A startling new video has captured a clear image of what one witness believes was a giant UFO flying over California.

The April 27 video taken by an unnamed resident in Twentynine Palms followed what appears to be a brightly-lit hexagonal craft as it flew over the desert.

The UFO reportedly appeared out of nowhere around 10:27 pm PT while the witness was staying at a remote cabin.

'It seemed to move arbitrarily with no clear path. The movements were jerky and at varying speeds,' the witness wrote in their NUFORC report.

The large object also appeared to pulsate, giving off a bright light from its edges, as it moved through the sky for approximately 15 minutes.

'Tonight is the new moon - so it was definitely not the moon, and in any case was much brighter than even a full moon,' the witness continued.

'The striking thing was its great brightness and irregular shape and path,' they added.

The April 27 video taken by an unnamed resident in Twentynine Palms, California followed what appears to be a brightly-lit hexagonal craft as it flew over the desert

As the witness in Twentynine Palms followed the UFO, they added that the strange craft began to change shape - morphing from a six-sided object into a circle.

The person taking the cellphone video was the only witness at the cabin that night, so no one else was able to confirm their story.

However, they declared in their report to NUFORC that they hadn't taken any 'mind altering substances' during the sighting and had clear vision the entire time.

Officials at NUFORC tried to find an explanation for the sighting, noting that a SpaceX rocket launch had taken place that day, but that Falcon 9 took off from in Florida three hours earlier.

A previous rocket launch created a similar phenomenon over the UK in March.

That bizarre shape was caused by illuminated frozen fuel expelled from the SpaceX rocket, experts revealed.

The light blue spiral is formed when excess fuel that has been released from the fast-spinning rocket turns to ice.

It then reflects the sunlight in the upper atmosphere - giving it an otherworldly gleam - before turning to water vapor.

Experts say the bizarre shape seen in the UK in March was caused by illuminated frozen fuel expelled from a SpaceX rocket - and was not caused by aliens

The brand new sighting came just days before a US congressional hearing on UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs).

The speakers, including Pentagon UFO project whistleblower Luis Elizondo, a former NASA administrator, and a retired Navy admiral called on the government to release what they know about these unexplained sightings.

They also called for an increase in funding for the detection of UFOs and UAPs, which several hearing speakers said was being suppressed by the US intelligence community.

Elizondo and others noted that witnesses like the one in Twentynine Palms have no centralized official channel in the US to speak to when it comes to reporting UFO sightings.

Therefore, countless alleged sightings either go unreported or are never investigated by the military or federal officials.

NUFORC and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) are two of the most recognized civilian groups keeping track of sightings by civilians.

While these two organizations are not government-affiliated, they often share data with researchers or government entities when significant cases arise. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

04-07-2025 om 23:38 geschreven door peter  

A strange jellyfish-like phenomenon was spotted streaking across the California sky Monday night.

While the unusual 'UFO' sighting baffled many locals from the Mojave desert to Los Angeles's South Bay, scientists say there were no extraterrestrials involved in creating the jellyfish - it was an Elon Musk rocket.

SpaceX's latest Falcon 9 rocket mission lifted off at 11:36pm ET Monday night from Vandenberg Space Force Station in California.

A few minutes into the flight, the rocket's exhaust interacted with the atmosphere, creating a visible cloud of condensed water vapor.

Since the launch took place right after sunset, around 8:36pm PT, the sun illuminated the crystalized exhaust plume, resulting in a spectacular sight for millions on the ground.

Californians posted images of the rocket soaring over the state on X, even as far south as Riverside, over 200 miles southeast of the Vandenberg launch site.

SpaceX's lead avionics systems engineer, Cameron Gable, captured the jellyfish phenomenon as the rocket traveled past Los Angeles County's South Bay.

The mission, dubbed Starlink 15-9, saw SpaceX launch its latest batch of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. 

Scientists said that the mysterious jellyfish seen over California Monday night was the exhaust trail of a Falcon 9 rocket

The Falcon 9 rocket's exhaust interacted with Earth's atmosphere, creating a visible cloud of condensed water vapor that became easier to see right after sunset

SpaceX's lead avionics engineer posted on X, showing the jellyfish effect as it passed over Los Angeles's South Bay

The jellyfish phenomenon, also known as a 'vapor cone' or 'shock collar,' occurs when the localized air pressure around the rocket drops, causing the air temperature to decrease and water vapor to condense into visible clouds.

Monday's giant jellyfish display started just a few minutes into the flight and was visible to anyone in the Southern California area.

It's not the first time a SpaceX rocket has produced the jellyfish effect. In October 2022, sky watchers caught another Falcon 9 rocket creating the same vapor trail during a similar mission to deploy new satellites.

Monday's Falcon 9 launch was the latest mission in SpaceX's ongoing efforts to expand its Starlink 'constellation,' aiming to enhance global internet coverage.

SpaceX has already conducted 75 launches in 2025, mainly for Starlink missions.

The mission also used a reusable first-stage engine, a hallmark of SpaceX's design philosophy aimed at reducing the cost of spaceflights.

SpaceX captured the moment on their live broadcast when the reusable engine safely landed back on Earth to be used again in future missions.

Monday's mission was the 200th from the company's Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg.

The SpaceX launch was part of the company's ongoing Starlink mission, which is deploying a network of new satellites that will boost global internet coverage

The jellyfish effect is a common occurrence during space rocket launches and can normally be seen from states hundreds of miles from the actual launch site

The remote-controlled reusable rocket engine made a perfect touchdown on SpaceX's droneship in the Pacific Ocean about eight minutes after launch, making it the 463rd engine returned to Earth.

While the jellyfish effect may seem like a bizarre UFO to the untrained eye, it's common among spaceflights.

Social media users regularly capture rockets giving off the jellyfish trail from hundreds of miles away.

One X user in Phoenix, Arizona, was able to spot a similar jellyfish during a June 2024 launch. That mission also involved a Falcon 9 launching from Vandenberg, which was over 500 miles away.

When a rocket launches, it expels a large amount of exhaust gases at high speeds. These gases, primarily composed of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other rocket launch byproducts, expand rapidly as they exit the rocket's nozzle.

As the exhaust plume expands, it encounters cooler, denser air in Earth's upper atmosphere. This can cause the water vapor in the exhaust to condense into visible clouds, forming a balloon-like shape around the rocket.

The high speed of the rocket can also create shock waves, further shaping the exhaust into distinctive patterns, creating the jellyfish effect. 

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, with their frequent launch schedule and reusable first stages, often trigger this effect due to their design and the typical launch times chosen for optimal visibility.

However, any rocket launch around the world can potentially give off a jellyfish trail, especially when the conditions are right for the exhaust to give off a dramatic display in the atmosphere.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

04-07-2025 om 23:24 geschreven door peter  

UFO researchers in Mexico claim that a group disguised as police have tried to steal the mysterious orb scientists believe may prove the existence of aliens.

Dr Steven Greer, an American ufologist and retired physician, revealed on X that 'fake policemen' attempted to enter the vault in Mexico City where the suspected UFO is being kept while scientists examine it.

Known as the Buga Sphere, the small, metal orb was spotted in March over the town of Buga in Colombia, zig-zagging through the sky in a way that defies the movement of conventional aircraft.

Controversial UFO researcher Jaime Maussan, who has had several claims about extraterrestrials debunked in recent years, hosted an international conference to discuss the latest findings on the Buga Sphere on June 20.

US Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri and Dr Greer were among a group of American officials in attendance when Maussan claimed that the imposters attempted to steal the Buga Sphere.

Greer added that scientists have already taken samples of the UFO that 'will be tested in a state-of-the-art lab' to determine if the sphere really is from another planet.

'Those scientists and their information have been provided to the top law enforcement... Any sort of attempts to interfere with this examination will be known, and the people and perpetrators will be held to account for it,' Greer said in a June 21 post on X. 

The Buga Sphere (pictured) was recovered by local residents in Colombia in March and has been in the care of scientists in Mexico ever since

US Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri (pictured) attended the June 20 conference in Mexico City, examining the sphere and alleged alien remains presented by UFO researcher Jaime Maussan

Congressman Burlison added that it was his belief that governments and other groups may be working to suppress the public's knowledge of UFOs and alien life.

'It's not any government's right to protect knowledge about extra terrestrials, if it exists,' Burlison said on Friday. 'We have too many people reporting and too many videos to ignore it.'

According to researchers at the conference, this is the first UFO recovered by private citizens and solely controlled by non-government scientists. 

The attempted robbery came right after Maussan and other researchers revealed that they are trying to reactivate the sphere using an electrical charge. 

According to Rodolfo Garrido, a Mexican engineer working with scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the sphere gave off a strong, decaying ionized field.

That field was responsible for somehow dehydrating the field it landed in, killing all the grass and soil there.

Maussan has had several claims about UFOs debunked over the years. He has been at the forefront of 2 major extraterrestrial cases currently: the Buga Sphere and alleged alien mummies from Peru

The June 20 presentation also revealed new images of the interior of the Buga Sphere, showing the nucleus of the device appeared to be similar in design to inventor Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower from the early 1900s.

The concept of the tower was to send electrical power through the air and ground without using wires, potentially providing free or cheap energy to homes, businesses, and even ships or planes. 

Garrido said the Buga Sphere may have operated in a similar way, with a miniature Wardenclyffe Tower hidden inside the UFO.

However, the engineer told reporters that scientists have no plans of cutting the sphere in half to reveal what's really inside.

Instead they're working on plans to power it back up so the sphere will begin rotating and levitating again.

'It could be a theory that once it levitates, it could have direct communication with whoever sent it,' Garrido said through a translator.

Engineer Rodolfo Garrido revealed that the interior of the Buga Sphere appears to look like a proposed wireless energy generator invented by Nikola Tesla in the 1900s

Engineer Rodolfo Garrido believes that the strange sphere may be some type of advanced probe capable of using an electromagnetic field to fly

For now, Greer said that scientists examining the Buga Sphere at UNAM are setting up security for the metal samples headed for further testing.

There has been no confirmation of Maussan's claims about the robbery attempt.

The journalist has been tied to several debunked claims, including multiple incidents where Maussan claimed to have evidence of a real UFO sightings, only for it to be debunked as a comet or star in the night sky.

Maussan has also claimed to have discovered physical evidence of mummified alien corpses on three separate occasions, but none of the incidents have been proven true.

During the June 20 conference, Maussan put pieces of these alleged corpses on display for the researchers and government officials, including Greer and Burlison, who were allowed to hold the specimens while wearing gloves.

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

03-07-2025 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

World UFO Day 2025 – Enigma Research Lab Provides UAP Data

 Alejandro Rojas

{ https://openminds.tv/category/articles/ }

02-07-2025 om 22:18 geschreven door peter  

Things Are Looking Up in Colorado: Is It Aliens? UFOs? Balloon Boy?

Happy World UFO Day. You're in the right place to celebrate, since this is one of the top ten states for spotting one.

By Teague Bohlen

Red Rocks employees spotted a UFO in June. 

Ross Jones/Canva

July 2 is World UFO Day, a time to celebrate Colorado's status as one of the top ten states for spotting an unidentified flying object, with 24.41 sightings per 1 million residents each year.

But really, every day is UFO Day in Colorado, with much-publicized sightings above Red Rocks and renewed interest in the saga of Balloon Boy.

What is it about this state that inspires tales of mysterious objects flying overhead? Is it a simple matter of elevation — we’re nearer to the sky, so we see more things in it? Is it the lack of oxygen, causing some visitors to hallucinate? Is it the fact that Mork & Mindy, starring Robin Williams as an alien, was set in Boulder? And what about the (relatively few) cases in which there’s photographic evidence of…well, something?

Clearly, Colorado wants to believe. While the state may not be racking up numbers like Area 51 and Roswell, we have our stories of close encounters, many of them captured in a 1969 report from the University of Colorado.

Editor's Picks

• Hot Air: Another Famous Balloon Once Flew Over Colorado
• South Park: 25 Real Colorado Locations From 25 Seasons
• Look Out Below: Ten Classic Hoaxes in Colorado History

Here are ten of the most memorable:

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Colorado aliens: so friendly they'll give you directions.

YouTube

1. Pikes Peak, 1947
Just over a month before the incident at Roswell, New Mexico, started a spike in UFO sightings across the nation, there was a sighting right here in Manitou Springs on May 19, 1947. Seven employees of the Pikes Peak Railway were breaking for lunch when they spotted a shining silver object coming at them from the northeast. It would stop in mid-air, gyrate a bit, then fly in a deliberate straight line, all the time reflecting light in the way metal might. They tried to look at it through binoculars, but somehow those seemed to bring the image no closer. After twenty minutes of this aerial show, the object sped off to the west. The United States Air Force investigated, and reported that the phenomenon was “possible birds,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

2. La Veta, 1955
In late November 1955, State Senator Sam T. Taylor saw what he described as a "dirigible-shaped object" at the base of the Spanish Peaks in Huerfano County — the very part of the state he represented. Taylor, who was the Democratic floor leader at the time, described it as a "luminous green-blue and jellylike" object that changed flight paths in mid-air. This is only one of the many stories revealed in the declassification of Project Blue Book, which tracked UFO data from 1952 until 1969.

"Snippy" is a Colorado legend steeped in the unknown.   YouTube" class="uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle">

"Snippy" is a Colorado legend steeped in the unknown.

YouTube

3. San Luis Valley, 1967
A three-year-old Appaloosa named Lady disappeared from the Harry King Ranch one day; she was found a couple of days later, dead and skinned around the head and neck, with several vital organs seemingly removed with surgical precision. The horse became a Colorado legend, nicknamed “Snippy” courtesy of the gallows humor of journalists referencing the condition of her remains, which were completely drained of blood; her naked skull was bleached as though it had been baking in the high desert sun for years. “Flying Saucer Sought in Death of Horse” was the headline of an October 6, 1967, article in the Rocky Mountain News.

4. Genesee, 1973
Woody Allen was apparently persuaded that Colorado was the perfect spot to see the future, and filmed sci-fi comedy Sleeper here. One of the sets included the "Sculptured House" built by architect Charles Deaton in 1963; it soon was nicknamed "Spaceship House" and then "Sleeper House." "On Genesee Mountain I found a high point of land where I could stand and feel the great reaches of the Earth," Deaton is quoted as saying in the 2009 book The Iconic House. "I wanted the shape of it to sing an unencumbered song." What's perhaps even more surprising is that this purple prose — and the unique home design still visible off I-70 that it inspired — came before marijuana was legalized in 2012.

5. Salida, 1995

Tim Edwards of Salida captured what many consider to be some of the best UFO footage to come from our state. When a tube-shaped object appeared in the sky near his Chaffee County home, the local restaurateur grabbed his camcorder and began to record. "I don't look outside no more," he told the Gazette Telegraph in 1996. "I don't get no sleep."

YouTube

6. Loveland, 2000-2014
For more than a decade, Colorado resident Stan Romanek was a leading expert in UFO lore, claiming to have been abducted first in 2000 and then several more times in subsequent years. He's also the person responsible for the widely circulated and highly suspect "boo video" of an alien supposedly peeking through one of his windows. The scariest part of Romanek's tale turned out to be something other than his abduction stories, however: He was convicted for possession of child pornography in 2017 and served two years in prison. He's currently a registered sex offender under intensive supervised probation through 2030, which means even the aliens don't want to have anything to do with the guy anymore.

7. Breckenridge, 2014
Three faint, ball-shaped orbs appeared over Breckenridge on October 3, 2014; employees of both the Breckenridge Police Department and the Summit County Sheriff’s Office were among the witnesses. "We have no idea what that was, no clue," local law enforcement told the Summit Daily. Still, according to the paper of record, neither department had plans to launch an investigation into what might have been behind the unidentified visitors to the mountain-town skyline "unless investigating means they walked outside on Friday to look at the sky."

8.  La Junta, 2019
In a YouTube video that hit big, a security cam in someone's driveway captured this image in the middle of the night. People described it as everything from Dobby from Harry Potter (like that's more believable than alien visitation?) to just a skinny kid in his underwear...doing a weird chicken dance in the wee hours of the morning.

9. Northeast Colorado, 2019-20
At the start of the COVID pandemic, there was a lot to focus on in the news...so you'd be forgiven if you've totally forgotten the invasion of drone-like lights over northeast Colorado and southwest Nebraska around the holidays, right before everything closed down. They always appeared after sunset, thirty-some six-foot-wide objects in formation, 200 to 300 feet above the ground. And then we all forgot about them because we were sheltering in place. Coincidence? Yes, obviously. This isn't InfoWars

10. Red Rocks, June 2024

A "large, disc-shaped craft with three levels of windows" was spotted by twelve Red Rocks workers loading out after a concert,"north of Red Rocks about a mile or so, hovering above the treetops on the [Hogback's] ridge," according to a report posted by the National UFO Reporting Center on June 11, 2024. "I was working at Red Rocks Amphitheater last night when one of our coworkers suddenly said to us, 'Hey, what is that over there? It looks like a spaceship,'" a Red Rocks employee wrote in the report. "We all turned to look in the direction he was pointing and sure enough, there was a UFO hovering about a half-a-mile to a mile north of Red Rocks. A dozen of us saw it. We all kept asking each other, 'Are you seeing this too?' It was a resounding 'yes' from everyone in the group."

"It's Red Rocks. We see magical, mysterious and wondrous things every night," explained venue spokesman Brian Kitts. "And we wouldn't be at all surprised if Red Rocks' reputation is intergalactic."

UFO Sightings in Colorado

 And a bonus

The UFO WatchTower, ongoing
If Colorado has a Roswell analog, it's the town of Hooper, population 77, which has lost about a quarter of its residents in the last fifteen years — not to abduction (so far as we know), but to simple attrition. Still, it boasts the 25-year-old UFO WatchTower a couple of miles north on Highway 17, where owner and operator Judy Messoline invites stargazers, skywatchers, campers and tourists of all kinds, alien or human, to visit. The observation platform has a 360-degree view of the surrounding area, with a gift shop, vortex garden and a small memorial to none other than Snippy the Horse, whose bones are here on display. As Messoline's UFO Watchtower website proclaims: “You never know who you will run into at the UFO WatchTower for a little conversation!!”

• This story has been updated from the original version published on February 16, 2023.

{ https://www.westword.com/ }

02-07-2025 om 21:55 geschreven door peter  

Reconnaissance Footage Of Flying Saucer UFO Taken By US Military Released For The First Time

by Douglas Charles

Video of a large flying saucer-shaped UFO recorded by a military sensor over a conflict zone has now been released to the public for the first time. The video of the UFO, labeled a UAP (or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) by the U.S. Department of Defense, had been hidden for years by the government.

According to investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, this particular UFO video was recorded by government personnel over the Afghan-Pakistan border in November of 2020. They were finally able to release it to the public on the most recent episode of their Weaponized podcast.

The UFO video contains raw thermal imagery, as well some enhanced images, taken during a mission by a high-altitude U.S. Air Force reconnaissance platform.

“This is the first time in history that military filmed footage of a disc-shaped UAP, designated as such by the military, has been captured on camera and released to the public,” Jeremy Corbell told DailyMail.com. “It has implications that are huge.”

“The source is legit. We know it’s real,” Knapp said. “It was not supposed to be made public. But it should’ve been.”

While discussing the UFO, the Weaponized co-hosts noted how the UFO, which they estimate the was between 200 and 400 meters in diameter, was “navigating through clouds” and abruptly changing directions without any visible heat signature.

“You do not see plumes of heat coming off this disc-shaped object,” said Corbell, adding, “This was captured on a thermal sensor – it should have detected heat if any traditional propulsion was present. But there’s nothing. That’s one of the wildest aspects.”

Corbell also pointed out, “There’s depth of field. There’s relative distance. The shape is undeniable. And the movement? It’s extraordinary. You’re seeing it dip into clouds, then emerge and reverse direction. That’s not an artifact. That’s a real object in motion.”

“The public has a right and a need to know,” Corbell said. “This capture is worthy of serious discourse – not just in the UFO community, but in international and scientific conversations. It challenges our understanding of what’s flying through our skies.”

The co-hosts also touched on the recent report that the Pentagon has secretly been spreading Area 51 and UFO stories to hide classified weapons programs, casting doubt on the authenticity of thousands upon thousands of UFO sightings and the testimony of credible whistleblowers. As the point out, this message is also meant to dissuade future whistleblowers from going public with their testimonies.

“I think [the CIA and the Pentagon] are covering up criminality,” said Knapp. “They’ve misled Congress. They’ve certainly misled major media like the Wall Street Journal, like the New York Times, like us, like everybody. They’ve lied for 75, 80 years and so piercing the veil and figuring out what’s true and what isn’t is hard.”

RELATED VIDEO

Flying saucer UFO is caught on camera by US MILITARY in newly-released footage

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{ https://brobible.com/category/culture/ }

02-07-2025 om 18:39 geschreven door peter  

In 1992, Dr. Gregory Rogers a NASA flight surgeon and former Chief of Aerospace Medicine witnessed an event that would stay with him for more than three decades. Now, after years of silence, he’s finally revealing the details of a 15-minute encounter that shattered everything he thought he knew about aerospace technology. 

With a distinguished career that includes support for 31 space shuttle launches, training as an F-16 pilot, and deep involvement in classified aerospace programs, Dr. Rogers brings unmatched credibility to the conversation. His firsthand account of observing what appeared to be a reverse-engineered craft, emblazoned with "U.S. Air Force" markings, raises profound questions about the true timeline of UAP development and disclosure. 

The full interview spans nearly two hours. To help navigate the discussion, here’s a timeline so you can jump to the segments that interest you most. 

00:00 Introduction and Dr. Rogers' Unprecedented Credentials 

07:25 The 1992 Cape Canaveral Encounter Begins 

18:45 Inside the Hangar: First Glimpse of the Craft 

26:30 "We Got It From Them" - The Shocking Revelation 

35:15 Technical Analysis: Impossible Flight Characteristics 

43:40 Electromagnetic Discharges and Advanced Propulsion 

52:20 The Cover Story and 33 Years of Silence 

1:01:10 Why He's Speaking Out Now: Grush and Fravor's Influence 

1:08:45 Bob Lazar Connections and Reverse Engineering Timeline 

1:17:20 Flight Surgeon Stories: The Human Side of Classified Work 

1:25:50 G-Force Brain Injuries: An Unreported Military Crisis 

1:34:30 Columbia Disaster: When Safety Warnings Are Ignored 

1:43:15 The Bureaucratic Resistance to Truth 

1:50:40 Congressional Testimony and The Path Forward 

1:58:25 Final Thoughts: Legacy vs. Truth

  

{ https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

01-07-2025 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

© Getty Images

4 mysterious UFO sightings that are still unexplained

Some UFO sightings can be explained away – but we still don't know the truth behind these ones.

Around 350 children and teachers at Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia, watched five planes surround a silvery flying-saucer-shaped UFO in 1966. The planes attempted to aerially herd the craft for about 20 minutes before it disappeared.

A UFO-themed play park commemorates the event and, to this day, witnesses meet once a year to discuss their experience.

In 1997, thousands of people reported lights across several hundred miles of night sky in Arizona and Nevada in the United States, and Sonora in Mexico. These lights were either stationary, or on a moving V-shaped craft in a triangular formation (artist’s impression above).

The United States Air Force stated that the lights over Phoenix were military flares but the V-shaped UFO remains a mystery.

In December 1980, US airmen stationed at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England were investigating reports of lights in Rendlesham Forest when they saw red and blue lights and a UFO land. It was described as around three metres high and three metres in diameter and appeared to be standing on fixed legs. The material of the craft was like ‘smooth, opaque black glass.’

The next day, indentations were seen on the ground and radiation levels recorded. On a separate night, another member of the US Air Force set out to disprove his colleagues with a tape recorder. He reported lights in the sky that looked ‘like an eye winking at you’ and observed ‘a beam coming down to the ground’. Three years later, the US government released a report that described the encounter, which has become known as Britain’s Roswell.

While there remain believers, psychologist Prof Chris French – who has also visited the site – is among many of those who are unconvinced. A local forester said the indentations were caused by rabbits, and the levels of radioactivity were not especially high. As for the lights? “I’ve heard the tape,” says French, “and the lights are in complete synchrony with Orfordness Lighthouse nearby.”

{ https://www.sciencefocus.com/ }

29-06-2025 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

The UFOs that scientists think are real, but can't explain

Nature's UFOs are even weirder and more mysterious than flying saucers.

Image credit: Alamy

New Jersey is the new Roswell – or so it might seem after a swarm of bright lights, glowing orange-red orbs and unidentified flying objects filled the skies throughout December 2024.

As expected, these strange orbs gave rise to a flood of conspiracy theories involving UFOs and foreign interference. One US Republican congressman even claimed the lights were aircraft originating from an "Iranian mothership," a theory swiftly dismissed by the Pentagon.

Although the exact source of the objects remains unconfirmed, US officials suggest that the majority of sightings were most likely caused by – you guessed it – civilian-operated drones.

The New Jersey drone saga is yet another example of how many so-called UFOs have perfectly logical explanations. But not all phenomena are so easily dismissed. For decades, scientists have been baffled by a different kind of mysterious light: ball lightning.

While it’s easy to roll your eyes at such stories, there have been eyewitness accounts of weird floating balls of light for centuries – the earliest thought to be in 1195. It’s only thanks to the sheer volume of accounts – and photographic evidence – that scientists have felt the need to investigate these mysterious sightings further.

Many of the reports are from credible sources.

For instance, in 1927, renowned quantum theory physicist Walther Gerlach claimed to have witnessed a “bright, luminous yellowish-white ball” emerge from a bolt of lightning.

Being a scientist, he used his own hastily acquired observations to work out that the ball of light had travelled 1,225m per second (a little over 4,000ft per second) – over three times the speed of sound.

Then there’s Dr Roger Jennison, a radio astronomer at the UK’s Jodrell Bank Observatory.

In 1963, he was travelling on an overnight flight from New York to Washington during a thunderstorm, when a loud, bright electrical discharge suddenly enveloped the plane. Passengers then observed something extraordinary, which Jennison later outlined in a letter to the prestigious journal Nature.

In the letter, he wrote: “Some seconds after this a glowing sphere a little more than 20cm [almost 8in] in diameter emerged from the pilot’s cabin and passed down the aisle of the aircraft approximately 50cm [19in] from me, maintaining the same height and course for the whole distance over which it could be observed.”

Descriptions around the world vary in detail, but often involve a thunderstorm and a ball of light, usually no larger than a football, in a variety of colours.

These luminous globes float through the air for a short period of time, some slowly, others extremely fast. There are reports of them disappearing, exploding or passing through walls or windows. Some leave behind an odour of sulphur.

Yet despite over 800 years of sightings, due to its elusive nature, scientists still don’t understand ball lightning. But there are clues that plasma might be the missing ingredient.

Plasma attack

Often called the fourth state of matter (the other three being solid, liquid and gas), plasma can be produced relatively easily.

“If you add high temperatures to a gas, you get a plasma – a charged, ionised gas – which can be influenced by electric and magnetic fields,” says Prof Ursel Fantz from the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics near Munich. “This is very important as you can’t do that to the other states.”

“More than 95 per cent of the Universe is plasma,” she adds. “All the stars, interstellar space, interplanetary space, aurora and standard lightning. Plasma is also used in medicine and chemical energy storage."

Plasma too, according to some of Fantz's experiments, could potentially be the source of the floating orbs.

Using just a small beaker of salt water, a couple of electrodes and a high voltage (akin to a bolt of lightning – approx 300 million volts), scientists at Fantz’s institute created a 10–20cm [approx 4–8in] diameter plasma cloud – lasting just 0.3 seconds – resembling a glowing orb.

“There are some similarities with ball lightning, but we can’t say it is [ball lightning],” said Fantz, “as it exists for less than the time of a twinkle in your eye.”

In 2020, the experiment was recreated with more water and filmed. The resulting video showed ball lightning-style plasmoids rising from the water’s surface in slow motion.

Despite not hovering, as previous sightings have claimed, could these plasmas explain ball lightning orbs? Fantz isn’t sure. “All we have are people’s reports, and pictures are really rare,” she says.

Read more:

• Conspiracies and FBI secrets: Why we love UFOs
• Alien mothership might be spying on us from orbit, says top Harvard scientist
• 4 mysterious UFO sightings that are still unexplained

Getting Warmer

Although floating balls of light like those that could pass through Jennison’s aircraft haven’t yet been recreated in the lab, scientists continue to speculate on how they might form without relying on plasmas.

For instance, in 2014, there were reports of ball lightning being caught on video by scientists at Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China.

They were studying lightning during a thunderstorm in Qinghai and observed a ball of light form and travel about 20m (65ft) in 1.5 seconds. A spectrograph also identified the ball’s main components to be iron, silicon and calcium.

This unexpected observation chimed with one theory hypothesised by researchers in New Zealand, in 2000, which proposed that the glowing ball resulted from a lightning strike on the ground that vaporised grains of minerals (since all of those elements can be found in soil).

“There are lots of theories as to what they are, from mini black holes to antimatter,” says physicist Dr Stephen Hughes, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia.

He examined the evidence for green fireballs and ball lightning in a Proceedings of the Royal Society paper published in 2010, which detailed multiple eyewitness sightings over Brisbane and the Gold Coast a few years earlier.

“Ball lightning is definitely some kind of electrical phenomenon,” says Hughes. “People report hissing [and] sizzling sounds, which we associate with electricity. But its mechanism isn’t fully understood.”

The mystery is understandable since many eyewitness accounts are contradictory or simply baffling, Hughes adds.

For example, in 1974, during a thunderstorm, Philip Bagnall, the network director of the British Meteor Society, awoke to find an orange ball of light at the foot of his bed. When he reached out, he could feel heat radiating from about 10cm (4in) away.

While some reports describe shocks or partial paralysis upon contact with ball lightning, Bagnall experienced nothing after clapping his hands on it. The sphere then passed through his bedroom ceiling “like a Hollywood ghost.”

“Ball lightning has travelled down an aircraft [according to Jennison] and not caused any burning, although it could still be hot,” says Hughes. “Similar to how you can put your hand in an oven when it’s 230°C (446°F) and your hand doesn’t get burned as long as you don’t touch the metal.”

“Some of the UFO reports talk about objects accelerating extremely fast, at impossible rates of acceleration. Fighter aircraft can’t stop and change direction that fast, but electrical phenomena can,” says Hughes.

“Electrons are very light and the electromagnetic force is so strong you get this insane acceleration. In just over 1cm (less than 0.5in), electrons can accelerate to half the speed of light.”

In 2024, scientists at the University of California, the University of Arizona and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, published their theory on the origin of ‘foo fighters’: plasmas in the thermosphere.

This is a region from about 90–600km (approx 56–370 miles) above Earth’s surface, where temperatures at the higher altitudes can reach 2,000°C (3,632°F) or more.

Although the story made national news in one UK paper, the theory was published in the Journal of Modern Physics, a publication that charges authors to publish their work. The theory asserts that the plasma in this region of the atmosphere could be a form of “pre-life”, one that’s “completely different from life as we know it.”

While the paper is speculative, it raises the question of whether these sightings of strange glowing balls might be interpreted as potential evidence of aliens.

Fantz, however, is far from convinced. "Plasma is atoms, ions, electrons and photons," she says. "And that's it."

Eyes on the skies

Be it plasmas, lightning vaporising minerals on the ground, or extraterrestrials, all current theories about the glowing balls of light remain exactly that – theories.

You might, like others, also think that the many accounts of these balls, from the foo fighters to Jennison’s plane aisle, can be explained through psychological means.

But evidence from scientists, such as Fantz’s floating plasma ball experiment, leaves little doubt there remains a lot to uncover about many phenomena on this planet. This is why government agencies are changing their approach and are now more prepared to keep an open mind.

“Just because we observe something we don’t understand and even surprises us, doesn’t mean that we’re crazy or wrong,” says ETH Zurich’s Prof Thomas Zurbuchen, the former associate administrator of NASA’s science directorate, who commissioned an independent study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) in 2022.

“I believe in the power of science and the power of data,” he adds. “I’m not telling people what to believe and not believe. I think to some people [the report] demystified what was happening.”

The study, which features the likes of former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and an array of prominent academics, included numerous images of known natural phenomena that are of ten mistaken for UFOs: such as the aurora borealis (northern lights), the Perseid meteor shower and red sprites – an eerie form of crimson lightning that resembles a glowing squid and shoots up, instead of down, into the atmosphere.

The final report stated: “It’s increasingly clear that the majority of UAP observations can be attributed to known phenomena or occurrences.” It found no evidence that UAPs were extraterrestrial, but it didn’t rule out the possibility.

It therefore surprised many people when, in November 2024, two US subcommittees held a hearing in Washington DC titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.”

The aim was to discuss the Department of Defense and the wider intelligence community’s lack of transparency regarding UAPs, and to increase disclosure.

The testimonies attracted a global audience who heard pilots testify that they saw unidentified objects, such as balls of light, on an almost “daily basis”. One former military intelligence officer even stated: “We’re not alone in the cosmos.”

The conclusion, however, was that there was no evidence for extraterrestrial life, but that such sightings should be studied further.

“So often, puzzling and disturbing observations indicate new discoveries. For example, we now know that a specific set of observations were indications of a new type of cloud we hadn’t known previously,” said Zurbuchen of the NASA report.

“Similarly, weather-related phenomena, such as temperature inversions or electrical phenomena in the atmosphere can lead to surprising observations that may, at first glance, look like UAPs, but are atmospheric science in action.”

This brings us back to ball lightning.

Unfortunately, we’re no closer to understanding how it forms, and whether it is or isn’t a plasma. Some have even referred to its elusive qualities as “tracking the Sasquatch of meteorology.”

Like Sasquatch, it can be faked too. A 2020 video of ‘ball lightning’ travelling above railway tracks went viral on Twitter (now X) and is still doing the rounds today, even though its Russian creator admitted he was testing visual effects.

Science, meanwhile, continues to unravel the cause of the glowing orbs and use the properties of plasma. In fact, a number of classified US research projects are now pivoting to research plasma.

While some have speculated that this is new evidence relating to UFOs, others have pointed to how plasmas could be used for military applications.

Whether these new studies eventually reveal the mysteries of plasmas, or if other scientists unlock hidden truths about the behaviour of lightning on Earth, the truth remains out there… for now.

About our experts

• Prof Ursel Fantz is head of ITER Technology and Diagnostics Division at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics near Munich, Germany. She has been published in the likes of Frontiers in Physics, Nuclear Fusion and Fusion Engineering and Design.
• Dr Stephen Hughes is an honorary senior lecturer of mathematics and physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, The Physics Teacher and Physics Education.
• Prof Thomas Zurbuchen is the leader of ETH Zurich and former associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate. He is an international speaker and appears in Netflix documentary film Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine. He is also published in Scientific American.

Read more:

• Project Galileo: The search for alien tech hiding in our Solar System
• What would alien life actually look like?
• These two signals are the closest we've come to alien contact

{ https://www.sciencefocus.com/ }

29-06-2025 om 17:52 geschreven door peter  

Department of Defense

Five U.S. Navy Sailors Saw the Glowing ‘Tic Tac’-Shaped UFO. They Told Us Exactly What They Witnessed - PART I

• Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on November 12, 2019

The five men share an easy rapport with each other, playfully ribbing one another while also communicating a deep sense of mutual respect. It’s clear they all share the bond of having once served in the armed forces. Yet for Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, P.J. Hughes, Ryan Weigelt, and Kevin Day—assembled together in a private group chat by Popular Mechanics—something much bigger ties them together beyond simply serving in the U.S. Navy.

These men also share the connection of being witnesses to one of the most compelling UFO cases in modern history: the Nimitz Encounters, an event that the Navy confirmed in 2019 did indeed involve “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

Largely overshadowed by a grainy black-and-white video and a former TOPGUN fighter pilot eyewitness, these veterans offer new and intriguing details on what occurred with the Navy’s Strike Carrier Group-11 as it sailed roughly 100 miles off the Southern California coast in 2004—details that a former career intelligence agent who investigated the Nimitz Encounter while at the Pentagon can neither confirm, deny, or even discuss with Popular Mechanics.

Ultimately, these five men—the “other” Nimitz witnesses—could be key to understanding an event that a leading aviation defense expert says “likely wasn’t ours.”

So whose was it?

The Intercept

Stationed on the USS Princeton, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, the Nimitz carrier group went underway in early November 2004 for a routine training exercise. This would be the last time former Petty Officer 3rd Class Gary Voorhis would set sail aboard a Navy vessel.

Having already done almost six years in the Navy, including two combat tours, Voorhis was ready to transition to life outside the world of passionless gray metal hulls and vast leavening seas.

“The group was going to be deploying in a few months and there was a bunch of new systems, like the Spy-1 Bravo radar,” Voorhis tells Popular Mechanics. “It was really about getting all the kinks out.”

While chatting with some of the Princeton’s radar techs, Voorhis says he heard they were getting “ghost tracks” and “clutter” on the radars. For Voorhis, the Princeton’s only system technician for the state-of-the-art Cooperative Engagement Capability and AEGIS Combat System, news of these systems possibly malfunctioning was especially concerning.

Fearing the ship’s brand-new AN/SPY-1B passive radar system was malfunctioning, Voorhis says the air-control systems were taken down and recalibrated in an effort to clear out what he assumed to be false radar returns.

“Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer,” Voorhis says. “Sometimes they’d be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they’d be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots. Their radar cross sections didn’t match any known aircraft; they were 100 percent red. No squawk, no IFF [Identification Friend or Foe].”

Pixel-Pushr//Flickr

Sitting in the Princeton’s Combat Information Center (CIC), Operations Specialist Senior Chief Kevin Day was tasked with the critical role of protecting the airspace around the strike group. “My job was to man the radars and ID everything that flew in the skies,” Day said in the documentary film The Nimitz Encounters.

On or around November 10, 2004, roughly 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, Day began noticing strange radar tracks near the area of San Clemente Island. “The reason why I say they’re weird [is] because they were appearing in groups of five to 10 at a time and they were pretty closely spaced to each other. And they were 28,000 feet going a hundred knots tracking south,” Day said in the documentary.

In another YouTube clip, Ryan Weigelt, the former leading petty officer and power plant specialist for the SH-60B “Seahawk” helicopter, recalled the tone aboard the missile cruise at the time.

“Senior Chief Day, his name, was being called over the comms, no bullshit, every two minutes.” Weigelt said. “I recall hearing something, like a big, real-world scenario was going on, but I just didn’t really understand.”

While Day and the Princeton’s air traffic controllers continued to monitor the strange radar returns, Voorhis says he began to take the opportunity to use the ship’s advanced tracking systems to catch a glimpse of whatever these objects were.

“When they’d show up on radar,” Voorhis says, “I’d get the relative bearing and then run up to the bridge and look through a pair of heavily magnified binoculars in the direction the returns were coming from.” Describing what he saw during the daytime, Voorhis says the objects were too far off to make out any distinguishing features, however, he could clearly see something moving erratically in the distance.

“I couldn’t make out details, but they’d just be hovering there, then all of a sudden, in an instant, they’d dart off to another direction and stop again,” Voorhis says. “At night, they’d give off a kind of a phosphorus glow and were a little easier to see than in the day.”

By November 14, the strange returns had been continuously showing up for close to a week. With an air-defense exercise scheduled for that morning, Day convinced his commanding officer to let him direct aircraft to attempt an intercept of these anomalous radar returns. Day’s decision led the VFA-41 Squadron Commander David Fravor to encounter what an “unofficial executive summary” later described as “an elongated egg or a ‘Tic Tac’ shape with a discernible midline horizontal axis” of approximately 46 feet in length.

Wikimedia Commons

An unofficial executive summary of the Nimitz encounter.

With the intercept too far away for even high-powered binoculars, Voorhis, Day, and the rest of the Princeton crew could only listen to the live communications chatter, as the unidentified craft effortless evaded the two fighter jets by demonstrating “an advanced acceleration, aerodynamic, and propulsion capability,” per the unofficial summary. Outmaneuvered by an object that’s colloquially become known for its shape as the “Tic Tac,” Fravor and his wingman returned to the USS Nimitz.

Thanks to a state-of-the-art ATFLIR targeting pod, in a subsequent flight by another F/A-18, Lt. Chad Underwood would successfully capture video of the “Anomalous Aerial Vehicle,” or “AAV.”

For 13 years, the incredible story of the U.S. Navy being harassed and outperformed by UFOs was largely unknown to the greater public. However, in December 2017, after To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science—a verbosely named UFO think tank founded by former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge—and The New York Times published a 1:16 clip of the ATFLIR video, the world suddenly became very familiar with the Nimitz encounters.

What hasn’t been discussed, however, is what the Nimitz’s enlisted witnesses say happened after the now-famous intercept with the “Tic Tac.” Their testimony raises many more questions, debate, and even some controversy.

The Mystery

Like many of the other sailors aboard the USS Princeton, former Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Turner knew something was up, but didn’t exactly know what had been going on inside the CIC. It was only during a chance encounter while delivering supplies to the ship’s Signal Exploitation Space that Turner found himself being another unwitting witness to the Nimitz’s UFO event.

A video playing on one of the console monitors immediately caught Turner’s eye. In it, the “Tic Tac” performed a number of seemingly impossible maneuvers, not seen in the brief clip released in 2017. Turner described what he saw in the Nimitz Encounters documentary:

“This thing was going berserk, like making turns. It’s incredible the amount of G forces that it would put on a human. It made a maneuver, like they were chasing it straight on, it was going with them, then this thing stopped turning, just gone. In an instant. The video you see now, that’s just a small snippet in the beginning of the whole video. But this thing, it was so much more than what you see in this video.”

Even now, Turner still appears visibly disturbed by whatever it is he saw that day. “I asked a good friend of mine who worked in that area, is this the training we’re going through?” he tells Popular Mechanics.

“No,” the friend replied. “This is real life.”

Equally by chance, during the time of the now-famous intercept, after being called to have a conversation with another detachment, Ryan Weigelt found himself inside the Princeton’s CIC. According to Weigelt, a video of an F/A-18 trying its best to catch the elusive “Tic Tac” was playing on the monitors. Like Turner, Weigelt says what he saw was a lot longer than the brief clip released in 2017.

“I was in there for quite a while and it was on the screen the whole time. I could not tell you how long, but it was playing when I went into combat and it was playing when I left,” Weigelt said in a YouTube interview.

Voorhis tells Popular Mechanics that he, too, saw a much longer and clearer version of the ATFLIR video through the ship’s Top Secret LAN network. “I definitely saw video that was roughly eight to 10 minutes long and a lot more clear,” Voorhis says.

Did what he saw resemble any type of conventional aircraft?

“Umm, no!” he says with a laugh. “In the video I saw, you got a good sense of how the pilot was having a difficult time trying to keep up with this thing. It kept making tight, right angle turns.”

The most shocking claim these Navy veterans make is in what they say happened with all the data tapes for the various systems that recorded these UFO events.

The Visitors

Miles away from Voorhis, Day, Turner, and Weigelt, on the deck of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, Petty Officer Patrick “PJ” Hughes was unaware of the unidentified objects the Carrier group had been dealing with for the past several days. Instead, as an aviation technician, one of Hughes’ jobs was to secure the hard drive data recorders from the airborne early-warning aircraft, the E-2 Hawkeye.

“We call them bricks, but they contain the software to run the airplane and they also record or can record a lot of the data that the air crew sees during the flight,” Hughes said in a YouTube interview.

On November 14, as Hughes performed this routine task, he was unaware that the E-2 hard drives he was securing away in a classified safe had just come from the Hawkeye that Day first tried to use to intercept the mysterious UFOs.

Shortly after securing the data bricks, Hughes said he was visited by his commanding officer and two unknown individuals. “They were not on the ship earlier, and I didn’t see them come on. I’m not sure how they got there,” Hughes said.

According to Hughes, his commanding officer told him to turn over the recently secured hard drives. “We put them in the bags, he took them, then he and the two anonymous officers left,” Hughes said.

Inside the Princeton, Voorhis had a similar encounter. “These two guys show up on a helicopter, which wasn’t uncommon, but shortly after they arrived, maybe 20 minutes, I was told by my chain of command to turn over all the data recordings for the AEGIS system,” says Voorhis.

In an interview with Popular Mechanics, Aiello detailed the processes for securing flight tapes as Fravor mentioned. Though these materials are classified, a number of different qualified squadron personnel would have access to the safe where the tapes would have been kept.

“It’s very common, even for tapes you’ve marked and want to save, to inadvertently get put back into circulation, handed out, and recorded over,” Aiello says. “I think Cmdr. Fravor’s opinion on how the tapes went missing is the most plausible explanation. However, a lot of squadron personnel have access to those materials, so it leaves the door open that someone could have intentionally taken them.”

Though Fravor has acknowledged the disappearance of data records, the Nimitz’s most well-known witness has equally pushed back on some of the enlisted sailor’s accounts.

Speaking at the McMenamin’s UFO festival this past May, Fravor admonished some of the “other witness” accounts, saying only the four pilots involved ever personally saw the “Tic Tac,” that no one was asked to sign non-disclosure agreements [NDA], and that “men in suits” never showed up on the ships.

During an October appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Fravor said, “There’s still groups of people making stuff up, like someone came out on ours and was talking about, he’s like, I saw the whole video, the whole video is like 10 minutes long and it was doing all this. That’s bullshit.”

Twitter/Jeremy Corbell

Fravor told Rogan that he was one of the top 20 highest ranking members of the carrier group, and had there been any kind of formal investigation, he’d have known about it.

“Okay, I’ll give you credit, if they did, why wouldn’t they show up and talk to the guys who witnessed it, chased it, and one of the senior guys in the battle group?” Fravor asked.

Voorhis claims that in the days prior to the intercept, he witnessed indistinct objects far in the distance. But regarding Fravor’s intercept, he says, “His intercept? Nope, we were too far away, plus I would not have known about it or the bearing of it. Just that it was happening.”

None of the witnesses Popular Mechanics spoke with claimed they’d seen Fravor’s intercept of the unknown object.

In The Nimitz Encounters documentary, Hughes said a friend and aircrew member on one of the E-2 Hawkeye aircraft told him he had to sign an NDA about the incident. Since the E-2 planes would have been in Carrier Wing Nine’s Airborne-Early Warning Squadron VAW-117 (“The Wallbangers”), and not strike fighter squadron under Fravor’s command, the possibility exists that the E-2’s squadron commander could have issued an NDA to their crew without Fravor’s knowledge. However, Popular Mechanics has not verified what Hughes was told. None of the witnesses we spoke with claimed they had signed an NDA.

The Nimitz’s enlisted witnesses stand by their claims that two unknown officials showed up shortly after the UFO incidents. However, they don’t describe them as being the sinisterly sounding “Men in Black,” as Fravor has implied.

According to Weigelt, it wasn’t at all uncommon to have people coming and going that weren’t stationed on the ships. For him, it was only when he heard Voorhis’ and Hughes’ accounts that the arrival of the two individuals on the Princeton seemed to become related to the UFO events.

“I just knew they were there for a reason, to do something they have to do, and just stay the hell out of their way,” Weigelt said.

“Squadron aircrew wouldn’t normally be notified if the ship’s radar or other information was being used for an investigation,” says Guy Snodgrass, a former F/A-18 pilot, Topgun instructor, and communications director for former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis.

While Snodragss wouldn’t comment directly on the UFO event, he said he served alongside the weapons systems officer inside Fravor’s plane during the intercept.

“He’s a talented weapons systems officer (WSO) who has dedicated himself to the naval aviation profession,” Snodgrass says about the pilot, who has never spoken publicly and Popular Mechanics is choosing not to name, as he is still serving in the U.S. Navy. “He also has the acumen to correctly characterize anything out of the ordinary that he might have seen, so I would bias towards giving his account more, not less, weight.”

The Defenders

While investigating these claims, Popular Mechanics was able to locate and speak to a previously unknown witness who was with the Nimitz carrier group in 2004. Unaware of some of their fellow shipmates previously coming forward, and out of concerns related to security oaths, the witness agreed to speak only under the condition of anonymity.

“I do remember the events of 2004 very well,” says the witness, who at the time was an Operations Specialist aboard the USS Princeton. “The decision was made to scramble two fighter jets to investigate. From what the pilots described, the movement of the UFO was defying the laws of physics.”

Popular Mechanics didn’t provide the witness with any of the previous claims.

“What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms,” the witness says. “We were all pretty shocked and it was an unspoken rule not to talk about it because we had secret clearances and didn’t want to jeopardize our careers.”

Regarding whether or not there was originally a longer recording than the infamous UFO intercept, Aiello says that’s “entirely possible.”

“The 8mm tapes in use at the time had two hours of recording time, and it was not uncommon for aircrew to leave it on for most of the flight,” Aiello says. “It’s plausible that they simply recorded a short segment of the tapes down in CIC, but that the rest of the tapes were available … up until they were either recorded over or whatever happened.”

Aiello, who was on the Nimitz aircraft carrier in 2004 but was assigned to another strike-fighter squadron, says he doesn’t have any direct information on the incident, but he’s willing to offer his opinion based on his experience as a military fighter pilot for over 20 years.

The enlisted witnesses say it’s disappointing to hear Fravor suggest some of their accounts are inaccurate. However, they all stand by their experiences, and equally support Fravor’s account. For them, they say the only reason they ever came out with their story was to support Fravor and their fellow sailors. “That’s what it’s always been about since day one,” Turner says.

But even if Fravor isn’t buying the witnesses’ stories, that doesn’t mean others don’t believe.

“The combination of those aviators, the Princeton Aegis Radar operators, and the E-2 crew convinced me beyond a doubt of the veracity of the story,” says Paco Chierici, a former F-14 pilot, author of Lions of the Sky, and the person credited with first sharing the news of the Nimitz event in a 2015 Fighter Sweep article. “I know those people and how that world works. There is no way it could have been fabricated or misinterpreted.” (Fravor did not respond to several requests for an interview.)

To be clear, the only Nimitz witness Chierici personally knows is Fravor. “But,” he says, “I know these people. I worked and lived with them for 20 years, operating at very high tempos and stress levels. They’re all, from the enlisted radar operators, to the squadron COs, incredibly professional and competent. The absolute best at what they do.”

RELATED VIDEO

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/ }

28-06-2025 om 20:17 geschreven door peter  

Department of Defense

Five U.S. Navy Sailors Saw the Glowing ‘Tic Tac’-Shaped UFO. They Told Us Exactly What They Witnessed - PART II

• Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on November 12, 2019

The five men share an easy rapport with each other, playfully ribbing one another while also communicating a deep sense of mutual respect. It’s clear they all share the bond of having once served in the armed forces. Yet for Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, P.J. Hughes, Ryan Weigelt, and Kevin Day—assembled together in a private group chat by Popular Mechanics—something much bigger ties them together beyond simply serving in the U.S. Navy.

The Truth...

By the Nimitz’s “other” witnesses’ accounts, there’s overwhelming evidence to suggest someone was very interested in this event when it occurred. Since none of the witnesses or pilots involved say they were ever interviewed at the time, it appears the most significant concern for the witnesses was the ship’s electronics data. What this data reveals, however, remains a mystery.

And as far as why other data may be being withheld from public release, Elizondo says this could have more to do with what was used than what was actually recorded.

“Many of the systems and the manner in which data is collected remains classified in order to protect tactics, techniques, and procedures,” says Elizondo. “I am not at liberty to discuss any of those systems.”

Elizondo says he would “absolutely” encourage other military witnesses to come forward with their accounts. “Many of our service members are highly trained observers,” he says. “Data obtained by these types are always considered valid observations, although the nuances may not be immediately known.”

Nick Cook, the former aviation editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly, says there are a number of reasons why personnel might have boarded ships and seized electronic data. “It could mean it was sensitive information,” he says. “It could mean this was an exercise.”

Regarding the latter possibility—that this was a secret military test of some sort—Cook, a career defense journalist, says in his opinion it was unlikely this was a classified test. “It’s not impossible, but I wouldn’t think it’s likely. It would be so against the norm of my experience with how the black world conducts testing.”

Having spent a decade investigating the potential for secret highly advanced aerospace technology, and publishing these efforts in The Hunt for Zero Point, Cook was cautious in offering any definite conclusions as to what the Nimitz carrier group had encountered. Cook says it’s possible, but not likely, that the “Tic Tac” was some type of classified drone.

“I searched for 10 years, and never found any compelling evidence that the type of technology exists,” Cook says. “[That] doesn’t mean it couldn’t still exist … I just never found any smoking gun for it.”

But when pushed, the career aviation journalist soberly says, “In the balance of probabilities, I don’t think it’s ‘ours.’”

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{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/ }

28-06-2025 om 20:16 geschreven door peter  

To Hide Top-Secret Weapons, the Pentagon Planted Myths About UFOs at Area 51—Then Things Spun Out of Control

28-06-2025 om 18:10 geschreven door peter  

UFO researchers in Mexico claim that a group disguised as police have tried to steal the mysterious orb scientists believe may prove the existence of aliens.

Dr Steven Greer, an American ufologist and retired physician, revealed on X that 'fake policemen' attempted to enter the vault in Mexico City where the suspected UFO is being kept while scientists examine it.

Known as the Buga Sphere, the small, metal orb was spotted in March over the town of Buga in Colombia, zig-zagging through the sky in a way that defies the movement of conventional aircraft.

The object was recovered shortly after it landed and has since been taken to Mexico to be analyzed by scientists, who have discovered a maze of fiber-optic wires inside that suggest it can send and receive signals.

Controversial UFO researcher Jaime Maussan, who has had several claims about extraterrestrials debunked in recent years, hosted an international conference to discuss the latest findings on the Buga Sphere on June 20.

US Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri and Dr Greer were among a group of American officials in attendance when Maussan claimed that the imposters attempted to steal the Buga Sphere.

Greer added that scientists have already taken samples of the UFO that 'will be tested in a state-of-the-art lab' to determine if the sphere really is from another planet.

'Those scientists and their information have been provided to the top law enforcement... Any sort of attempts to interfere with this examination will be known, and the people and perpetrators will be held to account for it,' Greer said in a June 21 post on X. 

The Buga Sphere (pictured) was recovered by local residents in Colombia in March and has been in the care of scientists in Mexico ever since

US Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri (pictured) attended the June 20 conference in Mexico City, examining the sphere and alleged alien remains presented by UFO researcher Jaime Maussan

Congressman Burlison added that it was his belief that governments and other groups may be working to suppress the public's knowledge of UFOs and alien life.

'It's not any government's right to protect knowledge about extra terrestrials, if it exists,' Burlison said on Friday. 'We have too many people reporting and too many videos to ignore it.'

According to researchers at the conference, this is the first UFO recovered by private citizens and solely controlled by non-government scientists. 

The attempted robbery came right after Maussan and other researchers revealed that they are trying to reactivate the sphere using an electrical charge. 

According to Rodolfo Garrido, a Mexican engineer working with scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the sphere gave off a strong, decaying ionized field.

That field was responsible for somehow dehydrating the field it landed in, killing all the grass and soil there.

Maussan has had several claims about UFOs debunked over the years. He has been at the forefront of 2 major extraterrestrial cases currently: the Buga Sphere and alleged alien mummies from Peru

The June 20 presentation also revealed new images of the interior of the Buga Sphere, showing the nucleus of the device appeared to be similar in design to inventor Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower from the early 1900s.

The concept of the tower was to send electrical power through the air and ground without using wires, potentially providing free or cheap energy to homes, businesses, and even ships or planes. 

Garrido said the Buga Sphere may have operated in a similar way, with a miniature Wardenclyffe Tower hidden inside the UFO.

However, the engineer told reporters that scientists have no plans of cutting the sphere in half to reveal what's really inside.

Instead they're working on plans to power it back up so the sphere will begin rotating and levitating again.

'It could be a theory that once it levitates, it could have direct communication with whoever sent it,' Garrido said through a translator.

Engineer Rodolfo Garrido revealed that the interior of the Buga Sphere appears to look like a proposed wireless energy generator invented by Nikola Tesla in the 1900s

Engineer Rodolfo Garrido believes that the strange sphere may be some type of advanced probe capable of using an electromagnetic field to fly

For now, Greer said that scientists examining the Buga Sphere at UNAM are setting up security for the metal samples headed for further testing.

There has been no confirmation of Maussan's claims about the robbery attempt.

The journalist has been tied to several debunked claims, including multiple incidents where Maussan claimed to have evidence of a real UFO sightings, only for it to be debunked as a comet or star in the night sky.

Maussan has also claimed to have discovered physical evidence of mummified alien corpses on three separate occasions, but none of the incidents have been proven true.

During the June 20 conference, Maussan put pieces of these alleged corpses on display for the researchers and government officials, including Greer and Burlison, who were allowed to hold the specimens while wearing gloves.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-06-2025 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

A UFO slammed into a US fighter jet over Arizona, cracking the canopy protecting the pilot, and forcing the $63 million plane to land, new reports have revealed.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the F-16 Viper fighter jet was hit by an 'orange-white UAS' - which stands for uncrewed aerial system, better known as a drone - on January 19, 2023.

Within a day of this collision, there were three more unidentified aircraft sightings over the Air Force's Barry Goldwater Range, where the fighter was damaged, the documents stated.

Barry Goldwater Range is an expanse of desert along the Arizona-Mexico border where the military practices air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. 

The FAA's report of the F-16 collision revealed that the fighter was flying in restricted airspace near Gila Bend, Arizona, when it was hit by the object in the rear of the canopy, the glass bubble which protects the pilot.

No injuries were reported. The Air Force did not reveal how much damage the jet suffered, but the plane was grounded for repairs.

These new details come as a stunning report from the Department of Defense's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) shows there have been hundreds of UFO reports made in recent years and Arizona is becoming the nation's new UFO hotspot.

AARO serves as a centralized department which looks into all things related to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings and reports which could impact national security or air safety.

In 2023, an F-16 Viper (pictured) was struck by an unidentified flying object that federal officials believe was some type of drone

The 2023 incident was one of several UFO sightings reported by pilots in restricted airspace (pictured) over Arizona's many military bases

The F-16 collision is just one of 22 incidents involving Air Force fighter pilots seeing or crashing into strange objects between October 2022 and June 2023, according to azfamily.com.

Most of the encounters took place within 100 miles of Luke Air Force Base, where many of the F-16 fighter jets using Barry Goldwater Range launch from.

Although the FAA said there's no evidence that the collision involved something extraterrestrial, it's one of several recent UFO incidents that have plagued US airspace over Arizona.

In fact, some of these strange sightings involved swarms of up to eight mysterious objects flying over Air Force training bases along the US border with Mexico.

Between 2016 and 2020, military pilots reported seeing unidentified drone-like objects over the state eight times.

The new FAA details come as another government report shows that there were 757 sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) worldwide reported between May 2023 and June 2024 alone - and only 49 of these cases have been solved.

When incidents like the F-16 collision occur, the pilot files a report, which the FAA investigates using radar and other data. If the incident involves a UFO, it's sent to AARO for further investigation. 

At least 410 of these 757 new UAP reports from around the world occurred over the US, with the vast majority being sent in by the FAA between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.

However, many more of these encounters took place over restricted military airspace, and the AARO report did not reveal where exactly these sightings occurred.

UFO whistleblower Bob Thompson shared a never-before-seen video of a cigar-shaped UFO flying over Arizona in early 2020

Despite the secrecy, UFO whistleblowers are revealing that many are taking place in Arizona. That includes Luis Elizondo, a former government intelligence officer who investigated these cases before leaving the Pentagon.

'A lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border,' Elizondo disclosed.

Bob Thompson, who spent 14 years with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), also recently shared never-before-seen videos of UFOs spotted over Arizona.

'I've seen orbs that were off in the distance. I've seen crafts that were cigar-shaped, I've seen triangles,' the whistleblower told NewsNation.

Thompson added that over 100 CBP agents have confessed to him that they have seen strange and unidentified objects flying along the US border.

These sightings included US border agents witnessing terrifying 'portals' opening into the sky. 

'I got told that they witnessed a portal opening up in the sky and there were pictures of it on a camera that I was able to see,' Thompson revealed.

Although hundreds of these strange sightings sent to AARO are still marked as open investigations, many in the government are blaming Mexico - not aliens.

Numerous 'car-sized' drones first appeared over New Jersey in mid-November, and have since been reported by eyewitnesses all across the Northeast. Similar drone sightings have been taking place along the US southern border, with government officials suspecting Mexican cartels may be involved

Specifically, there's a growing belief that the surge in unidentified drone sightings is due to drug cartels launching high-tech spy missions into the US.

'We're seeing drones… used as scouting patrols, to watch Border Patrol,' NewsNation's border report Ali Bradley explained.

Unlike drones which the US government believed were launched by China, these new drones are harder to detect and also larger so they can potentially carry bigger packages of drugs across the border.

Trump Administration border czar Tom Homan has added that many of these sightings are likely high-tech drones spying on US military bases in Arizona.

Bradley noted that one of the cartels' top goals is to infiltrate US military facilities, so they can stay one step ahead of patrols enforcing illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Of the 49 AARO investigations that have been closed, the UFOs were determined to be airplanes, balloons, birds, drones, and satellites that were mistaken as alien aircraft.

AARO has recommended that another 243 cases be closed for the same reasons.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-06-2025 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

A veteran US fighter pilot has broken his silence about a near-collision with a UFO that defied the laws of physics and left the Air Force in stunned disbelief.

Major Ryan Bodenheimer, a retired F-15 and F-16 combat pilot, revealed in a YouTube video that one of the 'wildest experiences' of his career involved a close encounter with a rectangle-shaped UFO as he flew with his squadron over southern Wyoming.

Bodenheimer, who served in the Air Force for 13 years, said the large craft suddenly appeared out of nowhere during a training mission and looked to be on a collision course with his plane.

'Then I realized we weren't going to hit, and all of a sudden it came more into view, and it was a rectangular shape. This was like essentially a perfect rectangle,' Bodenheimer revealed in his video on June 8.

The military veteran described the UFO as being 30 to 50 feet in height and appearing to be glowing around the edges of its bright white body as it flew alongside the Thunderbirds, the Air Force's elite aerobatic demonstration squadron.

Bodenheimer added that this craft had no visible vapor trail coming from an engine, no radar signal, and was traveling at approximately 400 knots (460 miles per hour).

'It really was defying any type of aeronautical laws that I've learned,' Bodenheimer said.

Bodenheimer then revealed that his report to air traffic control left officials in 'dead silence' before the entire matter was apparently dismissed as an 'anomalous object.'

Major Ryan Bodenheimer (pictured) spent 13 years flying F-15s and F-16s for the US Air Force and said that he had 2 encounters with unexplainable UFOs over the US

Bodenheimer described one of the UFOs as a perfect triangle that was glowing around its edges and was transparent at its center (AI-generated recreation)

The strange rectangle UFO got so close to Bodenheimer's F-16 Falcon at 30,000 feet in the air that he said he could make out every detail of the craft before it eventually flew off and was never seen again.

When air traffic controllers in Denver asked Bodenheimer if he could give them any more details about the UFO, he revealed that it had a cream-colored interior that became transparent or had a hole in its center.

'I know it sounds like I'm talking about a delicious pastry, but this was the wildest experience I've ever had,' the fighter pilot joked.

The only evidence of Bodenheimer's sighting was a report made by air traffic control saying that an object had been spotted in the area where the Thunderbirds were training that day, but he never heard from anyone about the incident again.

The former combat officer explained on his channel, Max Afterburner, that this UFO could not have been a weather balloon, a high-tech drone, or some kind of light trick.

'There was nothing that made me think this was some sort of illusion. It was clear as day. It was right down our wing line, a 30 to 50 foot object,' the pilot continued.

Bodenheimer then speculated whether this could have been an extraterrestrial craft, noting that he's never been a fan of 'science fiction' but admitted that his encounter matched many of the incidents involving military pilots that 'defied physics.'

'Going against aerodynamics definitely blows my mind. Anti-gravity, something that cloaks radar, I didn't see anything on the radar,' he added.

The object wasn't even tilted to deflect the wind while traveling at that speed. It stayed completely vertical as if the wind did not affect the UFO's ability to fly at over 400 mph. 

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Bodenheimer revealed what he had seen while flying with the Thunderbirds during his YouTube podcast on June 8

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Bodenheimer said that he has never heard about the UFO sighting since he reported it to officials with air traffic control in Denver

This wasn't the only time the Air Force veteran had encountered a UFO. He added that 'lightning-fast triangle' while training with the Thunderbirds near Area 51 - the military's top secret base in Nevada.

'There's been lots of crazy stuff that's been reported out there,' Bodenheimer said.

On this day, the mysterious jet-like object flew past Bodenheimer's F-16 as his squadron was coming in for a landing.

'This lightning-fast triangle blitzed past me as we were setting ourselves up on a final [approach],' the pilot revealed.

'I just remember this thing going massively fast past me... It had basically done an interceptor maneuver, a dust-off. So maybe this was its way of having fun, saying maybe this should be Top Gun 3,' Bodenheimer detailed.

The pilot noted that he hopes coming forward will encourage more of his fellow pilots to reveal what they've seen during their time in the military, noting that there have been roughly 800 UFO reports in just the last four years.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-06-2025 om 23:05 geschreven door peter  

A flaming object was seen streaking across the skies of several southern states, sparking panic and confusion as no explosion or fire was reported on the ground. 

Police scanner audio in Spartanburg, South Carolina captured a call from a woman who reported a 'giant ball of fire' falling from the sky, a sight echoed by witnesses from Tennessee to Georgia.

'I'm not crazy! I just saw a huge ball of fire fall from the sky in East Tennessee around the Cherokee National Forest!' a firefighter wrote on X.

'Anyone else see it? Right around 12:20pm ET. Very cool but a little unnerving given the current times!'

While some speculated it could have been a falling aircraft, the firefighter described it as 'like a mini sun falling with a tail of fire.' 

In Georgia, one resident said they not only saw the object, but heard it pass overhead and felt the ground shake when it hit.

The National Weather Service confirmed the many reports across the Southeast US saying: 'It is not certain, but the satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud-free sky over the NC/VA border, over Gasbury, VA. 

'This streak was detected between 12:51 to 12:56 pm.'

A flaming object was seen streaking across the skies of several southern states, sparking panic and confusion, as no explosion or fire was reported on the ground

Weather Impact Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich said: 'Looking at the videos, this is very low in the atmosphere. I am curious if this was a piece of space debris, a rocket body or degrading space junk.

'For something to be that bright in the middle of the day, it was most likely burning up in the atmosphere. If it were a meteor, it would have had to be very large to be that bright in the middle of the day.'

A driver traveling on I-85 SB in Upstate South Carolina captured the fireball falling through the sky using their dashcam. 

'Weird atmospheric sounds in GA today. Sounded like a fireball or rocket burning through the sky, shaking the house... followed by 2 or 3 helicopters not listed on the Flight Radar,' an X user shared shortly after the incident.

Hundreds of reports of a possible fireball were submitted to the American Meteor Society website from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, which are still pending.

'This was the middle of the day, and it just came out of nowhere,' according to one fireball report on the American Meteor Society from Perry, Georgia. 

A report submitted by Ashley R from Suwanee, Georgia read: 'I thought it was a missile.'

Brian S from Alpharetta, Georgia said: 'It was full daylight, no clouds, and still it was very bright. I heard a muffled and slight boom sound, maybe 30 seconds later, but that could be unrelated.'

The National Weather Service confirmed the many reports across the Southeast US. The large blue streak appears to be what was spotted falling from the sky

Several metro Atlanta city and county officials have relayed reports of a "fireball" sighting from the sky on Thursday afternoon

He added that he saw a 'smoke trail that quickly fell apart.'

Marc Tozer of Georgia shared on Facebook: 'Stone mountain here and it made a booming sound, house shook with a long rumble. Dogs went crazy.' 

Another Georgia local posted: 'House totally rumbled, sounded like a log rolling off the roof, thought nukes were coming...'

WRDW, an Atlanta news source, reported that black smoke was seen south of I-20, although it may be from a controlled burn, first responders said.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it had 'no reports of unusual aircraft activity in the area,' Atlanta News First reported. 

There were no immediate reports of damage linked to the fireball, and it's unclear whether the wide range of sightings may have been caused by multiple fragments from the same potential meteor. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-06-2025 om 22:19 geschreven door peter  

These images captured by the Curiosity rover in 2014 reveals yet another unexplained aerial phenomenon in the Martian atmosphere, a cigar-shaped object with a consistent width and rounded ends. 

What makes this anomaly particularly compelling is the sharp clarity of the image. According to Jean Ward the stars in the background appear crisp and unblurred, indicating that the object is not the result of motion blur or a long exposure. Notably, the object appears in five separate frames over an 8-minute span, suggesting it is moving relatively slowly through space, uncharacteristic of a meteorite entering the atmosphere. It also lacks the fiery tail typically associated with atmospheric entry. 

Rather than a meteor, the object more closely resembles a solid, elongated craft of unknown origin. When oriented horizontally, it even appears to feature a front-facing structure, possibly a porthole or raised dome, hinting at a cockpit or command module. 

Whether this object is orbiting beyond the visible horizon or connected to the surface far in the distance, its sheer size is unmistakable. Its presence raises compelling questions, could this be further evidence of intelligently controlled craft, whether of extraterrestrial or covert human origin, navigating through Martian airspace?

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

26-06-2025 om 21:10 geschreven door peter  

NASA wants to use AI to study unidentified aerial phenomenon

Relax, it's just a weather balloon over Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

NASA

A new NASA-commissioned independent study report recommends leveraging NASA’s expertise and public trust alongside artificial intelligence to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) on Earth. As such, today NASA Director Bill Nelson announced the appointment of a NASA Director of UAP Research to develop and oversee implementation of investigation efforts.

“The director of UAP Research is a pivotal addition to NASA’s team and will provide leadership, guidance and operational coordination for the agency and the federal government to use as a pipeline to help identify the seemingly unidentifiable,” Nicola Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a release.

{ https://www.popsci.com/category/science/ }

26-06-2025 om 20:55 geschreven door peter  

Physicists use AI to hunt for UAPs and UFOs

By Andrew Paul

The new system reviews UAP videos on a pixel-by-pixel basis.

Credit: University of Albany

An international team of physicists has developed a new methodology to aid NASA and other government agencies in their ongoing investigations into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). The result is a novel strategy integrating a specially designed artificial intelligence program that was partially inspired by the physicists’ own hunt for elusive dark matter.

More popularly known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs, UAPs aren’t necessarily considered as outlandish as they were decades ago. Setting aside the various theories that point to mysterious visitors from another planet, analysis increasingly centers on determining more worldly explanations. UAPs are often explained by classified experimental aircraft, astronomical events, or simply a case of mistaken drone identity. Meanwhile, a small percentage of sightings continue to baffle experts.

Over the last few years, the US government has attempted to present a more transparent approach to its UAP research, while the military continues a campaign to destigmatize reporting sightings among its ranks. In November 2024, Congress held a publicly televised joint subcommittee hearing about UAPs featuring a former US Navy rear admiral and NASA administrator. While not without its fair share of criticism, these and similar events are shifting the overarching narrative around unidentified aerial phenomenon.

Researchers like Matthew Syzdagis at the University at Albany have followed this evolving discourse for years. An associate professor of physics focused on dark matter, Syzdagis recently began collaborating with over 30 colleagues around the world to determine if this approach to hunting dark matter could be adapted to the search for UAPs. Their results, published this month in the journal Progress in Aerospace Studies, offer a new interdisciplinary methodology to review the past and future UAP sightings.

“As this process moves forward, it’s critical that future study of UAPs follows a rigorous, repeatable method that can be tested and confirmed by other researchers,” Syzdagis said in a statement. “We aim to establish a roadmap for these efforts with this paper.”

The team relied on an array of datasets and tools to build their framework, including publicly available Doppler weather information from the National Weather Service (NWS). The NWS data was used to corroborate observations from additional equipment and determine if any of them simultaneously recorded a given anomaly. They then utilized Cosmic Watch, a radiation-detection system, to assess if a target UAP observed by infrared cameras was accompanied by ionizing radiation.

To help analyze the infrared data, Szydagis created a new software program called Custom Target Analysis Protocol (C-TAP) that utilizes machine learning alongside human verification to review individual camera frames on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Inspired by similar strategies used to scan for direct evidence of dark matter, C-TAP then flags and separates actual UAP observations from any digital noise. Finally, these results were overlaid with trigonometric calculations to exclude any known objects in the sky like satellites or the International Space Station.

To test it all out, Szydagis and colleagues used their new methodology to review observable light and infrared images collected on a 2021 field expedition around Laguna Beach, California, amid a period of heightened UAP reports. In total, the team reviewed about one hour of triggered visible and night-vision video footage along with over 600 hours of infrared data and 55 hours of background radiation measurements. Of the multiple anomalies initially flagged, researchers were able to offer plausible and likely explanations for all sightings except for one—a collection of bright white dots inside a dark spot recorded across multiple videos. And even then, it seems unlikely that the UAP event was unique.

“At this point, none can be classified as true anomalies, although further study of remaining ambiguities may alter this conclusion,” the study’s authors wrote in their conclusion.

Moving forward, the team hopes their methodology will help more researchers around the world continue to vet UAP sightings on a scientific, unbiased basis. 

“Given the longstanding, global nature of the UAP/UFO question, [and] the air safety and security implications of their presence… studying and understanding these phenomena is of great and urgent importance,” added University at Albany physics professor and study lead author Kevin Knuth.

{ https://www.popsci.com/category/science/ }

26-06-2025 om 20:47 geschreven door peter  

British UFO hearings planned with MPs set to hear from alien whistleblowers

The US-style hearings will allow RAF, Army and Navy whistleblowers to tell all about experiences they have been previously banned from revealing under military non-disclosure rules and for fear of ridicule

BY Jerry Lawton

Britain is set to hold public hearings at which military personnel can disclose their close encounters with UFOs. The US-style hearings will allow RAF, Army and Navy whistleblowers to tell all about experiences they have been previously banned from revealing under military non-disclosure rules and for fear of ridicule.

The UK’s new UFO Disclosure Group has secured a meeting with a minister from the House of Lords to set up a forum where alien whistleblowers can come forward with their evidence. The group was set up by documentary film maker Mark Christopher Lee to push for transparency on reported sightings of UFOs - aka unidentified aerial phenomena or UAPs.

As Daily Star revealed previously a letter from the body calling for full disclosure in the UK was sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Now an associate of the Brit leader has arranged for a minister from the House of Lords to meet with Mark to put the first steps in place to create a select committee to hear evidence from UFO experiencers.

Similar hearings before the US Congress have led to the release of previously classified documents revealing reported close encounters between military personnel and mystery craft.

Mark said it is essential whistleblowers can come forward without fear of ridicule.

Speaking at a screening of his latest documentary The Rendlesham UFO – The British Roswell at the Raindance Film Festival he said: “One of Sir Keir Starmer’s friends and associates is arranging a meeting with someone from the House of Lords - one of the ministers. So that’s a start.

“I’m looking forward to setting up a formal meeting with someone from Sir Keir Starmer’s Government. A select committee is the place to start.

“They can get all the evidence together - get people to go there and get evidence under oath. That’s what we want.

“I’ve got RAF pilots coming up to me saying they’ve had incidents in the sky. They won’t talk about them for fear of ridicule.

“The other day I had a Met Police officer - same thing. He had a UFO sighting, doesn’t want to talk about it.He wants to go on record but won’t for fear of ridicule.

The film-maker said: “I think the chances are high. I know from sources that Sir Keir is being briefed by other UFO authorities from America.

“And the King wants to get involved as well. That’s what I’ve heard from one of his channels.

“We know that he is in contact with various people about this. He’s the King of all faiths. How would it affect Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the UK if we were to find out that we’re not alone.

“Would that create an existential paradox? Whose god is it?”

Mark’s previous documentary The King of UFOs included evidence the Royals took the UFO phenomenon seriously with Philip collecting military reports and inviting experts for private briefings.

Colin Andrews, a prominent crop circle researcher, personally briefed both Philip and Prince Charles on cases involving UFO activity.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

26-06-2025 om 20:36 geschreven door peter