color. More often than not, these suits are made of some kind of metallic material. Furthermore, although not exclusively, many of these humanoids wear helmets with a dark or black colored visor obscuring their facial features. Is it a mere coincidence that they were in such similar attire, or does it suggest that we could be dealing with one specific race of alien or otherworldly visitor? Might we even consider that these humanoids dressed almost identically to modern astronauts could be human time travelers from the future or even another dimension?
As we mentioned at the start, these are but a handful of questions from a handful of encounters with bizarre humanoid beings, and we will undoubtedly return to this area of interest in a future article to explore more of these fascinating and mind-blowing accounts. For now, we have much to contemplate, not least how the accounts we have examined here might fit into the bigger picture of the UFO mystery, and the wider paranormal world
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Physicist Michio Kaku proposes the existence of other dimensions, also known as parallel universes, coexisting alongside our own reality. Within these dimensions, it is plausible that there are beings or entities living alongside us, despite our inability to perceive them. While the concept of alternate dimensions or universes may seem far-fetched to some, it is intricately connected to the subject of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), commonly referred to as UFO phenomena.
We live in a four-dimensional world (if time is included), but scientists propose there are more dimensions. However, they do not believe there can exist more than 11 dimensions because conditions become unstable and particles naturally collapse back down into 10 or 11 dimensions. The 12th dimension, for example, introduces a second time.
“Our understanding of reality is not complete, by far,” says Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde. “Reality exists independently of us.” If they exist, those universes are separated from ours, unreachable and undetectable by any direct measurement (at least so far). And that makes some experts question whether the search for a multiverse can ever be truly scientific.
In the realm of science, our quest for understanding alternate or higher dimensions remains ongoing. However, within the field of UFOlogy, intriguing cases have emerged suggesting the existence of not just other dimensions, but also the presence of entities residing within them. These beings seem to possess the ability to manipulate a bridge connecting their realm to ours, enabling them to embark on regular visits to our world.
Crashed UFO that ‘distorted space and time’
A very strange UFO case has been shared by American attorney Daniel Sheehan with Daily Mail. Sheehan involved in bringing UFO whistleblowers to Congress, claimed that a whistleblower told him a mind-boggling tale about a recovered crashed UFO. He revealed that a crashed UFO recovered by the US military had distorted space-time and was “bigger on the inside.” The whistleblower has reportedly briefed Senate Intelligence Committee staff on the matter.
Daniel P. Sheehan. Image credit: danielpsheehan.com
According to Sheehan, one of the alleged recoveries described by the insider involved a 30-foot saucer partially embedded in the earth. When attempts were made to remove it using a bulldozer, the craft exhibited unusual behavior. As it was being pulled out, it seemingly detached in a pie slice-shaped section, suggesting that it was constructed in a unique way.
The anonymous whistleblower then entered the craft and was astonished to find that the interior was as large as a football stadium, while the exterior was only about 30 feet in diameter. The experience inside caused disorientation and nausea due to the vast size discrepancy. Furthermore, upon exiting the craft in a few minutes, the whistleblower found that four hours had passed outside, indicating time distortion as well.
Sheehan mentions that the craft’s distortion of space and time is consistent with the theories proposed by physicists regarding advanced propulsion systems. These theories suggest that warping space-time could be used to counteract the effects of gravity and achieve advanced forms of propulsion. However, Sheehan does not provide further specific details, such as the location or date of the incident, and admits to being unable to provide concrete evidence to support these claims.
Moreover, on Jesse Michels’ show, astronomer and UFO researcher Jacques Vallee discussed another UFO case that includes experiencing another dimension by the witness. Valle said: “There was one case in San Jose. A woman had seen something over her house. It was a big disc, and I say, ‘How big was it?’ And she says, ‘Well, it was about the same size as her house. It was, you know, just like that.’ Then I say, ‘Well, when you went inside, you said, uh, you know, there was this being, and the being took you on a staircase.’ I say, ‘Where did the staircase go?’ Well, the staircase went up the side of this big round room. I say, ‘How would you compare it?’ Well, like a movie house, you know, like an M5 theater. I said, ‘That’s bigger than your house.’”
Luis Elizondo, the man who managed the UFO program inside the Pentagon, explains how space-time distortion works and hints that we can manipulate this physics for technological advancement. In an interview with George Knapp in 2018, Elizondo explains:
“Space-time is something we observe in the natural world all the time, especially in relation to gravity and GPS satellites. The clocks on these satellites need constant calibration. Even though the clocks on the satellites are identical to the ones on the ground station, they still require regular calibration. The reason for this is the effect of Earth’s gravity on space-time. The clocks on Earth run slightly slower compared to the clocks on the platforms above Earth.
How is this possible if the clocks are the same? Well, it’s because the closer you are to a massive object, like Earth, the more space-time warps. This phenomenon is explained by the theory of general relativity, which boils down to using the equation E=mc². Essentially, it means that a significant amount of mass or energy warps space-time. When you approach a supermassive object like the sun, the distortion becomes even greater. In fact, near a black hole, time becomes so distorted that it virtually stops.
We have observed this phenomenon through gravitational lensing when studying distant galaxies. We can actually see the effects of gravity on space-time with our own eyes, so it’s a scientific fact, not fiction. The question now is how we can manipulate this physics for technological advancement. Potentially, we could warp space-time in a way that allows us to travel from point A to point B more quickly.”
Is it possible that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization has already accomplished this kind of technology and has been using it to visit our world? Or perhaps we already have such technology?
In 2021, leaked documents revealed that the US Navy had conducted experiments on various far-fetched technologies, including a “space modification weapon.” These documents, disclosed by The War Zone, detailed the research carried out by the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) between 2017 and 2019. The most interesting thing is that the technology written in those documents discusses propulsion system that defies gravity, or to devastating weapons that bends the laws of physics and craft that alters the fabric of time and space.
The man behind all the patents is Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, who is an aerospace engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). He has four patents registered in his name that contain the source of technology that would change the world. In these patents, a “Spacetime Modification Weapon” (SMW, a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison) is mentioned.
Dr. Salvatore Pais is a physicist and aerospace engineer with the US Navy. In 2019 his inventions of 3 highly advanced forms of technology were granted patents.
Are these patents a cover for the reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology? The Navy’s objective in testing this conceptual system was to keep pace with similar programs being developed in China. The researchers believed that the space modification weapon could revolutionize power and propulsion systems. The technology was based on the “Pais effect” aimed to push the boundaries of science.
Pais made ambitious claims about the potential of this technology, suggesting that it could lead to a propulsion system defying gravity or devastating weapons that bend the laws of physics. He even outlined plans for a “hybrid aerospace-underwater craft” capable of altering the fabric of time and space.
The Navy’s aerospace research enterprise supported Pais’s patents, stating that they filed them to keep up with similar technological advancements being pursued by the Chinese military. The “space modification weapon” described in the documents was envisioned to release extremely hi
However, the experiments conducted between 2017 and 2019 were inconclusive. The elusive Pais effect was neither observed nor disproven during this period. The Pais effect refers to a theoretical physics concept that involves the controlled movement of highly electrically charged matter. If proven possible, it could enable the creation of powerful energy fields capable of fundamentally engineering the fabric of reality.
It is unclear whether the US Navy is continuing its experiments on the Pais effect or if the project has been discontinued entirely. None of the futuristic technologies described in the leaked UFO patents were developed, leaving the ultimate fate of the space modification weapon and related concepts uncertain.
Former US intelligence official David Grusch has set a benchmark for numerous anonymous whistleblowers to step forward and reveal the truth concealed by the government for a minimum of 90 years. Grusch claimed that the US government has proof of alien life and spacecraft from another species. He mentions a significant number of these spacecraft, some of which have landed while others have crashed.
Now, at least 30 other whistleblowers secretly confirm “Non-Human Biologics” & “Retrieval Programs.” Journalist Michael Shellenberger writes that “they are working for the federal government or government contractors have given testimony, or a ‘protected disclosure,’ to the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), the Defense Department Inspector General (DOD IG), or to Congress over the last several months, according to multiple sources interviewed by Public.” (Source)
In this interview with veteran Melbourne talkback radio host Neil Mitchell, investigative journalist Ross Coulthart shared some background information about UFOs and what is going on within the US Congress related to the phenomena. Coulthart, who has extensively researched and written about this subject, emphasized that the question of whether we are alone in the universe is, in his view, “the biggest story ever.”
“I personally think there’s an extremely high probability that we are not alone as an intelligent species in this universe, and I also think from the sources that I speak to, there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest, at least prima facie, that we should assume that we are being visited by a non-human intelligence,” Coulthart said.
In the interview, Coulthart shared his encounter with an individual named Nat Kobitz, who had been a Director of Science Technology Development for the U.S. Navy. Kobitz, who later died of cancer, disclosed the existence of non-human intelligence and multiple crash retrievals to Coulthart. This conversation served as a catalyst for Coulthart’s deep dive into the subject. Through Kobitz, Coulthart was introduced to individuals with direct knowledge and involvement in what he refers to as “the program.” These connections led him to more sources, and as a journalist, he reached his conclusion based on a preponderance of evidence.
Ross Coulthart acknowledged that the reasons for the cover-up are multifaceted, suggesting that the initial secrecy in the 1950s stemmed from concerns that the religious world would be deeply disturbed by the notion of encountering an advanced non-human intelligence.
Coulthart says, “I think the real reason that’s at the heart of this is knowing, as I do from the sources that I’ve spoken to, that the United States definitely has recovered technology. I think that there is a Cold War battle underway for the attempt to try to replicate that technology, to reverse engineer it. This has been going on since at least the end of World War II, incredibly. And it hasn’t been very successful, but the Americans are aware that the Russians have got similar technology, and so have the Chinese.”
Mitchell questioned Coulthart about the evidence he had personally seen or whether he was relying solely on second-hand reports. Coulthart replied, “This is why I’m not a hundred percent… I try and talk a little bit legalistically. I don’t believe that we’re Beyond Reasonable Doubt yet. I think on the balance of probabilities, yes, I do think that we have what are called biologics. I do think that they have recovered biological material and bodies, and I’ve actually spoken to people who’ve told me that they’ve seen bodies.”
Coulthart acknowledged that he had not personally witnessed UFOs or bodies but had formed his opinion based on the accounts of numerous individuals who had provided evidence over the course of several years. These individuals, some of whom have testified under oath, have described encounters with entities that fit the classic description of “Grays/Greys.”
“Most of the descriptions that I’ve heard concur with the classic gray shape: the large head, enormous eyes, very little if any nose, barely discernible slit of a mouth, no ears—essentially, the classic three-foot to four-foot-high gray.”
Coulthart speculated about the possibility of the UFO truth becoming public knowledge in the near future, suggesting that within 12 to 18 months, the world might have a clearer understanding of the mysterious phenomenon of UAPs and UFOs. “I think that the world will probably know publicly within, I suspect, 12 to 18 months,” he said.
Coulthart also discussed the issue of secrecy in Washington, highlighting that there are thousands of special access programs in which sensitive information is protected and does not leak to the public. He mentioned that even though notable investigative journalists have uncovered significant secrets, there are many that remain hidden from the public eye.
Coulthart said, “David Grusch laughed when I said that term because I asked him the same question, and I said, ‘You know, you guys can’t keep a secret in Washington, for God’s sake, the place leaks.’ And he laughed because he was briefed into 2,000-plus special access programs, most of which he says have never leaked secrets that are integral to U.S. national security programs that are still protected.”
When asked about the most impressive revelation from his interview with David Grush, Coulthart pointed to Grusch’s admission that there have been multiple retrievals of non-human craft and entities, which he refers to as “biologics” or non-human intelligence beings. Coulthart underscored the fact that Grusch, although not having personally seen these beings or craft, played a pivotal role in bringing individuals with direct knowledge to testify before the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence, two of the most influential committees in the United States government.
Coulthart highlighted the growing momentum within Congress to reveal the truth about these phenomena, driven by a pro-disclosure movement within the defense community. He noted that some senior figures, including generals and admirals, believe it is time for the public to be informed. However, he also pointed out the anti-transparency faction, which, at present, appears to be in the majority. This faction is concerned about the potential impact on national security and foreign relations, particularly with the rising tensions with China.
Coulthart discussed the possibility of alien disclosure within the next 12 to 18 months, suggesting that there might be an acknowledgment of non-human intelligence engaging with Earth. He mentioned efforts to secure interviews with senior officials who could make such an admission. However, he also pointed out that there is a pushback against full disclosure, partly due to concerns about the current political climate, including questions about Joe Biden’s capacity to lead and uncertainty about how a potential future President, like Donald Trump, might handle such sensitive information.
Ross Coulthart: “So, I wouldn’t be surprised if what we saw was a compromise where there was the beginning of an admission that, ‘Oh gosh, yes, we think there may indeed be life behind this, some kind of intelligence, but we need to do more work.’ I think we might see that kind of qualified revelation, but it’s still a remote possibility. It’s equally possible that this all might be put back in a box and covered up for another 50 years.”
Coulthart also touched upon the potential corporate implications of disclosure, particularly regarding companies like Lockheed Martin, which might have been involved in concealing non-human technology. He mentioned legislation proposed by Chuck Schumer that could assert eminent domain over any non-human technology and biologic bodies, essentially confiscating these assets and raising concerns about how publicly traded companies would handle such a situation.
Alien/UAP disclosure soon?
The US Senate has passed an amendment that would force government agencies to hand over any records on UFOs within 300 days and would mandate the disclosure of those records to the public unless there is a compelling reason to keep them classified. However, the new legislation explains that the president can postpone disclosure of certain records if disclosure poses a national security risk. The legislation requires postponed records to be reviewed periodically to see if it is safe to declassify them. (Source)
“After the Review Board has made a formal determination concerning public disclosure or postponement, the President will have the sole ability to overturn or concur such determination. At the latest, each UAP record must be publicly disclosed in full and made available in the Collection no later than 25 years after the law is enacted, unless the President certifies that continued postponement is necessary because of a direct harm to national security.”
The Different Types Of Alien You Should Know About | Unveiled
Projected multibillion-dollar overruns have some calling the agency's plan a 'dumpster fire.'
Artist's conception of the vehicles that would participate in a Mars sample return campaign by NASA and the European Space Agency.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA is seemingly caught between a Mars rock and a hard place.
The space agency’s best-laid plan to robotically retrieve prized samples of the Red Planet for scrutiny back on Earth has been decades in the making and is seen as a "must-do" by many planetary scientists. Now it has gone awry, imperiled by a wildly unrealistic budget and schedule. Although a programmatic overhaul is now underway, no one can yet say just how — or when — the Mars Sample Return (MSR) initiative will succeed, and lawmakers have threatened the project with outright cancellation.
The tumult erupted last September with the release of a sanity check of MSR conducted by a NASA-established independent review board (IRB). MSR, the IRB found, is likely to cost somewhere between $8 billion and $11 billion in its current form—several billion dollars beyond the project’s recommended budgetary limits. Moreover, the board reported a near-zero chance of vital MSR elements being ready for launches slated for 2027 and 2028 — let alone the "Earth return" that was projected for 2033.
#MarsSampleReturn: Exciting New Region Is Target for Next Samples (Mars Report)
MSR’s complex architecture is a key driver of such high costs and troubling delays. The official plan calls for a NASA-built lander to voyage to Mars while housing a small sample-return rocket, as well as a robotic arm provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). The lander would touch down near the Perseverance rover that’s already been busily dropping tubes of carefully curated samples from its explorations around Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient river delta. Those specimens would be picked up and stuffed into the rocket by Perseverance — or perhaps instead retrieved by a couple of newly minted flying drones akin to the Ingenuity helicopter that the rover already let loose on Mars.
The sample-packed rocket would launch into orbit around Mars to rendezvous with an ESA-supplied spacecraft for subsequent transport to Earth. Encased in a protective capsule, the samples would at last reach our planet by plummeting from space to the Utah Test and Training Range, where they’d be recovered and whisked to a specialized facility for processing and further study.
Replanning and ramping back
Nationwide, more than 1,300 people have been working on MSR, but that number is dropping. After the IRB report’s release, NASA hit the pause button on the project: the space agency announced that several of its research centers were “ramping back” associated work. A hiring freeze is now in effect at the space agency’s MSR-managing Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and last week the lab laid off 100 of its contractors. The slowdown comes as NASA faces a constricted budget in fiscal year 2024 because of a debt ceiling spending cap deal in Congress. The House of Representatives’ proposed budget allots nearly $1 billion to the project in 2024 per NASA’s request, while the Senate’s budget offers only $300 million — and explicitly threatens MSR with cancellation if the program’s costs can’t be reined in.
In response, NASA has set up a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board Response Team (MIRT), led by Sandra Connelly, the space agency’s deputy associate administrator for science. Connelly is expected to provide an update about MIRT’s process and progress in an upcoming "town hall" meeting. Meanwhile the agency has delayed its plans to confirm the official mission cost and schedule pending MIRT’s conclusions, which are expected in March 2024.
"The team will make a recommendation by the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 regarding a path forward for Mars Sample Return within a balanced overall science program," said NASA’s Dewayne Washington, a senior communications manager for MSR, in a statement to Scientific American. "The agency will delay its plans to confirm the official mission cost and schedule until after the completion of this review."
ESA, for its part, maintains that it is "steadfastly progressing towards fulfilling all of its commitments" for a launch as early as 2028, according to a statement provided to Scientific American. ESA is working closely with NASA on replanning MSR, the statement explained. "On the ESA side, the outcome of the ESA/NASA studies will be formulated as options and the way forward will then be decided together with [ESA] Member States," it said.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie looking down at one of 10 sample tubes deposited at the sample depot it created in an area nicknamed Three Forks. This image was taken by the WATSON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on Jan. 20, 2023, the 684th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
A question of priorities
MSR’s perceived scientific value is the rationale for NASA and ESA traversing the delicate geopolitical tightrope of the project’s replanning, says Victoria Hamilton, a planetary geologist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Hamilton also chairs the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), a committee that is advising NASA on its Red Planet plans and participated in the IRB that issued last September’s damning report.
Multiple planetary science decadal surveys produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have anointed MSR as the highest scientific priority for all of NASA’s robotic exploration efforts, she notes. The last such decadal survey, however, issued in 2022, gauged MSR’s nominal cost as $5.3 billion and cautioned that overruns on the project could "undermine the long-term programmatic balance of [NASA’s] planetary portfolio."
Achieving that balance is essential, Hamilton says, because Mars isn’t the only alluring destination vying for more attention and federal dollars. The very same decadal survey that reinforced MSR’s preeminence also set several other high-priority objectives, such as robotic NASA missions to Uranus, Venus and the mysterious Saturnian moons Enceladus and Titan. Left unchecked, cost and schedule overruns for MSR could easily cascade throughout the space agency’s planetary science division to disrupt these other projects — not to mention any NASA efforts to send humans to Mars.
"In addition to the scientific benefits, MSR will feed forward into human exploration plans," Hamilton says. "And I honestly don’t understand how we can talk about sending humans to Mars to do science if a pathfinding mission like MSR is deemed too ambitious or too costly."
Others, conversely, struggle to understand how MSR in its current form benefits the broader planetary science community—and how the official plan for its execution came so far before being formally called out for its excesses. One well-versed space agency official, who asked for anonymity, bluntly calls the plan a “dumpster fire.”
"Within the planetary science community, you have the Mars faction [that supports MSR]. But the outer planets community doesn’t care about MSR," the official says. "The Venus exploration advocates don’t care about this, nor does the moon community. Then there’s perhaps half of the Mars community that feels [that for MSR’s estimated cost], you can imagine a lot of Mars rovers going across the surface and see a whole fleet of Mars orbiters that also need to be replaced."
Fran Bagenal, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder’s (CU Boulder’s) Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and a veteran of multiple NASA interplanetary missions, is skeptical that MSR’s skyrocketing price tag will prove worthwhile despite its historic astrobiological potential. Most of the material in and around Jezero Crater is more than 3.7 billion years old, she notes—and scientists still vigorously debate any hints of life in rocks of similar vintage right here on our own far-better-studied Earth.
"So what will we learn by spending many billions on returning [such] samples from Mars?" she asks. "It’s easy to say, 'It has to be new and interesting, whatever we find.' But we must be responsible to the taxpayer and ask if it is worth the cost." Investing instead in developing better methods for robotic, in situ studies on Mars, she argues, could be a more affordable option that also yields new approaches for other destinations, such as Venus and Jupiter’s icy, oceanic moon Europa.
The A-ha! moment
According to Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, who served as the agency’s inaugural Mars exploration program director from 2000 to 2001, there’s an easy explanation for MSR’s programmatic miscalculations. Historically, he says, NASA has shown a strong tendency to err on the low side of mission costs to get a project approved; the aha! moment comes later. "NASA counts on this a great deal, whether consciously or unconsciously," he says — especially for ambitious initiatives such as MSR. Add to this "the 'evolutionary' process of how [MSR’s planning] was dragged out over decades," and you end up with the current state of affairs.
Bruce Jakosky, a scientist at CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and former lead investigator of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter, which is presently at Mars, has spent decades researching the Red Planet’s climate, atmosphere and potential habitability. The scientific value of returning Mars samples cached by NASA’s Perseverance rover for studies back here on Earth cannot be overstated, he maintains. "There are analyses that we can carry out here that are just not possible using even the best-equipped rover on the surface," Jakosky says.
Mars Sample Return is important for another reason, Jakosky adds. "It’s a demonstration of the ability to do a round trip to Mars and will be incredibly valuable as a risk-reduction effort in preparing for human missions to Mars," he says. "Given that advance work is already going on related to planning the architecture of human Mars missions, this seems like a necessary step along the way."
Salvaging MSR, Hubbard says, may require making the project an "all-of-NASA initiative" to take advantage of the agency’s human exploration plans (and budgets). This could allow for new mission profiles that reduce complexity — if not cost. NASA’s new Space Launch System [SLS] megarocket, he notes, is meant for lofting crews and hefty payloads into Earth orbit for voyages to the moon — but its huge size could conceivably house all of MSR’s planned elements, which are currently intended for two separate rockets. With SLS, he says, "you could probably launch the whole thing in one fell swoop." (An SLS launch, however, costs more than $2 billion— about 40% of the entire baseline MSR budget, leaving aside the multibillion-dollar overruns projected by the IRB.)
For James Head, a planetary scientist at Brown University, it has not been a question of one mission to return samples from Mars but rather of many. "There are so many different fundamental scientific problems to address, and so many different places to go to address them, that multiple Mars sample return missions are essential," he says.
The possibility of multiple sample-return sorties isn’t a pipe dream: China is planning one of its own — a mission called Tianwen-3 that is planned to launch in 2028 and would seek to deliver Mars rocks to Earth as early as mid-2031. Last April Head co-convened a session on that country’s Mars sample endeavor in Hefei, China.
"They are clearly moving ahead on this mission," he says, noting the large number of Chinese university students and mission personnel from institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that have proposed Tianwen-3 landing sites. "The project is moving forward well, and we are working on the landing site location," says Yang "Steve" Liu, a planetary scientist at the National Space Science Center in Beijing. Sample collection by the Tianwen-3 lander, Liu says, would mirror that of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar mission, which, sans rover, drilled and scooped moon rocks that were rocketed back to Earth in December 2020.
One touchdown locale under review is the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a giant impact basin in the midlatitudes of Mars’s northern hemisphere that China’s Zhurong rover already scouted in 2021 and 2022. (NASA’s Viking 2 lander also touched down in Utopia Planitia in 1976.) "It seems clear to me that a significant part of the geological history of Mars will be included in samples returned from this area," Head says.
In the event that China’s Mars samples are the first — or only — to arrive back on Earth, finding a way for U.S. researchers to share in those data would be ideal, Head says. Federal law presently limits NASA’s collaborations with China, but the space agency’s recent approval of efforts by NASA-funded investigators to participate in studies of Chang’e-5’s lunar samples is a very positive sign, he says. "We all hope that NASA will be able to extend this in the future to the upcoming Chang’e-6 farside lunar samples and to any future Chinese Mars returned samples."
Of course the most ideal scenario of all, envisioned by Head and his fellow Mars-focused peers, would be for NASA to ensure that its homegrown MSR project comes to fruition. The choice to move forward, he says, represents a "momentous decision point" for the space agency — and the nation.
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In the world of UFO research, the name of retired Army sergeant Clifford Stone is nearly a legend. Stone claimed to have been serving for 22 years as a Decorated Vietnam combat veteran. From 1968 to 1990, he was a part of the secret elite group that was assigned to recover the crashed UFOor E.T. parts, alien bodies, and artifacts. Besides, he said that intelligent life had been visiting our planet in highly advanced crafts that are capable of covering many light-years in less time which is beyond modern human knowledge.
Initially, he was assigned to the NBC Team (nuclear, biological, and chemical retrieval and abatement detail) at Fort McClellan Army post in Alabama and did some regular assignments until he was called for retrieval duties. He was reportedly out for a week when the army required him for UFO retrievals. What is more, his army service record was manipulated and excluded all his UFO recovery activities, showing him as a typist.
To support his claims, Stone cleverly disclosed the existence of classified projects such as Moon Dust and Blue Fly, that had been created to hide the UFOs’ debris by using Freedom of Information Acts.
Clifford Earl Stone January 2, 1949 ~ February 10, 2021 (age 72). Image credit: Ballard Funeral Home & Crematory
For example, in reviewing an Air Force Intelligence letter known as the Betz memo (1961), Sgt. Stone was able to reveal to the general public evidence that Project Moon Dust involved a “potential for employment of qualified field intelligence personnel on a quick reaction basis to recover or perform field exploitation of unidentified flying objects.” (Source)
Stone’s catalogs in UFOs are real documents he had been able to retrieve by FOIA even during his years of military service. Consequently, Stone’s pioneering documentary research into UFO crash retrievals is strong support for his testimony of actually having served on such teams during his military service.
Stone claimed in his old interviews that during his military service, he was monitored by an individual whose rank he was never told but whom he called “Colonel.” The colonel was present at UFO crash retrieval locations and led debriefing sessions of Stone. He noted that the colonel allowed him to read a three-inch thick notebook manual that contained information on 57 types of extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs) known to the military.
He said that many species looked like humans, but their eyes were slightly larger and had black iris. According to him, extraterrestrial species contacted only through telepathy and could even read minds.
In 1973, Stone was involved in the retrieval of a crashed UFO. He hid a small metallic piece of UFO in his shoe and buried it near his property in New Mexico, Nevada, after his retirement in 1989.
He said: “Yes, I have it and wouldn’t dare to keep it in the house. I had it here to show some people where I kept it, a day longer than I should have and then somebody actually came here and tried to take it. That was some tense moments, I almost shot somebody that day.”
On May 9, 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses came forward at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to establish the reality of UFOs or extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and the resulting advanced energy and propulsion technologies. As part of the Disclosure Project, Sgt. Stone publicly revealed his story and was willing to testify before Congress if they asked him.
Below is the transcript of Sgt. Stone’s part in the Disclosure Program (Full Video link here):
“Morning ladies and gentlemen, my name is Clifford Stone, I was a sergeant first class United States Army. I had a secret clearance with nuclear surety. I could get the clearance that I needed to do whatever it was necessary for me to do at the time on special operations when I was called in on those.
What I’m referring to here is that I was involved in situations where we actually did recoveries of crashed saucers. There were bodies involved with some of these crashes and also some were alive. While we were doing all this, we were telling the American public there was nothing to it. We were telling the world there was nothing to it.
I’d like to go into detail on some of the cases about the nuts and bolts cases right here. But I will be available if you have any questions concerning my involvement in this, you can talk to Dr. Greer to arrange for me to get to talk to you. But the whole situation is, we have setback, we’ve told the American people that there’s no such thing as UFOs. I’ve been involved where we have recovered these objects, we know them to be of extraterrestrials.
In 1969, I had an event that happened to me while I was stationed at Fort Lee Virginia. We went to Indiantown Gap Pennsylvania that would be my first exposure to any time that we would be recovering an unidentified flying object. When we went there, we already had people that were in the facility with a backup team which was supposed to be NBC because there were supposed to be some nuclear materials that were on board this craft.
Later on, most people involved were told that there was nothing on board. It was nothing more than to crash at one of our aircraft. I know better because I was one of the people that approached it with a Geiger counter to get surface readings. I was the first person to go ahead and see that there were bodies on it that would be the first of approximately 12 events.
UFO crashes are not events that take place every day. They’re rare. I know we’re not alone in the universe. I know that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it’s evidence that has been denied to the American people. I stand before you today and my Almighty God, and I tell you this: if the Congress calls me in and says: ‘Will you testify in detail what you know?’ I stand here today prepared and ready to do just that, governments must never lie to the people for no reason. Thank you.”
National Press Club Event: Unlocking Hidden Tech to Save Our Future | Dr. Steven Greer
Further, she talked about Stone’s alien encounter in Vietnam, where he helped aliens to escape from military custody, as he cared for the rights of extraterrestrials who visit Earth.
Sgt. Clifford Stone claimed that he had been good at communicating with the ETs found at the crash sites or in an encounter with his military team. Once, his team fired a bullet at an ET, but they deflected it with some advanced technology. He also mentioned the teleport techniques of ETs when he found himself hundreds of feet from his initial position.
Stone also claimed that there are many alien groups that visit our solar system and Earth as well, but when humans learned how to detect their crafts, they limited their visits but did not stop.
He had no intention to benefit from his claims and evidence and no desire to gain publicity. His only desire was to let the US citizens know the truth about the UFOs and extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), that these are interplanetary spacecraft. Sgt. Clifford Stone, aged 72, passed away peacefully at his home on February 10, 2021.
A Christian 'prophet' who predicted the assassination attempt onDonald Trump three months prior to his near-miss in Pennsylvania has an alarming new prediction.
Brandon Dale Biggs, an Oklahoma pastor, claims God showed him another vision that would rock the heart of America this spring.
'It was so big, there were 1,800 people who died [along that stretch],' Biggs said in the video. All the houses on cinder blocks were completely shaken to the foundation, they just fell.'
He claimed the Lord told him that the New Madrid earthquake would hit three days after 'they try to divide Jerusalem with the two-state solution,' which is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.
Briggs' visions suggested that the earthquake would happen in the spring as he saw 'Sycamore leaves on the trees...trying to come out.. like they were fresh.'
Biggs shared his eerie prediction in a video posted posted April 2024 — three months before the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
Brandon Dale Biggs, an Oklahoma pastor, claims he receives visions from God about future events. He predicted the assassination of Donald Trump three months prior
The 150-mile-long New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) stretches through parts of Missouri , Arkansas , Tennessee , Kentucky and Illinois. A pastor who claims to see visions from God said a major earthquake will hit the area
In that same video, in which he was interviewed by Christian author Steve Cioccolanti, Biggs revealed how he foresaw the attempt on the now president-elect's life.
'This bullet flew by his ear, and it came so close to his head that it busted his eardrum,' he said
Also during the segment, Biggs said he saw red waves in Michigan and Oklahoma during the 2024 Election, which went on to happen in both states.
Now that those predictions have come and passed, portions of the video showing Biggs discussing the major earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) have resurfaced.
'[The] New Madrid earthquake [is] so big [and] when it happens the Mississippi River starts it goes out another direction,' he said.
In 1811 and 1812, the fault line unleashed a trio of powerful jolts - measuring magnitudes 7.5 to 7.7 - that rattled the central Mississippi River Valley.
Biggs shared his visions with pastor and Christian author Steve Cioccolanti, saying how he foresaw the attempt on the now president-elect's life. He said he saw a bullet pass through Trump's ear. The prediction was shared in a video posted in April 2024
Chimneys fell and boats capsized. Farmland sank and turned into swamps. The death toll is unknown, but experts don't believe there were mass casualties because the region was sparsely populated then.
Were that to happen today, more than 5,000 people would be killed, but the pastor's '10 magnitude' would possibly see a death toll ranging in the hundreds of thousands to millions, according to experts.
Experts have also said that there is a 'virtually zero' likelihood of such a major earthquake.
The strongest earthquake ever recorded was the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile (magnitude 9.5), which occurred in a subduction zone.
The NMSZ is a mid-continental fault system, not a subduction zone that sits on the coast that is prone to much larger earthquakes.
While a 10 magnitude is not off the table, scientists have speculated it would only be possible long a fault system that is at least 6,200 miles long.
The NMSZ stretches for 150 miles.
But the scientific data has not caused Biggs to backpedal on his prophecy.
He told Cioccolanti that he saw Chinook helicopters flying in to bring aid, saying: 'They were flying so low that they were shaking the houses.'
'The Lord told me that when they try to divide Jerusalem with the two-state solution... you will see a three-day window,' said the pastor. 'That the time for people to flee.'
2024: 'Prophet' predicts events in Las Vegas and New Orleans
Biggs released a video two months ago where he saw visions of an attack in New Orleans, which happened on January 1
During the same vision, Biggs said an attack would also happen in Las Vegas. Matthew Livelsberger detonate explosives he packed into a Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas
Scientists have said that the NMSZ is likely to see a major earthquake in the next 50 years, which would be a 6.0 magnitude or higher.
'They were not able to bring in supply trucks from east to west,' Briggs said, noting that was because there were no bridges left standing.
He added that all aid came by airplanes, but food and medicine. was transported through the Mississippi.
'it was so bad, I remember it lasted for months,' said Briggs.
While the prediction was made last year, the pastor shared another vision in October that appeared to also come true.
'I just seen a glimpse of Vegas,' he said in the video with his eyes closed.
'Oh, these are are these all on the same day. I pray over Las Vegas.
'It is interesting, I now just seen a glimpse of New Orleans Bourbon Street, it it is an attack simultaneously.
NASCAR legend Mark Martin recently recalled the time he claims to have seen aUFOwhile flying home from a race.
Martin was flying his plane home to Florida from an East Coast race in the late 1990s when the incident occurred.
Martin was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2017 and is often described as the best race car driver to never win a championship. And now, maybe the best racecar driver to have a UFO sighting.
'We were coming home, just me and my pilot in my jet. We were coming back from one of the northeast races... We fly at 45,000 feet, but going over Jacksonville going home to Daytona where I lived, you know, they would bring you down to 18,000 feet or so,' Martin told Garage Guy Chase.
'We were descending. For some reason, a lot of times after the race I would get in the back and let my - was a single pilot aircraft so I’d let my pilot fly me home and I’d sit back there and rehash the race or something or just relax. But this particular time, and I did it from time to time, I wanted to fly... and there’s no stars out.'
'So, it’s black. Everything except the lights in Daytona, Orlando, and you know, Miami. You can see the lights down at Miami even. And I see a light that is solid white light, looks solid light that’s not flashing, and that could only be like a landing light is the only thing that would make sense would be a spotlight looking light like that, and it would have to be far away because I couldn’t see the green and red-wing tip lights. Because they got a green one and a red one and the red one is on the right. That way you know if a plane’s coming toward you or going away... Didn’t see any of that.'
NASCAR legend Mark Martin recalled the time he claims to have seen a UFO in the late 1990s
Martin is often described as the best racecar driver to never win a season championship
'So, I keep it in my eye, I keep checking up there and checking up there and it gets closer and closer, I didn’t say anything to (pilot) Jason (Simpson) I’m just flying along. Finally, I just start, I fixate on it. Plane’s on autopilot… and so I’m fixated on it and it gets closer and closer and closer and then it gets like, "Oh my God, we’re going to hit that!"'
'And I grabbed the yolk and kicked it off autopilot and was getting ready to jerk the plane to the right and Jason was like, "What?" And I said, "Look!" And when he looked, he pulled out a camera, he had a camera on him, and he pulled out a camera and put it up there in the windshield and tried to take a picture because he saw it! We both saw this and almost, we thought we were going to hit it. Then it starts pulling away, gradually pulling away, slowly pulling away.'
Martin also said when air traffic control was contacted about the sighting, they told Martin he was flying the only aircraft in that general airspace.
Martin surely would not have made up his adventure to talk about it so publicly. His story is not the first to have seen a UFO over the years.
It’s a wrap forCES 2024! We told you AI would be the loudest buzzwordat the show, finding its way into all kinds of consumer tech, and we were right. AI was everywhere, but the future isn’t only AI.
At Inverse, we obsess over the past, present, and future of technology. The past shows us the progress we’ve made, the present keeps us grounded in reality, and the future opens our eyes to what’s possible.
CES 2024 had plenty of announcements for devices that you’ll be able to buy in the next 12 months, but it was the experimental, ambitious, and far-flung tech innovations that had us at the edge of our seats. The future is exciting only when you have dreamers trying to build it with wild ideas and products, after all. Not all of these 18 CES 2024 tech innovations will stick the landing, but we hope most of them do.
CES 2024 had Qi 2 chargers aplenty, but looking further out, what we really want is for our gadgets to charge wirelessly over the air without contact with a pad. Enter Infinix’s AirCharge, a base that can supply 7.5W of power to devices. Over-the-air charging tech has a long way to go — the AirCharge only works up to a distance of 20cm or about 7.87 inches — but it is double the distance of similar technology from Oppo, according to Engadget.The progress is slow, but we’re making some. Hopefully, air charging will be mainstream by the end of the decade.
Automakers are obsessed with self-driving car tech, but if you think about it, better self-parking features should be the higher priority. Hyundai’s Mobion EV has an “e-Corner System” aka crab-walking tech, which is exactly the kind of feature every car should have. Many cars now have self-parallel-parking or some kind of assistance for backing into a parking space, so why not the ability for the wheels to rotate and shift the car into a cramped space?
Everyone loves a new TV, but one trend that is gaining traction is hiding the black screen in plain sight. Samsung’s Frame TV has done a good job disguising TVs as picture frames. The natural next step might be TVs that fold up and contract into an art piece or media center. C Seed’s N1 does just that, unfolding into a 137-inch 4K TV with micro-LEDs and then compressing into an unassuming metal sculpture.
15. Xpeng AeroHT eVTOL Flying Car
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
Still waiting for flying cars? XPeng AeroHT’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) might be the closest thing on the horizon. The flying car is basically a supercar with rotors strapped to the top. Xpeng AeroHT, an eVTOL-focused sibling to Xpeng Motors, says the eVTOL flying car isn’t a concept and is preparing to mass produce it for a launch in 2025, with pre-orders in the fourth quarter of the year. We’ve heard similar promises from other companies, but if the company does pull it off, we’ll finally be able to cross flying cars off our list of sci-fi tech that’s made a reality.
14. Sennheiser Momentum Sport Wireless Earbuds
Sennheiser
Smartwatches have proven to be an excellent form factor for health and fitness-tracking functionality. However, the next wearable for sensors to call home might be wireless earbuds. Sennheiser's Momentum Sport give us an early look at the near future with real-time body temperature and heart rate monitoring. It also makes us wonder: Can technology miniaturization lead to wireless earbuds, not smartwatches, becoming the more dominant companion to our phones?
Compared to the rest of the innovations in this roundup, Intel’s Thunderbolt 5 is pretty boring. While it won’t garner the same kind of attention as a transparent TV, Thunderbolt 5 will be the backbone that enables next-gen computing. We’re looking at data transfers of 80Gbps and 120Gbps for video output in a USB-C port. The first laptop with Thunderbolt 5 at CES 2024 was Razer’s Blade 18, but expect laptops and desktops to adopt the new protocol fairly soon.
12. Samsung Ballie and LG Agent Personal Robots
Samsung, LG
Samsung’s Ballie and LG’s AI Agent personal robots promise to understand our needs using computer vision and AI. Ballie can patrol the home and project videos onto surfaces. The AI Agent can also patrol homes and functions more like an autonomous smart home hub on wheels, capable of doing stuff like switching the lights on and off for you. Amazon’s Astrorobot may have fizzled out, but the dream of home robots doing our bidding so we can live more leisurely lives.
VR headsets and smart glasses may displace TVs and monitors one day, but until that happens, gaming companies are going bigger with their physical screens. The biggest one announced at CES 2024 was Acer’s Predator Z57, a 57-inch curved ultra-wide behemoth. With an 8K resolution and 120Hz, the 32:9 aspect ratio monitor shows gamers have a preference for even larger screens. Check back in a few years and 57-inchers will be as commonplace as 27-inch monitors are today.
10. Honda Sallon and Space-Hub EV Concepts
Getty Images: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance and FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP
We don’t see eye to eye with Elon Musk about a great many things, but we do agree on one thing: the future of cars should look like they’re from the future. We’re not saying the Cybertruck’s sharp, brutalist design is not it, but most people would prefer EVs with a curvier body. Something more like the Saloon and Space-Hub concepts that are part of Honda’s Zero Series EVs. From gull-wing doors to spacious cabins with massive glass roofs to infinity head and tail lights, Honda's EV concepts are more like a step into zen retreat than a vehicle to escape the apocalypse.
9. MSI Claw A1M Handheld PC
MSI
Sony’s PS5 continues to sell well for a gaming box that you put under your TV, but Valve’s Steam Deck, along with the dozens of Windows-powered handheld PCs released in the last year, strongly favors the hybrid console design that Nintendo popularized with the Switch. MSI’s Claw A1M is a first look at what will surely be a trend of more increasingly powerful Windows handheld PCs; it’s already got the Asus ROG Ally beat in a number of ways. Handheld PCs like the Claw A1M prove you don't need to decide between performance and portability. You can get both in one device.
8. Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid Windows Laptop and Android Tablet
Lenovo
You can always count on Lenovo to show up at CES with a form factor that, at the very least, has a shock factor. Case in point: the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid. It’s a Windows 11 laptop with a display that snaps off and functions as an Android tablet — two birds with one stone. What we’re saying is that different platforms can play nice, and we want to see more companies making hardware that acknowledges the strengths of each one.
Have you ever looked at a foldable phone and wished that it could fold all the way backward? Samsung's Flex In & Out concept takes the foldable screen of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and pairs it with a hinge that lets you bend it 360 degrees. How practical such a screen and design will be in a commercial device is questionable, but it’s nice to see that Samsung is still working hard to come up with new phone form factors. Somebody has to!
6. Volkswagen EVs with ChatGPT
Volkswagen
We told you that AI would be the major theme of CES 2024, flowing through everything, even if it might seem unnecessary. So it’s no surprise to see Volkswagen integrating ChatGPT into its IDA voice assistant. Leveraging large language models (LLMs), you'll be able to talk to your car with natural language, like Michael Knight did with his car KITT in Knight Rider, as opposed to commanding a voice assistant like it’s some robot serf. As AI makes its way into every computer we own, we'll look back in the distant future at this integration and chuckle at how tame it was.
5. Xreal Air 2 Ultra and Asus AirVision M1 Smart Glasses
Xreal, Asus
In about three weeks, we'll find out whether Apple Vision Pro really is the start of the “spatial computing” era. Even if it isn’t, we feel confident that video glasses such as Xreal’s Air 2 Ultra and Asus’ AirVision M1 that offer multiple high-res virtual screens are here to stay. They’re also more nails in the coffin for physical TV and monitor screens. We’re starting to think physical screens might not have many years left in this world.
4. Samsung Micro-LED and LG OLED T Transparent TVs
Ethan Miller/Getty Images News/Getty Images, LG
If folding TVs don’t become mainstream (the C Seed N1 is $200,000), we could settle for transparent TVs. Both Samsung's Transparent Micro LED TV and LG’s OLED T tout holographic-like visual experiences. The idea is the same as any folding or rollable TV — fully or partially hiding it so your home can look more like photos featured in an interior design magazine. Transparent TVs are still 2D for now, but give them a few years, and maybe they’ll be capable of 3D holograms.
3. Segway Xyber and Xafari E-Bikes
Segway Xyber and Xafari e-bikes announced at CES 2024
Are these e-bikes or e-motorcycles? Both? Now that the e-bike revolution is well on its way, e-bikes like Segway’s Xyber and Xafari will blur the lines between what requires and doesn't require a motorcycle license. Honestly, we're all for beefier e-bikes with motorcycle-like builds, suspension, speed, and range. We’re also into the Cybertruck-like aesthetic.
2. Razer Project Esther Haptics Gaming Cushion
Razer
Video games have been chasing immersion since Pong, and while the term can mean many things (more realistic graphics, controls, and in-game physics), tactile feedback is one that always comes up. Razer’s Project Esther is a cushion for gaming chairs with 16 “Sensa HD” vibration actuators. The idea is that you can feel the action of a game around your body instead of only on your controller. You can think of Project Esther as a mini version of the 4D movie theater experiences that vibrate your chair. Do we want to feel like we've been shot in the back? Razer thinks so, or its designers have watched Ready Player One too many times.
1. Rabbit R1 AI Pocket Companion
Rabbit
AI, specifically generative AI through ChatGPT and chatbots and “copilots” that make use of LLMs took the world by storm in 2023. This year, the AI hardware arrives. Leading the pack is Rabbit’s R1, a $199 “pocket companion” designed by Teenage Engineering that doesn't just understand what it “sees” through its rotating camera and “hears” via its two far-field microphones, but can take actions on them on your behalf. Essentially, the R1 will control your apps and services instead of you having to tap and click your way through. Having pre-sold over 30,000 units since its announcement, maybe Rabbit is on to something here; maybe it’s really time we move away from apps and let AI do repetitive computing for us.
The Soviet Union’s fall and the subsequent end of the Cold War forced a reexamination of spending priorities. No longer were defense projects simply handed a blank check. The F-22's production was eventually halted.
Story by Harrison Kass
The Cold War competition with the Soviet Union inspired the United States to invest heavily in defense. Partially realism, partially paranoia, the Cold War atmosphere resulted in impressive military developments including, but not limited to, intercontinental ballistic missiles, stealth aircraft, fourth-generation tanks, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and the Apollo moon missions. The realm of aerospace, in particular, saw bounding progress, as the Soviets and Americans spurned one another onward.
The Americans, feeling pressure from the consistently competent Soviet aerospace designers, Sukhoi and Migoyan, initiated the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in the late 1980s to develop a fighter that would be unmatched. The ATF fighter would become the world’s first fifth-generation fighter, a technological marvel that was nearly a generation ahead of its time: the F-22 Raptor.
No Expenses Spared
Creating the world’s first fifth-generation fighter was neither easy nor cheap. But the Cold War climate inspired heavy defense spending; the primary motivation for the ATF program would be fielding a competitive aircraft, regardless of the costs—which is the attitude that would be needed to craft technologies that the world had never seen before.
The Americans succeeded. The F-22 was remarkable, “a foray into the future where no one had gone before,” wrote engineer and pilot Patrick Bindner. “While it is almost everyday stuff now—it was nothing less than Star-Wars hardware in comparison with existing equipment at both [Lockheed Martin] & the USAF [who] were learning how to do it as they went along that pathway. It was a piece of extreme exotica using cost-is-no-object engineering & materials. It looks like an airplane but it was the very first full-on stealth fighter.”
The F-22 was so far ahead of its time that even today, three decades later, the jet remains unmatched with respect to air superiority.
Yet, despite being so capable, the F-22’s production was halted after less than 200 airframes were built.
End of an Era
The Soviet Union’s fall and the subsequent end of the Cold War forced a reexamination of spending priorities. No longer were defense projects simply handed a blank check. The Air Force entered a period of sequestration. The F-22's production was eventually halted. And soon, the mighty F-22 will be phased out of the Air Force entirely in favor of the sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter.
The NGAD has not been designed yet, so the jet’s production is still years away. But one thing seems sure: the designers won’t have the budget latitudes that the F-22 designers enjoyed; the NGAD program was recently paused over cost concerns. Still, the NGAD is expected to be a remarkable machine—it will have to be if it means to replace the F-22.
Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
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UFO-shaped clouds form over Queensland's Darling Downs as BOM predicts more rain
UFO-shaped clouds form over Queensland's Darling Downs as BOM predicts more rain
By Gemma Ferguson
By Janelle Miles
This shot was taken on the Darling Downs about 5:15 on Thursday morning.
(Supplied: Kylie Craig Menkins)
It looks like a UFO, or an alien ship, but these oddly-shaped clouds snapped by locals west of Brisbane on Thursday morning are an indicator of Queensland's wild weather.
Kylie Craig Menkins photographed the storm cell from Gowrie Junction, near Toowoomba on the Darling Downs, about 5am.
She jokingly captioned it with "aliens come down", but told the ABC the spectacular display made her day.
"It was absolutely beautiful," she said.
The weather phenomenon, pictured here from Yalangur Lilyvale Road, is known as shelf clouds.
(Supplied: Ken Manteit)
Ken Manteit also snapped photos of the other-worldly cloud formation from Yalangur Lilyvale Road looking towards Oakey.
"It was so weird," his wife Roxanne said.
Kevin Humphrey's photos of the storm cell at Glencoe, south-east of Oakey, were posted to social media with the caption "Spaceship at Glencoe".
"I thought it looked a bit UFOish," he said.
This shot from was taken about 5:30am, showing the "UFOish" clouds moving over the Darling Downs.
(Supplied: Kevin Humphrey)
Daniel Hayes from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said a "series of storms" over the Darling Downs on Thursday morning was what caused these "photogenic clouds".
"They can sometimes look quite weird in shape, and definitely look a bit like a UFO or a spaceship," he said.
What do they mean?
Mr Hayes said the phenomena — known as arcus or shelf clouds — was a sign to check your weather app for any active warnings.
While the clouds weren't necessarily a cause for concern, "the strength of the gust front is often what brings damaging winds".
"You'll often get that cool breeze come through ahead of a big thunderstorm during these summer periods," Mr Hayes said.
"That's cold air coming down, out of the storm itself, moving ahead of [it]."
The GreenAg Free Range poultry farm captured this shelf cloud forming at Cutella.
(Supplied: Bernie Lomax)
He said other types of clouds, like lenticular clouds, could also present in a unique shape — but this particular formation was generally associated with a thunderstorm.
"Through Queensland, you can get nice big storms [and] well-developed shelf clouds on these," Mr Hayes said.
Mr Hayes said while shelf clouds weren't uncommon, they were much more noticeable in isolated storm cells and areas with vast flat landscapes.
He explained arcus clouds formed along "the leading edge" of a storm, or the cell's "gust front".
He said shelf clouds were triggered when the cool air mixed with the warm, moist atmosphere near the ground and pushed upward.
"The bigger the storm, the more potential mixing there is, and the more potential strength to those downdrafts," Mr Hayes said.
He said the formation did not always need humid conditions, but dew point could indicate "what that available moisture is for storms to tap into".
What's the weather outlook?
Mr Hayes said similar weather was expected to continue over the weekend, with an inland trough moving through Queensland.
"We're expecting to see increasing showers and storms through the southern inland and south-east Queensland areas over the next few days," Mr Hayes said.
"There is the potential that we could see some more severe storms in that mix."
Brisbane could see more rain over the weekend.
(ABC News: Chris Gillette)
Damaging winds, large hail, and heavy rainfall were possible, with showers expected on Sunday but easing into next week.
"If [rain] falls very quickly, or we have slow-moving storms, we could have a flash flooding risk [and] some riverine responses," Mr Hayes said.
Meanwhile heatwave conditions were building in Queensland's west, with temperatures expected to push into the 40s over the weekend.
As clouds clear from the coast, the heat will move across into central and eastern Queensland.
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Could a new, fifth force of nature provide some answers to our biggest questions about dark matter and dark energy? We’re working on it.
The Standard Model is, for all intents and purposes, the supreme accomplishment of modern physics. It describes four forces of nature, a zoo of particles, and how they all interact. It is perhaps the most successful scientific theory of all time.
And it’s fantastically incomplete.
It turns out that the Standard Model is able to account for less than 5% of all the matter and energy in the cosmos. Another 25% or so is Dark Matter, an unknown kind of matter that is for all intents and purposes invisible. The rest is known as Dark Energy, a mysterious entity that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
One of the first things astronomers noticed when they first discovered dark matter and dark energy was their apparent similarity. Why in the world are the two dark components of our universe roughly the same strength? I know, 25% and 70% don’t sound very similar, but when it comes to astronomy – and especially cosmology – they’re basically the exact same number.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that they have about the same strength, and we’re overthinking it.
Or maybe it’s something else. Clever physicists have proposed connections within the “dark sector” of the universe, where dark matter and dark energy talk to each other. This would allow them to follow each other’s evolution, ensuring that they have roughly equal contributions to the energy budget of the universe for long periods of time.
To make them talk to each other, you need a force. But this force can’t be any of the known ones, otherwise dark matter and/or dark energy must also interact with normal matter, and we would have seen more directly evidence of them already.
So it has to be a new force, a fifth force of nature, completely different from electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. While ideas like this remain only in the realm of hypothesis, some of the ideas already have names.
One name is quintessence, the fifth essence of the universe. Another is dark photons, a particle that travels the cosmos like a photon but is, as its name suggests, dark.
To test these ideas we have to turn to the cosmos for answers. If a fifth force exists, it must be very subtle. Stronger manifestations of the fifth force have already been ruled out by observations of galaxy clusters, the expansion of the universe, and even the behaviors of neutron stars. So we have our work cut out for us – it will take a truly massive amount of data to tease out some signal that differs from expectations.
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Technicians recently integrated the payload – telescope, instrument carrier, and two instruments – for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in the big clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA/Chris Gunn
Scheduled for launch in 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is slowly being readied for operation. This week, NASA announced that they have started to joined the mission’s telescope, instrument carrier and instruments onto the spacecraft. Having completed the construction, they will now move to the testing phase where the instrument will be subjected to more tests. These will include exposure to electromagnetic radiation expected during launch along with vibration and thermal changes too. If it passes these tests, the new space telescope will be on the home straight.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is often referred to as the Roman Space Telescope. It’s been developed by NASA and was named after former chief astronomer Nance Grace Telescope. It has a mirror 2.4m in diameter so is similar in size to the Hubble Space Telescope but has a wider field of view. On board are instruments that enable it to explore exoplanets and the large scale structure of the universe. It will also investigate the nature of dark energy and try to understand more about the accelerated expansion of the universe through the study of gravitational lenses.
NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is now named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. Credits: NASA
It’s fitting that the telescope has been named after Roman who was a leading American astronomer and astrophysicist. She was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope so has often been called the ‘Mother of Hubble.’ She was born on 16 May 1925 and became one of the first female executives of NASA, including a role as Chief of Astronomy.
In a recent press release, NASA confirmed that a team of technicians have successfully integrated the telescope with instrument carrier, known as the Instrument Payload Assembly. Two instruments have been installed, the Coronagraph Instrument which will be used to block starlight to reveal and study exoplanets, the Optical Telescope Assembly and the Wide Field Instrument. The Wide Field Instrument is made up of 18 detectors that will give the telescope images with a field 100 times larger than Hubble’s but with the same resolution. I really can’t wait to see the images it produces. The whole assemble is now safely connected to the spacecraft that will take the observatory into its orbit.
This image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was taken on May 19, 2009 after deployment during Servicing Mission 4. NASA
Mark Clampin, acting Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said “With this incredible milestone, Roman remains on track for launch and we’re a big step closer to unveiling the comos as never before.”
Launch is a little way off but before then, the instrumentation will under its next testing phase. There has been a significant amount of testing so far but this next test phase is designed to to ensure the individual components operate when integrated. By subjecting it to simulated launch conditions, the tests will check that the vibrations will not cause problems, that the communications equipment won’t create electromagnetic interference and to check, across a range of conditions, that the optics and instrumentation can cope with the predicted thermal variations.
NASA engineers and technicians position the James Webb Space Telescope (inside a large tent) onto the shaker table used for vibration testing. Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
On completion of these tests, which are expected to last a few months, the aperture cover will be added to the outer barrel assembly with the solar panels soon after. Once this has been completed, the structure will be added to the spacecraft during autumn. To date though, all is going well with the testing and all is on track for launch no later than May 2027.
Real Alien Footage? James Fox Uncovers Astonishing Evidence from the Varginha UFO Incident
Real Alien Footage? James Fox Uncovers Astonishing Evidence from the Varginha UFO Incident
James Fox, a renowned filmmaker and UFO investigator, has spent decades delving into the mysteries surrounding UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters. His work, which includes documentaries like Moment of Contact and The Phenomenon, has consistently pushed the boundaries of what we know—or think we know—about UFOs and non-human intelligence. In one of his most compelling investigations, Fox revealed tantalizing details about the existence of footage capturing what may be a real alien being.
The Varginha Case: A Turning Point in UFO Research
One of the key events discussed by James Fox is the Varginha UFO incident in Brazil, which took place in 1996. According to multiple credible witnesses, a UFO crash occurred near the small town of Varginha. This incident reportedly involved the capture of extraterrestrial beings—one alive and one deceased—by Brazilian authorities, with subsequent involvement by U.S. officials.
Fox’s investigative journey into this case spanned over a decade. He spoke with military personnel, doctors, and local witnesses who had firsthand knowledge of the event. Their testimonies consistently pointed to a disturbing yet fascinating reality: a UFO crash had occurred, and alien beings were encountered and recovered. Among the evidence allegedly collected during this event was a piece of footage that could potentially show a real alien.
The Enigmatic Alien Footage
During his investigation, Fox learned of a video allegedly showing one of the recovered alien beings. This footage was reportedly recorded at the Humanitas Hospital in Varginha, where medical personnel had a close encounter with the entity. Witnesses, including doctors and nurses, provided compelling accounts of what they saw, describing the creature as having a frail, humanoid appearance, with large eyes and unusual features.
Fox and his team tracked down the source of this footage—a hard drive believed to contain the video. After a long and arduous journey, they obtained the hard drive. However, their excitement was short-lived. Despite extensive efforts to decrypt the drive, the video could not be located. This led Fox to conclude that the footage might still exist but remains inaccessible or deliberately hidden.
Eyewitness Testimonies Add Credibility
Throughout his career, Fox has emphasized the importance of eyewitness testimonies. In the case of the Varginha incident, these accounts have been remarkably consistent. Witnesses who were close to the events described:
The capture of the alien beings: Military and fire department personnel reportedly worked together to capture the entities.
Unusual behavior by authorities: Witnesses recounted seeing American officials at the scene, fueling speculation about international involvement.
Physical effects on witnesses: Those who handled the alien beings experienced strange health issues, further corroborating their stories.
These accounts, combined with the elusive nature of the alien footage, suggest that the Varginha case holds secrets yet to be fully uncovered.
The Bigger Picture: What This Means for UFO Research
Fox’s revelations raise profound questions about government secrecy, the nature of extraterrestrial life, and humanity’s place in the universe. The existence of alien footage, if proven, would mark one of the most significant discoveries in human history. However, its concealment underscores the challenges faced by investigators like Fox.
Despite skepticism and ridicule, Fox remains steadfast in his pursuit of the truth. His dedication to uncovering the Varginha story—and other UFO cases—has inspired a new generation of researchers and enthusiasts to continue the search for answers.
Conclusion: A Call for Transparency
The possibility of footage showing a real alien being is both thrilling and unsettling. James Fox’s work serves as a reminder that the UFO phenomenon is more than just lights in the sky; it encompasses tangible, real-world encounters with potential non-human intelligence. As governments and institutions begin to disclose more about UFOs, the hope remains that one day, the world may finally see the footage Fox and others have long pursued.
Until then, the Varginha case and its mysterious alien footage remain a pivotal chapter in the story of UFOs, urging us to keep asking questions and seeking the truth.
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A new video shows a human-shaped ‘robot’ escaping from a miniature jail by transforming itself into a liquid metal state and then slipping through the bars, evoking imagery from popular films like Terminator 2.
Eerily, just like the villain from the aforementioned movie, the robot used in the demonstration was also able to coalesce back into its original shape once it was free.
To accomplish a task right out of a science fiction movie, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong had to create an entirely new type of material that includes magnets and metal. Dubbed a “magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transitional machine,” the futuristic material was made by embedding magnetic particles into a base of gallium. The researchers chose gallium due to its low melting point of only 85.6 °F (or 29.8 °C).
You can see a video featuring this fascinating–and unusual–accomplishment below:
Magnetic Particles and Gallium are the secret ingredients in a Shape Shifting liquid metal robot
According to the researchers involved, the magnetic particles offer other benefits, too.
“The magnetic particles here have two roles,” explained senior author and mechanical engineer Carmel Majidi of Carnegie Mellon University. “One is that they make the material responsive to an alternating magnetic field, so you can, through induction, heat up the material and cause the phase change.”
Along with this unique heating ability that doesn’t require an outside heating source to change from a solid state to a liquid one, Majidi says the magnetic particles also give the robots the ability to move in response to the magnetic field. This is particularly significant since the primary function of any robot is the ability to move around and perform various functions.
“Giving robots the ability to switch between liquid and solid states endows them with more functionality,” says Chengfeng Pan, an engineer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong who led the study.
Liquid Metal Robot Passes a wide range of tests
To understand the limits of their new shape-shifting liquid metal robot, the researchers put it through a number of tests. This included using magnetic fields to make the robot jump over moats, climb walls, and even split itself into two smaller robots to move other objects around before coalescing back together.
“Now, we’re pushing this material system in more practical ways to solve some very specific medical and engineering problems,” said Pan.
To test some of those potential bio-medical applications, the team used the robot to remove a foreign object from a model of a human stomach and then deliver on-demand drugs to the same stomach.
“Future work should further explore how these robots could be used within a biomedical context,” said Majidi, “but much more study will be required to delve into how this could actually be used for drug delivery or for removing foreign objects.”
To show how it could help screw together parts in hard-to-reach places, the team melted some of the metal into the threaded screw socket and then allowed it to harden in place. They even used the conductive ability of their liquid metal robot to show how it could perform soldering tasks in extremely tight confines by melting into them and then re-hardening to perform its tasks.
Extreme Liquid Phase Allows For Sci-Fi Jailbreak
In the case of the video provided by researchers, the ability to change from a solid state to a liquid metal state allows the robot-shaped metal to escape a tiny prison. This is due to what the researchers describe as an “extremely liquid phase.” Other shape-shifting materials typically have a liquid phase that is much more viscous than the newly created material.
“What we’re showing are just one-off demonstrations, proofs of concept,” said Majidi.
Of course, the robot from the video wasn’t able to travel back in time or track down a tween-aged John Connor. But given its ability to shape-shift from a solid metal state to a liquid one and then back to a solid, it’s pretty much guaranteed that if the robot could talk, it would say, “I’ll be back!”
Christopher Plain is a novelist, comedian, and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on Twitter, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Real-Life T-1000? Watch This Liquid Metal Robot Escape Jail! #ai #robotics
Ten Mythical Creatures in Ancient Folklore from Around the World
Mythical creatures, legendary beasts, and supernatural, mystical, and god-like beings have fascinated us since ancient times. They have filled folklore, stories, songs, and works of art. Sometimes living animals or fossils have inspired these mythical creatures. From the powerful dragon to the soaring phoenix, these mythical creatures continue to thrill, terrify, entertain, and inspire us.
Some mythical creatures, such as the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, continue to be spotted and sought out. While the origins of such fabulous creatures are varied, and often disputed, they have played significant roles in human society, serving to stimulate the imagination and desire that is ingrained in human nature to experience more than this physical world. Whether they truly exist in physical form is indeed secondary to their existence in the minds of so many people throughout the world and history.
A Kraken, a giant mythical creature from Scandinavian folklore, attacking a ship.
According to Scandinavian mythology, the Kraken is a giant mythical sea creature, said to be 1 mile (1.61 km) long, that attacks ships and is so huge that its body could be mistaken for an island. It is first mentioned in the Örvar-Oddr, a 13th century Icelandic saga involving two sea monsters, the Hafgufa (sea mist) and the Lyngbakr (heather-back).
The Hafgufa is supposed to be a reference to the Kraken. The existence of the Kraken was even acknowledged in scientific texts, including the first edition of Systema Naturae [1735], a taxonomic classification of living organisms by the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus. Within this scientific work, Linnaeus classified the Kraken as a cephalopod, designating the scientific name Microcosmus marinus.
Although any mention of Kraken was omitted in later editions of the Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described the mythical creature in his later work, Fauna Suecica [1746], as a “unique monster” that “is said to inhabit the seas of Norway.” Accounts of the Kraken are believed by many historians to have originated from sightings of the giant squid, which can reach a staggering 59 feet (18 meters) in length.
Vikings carrying the head of Grendel, the beast that attacked the feasting hall in Beowulf.
Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem set in Scandinavia and cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature of all time. Dated between the 8th and early 11th century, the epic poem tells the story of Beowulf, a hero who comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, by defeating a beast known as Grendel who had been terrorizing the great mead hall built by Hroðgar and threatening the entire kingdom.
Archaeological research has verified that the great hall commissioned by Hroðgar did indeed exist, and was located in the country’s earliest royal capital, Lejre, 23 miles (37.01 km) west of modern Copenhagen. Whether Grendel (meaning quite literally “the destroyer”) originally existed in some less legendary form – perhaps symbolizing a malevolent spirit responsible for disease and death, or a particularly fierce-looking human enemy – is as yet unknown.
A Kappa water demon as shown in the “Bakemono no e” (meaning “Illustrations of Supernatural Creatures”), a Japanese handscroll depicting mythical creatures from circa 1700.
3. Kappa, the Japanese Mythical Creature Devouring Disobedient Children
In ancient Japanese folklore, the Kappa is a water demon that inhabits rivers and lakes and devours disobedient little children. The Kappa, a word meaning “river child,” is usually depicted with the body of a tortoise, a beak, and the limbs of a frog, and has a hole filled with water on top of his head. While they are primarily water creatures, they are believed to occasionally venture onto land.
According to legend, the head cavity must be kept wet when the Kappa ventures out of the water, or he will lose his powers. The Kappa is one of the most well-known folk legends in Japan and many believe the mythical creature to be real.
In fact, there are signs near some lakes in Japan warning people of their presence. However, others maintain it is much more likely that the legend of the Kappa is connected with sightings of the Japanese Giant Salamander, or hanzaki, which is known to be aggressive and to grab its prey with its powerful jaws.
The legendary Nian, one of the mythical creatures of Chinese folklore.
(Author supplied)
4. The Legend of Nian
According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called Nian, which had the body of a bull and the head of a lion. It was said to be a ferocious animal that lived in the mountains and hunted for a living. Towards the end of winter when there was nothing to eat, Nian would come on the first day of New Year to the villages to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers - especially children.
To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. The villagers would live in terror over the winter, but over time they learned that the ferocious Nian was afraid of three things: the color red, fire, and noise. So, when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. They also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian.
From then on, Nian never came to the villages again. According to legend, the mythical creature was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk, and Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount. After Nian was captured, there were huge celebrations and the ritual involved in banishing him was repeated the following year. These symbolic rituals were passed down from generation to generation and the custom of celebrating the New Year with firecrackers, noise, and the color red has persisted to this day.
A Naga statue at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Thailand.
The Naga is a legendary aquatic, serpentine creature that resides in oceans, rivers, lakes, or waterfalls. Nagas are said to have black scales and can grow to hundreds of feet in length. Nagas are traditionally worshipped as personifications of water deities and considered bringers of rain and clouds.
Nagas are guardians of temples and holy places. Most Kaliyatran believe that the superior God directs the actions of the Nagas, and these sea serpents are honored with many titles such as the Maharaja Sarpa and the “Naga who is God.” It is commonly believed that Nagas live in underground cities, are capable of speech, and can use their heavenly powers to control weather and assume humanoid form at will.
The female Piasa bird, is one of the mythical creatures of Native American mythology.
The legend of the Piasa bird dates back to long before European explorers came to North America. It has been traced to a band of Illiniwek Indians who lived along the Mississippi in the vicinity north of present-day Alton. This tribe, led by a chief named Owatoga, hunted and fished the valley and the river and lived a contented life until the so-called “great beast” came.
The mythical creature Piasa bird was described by French missionary priest Jacques Marquette in 1673 as follows: “it is as large as a calf, with horns like a roebuck, red eyes, a beard like a tiger and a frightful countenance. The face was something like that of a man, the body covered in scales, and the tail so long that it passed entirely around the body, over the head and between the legs, ending like a fish.”
As with the Illini tribes, there can be found traditions of similar large birds and dragons throughout the world. The Dakota tribe believed that thunder was a monstrous bird flying through the air and claimed that these birds were large enough to carry off human beings.
In the ancient Buddhist caves of India there can be found a number of carved and painted dragons that easily fit with the descriptions of Piasa. Some have questioned whether these mythical creatures could have been an ancient species of bird that actually existed. That so many cultures and groups of people separated by thousands of miles and years have similar tales of immense flying creatures is curious to say the least.
A modern depiction of the Menehune dwarves of Hawaiian mythology.
In Hawaiian mythology, the Menehune are said to be an ancient race of small-stature people who lived in Hawaii before settlers arrived from Polynesia. Many scholars attribute ancient structures found on the Hawaiian Islands to the Menehune. However, others have argued that the legends of the Menehune are a post-European contact mythology and that no such race existed.
The mythology of the Menehune is as old as the beginnings of Polynesian history. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found dams, fish-ponds, roads, and even temples - all said to have been built by the Menehune who were superb craftspeople. Some of these structures still exist and the highly-skilled craftsmanship is evident.
According to legend, each of these mythical creatures was a master of a certain craft and had one special function they accomplished with great precision and expertise. They would set out at dusk to build something in one night, and if this was not achieved, it would be abandoned. To date, no human skeletal remains of a physically small race of people have ever been found on Kaua’I or on any other Hawaiian Islands.
While this does not disprove that a race of small people existed, it does draw the truth behind the legend into question. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence, both archaeological and in the numerous legends passed down over generations, that suggests that there was indeed an ancient race of highly-skilled people who inhabited the Hawaiian islands long before the Polynesians arrived.
Cipactli is one of the mythical creatures from Aztec legends.
8. Cipactli, the Aztec Creator with an Insatiable Appetite
The Aztecs of Mexico held the belief that the Earth was created from the destruction of a large sea demon, created by and known to the gods as Cipactli. Cipactli was described in many fashions: a crocodile with toad and fish characteristics, a sea demon, or a monster. Regardless of the description, the Aztecs considered this asexual sea being as the source of the cosmos.
Cipactli’s appetite was insatiable and each joint of the mythical creature bore a mouth. As the gods began the process of creation, they soon realized that their other creations would fall into the void and be devoured by the demon, so they decided to destroy Cipactli. Tezcatlipoca lured the monster in and lost a foot to its insatiable appetite before the gods were able to defeat it.
Cipactli put up a fight, but in the end the gods prevailed. They pulled Cipactli’s body in four directions and freed the universe from it. Then Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl created the heavens and the Earth and everything therein from Cipactli’s body. The creature’s head became the thirteen heavens, its tail the underworld, and its midsection the Earth.
Griffins are ancient mythical creatures with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.
The griffin is a legendary mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the king of the birds, and the lion the ‘king of the beasts’, the griffin was perceived as a powerful and majestic creature.
During the Persian Empire, the griffin was seen as a protector from evil, witchcraft, and slander. While griffins are most common in the art and mythology of ancient Greece, there is evidence of representations of griffins in ancient Persia and ancient Egypt dating back to as early as the 4th millennium BC. On the island of Crete in Greece, archaeologists have uncovered depictions of griffins in frescoes in the Throne Room of the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos dating back to the 15th century BC.
The four mythical creatures of China; the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South.
(Author provided)
10. The Four Mythical Creatures of China
In ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky ecliptic was divided into four sections. Each of these sections contained seven mansions, and together they formed the 28 Mansions. The 28 Mansions may be considered to be equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy, although they reflect the movement of the Moon through a sidereal month rather than the Sun in a tropical year.
This enabled the ancient Chinese to mark the traveling positions of the Sun and the Moon, as well as to determine the time and seasons. Each section of the sky is assigned to a mythical creature, collectively known as the Four Symbols. These mythical creatures are the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South. Apart from their astronomical significance, each of the Four Symbols is surrounded by various mythological associations.
Top image: Mythical creatures from around the world include the legendary Griffin shown here.
A Stonehenge-Like Monument Has Been Mysteriously Moving for Thousands of Years
A Stonehenge-Like Monument Has Been Mysteriously Moving for Thousands of Years
Tim Newcomb
Mysterious ‘Stonehenge of the East’ Is MovingWikimedia Commons
Rujm el-Hiri, dubbed the “Stonehenge of the East” with a 492-foot diameter, has baffled experts since it was discovered in 1968.
A new study shows that the tectonic plates near the Sea of Galilee monument have moved every year for over 4,000 years, virtually eliminating the possibility the site was constructed as an astronomical observatory.
Theories over the impetus for the construction have found little in the way of real clues to back them up.
Rujm el-Hiri, an ancient labyrinth-style structure believed to be nearly 5,000 years old, has quite a few nicknames. It’s been called the Stonehenge of the East, the Levantine Stonehenge, and, coolest of all, the Wheel of Ghosts. For all those nicknames, however, there are just as many theories as to why the structure was ever built in the first place.
A new study published in the journal Remote Sensing looks to eliminate one popular idea. Rujm el-Hiri couldn’t have been an astronomical observatory, at least as we view it today. Why? Because the earth beneath it is moving.
Every year, the tectonic plates in the area around Golan Heights shift between 0.3 and 0.6 inches. That means Ruim el-Hiri, located about 10 miles east of the Sea of Galilee, has shifted 131 feet over the past 4,000 years, completely changing the alignment of the stone structure.
“The Rujm el-Hri site has rotated counterclockwise and shifted from its original location by tens of meters,” the authors write. “This means that the current orientation of the radial walls and entrances was not the same as 4000-2000 B.C., and the speculation that they were aligned with celestial bodies of the past are not supported.”
“Therefore,” they add, “Ruim el-Hiri was unlikely an observatory.”
First discovered in 1968, the site has yielded little in the way of clues to its purpose, even as archaeologists have searched the area for key hints. The site features a central stack of stones—dubbed a cairn—ringed by concentric circles of basalt stones and radial walls. With a diameter of 492 feet, the total circumference of the monument site stretches to about 1,640 feet.
Such a large site so intricately designed must have had a distinct—and likely important—purpose, experts believe. In addition to the (probably) untrue astronomical observatory, theories have ranged from a military fort to an an elaborate burial ground for a lauded figure from thousands of years ago.
The recent study notes that the “spatial distribution” in the sizes of the flower-like clusters of fencing, the potential burial ground may connect to other archaeological features suggesting “that they might serve diverse functions.”
“Most archaeological structures in the region were reused long after their original construction,” the study authors write. “This involved adding new features, building walls over older ones, and reshaping the landscape with new objects. Rujm el-Hiri is a prime example of such a complex sequence.”
When a 1998 study tied Rujm el-Hiri’s layout, including everything from entrances to measurements, to the Bronze Age sky, experts latched onto the site as a likely observatory. The new study shatters all that. “The tectonic blocks of northern Isreal have continually moved along an elliptical trajectory in a counterclockwise direction,” the authors write.
Until now, there perhaps hasn’t been a single person to have interacted with the monument in any way that was aware of how much it’s moved since first constructed.
So, the “Wheel of Ghosts” may be the most apropos descriptor we have, with the continual shifting of the site “challenging theories of the alignment of its walls with astronomical bodies and raising questions regarding its possible identification as an observatory.”
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A geophysical analysis of the area around Rujm el-Hiri.
(Khabarova et al., Remote Sensing, 2024)
"The geological structure of the Rujm el-Hiri's area has been shaped by the tectonic evolution of the region, leading to the rotation of blocks and, therefore, the migration of its location and the direction of the main entrance and the radial walls over time," write the researchers in their published paper.
(a) Geographic location of Rujm el-Hiri; (b) Aerial view; (c) Distance-height profile of the surrounding area relative to the northernmost point of the Sea of Galilee (vertical axis – altitude below/above sea level, in miles; horizontal axis – the distance in kilometers). The vertical line indicates the location of Rujm el-Hiri.
The stylish $300,000 Manta M4 offers space for one passenger and takes off from land and sea, but can only land in water.
The Manta M4 travels up to 65 miles per hour and weighs as much as a small jet ski.
The vehicle is steered using a joystick, allowing riders to soar up to 500 feet above the ground — about the height of two Statue of Liberty, or half the height of the Empire State Building.
Riders are protected by a glass hood, which will protect against wind speed and keep users safe from the craft's three propellers.
The craft gets 30 minutes of power with an electric battery or three hours using one of its hydrogen fuel cells.
Revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, founder David Simchon told DailyMail.com how his vehicle would surely be the next pleasure craft of the skies.
Only a model of the vehicle was shown, but the company, called SimTechLabs, says the full product will be unveiled at a boat show in Florida next month when it hits the market for the first time.
Pictured above is a model of the Manta M4, which will debut at a boat show in Florida next month
The device uses three propellers to take off from land or water, and can fly at 65mph for up to 30 minutes using its electric battery
Simchon said that users will not need a license due to the craft’s lightweight design that is at under 300lbs, meaning it is considered ultra-light, a point where the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not require users to have a license.
However, owners without a pilot's license will have to follow the FAA's regulations and airspace restrictions.
Manta M4 has a thermal onboard system to detect and warn of birds and other dangers in the air and a system emitting ultrasonic sounds to scare away sharks that may be lurking in the water beneath.
The base features a 360-degree camera, allowing riders to capture breathtaking views of the world below while they fly — or check the water below for any signs of rocks or sharks.
It also features eight ultrasonic sensors, 16 sonar disruptions sensors and four thermal cameras to capture scenes of its surroundings and avoid oncoming obstacles.
In a worst-case scenario of the craft losing power, it has three parachutes that will deploy to ensure a safe landing.
It is the second craft to be launched by SimTech labs after it launched a flying aircraft called the Icarus Project in 2024.
Flying aircraft and taxis — some autonomously operated — are expected to be routinely whizzing around US skies within the next few years, according to the FAA.
And it’s the same in the UK, where the Government says it expects them to be ‘routinely’ in operation by 2028.
Manta M4 has a thermal onboard system to detect and warn of birds and other dangers in the air and a system emitting ultrasonic sounds to scare away sharks that may be lurking in the water beneath
Developer SimTechLabs prices the craft at $300,000 for one. Ten are set to go on sale
The former head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Sergio Cecutta and who resigned in 2023, said at the time that one of his major achievements was fast-tracking progress to get electric airtaxis into the skies.
Another UFO-like craft was also revealed at CES — called the ‘Invo Moon’ — that could carry up to three passengers through US skies.
And Toyota debuted its Joby aircraft which is expected to go on sale later this Year.
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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.
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