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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
30-08-2025
Pentagon baffled by 8,000 mysterious UFO orbs hovering over US military bases
Pentagon baffled by 8,000 mysterious UFO orbs hovering over US military bases
An invasion of small metallic orbs has been spotted hovering over the US in recent years, leaving the Pentagon scrambling to identify these mysterious UFOs.
A new report from the crowdsourced platform Enigma, which allows people to report sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), reveals more than 8,000 sightings across the US between December 2022 and June 2025.
Among these, 422 reports specifically describe metallic orbs, with the majority observed between 1am and 4am near military installations in New York, California, and Arizona.
Eyewitnesses, including civilians, pilots, and military personnel, reported seeing the spheres hover silently before moving at extreme speeds, leaving no trace of their departure.
Some of the sightings have been captured on video or radar, though many remain unexplained.
'I was walking into work when I looked up and saw two metallic liquid-like objects hovering for about two minutes,' said one witness over Brooklyn's Fort Hamilton in June 2024.
Another in California described seeing a metallic orb above Los Angeles shortly after a squadron of planes flew by.
Military drone footage from the Middle east in 2022 revealed a metal sphere flying through the sky in broad daylight (circled in purple)
The crowdsourced platform Enigma reported that over 8,000 orbs have been seen over the US since December 2022
However, some cases have remained unsolved, reportedly due to a lack of data. Of the 757 UFO cases between May 2023 and June 2024 released in AARO's annual report, 21 cases were classified as unresolved sightings.
Although the Pentagon and civilian groups like the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) have also been cataloging these incidents, many have continued to baffle military officials, who have no way of explaining what was seen.
While the new report focused on the thousands of sightings in the US over the last three years, strange orbs have been documented all over the world, from Puerto Rico to the Middle East.
Moreover, these tiny craft have apparently been visiting our skies for decades, with pilots during World War II reporting similar orbs over the skies of Europe.
Enigma revealed that more than 360 'metallic orb' reports took place within a few miles of military bases here on US soil.
In three of those cases, witnesses revealed that the orbs got within five miles of Fort Hamilton in New York, Papago Military Reserve in Arizona, and Los Angeles Air Force Base on multiple occasions.
These mystery orb sightings include one shocking encounter revealed by Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of AARO, which was captured on a MQ-9 Reaper drone's camera in the Middle East in 2022.
Enigma revealed that witnesses spotted strange orbs flying above Fort Hamilton military base in New York multiple times
Even more close calls were documented around Los Angeles Air Force Base in California between 2022 and 2025
Kirkpatrick warned that if these videos didn't prove that aliens exist, then they're evidence that a rival foreign power could be 'doing stuff in our backyard.'
Some theories have suggested these orbs could be surveillance devices from foreign powers like China or Russia.
Government officials believed they might be advanced drones, due to their tremendous agility and ability to avoid radar, according to a 2022 report in the New York Times.
As for Enigma's report, many of the orb sightings have been concentrated in Texas and Florida.
In fact, visitors at Disney World's Epcot in Florida got an unexpected sight this month, when a glowing orb appeared over the amusement park.
After searching online and finding no information about drones or satellites in the area, Morgan Huelsman, digital director of The Bobby Bones Show, described the object as a 'UFO,' adding, 'definitely a UFO with aliens.'
The Enigma platform has also received sightings from all over the US, over critical infrastructure such as power plants, and over naval vessels at sea.
The Buga Sphere recovered in Colombia (pictured) remains one of the only pieces of physical evidence tied to metallic orb sightings worldwide
The 'Buga Sphere' has become a major topic of discussion among UFO researchers, with scientists claiming the object contains a maze of fiber-optic wires that suggest it can send and receive signals.
After striking a power line and crashing to the ground, the object also appeared to have somehow dehydrated the field it landed in, killing all the grass and soil where it touched down.
Scientists suggested this was proof that the object produced some kind of energy field, but researchers had not attempted to forcibly cut the object open so far. The sphere has since been taken to Mexico for further analysis.
However, UFO researcher Dr Julia Mossbridge from the University of San Diego is among the many who doubt the authenticity of the Buga Sphere, calling it a 'man-made art project.'
An interstellar object speeding through our Solar System has been spotted spewing a metal unlike anything seen in natural comets.
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile detected an unusual nickel plume from the object, known as 3I/ATLAS. Unlike natural comets, which always emit nickel alongside iron, 3I/ATLAS shows the metallic element without any detectable iron.
Harvard physicist Avi Loeb highlighted the anomaly described in a new study, noting that this nickel signature is a hallmark of industrial production of nickel alloys.
'Is this anomaly another clue for a possible technological origin of 3I/ATLAS?' Loeb wrote in a blog post.
'The paper suggests that chemical formation occurs through the nickel carbonyl channel, an extremely rare process in comets, but a standard technique in industrial nickel refining,' he added.
The new study, published by astrophysicists in Chile on Wednesday, found that 3I/ATLAS is shedding nickel at roughly five grams per second and cyanide at 20 grams per second, with both rising sharply as the object moves closer to the sun.
They hypothesized that nickel might be released from dust through gentle processes, such as sunlight, causing it to evaporate or breaking down small nickel-containing compounds.
A new study has revealed that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is releasing nickel without iron, an anomaly that a Harvard physicist said could hint at industrial or technological processes
Traditional comets are typically water-rich and release gases such as water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as they approach the sun.
They also emit nickel and iron together, as both elements are produced in the same cosmic processes, like supernova explosions.
3I/ATLAS, however, deviates sharply from this pattern by releasing nickel without any detectable iron.
Additionally, both nickel and cyanide emissions rise steeply as it approaches the sun, unlike the more gradual outgassing seen in normal comets.
NASA also released new observations of 3I/ATLAS this week, taken by SPHEREx and the James Webb Space Telescope, showing that its gas plume is dominated by carbon dioxide and only five percent water.
'These results add to the chemical anomalies implied by the SPHEREx space observatory and Webb space telescope [are] very different from an expected water-rich comet,' Loeb shared in a blog post.
'The idea that the nucleus is much smaller than the 29-mile diameter inferred from the 1-micron data collected by SPHEREx requires a dense coma of dust to reflect nearly all the sunlight from 3I/ATLAS.
NASA's James Webb captured its first look at the interstellar object this month, showing it is not 12 miles in diameter as originally thought. It's closer to 1.7 miles long
'In that case, the dust would be pushed by solar radiation pressure to trail the nucleus, forming a prominent cometary tail.'
Loeb added that observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope failed to identify a cometary tail.
The object was first identified in July 2025 by the ATLAS telescope network, which searches for objects that might hit Earth.
Earlier images taken by the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile had unknowingly photographed the object, but no one realized it was there at the time.
Until now, 3I/ATLAS has been a total mystery, as early scans suggested the object was larger than anything that had ever passed through the solar system, and might even be generating its own light.
These characteristics have led Loeb to suggest other possibilities, such that 3I/ATLAS is an artificial craft developed by an extraterrestrial civilization.
The idea has been dismissed by many scientists, including Chris Lintott, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, who said Loeb's theory is 'nonsense on stilts,' calling it 'an insult to the exciting work going on to understand this object.'
It looks like a giant frying pan, or a crash-landed alien spaceship.
Whatever it is,Google Maps users are getting seriously freaked out after discovering this strange object in Antarctica.
The round entity, described as a 'UFO', is hiding under what seems to be a cliff about 90 miles from Antarctica's coast.
With no known origin, people are questioning whether this strange relic at the bottom of the Earth is man-made – or something not of this world.
One American ufologist suggested the object – almost Oreo-like in appearance – might be stuck under the rock.
Alternatively, it could be deliberately half-hidden – strategically-placed to make it difficult to spot – as it carries out a mysterious assignment.
Scott C. Waring, who runs the UFO Sightings Daily website, posted a YouTube clip of the sleek disc being found on Google Maps.
He said: 'The UFO is still there! Too hard to recover or still being used?'
Google Maps users are baffled after spotting a 'UFO' hiding under a cliff in Antarctica, which one ufologist suggested might be stuck under there
On Google Maps, the unusual structure can be located simply by entering the coordinates in the search bar – 66°16'24.5"S 100°59'03.5"E.
As users can see, it is around 45 miles from Mill Island, a domed ice-island 30 miles long and 18 miles wide, close to the Antarctic coast.
It is also about six miles away from the A. B. Dobrowolski Polar Station, an occasionally active Polish research base.
Intriguingly, the object seems to have a sliverish line going around the rim, which corresponds with traditional depictions of UFOs from pop culture.
But otherwise, it has a consistently uniform black colour, which very clearly contrasts with the jagged rock and snow surrounding it.
Although heavily pixelated, the image also reveals peculiar black lines stretching between the disc-shape and the adjacent rock.
Philip Mantle, a British UFO researcher, called the disc 'a new one for me', adding that he'd 'never seen it before', but declined to speculate on what it might be.
UFO stands for 'unidentified flying object' and so the term doesn't necessarily describe an object with an extraterrestrial origin.
Whatever it is, the mysterious Oreo-like object looks rather out of place among the natural geology of Antarctica
Based on clues from reported sightings, the typical UFO has a round shape, usually described as spherical or an orb, with lights emanating from it
What is the mystery object?
Social media commentators have been describing it as a crashed spaceship, a weather balloon or a secret base.
More realistic suggestions include an unusually symmetrical lake or pond, or some sort of geological formation.
Alternatively, it could be a bit of equipment related to a nearby Polish polar research station.
In his post on his UFO Sightings Daily website on Wednesday, Mr Waring said this UFO was discovered about two years ago, but in fact some people spotted it years earlier.
On Reddit four years ago, someone posted a screenshot with the caption: 'Any thoughts on the UFO “crash” site in Antarctica?'
The post received several interesting suggestions from users, who variously described the disk as a 'weather balloon', a 'Nazi base' and a 'pond of meltwater'.
One commentator said: 'If I had to ditch an advanced spacecraft on a populated planet, I would put it down on an unpopulated continent, and wait for rescue', while someone else joked: 'So that's where my giant pancake ended up after I threw it out the window...'
Another simply posted 'Antarctica got some weird stuff', while another said it 'looks ominous'.
Professor Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at the University of Newcastle, said that the feature is simply a 'small lake in a rock basin'.
'There is a small patch of snow and the warmer lake water has a lower albedo so it absorbs more solar radiation,' she told the Daily Mail.
'This is melting the snow, giving it the semi circular arc – not a UFO.'
The object seems to have a sliverish line going around the rim, which corresponds with traditional depictions of UFOs. Pictured, cover of the pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories from October 1957, featuring a UFO with lights around the rim
Visible on Google Maps, the unusual structure is stationed in a remote spot in Nevada, about 80 miles (130km) northwest of Las Vegas
Laura Gerrish, mapping specialist at the British Antarctic Survey, said: 'From the satellite imagery, this round feature looks like a small lake.
'This area is called the Bunger Hills, which is a largely ice-free region along the Knox Coast in Antarctica - and it has lots of small lakes and ponds.
'We see that the lakes often form these very smooth edges along the edge of the ice.'
It’s far from the first time that strange features located on Google Maps have gone viral.
Meanwhile, a 'doorway' spotted in Antarctica, just southeast of the Japanese-run Showa Station, sparked a similar wave of theories across the internet, with one describing it as 'bigfoot's vacation home'.
Have YOU seen one? The Pentagon reveals what the most commonly reported UFO looks like
Based on clues from reported sightings between 1996 and 2023, the typical UFO has a round shape, usually described as spherical or an orb, with a white or silver colour, often translucent.
It also has a size of between 3 and 13 feet (1 to 4 metres) and usually travels through the air at a height just below commercial passenger planes.
Most UFOs (28 per cent) have been sighted at altitudes of around 20,000 feet - just under commercial air traffic.
Around 10 per cent have been reported at just 5,000 feet - around eight times as tall as Seattle's Space Needle and three times as tall as New York's One World Tower.
Meanwhile, 16 per cent have been described as having lights.
UFO stands for 'unidentified flying object' and so the term doesn't necessarily describe an object with an extraterrestrial origin.
The discovery was made at Mendik Tepe, near Göbekli Tepe, the 12,000-year-old site known for its monumental stone pillars and early rituals.
Experts revealed this week that the newly uncovered structures likely predate Göbekli Tepe, placing them 7,000 years before Stonehenge and extending the timeline of organized settlements and monumental building beyond what scholars once thought.
The site, located in the rural Payamlı neighborhood of Şanlıurfa's Eyyübiye district, is part of a network of prehistoric settlements that are transforming our understanding of early human societies in the Fertile Crescent.
Unlike Göbekli Tepe, famous for its T-shaped pillars adorned with intricate carvings, Mendik Tepe features upright rectangular stones, suggesting a distinct architectural and cultural identity.
Since excavations began in 2024, the team has uncovered a range of oval-shaped structures, some with elaborate stone walls and fragments of decorated stone vessels.
These findings indicate a sophisticated society capable of complex construction and artistic expression.
Dr Necmi Karul, project coordinator, said: 'Mendik Tepe is an extremely important site for understanding the first settlers in the region.'
The team uncovered buildings used for food storage, dwellings and ritual spaces
The structures vary significantly in size and function, offering clues to the social organization of these ancient communities.
Smaller buildings, measuring a few feet across, may have served practical purposes such as storage or food preparation, while medium-sized structures could have been dwellings.
Larger buildings, some reaching 13 to 16 feet in height, feature meticulous stonework that suggests ritual or communal significance.
Professor Douglas Baird, leading the excavations, highlighted a large structure's stonework, noting it may have served a ritual or communal purpose.
Preliminary findings suggest Mendik Tepe may date to the earliest phases of the Neolithic period, potentially predating both Göbekli Tepe and Karahantepe, another nearby site known for its anthropomorphic pillars.
This chronology positions Mendik Tepe as a critical piece in understanding Neolithization, the process by which humans adopted agriculture and settled communities.
The Taş Tepeler Project, launched by Türkiye's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, encompasses a dozen Neolithic sites across Şanlıurfa, including Göbekli Tepe, Karahantepe, Çakmak Tepe, and Sayburç.
These sites, dating back approximately 11,500 years, are rewriting the history of human development by revealing evidence of monumental architecture, social institutions, and early plant cultivation.
Experts noted that the new structures may predate Göbekli Tepe and are likely at least 7,500 years older than Stonehenge, placing them at the very cusp of the Neolithic Revolution
Mendik Tepe's discoveries challenge earlier assumptions that Göbekli Tepe was primarily a ritual site, as its mix of domestic and ceremonial structures suggests a more complex settlement pattern.
The presence of cereal processing and water management systems at nearby sites further indicates that these communities were experimenting with proto-agriculture, a precursor to the agricultural revolution.
'This year, we will focus on understanding the functional differences between these structures,' Professor Baird told AA.
'Were the smaller ones for storage or food preparation? Were the larger ones residences or ritual spaces? These questions are key to unlocking the site's story.'
Geographically, Mendik Tepe is a hill with an elevation of approximately 3,346 feet, located in a sparsely vegetated region with a Mediterranean climate.
The site is considered a precursor to Göbekli Tepe, which features monumental round, oval, and rectangular megalithic structures built by hunter-gatherers during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, between 9,600 and 8,200 BCE.
The Göbekli Tepe site is the oldest man-made structure ever found.
It features T-shaped stones while the newly found sit was designed with smaller, rectangular stones
These monuments were likely associated with rituals, most probably of a funerary nature.
The distinctive T-shaped pillars, carved with depictions of wild animals, offer valuable insight into the lives and beliefs of people living in Upper Mesopotamia around 11,500 years ago.
Archaeologists recently identified the structures as an ancient calendar, making it the oldest in the world.
The findings suggested that ancient humans had accurate ways to keep time 10,000 years before it was documented in Ancient Greece in 150 BC.
The 2024 research also revealed carvings depicting a comet strike that triggered a 1,200-year mini ice age, leading to the extinction of large animals and spurring the development of agriculture and complex societies.
Experts said the memorialized event served as the defining moment that forced the ancient people to switch from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to more permanent settlements.
The site features several stone pillars, and after a recent analysis, researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland concluded that one structure was carved to be a calendar.
In 2024, researchers found that Göbekli Tepe was constructed to be a calendar
The pillar featured a 'V' symbol to represent a single day, which the team found 365 etched throughout.
The structure also included 12 lunar months with 11 additional days.
The pillar was divided into two sections with rows of 'V' symbols at the top and smaller box symbols in the lower main portion, which shows a bird holding a circular disc symbol above a scorpion.
According to the study, published in Time and Mind, the pillar features a disc that represents the sun and the scorpion is representative of the Greek Scorpion constellation.
The team also identified a tall bird bending down toward a wriggling snake, which could depict the autumnal constellation Ophiuchus.
The discovery has suggested that people recorded dates using precession, the wobble in Earth's axis which affects the movement of constellations across the sky.
The interior of Mars is not smooth and uniform, as depicted in the familiar illustrations in textbooks. New research shows that it is more like an uneven cake than a glazed cookie, as it is usually depicted. The reason for this is traces of ancient collisions.
Collision between Mars and an asteroid. Source: phys.org
InSight mission data
We often imagine rocky planets such as Earth and Mars as having a smooth, layered internal composition — with a crust, mantle, and core stacked on top of each other like the biscuit base, caramel center, and chocolate coating of a Millionaire’s Shortbread cookie. But the reality for Mars is somewhat less neat.
Seismic vibrations detected by NASA’s InSight mission revealed minor anomalies, prompting scientists from Imperial College London and other institutions to uncover a more chaotic reality: Mars’ mantle contains ancient fragments up to 4 km wide, preserved since its formation, like geological fossils.
History of Giant Collisions
Mars and other rocky planets formed about 4.5 billion years ago when dust and rocks orbiting the young Sun gradually coalesced under the influence of gravity.
When Mars was almost fully formed, giant objects the size of planets fell onto it as a result of a series of near-catastrophic collisions — the kind that probably also formed Earth’s moon.
“These colossal impacts released enough energy to melt large parts of the young planet, turning them into huge magma oceans,” said lead researcher Dr. Constantinos Charalambous from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Imperial College London. “When these magmatic oceans cooled and crystallized, they left behind pieces of material with an excellent composition — and we believe that this is what we are now discovering in the depths of Mars.”
These early impacts and their aftermath scattered and mixed fragments of the planet’s early crust and mantle — and possibly debris from fallen objects — into the molten inner core. As Mars slowly cooled, these chemically diverse chunks became stuck in the slowly stirring mantle, like ingredients added to a Rocky Road chocolate chip cookie mix, and the stirring was too weak to completely mix everything together.
Unlike Earth, where tectonic plates constantly reshape the crust and mantle, Mars closed early under a fixed outer crust, preserving its inner core as a geological time capsule.
Listening to Mars
The evidence comes from seismic data recorded by NASA’s InSight lander, specifically from eight particularly clear Martian quakes, including two caused by two recent meteorite impacts that left craters 150 meters wide on the surface of Mars.
InSight detects seismic waves passing through the mantle, and scientists were able to see that higher-frequency waves took longer to reach its sensors from the impact site. These signs of interference, they say, indicate that the interior of the planet is rough rather than smooth.
“These signals showed clear signs of interference as they traveled through Mars’s deep interior,” said Dr. Charalambous. “That’s consistent with a mantle full of structures of different compositional origins—leftovers from Mars’s early days.”
Differences between the geological structure of Mars and Earth
By comparison, the Earth’s crust is constantly shifting slowly and recycling material from the surface into the mantle of our planet — on tectonic plates such as the Cascadia subduction zone, where part of the plates forming the bottom of the Pacific Ocean are subducting beneath the North American continental plate.
The debris found in the mantle of Mars has a striking shape: several large fragments — up to 4 km wide — are surrounded by many smaller ones. Scientists have discovered that the so-called “fractal distribution” of debris in the mantle of Mars occurs when the energy of a catastrophic collision exceeds the strength of the object. In this case, the object breaks into several large fragments and a large number of smaller pieces, as, for example, when a meteorite falls on a planet.
This discovery may be significant for our understanding of how other rocky planets, such as Venus and Mercury, have evolved over billions of years. This new discovery of Mars’ preserved interior composition provides a rare opportunity to glimpse what may lie beneath the surface of immobile worlds.
SpaceX has released high-resolution photos and videos taken in the Indian Ocean. They show the moment the Starship spacecraft splashed down.
Starship spacecraft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Source: SpaceX
Starship was launched on August 27 from Starbase in Texas. Unlike previous tests, which ended in accidents, this time the super-heavy rocket performed at its best. The Super Heavy booster successfully completed its mission, then separated from the spacecraft and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America. During the descent, SpaceX conducted a series of tests with it, including an experiment to shut down one of the engines and replace it with a backup.
As for Starship, it was launched into a suborbital trajectory. During the flight, the spacecraft deployed eight full-scale Starlink satellite simulators. Despite some “glitches,” such as collisions between models and the gateway during unloading, this stage was completed successfully.
The decisive test for Starship was its entry into the atmosphere. SpaceX specialists deliberately removed a number of heat shield tiles from the most vulnerable parts of the spacecraft to test what damage it would sustain and whether it would be able to survive landing. In addition, in the 47th minute of flight, a mysterious explosion occurred in the engine compartment, damaging the Starship.
Despite all these problems, Starship showed remarkable resilience and managed to splashdown at the designated point, where the SpaceX buoy was located. The images it took show that passing through the atmosphere caused a change in the color of the spacecraft’s heat shield, which appeared to have “rusted.”
Starship spacecraft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Source: SpaceX
The photographs also clearly show dark marks where Space engineers removed heat shield tiles and damage to the back skirt and flaps caused by the explosion. And what seems even more incredible is that, despite everything, the spacecraft was able to perform a rollover and landing maneuver that placed it approximately 3 meters from its target splashdown point.
The Universe is challenging us once again. Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, traveling through the galaxy, is currently passing through our Solar System and continues to surprise scientists. The new data only deepens the mystery of its origin, fueling scientific debate about whether we are dealing with a natural phenomenon or the creation of another civilization.
Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS through the “eyes” of Copilot artificial intelligence
Pure nickel in 3I/ATLAS
The latest research using the powerful Very Large Telescope has discovered another strange anomaly. In the gas trail surrounding 3I/ATLAS, scientists found pure nickel — without the usual iron impurities found in nature. This phenomenon is extremely unusual for comets, as these two elements are usually formed together during supernova explosions and travel through space together.
However, pure nickel is a familiar phenomenon in terrestrial metallurgy, where it is obtained through refining. Although there is a rare natural explanation involving nickel carbonyls, the artificial technological process seems much more plausible. This raises a key question: is this object a product of space manufacturing?
A chain of strange anomalies
The discovery of nickel is not the only thing that surprises scientists. Previously, the SPHEREx and Webb space observatories showed that the object’s gas trail consisted of 95% CO2 and only 5% water. For a normal comet, this is a paradoxical ratio.
Photograph of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS taken by the Hubble Telescope. Source: NASA/astrafoxen
Furthermore, Hubble’s observations did not reveal a classic comet tail that would extend under the pressure of sunlight. This means that either the core of the object is incredibly massive — a million times larger than the previous interstellar visitor, 2I/Borisov. Or the surface of the interstellar traveler has unusual properties that prevent the formation of a tail. Its trajectory, perfectly aligned with the plane of the planets’ orbits, also raises suspicions that someone deliberately launched it into the inner part of our system.
Crucial observations of the future
October 3, 2025, will be a decisive moment: 3I/ATLAS will pass 29 million km from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This will enable us to obtain images with sufficient resolution to finally determine the size and shape of its nucleus with certainty, separating it from a possible dust coma.
Nobel Prize winner David Gross suggested going even further and pointing radio telescopes at the object. The goal is to try to record any technological radio signals that may be coming from it. After a century of our own radio transmissions into space, we may finally have an answer.
On the edge of fiction and science
Some eagerly await confirmation of the object’s artificial origin, seeing it as an opportunity for humanity to unite for a common cause. Others hope that it is just a strange but perfectly natural comet, and that its properties are simply characteristic of an object from another star system. However, everyone agrees: 3I/ATLAS is already forcing us to take a fresh look at space and our place in it.
The discovery of such an object, regardless of its nature, gives us a sense of cosmic humility. It reminds us that we may not be the only intelligent beings in the Universe, and that our technologies, including artificial intelligence, may be only the first steps on a long path of development.
Alien tech? 3I/ATLAS appears to have an electroplated shell
Alien tech? 3I/ATLAS appears to have an electroplated shell
On July 1, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) station at Río Hurtado, Chile, detected something extraordinary: a fast-moving object flagged with the provisional designation A11pl3Z, later named 3I/ATLAS, also cataloged as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS).
At first glance, it was classified as a comet. But almost immediately, astronomers realized that this visitor was anything but ordinary.
3I/ATLAS imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRSpec on 6 August 2025.
Why 3I/ATLAS is different.
Interstellar Origins Like ʻOumuamua (1I/2017 U1) and Borisov (2I/2019 Q4) before it, 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object to enter our solar system. Its steep hyperbolic orbit—with an eccentricity greater than 1.02—proves it is not gravitationally bound to the Sun.
A Composition Unlike Any Comet Most comets are rich in water ice. Not 3I/ATLAS. Spectroscopic analysis from both the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) revealed it is dominated by carbon dioxide with one of the highest CO₂-to-water ratios ever measured. This makes it chemically alien compared to the comets that formed in our own solar system.
A Tail That Breaks the Rules Comets typically sprout tails pointing away from the Sun, driven by sublimating ice. 3I/ATLAS, however, displays a dust plume angled toward the Sun—a tail in the “wrong” direction. This phenomenon has never been observed in a natural comet and suggests either unusual physics or engineered behavior.
Perfectly Aligned Trajectory Instead of cutting randomly across the solar system, 3I/ATLAS travels almost exactly along the ecliptic plane, the flat orbital path where Earth, Mars, and most of the planets reside. Statistically, the odds of a random interstellar object aligning this precisely are less than 0.005%.
Unexplained Acceleration Data from radar tracking and JWST confirm subtle but persistent non-gravitational acceleration. Normally, such changes are explained by outgassing jets. Yet Webb detects no coma, no jets, no thermal signature to explain the push. Instead, the acceleration resembles controlled propulsion, similar to how an ion engine expels dust or gas for thrust.
Forward-Facing Glow: Instead of a tail behind it, 3I/ATLAS shines with a glow ahead of its motion, almost as if it were illuminating its path.
Stabilized Rotation: Unlike natural tumbling comets, it appears to maintain attitude control, consistent with artificial stabilization.
Speculations of nuclear propulsion: Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, already known for his bold ʻOumuamua interpretations, has highlighted its non-gravitational acceleration and trajectory. He even speculated that 3I/ATLAS might be nuclear-powered technology, perhaps venting dust as thrust.
3I/ATLAS will not simply zip past and leave. Its calculated path takes it past several key planets: Venus flyby – August 2025
Mars encounter – September 2025
Jupiter flyby – late 2026
Tilted view of 3I/ATLAS's trajectory through the Solar System, with orbits and positions of planets shown. Such a sequence of planetary passes looks less like coincidence and more like a deliberate survey trajectory.
Finally, on October 30, 2025, the object will reach perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. Crucially, at that moment it will be hidden directly behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective, a perfect opportunity for a stealth maneuver if it is indeed under intelligent control.
10. And the latest news on this object is that 3I/ATLAS shows signs of alien electroplating. Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have detected something never before seen in a natural comet, a plume of pure nickel gas, laced with cyanide, but completely lacking iron.
This is not how comets behave. In every known case, nickel and iron are paired together in space rocks, asteroids, and cosmic debris. The absence of iron in 3I/ATLAS makes it impossible to explain through natural processes.
The nickel-cyanide combination looks eerily familiar to something we know from human technology: nickel-cyanide electroplating. This industrial process is used to coat and protect metals like iron, creating a corrosion-resistant shell. When heated, such a coating releases nickel vapor and cyanide gas, the exact chemical fingerprint astronomers now see venting from 3I/ATLAS.
Renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb has already highlighted this bizarre discovery, stressing that the nickel-only signature matches industrial alloy production rather than anything we’d expect from natural comet chemistry.
Pure nickel without iron: impossible in natural comets.
Artificial signature: hallmark of industrial processes.
Putting it all together, so far:
It is an interstellar visitor on a hyperbolic escape path.
It has a carbon dioxide–dominated composition, nearly devoid of water.
It has a dust plume points toward the Sun, breaking cometary rules.
It has a trajectory which is perfectly aligned with the ecliptic plane.
It shows mysterious acceleration without visible outgassing.
It exhibits a forward glow, possible radio emissions, and signs of stabilization.
It will perform planetary flybys. It probably has nuclear propulsion.
It has an electroplated shell.
Mainstream astronomers remain cautious, still labeling 3I/ATLAS as a comet, but with mounting evidence, we may be staring at the first tangible proof of alien technology crossing our solar system, a probe from another civilization on a reconnaissance mission, silently mapping habitable worlds before making contact.
In mid-2014, during training flights off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, F/A-18 pilot and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves began to notice something strange. The radar returns looked off—phantom blips moving with unfathomable speed and precision. At first he dismissed it as a glitch. But then the anomalies returned, recorded by the fighter jets’ sophisticated sensors. They would hover in place—and then dart away at supersonic speeds. They were recorded from the ocean’s surface to 40,000 feet.
“Sometimes stationary—0.0 Mach. Other times 250 to 350 knots . . .. Sometimes even supersonic—1.1 to 1.2 Mach. All altitudes. And always over the ocean,” Graves says.
After appearing only as glitches on the jets’ radar, the objects on one occasion finally came into view. Graves reported seeing a dark gray or black cube inside a clear sphere, between five and 15 feet in diameter, coming within 50 feet of their jets. “That was the turning point,” Graves says. “We started treating it as a safety issue.”
Over the next year, Graves’s squadron recorded sightings of unidentified objects almost daily. Sometimes the objects flew in loose formations. Other times they traveled alone. They had no exhaust, no visible propulsion, no wings. Sometimes the object would rotate in place; others vanished when approached. As it turned out, pilots stationed off the West Coast—on missions aboard the USS Nimitz, the USS Princeton, and other carriers—had been experiencing similar things for years.
Some of these craft—now classified as UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena)—appeared to be capable of transmedium travel, meaning they are able to move from air to sea without slowing, splashing, or emitting heat. They challenged every assumption held by aerospace engineers and radar operators.
Graves doesn’t claim to know what the objects were. But one thing was clear. “This wasn’t business as usual,” he says. “There was a serious issue at play. It wasn’t just one rogue object. It wasn’t just us on the East Coast. It wasn’t just my squadron. It was a pattern. This was global.”
Since at least the 1950s, military sources have reported strange objects plunging into the ocean—what they call USOs (unidentified submerged objects). These phenomena exhibit characteristics that conflict with our understanding of physics and maritime navigation. As radar and similar technologies have advanced, so have the number of sightings.
Getty Images
Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace; David Grusch, former representative of the National Reconnaissance Office to the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force (now the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office); and retired Navy Commander David Fravor appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing on UAPs in 2023.
Today Graves is one of the most vocal advocates for UAP transparency. Now retired from the military, he’s the founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace, the largest UAP-focused pilot safety initiative in the world, and works with former Pentagon and naval officials to push for greater transparency. He doesn’t claim that these craft are alien, but he’s certain that they aren’t using known human tech. “Where that leaves us opens up options—extraterrestrial visitors, time travelers, breakaway civilizations . . . things that challenge the status quo and aren’t easily accepted at face value,” he says.
Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, PhD, an oceanographer, was one of the first to view footage from the UAP incidents in 2015 involving fighter jets attached to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which at the time was conducting training exercises off the coast of Florida. Two videos captured by Navy fighter jets that were made public in 2020 show strange craft flying at incredible speeds with no visible means of propulsion, sometimes rotating in midair. “I knew then that what I saw was not our technology. We don’t test experimental aircraft in training ranges—it’s too dangerous—and I had access to everything classified. No nation has craft that can move like that,” he says.
Gallaudet, now retired from the Navy and currently the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, is pushing for the U.S. government to treat these phenomena as a “national research priority.” Despite some public disclosures, many records remain classified, buried within defense contractor vaults or shielded by national security exemptions. If even part of what’s been reported is true, then the encounters off Virginia, California, and elsewhere could be the opening chapter in a much deeper mystery—one that spans oceans, navies, and continents.
This spring, Graves and Gallaudet briefed officials in Washington, D.C., on unidentified submerged objects. “We’re at a unique moment in history,” Graves says. “People have access to tools that can reveal things. The momentum is building.”
That momentum has already begun reshaping policy. In 2023, Congress passed the UAP Disclosure Act, legislation requiring federal agencies to collect, catalog, and disclose records related to recovered nonhuman craft and biologics. For the first time, U.S. law openly acknowledged the potential existence of off-world or nonhuman intelligence, and even hinted at craft retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
Those newly released records contain a trove of details on previously classified encounters with multiple transmedium UAPs. None definitively prove that otherworldly beings are hiding in or above our oceans, but they do raise questions that neither our military nor scientific experts can explain.
“The possibility that they exist underwater is very real,” Gallaudet says. “They could come from another galaxy, if they’ve conquered the engineering challenge of that,” he says. “Or why not—maybe they lived here for a long time, before we even evolved, and sought safety from the Earth’s atmospheric and geologic cataclysms by creating a habitat or place to live beneath the seafloor. . .. That’s one hypothesis.”
The following four incidents have provided investigators with the most compelling—and perplexing—evidence so far of transmedium encounters with what experts like Gallaudet believe could be nonhuman in origin.
In 2004, F/A-18 Hornet pilots assigned to the USS Nimitz captured images of a UAP using their jet’s Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system.
USS Nimitz, 2004
In November 2004, several U.S. Navy pilots assigned to the USS Nimitz encountered a Tic Tac–shaped UAP darting and dashing over the Pacific. According to reports that followed, the object lacked visible control surfaces and heat signatures that would be typical of jet aircraft or rockets. It never made a sonic boom, although it appeared to be traveling faster than the speed of sound.
The incident began when the USS Princeton, a guided-missile cruiser escorting the Nimitz off the coast of San Diego, picked up strange radar contacts. The objects appeared at 80,000 feet, and then dropped to sea level in less than a second. F/A-18 Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight scrambled to intercept the object. Each man claims to have seen a smooth, white oblong object around 30 to 40 feet long, with no wings, no windows, no markings. It hung in the air just over the sea.
As Fravor circled downward, the object suddenly shot away, vanishing in seconds. “It just disappeared. Like a bullet out of a gun,” Fravor told Fox News.
The strike group dispatched a second flight. This time the object was captured on an infrared camera showing a white speck flying against the wind, rotating and maneuvering in ways no known aircraft can.
An infrared sensor onboard a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft captured footage of a UAP over Rafael Hernández Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 2013
One of the most hotly debated encounters of an unidentified submerged object came in April 2013, when an infrared surveillance camera operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection captured something extraordinary over Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. A small spherical object flew inland from the ocean, crossed the airport, and then returned to sea—where it maneuvered in ways that appeared to defy physics.
The three-minute video, published by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, has become a key piece of evidence suggesting the possibility of transmedium travel. It shows the object entering the water without slowing down—no splash, no wake, no disruption. Seconds later it resurfaces, splits in two, and then submerges again. Any object passing between two mediums should generate drag or turbulence or, at the very least, a splash, according to the laws of hydrodynamics. But this one behaved as if those laws didn’t apply.
“It’s not that they break the laws,” Gallaudet says. “It’s that they demonstrate engineering capabilities we haven’t yet developed. We can’t build anything that can do that today.”
“I’ve spoken with the pilots who saw it,” he adds. “The near-instantaneous acceleration of that craft is something we just can’t engineer.”
A pilot of a U.S. Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter, like the one shown above, reportedly encounted a UAP while flying off the coast of Puerto Rico.
Caribbean Sea, Unspecified date
In the 1990s, a Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion pilot was flying off the coast of Puerto Rico when he saw something he couldn’t explain. His crew, on a routine mission to retrieve a BQM target drone that had previously been dropped into the ocean, had sent a diver into the water to connect the drone to the helicopter’s hoist system. But just before the helo was about to lift the 20-foot-long drone out of the sea, something pulled it violently downward. The pilot, whose name has not been disclosed, would later report that the object was a large, dark mass unlike any submarine or marine animal he’d ever seen.
After F/A-18 Commander David Fravor went public with the previous incident he witnessed flying off the USS Nimitz, he says the Sea Stallion pilot contacted him to relay the story. Fravor then shared details on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2019.
“The helo drops a swimmer in the water, he hooks the whole thing up, and they fly back,” Fravor said. “The first time they were out and they were going to pick up a BQM, he’s sitting in the front—in the CH-53 you can see down by your feet—and as he’s looking down, they’re 50 feet above the water, he sees this kind of dark mass coming up from the depths.”
As the pilot picked up the BQM, he was apparently at a loss for words. “He’s looking at this thing going, ‘What the hell is that?’ And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the BQM out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”
A video frame from 2019 footage taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship off San Diego shows an unidentified spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean.
USS Omaha, 2019
It began as a blip. In July 2019, an infrared camera aboard the USS Omaha captured something that defied explanation: a spherical object moving swiftly over the Pacific before dropping into the ocean—again, no splash, no wake, no debris. The footage, later verified by Pentagon officials, stunned observers. The object didn’t resemble any known drone, missile, or aircraft. And its disappearance beneath the waves raised new questions about transmedium tech.
In the incident, the crew of the Omaha (which was also sailing off the San Diego coast) recorded a spherical UAP hovering just over the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The ship’s sensor that caught the object was the sophisticated AN/KAX-2—a stabilized sensor turret built for maritime environments that includes a digital video camera, night vision camera, and laser rangefinder.
The video shows a recording of the AN/KAX-2 screen and appears to have been taken with a night vision camera. The object seemingly moves, tracked by the sensor operator, and then hovers just above the ocean’s surface. Then the object disappears.
A video frame from 2019 footage taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship off San Diego shows an unidentified spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean.
A pilot of a U.S. Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter, like the one shown above, reportedly encounted a UAP while flying off the coast of Puerto Rico.
An infrared sensor onboard a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft captured footage of a UAP over Rafael Hernández Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
Getty Images
“It looked nothing like any known aircraft,” Gallaudet says. “After I testified before Congress last year, a sailor who had been on the bridge of the Omaha contacted me. He said the object was just one of many—and that he’d witnessed a similar event aboard the USS Jackson in 2023.”
Bermuda Triangle mystery cracked as new 'splashing in bathtub' theory revealed
Bermuda Triangle mystery cracked as new 'splashing in bathtub' theory revealed
Dr Simon Boxall says rogue waves, not UFOs, cause Bermuda Triangle vanishings, with wild currents and storms in the Florida-Puerto Rico-Bermuda region swallowing ships and planes.
Oceanographer Dr Simon Boxall from the University of Southampton reckons he's blown the lid off the infamous region
(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
For years the Bermuda triangle has been a source of head scratching, with the high number of disappearances and disasters in the region a cause of bafflement for boffins and internet conspiracists alike. But now one Oceanographer claims to have solved the mystery.
Oceanographer Dr Simon Boxall from the University of Southampton reckons he's blown the lid off the infamous region, blaming colossal ‘rogue waves’ for swallowing ships and crews whole.
Nestled between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda, theBermuda Trianglehas spooked sailors and aviators for over a century.
Countless ships and planes have vanished without a trace, fuelling wild theories of UFOs and paranormal forces. But Dr Boxall insists science holds the answers.
The Bermuda Triangle makes up around 1 million square miles of the Atlantic Ocean
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“It’s not some Poseidon Adventure-style mystery,” he told the Daily Mail. “It’s rogue waves, massive walls of water, up to 100 feet tall, formed in perfect storm conditions.”
First identified in the 1990s, rogue waves are freak crests that can snap a ship in half.
“Imagine a supertanker, 400 meters long, caught between two waves, one propping up the bow, another the stern. The middle’s left hanging with no support,” Boxall explained. “The ship just breaks.”
These waves form when storms collide, their waves amplifying into towering 20- or 30-meter beasts. “It’s like splashing in a bathtub,” he said.
Are you convinced by the rogue wave theory?
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“Waves combine, and you get a massive ‘plop’ - a rogue wave. ”The Triangle’s deadly reputation isn’t just down to waves, though. Boxall points to stormy weather, human error, and inexperience as key culprits.
He debunked the 1945 disappearance of Navy bombers, a poster child for Triangle mysteries, as a case of a cocky commander misreading his position.
“Radio messages showed his students warning they were off course, but he ignored them,” Boxall said. “They weren’t experienced, despite the myths.”
Stormy weather also plays a part
(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
Satellite tech now helps spot rogue waves, but Boxall stresses they don’t strike from calm seas. “No mariner would be out in those storms unless they were reckless,” he said.
While the public’s fascination with the Triangle fuels outlandish theories, most scientists dismiss it as a non-mystery. “There’s nothing there,” Boxall said, though he admits some enthusiasts reject his rational take. “People cling to myths, ignoring facts.”
Record-breaking images from the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, reveal a solar flare in unprecedented detail.
The Inouye Solar Telescope captured this image of a solar flare on August 8, 2024. (Image credit: NSF/NSO/AURA, CC-BY)
The world's largest solar telescope just captured the highest-resolution images of a solar flare to date — and they're spectacular.
Researchers trained the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on the final stages of a powerful X-class solar flare on Aug. 8, 2024, capturing detailed images of chaotic loops of plasma at the sun's surface. The observations could help scientists understand the mechanics of solar flares and improve predictions of future flares.
"This is the first time the Inouye Solar Telescope has ever observed an X-class flare," study coauthorCole Tamburri, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement. "These flares are among the most energetic events our star produces, and we were fortunate to catch this one under perfect observing conditions."
Solar flares are massive bursts of light emitted by the sun during solar storms. Twisting magnetic fields create large, bundled loops of plasma called arcades that extend into the corona — the hot, outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere. When the magnetic fields get so convoluted that they snap back into place (a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection), the sun blasts particles and energy in the form of solar flares into space. When aimed at Earth, energy from the flares can disrupt radio communications and spacecraft orbiting our planet.
But scientists don't know the size of the plasma loops that make up these arcades. Previous observations of the individual loops have been limited by the resolutions of older solar telescopes.
In a new study, published Aug. 25 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Tamburri and his colleagues collected high-resolution images of plasma loops in the last stages of a powerful solar flare using the Inouye's Visible Broadband Imager instrument. On average, the plasma loops spanned about 30 miles (48 kilometers) wide. But some were smaller, down to about 13 miles (21 km), which is about as small as the telescope can resolve.
"We're finally peering into the spatial scales we've been speculating about for years," Tamburri said in the statement. "This opens the door to studying not just their size, but their shapes, their evolution, and even the scales where magnetic reconnection — the engine behind flares — occurs."
According to the researchers, it's possible that the coronal loops observed here might be the building blocks of larger solar arcades. "If that's the case, we're not just resolving bundles of loops; we're resolving individual loops for the first time," Tamburri said in the statement. "It's like going from seeing a forest to suddenly seeing every single tree."
The new data on coronal loops could help scientists improve models of solar flares and better understand the magnetic field in the corona, the researchers wrote in the study.
"It's a landmark moment in solar science," Tamburri said. "We're finally seeing the sun at the scales it works on."
In episode #2368 with Michael Button, Rogan learned for the first time about this mysterious imprint, which has been believed to be 300 million years old for many years. The wheel is said to have been discovered in 2008 in a coal mine in the Donetsk, Rostov Region (as per Alexander Koltypin).
In 2008, a very unusual discovery was made inside the “Western” coal mine in Donetsk at a depth of about 900 meters below the surface. While miners were drilling through a coal layer called the J3 “Sukhodolsky” seam, they found what looked like the clear imprint of a wheel pressed into sandstone rock above the coal. Photographs and documents about this discovery were later sent to Alexander Koltypin by a mine foreman named S. Kasatkin, who worked there and personally visited the site several times.
The source of this story is Alexander Koltypin, a Russian geologist and researcher with a distinguished academic background, having graduated with honors from the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute and completed postgraduate work at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Koltypin received photos and documents about the imprint from S. Kasatkin, a mine foreman who personally visited the site multiple times. Kasatkin and others witnessed the imprint before the mine was abandoned and flooded, making further study impossible.
Credit: Alexander Koltypin
Koltypin explained that the exact age of the sandstone containing the imprint was never officially recorded, since mining engineers focus on coal extraction rather than geology. However, the Donetsk region is known for Carboniferous rocks dating between 360 and 300 million years old. Koltypin believes the imprint likely comes from this Middle Carboniferous period, which would make it at least 300 million years old.
According to Kasatkin, in 2008, he was working as a foreman in the Ventilation and Safety Engineering sector, which handled dangerous gas emissions. He insisted this discovery was not a publicity stunt; he is experienced in the coal industry and knew the weight of his words.
At the time, the miners and engineers wanted to call scientists to study the object properly, but the mine’s director forbade it. The director, likely following orders from the mine’s owners, did not want to delay production. Instead, he ordered the team to continue mining quickly through that section. As a result, the imprint remained underground, blocked by collapsed tunnels and later flooded when the mine was abandoned. This meant it was never properly studied.
Despite this, some miners secretly took photographs of the imprint before the area became inaccessible. Kasatkin says there were more than a dozen witnesses, including both engineers and workers, who saw the imprint with their own eyes.
Despite this, some miners secretly took photographs of the imprint before the area became inaccessible. Kasatkin says there were more than a dozen witnesses, including both engineers and workers, who saw the imprint with their own eyes.
There was even a second imprint of a smaller wheel found in another part of the same mine (lava tunnel 0406). Unfortunately, that one was partly destroyed during blasting. Kasatkin admits he visited that spot several times and could hardly believe it might be artificial, but he could not dismiss the idea either.
According to him, older miners in Donetsk often told stories of unusual fossil-like imprints being found in the area, such as gigantic snake shapes and bird-like creatures, maybe even resembling mythical winged reptiles. The Donetsk region is known for fossils, too; nearby schoolchildren once discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs in Cretaceous deposits. Those finds were confirmed by local archaeologists and even made into a school museum exhibit.
Back to the wheel imprint, Kasatkin explained that the wheel shape was not carved out because the sandstone was so tough. The miners tried using pick hammers to cut it free, but when they realized they might damage it, they left it in place. After the “Western” mine officially closed in 2009, the tunnels were dismantled, flooded, and sealed, making the imprint impossible to reach today.
Koltypin further mentioned that a paleontologist-anthropologist named Vyacheslav Valevsky from Odessa, examined photographs of the imprint. He concluded that there was no known fossil resembling it and therefore named it the “Kasatkin Object” after the man who reported it. He compared it with several fossils that sometimes have circular shapes, but he confirmed that none matched this particular discovery.
Below is a photo of fossils that were sent to Kasatkin by V. Valevsky. He told him that all of them are known to science as fossils of the kind of “wheel”:
In 2015, Koltypin also claimed that enigmatic groove-like markings in the Phrygian Valley of central Turkey were artificially made by all-terrain vehicles and not created by any natural process. (Source)
According to mainstream scholars, the Phrygia Valley is home to ancient tracks that have been dated to different historical eras. The oldest roads are believed to have been built during the Hittite Empire, around 1600 BC to 1178 BC. Over time, the Phrygians, Greeks, and Alexander the Great’s armies carved paths into the soft rock. These paths later became a part of the Roman road network, as noted by Culture Routes in Turkey.
The team has recently returned from the site in Anatolia/ancient carsCredit: Express
Note:The Phrygians were a civilization that existed in ancient Turkey and became prominent in the 8th century BC. They had a well-functioning state, as evidenced by 260 inscriptions found throughout their kingdom in Anatolia. Their capital city, Gordium, is located at the site of the modern city of Yassıhüyük, about 43 miles (70 km) southwest of Ankara.
The ancient track marks found in the Phrygian Valley have puzzled archaeologists for a long time, with explanations ranging from Phrygian carts to speculations about ancient alien vehicles. King Midas, described in Greek legends and Assyrian sources, is the most famous king of the Phrygians. According to stories, after his defeat in the battle by the Cimmerians, he committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood.
Koltypin and his team studied the rocky terrain with deep grooves and proposed that lightweight carts or chariots did not make those tracks, but instead heavy and huge unknown vehicles from an ancient civilization. He estimated that these tracks are around 14 million years old and posited that an unknown civilization created them.
Alexander Koltypin
It was discovered that the excavations of the ancient settlement of the Indians of this nation. At first, there was a version that it was a tomb, but as the excavation progressed, scientists discovered that these were ancient baths. The structure was made of limestone, and it has been well-preserved for several centuries.
“All these rocky fields were covered with the ruts left by millions of years ago… we are not talking about human beings. The methodology of specifying the age of volcanic rocks is very well studied and worked out,” Koltypin said.
Koltypin observed that the distance between each pair of tracks found in the area is consistent and matches the distance between the wheels of modern vehicles. However, the tracks are too deep for any modern car, which raises questions about the type of transportation that might have been used.
The deepest ruts are three feet (one meter) deep, and on the walls of these ruts, there are horizontal scratches that appear to have been left by the ends of axles that were poking out of ancient wheels. This suggests that the ancient wheels were wider than the ruts, which is a characteristic of an all-terrain vehicle that would have been able to navigate through rough terrain.
The fact that the tracks are so deep also implies that the vehicle was heavy and possibly used for transporting heavy loads. These observations raise more questions about the technology and capabilities of the civilization that created these tracks, and further research is needed to understand their origins.
Koltypin argued that the weight of large prehistoric vehicles created the deep channels found in the soil and rock. He also noted that later, the ruts and the surrounding area petrified, preserving the evidence. This phenomenon is known to geologists, as similar preservation is observed in the footprints of dinosaurs.
He acknowledged that his theories are controversial and is aware that mainstream academia may not want to address the subject matter as it could potentially challenge or “ruin” their established theories. “I think we are seeing the signs of the civilization that existed before the classic creation of this world. Maybe the creatures of that pre-civilization were not like modern human beings,” he proposed.
Other locations around the world, such as the Maltese archipelago, have similar mysterious tracks that continue to perplex researchers. Some of the strange tracks in Misrah Ghar il-Kbir are particularly intriguing as they appear to lead off cliffs or continue into the ocean. The origins and purpose of these tracks remain unknown. (Source)
How exactly did the universe start and how did these processes determine its formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Physical Review Research hopes to address as a team of researchers from Spain and Italy proposed a new model for the events that transpired immediately after the birth of the universe. This study has the potential to challenge longstanding theories regarding the exact processes that occurred at the beginning of the universe, along with how these processes have governed the formation and evolution of the universe.
For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate the beginning of the universe that challenge the longstanding theory that the universe began with a period of rapid expansion known as “inflation”, with scientists estimating this occurred within the first fraction of a second of the universe’s existence. However, this inflation theory postulates that several variables were all involved in making this theory possible.
In contrast, this new model suggests that a longstanding phenomenon of general relativity called gravitational waves are responsible for the universe and all its components, including galaxies, stars, planets, and life on Earth. The team proposes these gravitational waves are part of a longstanding mathematical model called De Sitter space, which is named after the Dutch mathematician Willem De Sitter, who worked with Albert Einstein regarding the universe’s structure throughout the 1920s.
“For decades, we have tried to understand the early moments of the Universe using models based on elements we have never observed”, said Dr. Raúl Jiménez, who studies experimental sciences & mathematics at ICREA in Spain and is a co-author on the study. “What makes this proposal exciting is its simplicity and verifiability. We are not adding speculative elements but rather demonstrating that gravity and quantum mechanics may be sufficient to explain how the structure of the cosmos came into being”.
First proposed in 1893 and 1905 by Oliver Heaviside and Henri Poincaré, respectively, gravitational waves received a huge boost in attention in 1916 when Albert Einstein proposed them to be ripples in the space-time continuum as part of his general theory or relativity. Despite myriads of sources, including supernovae, black holes, and neutron stars, gravitational waves are incredibly difficult to detect and require very sensitive instruments. This is potentially why gravitational waves were not detected until September 2015 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) observatory, which have locations in Washington and Louisiana.
The origin of the universe remains one of the biggest mysteries in science, as the Big Bang has long been theorized to have been the catalyst for the origin of the universe. Despite ongoing scientific breakthroughs and advancements, scientists remain puzzled regarding the origins of the universe, and especially what might have happened before the Big Bang.
Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
We may never know exactly how the universe began and the processes responsible for you reading this article right now. But like the simplicity this study presents, perhaps this study is simply a way for us to know the universe itself a little bit better.
What new discoveries about the origins of the universe will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
You know, I find a lot of interesting things here and there when looking into NASA photos and here is a thought provoking anomaly that needs further investigation into. I found two massive planet size spheres within our sun. Let me explain, the sun has dark spots, areas that open up from deep within our sun and reveals the inner workings of the sun. This revealed not one but two mini planets hiding with the sun. Certainly there are many more. I would estimate that there are 10+ planets of massive sizes within it. So, not only a few planets but an entire solar system within our sun. It's so complex an issue, so massive of a discovery and change that stands opposite to everything we have been taught...and yet...it's real.
Hollow Sun Theory is a theory I made a decade ago, but still talk about it now and then, when the evidence presents itself.
The exact location of ASASSN-24fw is unknown but it lies within the boundary of the constellation Vulpecula (Credit : IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine)
Imagine looking up at the night sky and watching a star almost completely disappear, then reappear months later. That's exactly what happened with a distant star called ASASSN-24fw, leaving astronomers scratching their heads for months.
Located about 3,000 light years from Earth, this star pulled off an incredible disappearing trick between late 2024 and early 2025. For eight months, it dimmed by an astounding 97% before returning to its normal brightness. To put this in perspective, imagine a bright streetlight suddenly becoming as dim as a birthday candle.
It's not unheard of for stars to unexpectedly fade. Comparison of SPHERE images of Betelgeuse taken in January 2019 and December 2019, showing changes in brightness and shape
(Credit : ESO/M)
What made this event particularly puzzling was that the colour of the star's light remained unchanged during its dimming. This crucial clue told scientists that the star itself wasn't changing or dying, something else was blocking our view. After analyzing the data, researchers from The Ohio State University believe they've cracked the case. Evidence suggests it is likely that there is a cloud of dust in the form of a disk around it, according to lead researcher Raquel Forés-Toribio.
This isn't just any ordinary dust cloud though. The disk surrounding ASASSN-24fw is enormous, about 1.3 astronomical units (AU) across, even bigger than the distance between the Sun and our planet. The dust particles themselves are made of carbon or water ice, similar in size to large grains of dust found on Earth.
The mystery deepens further however since scientists suspect this star isn't alone; it likely has a smaller, cooler companion star orbiting nearby, making it what astronomers call a binary system. The second star, which is much fainter and less massive, may be driving the changes in geometry leading to the eclipses, explains Forés-Toribio. This hidden partner could be responsible for stirring up the dust disk, creating the conditions that led to the dramatic dimming event we witnessed.
Atacama Large Millimetre Array image of the dust disk around HL Tauri
(Credit : ALMA)
How rare is this phenomenon? Extremely. Chris Kochanek, a professor at Ohio State who co-authored the study, describes it as one in a million eclipsing. Even when researchers searched for similar events in their databases, they couldn't find anything quite like it.
The star was discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), a network of small telescopes that continuously monitor our night sky. Since its establishment more than a decade ago, ASAS-SN has collected about 14 million images and that keeps going up. Don't expect to see this show again anytime soon. Researchers calculate that the ASASSN-24fw system likely experiences an eclipse about once every 43.8 years, with the next one not expected to occur until around 2068.
This discovery reminds us that the universe still holds countless mysteries. As astronomer Krzysztof Stanek notes, The universe's capacity to surprise us is continuous. Each unusual event like this helps scientists better understand how stars and planetary systems form and evolve, pushing our theories to new limits.
NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of inactive megaripples at “Kerrlaguna,” Perseverance’s latest target of exploration, on Aug. 13, 2025 (Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
NASA's Perseverance rover has turned its attention to towering sand formations called megaripples at a site named Kerrlaguna on Mars. These windblown features, standing up to a metre tall, are providing new insights into how wind shapes the red planet today and could even help prepare for future human missions to Mars.
While Mars might seem like a frozen, static world, its landscape is actually being constantly reshaped by powerful winds. As NASA puts it, "On Mars, the past is written in stone, but the present is written in sand." This poetic description captures exactly what Perseverance has been studying lately, massive sand formations that tell the story of modern Martian weather.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie over a rock nicknamed “Rochette,” on September 10, 2021, the 198th Martian day, or sol of its mission
(Credit : NASA/JPL Caltech)
After completing investigations at a geological contact zone called Westport, Perseverance attempted to climb steep slopes to reach a new rock exposure named Midtoya. However, the combination of treacherous terrain and rocky, unstable soil proved too challenging, forcing the rover team to retreat to smoother ground. The effort wasn't wasted though since Perseverance managed to study fascinating spherule rich rocks that had tumbled down from above, including a distinctive helmet shaped rock dubbed "Horneflya" that captured public attention online.
The rover then moved to Kerrlaguna, where the steep slopes give way to a field of megaripples. These aren't your typical beach type sand ripples, they're massive windblown formations that can tower up to one meter high. While that might not sound enormous, imagine sand dunes the height of a tall person scattered across an alien landscape.
The science team decided these features deserved a detailed mini-campaign of study. Usually, Perseverance focuses on ancient rocks that preserve evidence of Mars' distant past, but understanding the planet's current environment is equally important. These megaripples offer a window into how wind and weather continue to shape Mars today.
The Kerrlaguna feature on Mars is located in the Jezero Crater
(Credit : NASA)
Nearly a decade ago, Perseverance's predecessor, the Curiosity rover, studied an active sand dune in Gale crater and took a famous selfie there. However, the megaripples at Kerrlaguna appear inactive and dusty, representing a different type of Martian sand formation that's common across the planet's surface. These older, immobile features could reveal new insights about how wind and even trace amounts of water interact on modern Mars.
This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Big Sky" site, where its drill collected the mission's fifth sample of Mount Sharp
(Credit : NASA)
During its investigation, Perseverance deployed multiple scientific instruments to thoroughly analyze the megaripples. Using SuperCam, Mastcam-Z, and MEDA instruments, the rover characterised the surrounding environment, measured the size and chemistry of individual sand grains, and looked for any salty crusts that might have developed over time.
This research serves a dual purpose beyond pure scientific curiosity. Understanding Martian soil composition and behaviour could prove crucial for future human missions to the red planet. Astronauts will likely need to use local Martian resources to help them survive, making detailed knowledge of soil properties and composition invaluable for mission planning.
The Kerrlaguna investigation also serves as preparation for a more ambitious study planned at Lac de Charmes, a location further along Perseverance's route that features an even more extensive field of larger sand formations. By studying these windblown features grain by grain, Perseverance continues to unlock the secrets of how Mars behaves today, complementing its discoveries about the planet's ancient past and helping pave the way for humanity's eventual arrival on one of our nearest planetary neighbours.
For decades that question was merely a part of physics legend, the kind of thing grad students overhear when their advisors take them out to dinner. But the story behind that question is true, and it’s a good one. It was the late 1940’s, soon after the close of World War 2. The world was buzzing with reports of UFO’s, flying saucers, and aliens sticking their probes where the sun don’t shine.
Physicists can sometimes resemble real people, and like real people when they get together for lunch at work they like to chat about whatever’s in the news. And one time, famed physicist Enrico Fermi was visiting his colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Right down the road from Roswell. The conversation turned to UFO’s, and the group, including Fermi, started speculating wildly, quickly coming to the realization that the only feasible way that UFO’s could be aliens would be if faster-than-light travel was possible. But during the conversation, Fermi fell silent.
Sometime later, as the conversation shifted to other topics, Fermi suddenly blurted out, “Where is everybody?”
Everyone at the table immediately knew what we meant.
That lunchtime exclamation became the core what we call today the Fermi paradox. Here’s the basic deal: life is possible in the universe. Need proof? Hello, nice to meet you. It happened here on Earth, and the universe tends to not just do things only once. In fact, the default assumption in astronomy and cosmology is that we’re not special – we occupy no privileged position and we have no unique status (sometimes called Copernican principle for his removal of the Earth from the center of the universe). And indeed, nothing about our planet is all that remarkable: it’s just another lump of oxygen and carbon orbiting just-another-star. Heck, even our preliminary estimates suggest that there are something around 5 billion duplicates of the Earth in the Milky Way alone.
That’s 5 billion chances for life to arise under identical conditions.
So by that logic, the universe should be teeming with life. and not just regular life, intelligent life, and not just intelligent life, but space faring, and even space colonizing life! We can again point to ourselves as an example: we are right on the cusp of a sustained presence in space (like, in a real way), and it’s not hard to imagine that by extending our technology just a little bit, we could be one of those, I don’t know, star trek civilizations.
So if we could do it, then somebody else should be able to do it too.
You can even imagine throwing every technological hurdle in our way – nothing better than fusion-powered rockets, always constrained by the speed of light, limited lifespans, disease, warfare, anything that would and could slow down our progress, the works. But the fact is that our milky way galaxy is roughly 10 billion years old, and given that enormous amount of time, then space-faring civilizations have had more than enough eons to essentially spread throughout the entire galaxy, even doing it the slow way.
We should see advanced civilizations everywhere. We’re talking Dyson spheres, stellar engineering, or signatures of powerful engines. And while we do see many mysteries out in the universe – unexplained explosions or strange particles zipping by, we see no need to explain ANY observation in the solar system, galaxy, or universe, by invoking advanced alien civilizations. Even when our natural “dead” explanations don’t explain everything (cough FRBs, dark energy, hexagon on Saturn), we find no great pressure to say ALIENS DID IT.
Even leaving astronomical observations aside, given the abundance of life and intelligent civilizations, plus the raw amount of time they’ve had to poke around the galaxy, our solar system should have been visited MULTIPLE times by MULTIPLE species, either in person (or in-alien) or with their robotic craft. We should have monoliths and nanobots and space jockey skeletons everywhere, especially on the airless worlds that have maintained a record of impacts and events going back over four billion years.
So…where is everybody?
Hence the paradox: something in this line of reasoning has to give. We’ve got one, if not many – if not all – of these statements wrong. But which one?
Now, I would love to do an entire series on the fermi paradox and all its possible answers and what that means for current searches for life, but I’ll save that for a future date (and please, if more of you ask about it RIGHT NOW the sooner I’ll get to it).
But to slake your thirst for solving long-standing puzzles in physics, we’ll spend today jumping into one of the possible resolutions to the fermi paradox, the so-called GREAT FILTER.
Which sounds…kinda ominous. And…is…kinda ominous. But as we’ll see, it doesn’t HAVE to be ominous, but…sigh…it probably is.
Now versions of the Great Filter argument had been around for decades (just like Fermi was not the first person to ask where everybody is), but the most comprehensive form of the argument comes from Robin Hanson in 1996, who is an economist. Now I know you’re thinking: an economist, really? But hey, who says astronomers get to have all the fun. Possible resolutions to Fermi’s paradox are less about physical theory and raw observations and more about statistics and probabilities, so hey economists, welcome to the party.
Here’s the simplest possible reduction of the great filter argument, the most distilled essence of the entire chain of reasoning to explain why we don’t see advanced space-faring civilizations roaming the galaxy: nobody makes it.
That’s it. nobody makes it to that stage. Question: where is everybody? Answer: nobody’s home. The logical chain that leads to Fermi’s paradox is broken in the assumption that intelligent space-faring civilizations are COMMON. According to the great filter answer, they’re not common at all, and so we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t see anybody.
But wait, wait wait. Aren’t we on the cusp of achieving space colonization status? If the great filter is true, and nobody makes it to that level of sophistication, then…what does it mean for us? Is this…the end of the road?
Like I said, a little ominous.
Let’s breaks things down to see under what exact conditions things should start to feel a little spooky, and where we might be able to keep our blood pressure in a nice safe range.
The issue is that we don’t know exactly when or where the great filter actually happens. There are a lot of steps to go from “random planet with the right ingredients for life” to “vast interstellar empire”. For his part, ol robby hanson broke it down into 9 separate steps that life must go through to get from the little to the big leagues. These steps are: having the right star system to create the basic conditions for life, generating self-reproductive molecules (as in, abiogenesis), stepping up to basic cells with prokaryotic life, advancing to more complex and capable cells with eukaryotic life, achieving sexual reproduction, making the jump to multicellular life roaming around the world, achieving some vague sense of intelligence (like, say, mastering fire or using tools), then advancing to the status of a civilization with the POTENTIAL for space colonization, and finally, once all the pieces are in place, becoming a gigantic galaxy-spanning explosion of life.
We can debate the particulars of this classification scheme until the cows come home, but the point is that to get to make the galaxy your playground, you have to jump through a lot of hoops and pass a lot of tests. Some of those tests are early on, and some are a little later in the process. Sooooo the big question is: where’s the bottleneck? Where does the “Great filter” become so great? What stops nascent life from reaching the stage where we should be able to detect it? Is it at the beginning, with life-ready systems hard to come by? Somewhere in the middle, where life never gets a start or just spends billions of years swimming around in oceans, or is it towards the latter stages? And considering that WE OURSELVES ARE NEAR THE LAST STAGE, we’d really like to settle this question, because the location of the great filter means a lot for the future survival of our species.
Now I know there is an obvious bias in this argument: that life across the galaxy follows a similar path to us, which may or may not be true. But if we expand our definition of life, that makes fermi’s paradox even WORSE: there should be MORE evidence of life in that scenario, not less, so let’s stick with this restriction because it’s the most compatible with solutions to fermi’s paradox and move on.
So let’s talk about the early stages first, because…that makes sense. Maybe the great filter takes place at stage 1. Maybe the conditions for life are exceedingly rare. Well, to be perfectly honest, that doesn’t like that’s the case. Yes, I know that the Earth is the only known planet in the solar system, heck, the universe, where we know life can exist. But it seems based on our limited observations that life has had plenty of chances, even in our own solar system. We know for a fact that Mars once hosted liquid water oceans and a thick atmosphere, right around the same time that the early Earth did. Life happened here, and so it’s somewhat plausibly reasonable to assume that life got a start there. It just…kinda died. Same thing for Venus.
And we have to mention the icy moons of the outer planets, like Europa, Enceladus, and more. Under their icy shells those worlds host globe-spanning liquid water oceans, more liquid water than the Earth has! Those oceans just might be rich in minerals and nutrients..and might be homes for life.
I could go on. And I will. We see organic molecules, and even amino acids, in molecular clouds and on comets. The galaxy is swimming in the ingredients needed for our kind of life. So the basis, the stage 1, of just having the right conditions, seems to be very common indeed. No signs of a great filter here.
What about the next couple stages? You know, the bits about self-reproducing molecules and the evolution of single-celled organisms. Well, we don’t have much to go on here: we only have evidence for life on one single planet. But it’s still a data point that we can learn some lessons from. It’s not much – I’m definitely venturing into speculation territory here, so you’re welcome to make your own arguments – but it’s something. We know that life appeared basically ASAP once our planet cooled. Once the conditions for life were met – with the right ingredients, temperatures, and so on – life…happened. Life on Earth is almost as old as the Earth itself. So if we were forced to guess (and again it’s only a guess!) then a halfway decent reasonable guess is that the great filter is NOT in the earliest stages: if life has the right conditions, it probably shows up right away.
What about the middle stages? The march from single-celled organisms doing their single-celled thing to intelligent creatures that can wield tools and leave feedback reviews about them?
Well, again we still only have one data point, but we MIGHT be able to learn something about filters both small and great in those middle stages. And that’s the fact that intelligent life appeared very LATE on earth. Check this out, within 500 million years of our planet even forming, self-reproducing molecules and single-celled critters evolved. And here we are, intelligent creatures, only arising into consciousness within the past few hundred THOUSAND years. And guess what? We’re about to get cooked. No, that’s not a metaphor. As the sun ages it expands and brightens. It’s been doing so for…well, four and a half billion years already. That’s right, the first life to appear on the Earth knew a small, dimmer Sun than we do today. And it’s only going to get worse. Within about five hundred million years from now, the Sun will become so hot that the oceans will boil, plate tectonics will grind to a halt, and the greenhouse effect will spiral out of control, turning the Earth into another Venus: superheated and choking on its own acidic atmosphere. While life might – might - cling to a miserable existence in some crevice in that future hell-world, it’s definitely not going to be intelligent, let alone space-faring.
In other words, we are here, building our rockets, in the final stages where it’s even possible to do on the Earth. Now again, I have to sprinkle a lot of caution into these statements, but again maybe nature is trying to tell us something. Life itself appeared within the first chapter of the Earth’s viable history, and intelligent life appeared in the last.
So maybe that’s the answer: life is common, but intelligent life is not. Maybe that’s the Great Filter. Intelligence takes a lot of luck and stable evolutionary history (and maybe a few good whacks with an asteroid). So we shouldn’t expect other space faring civilizations because intelligence is a precious commodity in the cosmos (and on the Earth, yuk yuk).
How could we test this? Or, maybe “test” is too strong a world, but at least start to wrap the questions in some sort of statistics or probabilities. After all, so far we’re only going on one example. But we can imagine a future where we are able to find microscopic critters, maybe deep in the Martian crust, or swimming in the seas of Europa, or hanging out on some exoplanet. If we continue our searches and find simple life, but no signs of INTELLIGENT life, then this would be a major clue that the Great Filter is behind us: that we’re already on the other side and it’s all going to great.
Or not. “Not” is definitely still an option.
Until we have enough data to build statistics, and trust me that’s going to be a long way off so don’t hold your breath, then all we have is speculation. Which while not very scientifically rigorous is still really fun. What if the Great Filter is in front of us? What if it’s in our future? What if once life gains a foothold somewhere it has a universally decent chance of arising to intelligence, like it’s a foregone conclusion of the evolutionary process?
Well then, that means that maybe species simply destroy themselves. I mean, it’s not hard once you put your mind to it. The idea is that to travel interstellar, or even interplanetary, distances, you must be able to harvest, store, and use incredible amounts of energy, and develop a sophisticated technological base to do it. And if you can do that, then you can harvest, store, and use MORE THAN ENOUGH ENERGY to wipe every single living thing off the face of your home planet.
The best insurance against that is to have your favorite kind of living thing on multiple surfaces on multiple planets, but you will have to spend a certain amount of time – maybe centuries, maybe millennia – in a precarious balance, where you’re trying to climb the ladder to the stars without cutting yourself off at the knees. A species needs to use its technologies for good, not evil, for a very long time so that it can ensure its own survival. Meanwhile, during all that time slowly developing space travel and self-sustaining offworld habitats, a rogue state or actor or even the combined actions of the entire species can just...end it all.
And, like, THAT’S US. We can send robotic craft beyond the edges of the solar system. We can send crews to live months at a time in orbit. And…we can also wipe every living thing off the face of the earth. We have more than enough nuclear weapons to kill off all of humanity and trigger a mass extinction. If we pump enough carbon into the atmosphere, things can go haywire real quick and have the same effect. The same abilities that bring us to the stars can bury us in the dirt, which is real dark but kinda poetic.
Or maybe it takes so long that nature does the job for us, sending an unlucky rock in our direction or an ozone-killing blast from a gamma ray burst. Life may be hardy in general but individual species are not. Something – from nature or from ourselves – can kill us while we’re still in the cradle.
Remember, for the great filter argument to work, it has to be NEAR TOTAL. Which means…this is it. The end of the line. The last stop before galactic extinction. Goodbye everyone, hug your loved ones, and take one last bite of cheese, because the end of our species is right around the corner.
5 meter UFO crashed in ocean near island, UAP USO Sighting News 📰 Ancient Alien Ships Everywhere! Lets investigate.
5 meter UFO crashed in ocean near island, UAP USO Sighting News 📰 Ancient Alien Ships Everywhere! Lets investigate.
Date of discovery: Aug 26, 2025
Location of discovery: Makemo Island
Source: Self found Watch video to find it too.
Hey check this out. Way out in the ocean in the middle of nowhere is a small island called Makemo. On the edge of the island I noticed a sphere that is 5 meters long! Thats huge among spheres and it crashed in the shore water so it's about 1-2 meters deep. Why has no-one found it yet or why hasn't it been recovered? Because this is the first anyones ever heard of it, but it is sure to have governments around the world soon scrambling to recover it first.
There are thousands of UFOs on the surface of land and below the ocean yet to be discovered...all we have to do is look...and they will soon be found.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.