One of the most intriguing mass UFO sighting flaps in U.S. history started as a normal day like any other in the small suburban town of Wanaque, New Jersey, but as the day came to a close, a bizarre series of events would begin to play out. On the crisp and clear evening of January 11, 1966, at around 6:30 PM, calls began to come in from all over the area describing what seemed to be an extremely bright glowing light out over the nearby Wanaque Reservoir. Dozens of calls were coming in from panicked residents and workers at the reservoir describing more or less the same thing, with most reports saying it was a very bright light, larger and brighter than a star, mostly white but sometimes changing to colors such as red, blue and green. The mystery object was described as hovering over the frozen lake surface and roving about in what seemed to be a deliberate pattern at an altitude of between 250 and 1,000 feet, sometimes performing seemingly physics-defying maneuvers and sudden vertical drops and rises. Even weirder were the reports of the object projecting some sort of beam downwards to the reservoir, which was powerful enough to melt holes in the ice.

Before long, the police who were getting these calls were seeing the strange object for themselves, and one of these was police patrolman Joseph Cisco, who just happened to be near the reservoir when the reports began flooding in. He would then drive out there to investigate and look out over the water to see something very strange for himself, of which he said:

“There was a light that looked bigger than any of the stars, about the size of a softball or volleyball. It was a pulsating, white, stationary light changing to red. It stayed in the air; there was no noise. I was trying to figure out what it was.”

The object would then swoop in low and begin shooting a beam to the lake surface, and Cisco soon got a call from another officer on the radio, saying in a panic, “Something landed in front of the dam. Something's burning a hole in the ice! Something with a bright light on it, going up and down!" Another policeman who saw the thing was Sgt. Ben Thompson, who said it actually caused the water to rise below it and sucked together treetops, and yet another Officer George Dyckman would say, "I've never seen anything like it in my life." Several other police officers being called to the area also saw the otherworldly object, including Patrolmen Edward Nestor and Jack Wardlaw, a Sgt. Bobby Gordon, Reservoir Police and Personnel, George Destito, Charles Theodora, Fred Steines, and even Chief of Police Floyd Elson. Chief John Casazza of the Wanaque Reservoir Police would say of his own sighting:

“It was a bright white light. As I said: just like on a locomotive. It was funnel-shaped. It seemed to come out of some object, like a funnel. In other words, it spread out as if it were focused through a telescope. It was narrow at one end in the sky and spread out into a very wide beam as it approached our upper gatehouse at the dam. The strangest part of it was that there was no noise attached to this object. None whatsoever. It was absolutely silent. A silent light.”

News crews who started to trickle in also reported seeing the strange sight, with one reporter, Howard Ball, with the Paterson News, saying:

“I was near the junction of Colfax Road and Hamburg Turnpike… I saw a very extremely bright light... The thing that really brought my attention was, as I traveled along, a white starlight seems to come at me… then it stopped and it made a transverse movement to the west. No color, but if I'd give it a color I'd say brilliant blue-white, similar to the ignition of a magnesium and pure oxygen... really bright light.”

One of the more prominent witnesses to the outlandish event was the town Mayor, Harry T. Wolfe, who had made his way out to the reservoir along with Councilmen Warren Hagstrom and Arthur Barton and the Mayor’s 14-year-old son, Billy, out of sheer curiosity when the reports kept coming in a deluge. They would witness a light that was “a brilliance, a little brighter than a star” that seemed to emit a reddish or pale green light or yellowish light and which was moving “oddly” over the lake. Closer inspection showed that it was some sort of oval-shaped object around 9 feet in diameter, coming in low over the water to shoot down a beam that put a hole in the ice as they looked on in astonishment. Councilman Hagstrom would say of what they saw that night:

“There was something up there that was awful bright. We don’t know what it was. We thought it was a helicopter, but we didn’t hear a motor. It looked like a helicopter with big landing lights on. We got goose bumps all over when we saw where the hole was.”

Before long, there were throngs of people gathered at the reservoir watching this thing go about its inscrutable business, and the mysterious object would do its strange act over the water for over an hour before finally speeding off into the night at great speed and without warning. Moments later, it would be reported as hovering over Lakeland Regional High School and stopping at several other locations in the area before vanishing to leave residents in a state of shock. So many people had seen it, including many policemen and even city officials, and all of them agreed it was not a normal aircraft or celestial phenomenon, but rather something truly unexplainable and baffling. To make it all even weirder still is that it would seem as if the strangeness wasn't quite over yet. The object would make another brief appearance over the reservoir the following evening as well, before seeming to go away for good, but it would make yet another appearance later that year.

In October of 1966, just as people were starting to try and put the whole bizarre incident at Wanaque reservoir out of their minds, a new spate of sightings emanated from the lake. At 9 PM on October 10, the object was seen by several witnesses, including an off-duty police officer by the name of Robert Gordon, who saw it with his wife, Betty, who described it as a bright white light that moved with “a definite pattern” towards the reservoir. This sighting was soon joined by that of a policeman, Sgt. Ben Thompson, who had seen the object during its first appearance, and had quite a harrowing experience when the UFO allegedly flew right at him and he saw it at fairly close quarters. He would say of this:

“I saw the object coming at me. There was an extremely bright light. It was a bright white light, bright like when a light bulb is about to blow. It was very low. It appeared to be about 75 feet over the mountain. That would be Windbeam Mountain. It was traveling very quickly and in a definite pattern; first right, then up and down, then repeating the pattern. Distances are deceiving, but it might have covered an area of a half a mile. It went straight over my head, stopped in mid-air and backed right up. It then started zig-zagging from left to right. It was doing tricks. Making acute angular turns instead of gradual curved ones. It looked as big as a parachute. I got out of my car and continued to watch it for almost five minutes. It was about 200 to 250 yards away. It was the shape of a basketball with the center scooped out and a football thrust through it. Sometimes the football appeared to be perpendicular to the basketball and sometimes standing up on end. There were two different gadgets. It didn’t make much noise, but as it was moving, it raised the water beneath it. I watched it maneuver, stirring up brush and water in the reservoir, it was about 150 feet up…I had difficulty seeing because the light was so bright it blinded me.”

Once again, the police were flooded with dozens of calls from terrified residents seeing the object in the vicinity of the reservoir, and it would be seen again on October 15 before finally disappearing again, this time apparently for good. In the wake of the UFO flap over Wanaque reservoir, there would be some strange and sometimes ominous stories coming out of the area. It was reported that unknown men posing as military officials from the Air Force were doing the rounds in the area, intimidating residents and discouraging people from talking about what they had seen, and some people even claimed that these mysterious men had confiscated photographs taken of the phenomena. The military would deny that these people were with them, or that they had had anyone in the area to investigate at all, and one Air Force Colonel Freeman would state, “We have checked a number of these cases and these men are not connected with the Air Force in any way.” Other witnesses would also insist that they had seen military helicopters and even jets in the area shortly after the initial sightings and in the months after, but the Air Force denied this as well, while at the same time making efforts to explain away the UFO sightings as misidentified aircraft or a weather balloon. What happened here, and did the military have any connection to these events or not? Were they trying to hide something or cover it up? No one knows.

The claims of mysterious officials confiscating photographic evidence are cited as one of the reasons there is so little such documentation of the incident. Indeed, although the UFO was witnessed by so many people, including police and high-ranking officials, there is oddly only a handful of photographs of the alleged craft known to exist, most of which were later sent in anonymously to make it hard to ascertain who took them in the first place or whether they are real or hoaxes. One photo in particular, showing the object shooting a beam of light downwards, has become intensely debated and analyzed in the years since, with no real conclusion. Since we don’t know who took these photos and have no negatives, it is hard to say. What we do know is that the incident did happen, and so this odd lack of photographic evidence from such a well-documented mass sighting has been seen as proof that someone has tried to suppress the event.

Today, there have been many proposed explanations, including helicopters with spotlights, atmospheric phenomena, Venus, weather balloons, or even ball lightning, but there are problems with these explanations in that so many reliable witnesses saw them and insist that what they witnessed was none of these things. One unidentified witness has said of this to researcher Anthony Bragalia, of UFO Explorations, as follows:

“I remember the thing very well. I still do not know what it was. I think about it from time to time, but it's no use because it doesn't bring me any closer to knowing what it was. Maybe things that aren't from here aren't meant to be understood by us here. Ask anyone who will tell you, it was not a helicopter or something astronomical. It was...not...from our military or something we misidentified. It was a UFO, from somewhere else. The beams or ray thing that came out from the bottom of the globe was the thing that got to me. It made the light cut the ice out. It frightened us kids. And I'm sure the adults. Because we don't have anything like that even today. The adults didn't really speak much about it after the initial thing that I could tell. I'd talk about it with my friends some time later and one of them told me that people came around to not say anything.”

Amazingly, there has apparently been very little follow-up investigation done into the case. It seems that no one ever went back to examine those holes in the ice, nor were there any water or radiation measurements taken, and the proper authorities don’t seem to have ever made any real efforts to interview witnesses. Most of what we know is from independent UFO researchers who pieced together what happened from newspaper articles of the time. We are left to wonder just what happened out over that expanse of frigid ice all of those decades ago and what it all means. Was this all the result of mundane phenomena and misidentification, or something else? Has there been some sort of cover-up put into effect that has managed to keep such a spectacular incident largely buried in history? If this was really an alien craft, then what was it doing at that reservoir, and what did it want? These are questions that linger, and which may never be satisfactorily answered, and the UFO wave of New Jersey's Wanaque reservoir remains a very compelling case of a mass UFO sighting that has been largely forgotten.

Moving on to our next case, on July 11, 1991, a total solar eclipse occurred from the Pacific Ocean to Brazil, passing over Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and South America. In Mexico City, Mexico, thousands of people were out to get a look at the rare celestial event that day. Two of these observers were Guillermo Arragin, a television executive, and Jaime Maussan, a journalist, who were shocked to notice a bright, disk-like metallic object hovering in the sky and were able to videotape it easily, as they had already been taping the eclipse. They sent the tape to Jaime Maussan, who produced, directed and hosted Sesenta Minutos, Mexico’s edition of Sixty Minutes. When this footage was shown on TV eight days later, it started a deluge of others calling in to report that they had seen or videotaped the same thing during the eclipse, of which Maussan would say:

“The telephone lines blew up. I mean 40,000 calls at the same time. Then the system was completely shut out. We received more than 15 videos and we now know for sure that in at least 7 of them, we can see the same ship that was recorded by Guillermo Arragin.”

It would turn out that many thousands of people had seen the mysterious object, and all of them described the same metallic shining object, with some reports stating it merely hovered in a stationary position, while others said it moved around while leaving a vaporous trail in its wake, and there were also mentions of the thing having three blinking lights on it. After this, it seems that whatever it was disappeared as the sun emerged once again to bring broad daylight. Among the many people sending in videos of the thing was 19-year-old student Erick Aguilar, who saw it while videotaping the eclipse from a rooftop with his friends and girlfriend. He would describe it as looking like a white point of light that got bigger and brighter as they watched it. At the same time, about 60 miles from Mexico City, a businessman named Luis Lara videotaped an object that was identical to the one on Aguilar’s footage, and he was convinced it was not a star, explaining that there was some sort of dark shadow under the object. The Breton family also filmed a similar object in Puebla, eighty miles from Mexico City, and they described the object as pulsating and having a strange wave-like disturbance behind it. It is unclear if this was the same object or a different one. In total, there were over a dozen videos of what seemed to be the same object from different angles and distances, making it one of the most videotaped UFOs ever. 

After this appearance on Sesenta Minutos, the UFO sightings were all over the news, becoming a sensation in Mexico and sparking a mass hysteria, and this was only further fueled when a similar object was spotted just two months later at a military air show at Mexico City. On this occasion, an engineer named Vincente Sanchez was filming the air show when he noticed something very bizarre up in the air with those planes. He would say of it:

“I was following one of the planes and I saw a shiny dot in the camera. It didn’t fly like a plane; it was undulating. I didn’t know what it was so I let the planes go off and I focused more on this shiny dot in the sky. What I saw was a bright, round object, about 10 meters in diameter. It was made of silver, was shining very brightly and reflected the sunlight a lot. The object appeared, undulated, and moved around quickly.”

The object would be seen again at the same air show a year later, this time with the disc descending rapidly to seemingly vanish into thin air. At the same air show in 1993, it was seen yet again, this time apparently flying in close proximity to a squadron of helicopters. It is not clear if these sightings have any connection to the mass sighting on July 11, 1991, but at the time, many were linking them and even claiming they were the very same object. Over the years, the various footage taken on July 11, 1991, has been debated and analyzed, and one astronomer by the name of Tim Printy has given a pretty good argument that it was all down to the planet Venus. As evidence, he states that the object can’t be conclusively shown to be moving in any of the videos, the alignment of the object in the footage in relation to other celestial objects shown in some of the videos, such as Mars and Regulus, correlates to the position of where Venus should be, and the object disappears when the sun comes back out. Most damningly, he points out that not a single Mexican astronomer, of which there would have been many recording the eclipse, reported any UFO or anything out of the ordinary at all. According to Printy, the videos only appear to show something truly strange because of camera artifacts and the fact that there are no uncropped videos of the object, which makes it all appear even more mysterious. 

Nevertheless, despite such criticism of the videos, many still believe them to be good UFO evidence, and some have gone and to take it all to new levels of weirdness. One of these is a couple by the name of Lee and Brit Elders, who believe that the UFO appearance during the eclipse was not only aliens, but that the whole incident was prophesied by the Mayans more than 1200 years ago. The Elders claim that through various ancient documents, they have deduced that the Mayans predicted that the aliens would arrive in the area of Mexico City on July 11, 1991, as harbingers of world change and “cosmic awareness through encounters with masters of the stars,” to usher in “a new era that will rise on the ashes of the one before.” The couple even made a whole series of videos talking about this, titled Messengers of Destiny, Masters of the Stars, and Voyagers of the Sixth Sun, and it all revolves around this supposed ancient prophecy and the July 11, 1991, UFO over Mexico City. Printy has a lot to say about the Elders, and does not mince words at all when he says of what he calls their “pure bunk for sale”:

“Not only do the Elder's state that Venus was a UFO, but they also make a profound statement that the Mayans predicted the arrival of the UFOs! Exactly when did the Maya predict such an event? The Elders state there are several ancient documents that state this. However, is there any basis for such a claim? The Elders rarely, if ever, give details. They seem to expound on new age mysticism trying to link statements from various documents in order to create some strange prediction to meet their needs. Are their statements correct? Are these source documents accurate? The credibility of the Elders is important to understand how accurately they represented the UFOs shown in the videos.

Despite a wealth of evidence that Venus was the likely culprit in many of these videos, the Elders went out of their way to create a story that describes alien visitation. The mixing and matching of Mayan and Aztec myths and then trying to make some form of prediction made by the Maya is another case of the Elders trying to deceive the viewers of real facts. The Mexico City eclipse UFO story is nothing but a new age myth generated by a couple of con-artists, who rely on the viewer to be uninformed and willing to believe the most ridiculous claims. The Messengers of Destiny/Masters of the Stars/Voyagers of the sixth sun prediction is nothing but a new age myth designed to make money!”

The Mexican UFO has also been the source of conspiracies, such as one that states the U.S. government knew about the event in Mexico, but tried to suppress it so that the public would not panic, which is supposedly why the story failed to produce even a blip in the American news. According to a report from the site Cool Interesting Stuff, there was a Kremlin report that supposedly not only mentions this, but also that the incident of July 11, 1991, in Mexico City put the Americans on alert for a "war” against UFOs based on or near the Continent of Antarctica.” The site says:

“A report circulating in the Kremlin prepared for President Medvedev by Russian Space Forces (VKS) 45th Division of Space Control says that an upcoming WikiLeaks release of secret US cables details that the Americans have been “engaged” since 2004 in a “war” against UFO’s based on or near the Continent of Antarctica, particularly the Southern Ocean. According to this report, the United States went to its highest alert level on June 10, 2004 after a massive fleet of UFO’s “suddenly emerged” from the Southern Ocean and approached Guadalajara, Mexico barely 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the American border. Prior to reaching the US border, however, this massive UFO fleet is said in this report to have “dimensionally returned” to their Southern Ocean “home base.”

The fears of the Americans regarding these Southern Ocean UFO’s began, this report says, during the unprecedented events of July 11, 1991 (referred to as 7/11) when during the Solar Eclipse these mysterious aircraft appeared by the hundreds over nearly all of Mexico, even their Capital city. Most notable about the events of 7/11 were that as millions of Mexicans were watching on their televisions the National broadcasts of these UFO’s over Mexico City, the American media refused to allow their people to view it.”

Is there anything to this? What was going on here with this incident? Was this an otherworldly presence, celestial gods on some mission to fulfill a Mayan prophecy, or merely the planet Venus and mass hysteria? How can we account for so many sightings? Were they all misidentifying a mundane phenomenon? Whatever the case may be, the July 11, 1991, UFO flap over Mexico City has gone on to become one of the most widely witnessed and most videotaped UFO encounters there is, and it remains a curious case in the annals of ufology. 

Moving along, the beginning of what has gone on to be one of the most talked about mass UFO sighting incidents in recent memory was on March 30, 1993, in England. On this evening, there suddenly began a deluge of reports coming in from across a swath of southwest England, particularly in the vicinity of Shropshire, of something decidedly weird in the sky, from witnesses of all walks of life and many of them traditionally reliable witnesses. One of the first reports came from a policeman who claimed to have seen a massive object resembling “two Concordes flying side by side and joined together,” and there were other reports that put the object’s size at a massive 200 meters long. Other reports claimed that the object had been observed sometimes flying very low to the ground, and there was even a panicked resident who claimed that it had landed in a field. Dozens of reports like this came in, and curiously, people were giving different descriptions, including a cylindrical object, a triangular-shaped craft with three lights, and a pair of lights seeming to emit a tail-like plume, suggesting there was more than one aerial disturbance at work. Yet this was only the beginning.

Continuing into March 31st, 1993, the reports kept coming in, and it seemed as if the phenomena had gotten even more active. The evening of the 31st would also mark a series of high-level sightings from police and military personnel, who had been on alert due to the sheer number of anomalous reports the night before. There would be several sightings made from RAF bases in the region, including sightings of a fast-moving red light by personnel at RAF Cosford and another incident at RAF Shawbury. One meteorologist at RAF Shawbury by the name of Wayne Elliot would claim that a triangular-shaped craft measuring around 200 feet across had slowly approached his base while emitting a low humming noise, and then shot a bright beam of light towards the ground before shooting off at amazing speed while leaving a luminous vapor trail in its wake. At no point were any of these objects picked up on radar at the bases. Some of the reports were scattered over a wide area, as another military encounter with one of the objects allegedly happened to an Irish military helicopter en route to Ireland over the coast of southwest Wales. The crew would report seeing “two white lights at a fixed distance apart in the horizontal plane” with trails visible through night vision equipment, which appeared to close the distance and pace them for a time.

The sightings were investigated by Nick Pope, who ran the UFO project run by the British Ministry of Defense (MoD), and he collected a steady stream of the reports, which he described as “coming in thick and fast,” in particular from the areas of Devon, Cornwall and Wales. Pope would claim to gather several hundred eyewitness reports of the bizarre unidentified aerial phenomena from March 30 and 31, and he also asserted that it was such a major and anomalous incident that it had even captured the attention of military officials at the Pentagon, who he believed included it in their 490-page secret report under the part of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. Pope  has said of this:

“The Cosford Incident was the most high-profile and compelling UFO incident that took place during my time on the MoD’s UFO project in the early Nineties. It is probably among the best cases in our entire archive, which goes back decades and includes around 12,000 sightings. It is inconceivable to me that this wouldn’t be one of the incidents mentioned in the secret US report. I’m sure the Americans knew all about the Cosford Incident, and maybe conducted some discreet enquiries of their own.”

Despite how amazing this may all seem, we are still left to wonder about just what exactly was seen by all of these witnesses, and there has been much debate on the matter. One very prevalent theory is that the aerial phenomena were caused by some kind of falling space debris, notably the re-entry of a Russian satellite called the Cosmos 2238, which it turns out was scheduled to re-enter the atmosphere on the evening of March 31. This would not be out of the question, as falling space debris has caused UFO flaps before, and incidentally, a similar Cosmos satellite that had gone down in the winter of 1978 also coincided with a wave of UFO sightings. 

A reentering satellite might explain some of the sightings, but it would not really explain the fact that many of the reports describe distinctly triangular objects that were allegedly seen flying in a seemingly intelligently controlled manner, including changing speed, hovering, or flying low to the ground, even in one case landing and taking off, which doesn’t really fit in with the space debris theory. The Russian satellite angle also would not explain the sightings going on during the evening of March 30, nor the insistence of some very trained witnesses that these were not space debris. So what are some of the other possibilities? Other ideas are that this was some sort of top-secret experimental aircraft being tested, a military black op, or some strange atmospheric phenomenon. There is also the possibility that this was just a misidentified normal aircraft, such as an airplane or helicopter. One local police investigator has said of this likelihood:

“If there’s no full moon you would not necessarily see the shape of the aircraft just the three lights and perhaps the searchlight. On a number of occasions in the last nine years we have had people ringing the police to report UFOs and when we have checked our operation logs it has turned out to be our helicopter. On other occasions we have had people reporting UFOs who have actually seen airliners descending into Manchester who have switched their landing lights on or off. Most people have no idea of spatial awareness at night and cannot accurately judge the height or distance. We have had people saying they have seen things at treetop height and when we have checked it has been an aircraft descending into Manchester at 10,000 feet or more.”

One argument against this is that many of the observers were reliable, trained witnesses such as RAF personnel, police officers, and the meteorologist, so how could they all misidentify a helicopter or plane? UFO investigator Chris Fowler has addressed this by explaining the problems with leaning too heavily on supposed expert witnesses, pointing out that even trained and seasoned individuals can be fooled by innate problems with our senses of perception. Fowler says of this:

“The human visual perceptual system and cognizance are very discerning but easily fooled by events like those described here. It is part of common UFO reportage that lights and aircraft flying at night can lead to false reports of distance, altitude, time estimates, size and other fundamental attributes. We should take note all observers are fallible to misperception and illusory effects and to false interpretation and apply adequate reasoning here. These 1993 events may be exemplary in providing more evidence of the inability of those often described as ‘trained observers’ to discern altitude in lights than is supposed. It is fallacious to assume that certain subsets of people, by occupation, may be more or less accurate in their observations of lights, shapes, distance and altitude without providing evidence. Observational accuracy by any subset of witnesses depends upon circumstance and a willingness to apply useful pragmatic means to recording observations at the time and on some understanding of limitations.”

One of the problems with trying to get to the bottom of the Cosford Incident is that Nick Pope has been accused by skeptics and even others within the UFO field of being a bit overzealous in his approach and too willing to try and fit everything into his own preconceived theories. He has been accused of cherry-picking, twisting and misrepresenting data to fit his needs, leading witnesses in interviews into the outcomes he wants, and generally exaggerating certain elements of the cases, giving misleading statements, or leaving out certain information to misrepresent the facts. For instance, although Pope has admitted that some of the sightings could have been space debris, he rarely mentions this, instead focusing on the more bizarre and mysterious sightings and elements. UFO researcher Gary Anthony has criticized Pope’s approach in relation to his participation in a documentary of the incident called The British UFO Mystery – Stranger Than Fiction, saying of it:

“After watching the documentary myself, I wondered if Nick Pope had lost the real plot or not because in places there were exaggerative comments and the reports were misrepresented both by Nick and in the visual continuity and the narrating voice. The presentation was more geared towards Pope’s own personal and theatrical interpretation of the sightings and was laid out fallaciously for an unsuspecting public.  Relevant information was not included, witness participation was minimal and some of the facts presented were grossly out of context. He clearly has fallen into the trap of not recognizing salient features and errors of multiple witness reports, making links that do not exist and falling back on the questionable prowess of ‘trained observers,’ endowed with super-human abilities of discerning distance, altitudes and size in lights seen at night. A real house of cards. The programme featured only one witness, a lady who saw a row of lights whilst driving home. For the 45-minute plus feature exclusively on these sightings none of the official witnesses used to bolster the theme appeared.”

In the end, the whole incident has sort of quietly been brushed away, and is rarely talked about outside of UFO circles, despite how many witnesses there apparently were. What was going on here? Was this merely space debris? Was it experimental aircraft, aliens, atmospheric phenomena, or all of the above? How reliable is Pope's documentation of the supposed events, and is there anything we are missing? There is no way to really know the answers to such questions and others like them, and we are left to wonder just what went on over the English countryside in March of 1993.

Finally, what has gone on to become one of the most well-known and oft-discussed, and debated mass UFO sightings in history is widely accepted as having started on March 13, 1997, in the skies over Henderson, Nevada, in the United States. Here, a witness claimed that at approximately 6:55 PM, he saw a large, V-shaped object about the same size as a passenger airliner with a formation of six lights along its front edge, which flew across the sky at a good clip with a sort of whooshing noise to disappear to the southeast. This same object would soon after be witnessed by a police officer from Paulden, Arizona, at around 8:15 PM, who said that he saw a triangular formation of four mysterious lights trailed by a fifth, and claimed to have watched the strange sight through his binoculars as they travelled south.

This would be the beginning of one of the most famous UFO cases there is. Before long, there were sightings of something strange in the sky coming in from the area of Prescott, Arizona, and the Prescott Valley. Many of the witnesses at the time described it as being definitely solid, blocking out the stars and the sky as it passed over, and it was mostly explained as being rather enormous. One witness who saw the boomerang-shaped object said it was massive, at least a mile wide, stating:

“We don’t have anything that big. It was totally silent. I’ve never seen anything even close to the colors from the exhaust that propelled that thing. It was as big as downtown Prescott and completely blocked out the stars.”

The object or objects were usually described as being a V-shaped or wedge-shaped formation of red or orange lights, with the leading light being a bright white, usually said to be embedded within a solid object, but descriptions varied, and they were sometimes claimed to be separate lights moving independently. At the time, there were dozens of witnesses from all ages and walks of life observing it as it made its way inexorably towards Phoenix to the southeast. The lights were also seen from the nearby town of Dewey, around 10 miles away, and as they drew closer to the greater Phoenix area, there would be a deluge of people seeing whatever it was that had come in from out of the unknown.

The phenomenon reached Phoenix at around 8:30 PM, after which it hovered over the area for around two hours, being seen by thousands of people in the process. During this time, it seems that there were actually two separate events going on over the region at the same time, with one being the massive V-shaped group of lights moving through the air, and a second formation of lights south of Phoenix that seemed to be stationary or moving very slowly. These lights, which would go on to collectively be known as the “Phoenix Lights,” were seen by people from all walks of life, including police officers, pilots, military personnel, and even the governor, none of whom could come up with any explanation for what was going on. While most of the reports described some massive solid object, an interesting aspect of it all is that witness descriptions of the phenomena tended to vary to quite a wide degree, of which UFOlogist Peter B. Davenport has said:

“Witnesses were reporting such markedly different objects and events that night that it was difficult for investigators to understand what was taking place. Some witnesses reported five lights, others seven, or even more. Some reported that the lights were distinctly orange or red, whereas others reported distinctly white or yellow lights. Many reported the lights were moving across the sky at seemingly high speed, whereas others reported they moved at a slow (angular) velocity, or they even hovered for several minutes.”

The objects were being seen all over the place at the time, seen in places as far away as Las Vegas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, always inspiring awe and dread. In the meantime, the media didn’t really seem to show much interest in it, and officials seemed to treat it as a big joke, with Arizona Governor Fife Symington III holding a press conference on the situation flanked by an aide wearing an alien costume. However, when the story hit USA Today, it blew up into national news, appearing all over newspapers and TV shows. The USA Today piece was quite sensational, including the line, “The incident over Arizona was the most dramatic I’ve seen. . . . What we have here is the real thing. They are here,” and people ate it up. Before long, the Phoenix lights were being talked about and widely discussed all over the nation, with theories being thrown about as to what the phenomenon could have been, which is made somewhat complicated by the fact that it seems that there were two separate phenomena going on at the same time, the large moving object and the hovering lights.

One of the main ideas put forward was that at least the second event concerning the stationary lights was simply flares dropped by the military during a nighttime training exercise, but this has been challenged by many. Curiously, one of the main opponents of the flare theory was the governor himself, who would end up later changing his tune entirely, claiming to have seen the lights himself, and he would say of this:

“As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man made object I'd ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don't fly in formation. It was enormous and inexplicable. Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too. It was dramatic. And it couldn't have been flares because it was too symmetrical. It had a geometric outline, a constant shape. I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery.”

Symington also found it odd that his attempts to get more information from the government on what was going on out there were shot down with basically “no comment,” and that no government agency had made any effort to seriously investigate. Another opponent of the flare theory was UFO enthusiast Jim Dilettoso, who claimed that he had done a full spectral analysis of the lights in one of the videos and determined that they could not have possibly come from a manmade source. However, considering that such an analysis on video footage images would be inaccurate, this has been criticized as an incomplete analysis at best. It has also been pointed out that the wind direction and speed at the time were consistent with flares as to the movement seen with the pattern of lights, which also supports the flare theory, as does the fact that the lights seemed to dip over the horizon and disappear, very much as flares would do. With regards to at least this aspect of the event, even UFOlogists have conceded that it could have been flares in this case.

The first event, which covers that huge, light-studded craft moving over the state and blocking out the stars, has been more difficult to explain. Skeptics say that it was just a formation of high altitude aircraft flying in formation on a classified mission, the blackened sky just an illusion. This has been corroborated by amateur astronomer Mitch Stanley, who claims that on the night of the incident, he had observed the large V-shaped craft through a telescope to find that it was unambiguously an aircraft, specifically a formation of five planes that were either A-10s or possibly T-37 fighter-trainers. However, many of the thousands of witnesses have denied that this could have been the case; the planes were apparently not picked up on radar, and the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson did not assert that they had any aircraft in the air at the time. In the end, it all remains a curious oddity, of which one investigator with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) has said:

“Do we have evidence that it was an extraterrestrial event? No. We have evidence that it was an extremely bizarre event. We can't put a label on it other than it was an anomaly.”

Interestingly, there have been reemergences of the lights in later years that have been explained as flares. On February 6, 2007, almost the same thing was seen over Phoenix, and military officials were quick to admit that it was flares they had dropped, and on April 21, 2008, there was another wave of sightings of the lights, this time found to be flares attached to balloons. Yet, the sightings that remain the most well-known are the original 1997 incident and whatever was behind it all, the Phoenix Lights have continued to have a place among the greatest, most extensively seen and documented UFO sightings ever, and remain mostly a mystery.

There can be no doubt that mass sightings such as what we’ve looked at here are the most spectacular type of UFO sightings there is. What were these people seeing, and how can we explain it rationally when so many people are seeing the same thing, often very traditionally reliable witnesses? Are these cases of misidentifying Venus or other aerial or atmospheric phenomena? Is it flares or balloons, or whatever official report it is, they want you to believe? How can you tell hundreds of people that they did not see what they think they did? If these are extraterrestrial in nature, then why would they want to be so widely seen in these cases? Whatever the answers may be, mass UFO sightings are among the most exciting and well-documented in the field. 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-10-2025 om 17:15 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious interstellar visitor heading towards Earth dubbed a 'Trojan Horse' for alien tech

• READ MORE: Space agency breaks silence on 'foreign' interstellar object soaring past Mars: 'A rare visitor'

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

A scientist has warned that the interstellar visitor moving closer to Earth could be a 'Trojan Horse,' where a technological object masquerades as a comet.

The Harvard professor, who has been monitoring 3I/ATLAS since its discovery in July, said Wednesday that there is a 30 to 40 percent chance the object 'does not have a fully natural origin.'

Avi Loeb admitted that his ranking could change after new data comes in over the next few months, including observations next month from a spacecraft en route to Jupiter and when 3I/ATLAS comes 167 miles within Earth in December.

'We have no idea of the amount of traffic of extraterrestrial probes in the vicinity of the Solar system,' he said in a blog post.

'Given the uncertainty, it would be prudent to collect as much data as possible on interstellar objects from all directions and assess the level of risk based on that data.'

The object, a rare visitor from beyond the solar system, is unusually large and closely aligned with the plane of the planets, making it visible to orbiters around Mars over the weekend.

NASA's rover on the Martian planet snapped images of 3I/ATLAS, which captured it as a massive cylindrical object, sparking fresh theories about alien technology.

Stargazers on social media shared color-enhanced images of the object, which showed the interstellar visitor having a green glow. 

A Harvard scientists said there is a possibility that the interstellar visitor moving closer to Earth could be a 'Trojan Horse,' where a technological object masquerades as a comet

Loeb analyzed the Perseverance rover's photos by calculating its distance, speed, and camera settings.

According to his initial study, Loeb was not convinced that 3I/ATLAS is actually a massive cylindrical object, noting that the strange shape might have been a trick of the rover's camera stretching the object out.

He explained that the apparent cylinder from the rover's 'Navcam' was likely caused by the camera stacking hundreds of images of 3I/ATLAS over a period of about 10 minutes, making it look more like a log than a ball.

The professor added that 3I/ATLAS is likely smaller and rounder, but still massive, with a potential diameter of more than 28 miles across.

Dr Horace Drew, a retired senior researcher at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), noted that the mysterious green glow seen in some images could be a result of the object being an interstellar spacecraft coated in nickel.

He explained that humans use the same practice on Earth-made space technology on a much smaller scale.

'It is not a "comet,"' Drew shared in a post on X.

Drew disagreed with Loeb's conclusion that the cylindrical shape was a result of the Mars rover sending back a stretched image over several minutes, claiming that an amateur astronomer on Earth captured a similar shape with their telescope.

+1

View gallery

The Perseverance rover on Mars captured new images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it passed by the planet this weekend

Read More

• Interstellar object caught emitting mysterious metal that suggests 'technological origin' 

'We can see an extended white shape, with a green coma outside. Not a small white ball,' Drew explained in a post about the astronomer's photograph.

However, Loeb recently cited the findings from the Very Large Telescope, highlighting how it detected an unusual nickel plume from the object.

Unlike natural comets, which always emit nickel alongside iron, 3I/ATLAS shows the metallic element without any detectable iron.

Loeb explained that this nickel signature is a hallmark of industrial production of nickel alloys.

'Is this anomaly another clue for a possible technological origin of 3I/ATLAS?' Loeb wrote in a blog post.

'The paper suggests that chemical formation occurs through the nickel carbonyl channel, an extremely rare process in comets, but a standard technique in industrial nickel refining,' he added.

The new study, published by astrophysicists in Chile in late August, found that 3I/ATLAS is shedding nickel at roughly five grams per second and cyanide at 20 grams per second, with both rising sharply as the object moves closer to the sun.

Researchers noted that the mechanisms driving these emissions are not typical of natural cometary processes.

They hypothesized that nickel might be released from dust through gentle processes, such as sunlight, causing it to evaporate or breaking down small nickel-containing compounds.

RELATED VIDEOS

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

09-10-2025 om 16:50 geschreven door peter  

Mystery over strange crash near Area 51 deepens as FBI opens investigation

• MORE: World's most secretive jet spotted over Area 51

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

The US Air Force has sparked a mystery near the top-secret base Area 51 after admitting the FBI was investigating a recent crash near the facility. 

In a statement on October 4, officials at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada said that an aircraft 'was involved in an incident,' crashing in the desert just miles from the restricted zone around Area 51 on September 23.

The infamous base has been tied to extraterrestrial lore for decades, with UFO researchers and conspiracy theorists claiming that secret government projects have been conducted at Area 51 since the 1950s.

While the Air Force said that the craft was assigned to the base as part of the 432nd Wing, some on social media pointed out that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a temporary flight restriction around the area for an entire week.

The reason for the shutdown was simply noted as 'national security' with no other explanation given by the FAA.

The location of the flight restriction placed the crash roughly 12 miles east of the security boundary around Area 51, and about 24 miles from the base itself.

However, the Air Force has revealed that even more strange activity took place after military personnel cleaned up the site, leaving nothing for the public to find.

Officials at Creech said investigators found an 'inert training bomb body' and a piece of an unidentified aircraft at the same crash site on October 3, prompting the military to get the FBI involved.

Area 51, an area of more than 2.9 million acres, is located at the Nevada Test and Training Range

A temporary flight restriction was issued by the FAA shortly after the US Air Force announced the crash of a military aircraft near Area 51

According to the Air Force statement, officials believe someone intentionally altered the scene of the secretive crash after the military left the desert.

An inert training bomb body is a practice explosive that's not rigged to explode.

Meanwhile, the Air Force said the aircraft piece was likely a panel from a plane, but admitted that it came from an 'unknown origin.'

Joerg Arnu, a long-time Area 51 researcher and host of the website Dreamland Resort, visited the site of the crash on September 27, finding nothing but a completely cleared area and several tire tracks, likely from military vehicles that combed the desert for wreckage.

'They really tore up the ground so it's impossible to find the impact mark,' Arnu said in a video taken from the alleged crash.

The researchers noted that there was no debris left in the area, but something could still be there underground, adding that desert rains often wash hidden objects back up to the surface.

The Air Force noted that 'no further details are available at this time,' but did say that there were no injuries or fatalities during the unexplained incident.

Creech Air Force Base is less than 60 miles from the alleged crash site and is home to the 432nd Wing, which operates MQ-9 Reaper armed drones, RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drones, and other craft used for intelligence, surveillance, and combat missions.

Area 51 researcher Joerg Arnu captured video of the supposed crash site after the military had finished recovering the object

The crash reportedly took place just 12 miles from the security area surrounding Area 51, a base tied to UFO encounters for decades

Read More

EXCLUSIVE

•  Insider blows the lid on explosive cover-up scandal plaguing secret military bases across America 

According to online defense news site The War Zone, Reapers are the main type of aircraft housed at the base, used for spying, watching targets, and even firing missiles from far away.

They've been in use for two decades, and it's not uncommon for them to crash under certain circumstances, including user error and mechanical failures with the uncrewed, remote-controlled drones.

Conspiracy theorists online pointed out that it would be incredibly unusual for the federal officials to keep a Reaper drone crash so secret.

They noted the fact that federal investigators showed up so quickly, searched for planted fake evidence, and kept the incident completely under wraps for over two weeks were signs that the aircraft was no ordinary drone.

Recently, the US Air Force's top-secret RAT55 jet was also spotted soaring over Area 51, confirming rumors that the enigmatic radar plane operated from the clandestine Groom Lake facility.

Area 51 has also been involved in the development and testing of other revolutionary and experimental aircraft over the years, including the F-117 Nighthawk, America's first stealth bomber.

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

09-10-2025 om 14:42 geschreven door peter  

Even the smallest details of the Martian landscape can hide incredible phenomena. It turns out that dust whirlwinds, also known as “dust devils” on the Red Planet, move at incredible speeds that significantly exceed scientists’ previous estimates.

Researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland analyzed archives of images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft. Using artificial intelligence models, they were able to track more than a thousand dust devils recorded over the past two decades. 

The result is impressive: these whirlwinds can reach speeds of up to 158 km/h, making them much more powerful than previously thought. This discovery radically changes our understanding of the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere.

Turning artifacts into scientific data

The most ingenious aspect of this study was the method. None of the orbital vehicles were specifically designed to measure wind. However, the team found a way. They noticed slight color shifts in the images caused by split-second delays between the camera channels. These shifts are usually considered technical noise. But everything that moves across the surface of Mars — clouds or dust whirlwinds — leaves its mark in these shifts. By analyzing these tiny shifts between frames, scientists were able to calculate the speed and direction of each whirlwind.

As research leader Valentin Bickel noted, they literally “turned image artifacts into valuable scientific measurements.” 

This fundamental discovery has direct practical significance for the exploration of Mars. A dust devil is a kind of visualizer of invisible wind. By measuring it, we obtain a map of winds across the entire surface of the planet.

This information will be invaluable for planning future landings. Scientists will be able to more accurately assess wind conditions at the landing site, predict how much dust will settle on the rovers’ solar panels, and determine the optimal frequency of self-cleaning to maintain viability. 

Rhythms of Martian weather

The new catalog also confirms that dust devils have their “favorite” places and times. They most often occur on dust plains such as Amazonis Planitia during the warm seasons of spring and summer. Their activity peaks between late morning and early afternoon, which is very similar to patterns on Earth.

However, there is a key difference on Mars. Since no rain falls there, dust can remain in the atmosphere for months. Understanding how and when it enters the atmosphere is key to unraveling the planet’s long-term climate cycles and accurately predicting Martian weather. As ESA scientist Colin Wilson noted: “Dust on Mars affects absolutely everything.” 

Earlier, we reported on how robots on Mars would quickly turn into scrap metal.

• According to ESA

• Posted in News, Science

RELATED VIDEOS

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

09-10-2025 om 14:27 geschreven door peter  

Saw this today and wondered why they didn’t land? UFO UAP sighting daily news 👽

Date of sighting: Oct 8, 2025

Location of sighting: Bountiful, Utah, USA

Hey I recorded this in my backyard today and there was this amazing disk UFO about 500 meters across over the Salt Lake City Airport, Utah today. The disk also had a mini disk above it. The planes all flew around it. None chose to fly through it. Appearing as a cloud is the number one easiest way for aliens to fly low to the ground so they can actually look out the ship and see humans and life with their own eyes rather than staring at a computer screen experiencing it. 

Scott C. Waring 

 

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

08-10-2025 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

What’s going on in Arizona! Stargate portal in mountain used by aliens 👽 UFO sighting daily news 📰

Date of discovery: Oct 4, 2025

Location of discovery: Arizona, USA

Guys check this out. In the Arizona desert there is a mountain with a greenish emerald portal in it. It's probably not visible with the naked eye in person, since most portals must be hidden, however the digital eye of a satellite has picked up on it. Defiantly a great method of aliens traveling across the universe in a flash of an eye. 

Scott C. Waring 

 

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

08-10-2025 om 21:52 geschreven door peter  

Cube UFO Over Midlothian, Virginia On Oct 5, 2025, UAP Alien Sighting News....VIDEO!

Notice the aura around the UFO below? Dead give away...alien propulsion systems there. 

Date of sighting: Oct 5, 2025

Location of sighting: Midlothian, Virginia, USA

Source: NUFORC #193027

Watch this recent video of a metallic cube moving across the sky. It's flying low while rotation ever so slowly. The thing that gives this object away is the aura around it. UFOs have auras around it...or so says the famous nuclear engineer Bob Lazar of Area S4. Notice the screenshot above...the light around the cube...it's the energy aura created by the alien propulsion systems. 100% proof this is an alien craft. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

 

Eyewitness states: 

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

08-10-2025 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

UFO over New York on Oct 5, 2025 UAP Alien sighting news, aliens want to be seen! Video.

Date of sighting: Oct 5, 2025

Location of sighting: Newburgh, New York, USA

Source: NUFORC

 

This is a UFO that morphs or changes shape. Shapeshifter's are actually very common and as we see in several frames, this UFO does just that. UFOs often look white or silvery from far away, however when you see one a few meters from you...the colors are totally mesmerizing. It's clear this UFO was trying to slow down on a very windy day. The wind is blowing, however the object in the sky barely moves at all, then suddenly moves away. 100% proof that this is an alien craft. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

 

Eyewitness states:

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

08-10-2025 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

UFOs over Maxwell, New Mexico, USA on October 6, 2025, UFO UAP sighting news 👽 watch the sky!

Date of sighting: Oct 6, 2025

Location of sighting: Maxwell, New Mexico, USA

Source: NUFORC 

 

Watch carefully and you will see not one but many glowing spheres appear and disappear in New Mexico. Person was at a rest area and noticed the dancing lights in the sky. Aliens want to be noticed and it's 100% clear that this was intentional to test the publics reactions to them. This is building up to something big soon. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily 

 

Eyewitness states: 

Lights on object Brights lights descending Driving north on 1-25 noticed bright lights to the east. Stopped at rest area and walked to edge of rest area to watch the lights. Watched lights seem to appear, descend, or move sideways. Sometimes one light sometimes three at once. Took photos and video with cell phone. Lights caught my attention because I had seen the same phenomena on the night of Friday October 3rd in Alamogordo NM with several other people facing west. Lights displayed same movement of appearing suddenly, growing in brightness and fading off.

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

08-10-2025 om 21:28 geschreven door peter  

Apollo Sample Preservation

Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt collected these samples of volcanic material from the Taurus Littrow region, after pushing a hollow metal cylinder 60 centimeters into the regolith. Upon their return, the NASA Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program preserved the entire tube full of material in a helium chamber for future scientists to study.

After fifty years on the shelf, NASA has finally begun allowing researchers to apply modern scientific tools to ANGSA samples. Gaining access to the precious samples is no easy feat, though. A rigorous and competitive application process is in place to ensure that ANGSA releases materials only to the most deserving projects.

One of the recipients of the lunar samples was James Dottin of Brown University, whose work proposed using ion mass spectrometry on the lunar soil for the first time, in an effort to explore the sulfur in what resembled mantle-derived volcanic rock.

“I was targeting sulfur that had a texture that would suggest it was erupted with the rock and not added through a different process,” Dottin explained.

Sulfur-33

The unexpected sulfur compounds found in the samples were strange for their high depletion of sulfur-33, which is among the four most radioactively stable sulfur isotopes. Compared to sulfur-33 samples recovered on Earth, the lunar samples are far different, as terrestrial sulfur-33 is typically far less depleted.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

08-10-2025 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Scientists observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the Swift ultraviolet space telescope. With the help of this instrument, they found hydroxyl ions, indicating the presence of water on the comet. This allows us to compare it to the “cosmic icebergs” that are constantly present in our Solar System.

Water on comet 3I/ATLAS

Scientists have published a study of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using NASA’s Swift space telescope. This orbital observatory operates in ultraviolet light and is capable of performing spectral analysis for this wavelength range. As a result, scientists learned something interesting about its chemical composition.

In particular, water was found on it. More precisely, the telescope captured ultraviolet light from the hydroxyl ion OH, but it cannot be anything other than the decay product of a water molecule. Thus, a safe assumption is that it is present there.

• Posted in News, Science

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

08-10-2025 om 21:02 geschreven door peter  

A new study has refuted the popular theory about the unexpected shortening of Dimorphos’ orbital period. Scientists have discovered that the proposed mechanism would actually have the opposite effect. 

In 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) vehicle deliberately collided with Dimorphos, a small satellite of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos. The mission was dedicated to protecting our planet. Scientists wanted to test whether the space ram technique could be used to change the orbit of a celestial body threatening Earth.

The demonstration was quite impressive. The period of Dimorphos’s orbit around Didymos after the impact was reduced by as much as 33 minutes, which far exceeded the scientists’ expectations. However, in the following weeks, something unusual happened: observations revealed an additional reduction in the orbital period of another 30 seconds. This situation has left researchers perplexed as to its causes.

The initial hypothesis suggested a scenario known as binary system hardening. It involves debris ejected as a result of the collision interacting with Dimorphos’ gravity and ultimately being ejected from the system, causing it to lose angular momentum and acquire a tighter orbit. 

However, the results of a recent study conducted by scientists from Université Côte d’Azur have cast doubt on this scenario. Simulation showed that Dimorphos was too weak a “scatterer” to affect the angular momentum of the system. 

If the ejected particles do not disperse, the most likely consequence will be re-accretion, in which the debris falls back onto one of the components of the binary system. Since the collision between DART and Dimorphos was head-on, most of the ejected material entered prograde orbits. This means that they are moving in the same direction as Dimorphos and Didymos in their mutual motion around the Sun. In turn, when material moving in the prograde direction re-accretes, it increases the angular momentum of the binary system. This leads not to a decrease, but to an increase in the orbital period, which contradicts the observed pattern.

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

08-10-2025 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

The origin of Easter Island's iconic head statues is one of the world's greatest archaeological puzzles.

Now, scientists claim to have solved one important part of the mystery.

Weighing between 12 and 80 tonnes, scientists have long wondered how the island's ancient civilisation could have moved the huge stone statues into place.

Using a combination of 3D modelling and real–life experiments, scientists have confirmed that the statues actually 'walked' to their final destinations.

After studying nearly 1,000 of the heads – known as moai – anthropologists found that the people of Rapa Nui likely used ropes to rock the statues in a zig–zag pattern.

This technique would have allowed small teams of people to move the enormous moai over long distances with relatively little effort.

Co–author of the study Professor Carl Lipo, of Binghamton University, says: 'Once you get it moving, it isn't hard at all—people are pulling with one arm.

'It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly, the hard part is getting it rocking in the first place.'

Scientists say that they have solved the mystery of how Rapa Nui's stone heads reached their destinations. According to a new study, the stone heads 'walked' to their destinations 

The origin of Easter Island's iconic head statues is one of the world's greatest archaeological puzzles

Previously, anthropologists had thought that the moai must have been laid flat and pulled all the way to their destinations.

This would have been an enormously strenuous task requiring a large number of people, and would have been almost impossible for some of the larger heads.

However, there is now mounting evidence to suggest that the people of Rapa Nui had come up with a more elegant solution.

By attaching ropes to either side of the head and pulling back and forth, the moai can be rocked side to side and shuffled forward in a 'walking' motion.

Professor Lipo and his collaborator Professor Terry Hunt, of the University of Arizona, previously tested their walking theory on smaller models, but wanted to see how it would work for larger moai.

First, the researchers created a detailed 3D model of a moai head to investigate which features helped them walk.

They discovered that the moai appear to have been carefully designed with walking in mind.

Their large D–shaped base and forward–leaning position make them more likely to move forward in a zig–zag pattern when rocked side to side.

Scientists used computer modelling to investigate how the moai heads might have moved, and found that they were perfectly shaped to rock forwards in a zig–zag pattern

With a D–shaped base and forward–leaning position, the heads are made more likely to shuffle forward when rocked from side to side. This suggests they were walked rather than pulled 

To test this theory in the real world, Professor Lipo and Professor Hunt constructed a 4.35–tonne replica moai head based on their 3D model.

Just like the real things, this model had a D–shaped base and the distinctive forward–leaning centre of gravity.

With a team of just 18 people, the researchers were able to move the moai 100 metres in just 40 minutes – much faster than previous attempts.

The researchers argue that this is extremely strong evidence that the largest of the moai heads must have been moved by walking.

Professor Lipo says: 'The physics makes sense. What we saw experimentally actually works.

'And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.'

This new scientific evidence even aligns with surviving oral traditions on the island, which describe the heads 'walking' from the quarry where they were made to their final positions.

To add even more support for the theory, the study also looked at the network of 'moai roads' which criss–cross the island.

Some moai heads found by the side of transport routes show evidence of attempts to right them by digging under their feet (pictured). The researchers believe these 'moai roads' were also shaped specifically to help support a rocking motion. 

'Every time they're moving a statue, it looks like they're making a road. The road is part of moving the statue,' says Professor Lipo.

These specially prepared paths are believed to have been made specifically to enable the moai heads to be moved over long distances, and their shape is perfect for 'walking'.

Made to be around 4.5 metres wide with a concave profile, the researchers found that the specific shape of these roads helped to stabilise the heads and made them more likely to shuffle forwards.

Read More

• Mysterious underwater 'pyramid' believed to be 12,000 years old reshapes history 

Moai fallen by the side of the road during transport even have signs that people attempted to right them by digging underneath their 'feet'.  

According to the researchers, this is another strong indication that the people of Rapa Nui knew that walking was the best way to move their large statues.

Professor Lipo says: 'It shows that the Rapa Nui people were incredibly smart. They figured this out.

'So it really gives honour to those people, saying, look at what they were able to achieve, and we have a lot to learn from them in these principles.'

RELATED VIDEOS

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

08-10-2025 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

Earth's largest ocean current is grinding to a halt: Crucial system is now flowing three times slower than it was 130,000 years ago – and the consequences could be disastrous

• READ MORE: Key North Atlantic current is on the brink of COLLAPSING

By WILIAM HUNTER, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Five times stronger than the Gulf Stream and 100 times larger than the Amazon River, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is by far the world's largest ocean current.

But this key system is grinding to a halt, a new study has warned. 

Analysing core samples, scientists from the University of Bonn have found that the ACC has undergone a major slowdown.

In fact, the ocean current is now running three times slower than it was 130,000 years ago.

Worryingly, if it continues, this dramatic slowdown could have disastrous consequences.

The ACC is largely driven by westerly winds, which allow the circling flow to transport heat, dissolved carbon, and nutrients from ocean to ocean.

That makes it essential for sustaining not only regional temperatures, but also the entire global climate and ecosystem.

'If this current "engine" breaks down, there could be severe consequences, including more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming due to a reduction in the ocean's capacity to act as a carbon sink,' warned Dr Bishakhdatta Gayen, associate professor at the University of Melbourne, who was not involved in the study. 

Scientists have found that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (illustrated), the world's largest ocean current, was over three times faster 130,000 years ago 

The ACC circles the Antarctic continent from East to West, connecting the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. 

While it's critical for global heat transport, how it has changed through the years has remained unclear until now. 

To get to the bottom of it, the University of Bonn scientists looked at sediment samples collected by a research vessel in the Scotia Sea north of Antarctica.

This allowed them to work out how the ACC has changed in speed and position over the last 160,000 years.

'The velocity in the second–to–last warm period, roughly 130,000 years ago, was more than three times greater than in the last millennia comprising the current warm period,' said expedition lead Dr Michael Weber.

While the reason for this slowdown remains unclear, the researchers suggest that most of the change can be attributed to the differences in Earth's orbit around the sun.

The Earth orbits the sun in an elliptical pattern that repeats once every 100,000 years.

At the same time, the Earth's axis changes in tilt and rotation once every 21,000 years. 

Using sediment cores gathered by the research vessel Joides Resolution, researchers were able to see how the current has changed its speed and position over the last 160,000 years

This creates a pattern of radiation intensity from the sun that has a strong influence on the speed of winds and, therefore, on the speed of wind–driven currents like the ACC.

This could explain why the current was moving so much faster 130,000 years ago – despite the climate looking largely the same as today.

Those same patterns of radiation likely forced the ACC at least 370 miles (600 km) closer to the south pole during the last warm period than it is today.

Dr Webber explained: 'Both parameters showed a simultaneous, mutually reinforcing maximum exclusively during the last warm period.' 

However, research has also shown that human activity is further slowing down the ACC.

Using Australia's fastest supercomputer, researchers from the University of Melbourne recently simulated how the ACC will respond to a warming climate.

Worryingly, they found that human–caused climate change will likely cause the ACC to slow down by a further 20 per cent by 2050.

Scientists had previously thought that the current would actually get faster as the planet warmed, since warmer air produces faster winds and warm water is less dense. 

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), highlighted here in green, could slow by a further 20 per cent due to the effects of human–caused climate change 

However, these simulations revealed that the impacts of climate change on Antarctica's Ice shelves meant climate change was actually slowing the ACC overall.

As ice melts, it dumps vast quantities of cold, fresh water into the oceans, which fills the deep oceans and counteracts the effects of ocean warming – leading to a slower current.

If the ACC slows down further, it is likely to have dramatic and devastating effects on the global climate.

The ACC helps circulate nutrients around Antarctica that feed fish populations that global fisheries rely on.

The current also acts like a barrier, keeping warm water and invasive species like Southern Bull Kelp out of Antarctica.

Read More

• Earth's strongest ocean current is slowing due to climate change - consequences could be disastrous 

If this barrier weakens, more warm water will reach the Antarctic sea ice, further accelerating ice melt and exacerbating the slowdown effect.

That could lead to widespread disruption of global climate patterns and reduce the oceans' ability to help regulate world temperatures.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet holds around 90 per cent of all the fresh water on Earth and has the potential to cause massive increases in sea levels should it melt.

While researchers don't believe the ice sheet will vanish anytime soon, even modest accelerations in sea level rise could be catastrophic for the 230 million people who live within three feet of the high tide line today.

ATLANTIC OCEAN CIRCULATION PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN REGULATING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE

When it comes to regulating global climate, the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role.

This is due to a constantly moving system of deep-water circulation often referred to as the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt which sends warm, salty Gulf Stream water to the North Atlantic where it releases heat to the atmosphere and warms Western Europe.

The cooler water then sinks to great depths and travels all the way to Antarctica and eventually circulates back up to the Gulf Stream.

When it comes to regulating global climate, the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role

This motion is fuelled by thermohaline currents – a combination of temperature and salt.

It takes thousands of years for water to complete a continuous journey around the world.

Researchers believe that as the North Atlantic began to warm near the end of the Little Ice Age, freshwater disrupted the system, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

Arctic sea ice, and ice sheets and glaciers surrounding the Arctic began to melt, forming a huge natural tap of fresh water that gushed into the North Atlantic.

This huge influx of freshwater diluted the surface seawater, making it lighter and less able to sink deep, slowing down the AMOC system.

Researchers found the AMOC has been weakening more rapidly since 1950 in response to recent global warming.

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

08-10-2025 om 18:43 geschreven door peter  

Space agency breaks silence on 'foreign' interstellar object soaring past Mars: 'A rare visitor'

• READ MORE: Mysterious interstellar visitor spotted above Mars appears as 'massive cylindrical craft'

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

The European Space Agency (ESA) has finally shared new details about the mysterious interstellar visitor days after its closest approach to Mars.

The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, came within 18.6 million miles of the Red Planet on October 3, and while NASA quickly uploaded images captured by its Perseverance rover on the Martian surface, ESA had remained quiet until now. 

The ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) captured images of the object, appearing as a tiny, blurry white dot in a series of images.

The object's icy nucleus and its surrounding halo of gas and dust, called a coma, could not be distinguished separately, but the faint glow was clearly visible against the blackness of space. 

Scientists were initially unsure whether either orbiter's cameras would detect the comet at all. Both are designed to photograph Mars' bright, rocky surface from just a few hundred to a few thousand miles away, not to capture a dim object tens of millions of miles distant.

'This was a very challenging observation for the instrument,' said Nick Thomas, principal investigator of the CaSSIS camera. 

'The comet is around 10,000 to 100,000 times fainter than our usual targets.'

The visible coma suggested that 3I/ATLAS is beginning to heat up as sunlight reaches its surface, causing ice to vaporize and release dust, which gives comets their ghostly appearance. 

The European Space Agency finally released images 3I/ATLAS, captured by a Mars orbiter 

Originating from outside our Solar System, 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar comet ever seen, following 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.

'These comets are absolutely foreign,' the ESA shared on Tuesday, referring to 3I/ATLAS as a 'rare visitor.'

'Every planet, moon, asteroid, comet and lifeform in our Solar System shares a common origin. 

'But interstellar comets are true outsiders, carrying clues about the formation of worlds far beyond our own.'

ExoMars TGO captured the series of images with its Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS), which was unable to distinguish the nucleus from the coma due to 3I/ATLAS being too far away.

However, the device was able to image the coma that spanned thousands of miles across. 

'The full size of the coma could not be measured by CaSSIS because the brightness of the dust decreases quickly with distance from the nucleus,' the ESA report shared.

'This means that the coma fades into the noise in the image.'

3I/ATLAS made its closest approach to Mars on October 3 and is set to continue through our Solar System

NASA was quick to release images of the object snapped by its Perseverance rover on Mars. The agency uploaded them over the weekend 

Typically, material from the coma is swept into a long tail that can stretch for millions of miles as the comet moves closer to the sun. 

'The tail is much dimmer than the coma. We can’t see the tail in the CaSSIS images, but it may become more visible in future observations as the comet continues to heat up and release more ice,' shared the ESA. 

The images have flooded X, where one user posted: 'ESA Finally Releases Images of 3I/ATLAS. After days of silence, ESA finally broke the blackout.'

The ESA's report comes days after NASA released its view of the visitor.

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who has been convinced that the object could be an alien craft or probe, analyzed the Perseverance rover's photos by calculating its distance, speed, and camera settings.

According to his initial study, Loeb was not convinced 3I/ATLAS is actually a massive cylindrical object, noting that the strange shape might have been a trick of the rover's camera stretching out its shape.

He explained that the apparent cylinder from the rover's 'Navcam' was likely caused by the camera stacking hundreds of images of 3I/ATLAS over a period of about 10 minutes, making it look more like a log than a ball.

The professor added that 3I/ATLAS is likely smaller and rounder, but still massive, with a potential diameter of more than 28 miles across.

Dr Horace Drew, a retired senior researcher at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), noted that the mysterious green glow seen in some images could be a result of the object being an interstellar spacecraft coated in nickel.

Color-enhanced images shared by multiple social media users revealed a strange green glow around 3I/ATLAS

Drew explained that humans use the same practice on Earth-made space technology on a much smaller scale.

'It is not a 'comet,'' Drew declared on a post on X Monday morning.

Read More

• Scientists issue the clearest image yet of mysterious object racing through our solar system 

Drew disagreed with Loeb's conclusion that the cylindrical shape was a result of the Mars rover sending back a stretched image over several minutes, claiming that an amateur astronomer on Earth captured a similar shape with their telescope.

'We can see an extended white shape, with a green coma outside. Not a small white ball,' Drew explained in a post about the astronomer's photograph.

Drew, who earned his PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, added that previous images of the interstellar object were allegedly from a 'head-on view' and didn't capture its shape from the side, like the new photos from Mars.

Loeb said he's excited about another image taken by a different Mars camera, called HiRISE, which has better resolution and could show 3I/ATLAS more clearly.

That image is being sent back to Earth by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and has yet to be released by NASA.

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

08-10-2025 om 18:27 geschreven door peter  

Brits have been left in awe after spotting what is believed to be a 'meteor' glowing through the night sky. 

Lucky stargazers in Northfields and Ealing, west London, have reported seeing a blue-ish green blob race through the city's sky on Tuesday. 

One onlooker described seeing the 'streak' of light dash through the clouds at around 8.10pm to 8.30pm, and initially believed it was fireworks.  

'I'm used to seeing planes coming and going to Heathrow, and also helicopters coming and going; this was not that,' they wrote on Reddit. 

'My next thought was fireworks but I'm 90% sure it wasn't that, and there was no explosion.

'For reference it was about the same size as the full-ish moon tonight, visible through the clouds, but as a much brighter blue-green color and, again, moving quite fast.

'It was a very odd combination of speed, size and brightness and didn't look like anything I've ever seen in the sky here before.'

Others claimed to have seen the unusual sighting from Wimbledon and Hampstead Heath, with some even catching a glimpse as far afield as Brighton and Grantham.

Lucky stargazers in Northfields and West Ealing, west London, and further afield, have reported seeing a blue-ish green blob race through the city's sky on Tuesday night

It has not yet been confirmed what the colourful 'streak' in Tuesday's sky was, however, the Daily Mail has approached the Met Office for comment. 

It comes as earlier this week Jessica Lee, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich also said sky gazers could expect the Draconid meteor shower today. 

But, the meteor shower, which is expected to peak Wednesday night may be difficult to see due to the moonlight, Ms Lee warned. 

'The Draconids meteor shower is named after the constellation of Draco the dragon,' Ms Lee said.

'This is because, although meteors appear all over the sky, they all appear to emerge or radiate from a single point that lies within this constellation.

'The meteor shower is visible from the 6th until the 10th of October this year.

'The best time will be from around 8pm on the 8th of October.

'At this time, that radiant point within Draco will be in the north-west of the sky, slowly getting lower in the sky until sunrise.

'The moon will be almost full on this night, however, so it could make the meteors tricky to see.'

The Draconids are caused when debris from the comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner burns up in the Earth's atmosphere, Ms Lee added.

Read More

• Mysterious tentacles emerging from a 'meteorite' spark frenzied reaction 

'Most of this debris will burn up at a height of around 80km above the ground, so this is not a dangerous event,' she said.

'For the best chances to spot them, find a dark area of clear sky and allow around 20 minutes to let your eyes adapt to the dark.

'It may also be advisable to lie down as you may be looking up for a long time.'

In September, walkers were urged to keep an eye out for meteorite fragments scattered over Scotland after a shooting star was spotted in the early hours of July 3. 

The meteor is believed to have exploded over northern Scotland, with the 'fall zone' straddling Loch Treig in Lochaber, Highland. 

The aerial event was captured on some cameras and shared on social media, showing a big yellow spark soaring through the dark sky.

Members of the public have since been tasked to look for the fragments, which should appear 'black, glassy and shiny'.

Meteorites – rocks from outer space and have fallen to the surface of a planet – may have delivered essential compounds facilitating the evolution of life as we know it.

Professor Luke Daly, a planetary geoscientist and space rock hunter at the University of Glasgow, called them 'time capsules of the early solar system'.

'They hold a wealth of information about how our solar system formed and developed,' he said.

'This is a very exciting opportunity to learn more about where this rock came from and where it has been and fill in a bit more of the jigsaw of our solar system's history.' 

RELATED

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

08-10-2025 om 18:14 geschreven door peter  

Bob Lazar Reveals What He Saw Inside the UFO at S-4

In one of the most discussed interviews on The Joe Rogan Experience, physicist and whistleblower Bob Lazar detailed his extraordinary claim of having seen the interior of an alien spacecraft during his time working at a secret U.S. facility known as S-4, near Area 51. Lazar’s account remains one of the most detailed and controversial depictions of non-human technology ever shared publicly.

An Unworldly Interior

Lazar recalled being allowed inside the craft on only one occasion, primarily to examine how its internal components were arranged. According to him, the layout was crucial, since the craft’s systems operated without any visible wiring or connections.

The moment he stepped inside, he said the environment felt profoundly alien. Everything was one uniform color — a dark, pewter-like tone — with no sharp angles or seams. It appeared, he said, as if “someone had molded the interior from wax and then heated it just enough to let everything melt slightly together.” Every surface flowed into another, giving the sense that the structure was fused or grown, rather than built.

Designed for Smaller Beings

Inside the craft, Lazar found it too small for an average human. At 5’10”, he could not stand upright except at the very center. The seats were tiny, clearly made for beings about half his height — roughly three feet tall.

There were no familiar features such as control panels, lights, or decorations. The space was minimal and utilitarian — only a few seats, a central reactor, and several rectangular components positioned symmetrically around it. “There was nothing you could recognize as human technology,” Lazar said.

Advanced Materials and ‘Smart’ Surfaces

While exploring, Lazar noticed archways that became transparent at times. He observed another team working on one of these archways as it shifted from opaque metal to see-through material. The phenomenon reminded him of “smart glass”, a real-world technology that changes opacity, but far beyond anything publicly known.

He described the craft’s material as cold to the touch, suggesting it was metallic or perhaps a form of advanced ceramic. The smooth, continuous design reinforced his belief that the entire object was a single integrated system, not assembled from parts.

Three Levels of Technology

Lazar stated the craft contained three internal levels:

1. Main Deck: Contained the reactor and three seats arranged evenly around it.
2. Lower Level: Housed “gravity amplifiers” and “emitters” — cylindrical devices resembling trash cans attached to pipes. These, he said, were responsible for the craft’s propulsion.
3. Upper Level: Believed to include navigation or control systems, with dark, sensor-like panels on the outer surface used for orientation in space.

He physically entered the main deck and leaned into the lower level to observe the positioning of the gravity amplifiers firsthand.

According to Lazar, the craft he entered was one of nine extraterrestrial vehicles stored and studied at S-4. Each had a different design, suggesting they came from different origins or time periods. One, he said, looked like a “Jell-O mold” with rippled sides, while another resembled a flat disc “like a straw hat.” At least one of them showed visible damage, possibly from being shot down or recovered after a crash.

The Enduring Mystery

Bob Lazar’s story has inspired decades of debate, skepticism, and fascination. Critics question his scientific background and lack of physical evidence, while supporters argue that his detailed technical descriptions of gravity manipulation and element 115 propulsion predate modern discussions of exotic energy physics.

Whether seen as revelation or fabrication, Lazar’s account remains one of the most vivid and technically specific portrayals of an alleged alien craft interior — a description that continues to shape popular culture’s image of reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology.

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

08-10-2025 om 16:59 geschreven door peter  

Whatever caused the sudden deaths of dozens of cattle in northwestern Colorado late last year 2022 remains elusive, according to officials who ended their investigation into the matter last month.

The unexplained incidents received widespread media attention, giving rise to speculations involving everything from wolf depredation and soil based pathogens, to stirring—but unfounded—claims of a mysterious “creature” that “left no tracks” responsible for the killings.

However, an investigation by The Debrief based on documents obtained through Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, as well as interviews with investigators who probed the mysterious deaths, have revealed new details about the incidents that perplexed state officials and local cattle farmers on Colorado’s Western Slope last year.

An Unsettling Discovery

THE ORDEAL BEGAN in early October 2022, with the discovery of several calf carcasses strewn about the 13,000 contiguous deeded acres that comprise the family-owned and operated LK Ranch, located eight miles southeast of Meeker, Colorado.

Bordering Colorado’s scenic White River National Forest, one of the country’s most-visited national parks, the ranch is operated by the Klinglesmith family, a well-known and respected mainstay of the Meeker community and past recipients of a Wildlife Landowners of the Year recognition by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

“The Klinglesmiths are the epitome of the rural, hard-working cattle rancher,” said Baily Franklin, Meeker District Wildlife Manager at the time of the family’s recognition, “and they serve as tremendous role models in northwestern Colorado.”

On October 4, 2022, the family discovered a total of 19 calf carcasses on their property, along with the remains of one adult cow. Eighteen of the calves were all located within just 1.5 miles of one another, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services were quickly notified.

“We were first notified about October 4 of a livestock producer that had found some dead cattle,” said CPW Northwest Region Manager Travis Black in an interview with The Debrief. Black said a local CPW District Wildlife Manager and the USDA Wildlife Services control specialist were accompanied by another local officer from a neighboring region during an initial visit to the location where the remains were located.

“Several carcasses had tails missing and marks consistent with canine teeth,” the Klinglesmith family would later report in an update on the investigation that appeared on November 28, 2022. While the carcasses appeared to display hemorrhaging in locations where CPW investigators are trained to look for signs of depredation by canines, the possibility that wolves might have been involved presented unique challenges for investigators trying to determine whether an animal was responsible for some of the killings.

Two days later, on October 9, another carcass was discovered at West Miller Creek, and over the course of the next two weeks, the total number of dead calves would climb to 42, excluding two additional deaths resulting from sick calves found by the Klinglesmith family on October 9 believed to have been suffering from Brisket disease, a condition found in cattle residing at high altitudes that sometimes results in heart failure.

However, as the investigation continued and additional cattle remains were discovered, one perplexing common trait began to emerge: only a handful seemed to show what CPW officials believed to be signs of wolf depredation.

“The three individuals involved, along with the landowner, decided that there were some injuries on a handful of these calves,” Black told The Debrief. “And I’m talking about four or five of them, not all eighteen.”

“A lot of those dead calves didn’t show any physical marks on the outside, but there were a handful of them that they determined were consistent with wolf depredation,” Black said.

“That does not mean that we said wolves did it.”

However, as investigators worked to understand what factors—or combinations of them—were behind the cattle deaths, the question over wolf involvement only promised to further aggravate a brewing storm that Colorado officials had long been dreading; one with roots that extend all the way back to the early 19th century, and the era of government-sanctioned wolf hunting in America.

Of Wolf and Man

DURING THE MIDDLE of the nineteenth century, beavers and other animal populations were in acute decline due to a demand for their pelts. As a result, many professional hunters turned their attention toward a new quarry that was capable of demanding comparable prices in the burgeoning fur trade.

Employing poison traps baited with elk, bison, or other natural prey of the canine predators to help ensure their pelts could be retrieved intact, between the years of 1870 and 1877 as many as 100,000 wolves were killed annually.

The era of the “Wolfers” had begun.

More than two centuries earlier, the first bounty systems on wolves were instituted in European settlements in America. A cash reward of a penny for each of the animals killed was instituted in Massachusetts Bay Colony as early as 1630, and by 1818 with the declaration of the “War of Extermination” against wolves and bears in Ohio, several more states began adopting bounty systems against wolves.

Shortly before its establishment as a state on August 1, 1876, a bounty system was established in what would become the State of Colorado in 1869. Similar bounty systems were established in Wyoming, Montana, and other states during the ensuing decades. By the turn of the century, wolf populations had declined significantly in many parts of America. In 1915, the first official government wolf hunters were hired, remaining in action until June 30, 1942. During this period, more than 24,132 wolves were killed under the direction of the United States government.

Artist’s depiction of former Presdient Theodore Roosevelt engaging in a wolf hunt in 1907

(public domain).

By the 1960s, wolf populations in the contiguous 48 states had reached record-low numbers, with scattered pockets of the remaining 350 to 750 animals existing in parts of extreme northeastern Minnesota. With the passing of the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1966, the timber wolf became the first species of American wolf that officially became recognized as endangered under federal law.

The protection of this single wolf species didn’t stop the animals from being killed, however. Between 1969 and 1974, in response to ongoing depredation of livestock, a Directed Predator Control Program conducted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources still resulted in the killing of an average of 64 wolves each year, with $50 incentives offered to designated trappers in various parts of the state who harvested wolves. It wasn’t until the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was enacted by Congress and implemented under the direction of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that gray wolves and subspecies like the eastern timber wolf and Rocky Mountain wolf finally saw federal protection.

Recovery plans to help re-establish the decimated American wolf populations began in the late 1970s in various states, mostly undertaken by the USFWS, although the reinstatement of trapping resulting from the depredation of livestock continued for short periods in several states.

By the end of the century, work to manage wolf populations in various states continued. Throughout the early 2000s, the reclassification of gray wolf populations into three distinct population segments, as well as the proposed delisting of wolf species and other developments related to wolves in America, resulted in several legal controversies (an entire timeline of events detailing these events can be found at the website of the International Wolf Center).

In October 2020, the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species Act list of endangered animals in the contiguous 48 United States. In November of that same year, Proposition 114, a ballot initiative that sought to reintroduce wolves west of the continental divide in Colorado, went to vote and was passed. Now recognized as state statute 33-2-105.8, it directs the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop a gray wolf reintroduction and management plan no later than December 31, 2023. It also allocates state funding to aid livestock owners “in preventing conflicts with gray wolves and pay fair compensation for livestock losses.”

Then, in October 2022 as dozens of dead calves were being found on the LK Ranch southeast of Meeker, Colorado, CPW officials realized they had a real problem on their hands.

That would especially be the case if wolves were found to be responsible.

Cattle Deaths and Conspiracy Claims

AS THE INVESTIGATIONS continued, Colorado officials remained baffled by the strange cattle deaths. Despite the questions that remained, a handful of the incidents did appear to present indications of canine activity. On October 7, 2022, CPW issued a news release revealing to the public that investigations into possible wolf depredations on U.S. Forest Service Land in the Meeker area were underway.

“This is an active investigation and CPW is working closely with the livestock producer to collect additional evidence, including looking for scat and tracks in the area,” the release stated. “If the depredations are confirmed as being caused by wolves, CPW will work in partnership with the livestock producer to implement approved hazing methods and respond to any damage claims submitted.”

“It is important to note,” the release added, “that no wolf reintroductions have taken place yet in Colorado and recent depredation incidents are not related to or a result of wolf reintroduction efforts in Colorado.”

Despite its careful wording, pushback following the CPW’s October news release came almost immediately.

“I received emails, mostly from wolf advocates, that were concerned that misinformation was being provided to the public and to ranchers,” Black told The Debrief, who said he became an easy target for parties who believed CPW was siding with local livestock producers worried about how the reintroduction of wolves could potentially impact their business.

“I was accused of collusion,” Black said, “and cooperation with livestock producers to try and stir up, you know, fear of wolves.”

“And it couldn’t be further from the truth,” Black said of the allegations. “We were just trying to follow an investigative process and figure out exactly what happened in a very unusual case.”

According to a copy of a livestock depredation guide produced for internal use by CPW officials that The Debrief obtained, wolf depredation is usually indicated by wounds inflicted to the hindquarters, flanks, throat, and front legs of large animals like cattle. Wolves also prefer most often to feed on the viscera and hindquarters of large livestock first, although large bones “may be chewed or broken while smaller bones may be consumed,” and such feeding patterns “are not always obvious on prey killed by packs.”

Screenshot from a depredation guide detailing signs commonly associated with wolf depredation

(Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife).

The guide also provides details on the spacing of puncture wounds left by canine teeth, noting the difference between those of wolves and coyotes generally involves a wider width when wolf depredation is involved. The spoor left by wolves is also larger than that of coyotes, with adult wolf tracks generally around 4.75 to 5 inches in length and 4 inches wide.

A Colorado Parks and Wildlife wolf support work summary dated October 24, 2022, states that biologists from the White River National Forest set up ten wildlife cameras in the area on October 11, 2022, just days after the initial group of dead calves were found.

“Reconyx cameras were used and placed on trees 7-9 meters across from another tree scented with a lure attractant,” read a copy of the document obtained by The Debrief. Additionally, a pair of howling stations were established along Forest Road 217 on the same day the cameras were installed.

“We removed all cameras on October 21st,” the document states. “No wolves were photographed on our cameras during the deployment window of October 11-21.”

Additionally, howling surveys conducted during the same period the cameras remained in use produced no audio recordings of wolves, and investigations along muddy areas near where one recently deceased calf body had been discovered “showed no canine tracks,” and “no scat was noted.”

At least a few scat samples collected and analyzed at other locations by CPW investigators “did not provide any DNA amplification,” according to emails reviewed by The Debrief, although a total of 14 hair samples were also collected during this period. One of the hair samples provided no amplification, and 12 were identified as bovine. Intriguingly, the final sample was determined to belong to a “wild canid,” although the research molecular biologist who performed the analysis said it had “a messy analysis and indicated coyote,” but added that “not much should be read into that as the sample was very degraded.”

The Debrief reached out to the biologist who provided these results, although the individual declined to comment further based on their limited involvement with the CPW’s investigation.

The question remained, then, as to what had been responsible for the deaths of more than 40 cattle around Meeker, Colorado, within a few short weeks. By now, with little evidence to support the presence of wolves in the area, some investigators were leaning toward the possibility that a very different kind of killer might have been involved.

A killer of the unseen kind.

On the Track of an Invisible Killer

AS THE DAYS wore on and more dead calves continued to be found, investigators were becoming convinced that the evidence in hand simply did not support the conclusion that wolves could have had any significant involvement. Eventually, a new possible explanation came to their attention: a soil-based pathogen called clostridium chauvoei associated with a condition called black leg, known to sometimes occur in both cattle and sheep.

“As we researched this clostridial disease and outbreaks in other regions of the world with large casualties, some similarities to this situation were recognized,” the Klinglesmith family wrote in their November 2022 update. Still, one of the prevailing questions involved what circumstances might have caused a large number of cattle to suddenly fall victim to this unseen pathogen.

According to one study cited in the family’s November update, “when the oxygen tension drops in areas of muscle in which spores are present, usually as a consequence of blunt trauma and associated tissue hemorrhage, degeneration, and necrosis, the spores germinate, proliferate, and produce toxins that are responsible for most clinical signs and lesions of black leg.” Such conditions would also seem to be consistent with the small number of initial cattle deaths around Meeker that displayed evidence of canine depredation.

Another possible factor involved a management decision among producers in the area to change the normal vaccination schedule, which usually entailed a spring and fall dose of 8-way vaccine, and instead administer a pair of fall doses. “The 8-way vaccine contains and protects against eight clostridial strains,” the Klinglesmith family wrote in their November update. “This change in vaccine protocol allowed us to focus spring immune responses on the four main respiratory viruses, and Pasteurella.”

“Our goal in changing vaccine protocol was to administer fewer antibiotics throughout the summer months for respiratory sicknesses,” the family wrote, “and we were successful in this aspect.”

However, the change in vaccine protocol may have also left several cattle that season susceptible to any forms of clostridium that might be present. In their update, the Klinglesmiths noted that “if in fact a clostridial was triggered by an attack, with a return to our original vaccine protocol we should be able to avoid the heavy casualties,” thereby reducing “our losses to a few depredation casualties,” and maintaining a strategy that “fits the research and experience consistently reported in the Northern Rockies.”

Ultimately, the results from pathology tests for the presence of clostridium chauvoei would be the final say in the matter. But before those tests could be completed, the sobering number of unexplained cattle deaths occurring around Meeker had already become the subject of significant attention from the media, which only further complicated an already uneasy situation for CPW officials.

It certainly didn’t help that among the speculations now in circulation were new claims of a “mysterious creature” that could have been responsible for the killings.

Mysterious Mutilations and Killer Creatures

THROUGHOUT THE EARLY 1970s, a wave of unsettling livestock deaths and mutilations captured the attention of people across the nation, deaths the likes of which Colorado had its fair share.

“Given the rate of human slaughter in any large American city, it might not seem too important that between April and September of this year 129 cattle were mutilated in the state of Colorado,” read an article by Alexander Cockburn in the December 1975 issue of Esquire. Similar stories appearing around the time drew attention from politicians like U.S. Senator from New Mexico Harrison Schmitt, as well as U.S. Senator Floyd Haskell of Colorado, who began to appeal to then-Attorney General Griffin B. Bell and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help in the matter.

One of several FBI documents detailing cattle mutilation incidents reported in the U.S. during the 1970s

(Credit: FBI).

“If the FBI will not enter the investigation of mysterious livestock deaths in Colorado and some adjacent states, then Sen. Floyd Haskell, D-Colo., should take the matter to Congress for resolution,” read a Denver Post article on September 3, 1975. The FBI, citing the absence of “interstate transportation” that would warrant attention from federal authorities, advised that “Our jurisdiction was explained to Senator Haskell and he said that he understood our statutory limitations,” according to a September 12, 1975 memorandum (the FBI’s entire collection of files related to animal mutilations can be read online here).

Quite unlike the cattle deaths that occurred near Meeker, Colorado, last Autumn, the cattle mutilation incidents that peaked during the mid-1970s reportedly involved animals found dead with selected organs and other body parts removed, and often blood drained from their carcasses. Between 1973 and 1976 alone, more than 1500 alleged cattle mutilations in 22 U.S. states were reported, prompting speculations about everything from satanic cults and secretive government research efforts to UFOs.

Although many of the cattle mutilation incidents from throughout the decades remain unsolved, nothing that conclusively links them to cultists, government agencies, or aliens with a flavor for filet mignon has ever surfaced. However, the persistence of such stories throughout the decades—tales now legendary among many Colorado cattle producers—did little to help the situation when dead calves started appearing around Meeker last October.

Black recalled one phone call he received from a family member who “asked if we had aliens or something.”

“There were a lot of kinda wild theories thrown out there,” Black told The Debrief.

By the end of November 2022, characterizations of the Meeker cattle deaths as having involved an “elusive predator” or a “mystery killer” began appearing after the publication of an article in the New York Post which, although correct in most of the details about what was known at the time about the evolving investigations by CPW and other Colorado officials, built intrigue by attributed dozens of the cattle deaths to an unknown predator “that has left no tracks.”

Based on emails from officials obtained by The Debrief through Colorado Open Records Act requests, the sensational media coverage of the situation did not go unnoticed by CPW investigators, who were growing increasingly frustrated by the elusive source behind the cattle deaths.

I’m sure you’re aware of the consternation about the deaths of Lenny Klinglesmith’s cattle, and it seems to be getting worse,” read one email reviewed by The Debrief, where an official referred to an article by one news outlet as “not very good in multiple ways.”

“I’m sure you can appreciate that the press will write a story (both good and bad), and that is out of our control,” another email message read.

“If some want to jump to conclusions, that is their prerogative,” it continued. “Yes, the speculation isn’t helping,” the official wrote. “Neither will pushing for a final answer without due diligence.”

Another email exchange on November 30, 2022, noted that “The media continues to twist this story how they see fit,” adding that “One side wants to downplay wolf involvement. The other wants to blame wolves.”

Speaking with The Debrief, Black recalled his own frustrations over the media coverage the CPW’s investigation generated.

“We can’t control what the media says,” Black told The Debrief. “We tried to provide as detailed information as we could during this event, and they tend to pick and choose pieces of that or take some of it out of context and develop their own story.”

However, the details of that story would only become more complicated once the results of pathology tests for possible clostridium infection finally returned.

Inconclusive Analysis  

ON OCTOBER 20, 2022, results from the Colorado State University Diagnostic Laboratory returned with pathology results from samples collected at the scene of several of the Meeker cattle deaths. While noting the presence of “significant autolysis in the skeletal muscle sections which makes interpretation difficult,” the results of the analysis nonetheless concluded that “there is no evidence of necrosis or active inflammation to suggest Black Leg,” the infectious bacterial disease associated with clostridium chauvoei.

Another series of samples tested by the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory yielded similar results on October 21, 2022, indicating “no microscopic lesions in the tissues examined that explain the cause of death in this animal.”

“This is frustrating,” Black wrote in an email to another CPW official dated Wednesday, November 30, 2022. “Initial assessments made by [District Wildlife Managers] and Wildlife Services staff said there were multiple injuries consistent with wolf depredation. I’ve seen some of the photos… I understand why they made that assumption. However, there is no other supporting evidence.”

“Then the possibility of Clostridium bacteria came up,” Black’s email continued. “This seemed to answer a lot of questions. Then samples and lab analysis failed to positively point to this as [the] cause of death.”

“It also creates a lot of room for conjecture,” Black wrote. “Did wolves chase the cattle or attack them initially and cause a low oxygen environment within tissue that exacerbated the bacteria and created a toxin? Or is this natural progression of the disease?”

“Nobody can seem to give us a definitive answer.”

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

07-10-2025 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

Whatever caused the sudden deaths of dozens of cattle in northwestern Colorado late last year 2022 remains elusive, according to officials who ended their investigation into the matter last month.

The unexplained incidents received widespread media attention, giving rise to speculations involving everything from wolf depredation and soil based pathogens, to stirring—but unfounded—claims of a mysterious “creature” that “left no tracks” responsible for the killings.

However, an investigation by The Debrief based on documents obtained through Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, as well as interviews with investigators who probed the mysterious deaths, have revealed new details about the incidents that perplexed state officials and local cattle farmers on Colorado’s Western Slope last year.

The Investigation Ends, and Questions Remain

ON FEBRUARY 7, 2023, four months after the first dead calves were discovered near Meeker, CPW announced that it was closing its investigation, despite there being no conclusive explanation that could account for all the cattle deaths.

“CPW investigators could not determine the exact cause of death for a few calves with hide damage and trauma consistent with a canine attack,” the news release stated.

According to the CPW release, the discovery of a pack of nine dogs seven miles from where the cattle deaths occurred that were blamed for harassing wildlife, “cast doubt on whether wolves were in the area.”

“CPW is working with the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s office on a call-by-call basis and will deal with any domestic dog issues according to legal processes,” the release added.

Black was quoted in the release saying that while some cattle displayed wounds that were “consistent with injuries from large canines,” there had been “no confirmation of wolves in the area,” adding that “we do not have specific evidence to determine what species of canid caused the depredations.”

In Colorado, a 90-day window is allotted for producers to present proof of loss when deaths suspected to be the result of animal depredation occur. Following last October’s cattle deaths, the investigation by CPW was officially closed after the expiration of this window period.

“The Klinglesmith family would like to thank the local DWMs and veterinary staff for the many hours spent in the field and in the office investigating this incident,” Lenny Klinglesmith was quoted saying in the release, which added that his family did not plan to pursue compensation for the losses “Due to lack of evidence of wolves in the area.”

One week later on February 14, The Humane Society of the United States reported that wolves had been ruled out as a cause behind the Meeker cattle deaths, admonishing CPW officials for assessments they said “led to anti-wolf hysteria” among residents and certain stakeholders on the Colorado Western Slope.

“A wildlife expert who examined photos of dead cows obtained by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in an open records request has concluded that wolves are not to blame for the deaths of 41 cattle whose bodies were found near Meeker, Colorado in 2022,” the press release read.

According to a report based on a review of CPW documents provided by the HSUS, Carter Niemeyer, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture District Supervisor and Wolf Management Specialist wrote that there wasn’t any evidence that supported wolf involvement in the cattle deaths in Colorado last year.

“Based on the evidence in these photos,” Niemeyer wrote in his report, “it [is] my opinion that wolves had nothing to do with the death of Meeker cattle. I don’t really see any evidence of dog bites either. Although they can be less damaging, dogs can inflict serious injuries to the legs of cattle or even the faces/nose.”

“I believe the cattle died fairly quickly where they were standing,” Niemeyer continued, “and the cause had nothing to do with predation of any sort.” Niemeyer also raised the question of whether Brisket disease might have played a more significant role in the deaths, based on communications that referenced a pair of cattle deaths that were believed to have been caused by this condition.

“My question would be – If a couple of cattle died this way, it is reasonable to assume others did too,” Niemeyer wrote. “Brisket disease is a well-known and recognized condition in cattle that graze at high elevations in Colorado.”

“In conclusion, I did NOT see any evidence of wolf predation in any of the images provided,” Niemeyer wrote.

Lingering Questions

FOR TRAVIS BLACK, what began as an investigation into how more than 40 cattle died in his home state last year blossomed into a controversy that eventually made its way into headlines around the world. At the heart of the investigation had been the concerns of a respected ranch family in Meeker, who felt an obligation to communicate with their neighbors in the region about the unsettling situation that had invaded their lives.

It is a situation that, even today, remains unresolved.

“It was Mr. Klinglesmith that first reached out to the media about this,” Black told The Debrief. “And I understand where he was coming from. I’d probably have made the same decision if I’d been that producer.”

However, those initial efforts to provide clear and reliable information to the public about the investigation also drew media attention, which eventually gave rise to misperceptions about the investigation that would further hamper efforts to get to the bottom of the deaths.

“That certainly caused the media to start inquiring,” Black said. “It put CPW in a position where we had to put something out, right? To let them know, yes, something happened. We’re investigating it.”

Yet those investigations seemed to have only left people like Black and his coworkers with more questions than answers about what factors might have caused the bizarre deaths.

“I go back to the drum I keep beating,” Black maintains. “We saw injuries consistent with wolf depredations.”

“But never once did we say it was wolves.”

Black says the headlines that played up the mysterious aspects of the deaths, characterizing them as “slayings” by some unidentified “creature” had likely only fed into the misperception that wolves, or perhaps some other animal, were to blame.

“It did make managing the situation difficult,” Black said, noting that the media coverage and resulting rumor mill prompted CPW to hold a commission meeting on November 17, 2022, where Black attempted to update the public and “put to rest some of the rumors that were flying out there.”

However, as the end of the three-month period allotted to producers like the Klinglesmith family to provide evidence of loss steadily approached, it became evident to all parties that a resolution was unlikely to be found before the deadline arrived.

“We coordinated with the landowner, and he agreed,” Black told The Debrief. “In consultation with Klinglesmith, we agreed to close the investigation.”

Throughout the duration of CPW’s inquiry, Black says that there was no clear evidence of wolves uncovered during the 90-day investigation period. However, equally frustrating to investigators had been that in addition to the scant evidence of canine depredation, there had also been no clear evidence that any of the other potential causes CPW had explored were to blame.

“We couldn’t say [definitively] that it was clostridium. We couldn’t say for certain that it was dogs [or] other canines that harassed the cattle.”

“There just wasn’t enough evidence to support any of the above,” Black said.

The question remains as to what the actual cause behind the deaths of so many cattle around Meeker last year had been, although several possibilities exist. Perhaps some yet-to-be-determined pathogen had been to blame, which might explain why tests for any of the suspected strains of clostridium turned up empty-handed. It also seems plausible—if not likely—that the changes to the vaccination schedules that occurred earlier in 2022 had been related to the deaths in some way.

Another alternative is Brisket disease, a condition that is recognized for affecting mostly high-altitude cattle populations like those in northwestern Colorado but can sometimes manifest in cattle dwelling as low as 3000 feet. Brisket disease was also confirmed in at least two of the incidents reported by the Klinglesmiths last year early in the investigation and perhaps should not be ruled out as having been a potential factor in more of the cattle deaths.

Still another possibility might involve a form of toxin present in the environment, which calves could have been exposed to either through ingestion of vegetation or other food sources or through contaminated water. Presently, although there is no evidence of contaminants in the environment known to have been detected by CPW investigators, examples of bovine deaths resulting from toxicity have occurred elsewhere in recent years. These include cattle deaths in Ontario in 2007 that were later attributed to the consumption of Senecio jacobaea, a plant more commonly known as Tansy ragwort.

In the aftermath of the strange ordeal, there is at least one thing that seems very clear to Travis Black, although it offers little consolation in light of the mysterious incidents that pushed his community into the international spotlight last year.

“The only thing I could say,” Black told The Debrief, “is that there was zero evidence of wolves.”

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on Twitter: @MicahHanks. 

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

07-10-2025 om 22:26 geschreven door peter  

Pilots and crews from more than 15 commercial aircraft say they have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in American airspace in recent weeks, according to eyewitness testimony and videos that detail the unusual events.

According to witnesses, the rash of incidents occurred over a seven-week period and involved sightings of bright luminous aerial objects in airspace from the American Midwest to as far west as the Pacific. The Debrief has learned that several of the objects were reportedly observed performing unconventional tight-circling maneuvers, which pilots and others involved said defied simple explanation.

The objects, which have since garnered the nickname “Racetrack UAPs” for the descriptions of their odd circular flight paths, were first reported by researcher and television personality Ben Hansen on social media and his YouTube channel, where he has featured several videos detailing the pilot encounters.

While several of the incidents were reported to air traffic controllers, no official investigations are known to have taken place, although The Debrief has learned that the events were reported to at least one Federal Aviation Administration unit tasked with responding to potential threats to American airspace.

Mark Hulsey, a former F-18 pilot, was one of the principal witnesses during the August 18, 2022, incident

(Credit: Ben Hansen).

One of the earliest known incidents in the recent spate of sightings occurred on August 18, 2022, involving a Gulfstream 650 private jet flow by former Navy F-18 pilot Mark Hulsey, along with a second pilot identifying himself only by his first name, “Keith,” while traveling between Florida and Hawaii. Passing over Los Angeles, the pilots observed between 4 and 7 luminous objects at an estimated 5000 to 10,000 feet above them performing odd, circular maneuvers.

Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) was contacted to determine whether the objects represented potentially conflicting traffic, although radar controllers at the facility had been unable to detect any primary targets operating near their aircraft at that time. The two pilots watched as ATC personnel attempted to paint the objects on their scopes as the UAPs maintained their peculiar, revolving flight paths above them.

Nearby, an American Airlines flight passing through the area also reported seeing the objects over the radio. Later, the Gulfstream pilots learned that calls were made to the Los Angeles ARTCC by at least two more airlines that saw the objects. Neither of the principal witnesses believed that the objects they observed were any kind of conventional aircraft, based on their odd maneuvering and the speed they exhibited.

Los Angeles Air Traffic Control Center

(Credit: John Murphy, Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0).

The Debrief independently obtained transcripts of radio communications recorded on the night of the August incident with the help of researcher Dave Beaty, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the incident. A portion of the transcript Beaty provided to The Debrief, which identifies the Gulfstream as “Twighlight (sic) 670”, reads as follows:

Twighlight 670 (04:58): LA Center Twighlight 670 Uh, Go Ahead, We’ve got a few aircraft here, Going around in circles. higher altitude than us. Any idea what they are?

LA Center (05:06): No, I do not. OK Strange. Gulf 41. Stand by and Twighlight 670. Say the last part again.

Twighlight 670 (05:23): Yeah, they look to be, you know, much higher than we are, They’re going around in circles so, maybe three aircraft.

LA Center (05:32): Roger. Um, yeah, I don’t know. You’re not entering any military or space or anything? I’m not sure.

Speaker 3 (05:38): Roger that

LA Center (05:39): Delta 41 go.

Twighlight 670 (05:42): Uh, Delta 41. Uh, yeah, we’re just wondering if uh, we needed a frequency. Change.

The day after the August 18th incident, the Gulfstream pilots told Hansen that a closed-door meeting occurred at Los Angeles Center, where data about the incident was reviewed and forwarded to the Joint Air Traffic Operations Command (JATOC), the FAA’s response unit for events that either represents a potential threat or are otherwise capable of impacting the National Airspace System (NAS) or national security.

According to Hansen, the meeting was in response to a phone call placed to JATOC by Hulsey, who had been provided contact details by one of the air traffic controllers he had spoken to the previous night.

“He didn’t tell him what the number was,” Hansen told The Debrief in a phone call. “He was kinda cloak and dagger with it.”

“This is the number that doesn’t exist,” the pilot was reportedly told. Hansen says the pilot was not certain which agency he had contacted at that point.

“They told him they were a government agency that was set up after 9/11,” Hansen says, who asked for the number from the pilot and performed a reverse search online.

“It came back to JATOC,” Hansen was able to confirm. During his call with an official from the agency, Hulsey told Hansen he was informed that information about the incident would be forwarded for review as a part of the Department of Defense’s UAP investigations.

“They told him they had already received the tapes and data from the previous night, and that they would be forwarding that on,” the pilot told Hansen, adding that “They were working with some efforts [related to] the new UFO hearings and task forces.”

Following the August 19 meeting, Hulsey initiated contact with Hansen and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) about his experience. Upon receiving the pilot’s report and conducting follow-up interviews, Hansen posted a video on his YouTube channel (see below) on October 6, 2022, providing details about the incident.

Where Was the Data Sent?

Despite Hansen’s confirmation that JATOC had been in communication with the pilot who contacted him, additional inquiries about the August 18 incident have only resulted in more questions.

“My FOIA request for all information and communications between L.A. Center and JATOC, or any other agency—I asked for email communications and any other data to show that they were forwarded to another agency—and it said that there were no such records,” Hansen told The Debrief.

It came back that they didn’t have any communication,” Hansen added. “So they’re denying that they talked to JATOC, and we know that JATOC did from our pilot; we already have that information. So there’s a lack of transparency.”

Hansen told The Debrief that he did not know whether the information was sent to any other agencies, but that recordings he obtained of communication between the pilots and air traffic controllers seemed at times to imply that this occurred.

“I don’t know if it went to any other agencies,” Hansen said. “At least in this case [they] had kicked it up to the higher-ups, and you can hear it in the audio. In fact, the radar controller said that the higher-ups were asking if there were any more reports of this as she’s reaching out to other airlines. And that’s when American Airlines reported.”

“The fact that LA operations reported the sighting to the Domestic Events Network suggests they also took the report seriously,” Beaty told The Debrief in an email. 

Additional UAP Witnesses Come Forward  

After the story appeared on social media, Hansen says that other pilots began reaching out to him with similar encounters.

“These events took place both before and after the Los Angeles event,” Hansen told The Debrief. One of the incidents, which occurred on August 10, 2022, involved observations by a dozen crew members from six different airlines en route between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. A pair of Hawaiian Airlines pilots who spoke with Hansen reported the objects they witnessed “were visible for hours” and appeared to pace their aircraft while remaining at relative positions in the sky. However, unlike celestial objects, the purported UAPs were seen intermittently changing their luminosity and moving in circuitous patterns resembling those reported during the August 18 incident over California.

“Onboard TCAS radar assisted the pilots in determining the position of other known aircraft around them and the distance between each observing airline,” Hansen says. Based on the radar information, all of the pilots determined that the objects they observed were inconsistent with conventional aircraft, celestial phenomena, flares, or other known objects.

Another incident Hansen learned of reportedly occurred within 24 hours of the events of August 18, involving a UAP observation near Springfield, Missouri. Shortly after midnight on August 19, a report was received by Memphis ARTCC from a UPS flight, whose pilots observed a series of unusual lights to the north of their aircraft. The UPS pilots similarly queried Memphis ARTCC about whether they had flown into military airspace; however, no military activity notifications had been issued, and air traffic controllers could detect no aircraft on their radars.

Within minutes of the initial observation, pilots with a United Airlines and a Southwest Airlines flight also contacted Memphis ARTCC to report observations of these objects. One of the pilots, the captain of Southwest Airlines flight 549, had served for two decades as a Navy helicopter pilot prior to entering commercial aviation. According to an account of his observations provided to Hansen, the pilot described seeing two or three objects moving “in an orbital pattern” as their luminosity became “intensely bright” before dimming. The pilot also dismissed the possibility that the objects he observed were satellites, and that their intensity was like nothing he had seen before, including observations with the aid of night vision equipment during Navy missions. The pilot and first officer said the objects were observed for close to half an hour. (Update 10/20/22: A plausible explanation for the August 19, 2022, observations near Springfield, Missouri, described above has been presented by user Flarkey on the Metabunk forum, and can be read here. H/T to Mick West.)

In the weeks that followed, several similar UAP reports from commercial pilots began to come to the attention of civilian researchers through social media channels.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

07-10-2025 om 21:37 geschreven door peter