When I was growing up, I watched a lot of sci-fi movies about aliens that come to Earth. The extraterrestrials in popular culture, however, always looked so familiar that I found them far-fetched. What are the chances that E.T., the Predator, or ALF would develop arms and legs, a humanlike face, and opposable thumbs? Perhaps as a result, I associated alien life more with fantasy than with science, and I never gave much thought to what a visit would really look like. But my attitude started to change in 2020, when I read Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” and its two sequels. In Liu’s books, creatures called Trisolarans send a scouting mission of supercomputers to spy on and subtly disrupt human affairs. Although Trisolarans could do seemingly impossible things, such as program protons, Liu’s rigor got me thinking about aliens from a scientific perspective. Suddenly, I could imagine a sophisticated civilization coming into contact with humanity, perhaps in ways that we don’t immediately understand.

Then, in 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (U.A.P.)—essentially a rebranding of U.F.O.s. Several Navy videos had been made public a few years prior. In the so-called GOFAST video, recorded off the coast of Florida in 2015, a Navy pilot with an infrared camera follows an object zooming above the water and asks, over the radio, “What the fuck is that?” Another clip, deemed GIMBAL—“Look at that thing, dude”—showed a similar shape above some clouds. A third video, known as FLIR, was taken in 2004 from an aircraft in California. Navy pilots in two planes saw what looked like a large Tic Tac hovering over the water; it seemed to zip away at thousands of miles per hour. Military whistle-blowers subsequently claimed that the government knew more than it was admitting, leading to congressional hearings in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Last month, House Representative Eric Burlison, a Republican, introduced the U.A.P. Disclosure Act of 2025, aimed at preserving and eventually releasing U.F.O. reports.

None of the government’s disclosures demonstrated that Earth had welcomed interstellar house guests. And yet, after the releases and hearings, it seemed more acceptable to explore the possibility. In 2022, roughly fifteen hundred university faculty members replied to a survey about U.F.O.s; a majority said that recent governmental and journalistic reports had increased the topic’s credibility, and three-quarters said that it was of average importance, very important, or essential for academics to conduct more research about it. Tyler Cowen wrote about U.F.O.s for Bloomberg and Ross Douthat wrote about them for the New York Times; they compared notes on Cowen’s podcast. On the prediction platform Polymarket, the odds that the U.S. will “confirm that aliens exist in 2025” have ranged between four and fourteen per cent. (The detection of aliens on a faraway planet would count.)

I started to ask myself, How likely is it that we’ve ever been visited by aliens or their technology? It seemed improbable yet plausible. I wondered how scientists, engineers, and other thinkers would approach the question. What would count as evidence, and what kinds of educated guesses could we make? I decided to call Adam Frank, an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester and the author of “The Little Book of Aliens,” which looks to differentiate between science and fiction.

Frank doesn’t put much stock in U.F.O. videos, and he told a story to explain why. In February, 2023, photographs of a Chinese spy balloon over Billings, Montana, prompted speculation about aliens. The Air Force eventually shot it down, but first the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane flew past and took a selfie that showed the balloon out the window. “You can see it in exquisite detail,” Frank told me. “Where are all those pictures? Every U.F.O. picture is a fuzzy blob. Everybody carries a high-resolution camera in their pocket now, and it’s always fuzzy blobs.”

There are potential answers to Frank’s question, but most of them raise questions of their own. Maybe there’s a coverup. But, if so, wouldn’t whistle-blowers have turned up something by now? “Color me extremely skeptical that any government could keep a secret like this effectively for a week, let alone decades,” Austin Carson, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who has written extensively about government secrecy, told me. Steven Aftergood, who directed the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, pointed me to a 1970 report produced by a government task force on secrecy: “It is unlikely that classified information will remain secure for periods as long as five years, and it is more reasonable to assume that it will become known to others in periods as short as one year.”

Maybe the aliens are coy and want to stay hidden. If that’s the case, though, why are we seeing them at all? Mark Rodeghier, the scientific director of the Center for U.F.O. Studies, which is headquartered in his basement, told me, “They’re actually trying to slowly acclimatize us to the idea that aliens, in fact, exist.” Robert Hampson, a neuroscientist at Wake Forest University who has written over a dozen science-fiction novels, speculated that, perhaps, “what we’re detecting are the alien equivalent of graduate students who have been given an assignment to go and watch the humans and report back.” Plenty of human graduate students have been tasked with researching other worlds—and they don’t always get the best equipment.

The elaborateness of these explanations, in Frank’s view, is a reason to be skeptical of them. “If you’ve got to go through all those contortions to make your story work, you’re not doing science anymore,” he said. He noted that, when humans send spacecraft into the solar system, they tend to land safely. Alien craft, in contrast, “would have managed to cross interstellar distances, and these things seem to crash every fifteen minutes. It’s like everybody’s sending us their 1987 Dodge Omnis.” The 2021 national-intelligence report on U.A.P.s said that it could not explain a hundred and forty-three U.F.O. reports, but that many were probably “airborne clutter,” weather, or terrestrial technology. “Sometimes they’re hard to explain because we just don’t have the data,” Frank said. In his opinion, high-quality data (high-resolution photography, for example) has never “showed us that anything required an extraterrestrial hypothesis.”

Our galaxy contains at least a hundred billion planets, and biology finds a way in extreme environments on Earth, so it’s not unreasonable to suppose that life thrives elsewhere in the Milky Way. But if aliens wanted to visit us they would have a long way to go. The closest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri, is roughly 4.2 light-years away. NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe would take more than seventy-five thousand years to get there, if it were headed in the right direction. The closest inhabited solar system could be much, much farther away. Could aliens, or at least their tech, survive that journey?

Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, thinks they may have already. In 2014, military satellites observed a half-metre-long meteor in the sky near Papua New Guinea. Several years later, Loeb and a student, Amir Siraj, concluded that the meteor had been travelling too fast to be orbiting the sun, and that, therefore, it was interstellar. Loeb went on to argue, over the objections of many experts, that it may have been alien technology, and that debris he recovered on a Pacific expedition was from the meteor. “Think of it as Amazon delivery service, but from interstellar space,” he told me during the expedition, from a ship that was incidentally called the Silver Star. He and numerous collaborators wrote up their findings in Chemical Geology last year. (Cosmochemists questioned the claim that the debris was interstellar; one told Science, “I’m surprised anyone would take it seriously.”) Loeb currently leads the Galileo Project, which is erecting ground-based sensors to look for anomalous phenomena.

U.F.O.s could contain biological aliens or machines powered by artificial intelligence. Either way, they might travel much faster than Voyager 1—but that would require a lot of energy. Les Johnson, a retired chief technology officer at NASA who has written fiction and nonfiction books about interstellar travel, gave me an example. To accelerate a pineapple to just a tenth the speed of light, he said, would require the energy of seven Hiroshima explosions. You would need the same quantity of energy to decelerate at your destination. “Suddenly, you’ve got the energy of fourteen Hiroshima bombs on a pineapple,” he said. “So I look at that, and I think it just doesn’t pass the giggle test.” At that speed, a speck of space dust would also have the impact of T.N.T. “I’d love to think we’re in a ‘Star Trek’ universe,” Johnson said. “But I don’t know if we are.”

Logically speaking, the chance that aliens are here right now must be slimmer than the chance that they have been here at some point in the past. Garry Nolan, a biotech founder and an immunologist at Stanford, has a hunch that we’ve been visited by aliens—he had an eerie experience as a child—and speculates that they or their technology may have been on Earth for millions of years. “So the open question might be, Is this even our planet?” he asked me. As outlandish as his theory is, it’s tricky to firmly disprove. If they came long ago, and left or died, would we even know? In 2018, Frank and a co-author published a paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology titled “The Silurian Hypothesis.” (In “Doctor Who,” Silurians are advanced reptilian humanoids who predated us on Earth.)

“Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?” Frank and his colleagues ask. Organisms can turn into fossils that last tens of millions of years, but most organisms don’t become fossils; metals and plastics might not stick around at all. And the planet’s surface constantly erodes and churns. “Our claim was that, after about a couple million years, anything on the surface is gone,” Frank said. “Even if some aliens came and built a pretty intense civilization, you wouldn’t have any evidence of it.” The best evidence one might hope for, he argued, was indirect: for example, an unusual proportion of certain isotopes at particular depths of rock. (In a 2019 paper, a physicist suggested that we should look for old probes, or “Lurkers,” on space rocks near Earth.) So far, humans haven’t found anything like that.

Science fiction often explains interstellar travel by imagining some kind of warp drive. Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but, in 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre found an exception: Einstein’s theory of general relativity actually allows for a craft to outpace light by squeezing space-time at its bow and stretching it at the stern. Nolan, who is a fan of this idea, likened the Alcubierre drive to “creating your own sub-universe, a warp bubble around yourself.” Of course, it is not at all clear that such a thing could be constructed. Alcubierre invoked what physicists call negative energy; later theorists thought that lots and lots of regular energy could be used instead. Nolan speculated that, maybe, sufficient energy could be harvested from space-time itself, using the zero-point field and quantum tunnelling. But he quickly admitted that “those are just fancy words that we throw at the unknown.” (On the plus side, a warp drive might quote-unquote explain the Navy’s U.F.O. videos; one paper estimated that the objects in the videos appeared to be pulling up to five thousand Gs, using no visible propulsion and leaving no wake. Stunt pilots max out at around ten Gs.) Other U.F.O. enthusiasts argue that aliens could reside in dimensions beyond the four that we know and love. Or maybe they’re time travellers.

I ran these notions by Arlan Andrews, a retired mechanical engineer and author who is the founder and director of SIGMA, a think tank of sci-fi writers that advises the government and N.G.O.s. He responded by throwing up his hands in exasperation. “If you start to do the woo-woo stuff with interdimensional and time travel, I can’t say they’re wrong, but there’s no place to start,” he told me. “As an engineer, I like to have a starting place.”

Acivilization that’s millions or billions of years ahead of us would probably know physics that we don’t yet comprehend. Its technology might seem like magic to us. In that case, practically anything is possible. A NASA report on U.F.O.s, released in 2023, acknowledges that “it is difficult to put physical constraints on them at present.” How would you turn something without constraints from woo-woo into science?

The Society for U.A.P. Studies (SUAPS) is a think tank attempting to define U.A.P. studies as a field. “Not only is there not a science but there’s no academic field,” Michael Cifone, a philosopher of science at St. John’s University and one of the group’s founders, said. “How do we study this phenomenon? Who’s involved? What are the methodological principles that should guide us?” He cares less about people’s out-there theories than about what steps should be taken to resolve U.F.O. cases. He wants to avoid “endless, unconstrained, undisciplined speculation.” In his view, we’re at “a crucial transition point between the older ‘ufology,’ ” akin to forensic investigation, and modern scientific methods.

The first step to making something a science usually involves data. NASA’s report focusses on the agency’s potential role in collecting data, and in using A.I. to analyze it. According to the report, the agency’s sensors could be supplemented with crowdsourced data from apps; one example is Enigma, which uses algorithms to rate the credibility of people’s sightings and triangulate objects using video recordings. UAPx, a Florida nonprofit, has developed a suite of sensors specifically for analyzing odd aerial phenomena. And then there’s the data contained in past reported sightings, which could be regularized and collated somehow. Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who testified about U.F.O.s in Congress, founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, which encourages pilots to report U.F.O.s. The group vets the cases and has brought them to Congress; the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which is part of the Department of Defense; and, lately, to an F.B.I. working group. But, as some argue, the plural of anecdote is not data. “I don’t trust pilots’ sightings,” Matt Mountain, the president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, told me. “They’re on a mission, not doing scientific exploration.” We should keep in mind, Mountain told me, that most criminal convictions that are overturned by DNA evidence were based in part on eyewitness testimony.

Graves said that he was agnostic about aliens. “I’m not jumping to conclusions,” he told me. “But I want to figure it out, damn it.” Still, he seemed skeptical of expert analysis. In November, 2024, AARO announced that it considered the GOFAST video mystery resolved; the object’s altitude, it said, gave it an exaggerated appearance of speed. “Through a very careful geospatial intelligence analysis and using trigonometry, we assess with high confidence that the object is not actually close to the water, but is rather closer to 13,000 feet,” the agency’s director told CBS. Graves wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. “Some of these cases aren’t quote-unquote debunked or no longer of interest,” he has said.

When I spoke to people who supported an alien hypothesis, I was often struck that relatively patchy evidence—what Frank had described as fuzzy blobs—had inspired such in-depth theories. I’m as puzzled by the U.F.O. videos as the next guy, but, as far as I can tell, nothing in them requires us to accept the existence of warp drives or time travel. Until someone produces high-definition videos of flying saucers and little green men, the evidence might not be extraordinary enough to demand such extraordinary explanations. And to the extent that U.F.O.s do need explanations it’s worth asking whether aliens are the best one. People have seen weird stuff in the sky for thousands of years, and only in the last eighty have flying saucers been a popular interpretation. Before that, we tended to credit the supernatural.

After all my conversations, I thought the odds that aliens or their tech had visited Earth were probably south of five per cent. Most U.F.O.s. are likely balloons, airplanes, weather events, visual illusions, or technical glitches. Even so, there are enough unknowns, and unknown unknowns, that the margin of error seemed enormous. A person who thinks the odds are much higher, I’d argue, shouldn’t be met with ridicule.

One more question: Why would aliens even visit us? Coming up with an answer forces us to speculate about alien motives. “I’ve always said that aliens are going to alien,” Andrews, the sci-fi writer who founded SIGMA, told me. “We have no idea what an alien person or being or intelligence or machine would be motivated by. . . . We don’t know what motivates the Kremlin, for God’s sake.” Extraterrestrials, he suggested, could be as different from us as we are from centipedes. (That could be an understatement.) Robert Powell, a chemist who serves on the board of the Scientific Coalition for U.A.P. Studies, has argued that some U.F.O.s are intelligently controlled and do not come from Earth. But, in his view, we shouldn’t try to study extraterrestrials as if they’re lab rats. “We’re the rat, and we’re trying to figure out what the doctor is doing,” he said.

It’s reasonable to think that there would be commonalities among intelligent species. One is the drive for self-preservation, which motivates the Trisolarans in “The Three-Body Problem.” Hampson, the neuroscientist and sci-fi writer, didn’t think that was a very good reason to come to Earth. “If they’re after resources, there are easier ways to get them,” he said. “Why would you go to an already inhabited world?” Meanwhile, a warlike species would probably just wipe us out. “If the idea is conquest, then I think we would already know,” he said. But he could imagine another reason: curiosity.

Nick Pope, who ran the U.F.O. program at the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense from 1991 to 1994, told me that the ministry had considered three main motives for alien visits: military reconnaissance, scientific study, and tourism. It’s not a given that aliens would enjoy travel. Maybe we’ve never met them because they’re homebodies. Still, what kind of intelligent life form wouldn’t want to see a sunrise on another world? “This might be the only place in the universe to see an elephant,” Pope said. “How many planets have a Stonehenge or a Machu Picchu or a Great Pyramids?” Aliens might want to survey the galaxy for all life forms—including us. They might even be having the same debate we are. Are we alone in the universe? The truth—whatever it may be—is still out there.

{ https://www.newyorker.com/ }

27-09-2025 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

archieffoto van Amerikaans ministerie van Defensie van een ongeïdentificeerd vliegend voorwerp

"VS verbergt informatie over buitenaards leven": ex-officieren getuigen voor Amerikaans Congres in "UFO-hoorzitting"

De drie getuigen, Ryan Graves, David Grusch en David Fravor leggen de eed af voor de hoorzitting

{ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/ }

27-09-2025 om 21:48 geschreven door peter  

The U.S. Government’s Top UFO Scientist Has an Open Mind about Alien Visitation

By Leonard David edited by Lee Billings

27-09-2025 om 21:21 geschreven door peter  

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27-09-2025 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

Unexplained Mysteries: Ancient Alien Theories Debunked or Proven?

Abstract

Ancient astronaut or ancient alien theories posit that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth in antiquity and influenced human civilizations. This dissertation evaluates these claims through a scientific lens, examining archaeological, geological, and historical evidence, as well as methodological considerations. Rather than accepting or outright rejecting all sensational narratives, this analysis emphasizes testable hypotheses, the weight of corroborating evidence, and the importance of plausible, terrestrial explanations grounded in current scholarship. While some mysteries remain due to gaps in our knowledge, the balance of evidence currently favors human ingenuity, cultural diffusion, and naturalistic processes as sufficient explanations for most ancient extraordinary phenomena.

Introduction

Ancient alien theories have gained popular appeal by offering dramatic explanations for complex achievements in antiquity, such as monumental architecture, advanced astronomy, or unfamiliar engineering. Proponents argue that features seemingly beyond the capabilities of ancient societies imply intervention by technologically superior beings. Critics argue that these theories reflect a bias toward underestimating ancient capabilities and a misinterpretation of incomplete archaeological records. This dissertation does not presuppose either conclusion but instead places the claims within a rigorous epistemic framework: testable predictions, reproducible methods, and a coherent alignment with established data from multiple disciplines. The central question is not “Are aliens responsible?” but “What evidence would be required to substantiate such claims, and is that evidence present or plausibly explainable by non-Extraterrestrial (ET) mechanisms?”

Historical context and the appeal of ancient alien theories

Ancient alien theories gained prominence in the late 20th century through popular media that highlighted architectural wonders—pyramids, giant statues, megalithic structures—and claimed they could not have been built without outside intervention. Proponents often point to perceived technological gaps between ancient populations and the monumental works they produced, or to enigmatic depictions in art and myths that allegedly reference visitors from the stars. The appeal is dual: it offers a narrative where humanity’s achievements are recognized as part of a larger cosmic story, and it provides a simple, memorable explanation for complex historical phenomena.

However, as with many extraordinary claims, the more extraordinary the assertion, the stronger the evidence must be. Science does not reject extraordinary ideas out of hand, but it requires robust, reproducible, and parsimonious evidence. When claims rely on misinterpretation, selective data, or lack of methodological transparency, they fail the test of scientific validity. The following sections explain how researchers evaluate these claims and where the science tends to converge or diverge from popular assumptions.

Common claims and the methodological pitfalls Ancient alien arguments typically center on a few recurring claims:

• Engineering feats that allegedly exceed known ancient capabilities (e.g., lifting massive stones without contemporary techniques).
• Anomalous artifacts or inscriptions interpreted as evidence of non-human visitors.
• Correlations between myths or astronomical alignments and supposed extraterrestrial contact.

Ancient Aliens or Ancient Artisans?

Methodological challenges in these debates include:

• Anthropocentrism and underestimation of past human ingenuity. Archaeology has repeatedly shown that ancient peoples developed sophisticated techniques and organizational systems appropriate to their contexts.
• Selection bias and cherry-picking. Highlighting a single site or artifact while ignoring the broader archaeological record can distort what is known about a culture’s capabilities.
• Ambiguity in the evidence. Artistic motifs, cosmologies, or damage patterns can often be explained by multiple plausible, non-extra-terrestrial causes.
• The burden of proof. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Absence of occasional fragments of data is not evidence of aliens.

Evidence for and against the central claims To evaluate ancient alien theories, scientists consider several categories of evidence:

• Archaeological context: Excavation records, dating methods, tool marks, construction sequences, and settlement patterns provide a coherent narrative about how communities organized labor and allocated resources.
• Engineering and material analysis: The feasibility of constructing large structures is tested using contemporary engineering understanding, experimental archaeology, and replication studies.
• Chronology and dating: Absolute and relative dating anchor a structure within a historical timeframe, allowing researchers to assess whether proposed “alien” intervention would have been necessary at all.
• Comparative anthropology and ethnography: Local traditions, myths, and oral histories are examined to distinguish symbolic or religious motifs from literal claims.
• Astronomical alignments: When structures are oriented toward celestial events, scientists assess whether these alignments are intentional and culturally meaningful rather than coincidental.
• Occam’s Razor and theoretical economy: Explanations that account for the evidence with fewer assumptions about external agents are generally preferred.

When evaluated through these lenses, many ancient alien claims encounter significant challenges:

• Most monumental constructions can be traced to feasible human processes, including collaborative labor, leadership structures, and incremental technological innovation. In many cases, experimental archaeology has demonstrated viable methods for quarrying, transporting, and erecting massive stones using simple machines, ramps, lubricants, and organized planning.
• The supposed “hand of aliens” is often a projection of modern awe onto ancient peoples, ignoring the rich, culturally situated motivations behind architectural and artistic choices.
• A number of famous examples have undergone more careful scrutiny with results that align with known historical developments. For instance, methodical reassessments of large stone-building sites have revealed employment and organizational strategies fully within human capabilities of their respective eras.

Case studies and common misinterpretations

• Pyramids and monumental architecture

The Great Pyramids of Giza are the most emblematic targets of ancient alien claims. Critics note the precision of stone-cutting and long-range logistics. Yet Egyptologists have demonstrated that a workforce comprised of skilled laborers, seasonal workers, and well-organized supply chains could mobilize resources and expertise without extraterrestrial assistance. Modern engineering studies simulate the construction sequences, ramps, and supervision necessary to erect such monuments, underscoring human-scale feasibility. The absence of records indicating alien involvement is not proof of absence of aliens, but the documented social, religious, and economic contexts provide plausible explanations consistent with known practices.

Von Däniken suggests that the Nazca lines (200 BC– 700 AD) in Peru could be "landing strips" for alien spacecraft. 

(CC BY-SA 2.5 es)

• Nazca Lines and geoglyphs

The Nazca Lines in Peru are often cited as evidence of ancient alien contact due to their vast scale from a height. In reality, researchers have shown that these geoglyphs were created using straightforward surveying techniques with simple tools and labor coordination. The social and ceremonial significance of the lines, tied to water rituals and cosmology, offers a robust cultural interpretation that does not require extraterrestrial intervention.

• Stone circles, megaliths, and alignments

Sites such as Stonehenge or other megalithic complexes attract claims of remote engineering knowledge or astronomy beyond the capabilities of ancient communities. In many cases, careful chronology, material sourcing, and landscape analysis illuminate a long arc of development. While some alignments are astronomical, they often fit within the observable agendas of agricultural calendars or ritual cycles rather than implying alien construction.

Puma Punku Stone Blocks – Bolivia. 

(Adwo /Adobe Stock)

• Technological diffusion and environmental adaptation

Some scholars propose that supposed gaps in ancient knowledge reflect not gaps in capability but differences in sources of knowledge—trade networks, diffusion of techniques, adaptation to local environments, or iterative experimentation. For example, metallurgy, long-distance trade, and early writing systems show cumulative human progress that could be misread as sudden leaps requiring otherworldly help. When approached with rigorous dating and contextual analysis, the narrative of sudden, inexplicable leaps tends to give way to gradual, context-dependent development.

• The role of cognitive biases and media framing

Public fascination with ancient aliens is amplified by cognitive biases. Availability heuristics—where memorable or sensational information weighs more heavily than balanced data—can skew perception. Media portrayals often privilege extraordinary narratives over ordinary processes, shaping public expectations and terminology. Scientists aim to counterbalance by communicating uncertainty clearly, presenting the evidentiary standards, and illustrating how everyday archaeological reasoning solves mysteries within a cultural context.

Sunrise at Stonehenge on the summer solstice, 21 June 2005.

(Andrew Dunn, 2 /CC BY 2.0

Scientific approaches to evaluating claims

• Clear hypotheses: Scientific evaluation starts with precise, testable hypotheses. In the alien-claim scenario, a robust approach would articulate what specific evidence would be required to confirm extraterrestrial involvement and how it could be falsified.
• Replicability and reproducibility: Claims must be testable by independent researchers using accessible methods. Replication of experiments or analyses, such as experimental archaeology or independent artifact dating, strengthens conclusions.
• Bayesian reasoning: Researchers often use Bayesian methods to update the probability of a hypothesis as new evidence emerges. This helps avoid over-interpretation of ambiguous data and promotes proportional responses to the strength of the evidence.
• Transparency and peer review: Sharing data, methods, and uncertainties within the scientific community is essential. Peer review helps ensure that conclusions are not driven by speculation, misinterpretation, or selective reporting.

Antikythera mechanism. 

(CC BY-SA 3.0)

What would constitute credible evidence for ancient aliens? Even among proponents, the threshold for credible evidence remains high. Potentially compelling lines of inquiry could include:

• Unambiguous artifacts with undeniable non-human origin markers or provenance that cannot be explained by known processes, accompanied by thorough, reproducible analyses.
• Independently verifiable, cross-disciplinary data showing a conspicuous, non-human signal that cannot be reconciled with cultural, technological, or environmental explanations.
• Direct, verifiable interference with human sites or artifacts that demonstrably alters outcomes in a way that cannot be accounted for by natural or human processes.

However, to date, such evidence has not withstood rigorous scrutiny.

Most alleged proofs collapse under methodological evaluation: artifacts turn out to be misidentified natural objects or domesticated tools; dating methods reveal ordinary timelines; and proposed signals lack independent corroboration.

Implications for science communication and public understanding

The debate over ancient aliens highlights the broader challenge of science communication. Complex, nuanced conclusions must be conveyed without feeding sensationalist narratives that overshadow careful scholarship. Clear explanations of uncertainty, the distinction between correlation and causation, and the iterative nature of scientific progress help the public appreciate why evidence accumulates gradually rather than through instantaneous, drama-filled breakthroughs.

Constructive pathways forward

• Emphasize robust, multi-method research. The strongest explanations for historical mysteries arise from converging lines of evidence across archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, geology, and physics.
• Encourage critical thinking and literacy. Public education about how scientists assess evidence, weigh competing hypotheses, and use dating and material analyses can foster more informed engagement with extraordinary claims.
• Promote transparency in research. Open data, preregistration of hypotheses, and clear documentation of uncertainties improve trust and reproducibility.

Conclusion Unexplained mysteries will always captivate the imagination, inviting us to imagine that the past harbors more spectacular explanations than human ingenuity alone can offer. Ancient alien theories, while alluring, have consistently faced rigorous scrutiny that emphasizes evidence, methodology, and context. Across a broad spectrum of case studies—from the pyramids to geoglyphs—careful archaeological inquiry tends to reveal a human story: communities, technologies, labor organization, and cultural significance shaping monumental works that reflect creativity, collaboration, and adaptation within their particular environments.

That is not to deny wonder or to dismiss the possibility of unforeseen discoveries. It is to acknowledge the standards of scientific inquiry that separate plausible explanations from sensational conjecture. As new methodologies emerge and datasets expand, our understanding of ancient civilizations will continue to evolve. What remains stable is the essential principle of scholarship: extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and the most compelling narratives are those that can be tested, replicated, and integrated into a coherent understanding of the human past. In the discussion of unexplained mysteries, the balance between curiosity and skepticism is not a constraint but a compass—guiding us toward explanations that illuminate rather than mystify, and toward a history that reflects the ingenuity of humanity in the face of the unknown.

{ PETER2011 } 

26-09-2025 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

Buitenaardsen kunnen onze radiosignalen voor ruimtevaartuigcommunicatie onderscheppen

Inleiding

De mensheid zendt al tientallen decennia signalen uit in de ruimte, vooral via radiocommunicatie met ruimtevaartuigen en satellieten. De gedachte dat intelligente wezens anderszins onze boodschappen zouden kunnen onderscheppen is zowel fascinerend als onwennend: wat als onze technologische signalen op een dag door een buitenaardse civilisatie worden opgevangen, geïnterpreteerd en bestudeerd? Dit artikel onderzoekt wetenschappelijk wat het betekent dat “alienen” (aliens) mogelijk onze radiogolven kunnen onderscheppen voor ruimtescheepscommunicatie, welke natuurkundige en technologische principes hierachter schuilgaan, welke mogelijkheden en beperkingen bestaan, en welke ethische en beleidsmatige implicaties volgen.

Achtergrond: hoe radioverenigingen ruimtevaart en communicatie met elkaar verbonden zijn

Ruimtevaartuigen, waaronder satellieten en landers, communiceren via elektromagnetische signalen die meestal in radiofrequentiebanden worden uitgezonden. Deze signalen dienen verschillende doelen: telemetrie (toestand van het vaartuig), telecommando’s (besturing door de aarde), en wetenschappelijke data (metingen, beelden). De gebruikte frequenties worden afgestemd op doel en afstand, met inachtneming van wettelijke regels zoals de International Telecommunication Union (ITU) spectrumtoewijzingen en de Europese/andere nationale regelgevende lichamen. In de diepe ruimte kunnen signalen zelfs in ruisvolle omgevingen met enorme lichtjaren afstand nog worden gedetecteerd met grote radioantenneparken en geavanceerde signaalverwerkingsmethoden.

De hypothese van onderschepping door buitenaardse wezens draait om een fundamenteel principe: elke intelligente beschaving die radiogolven verzendt, maakt zich zichtbaar in het elektromagnetische spectrum. Onze eigen signalen zijn wereldwijd waarneembaar met voldoende gevoeligheid en tijd. In theorie kunnen buitenaardse luisterende civillaties die los van culturele motivaties geïnteresseerd zijn in ons technologische stadium, onze signalen oppikken en op de een of andere manier verwerken. De vraag is niet alleen of dit mogelijk is, maar ook of het waarschijnlijk is, gezien de afstanden, signaalverzwakking en mogelijke privacy- of veiligheidsconcerns.

Signalen van onze ruimteschepen en Marsrovers zouden onderschept kunnen worden door buitenaardse beschavingen.

Illustratie gegenereerd door AI, ChatGPT

Fysica van onderschepping: van signaalsterkte tot detectie

Een cruciale factor bij onderschepping is signaalsterkte op afstand. Het uitgangssignaal van een uitgerust ruimtevaartuig kan variëren tussen tientallen milliwatts tot enkele kilowatts, afhankelijk van missie, antennegrootte en modus. Naarmate het signaal zich voortplant door ruimte wordt het vierkant toegepast met afstand, en verzwakt het door atmosferische, interstellair-materie- en kosmische ruis, plus de efficiëntie van het ontvangende systeem. Voor een buitenaardse luisteraar die op miljoenen lichtjaren afstand zit, zouden onze signalen extreem zwak worden en hoogstwaarschijnlijk onder de ruis van kosmische achtergrondvallen. Toch kan een hypothetische geavanceerde beschaving met gigantische ontvangstantennes en geavanceerde signaalverwerkingsalgoritmen dergelijke signalen detecteren, of zelfs “lineariseren” door gebruik te maken van coherente detectie, matched filtering, en kunstmatige intelligentie.

Een relevante overweging is de soebereiding van de signalen zelf. Wij zenden in specifieke banden (bijv. de ruimtevaartbanden, de S- en X-banden, en mogelijk lagere frequenties voor langeafstandsatellieten). Deze banden worden gekozen om interfering noise te minimaliseren en om praktische antenneontwerpen mogelijk te maken. Een buitenaardse luisteraar die niet gebonden is aan menselijke regelgeving, zou kunnen letten op patronen in het spectrum die wijzen op kunstmatige origine, bijvoorbeeld regelmatige pulspatronen, modulatietechnieken of herhaalde sequenties die niet plausibel zijn als natuurlijke bronnen. Detectie kan verder worden vergroot door middel van disperse onderzoeksmethoden, zoals seriële signal search, afwijkingen in polarisatie en signaalmodulatie diep in de tijd.

In een nieuwe studie hebben wetenschappers van de Universiteit van Pennsylvania en het Jet Propulsion Laboratory van NASA menselijke communicatie in de diepe ruimte geanalyseerd en vastgesteld dat onze transmissies vaak gericht waren op onze eigen ruimteschepen op Mars, de Zon en andere hemellichamen. Omdat planeten zoals Mars het hele signaal niet blokkeren, zou buitenaardse intelligentie die zich langs het pad van interplanetaire communicatie bevindt – wanneer planeten vanuit hun perspectief zijn uitgelijnd – mogelijk signaallekkage kunnen detecteren.

Bron: Zayna Sheikh

Technische mogelijkheden en scenario’s van onderschepping

• Simpele afluisteren: Een buitenaardse luisteraar die passief de ruimte observeert, kan bestaande radiobelten opvangen zonder terug te reageren. Deze scenario vereist geen snelle reactie of enorme signaalverwerking, maar veronderstelt wel dat de andere beschaving constant en langdurig uitzendt en dat hun ontvangstsysteem sterk genoeg is om de zwakke signalen te extraheren.

• Geavanceerde afluistering en decodering: Een hypothetische beschaving met enorme ruimtelijke antennes en krachtige signaalverwerkingskrachten kan patronen herkennen, tijdreeksen analyseren en mogelijk communiceren met ons door terug te zenden of door te anticiperen op hun eigen wijze. Zij kunnen onze modulatietechnieken herkennen, en zelfs simulaties uitvoeren om te begrijpen wat de mensheid communiceert.

• Directe communicatie-alisatie: In een extremere visie zou een buitenaardse beschaving proberen onze signalen te onderscheppen en actief te communiceren of zelfs te sturen. Dit scenario plaatst ons in een contactdilemma: hoe zouden wij reageren, en hoe zouden we onze communicatie beschermen tegen misbruik of misinterpretatie?

• Radiogolven als stille témoen: Een andere mogelijkheid is dat buitenaardse luisteraars onze buitenaardse detectie in de vorm van technologische signatures signalen identificeren die duidelijk kunstmatig zijn, zoals consistent gemoduleerde patronen die wij als technologische artefacten interpreteren.

Ethiek, veiligheid en beleidsimplicaties

De mogelijkheid dat aliens onze radio-communicatie onderscheppen roept ethische en veiligheidsvragen op. Ten eerste, als buitenaardse wezens bestaan die in staat zijn ons te detecteren, moeten we overleggen over deontologie van semantisch zinvol contact. Moeten we openbare communicatie handhaven of voorzichtige, beperkte communicatie hanteren om misinterpretatie of economische of technologische voordeel te voorkomen?

Daarnaast bestaan er praktische overwegingen: het beschermen van gevoelige wetenschappelijke of technologische informatie die in deze signalen is geëtaleerd. Hoewel onze signalen niet bedoeld zijn als privé, kunnen we wel nadenken over het minimaliseren van potentieel schadelijke informatie leakage die buitenaardse luisteraars kunnen interpreteren als brug naar technologische superioriteit. Beleidsmatig liggen er vragen over internationale samenwerking, transparantie en de ontwikkeling van normen voor interstellair contact. Het is niet vanzelfsprekend dat de nationale veiligheids- of wetenschapsinstanties hier een eenduidig antwoord op hebben.

Impliceert onderschepping virale risico’s?

Het samenleven met een mogelijke buitenaardse luisteraar roept de bezorgdheid op dat mislukte interpretaties of verkeerde decodering serieuze gevolgen kunnen hebben. Als een buitenaardse beschaving interpreteert dat de mensheid agressief of vreedzaam is, kan dit leiden tot een gebrek aan vertrouwen of zelfs misbruik van misleidende signalen. Daarom is het van belang dat wetenschappers duidelijk communiceren over de aard van signalen en de beperkingen van menselijke interpretaties, en dat internationale samenwerking versterkt wordt om de risico’s te mitigeren.

Een illustratie van buitenaardse wezens.

Science Picture Co. / Getty Images

Methoden om onze eigen communicatie te beschermen en te documenteren

• Vergroten van robuuste signaalintegriteit: Door redundantie, foutcorrectie en encryptie-achtige beveiliging in ruimtesignalen te implementeren (waar mogelijk) kunnen we de interpretatie door een onbekende luisteraar bemoeilijken. Dit zou ook kunnen helpen bij het onderscheiden van kunstmatige versus natuurlijke bronnen.

• Transparantie en dataverzameling: Het documenteren van alle detecties en analyses in open wetenschappelijke journals en internationale fora vergroot de reproducibiliteit en minimaliseert misverstanden over wat wel of niet waarneembaar is. Internationale protocollen kunnen helpen bij het harmoniseren van waarnemingsstrategieën.

• Publieke wetenschappelijke educatie: Het vergroten van begrip over wat we zenden en hoe detectie werkt kan helpen bij het demystificeren van de kans dat buitenaardse wezens precies weten wat we bedoelen. Het bevordert verantwoorde publieke discussies over SETI, contact en ruimtebeleid.

Wetenschappelijke context: SETI, kosmische achtergrondruis en de Fermi-paradox

Het onderwerp van onderschepping past in de bredere context van Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Wetenschappers bestuderen of signalen van buitenaardse beschavingen zouden bestaan en hoe we ze kunnen detecteren. De aanwezigheid van technologische activiteit in het universum wordt vaak gedetecteerd door een combinatie van radiosignalen en spectrale lijnen die kunstmatige oorsprong suggereren. De Fermi-paradox, de vraag waarom we nog geen onmiskenbaar bewijs van buitenaards contact hebben gevonden, is relevant: het roept ons op om zowel de kans van detectie als de duur van de signalengebruik-stijging in kaart te brengen. Een mogelijk antwoord is dat signalen te zwak zijn, te kort duren, of dat beschavingen niet lang genoeg bestaan om ons bereiken. Een andere mogelijkheid is dat beschavingen hun signalen bewust paderen of vervangen door niet-radiogebonden wijzen van communicatie.

Concluderende reflectie

Het idee dat aliens onze radiogolven kunnen onderscheppen voor ruimtescheepscommunicatie blijft een mix van wetenschappelijke plausibiliteit en speculatie. De huidige fysica en technologie suggereren dat onderschepping mogelijk is in principe, maar dat de praktische kans dat een buitenaardse beschaving onze signalen detecteert en interesse toont afhankelijk is van enorme afstanden, signaalverzwakking, en de technologische capaciteiten van de luisteraar. Desondanks is het onderwerp waardevol voor de wetenschappelijke dialoog over hoe we communiceren in een ruimtelijke context en welke veiligheids- en ethische overwegingen hierbij horen.

Voor de toekomst betekent dit dat we onderzoek moeten blijven investeren in de detectiekunde, signaalverwerkingsmethoden, en internationale samenwerking. Het ontwikkelen van normen en protocollen rond interstellair contact, transparante communicatie, en bescherming tegen misinterpretatie kan ons helpen voorbereid te zijn op mogelijke toekomstige scenario’s. Terwijl de vraag “Zouden aliens onze signalen kunnen onderscheppen?” hoog in het veld van speculatie blijft, biedt de wetenschappelijke uitleg erachter een solide basis om kritisch en verantwoordelijk na te denken over hoe de mensheid haar boodschap naar de kosmos uitstuurt en hoe we moeten omgaan met de mogelijke ontvangst van geluiden uit de ruimte.

Samenvatting

• Radiocommunicatie met ruimtevaartuigen is gericht op telemetrie, commando’s en wetenschappelijke data, en vindt plaats in gefrequenteerde banden met regelgeving.
• De mogelijkheid dat buitenaardse luisteraars onze signalen onderscheppen hangt af van afstand, signaalsterkte, en capaciteiten van de ontvanger.
• Zowel eenvoudige asociale afluistering als geavanceerde decodering zijn theoretische scenario’s die uitdagingen en kansen bieden voor wetenschappelijke benadering.
• Ethische, veiligheids- en beleidsvragen rondom mogelijk contact vereisen internationale samenwerking en duidelijke normen.
• SETI en gerelateerde wetenschappen bieden een kader om deze ideeën te plaatsen binnen de grotere zoektocht naar buitenaardse intelligentie, met aandacht voor Fermi-paradox en de realistische beperkingen van detectie en interpretatie.

{ PETER2011 }

26-09-2025 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

Every time NASA engineers send a command to a Mars rover or interplanetary spacecraft, they simultaneously send a message into deep space. Powerful radio signals directed at neighboring planets are only partially absorbed by the target. The other part continues its journey through space-time, spreading out almost infinitely. This “leak” of information, previously considered a side effect, is now seen as a potential beacon for extraterrestrial civilizations.

New research by scientists at Pennsylvania State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory offers an interesting hypothesis. Scientists analyzed data from the Deep Space Network (DSN) over the past 20 years. They concluded that an alien intelligence located at a specific point in space could easily intercept our transmissions. The key is that all the planets in the Solar System rotate in roughly the same plane — the ecliptic.

As astronomer Pinchen Fan explains, if an observer is located at the edge of this plane at a distance of about 23 light-years, their chances of entering the radio shadow of our signals to Mars or other planets increase dramatically. Calculations show that the probability of such a coincidence reaches 77%, which is orders of magnitude higher than random detection.

Mirror search

The same idea can be applied to the search for extraterrestrial life. Assuming that other technologically advanced civilizations are also exploring planets in their systems, we can point our telescopes at similar “hot spots.” The most promising exoplanetary systems will be those where, from our perspective, two or more planets periodically line up in a row — transiting in front of their star. From such positions, their potential DSN could transmit signals in our direction.

However, as Fan notes, we are only at the beginning of this journey. At present, only a few systems with multiple transit planets are known. However, future space missions, such as the launch of the Nancy Grace telescope, promise to revolutionize space exploration. This telescope is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, significantly expanding our map of potential “listening zones.” v

Earlier, we explained why we still haven’t found aliens.

• According to psu.edu

• Posted in News, Tech

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26-09-2025 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

The creators of science fiction films love to amaze viewers with various strange devices or technologies. Teleportation, faster-than-light travel, hibernation, artificial gravity – these are just a few of the most obvious examples. Unfortunately, many of these technologies currently seem impossible from the perspective of the laws of physics as we know them. Others seem achievable, but only in the distant future.

However, there are also reverse cases. Some devices imagined by sci-fi authors have already become reality. And just like with futuristic gadgets, digital tools are also evolving. Today, you can work with documents not only on a computer but also on a tablet or smartphone — thanks to modern solutions like UPDF, which combine PDF editing, file organization, and even AI-powered features.

The editors of Universe Space Tech have selected five technologies and devices from science fiction films that have either already entered or are gradually entering our everyday lives.

1. Mobile phones

The heroes of many science fiction novels and films used compact devices to stay in touch. A notable example is the communicators from the popular Star Trek franchise. They allowed the crew members of the Enterprise to communicate with one another and with other spacecraft. Losing, breaking, or going out of range of the communicator often created a difficult situation for the characters.

It is precisely the communicators from Star Trek that are often cited as one of the main sources of inspiration for mobile phone technology. The prototype of such a device was created by Motorola in 1973, eight years after the first episode of the series was released. We do not think we need to tell you what happened next. Interestingly, in some later episodes of Star Trek, the characters also used wrist communicators that closely resemble smartwatches.

Of course, the communicators from Star Trek did not have many of the capabilities of modern smartphones. At the same time, in some respects, they are still unmatched. For example, communicators were not affected by electromagnetic interference and allowed users to contact subscribers on another planet almost instantly without any signal delay. So, manufacturers of modern gadgets definitely still have something to strive for.

2. Tablets

At the time, “2001: A Space Odyssey” amazed audiences with its grandiose vision of a high-tech future in which space stations orbited the Earth to classical music and humanity confidently conquered the far reaches of the solar system. Of course, half a century later, the authors’ vision seems overly optimistic, even naive. But some of what was shown in Stanley Kubrick’s film did come true. And one of the most surprising “hits” in reality was… the tablet.

In one scene in the film, the crew members of the Discovery spacecraft watched the news on flat-screen devices that closely resembled modern tablets. Interestingly, the film’s script called for the New York Times logo and the newspaper’s digital front page to appear on the device displays, complete with several article headlines that could be opened with a touch. Had this scene been filmed, the creators of Space Odyssey would surely have been hailed as the people who predicted the internet. But even without it, the tablets in the 1968 movie look truly astonishing. And if they once seemed like pure fantasy, today their capabilities are part of everyday life. For instance, with Organize PDF, you can arrange your files on a tablet as easily as the characters of 2001: A Space Odyssey browsed the news.

Interestingly, when Samsung sued Apple in 2011 for patent infringement in the creation of tablet computers, its lawyers even included footage from “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the case. In this way, the Korean company tried to prove that its competitors did not actually come up with the design for their iPad, but simply “borrowed” it from Stanley Kubrick.

3. Bionic prostheses

All Star Wars fans surely remember the scene of Luke Skywalker’s battle with Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, in which the young Jedi lost his arm. Fortunately for the hero, he later acquired a bionic prosthesis that completely replaced all the functions of his lost limb. Thanks to this, Luke Skywalker was able to once again skillfully wield his lightsaber in the sequel to the saga.

At the time of the film’s release, such a device seemed as fantastical as blasters or the Death Star. But much has changed in the forty years since. In 2016, Mobius Bionics began producing an innovative bionic prosthetic arm that gives users much greater freedom of movement than conventional prostheses. The device’s smart system reads muscle signals, allowing it to perform a variety of complex movements: using a screwdriver, brushing teeth, zipping up a zipper, holding both fragile and heavy objects, and putting an arm behind the back. The device has been named LUKE. The abbreviation stands for Life Under Kinetic Evolution, but it is also, of course, a reference to Luke Skywalker.

A few years later, LUKE underwent significant improvements and was equipped with a biological feedback system. With the help of electrodes implanted in peripheral nerves and muscles, the prosthesis user can now feel touch, vibration, and even pain. This has greatly simplified the use of the device. And just as bionics changes people’s lives, artificial intelligence transforms the way we work with documents: UPDF offers ChatGPT-4.1-powered tools that let you chat with PDFs and instantly extract the data you need.

4. Exoskeletons

Exoskeletons are as integral to modern science fiction as colonies on other planets. Examples of such devices can be found in numerous films, from Aliens to Edge of Tomorrow. But you do not have to buy a movie ticket to see an exoskeleton anymore – you can already find them in real life.

In recent years, various companies and inventors have introduced many different types of exoskeletons. Most of them only strengthen one part of the body, but there are also full-body suits. Some exoskeletons are designed to restore lost motor functions. Others can be used in construction and industrial work. Still others are designed for use by extreme athletes.

Of course, the military is also showing great interest in such developments. Yes, exoskeletons are not yet part of the standard equipment of any army in the world. But given the pace of technological progress, it cannot be ruled out that the image of a mobile infantryman clad in combat armor, described in Robert Heinlein’s famous novel Starship Troopers, will one day become a reality.

5. Deflection of hazardous asteroids

In 1998, two films were released simultaneously, both depicting NASA’s attempts to save Earth from an uninvited visitor from space. Despite their different tones, at the time, the plots of both Armageddon and Deep Impact seemed like pure fantasy, as humanity had no way of deflecting a dangerous asteroid from Earth.

And now, a quarter of a century later, NASA has taken the first step toward creating such technology. In November 2021, a Falcon 9 rocket launched the DART probe into space. Its target was the 160-meter asteroid Dimorphos, a satellite of the larger object Didymos (65803 Didymos). On September 26, 2022, DART crashed into this object at a speed of 6.6 km/s.

The consequences of the collision far exceeded scientists’ expectations. According to the most conservative estimates, the impact knocked at least a thousand tons of material off the asteroid’s surface, changing its shape. It also left a long dust trail (which later split in two) stretching 10,000 km.

In addition, the impact significantly altered Dimorphos’ orbital parameters. Before the impact, its orbital period around Didymos was 11 hours and 55 minutes. After the impact, it decreased to 11 hours and 22 minutes. The distance between the two asteroids also changed, decreasing by 37 meters.

Bombing an asteroid is not just fun and games for NASA. It will allow them to test methods for changing the orbit of a potentially dangerous asteroid in practice. Yes, it may not look as spectacular as Bruce Willis’ heroic self-sacrifice. But who knows? It is quite possible that one fine day, this technology will actually save our planet from danger from space.

Modern Tools for PDF Work

Science fiction is becoming reality not only in space but also in our digital lives. UPDF offers unique advantages:

• Works on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android with one account across 4 devices.
• Full editing suite including OCR and AI chat with documents.
• Lifetime free upgrades.
• 6x cheaper than Acrobat.
• Monthly updates, 24/6 support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.l

• Posted in Articles, Questions

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26-09-2025 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

Humans just got even OLDER: Ancient skull pushes back our origins by 400,000 years - making Homo sapiens more than one million years old

• READ MORE: Scientists baffled by a mysterious skull found fused to a cave wall

By JONATHAN CHADWICK, ASSISTANT SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

It's time to rewrite the family tree, as scientists have revealed that our species is even older than we thought.  

Previous studies have proved that we evolved in Africa before finally conquering the world – getting the better of some other rival human species on our way. 

However, scientists now say we've been getting the date of own origins totally wrong.

In a new paper, the experts that claim Homo sapiens began to emerge over one million years ago.

Until now, it's been commonly believed that we split from our closest human relatives 600,000 years ago.  

So the findings, based on a new analysis of a rare Chinese skull fossil, pushes back our species' origins by some 400,000 years. 

Study author Chris Stringer, an anthropologist the National History Museum, said the 'landmark' findings offer an important window into our evolutionary past. 

'Fossils like this one just how much we still have to learn about our origins,' he said.

Homo sapiens began to emerge over one million years ago – pushing back our species' origins by some 400,000 years. Pictured, a new replica reconstruction of Chinese skull Yunxian 2 (left), and the Yunxian 2 skull itself (right) 

The focus of this study is Yunxian 2, a fossilised cranium found badly crushed by excavators in Hubei, China back in 1990. 

Dating back one million years ago, the heavily deformed skull was once thought to belong to an adult male member of the species Homo erectus.

Appearing about about two million years ago, Homo erectus was a direct ancestor of modern humans and the first species to walk fully upright. As a result, it's thought of as the first human species to have left Africa. 

Using CT scanning, light imaging and virtual reconstruction techniques, the team made a physical model of what the skull would look like had it not been squashed.

The physical model also incorporated a few small anatomical elements from Yunxian 1, another fossil found at the site in 1989, also badly crushed. 

Once completed, the model was compared it to 104 other fossil specimens and similar high-quality replicas. 

Their findings show Yunxian 2 does display some primitive traits similar to Homo erectus, such as a large, squat braincase, a strong brow ridge, and a more projecting lower face. 

However, derived features in the face and rear of the braincase, as well as a larger brain capacity, are closer to later species such as Homo longi ('Dragon Man') and Homo sapiens. 

Scientists 'could barely believe their own findings'. The international team has been led by researchers from Fudan University, Shanghai and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, alongside Professor Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum

The model of Yunxian 2 also incorporated a few small anatomical elements from Yunxian 1 (pictured), another fossil found at the site in 1989, also badly crushed 

Based on their analyses, Yunxian 2 is not a Homo erectus at all, but an early member of the lineage that includes Homo longi and several other Chinese fossils.

Homo longi is strongly linked with the Denisovans, another extinct group of archaic humans known primarily from fossil finds in Siberia and Tibet.

Crucially, this lineage originated more than one million years ago, according to Professor Stringer, who worked alongside experts at Fudan University in Shanghai and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. 

'Our research reveals that Yunxian 2 is not Homo erectus, but an early member of the longi clade and linked to the Denisovans,' he said. 

'This changes a lot of thinking because it suggests that by one million years ago, our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed.' 

Despite their findings, the researchers are reluctant to describe Yunxian 2 as belonging to the Homo longi, at least for the moment.

Analysis of a third Yunxian skull found in 2022 ('Yunxian 3') will act as 'an important test' of the new reconstruction and hopefully make it conclusive. 

'We will now be extending our analyses to include further sources of data and other fossils, which will be critical for refining this picture,' Professor Stringer added.  

Homo longi or 'Dragon Man' is a species identified from a skull fossil known as the Harbin cranium, found in Harbin City in Heilongjiang province in 1933. Pictured, artist's impression of the species 

'The human lineage': This illustration shows the closest extinct relatives of modern humans (homo sapiens, right)

The team's new findings, published today in the journal Science, paint a 'radically different' picture of human evolution. 

According to the scientists, in the last 800,000 years, most large-brained humans can be traced to just five major branches – Asian erectus, heidelbergensis, longi, sapiens, and neanderthalensis.

The research reveals that these groups were already splitting from one another more than a million years ago – deeper in time than we previously thought.

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa but migrated out of the continent 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, reaching Europe and Asia. 

There, we found and mated with the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), our closest ancient human relative, also extinct. 

Not a lot is known about the Denisovans, the population of early humans who lived in Asia at least 80,000 years ago and were also distantly related to Neanderthals. 

Denisovans also bred with humans around 50,000 years ago, likely in Asia, meaning the DNA of the early hominids survives today.

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26-09-2025 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

A remarkable million-year-old skull discovered in China has shattered long-held beliefs about human evolution, suggesting that modern humans and their closest relatives diverged from common ancestors at least half a million years earlier than previously thought. The discovery challenges the fundamental narrative of human origins and raises the tantalizing possibility that  Homo sapiens may have first emerged not in Africa, but in Asia. This bold research, published in the prestigious journal  Science, represents one of the most significant advances in understanding human evolution in decades, forcing scientists to completely reconsider the timeline and geography of our species' emergence on Earth.

The reconstructed Yunxian 2 skull, originally excavated in 1990 from Hubei Province in central China, was initially classified as belonging to the primitive human species  Homo erectus. However, sophisticated digital reconstruction techniques have revealed that this ancient cranium possesses a unique combination of features that place it much closer to the mysterious Denisovans and the  Homo longi lineage, dramatically reshaping our understanding of human evolutionary history.

• Million-Year-Old Human Skull Found in China Reveals Missing Link
• 'Dragon Man' Skull Found in China May Be ANOTHER New Human Species

Comparison showing Dragon Man skull features similar to those found in Yunxian 2. 

( Mr. Wei Gao / Chuang Zhao/Cell)

Revolutionary Digital Reconstruction Reveals Hidden Identity

For over three decades, the badly crushed and distorted Yunxian 2 skull remained an enigma, its true significance hidden beneath layers of geological damage. The breakthrough came when researchers led by Professor Xijun Ni of Fudan University and Professor Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum applied cutting-edge CT imaging and sophisticated digital reconstruction techniques to virtually restore the cranium to its original form.

"From the very beginning, when we got the result, we thought it was unbelievable. How could that be so deep into the past?" Professor Ni told the BBC.

"But we tested it again and again to test all the models, use all the methods, and we are now confident about the result, and we're actually very excited."

The painstaking reconstruction process involved CT image segmentation to digitally separate fossil bones from surrounding rock matrix, followed by careful repositioning of displaced fragments. When the skull's true shape was finally revealed, it displayed a remarkable mosaic of primitive and advanced features that clearly distinguished it from both  Homo erectus and modern humans.

• Ancient Skulls Found in China Could Belong to an Unidentified Human Species
• Rethinking Homo sapiens? The story of our origins gets messy

Reconstruction of the Yunxian 2 cranium showing the sophisticated features that place it within the Homo longi lineage.

Source: Feng et al 2025, Science

The Dragon Man Connection and Denisovan Mysteries

The reconstructed Yunxian 2 skull revealed features characteristic of what researchers call the  Homo longi clade - a group that includes the enigmatic Dragon Man and likely encompasses the mysterious Denisovans. These features include a large cranial capacity of approximately 1,143 cubic centimeters, a long and low frontal skull bone, and distinctively narrow spacing between the eye sockets.

"The Homo longi clade, containing the Denisovans, lasted for over a million years," study co-author Chris Stringer explained to Live Science. "But so did the Neanderthal and  sapiens lineages."

Using statistical analysis of 57 fossil skulls and advanced phylogenetic modeling, the research team calculated that the major human lineages diverged much earlier than previously believed. The Neanderthal clade separated first, around 1.38 million years ago, followed by the  Homo longi clade at 1.2 million years ago, and finally  Homo sapiens at 1.02 million years ago, according to the report in Science.

This dramatically compressed timeframe suggests a period of rapid evolutionary diversification, with three distinct human lineages emerging within just 360,000 years. The implications are staggering: rather than gradual evolution over millions of years, human ancestors underwent explosive adaptive radiation in response to unknown environmental pressures.

Challenging Africa-Centric Human Origins

Perhaps most controversially, this discovery raises fundamental questions about the geographic origins of modern humanity. The traditional "Out of Africa" model posits that  Homo sapiens evolved exclusively on the African continent around 300,000 years ago before spreading globally. However, the antiquity and sophistication of the Yunxian 2 specimen suggests a more complex picture.

"This changes a lot of thinking because it suggests that by one million years ago our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed," Professor Stringer told The Guardian. "It more or less doubles the time of origin of  Homo sapiens."

The research team suggests that if the  Homo longi lineage was already established in Asia one million years ago, and if this group shares common ancestry with modern humans and Neanderthals, then the ancestral population from which all three lineages emerged may have existed in western Asia rather than Africa. This would represent a fundamental revision of human evolutionary geography.

The discovery also helps resolve what paleoanthropologists call the "muddle in the middle"—dozens of confusing human fossil remains dating between 800,000 and 100,000 years ago that have proven difficult to classify. With earlier divergence dates, these puzzling specimens can now be grouped as members of the three major lineages or their primitive ancestors.

Phylogenetic family tree showing relationships between Yunxian 2 and other human specimens 

Source: Feng et al 2025, Science

Scientific Skepticism and Future Research

While the findings are groundbreaking, not all experts are convinced by the dramatic timeline revision. Dr. Aylwyn Scally, an evolutionary geneticist at Cambridge University, cautioned that considerable uncertainties remain in both morphological and genetic dating methods.

"One has to be particularly tentative about the timing estimates, because those are very difficult to do, regardless of what evidence you're looking at," Scally told the BBC.

"Even with the largest amount of genetic data, it is very difficult to place a time when these populations may have co-existed to within 100,000 years, or even more."

The research team acknowledges these limitations but maintains confidence in their reconstruction and analysis methods. They used bootstrap resampling techniques to test the robustness of their conclusions, finding that potential errors in restoration and character scoring had minimal impact on their phylogenetic inferences.

Future validation will require additional fossil discoveries and, ideally, genetic material from the Yunxian specimens themselves. As Dr. Frido Welker from the University of Copenhagen noted, "molecular data from the specimen itself could provide insights confirming or disproving the authors' morphological hypothesis."

This extraordinary discovery represents far more than academic debate - it fundamentally challenges our understanding of what it means to be human and where we came from. As researchers continue to uncover and analyze ancient remains, the story of human evolution becomes increasingly complex, revealing a rich tapestry of interactions, migrations, and adaptations that shaped our species across deep time.

• Top image: The original Yunxian Man cranium before reconstruction, showing distortion from geological pressure.  
• Source: Gary Todd/CC0

By Gary Manners

References

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-0 }

25-09-2025 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

25-09-2025 om 22:50 geschreven door peter  

Viktor Hovland´s great pursuits: A perfect golf swing and the truth about UFOs

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (AP) - Viktor Hovland´s golf swing clicked at the right time. His search for the truth about UFOs? That's still a work in progress.

Practicing on the driving range two days before the Ryder Cup begins Friday, the 28-year-old Norwegian said he suddenly felt freed up. When he reviewed his swing on video, "it looked definitely better than other swings that I´ve made lately."

"Obviously this is a golf course that you have to drive it really well, and I've been kind of struggling with the driver," Hovland said Thursday at Bethpage Black. "It´s been a long time since I´ve been able to stand on the range and just kind of beat balls fluidly, effortlessly without trying to feel like I´m steering it."

That bodes well for Europe, which enters tournament play on Friday as underdogs on the U.S. team´s turf in front of what´s sure to be a raucous New York crowd. President Donald Trump will be there for part of it, adding to the frenzy.

About the UFOs: it's a subject Hovland says he´s gotten deeper into in the last couple of years, piquing the curiosity of teammates and fans alike. The seven-time PGA Tour winner said it´s one way he takes his mind off golf.

And, he insists, the truth is out there.

Europe's Viktor Hovland watches his tee shot on the 12th hole during a practice round for the Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y.

(AP Photo/Robert Bukaty)

"The more you go into it, you just get more questions," Hovland said. "It´s one of those things that you don´t really find any more answers, but it´s very interesting to go in there and kind of challenge some of your beliefs that you currently hold."

"You kind of have to expand your mind a little bit," he said.

Hovland, one of golf's most popular and affable stars, was eager to get back to practicing after rain soaked the course on Thursday morning. He said he wanted to make sure his newfound swing feel didn't disappear overnight.

"I think we´ve all been there," Hovland said. "We find a feel and think we´re back, and the next day it all falls apart."

Acknowledging "some major struggles" with his game in recent seasons, Hovland desperately wants to return to the form he had in 2023, when he won three times on the PGA Tour and claimed the season-ending FedEx Cup.

He dropped from No. 4 in the world rankings the week of the last Ryder Cup, a win for Europe in Rome in 2023, to No. 12 currently. But, he said, "I feel like despite that, I can still overcome that and play some really good golf."

Hovland is frequently blunt and introspective, and his session with reporters Thursday volleyed from questions about his swing to his fascination with the prospect of otherworldly beings, spurred by a comment his friend and teammate Ludvig Åberg made to reporters on Wednesday.

"Ludvig said that you like to talk about UFOs. What´s up with that?" a reporter asked.

"What´s up with that?" Hovland responded, smiling and prompting laughs. "Yeah, that´s the question, isn´t it? What is up with that?"

Åberg, for his part, said that while he indulges Hovland's UFO talk, "I´m not quite down that road just yet. If I hang out with him long enough, I might be."

"He´s a funny guy to have funny conversations with," Åberg said. "They can go in any direction that you don´t really expect."

In some ways, pursuing a perfect golf swing and eternal questions about flying saucers and extraterrestrial life are a lot alike, both requiring curiosity and patience.

In golf, he said, "you just look at your golf swing and you´re trying to practice hard and you don´t really get the results that you want, it can be quite frustrating."

As a Ryder Cup rookie in 2021, Hovland went 0-3-2 en route to a 19-9 European loss at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. In 2023, he went 3-1-1 as Europe prevailed 16.5 to 11.5.

"I felt like I was maybe more timid as a rookie playing on foreign soil," Hovland said of his first Ryder Cup. "I think I played just a bit more insecure maybe but after 2023, my best season of my career, I felt just more excitement."

This time there's the added factor of a New York crowd - famously loud and ruthless toward opposing players, whether from the Boston Red Sox or Team Europe. Hovland, quirky as ever, said he has an antidote for that.

"If you play well, you know, there´s going to be some comments here and there," he said. "They won´t really come close to the thoughts that I have in my own head. So I think I´ll just laugh it off for the most part."

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{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index. }

25-09-2025 om 22:22 geschreven door peter  

The ancient part of your brain that controls your consciousness, found by scientists

• READ MORE: The test that spots Alzheimer's YEARS before symptoms appear

By WILIAM HUNTER, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

For decades, scientists have thought that human consciousness arises from the newest and most sophisticated parts of the brain.

But a Cambridge scientist now claims that the fundamental basis of our experience may be controlled by a far more primal structure.

In a review of over a century of scientific research, neuroscientist Dr Peter Coppola examined stimulation studies, animal experiments, and neurological case reports.

Based on this wide-ranging evidence, Dr Coppola argues that consciousness might arise from our ancient 'lizard brain'.

If true, that would mean that consciousness is not such a uniquely human trait as scientists had once thought. 

Writing in The Conversation, Dr Coppola says: 'These reports are striking evidence that suggests maybe the oldest parts of the brain are enough for basic consciousness.

'In turn, this may influence patient care as well as how we think about animal rights.

'In fact, consciousness might be more common than we realised.'

For decades, scientists have thought that human consciousness arises from the newest and most sophisticated parts of the brain. But now, a Cambridge scientist claims that the fundamental basis of our experience may be controlled by a far more primal structure (stock image) 

The human brain is a little like a Russian nesting doll, with the parts that evolved most recently on the outside and the older, more basic parts nestled towards the centre.

The recently evolved outermost part of the brain is known as the cortex, which is responsible for complex tasks like memory, thinking, learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Meanwhile, the inner region, known as the sub-cortex, hasn't changed much in over 500 million years of evolution.

Often referred to as the 'lizard brain', these primal areas are responsible for monitoring basic impulses and sensations such as hunger, thirst, pain, pleasure, and fear.

Previously, scientists thought that the most recently evolved areas of the cortex, known as the neocortex, were the likely origin of conscious experiences.

The subcortex was considered necessary for consciousness, like how electricity is necessary to make a television work, but not sufficient to create consciousness by itself.

However, Dr Coppola says that scientists have been underestimating the importance of the brain's oldest regions.

Dr Coppola looked at a type of experiment called a stimulation study in which electricity or magnets are used to interfere with parts of the brain.

Scientists had previously thought that consciousness, the subjective awareness of experience, was produced in the more recently evolved outer region of the brain known as the cortex 

Instead, neurologist Dr Peter Coppola says that consciousness is likely produced by the more ancient sections of the brain known as the subcortex and the hind-brain (illustrated)  

What is consciousness?  

Consciousness is the subjective awareness of 'what it is like' to experience the world.

There are two major questions scientists have about consciousness: a so-called easy problem and a hard problem.

The easy problem is the underlying biological processes which control perception, memory and attention.

The hard problem is to understand how and why physical processes should come with a subjective experience at all. 

For example, why does banging our funny bone hurt? Why do our bodies not simply register the bodily damage?

Some scientists and philosophers think that we may never be able to answer the hard problem of consciousness.

Interfering with the neocortex produces powerful effects, including changing your sense of self, creating hallucinations, or affecting your judgment, but affecting the patterns of the deeper regions produces even more profound effects.

Dr Coppola says: 'We can induce depression, wake a monkey from anaesthesia or knock a mouse unconscious. Even stimulating the cerebellum, long considered irrelevant, can change your conscious sensory perception.'

This was a strong hint that the older regions of the brain were very important for consciousness, but it wasn't enough to show that the lizard brain alone was capable of producing consciousness.

To make that jump, Dr Coppola looked at cases where people and animals have had parts of their brains damaged or removed.

Damaging the cortex and neocortex produces changes in conscious experience, but damage to the subcortex and other deep regions often leads to the total destruction of consciousness through death or coma.

Even more strikingly, there are rare cases of children born with a condition called hydranencephaly that causes them to lack most of their cortex.

Dr Coppola says: 'According to medical textbooks, these people should be in a permanent vegetative state.

'However, there are reports that these people can feel upset, play, recognise people or show enjoyment of music.'

In rare cases, children can be born without most of their neocortex (pictured) but still appear to have a conscious experience. This suggests that it is only the older regions which are necessary for consciousness 

Likewise, Dr Coppola refers to a number of 'extreme' experiments on animals in which rats, cats, and monkeys had their neocortex surgically removed.

Even without this supposedly vital part of the brain, the animals were able to show emotion, groom themselves, parent their young, and even learn.

This suggests that the subcortex alone is sufficient to produce some level of conscious experience.

However, this doesn't mean that the cortex and neocortex aren't adding anything to our human consciousness.

Read More

• Expert reveals the best sleep position to protect against memory decline 

Dr Coppola says: 'The newer parts of the brain – as well as the cerebellum – seem to expand and refine your consciousness.'

These regions take the basic building blocks of awareness and add in the language, moral reasoning, sense of self, and creativity that make human consciousness unique.

That would explain how the richness of human consciousness is able to emerge out of such primitive pieces of brain machinery.  

But, if Dr Coppola is correct, this means that a basic level of consciousness is likely older and much more widespread than anyone had previously thought.

How fMRI scans track what happens in the human brain

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging.

It measures the metabolic changes that occur within the brain, such as changes in blood flow.

Medical professionals may use fMRI to detect abnormalities within the brain that cannot be found with other imaging techniques, measure the effects of stroke or disease, or guide brain treatment.

It can also be used to examine the brain’s anatomy and determine which parts of the brain are handling critical functions.

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan uses a magnetic field rather than X-rays to take pictures of body. 

The MRI scanner is a hollow machine with a tube running horizontally through its middle. 

You lie on a bed that slides into the tube of the scanner.

Equipment used in fMRI scans uses the same technology, but is more compact and lightweight.

The main difference between a normal MRI scan and a fMRI scan is the results that can be obtained.

Whereas a normal MRI scan gives pictures of the structure of the brain, a functional MRI scan shows which parts of the brain are activated when certain tasks are carried out.

This includes language, memory and movement. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

25-09-2025 om 22:07 geschreven door peter  

Moon landing conspiracy theories are reignited online as NASA reveals details for the Artemis II mission – as one sceptic jokes 'I hope they have better CGI this time'

• READ MORE: Meet NASA's 10 new astronaut recruits who could go to Mars 

By WILIAM HUNTER, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

As early as February 2026, NASA will launch the Artemis II mission and send four astronauts on the first lunar flight in over 50 years.

But some internet-dwelling conspiracy theorists aren't convinced by the official narrative.

As the space agency unveils new details for the mission, lunar conspiracy theories have reignited and spread like wildfire on social media.

The focus of many commenters' ire is the fact that it has been over 50 years since NASA launched a mission to the moon.

Given that Artemis II won't actually land on the moon, some conspiracy theorists have been left unsure why NASA seemingly can't replicate a feat first achieved in 1969.

While this has boosted long-debunked claims that the original moon landings were faked, some commenters have gone even further.

The wild theories posted online claim that humans have never even been to space, while others even claim that space itself is somehow 'fake'.

Taking to X, one sceptically-minded commenter joked: 'I hope they have better CGI'. 

As NASA unveils the details for the Artemis II mission, lunar conspiracy theories have reignited and spread like wildfire on social media. Pictured: Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969

As early as February next year, NASA will launch the Artemis II mission and send four astronauts (pictured from left: Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen) on a 10-day trip around the moon in the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years 

However, on social media, NASA's announcement of the mission's details ignited a wave of conspiracy theories that spread like wildfire over X, formerly Twitter 

One internet-dwelling conspiracy theorist joked that NASA's rocket launches were as fake as 'pro wrestling in zero gravity' 

Early next year, four NASA astronauts will launch from Earth aboard an Orion spaceship powered by the powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Over 10 days, the crew will travel 5,700 miles (9,200 km) past the moon, testing the onboard systems and gathering data on their bodies' reactions, before returning to Earth.

During this time, they will reach the furthest point from Earth ever travelled to by a human and become the first people to travel to the moon in over 50 years.

Rather than landing on the moon, the mission's goal is to test the systems that will be used in the Artemis III lunar landing, currently planned for mid-2027.

However, these details failed to register with the legions of conspiracy theorists who saw the lack of landing as an admission that NASA had never been to the moon.

On X, one commenter wrote: 'I believe that the American missions of the 1950s are fake unless modern humans land on the moon. It's been over 70 years and we still can't go to the moon?'

'So NASA are going to the moon again but they are not actually landing what a load of fake BS,' another chimed in.

One commenter complained that this was 'one of the reasons I don't believe that humans have ever been to the moon.'

The Artemis II mission is not intended to land on the moon, but rather to test out the spacecraft and systems that will be used for the first crewed landing in the Artemis III mission 

However, the fact that Artemis II will not feature a lunar landing left some commenters confused as to why the space agency seemingly cannot replicate a feat it first completed in 1969 

One commenter complained that they could no longer believe in the reality of anything NASA does or claims to do

Another vented: 'It befuddles me how people can still believe NASA after 60+ years of fake moon landings and a bunch of excuses since.'

And one commenter even joked: 'Watching these launches is like watching pro wrestling in zero gravity. Everyone knows it's fake, but the show must go on.'

But for those already deeply involved in the world of NASA conspiracy theories, this announcement of the Artemis II mission triggered a flurry of bizarre claims.

Most strangely of all, the lunar mission seemed to prompt many commenters to deny the existence of space itself.

In a wild rant, one commenter wrote: 'The first task of any elected President is to sign over the budget for NASA, the National Academy of Space Actors. Money plays a role but the ultimate reason for fake Space is to hide God & dismiss Creation with Pseudoscience.'

'NASA spends $60M per day of tax payers money to make fake videos about them floating in space,' another claimed.

Another added: 'Space is fake. We never went to the moon. The first astronauts were diving actors. NASA in Houston is a movie set.'

However, like so many online conspiracy theories, many commenters had one big reason for doubting the existence of the space missions: The Flat Earth theory.

Another conspiracy theorist claimed that the lack of a lunar landing in Artemis II was one of the reasons they 'don't believe that humans have ever been to the moon' 

The news of the mission pushed some conspiracy theorists into wild rants about secret societies, flat Earth, elaborate cover-ups and the moon landings 

One particularly frustrated conspiracy theorist wrote: 'Earth isn't a spinning space ball; it's a fixed plane covered by a firmament they've desperately tried to hide with fake space missions and NASA's $60 million a day budget scam.'

They continued to rant: 'The moon landing? Filmed on a soundstage by Freemason puppets under Operation Mockingbird control.'

While another complained about 'the lying NASA who lied to the world about the Earth being flat.'

Although there is obviously no basis in reality for any of these claims, the number of people who believe in anti-scientific conspiracy theories remains extremely high.

Studies have found that between 10 and 12 per cent of Americans believe that the Moon landings were faked.

Interestingly, while rates of support for other conspiracy theories have remained stable, NASA conspiracies have become more popular. 

According to one study from the University of Miami, the number of Americans who believe the moon landing was faked almost doubled from six per cent to 10 per cent between June 2020 and May 2021.  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

25-09-2025 om 21:45 geschreven door peter  

The Chemtrail Conspiracy: What’s really happening above us

©The Daily Digest

A persistent conspiracy theory
Have you ever heard the term “chemtrails”? If so, you’re not alone—this concept has become one of the most persistent and widely discussed weather-related conspiracy theories of the 21st century.

©The Daily Digest

From weather manipulation to population control
Proponents claim that the visible trails left by airplanes, commonly known as contrails, are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed into the atmosphere for purposes ranging from weather manipulation to population control.

©The Daily Digest

Photo: By Infrogmation of New Orleans - Photo by Infrogmation, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons

An idea that captured the imagination of millions
Despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting these claims, the idea has captured the imagination of millions around the world, fueled by viral videos, social media posts, and anecdotal reports. Understanding the origins and spread of the chemtrail theory offers a fascinating glimpse into how modern myths can take flight in the digital age.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

What's that in the sky
In big cities you can often see a multitude of clouds in the sky in the form of lines that cross the horizon. But what are these little white trails in the sky?

©Provided by The Daily Digest

Chemtrails-poison in the sky?
These clouds are used to support the "Chemtrails" conspiracy theory. They are said to be poison clouds that some very bad people are using to intoxicate us. But why?

©Provided by The Daily Digest

Is the drought caused by a super evil secret elite?
In the face of climate change and lack of precipitation in many place worldwide, the "chemtrail" theory has been relaunched with a new argument..

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Are airplanes causing droughts?
Some conspiracy theorist say that it doesn't rain because airplanes prevent rain and cause drought, and that's evident in the sky full of contrails. Again the question arises: Why would anyone do such a thing?

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(Image: Jan Antonin Kolar / Unsplash)

Conspiracy theories are constantly being adapted
In reality, the chemtrails theory, like all conspiracy theories, is constantly updated depending on the current situation.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

It all started in the 1990s over vaccines
It all started in the 1990s with fears of mass obfuscations, morphed into anti-vaccination discourse (yes, some believed those clouds would be an attempt to vaccinate us from the air).

©Provided by The Daily Digest

Is someone manipulating the weather from above?
Now there are people who claim the traces left from airplanes in the skies are evidence that someone is manipulating the weather.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

(Image: Bing Hui Yau / Unsplash)

A simple explanation
The explanation for the contrails we see in the sky is simple, and scientists keep repeating it: it's vapor emitted by commercial airliners (or other aircraft) that condenses and turns into ice crystals that hang in the sky hover. So it's not a mystery.

©The Daily Digest

Photo: By Leonhard Lenz - Own work, CC0, Wikimedia Commons

We are being lied to!
Conspiracy theorists are convinced that these marks in the sky are being used to kill us or to control the world's population.

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A pandora's box of weird ideas
Starting from this premise, a wide range of beliefs opens up with different hypotheses between the mystical, the apocalyptic and the absurd.

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(Image: Chris Barbalis / Unsplash)

The origin: real experiments
But like all fears, the chemtrails theory has some reality in its origin. In fact, in the 20th century there were experiments in which the population was sprayed with potentially toxic elements.

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Great Britain: 1950s
According to 'The Independent', citing a government report, there were army tests between 1955 and 1963 in which zinc cadmium sulphide was dropped on the south and west coasts of Great Britain.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

San Francisco: 1950s
Another experiment conducted in San Francisco in 1950 is also widely cited. As reported in an article in Smithsonian Magazine, a Navy ship "airsprayed (the bacterium) Serratia marcescens for six days about two miles off the northern California coast." The spread of the bacterium was then analyzed to see what a biological attack would look like.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

(Image: Ryan Loughlin / Unsplash)

Two precedents that mean nothing
Experiments like this fuel conspiracy fantasies, but the reality is that if someone was doing something in our skies surely they would try not to draw so much attention to their actions, right?

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Offensive against science
In reality, almost all conspiracy theories aim to challenge scientific discourse. Science, according to conspiracy theorists, is an artificial narrative full of lies constructed by the big corporations or secret societies that rule the world.

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The flat earth and other new religions
Belief in chemtrails has a lot to do with religion, as does the belief in a flat Earth and other theories. One can only arrive at these convictions by crossing the line of the established. Only the initiated understand the meaning of certain lines in the sky.

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(Image: Joel & Jasmin Førestbird / Unsplash)

How relevant is it that there are people who believe in chemtrails?
Debunking these conspiracy theories and misinformation is important: spreading them helps spread messages of hate and fear that are harmful to society.

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(Image: Stephen Leonardi / Unsplash)

Reptilian Theory and Anti-Semitism
Evidence of this is that an eccentric and seemingly "innocent" theory like the reptilian theory (which posits that an extraterrestrial race lives among us as humans) in some cases has been shown to conceal anti-Semitic utterances.

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Sometimes it's celebrities who spread these theories
And then there is the propensity of certain celebrities to be gullible and to propagate theories like chemtrails. Here's Kylie Jenner's conspiracy tweet from 2015.

©Provided by The Daily Digest

(Image: Francesa Ciarlo / Unsplash)

They're not toxic, but so many planes aren't good
The answer is that these contrails are not a toxic product, but according to the European Commission, air traffic is responsible for 13.9% of environmentally harmful CO2 emissions. Therefore, for the good of mankind, these trails that we see should disappear as much as possible.

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{  The Daily Digest }

25-09-2025 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has announced a new record set by the Psyche mission. It successfully sent a laser signal to Earth from a distance of 350 million kilometers. That’s more than the distance between our planet and Mars.

The Psyche mission was launched in 2023 with the aim of studying Psyche, a 220-kilometer metal asteroid that, according to one hypothesis, may be a fragment of the core of a dead protoplanet. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach it in 2029.

In addition to studying the asteroid, Psyche also has the function of a “tester.” NASA specialists installed an experimental optical communication system on board. Its main advantage over traditional radio communication is its much higher (10 to 100 times) data transfer rate. Lasers can transmit complex scientific information, as well as high-definition images and videos. This is especially important for the next stage of space exploration, when humans will travel to the Moon and Mars and will need to quickly send large amounts of data back to Earth.

The first experiment took place on December 11, 2023, when Psyche was 31 million kilometers from Earth. The spacecraft sent a 15-second video of a cat to Earth (it was preloaded before launch). The data transfer rate was 267 Mbit/s. This is a couple of orders of magnitude faster than when using radio communication.

JPL specialists repeated the experiment several times in the future. As Psyche moved away from Earth, the data transfer rate gradually decreased (for example, when the spacecraft was 226 million km away, it was 25 Mbit/s), but it was still much faster than traditional radio communications. In addition, engineers tested another innovation in the form of duplicate data. The spacecraft successfully demonstrated that it can simultaneously use both radio and laser communication systems to communicate with Earth. The radio data was transmitted to NASA’s Deep Space Network, and the laser data was received by the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. The photons captured by it were then directed to a highly efficient detector array, where the information encoded in them was processed. 

Almost two years after the start, JPL specialists conducted the 65th and final experiment. During the mission, Psyche once again broke the distance record by successfully sending a signal from a distance of 350 million km. This corresponds to the radius of the inner boundary of the asteroid belt.

According to scientists, the experiments successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology. Data encoded by lasers can be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after passing hundreds of millions of kilometers. In total, Psyche transmitted 13.6 terabits of data to Earth over the entire period. At the same time, the data transfer rate turned out to be even higher than expected. All this means that the technology has great prospects, especially when space agencies face the challenge of transmitting large amounts of high-resolution images and data from the Moon and Mars.

• According to JPL

• Posted in News, Tech

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

24-09-2025 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

During the total lunar eclipse on September 7, 2025, astrophotographers Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger took unique photographs of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Their observations revealed a surprising fact: the comet that visited our Solar System glowed green. This discovery put scientists in front of a new exciting puzzle, because previous data on the chemical composition of this comet doesn’t explain this phenomenon. 

For comets in our Solar System, green glow is a common phenomenon. It occurs when solar heat warms the comet, causing the ice to sublimate into gas and form an atmosphere (comet). Molecules in this gas, particularly dicarbon (C2), begin to glow under the influence of solar radiation, creating a characteristic green glow. However, this is not the case for the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

Previous studies, including those conducted with JWST, have shown that this comet has a very unusual chemical composition. It was found to contain elevated levels of carbon dioxide, as well as traces of nickel and cyanogen (CN). However, no dicarbon (C2) molecules, which are traditionally responsible for the green color, were found. This has left scientists at a dead end.

The mystery becomes even more complicated when you consider the conclusions of astronomer Luis Salazar Manzano from the University of Michigan. His team finds that Comet 3I/ATLAS shows a lot of “carbon chain depletion” — meaning it has significantly fewer C2 and C3 molecules than any other comet we know of. The early detection of cyanogen only reinforces this strange chemical anomaly.

This means that either dicarbon is present but has not yet been detected due to unique conditions, or some other, as yet unknown molecule is responsible for the green glow. Both options make this interstellar traveler an extremely valuable object for study.

Scientists hope to find answers to these questions in the near future. According to forecasts, comet 3I/ATLAS will come closest to Earth in December 2025. This will provide astronomers with a unique opportunity to conduct a series of detailed observations and finally unravel the mystery of its green glow. Each such discovery expands our understanding of what celestial bodies far beyond our Solar System are made of and how they are formed.

We previously reported on how 3I/ATLAS could crash into Mars.

• According to Science Alert

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

24-09-2025 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

Black Pyramid UFO Over Trenton, Texas Sept 9, 2025 Video, UAP Paranormal Sighting News.

Date of sighting: September 9, 2025

Location of sighting: Trenton, Texas, USA

 

This report just in at NUFORC. A black pyramid shaped UFO was seen moving across the sky in Texas this week. The UFO was silent and flying low at 30 meters from the ground. The object really appears to be rotation very slowly scaling the area around it...turning to get a better view of its surrounds. Texes is a UFO hotspot in the US and this sighting is defiantly a top ten in videos from the states. I wonder if it was heading to the Bush Ranch which is George W. Bush's House in Texas. In 2008, the "Stephenville UFO incident" involved dozens of people seeing a large, fast-moving object, which radar data suggested was heading south-southeast, or toward President George W. Bush's Crawford ranch. Was Bush an alien himself...getting visits from family and friends from distant worlds?

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

 

Source: NUFORC

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

24-09-2025 om 22:24 geschreven door peter